against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was
fastened by a handkerchief over the upper
portion of Whitcomb s face, while the arrow to
be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I
was a capital marksman, and the big apple,
only two yards distant, turned its russet cheek
fairly towards me.

I can see poor little Pepper now, as he stood
without flinching, waiting for me to perform
my great feat. I raised the cross-bow amid the
breathless silence of the crowded audience
consisting of seven boys and three girls, ex
clusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on pay
ing her way in with a clothes-pin. I raised the
cross-bow, I repeat. Twang ! went the whip
cord ; but, alas ! instead of hitting the apple,
the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb s
mouth, which happened to be open at the time,
and destroyed my aim.

I shall never be able to banish that awful mo
ment from my memory. Pepper s roar, expres
sive of astonishment, indignation, and pain, is



64 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

still ringing in my ears. I looked upon him as
a corpse, and, glancing not far into the dreary
future, pictured myself led forth to execution
in the presence of the very same spectators
then assembled.

Luckily poor Pepper was not seriously hurt ;
but Grandfather Nutter, appearing in the midst
of the confusion (attracted by the howls of
young Tell), issued an injunction against all
theatricals thereafter, and the place was closed ;
not, however, without a farewell speech from
me, in which I said that this would have been
the proudest moment of my life if I had not hit
Pepper Whitcomb in the mouth. Whereupon
the audience (assisted, I am glad to state, by
Pepper) cried " Hear ! hear ! " I then attrib
uted the accident to Pepper himself, whose
mouth, being open at the instant I fired, acted
upon the arrow much after the fashion of a
whirlpool, and drew in the fatal shaft. I was
about to explain how a comparatively small
maelstrom could suck in the largest ship, when
the curtain fell of its own accord, amid the
shouts of the audience.

This was my last appearance on any stage.
It was some time, though, before I heard the
end of the William Tell business. Malicious
little boys who had not been allowed to buy
tickets to my theatre used to cry out after me
in the street



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 65

" Who killed Cock Robin ?
I/ said the sparrer,
With my bow and arrer,
I killed Cock Robin ! "

The sarcasm of this verse was more than I
could stand. And it made Pepper Whitcomb
pretty mad to be called Cock Robin, I can tell
you !

So the days glided on, with fewer clouds and
more sunshine than fall to the lot of most boys.
Conway was certainly a cloud. Within school-
bounds he seldom ventured to be aggressive ;
but whenever we met about town he never
failed to brush against me, or pull my cap over
my eyes, or drive me distracted by inquiring
after my family in New Orleans, always al
luding to them as highly respectable colored
persons.

Jack Harris was right when he said Conway
would give me no rest until I fought him. I
felt it was ordained ages before our birth that
we should meet on this planet and fight. With
the view of not running counter to destiny,
I quietly prepared myself for the impending
conflict. The scene of my dramatic triumphs
was turned into a gymnasium for this purpose,
though I did not openly avow the fact to the
boys. By persistently standing on my head,
raising heavy weights, and going hand over



66 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

hand up a ladder, I developed my muscle until
my little body was as tough as a hickory knot
and as supple as tripe. I also took occasional
lessons in the noble art of self-defence, under
the tuition of Phil Adams.

I brooded over the matter until the idea of
fighting Conway became a part of me. I fought
him in imagination during school-hours ; I
dreamed of fighting with him at night, when he
would suddenly expand into a giant twelve feet
high, and then as suddenly shrink into a pygmy
so small that I could not hit him. In this lat
ter shape he would get into my hair, or pop
into my waistcoat-pocket, treating me with as
little ceremony as the Lilliputians showed Cap
tain Lemuel Gulliver all of which was not
pleasant, to be sure. On the whole, Conway
was a cloudy

And then I had a cloud at home. It was
not Grandfather Nutter, nor Miss Abigail, nor
Kitty Collins, though they all helped to com
pose it. It was a vague, funereal, impalpable
something which no amount of gymnastic train
ing would enable me to knock over. It was
Sunday. If ever I have a boy to bring up in
the way he should go, I intend to make Sunday
a cheerful day to him. Sunday was not a cheer
ful day at the Nutter House. You shall judge
for yourself.



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 67

It is Sunday morning. I should premise by
saying that the deep gloom which has settled
over everything set in like a heavy fog early on
Saturday evening.

