Great deeds were done
When he did run
With his big gun
’Gainst the Hesshun,” etc. etc.
But as mother did not hear me, my youthful conscience was perfectly at ease—considering, of course, that there was no wrong done when there was no knowledge, on her part, of any transgression.
At length, after many weary hours, sun-down was proclaimed through the house by my little sister Mary, who had been watching its approach, for an hour or more, from one of the garret windows. I then made noise enough to remunerate me for keeping half a score of Sabbaths. I mounted my Eclipse broomstick with a determination to run him on the course for the last time, previous to giving up the pleasures of the chase for the quiet comforts of whittling. And, indeed, it was the last time; for, in the last quarter of the third heat, in the exuberance of my spirits I reared up, and, my foot slipping, I came with such force on to my wayworn charger that I broke him down, and into two pieces besides; and, in addition, I got a severe thump on my cranium, which sent me weeping to bed, where I slept quietly until Monday morning. On that morning I was, of course, in very good spirits, and did not fail to give mother a gentle hint touching her part of the contract, by taking particular pains to have her accidentally discover that the handle to the clothes-pounder had come out, and by carelessly observing, in a very emphatic manner, that if I had a penknife, I would make a wedge and fasten in the pounder handle, etc. However, that day and the following night were doomed to be hours of anxious suspense to me—hope and fear holding alternate sway in my excited breast. But words have not power to express the fulness of my joy when, after breakfast on Tuesday morning, father called me to him, and, taking a new knife from his pocket, placed me on his knee, after which he gave me several sections of good advice and kind admonitions, to which I listened with all the attention bestowed by a barn upon a whirlwind, so deeply was I engaged in scrutinizing the new object of my desire.
When father had finished his lecture, it was school-time; so, after greasing the spring of my new knife, grasping it firmly in my right hand, and thrusting said hand into my pantaloons pocket, I started for school, anticipating a “glorious triumph” in exhibiting my newly-acquired property to my less fortunate playmates. But, just as I stepped on to the school-house green, the schoolmistress rattled the window and called the children in; and thus my thrilling hopes were prematurely blighted. Still firmly holding my knife in my pocket as I entered the school-house, I took my seat on the “big bench” where I usually sat, and after the school operations had fairly commenced, I turned round to the desk with my back to the mistress and my book before me. I then took out my new knife for the purpose of examining it more particularly than I had hitherto done. It was of that kind commonly called Barlow knives, one half of the handle being of polished iron and the other half of bone; the blade about four inches long, half an inch wide near the handle, and tapering to a point. Bill Williams, who sat next to me, soon got a glimpse at it, and we soon got whispering about it; and the consequence was, we both got shut up in the dungeon, and were kept there until noon. Great was my joy during the noon-spell in exhibiting my new treasure; and many were the congratulations which I received upon the pleasure of possessing it. In the afternoon, not profiting at all by my morning’s experience, I took it out in school-time and tried its shaving powers by cutting the bench; which the schoolmistress happening to discover, she took it away from me, gave me a feruling, kept me half an hour after school was out; then, after giving me a long lecture, and at the end of it my knife, she sent me home. There I had a fine opportunity to indulge my whittling propensities during the whole evening; but finding my knife rather dull, I stole into the dining-room and stole out of a drawer in the sideboard my father’s razor-hone, which I took out under the wood-house and there gave my knife a grand rubbing. Unfortunately for me, however, the more I sharpened it the duller it grew, and the more it spoiled my father’s hone; for, on bringing this latter to the light, I found it was a good deal worn and very much scratched. Here was a new difficulty; a good scolding, and perhaps a “dressing,” for spoiling a nice razor-hone. However, I put it slyly back into the drawer and determined to say nothing about it, knowing that father would discover it the next time he shaved himself; at which time I should endeavor—accidentally, of course—to be absent.
I next tried to sharpen my knife upon a scythe-stone; but, as Dan O’Rourke would say, “the more I tried to give it an edge, the more it would ‘not take one,’” until, finally, from desperate necessity, I came to the grievous conclusion that my knife was good for nothing. Consequent upon this conclusion, was a determination to get rid of it as soon as possible. But, alas! here was only the beginning of my sorrows, as the sequel will show.
