Uncle Rutherford's Nieces: A Story for Girls

by Joanna H. Mathews

"What's this?" asked the officer, who had long since made his peace with the old man, who was wont to hang about the park, and in the vicinity of our house, and who amused him vastly with his comments upon men and things in the city. "What are you up to now, captain?"

"Givin' this boy a duckin'; an' if I told ye what for, I donno but ye'd be for takin' of him up," answered the captain, disregarding all considerations of parental or family pride. "If ye fin' me a meaner one nor he is in this big town, I'll duck him, too, an' keep him under till he begs an' swears he'll mend his ways.—Now, git along home, sir," to the shaking Theodore. "I'd willin' pay for two suits of clo's to have the satisfaction of givin' ye yer desarvins, though I don't know as ye've got 'em yet. Git!"

Theodore, only too glad to obey, sped away like the wind; while the captain, as the policeman was about to interfere further, turned to the officer, and, taking him by the arm, as if he were going to arrest him, repeated in a friendly tone, "He's had no more than his desarvin's,—young scamp; an' them's my opinions. I'll tell ye."

"But what are you about, ducking that boy in a public fountain?" asked the officer, doubtful what course to pursue with the old original. "Don't you know such a thing is a breach of the public peace?"

"I don't know nothin' about your breaches," said the old veteran, no whit disturbed; "but I knows I got a right to duck that boy where'er I've a min' to. He's my gran'son,—more shame to me,—an' a little water ain't goin' to hurt him. His fam'ly's used to water,—good salt water, too," with a contemptuous look at the fluid in the fountain basin, "an' if I could wash the meanness outer him, I'd duck him a dozen times a day. Come along."

And still with his hand upon the policeman's arm, the captain turned away with him, soon satisfying the guardian of the peace that this was no case for arrest. Barney agreed that he had the right to take the law into his own hands, although this was hardly the place for him to do so.

Of course Theodore's thefts, and the story of the grandfather's summary punishment, went the rounds of the school the next morning, and it soon reached the ears of the teachers and principal; and Theodore was called up again before the latter, this time to receive a far sterner reprimand than had been bestowed upon Jim. As the offence had been committed out of school bounds and school hours, the punishment for it did not lie within the jurisdiction of Mr. Rollins; but, in addition to that which he had received from his grandfather, it was meted out to him on the school premises. From that time he acquired the sobriquet of "Peanuts,"—a name which, short as it was, attracted far more derision and notice than that of Jim Grant Garfield Rutherford Livingstone Washington.

And Jim, for his silence before the principal, his heroic determination to "tell no tales," was more of a favorite than ever.

Whether this tended to lessen Theodore's animosity toward him, or to soften the standing feud between them, may be judged.

The contempt and dislike which the school generally entertained for Theodore were brought to their height, when the edict was promulgated that peanuts should be no longer brought within bounds. Being a forbidden fruit, they at once acquired a value and desirableness even beyond that which they had possessed before. By some unexplained process of reasoning, the authorities had arrived at the conclusion that they were the cause of the late disturbance; and so they were tabooed, much to the displeasure of the boys, who, beside the deprivation to themselves, considered Jim a victim, as the order, of necessity, in a measure lessened his sales.