At seven o clock my grandfather comes smile-
lessly down-stairs. He is dressed in black, and
looks as if he had lost all his friends during the
night. Miss Abigail, also in black, looks as
if she were prepared to bury them, and not in
disposed to enjoy the ceremony. Even Kitty
Collins has caught the contagious gloom, as I
perceive when she brings in the coffee-urn
a solemn and sculpturesque urn at any time,
but monumental now and sets it down in
front of Miss Abigail. Miss Abigail gazes at
the urn as if it held the ashes of her ancestors,
instead of a generous quantity of fine old Java
coffee. The meal progresses in silence.

Our parlor is by no means thrown open every
day. It is open this June morning, and is
pervaded by a strong smell of centre-table.
The furniture of the room and the little China
ornaments on the mantelpiece have a con
strained, unfamiliar look. My grandfather sits
in a mahogany chair, reading a large Bible
covered with green baize. Miss Abigail occu
pies one end of the sofa, and has her hands
crossed stiffly in her lap. I sit in the corner,
crushed. Robinson Crusoe and Gil Bias are



68 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

in close confinement. Baron Trenck, who
managed to escape from the fortress of Glatz,
can t for the life of him get out of our sitting-
room closet. Even the Rivermouth Barnacle
is suppressed until Monday. Genial converse,
harmless books, smiles, lightsome hearts, all
are banished. If I want to read anything, I
can read Baxter s Saint s Rest. I would die
first. So I sit there kicking my heels, thinking
about New Orleans, and watching a morbid
blue-bottle fly that attempts to commit suicide
by butting his head against the window-pane.
Listen! no, yes it is it is the robins
singing in the garden the grateful, joyous
robins singing away like mad, just as if it were
not Sunday. Their audacity tickles me.

My grandfather looks up, and inquires in a
sepulchral voice if I am ready for Sabbath-
school. It is time to go. I like the Sabbath-
school ; there are bright young faces there, at
all events. When I get out into the sunshine
alone, I draw a long breath ; I would turn a
somersault up against Neighbor Penhallow s
newly painted fence if I had not my best trou
sers on, so glad am I to escape from the
oppressive atmosphere of the Nutter House.

Sabbath-school over, I go to meeting, joining
my grandfather, who does not appear to be
any relation to me this day, and Miss Abigail,



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 69

in the porch. Our minister holds out very little
hope to any of us of being saved. Convinced
that I am a lost creature, in common with the
human family, I return home behind my guard
ians at a snail s pace. We have a dead-cold
dinner. I saw it laid out yesterday.

There is a long interval between this repast
and the second service, and a still longer inter
val between the beginning and the end of that
service ; for the Rev. Wibird Hawkins s ser
mons are none of the shortest, whatever else
they may be.

After meeting, my grandfather and I take a
walk. We visit, appropriately enough, a neigh
boring graveyard. I am by this time in a con
dition of mind to become a willing inmate of
the place. The usual evening prayer-meeting
is postponed for some reason. At half past
eight I go to bed.

This is the way Sunday was observed in the
Nutter House, and pretty generally through
out the town, twenty years ago. Persons who
were prosperous and natural and happy on Sat
urday became the most rueful of human beings
in the brief space of twelve hours. I do not
think there was any hypocrisy in this. It was
merely the old Puritan austerity cropping out
once a week. Many of these persons were
pure Christians every day in the seven ex-



70 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

cepting the seventh. Then they were decorous
and solemn to the verge of moroseness. I
should not like to be misunderstood on this
point. Sunday is a blessed day, and therefore
it should not be made a gloomy one. It is
the Lord s day, and I do believe that cheerful
hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His
sight.

" O day of rest ! How beautiful, how fair,
How welcome to the weary and the old !
Day of the Lord ! and truce to earthly cares !
Day of the Lord, as all our days should be !
Ah, why will man by his austerities
Shut out the blessed sunshine and the light,
And make of thee a dungeon of despair 1 "



CHAPTER VII

ONE MEMORABLE NIGHT

Two months had elapsed since my arrival at
Rivermouth, when the approach of an impor
tant celebration produced the greatest excite
ment among the juvenile population of the
town.

