Brite and Fair

by Henry A. Shute

i never will try to be good again if i live a million years.

September 4, 186- brite and fair. it mite jest as well rane as not. i cant go out of the yard today and none of the fellers have been up. i saw Beany ride by on Jo Palmers back. i hollered at him but he dident look. then Pewt went down throug the high school yard with 2 oars over his shoulder. me and Pewt aint so frendly now becaus old man Purinton has bougt 2 boats, new ones and is leting them to peeple for less than i get for mine. he has painted them all white with a red rim and a picture on the stirn and they dont enny peeple want my boat. i wasent mad with Pewt but he feals so big over his old boats that it maiks me sick.

ennyway he mite have come over to see me when i was sick and laid between life and deth 3 days. sum other peeple mite have come. Lizzie Tole was one of them. if it had been Beany she wood have went to see him.

i read in a book onct how a feller had a girl whitch took up with another feller whitch had a fine horse and buggy and a silver mounted harnis. so this feller told her he had lost all faith in wimmens consistency and had put them out of his life for ever. so the girl laffed and told him all rite she dident cair. so he went away with his hart curroded with bitterniss and went to wirk in a hotel. He wirked so hard that in 3 years he oaned the hotel and had money in the bank. then the girl rote him that she had always luved him and never had luved the other feller but he rote her that the dye was cast, he shood never marry. and he never did, so his children never gnew a mothers cair.

so i shall never marry like that feller who dident and all on account of Beany. sumhow i cant get mad with Beany. i had augt to menny times and keep mad two but i cant do it.

September 5, 186—-i got up erly this morning befoar father went to Boston and took cair of Nellie and swept out the stable and luged in the water and split a lot of wood and blacked fathers boots and set up and had breckfast with him. i was hoaping he wood let me go out of the yard. but he dident say nothing about that but did say i had got to get up evry morning befoar he goes away and do my chores i done them so well this morning. i thougt that was a prety mean thing for him to do. i wished i hadent got up. well tonite father he caime home mad and sed i was the bigest fool he ever see. he sed i had blacked his boots with stove polish and evrybody laffed at him. so i wont have to get up. i had to black his boots over 2 times with Day and Martins blacking befoar i cood get them to shine. it was a awful long day in the yard. Beany brougt his black and tan terrier over and we got Frank Haines dog over and had a fite but jest as they were going good mother come out and poared a pale of water on them and they run off prety quuick. neether licked. that is always the way. sumbody always stops the good fites.

it was Saterday nite and after i had luged in about a milion pales of water and filled all the tubs for the folks to taik there baths in father he sed to mother, Joey, he calls her Joey, becaus her name is Joanna. sumtimes when father wants to plage her he calls her Johanna with a h and says she is irish. she dont like that becaus she is inglish. mother came to America when she was 3 years of aig and so she doesent remember verry much about ingland. father says mother dont understand gokes becaus she is inglish and mother says she is glad of it becaus a good menny of fathers gokes hadent augt to be understood by ennybody. when she says that father always laffs and says she is a goker herself sumtimes.

well i forgot what i was a going to say becaus when i wright about my father and mother i dont think about ennything else they are so bully. My father was the best fiter in Exeter or ennywhere elce. Ed Thursten told me that once he and father went down to newmarket and a feller in the hotel tride to lick father and father hit him a old he one in the snout and gnocked him up 2 flites of stairs and round 3 corners befoar he stoped. i bet they aint many fellers whitch cood do that. ennyway Ed was there and seen him do it and he says he can show me the hotel and the stairs and the corners he went round and the big dent in the wall where he stoped. so i gess it must be so. i bet Beanys father coodent do it. i bet Pewts coodent eether.

evrybody likes father and calls him George and he gokes with them and gets them to say funny things and then he laffs and evrybody laffs. so he dont never have to fite now. i am glad of it for i shoodent like to se father fite even if he can lick evrybody.

gosh it is funny i forgot what i was going to say. you see i think father and mother is about the best peeple in the wirld. i dont know whitch is best. father says mother is wirth 500 of him and he augt to know becaus he has gnew her longer than i have.