[CHAPTER IV.]
I had been disturbing the centre of gravity of our globe for nine years, and had grown up into a mischievous, fun-making urchin—always out of the way when wanted, and in the way when not. I would have passed any committee on “boys,” and probably taken the medal as the best specimen. I had fulfilled all the requisites of custom. I had torn out all my pockets with loads of marbles, knives, strings, stones, buttons, nails, &c. I had cut my hands and fingers, and fallen out of doors perhaps even more than was necessary. I could soil a ruffle with all the facility of contempt for such a feminine ornament. I could wear out shoes and tear a hat as quickly as the most reckless, and I had a real, first class aversion to “trying on” clothes in process of making; the rough edges of an unfinished jacket, rubbed into my neck by the fingers of the seamstress, not at all according with that placidity of temperament I had been advised to cultivate by the dogs-and-bears poetry, while the rapidity with which I could cover clean clothes with mud was, I fear, a matter of peculiar pride, as it was of certain punishment. My most perfect attribute of boyhood, however, was the devotion I bore my sweetheart, and the utter apathy and indifference with which I regarded all other girls.
Being such an one, I was highly gratified when mother said to me one day:
“Johnnie, we are going to give a dinner party next week, and as you will be without company, you may go over and invite Lulie Mayland.”
“Oh! I’m so glad, I’m so glad,” I sung out; “and I mean to go over right now, and tell her to come.”
“No, no,” said mother, smiling, and taking me by the jacket button, “we have not sent out our cards yet. Wait till Monday, then you may go.”
I was disposed to whine at the delay, but she pinched my cheek as she got up from her chair, and said:
“No, you must do as I say, sir;” and left me, full of impatience for the advent of Monday. During the remainder of the week I exercised fully the child’s faculty of being ubiquitous at home. The kitchen, however, received the largest share of my attention. I was around every table, dipping in every dish, and in the cook’s way, to my fullest extent. If she turned around with a pan in her hand, it was sure to thump my head, and my anger thereat could only be appeased by letting me have a piece of dough to feel or a bowl to scrape. If eggs were to be beaten, I must try to froth them, till I was as full of foam as a half born Aphrodite; if flour was to be sifted, I was sure to get whitened; if spices were to be pounded I was certain to have my fingers mashed; and the burns I received, in trying to cook little dabs of cake, would have discouraged Mucius Scævola. Then my insatiate curiosity, and constant inquiries in regard to the numerous articles scattered around, would have worried out a less irascible nature than that of our cook; and by a final appeal to mother, and a command from headquarters, I would be forced to raise the siege, and retire from the field, with a jacket full of sugar and flour, sullenly licking my fingers in defiance.
Verily, children prove the old adage true: “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.”