There was very little hard study done in the
Temple Grammar School the week preceding
the Fourth of July. For my part, my heart
and brain were so full of fire-crackers, Roman-
candles, rockets, pin-wheels, squibs, and gun
powder in various seductive forms, that I won
der I did not explode under Mr. Grimshaw s
very nose. I could not do a sum to save me ;
I could not tell, for love or money, whether
Tallahassee was the capital of Tennessee or
of Florida ; the present and the pluperfect
tenses were inextricably mixed in my memory,
and I did not know a verb from an adjective
when I met one. This was not alone my condi
tion, but that of every boy in the school.

Mr. Grimshaw considerately made allowances



72 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

for our temporary distraction, and sought to
fix our interest on the lessons by connecting
them directly or indirectly with the coming
Event. The class in arithmetic, for instance,
was requested to state how many boxes of fire
crackers, each box measuring sixteen inches
square, could be stored in a room of such and
such dimensions. He gave us the Declaration
of Independence for a parsing exercise, and
in geography confined his questions almost ex
clusively to localities rendered famous in the
Revolutionary War. " What did the people of
Boston do with the tea on board the English
vessels ? " asked our wily instructor.

" Threw it into the river ! " shrieked the
smaller boys, with an impetuosity that made
Mr. Grimshaw smile in spite of himself. One
luckless urchin said, " Chucked it," for which
happy expression he was kept in at recess.

Notwithstanding these clever stratagems,
there was not much solid work done by any
body. The trail of the serpent (an inexpen
sive but dangerous fire-toy) was over us all.
We went round deformed by quantities of
Chinese crackers artlessly concealed in our
trousers-pockets ; and if a boy whipped out his
handkerchief without proper precaution, he
was sure to let off two or three torpedoes.

Even Mr. Grimshaw was made a sort of ac-



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 73

cessory to the universal demoralization. In call
ing the school to order, he always rapped on
the table with a heavy ruler. Under the green
baize table-cloth, on the exact spot where he
usually struck, a certain boy, whose name I
withhold, placed a fat torpedo. The result was
a loud explosion, which caused Mr. Grimshaw
to look queer. Charley Harden was at the
water-pail at the time, and directed general
attention to himself by strangling for several
seconds and then squirting a slender thread of
water over the blackboard.

Mr. Grimshaw fixed his eyes reproachfully
on Charley, but said nothing. The real cul
prit (it was not Charley Marden, but the boy
whose name I withhold) instantly regretted his
badness, and after school confessed the whole
thing to Mr. Grimshaw, who heaped coals of
fire upon the nameless boy s head by giving
him five cents for the Fourth of July. If Mr.
Grimshaw had caned this unknown youth, the
punishment would not have been half so se
vere.

On the last day of June the Captain received
a letter from my father, enclosing five dollars
" for my son Tom," which enabled that young
gentleman to make regal preparations for the
celebration of our national independence. A
portion of this money, two dollars, I hastened



74 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

to invest in fireworks ; the balance I put by
for contingencies. In placing the fund in my
possession, the Captain imposed one condi
tion that dampened my ardor considerably
I was to buy no gunpowder. I might have all
the snapping-crackers and torpedoes I wanted ;
but gunpowder was out of the question.

I thought this rather hard, for all my young
friends were provided with pistols of various
sizes. Pepper Whitcomb had a horse-pistol
nearly as large as himself, and Jack Harris,
though he, to be sure, was a big boy, was going
to have a real old-fashioned flintlock musket.
However, I did not mean to let this drawback
destroy my happiness. I had one charge of
powder stowed away in the little brass pistol
which I brought from New Orleans, and was
bound to make a noise in the world once, if I
never did again.

It was a custom observed from time imme
morial for the town boys to have a bonfire on
the Square on the midnight before the Fourth.
I did not ask the Captain s leave to attend this
ceremony, for I had a general idea that he
would not give it. If the Captain, I rea
soned, does not forbid me, I break no orders
by going. Now this was a specious line of ar
gument, and the mishaps that befell me in con
sequence of adopting it were richly deserved.



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 75

On the evening of the third I retired to bed
very early, in order to disarm suspicion. I did
not sleep a wink, waiting for eleven o clock to
come round ; and I thought it never would
come round, as I lay counting from time to
time the slow strokes of the ponderous bell
in the steeple of the Old North Church. At
last the laggard hour arrived. While the clock
was striking I jumped out of bed and began
dressing.

