The Jack-Knife Man

by Ellis Parker Butler

“You get to bed, young Buddy!” said Peter. “I said I'd make you a cat, and you say that's a cat, and you said you'd go to bed, so to bed you go.”

And to bed Buddy went, with the cat in one hand. Next to Peter himself Buddy loved the cat more than anything in the world. He loved to look at the cat. It was the sort of cat that left something to the imagination. That may be why he liked it. Children are happiest with the simplest toys.

In Peter's list of prospective purchases the “Bibel” had been put down because Peter, watching Buddy's curly head as it lay beside the cat on the pillow of the bunk, had suddenly perceived that a child is a tremendous responsibility. Buddy's hair did it. He noticed that Buddy's hair, which had been almost white, had, in the few days Peter had had him in charge, turned to a dirty gray. He had not minded Buddy's dirty face and hands—they were normal to a boy—but the soiled tow hair shamed Peter. Even a mother like Buddy's had kept that hair as it should be, and Peter was shocked to think he was already letting the boy deteriorate. If this continued Buddy would soon be no better than himself—a shiftless (as per Mrs. Potter), careless, no-account scrub of a boy, and it made Peter wince. He thought too much of the freckled face, and the little tow-head to have that happen.

It made him down-hearted for a minute, but Peter was never despondent long. If the cold chilled his bones it suggested a trip to New Orleans or Cuba, and he instantly forgot the cold in building one detail of the trip on another, until he had circumnavigated the globe and decided he would go to neither one nor the other, but to Patagonia or Peru.

If that was the way Buddy's hair looked after a few days under the old Peter, then Peter must turn over so many new leaves he would be in the second volume. He would be a tramp no more. He would have money and a home and be a respected citizen, with a black silk watch fob, and go to church—and that suggested the “Bibel.” With “sope” and the Scripture on his list Peter felt less guilty.

The “hymn book” was a sequential thought. Bibles and hymn books go hand in hand. Peter meant to start Buddy right, and he was going to begin with himself. He meant, now, to be a good man, and a prosperous one—perhaps a millionaire. His idea was a little vague, including a shadowy Prince Albert coat and a silk hat, but he thought a Bible and a hymn book, at least, ought to be in the stock of a man that was going to be what Peter meant to be. The A. B. C. blocks on the list were to be the cornerstone of Buddy's education, and on them Peter visioned a gilded structure of college and other vague things of culture. Peter's plans were always dreamlike, and all the more beautiful for that reason. He was forever about to trap some elusive chinchilla on some unattainable Amazon.

“Make a funny cat, Uncle Peter,” said Buddy when he was convinced he could not coax the jack-knife from Peter.

“Oh, no!” said Peter. “You've got one funny cat. I guess one funny cat like that is enough in one family. Uncle Peter has to keep his eye out to watch if the ice is going to move this morning. He can't make cats.”

“Make a funny dog,” said Buddy promptly. “Well, Buddy, if I make you a funny dog,” said Peter, “will you be a good boy and play with it and let Uncle Peter get some stove wood aboard the boat?”

“Yes, Uncle Peter,” said Buddy. He had the smile of a cherub and the splendid mendacity of youth. He would promise anything. Only the most unreasonable expect a boy to keep such promises, but it does the heart good to hear them.