“So do I,” answered Roy, “excepting, of course, Tom Bigden and his crowd.”
“I don’t except even them,” said Joe. “Tom pulls a lovely oar, and I never saw a fellow who could play short stop or train a spaniel like him. I have nothing against any of them, and should be glad to be friends with them if they would let me.”
“But haven’t you seen to your satisfaction that they won’t let you?” demanded Roy, rather sharply. “They’ve got something against you, and they’ll continue to make you suffer for it; see if they don’t.”
I wondered what it was that any one could have against so fine a young fellow as my new master appeared to be, and it was not many days before I found out. Tom Bigden and his followers did make Joe suffer, but it was principally through his friends, that is, through his sail-boat, his shell in which he used to train for his races, his canvas canoe that had carried him safely down the most difficult rapids in Indian River, and finally through me. In fact, I became a regular shuttle-cock of fortune, and was so roughly knocked about from pillar to post, that it is a wonder to me that I am as good a rod as I am.
After a few minutes’ walk along a quiet street shaded on each side by grand old trees, Joe and his companion turned into a wide carriage-way which led them by a circuitous route through a little grove of evergreens to the house in which Joe lived—a fine brick mansion, with stone facings, a carriage-porch at the side door, and a croquet ground and lawn tennis court in front. Behind the house the grounds sloped gently down to the shore of a beautiful lake, with an island near the center, and with banks on each side that were thickly wooded, save where the trees and undergrowth had been cleared away to make room for the cozy summer residences of the visitors who came there every year. For Mount Airy, that was the name of the village in which Joe Wayring lived, was acquiring some fame as a watering place. There were four springs in the vicinity, whose waters were supposed to possess some medicinal virtues, the scenery was grand, the drives numerous and pleasant, and the fishing (and the shooting, too, in the proper season), could not be surpassed.
At the foot of the path that led from the carriage-porch to the lake, was a boat-house which afforded shelter to some of Joe’s friends whose acquaintance I was soon to make, and a short distance from its door his sail boat, the Young Republic, rode at her moorings. It was indeed a pleasant scene that was spread out before me; but before I had time to admire it sufficiently, Joe and his companion went up the stone steps three at a jump, rushed into the hall, fired their caps at the hat-rack, and without waiting to see whether or not they caught on the pegs at which they were aimed, ran up the wide stairs that led to the floor above. I held my breath in suspense and wondered what in the world was the matter now; but I afterward learned that I had no cause for uneasiness, and that that is the way boys generally conduct themselves when they go into a house. It saves them the trouble of hunting up their father and mother and telling them that they have got home without being run over by the cars, or knocked down by a runaway horse, or drowned in the lake.
The room into which Joe conducted his friend was like the private sanctum of every other boy who delights in the sports of the woods and fields, with this exception: It was in perfect order, and as neat as a new pin. Joe’s mother wouldn’t have it any other way, and neither would Joe. Indeed it was a favorite saying of his that if folks would keep away and let his things alone (by “folks” he meant to designate old Betty, the housekeeper, who, according to Joe’s way of thinking, was “awful fussy”), he could find any thing he wanted, from a postage-stamp to a spoon-oar, on the darkest of nights, and without a lamp to aid him in the search.
The room looked a good deal like a museum I afterward saw, only it was on a much smaller scale, of course, and it contained so many rare and curious things that Joe’s friends were always glad of an invitation “to step up for a few minutes.” Uncle Joe’s love for the rod and gun had led him to roam all over his own country, as well as to some remote corners of foreign lands, and during these rambles he never forgot the boy at home who thought so much of relics and souvenirs of all kinds, and took such good care of them. He gave Joe the Alpine stock which had assisted him in his ascent of Mount Blanc; the Indian saddle and bridle he had used when fleeing from the agency at the time the Utes rose in rebellion and killed Meeker and all the other whites who did not succeed in making good their escape; the head of the first bison he had ever shot, and which, having been mounted by an expert taxidermist, had been hung above the looking-glass over the mantle to serve as a resting place for the sword and pistols Uncle Joe carried during the war, the elk-horn bow, quiver of arrows, scalping knife and moccasins presented to him by a Sioux chief; and for the prize lancewood bow won by my master at a shooting match; for Joe was an archer, as well as an angler and wing shot, and he had been Master Bowman of the Mount Airy Toxophilites until he became tired of the office and gave it up. These articles, and a good many others which I did not have time to look at, were so neatly and artistically arranged that it did not seem to me that a single one of them could be moved without spoiling the effect of the whole. Nothing looked out of place, not even the black, uncouth object that lay in a little recess on the opposite side of the room. Having never seen any thing just like him before, I could not make out what he was, and I waited rather impatiently for his master to go out of the room so that I could speak to him; but Joe did not seem to be in any hurry to leave. He stood me up in a corner, and then he and Roy seated themselves at a table in the middle of the room, and proceeded to “fix up” a debate that was to be held at the High School on the afternoon of the coming Friday. The question was: “Ought corporal punishment in schools to be abolished?” No doubt it was a matter in which both Joe and Roy had been deeply interested in their younger days, but it did not affect me one way or the other, and consequently I paid very little attention to what they said. My time was fully taken up with the strange things I saw around me.
At last, to my great satisfaction, the boys concluded that they could “fix up” the matter while sailing about the lake in the Young Republic, better than they could while sitting by the table, especially if they could find some boat to race with, so they bolted out of the room with much noise and racket, and left the house, banging the hall door loudly behind them. Then I turned to speak to the object that occupied the recess on the other side of the room, and found that he was quite as willing to make my acquaintance as I was to make his.
“Hallo!” said he; and I afterward learned that that is the way in which school boys and telephones always greet each other.