My grandfather and Miss Abigail were heavy
sleepers, and I might have stolen down-stairs
and out at the front door undetected ; but
such a commonplace proceeding did not suit my
adventurous disposition. I fastened one end
of a rope (it was a few yards cut from Kitty
Collins s clothes-line) to the bedpost nearest
the window, and cautiously climbed out on the
wide pediment over the hall door. I had
neglected to knot the rope; the result was,
that, the moment I swung clear of the pedi
ment, I descended like a flash of lightning,
and warmed both my hands smartly. The 7
rope, moreover, was four or five feet too short ;
so I got a fall that would have proved serious
had I not tumbled into the middle of one of
the big rose-bushes growing on either side of
the steps.

I scrambled out of that without delay, and



76 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

was congratulating myself on my good luck,
when I saw by the light of the setting moon
the form of a man leaning over the garden
gate. It was one of the town watch, who had
probably been observing my operations with
curiosity. Seeing no chance of escape, I put
a bold face on the matter and walked directly
up to him.

" What on airth air you a-doin ? " asked the
man, grasping the collar of my jacket.

"I live here, sir, if you please," I replied,
"and am going to the bonfire. I didn t want
to wake up the old folks, that s all."

The man cocked his eye at me in the most
amiable manner, and released his hold.

" Boys is boys," he muttered. He did not
attempt to stop me as I slipped through the
gate.

Once beyond his clutches, I took to my heels
and soon reached the Square, where I found
forty or fifty fellows assembled, engaged in
building a pyramid of tar-barrels. The palms
of my hands still tingled so that I could not
join in the sport. I stood in the doorway
of the Nautilus Bank, watching the workers,
among whom I recognized lots of my school
mates. They looked like a legion of imps,
coming and going in the twilight, busy in rais
ing some infernal edifice. What a Babel of



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 77

voices it was, everybody directing everybody
else, and everybody doing everything wrong !

When all was prepared, some one applied a
match to the sombre pile. A fiery tongue
thrust itself out here and there, then suddenly
the whole fabric burst into flames, blazing and
crackling beautifully. This was a signal for
the boys to join hands and dance around the
burning barrels, which they did, shouting like
mad creatures. When the fire had burnt down
a little, fresh staves were brought and heaped
on the pyre. In the excitement of the moment
I forgot my tingling palms, and found myself
in the thick of the carousal.

Before we were half ready, our combustible
material was expended, and a disheartening
kind of darkness settled down upon us. The
boys collected together here and there in knots,
consulting as to what should be done. It yet
lacked several hours of daybreak, and none of
us were in the humor to return to bed. I
approached one of the groups standing near
the town-pump, and discovered in the uncertain
light of the dying brands the figures of Jack
Harris, Phil Adams, Harry Blake, and Pepper
Whitcomb, their faces streaked with perspira
tion and tar, and their whole appearance sug
gestive of New Zealand chiefs.

" Hullo ! here s Tom Bailey ! " shouted Pep
per Whitcomb ; "he 11 join in ! "



78 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

Of course he would. The sting had gone
out of my hands, and I was ripe for anything
none the less ripe for not knowing what was
on the tapis. After whispering together for a
moment, the boys motioned me to follow them.

We glided out from the crowd and silently
wended our way through a neighboring alley,
at the head of which stood a tumble-down old
barn, owned by one Ezra Wingate. In former
days this was the stable of the mail-coach that
ran between Rivermouth and Boston. When
the railroad superseded that primitive mode of
travel, the lumbering vehicle was rolled into
the barn, and there it stayed. The stage-
driver, after prophesying the immediate down
fall of the nation, died of grief and apoplexy,
and the old coach followed in his wake as fast
as it could by quietly dropping to pieces. The
barn had the reputation of being haunted, and
I think we all kept very close together when
we found ourselves standing in the black
shadow cast by the tall gable. Here, in a low
voice, Jack Harris laid bare his plan, which
was to burn the ancient stage-coach.

"The old trundle-cart isn t worth twenty-
five cents," said Jack Harris, " and Ezra Win-
gate ought to thank us for getting the rubbish
out of the way. But if any fellow here does n t
want to have a hand in it, let him cut and run,



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 79

and keep a quiet tongue in his head ever
after."

With this he pulled out the staples that held
the rusty padlock, and the big barn door swung
slowly open. The interior of the stable was
pitch-dark, of course. As we made a move
ment to enter, a sudden scrambling, and the
sound of heavy bodies leaping in all directions,
caused us to start back in terror.

" Rats ! " cried Phil Adams.

