“That’s what we got to figger out,” says he.
CHAPTER XIX
The folks in our town were going to have an Old Home Day, when everybody that used to live there and had moved away were coming home. There was going to be a celebration, with speeches and a band and decorations, but the only part of it I saw any sense to was that there was going to be lots to eat, and most of it free. That was something like. I don’t mind a band playing. I sort of like it if there’s a good snare-drum, but I can’t abide speeches. Speeches always get a fellow into trouble and the police hadn’t ought to allow them, on that account. Speeches have got me into more trouble than ’most anything else. You see, you set and a man talks and talks and talks about something nobody cares a rap about, and pretty soon you get to itching and your shoes hurt and something crawls down your back—and you jest naturally have to do something. Then you up and do it, and your father takes you out to the woodshed and he does something. I remember the last speech I was at I went with a garter snake. He was a pet I was raising to go into the circus business with and he had got real tame and friendly. Well, after about half an hour of listening to that man tell about something I don’t believe he understood very clear himself, I got to itching like I said, and before I knew it I jest took little Joseph—Joseph was my snake’s name—and tossed him ahead a couple of rows into Mrs. Whidden’s lap—what there was of her lap. Joseph was as quiet and well behaved a little snake as I ever owned, but I don’t suppose Mrs. Whidden knew that, for she let out a squawk and passed Joseph on awful quick to old maid Martin, and she squawked and passed Joseph on to Jim Splint that has the St. Vitus dance, and he like to have flew apart, and passed Joe on to a woman I didn’t know, and she stood up and clawed the air and passed Joseph on four or five rows to the minister’s wife, and she give him a scream and a toss, and so on, till almost everybody in the audience had took a turn at having Joseph. Yes, sir, almost everybody, and they all would, every one, if Mrs. Snow’s aim hadn’t been bad and she tossed him right into the speaker’s ice-water pitcher. After that there wasn’t much speaking. I heard Pazzy Bills say the snake got to the wrong kind of a speech, that he ought to have showed up at a temperance lecture.
Anyhow, that’s what I think of speeches. Dad licked me that time, but it wasn’t near as hard as he could, and I heard him sort of snickering to himself even while he was laying it on. I pretended to holler so as to satisfy him, because it hain’t right for your father to have to take the trouble to lick you if he don’t git results. They like to hear a holler and I expect they’re entitled to it. So I give Dad a good one.... But that hain’t got anything to do with the Old Home celebration.
It was on this day that Catty and me fixed things up for Banty and Skoodles. Banty and Skoodles was going to play a duet on the piano, as part of the celebration, so you kin see what kind of a celebration it was. Banty and Skoodles took lessons on the piano and had to practise an hour every day. They pertended to like it. I wouldn’t mind taking lessons on a snare-drum or a bugle, but a feller needs more fingers than a centipede’s got legs to play on a piano, and when you got it learned you hain’t got nothin’ to speak of when it comes to noise. No, sir, when I pick out an instrument to play jest gimme one that folks kin hear.
Well, Banty and Skoodles were to play that duet at half past four in the afternoon, and they was plumb scairt about it, so to sort of git themselves into the humor to make a exhibition of themselves, they took and sneaked off to the swimming-hole down at the bend. As soon as Catty and me saw them head that way we knew where they was going, and I says to Catty: “They got all their best clothes on. Let’s sneak down and chaw-beef ’em.”
Catty thought a minute and then he says he’s got a better idea than that. So we sneaked down to my house and went up in the attic and rummidged around till we found two of the dog-gonedest outfits of women’s clothes you ever seen. They was sich clothes as a respectable person wouldn’t have wore to put out a fire in a slaughter-house. One was a red-flannel underskirt that used to belong to a cook we had, and another was some pantalets like girls used to wear about a hunderd years ago, and the other things was to match.
So we put off to the swimming-hole and there was Banty and Skoodles in all alone, a-splashing and enjoying themselves to beat the band.
Catty says in a whisper, “Enjoy yourselves, fellers, for there’s a hour of trouble approachin’.” And we swiped every last pair of pants and coat and shirt and shoe they had and made off with them, leaving right on the spot them ridiculous clothes we got out of the attic. When Banty and Skoodles come out they would have their choice between wearing what they found and not wearing any at all.... And we knew they’d stay in till the last minute and then set on a log to let their hair dry before they bothered about their clothes. That would mean it would be time for them to play their duet when they come out.
Banty and Skoodles didn’t want to play that duet. I’ll give them credit for that. But they had to. I heard Mrs. Gage tell Banty she would ’most skin him alive if anything happened so he didn’t show up to play, and she was the kind to keep her word. So Catty and me figured that Banty and Skoodles would go and play no matter what clothes they had, because they wouldn’t dast do anything else—and they wouldn’t have time to change.