At times, indeed, I have been led to expect this from him. He has shown a depth of mind that warranted me in looking for anything. At times he seems as if he were a hundred years old. He has a quaint, bird-like way of cocking his head on one side, and asking a question that appears to be the result of years of study. If I could answer some of those questions, I should solve the darkest mysteries of life and death. His inquiries, however, generally have a grotesque flavor. One night, when the mosquitoes were making lively raids on his person, he appealed to me, suddenly: "How does the moon feel when a skeeter bites it?" To his meditative mind, the broad, smooth surface of the moon presented a temptation not to be resisted by any stray skeeter.
I freely confess that Johnny is now and then too much for me. I wish I could read him as cleverly as he reads me. He knows all my weak points; he sees right through me, and makes me feel that I am a helpless infant in his adroit hands. He has an argumentative, oracular air, when things have gone wrong, which always upsets my dignity. Yet how cunningly he uses his power! It is only in the last extremity that he crosses his legs, puts his hands into his trousers-pockets, and argues the case with me. One day last week he was very near coming to grief. By my directions, kindling-wood and coal are placed every morning in the library grate, in order that I may have a fire the moment I return at night. Master Johnny must needs apply a lighted match to this arrangement early in the forenoon. The fire was not discovered until the blower was one mass of red-hot iron, and the wooden mantelpiece was smoking with the intense heat.
When I came home, Johnny was led from the store-room, where he had been imprisoned from an early period, and where he had employed himself in eating about two dollars' worth of preserved pears.
"Johnny," said I, in as severe a tone as one could use in addressing a person whose forehead glistened with syrup,—"Johnny, don't you remember that I have always told you never to meddle with matches?"
It was something delicious to see Johnny trying to remember. He cast one eye meditatively up to the ceiling, then he fixed it abstractedly on the canary-bird, then he rubbed his ruffled brows with a sticky hand; but really, for the life of him, he couldn't recall any injunctions concerning matches.
"I can't, papa, truly, truly," said Johnny at length. "I guess I must have forgot it."
"Well, Johnny, in order that you may not forget it in future—"
Here Johnny was seized with an idea. He interrupted me.
"I'll tell you what you do, papa,—you just put it down in writin'."
With the air of a man who has settled a question definitely, but at the same time is willing to listen politely to any crude suggestions that you may have to throw out, Johnny crossed his legs, and thrust his hands into those wonderful trousers-pockets. I turned my face aside, for I felt a certain weakness creeping into the corners of my mouth. I was lost. In an instant the little head, covered all over with yellow curls, was laid upon my knee, and Johnny was crying, "I'm so very, very sorry!"