" Bats ! " exclaimed Harry Blake.

" Cats ! " suggested Jack Harris. " Who s
afraid ? "

Well, the truth is, we were all afraid ; and if
the pole of the stage had not been lying close
to the threshold, I do not believe anything on
earth would have induced us to cross it. We
seized hold of the pole-straps and succeeded
with great trouble in dragging the coach out.
The two fore wheels had rusted to the axle-
tree, and refused to revolve. It was the mer
est skeleton of a coach. The cushions had
long since been removed, and the leather hang
ings, where they had not crumbled away, dan
gled in shreds from the worm-eaten frame. A
load of ghosts and a span of phantom horses to
drag them would have made the ghastly thing
complete.

Luckily for our undertaking, the stable stood



8o THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

at the top of a very steep hill. With three boys
to push behind, and two in front to steer, we
started the old coach on its last trip with little
or no difficulty. Our speed increased every
moment, and, the fore wheels becoming un
locked as we arrived at the foot of the declivity,
we charged upon the crowd like a regiment of
cavalry, scattering the people right and left.
Before reaching the bonfire, to which some one
had added several bushels of shavings, Jack
Harris and Phil Adams, who were steering,
dropped on the ground, and allowed the vehicle
to pass over them, which it did without injuring
them ; but the boys who were clinging for dear
life to the trunk-rack behind fell over the pros
trate steersmen, and there we all lay in a heap,
two or three of us quite picturesque with the
nose-bleed.

The coach, with an intuitive perception of
what was expected of it, plunged into the centre
of the kindling shavings, and stopped. The
flames sprung up and clung to the rotten wood
work, which burned like tinder. At this mo
ment a figure was seen leaping wildly from the
inside of the blazing coach. The figure made
three bounds towards us, and tripped over
Harry Blake. It was Pepper Whitcomb, with
his hair somewhat singed, and his eyebrows
completely scorched off !



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 81

Pepper had slyly ensconced himself on the
back seat before we started, intending to have
a neat little ride down hill, and a laugh at us
afterwards. But the laugh, as it happened, was
on our side, or would have been, if half a dozen
watchmen had not suddenly pounced down upon
us, as we lay scrambling on the ground, weak
with mirth over Pepper s misfortune. We were
collared and marched off before we well knew
what had happened.

The abrupt transition from the noise and light
of the Square to the silent, gloomy brick room
in the rear of the Meat Market seemed like the
work of enchantment. We stared at one an
other aghast.

" Well," remarked Jack Harris, with a sickly
smile, " this is a go ! "

"No go, I should say," whimpered Harry
Blake, glancing at the bare brick walls and the
heavy iron-plated door.

" Never say die," muttered Phil Adams dole
fully.

The bridewell was a small low-studded
chamber built up against the rear end of the
Meat Market, and approached from the Square
by a narrow passageway. A portion of the
room was partitioned off into eight cells, each
capable of holding two or three persons. The
cells were full at the time, as we presently



82 THE STORY OF A BAD BOY

discovered by seeing several hideous faces leer
ing out at us through the gratings of the
doors.

A smoky oil-lamp in a lantern suspended
from the ceiling threw a flickering light over
the apartment, which contained no furniture
excepting a couple of stout wooden benches.
It was a dismal place by night, and only little
less dismal by day, for the tall houses surround
ing "the lock-up" prevented the faintest ray
of sunshine from penetrating the ventilator
over the door a long narrow window opening
inward and propped up by a piece of lath.

As we seated ourselves in a row on one of
the benches, I imagine that our aspect was any
thing but cheerful. Adams and Harris looked
very anxious, and Harry Blake, whose nose had
just stopped bleeding, was mournfully carving
his name, by sheer force of habit, on the prison
bench. I do not think I ever saw a more
" wrecked " expression on any human counte
nance than Pepper Whitcomb s presented. His
look of natural astonishment at finding him
self incarcerated in a jail was considerably
heightened by his lack of eyebrows.

As for me, it was only by thinking how the
late Baron Trenck would have conducted him
self under similar circumstances that I was able
to restrain my tears.



THE STORY OF A BAD BOY 83

None of us were inclined to conversation.
A deep silence, broken now and then by a
startling snore from the cells, reigned through
out the chamber. By and by Pepper Whitcomb
glanced nervously towards Phil Adams and
said, "Phil, do you think they will hang