Hildegarde's Neighbors

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

Colonel Ferrers smiled. "You are quick, my boy," he said. "I was indeed thinking of something that happened forty years ago,—of my first smoke. Possibly you might be amused to hear about it?"

The boys seemed to think there was no doubt about their being amused; they drew up two ottomans beside the Colonel's armchair, and prepared to listen, open-mouthed.

"Forty years ago, then," said the Colonel, "or, to be more exact, forty-five years, I was a lad of fifteen."

He paused, and smoked in silence for some minutes. Gerald could not help thinking of Alice and the Mock Turtle, and wondered what would happen if he should get up and say, "Thank you, sir, for your interesting story." But he held his peace, and waited.

"Fifteen years old, young gentlemen, and a sad scapegrace, I am sorry to say. My poor mother had an anxious time of it with me. I was in the water, or in the fire, or in the clouds from morning till night, as it seems on looking back. But with all my vagaries, I had one great desire which had never been gratified,—that was, to smoke a cigar. My father was a clergyman, and though he had never forbidden my smoking, I should never have dared to suggest such a thing to him, for he was strict in his notions, in many ways. Not too strict, sir, not too strict, by any means, though he may have seemed so to me then.

"To make a long story short, I fell in with some lads of my own way of thinking, and we determined to have a smoke. We gathered sweet fern and dried it, and rolled cigars for ourselves; odd-looking things they were, but we were vastly proud of them. When all was ready, we chose a dry, warm spot behind a dyke (for it was the fall of the year, and the days growing cold), and there we lighted our cigars and fell to work, puffing away in mighty fine style. Well, sir, they were horrible things, as you may well imagine; not one of us, I'll go bail, liked them in his heart, but we all pretended our best, and praised the cigars, and said what a fine thing it was to smoke, and thought ourselves men, as sure as if we had felt our beards pushing.

"By-and-by—I have the feeling of it still, when I think of it—I chanced to look up, and saw my father standing over the top of the dyke, looking down on us. The other boys, catching sight of my face, lifted their eyes and saw him, too; and there was a pretty moment. He said never a word for some time; no more did we. At last, 'What are you smoking, boys?' he asked, speaking in his usual even voice; yet I did not like the sound of it, somehow.

"So we told him, sweet fern; but he shook his head at that. 'That is poor stuff, indeed,' he said. 'Now, if you must smoke, here is something worth your while. Take these, Thomas, and share them with your friends; they are genuine, and I hope you may enjoy them.'

"With that he took a parcel of cigars from his pocket, and handed them to me; then bowed to us all very grand, and marched off, never looking behind him.

"I was not comfortable in my mind at this, for I knew my father pretty well, and had looked for something different; but the other lads were in high feather, and lighted their cigars on the instant, bidding me do likewise, and crying out that my father was a fine old buck, and that I was a lucky fellow to have such a parent. I could not be behind the rest, so I lit up, too, and for a few minutes all was as gay as a feast. But, Harry Monmouth, sir! in half an hour we were the sickest boys in Westchester County. It was all we could do to crawl home to our beds; and not one of us but was sure he was dying, and cried to his mother to send for the doctor before it was too late."