My first attempt was to swop it away; but as none of the boys had such a knife as I wanted, this could not be done. I next called my younger brother Dick to me, and asked him if he did not want a present? He, of course, answered in the affirmative. Thereupon, after showing him my knife, how well it was sharpened up, etc., and making him promise to carry my books to and from the school-house during the remainder of the summer, I made him a present of the knife. He was exceedingly delighted with this acquisition to his personal property, and immediately ran into the yard to find something to whittle. I looked through the window to watch his success. He first picked up a decayed mullen stalk, and attempted to cut off the end; but, instead of cutting it off, the pressure of his knife broke it off close by his hand. He next picked up the end of an ox-goad, and tugged away at it, turning his head sidewise, and twisting his tongue and mouth into all manner of shapes, but not a shaving could he raise! He then found a piece of pine shingle, which he succeeded in splitting lengthwise, but could neither sharpen nor round it. Just then, two of his playmates coming along with a ball, Dick put his knife into his pocket, and went to join them in a game of “one-old-cat.” I thought to myself, as I was almost bursting with laughter, “I was very fortunate in getting rid of that knife at any rate.” On the following morning, father went to get his shaving apparatus, and, of course, discovered his ruined hone. However, as soon as I saw him start for the sideboard drawer, I started for the wood-house chamber, where I lay concealed until school-time. I went to school with the determination not to go home at noon, and supposed that by night the hone business would all be got along with. But my hopes were again doomed to disappointment; for when father came home in the evening, he asked me if I had “been using his hone?” Now, as I had been taught that, let consequences be what they might, I must never tell a lie; true to such instructions, I promptly answered—“Yes, sir.” “For what purpose?” he inquired. “To sharpen my knife,” I answered. “Well,” said he, “as you are so fond of sharpening knives, go get the case-knife your mother lends you, and sharpen that.” Accordingly, I got the case-knife, and he got the hone, and I went to honing, and he went to reading the newspapers. Now, the case-knife was a good deal like my Barlow knife; the more you sharpened it, the duller it grew. After rubbing it about half an hour, being somewhat tired, I took it to father, and told him “it would not come sharp.” “Oh, well,” said he, “you have not honed it long enough; it is a knife, and, of course, can be sharpened. Try it again.” So at it I went once more; and, after rubbing it until my mouth was dry as a cotton-bag, and my arm almost exhausted, I took it again to father, and, with tears in my eyes, told him “it would not be sharpened.” “Well, my son,” said he, “when I questioned you about the hone, you promptly told me the truth; for this I commend you, and I have made you hone the case-knife as a punishment for spoiling my hone. Now the next time you want a razor-hone to sharpen a Barlow knife upon, you must ask for it.” I made divers promises on the subject, and fully resolved, in my own mind, that I never would use his hone again without permission.
On the following Sunday morning I put on my best suit to attend church; and, after I had got down into the parlor, I unconsciously thrust my hand into my coat pocket, and great was my surprise when I drew from it my Barlow knife. “Dick,” said I, “did you put your knife into my pocket?” “That’s not my knife,” said Dick. “Don’t you want it?” I asked. “No!” he answered. “Why not?” I inquired. “Because it will not cut any,” rejoined Dick; “and I shall not carry your books this summer for such a knife as that,” and thereupon he hopped out of the room. The next day, while up in the orchard, back of the school-house, I contrived to have it slip out of my pocket, and satisfied my conscience by telling myself that I had lost it. More than a week had I passed in the enjoyment of this quiet, pleasing consciousness of having lost my knife, when, one morning as I was going to school, Bill Williams ran up to me, saying, “Bob, here’s your knife: I found it under the big sweet apple-tree.” “Botheration take the knife,” I thought, as I put it into my pocket. After school was out at night, I went up the road some distance from the school-house, to a sand-pit, from which the neighbors occasionally got a load of scrubbing-sand. Here I dug a hole as deep as I could, threw in my knife, buried it up, and went away, rejoicing in the belief that I should never see it again.