Chapter Eight. The Adventures of a Fourth

The Story of a Bad Boy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The sun cast a broad column of quivering gold across the river at
the foot of our street, just as I reached the doorstep of the Nutter
House. Kitty Collins, with her dress tucked about her so that she
looked as if she had on a pair of calico trousers, was washing off
the sidewalk.

"Arrah you bad boy!" cried Kitty, leaning on the mop. handle.
"The Capen has jist been askin' for you. He's gone up town, now. It's
a nate thing you done with my clothes-line, and, it's me you may
thank for gettin' it out of the way before the Capen come down."

The kind creature had hauled in the rope, and my escapade had
not been discovered by the family; but I knew very well that the
burning of the stage-coach, and the arrest of the boys concerned in
the mischief, were sure to reach my grandfathers ears sooner or
later.

"Well, Thomas," said the old gentleman, an hour or so
afterwards, beaming upon me benevolently across the breakfast table,
"you didn't wait to be called this morning."

'No, sir," I replied, growing very warm, "I took a little run up
town to see what was going on."

I didn't say anything about the little run I took home again!
"They had quite a time on the Square last night," remarked Captain
Nutter, looking up from the Rivermouth Bamacle, which was always
placed beside his coffee-cup at breakfast.

I felt that my hair was preparing to stand on end.

"Quite a time," continued my grandfather. "Some boys broke into
Ezra Wingate's barn and carried off the old stagecoach. The young
rascals! I do believe they'd burn up the whole town if they had their
way."

With this he resumed the paper. After a long silence he
exclaimed, "Hullo!" upon which I nearly fell off the chair.

"'Miscreants unknown,"' read my grandfather, following the
paragraph with his forefinger; "'escaped from the bridewell, leaving
no clew to their identity, except the letter H, cut on one of the
benches.' 'Five dollars reward offered for the apprehension of the
perpetrators.' Sho! I hope Wingate will catch them."

I don't see how I continued to live, for on hearing this the
breath went entirely out of my body. I beat a retreat from the room
as soon as I could, and flew to the stable with a misty intention of
mounting Gypsy and escaping from the place. I was pondering what
steps to take, when Jack Harris and Charley Marden entered the
yard.

"I say," said Harris, as blithe as a lark, "has old Wingate been
here?"

"Been here?" I cried, "I should hope not!"

"The whole thing's out, you know," said Harris, pulling Gypsy's
forelock over her eyes and blowing playfully into her nostrils.

"You don't mean it!" I gasped.

"Yes, I do, and we are to pay Wingate three dollars apiece.
He'll make rather a good spec out of it."

"But how did he discover that we were the-the miscreants?" I
asked, quoting mechanically from the Rivermouth Bamacle.

"Why, he saw us take the old ark, confound him! He's been trying
to sell it any time these ten years. Now he has sold it to us. When
he found that we had slipped out of the Meat Market, he went right
off and wrote the advertisement offering five dollars reward; though
he knew well enough who had taken the coach, for he came round to my
father's house before the paper was printed to talk the matter over.
Wasn't the governor mad, though! But it's all settled, I tell you.
We're to pay Wingate fifteen dollars for the old go-cart, which he
wanted to sell the other day for seventy-five cents, and couldn't.
It's a downright swindle. But the funny part of it is to come."

O, there's a funny part to it, is there?" I remarked
bitterly.

"Yes. The moment Bill Conway saw the advertisement, he knew it
was Harry Blake who cut that letter H on the bench; so off he rushes
up to Wingate-kind of him, wasn't it?-and claims the reward. 'Too
late, young man,' says old Wingate, 'the culprits has been
discovered.' You see Sly-boots hadn't any intention of paying that
five dollars."

Jack Harris's statement lifted a weight from my bosom. The
article in the Rivermouth Barnacle bad placed the affair before me in
a new light. I had thoughtlessly committed a grave offence. Though
the property in question was valueless, we were clearly wrong in
destroying it. At the same time Mr. Wingate had tacitly sanctioned
the act by not preventing it when he might easily have done so. He
had allowed his property to be destroyed in order that be might
realize a large profit.

Without waiting to hear more, I went straight to Captain Nutter,
and, laying my remaining three dollars on his knee, confessed my
share in the previous night's transaction.

The Captain heard me through in profound silence, pocketed the
bank-notes, and walked off without speaking a word. He had punished
me in his own whimsical fashion at the breakfast table, for, at the
very moment be was harrowing up my soul by reading the extracts from
the Rivermouth Barnacle, he not only knew all about the bonfire, but
had paid Ezra Wingate his three dollars. Such was the duplicity of
that aged impostor

I think Captain Nutter was justified in retaining my
pocketmoney, as additional punishment, though the possession of it
later in the day would have got me out of a difficult position, as
the reader will see further on. I returned with a light heart and a
large piece of punk to my friends in the stable-yard, where we
celebrated the termination of our trouble by setting off two packs of
fire-crackers in an empty wine-cask. They made a prodigious racket,
but failed somehow to fully express my feelings. The little brass
pistol in my bedroom suddenly occurred to me. It had been loaded I
don't know how many months, long before I left New Orleans, and now
was the time, if ever, to fire it off. Muskets, blunderbusses, and
pistols were banging away lively all over town, and the smell of
gunpowder, floating on the air, set me wild to add something
respectable to the universal din.

When the pistol was produced, Jack Harris examined the rusty cap
and prophesied that it would not explode.

"Never mind," said I, "let's try it."

I had fired the pistol once, secretly, in New Orleans, and,
remembering the noise it gave birth to on that occasion, I shut both
eyes tight as I pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked on the cap
with a dull, dead sound. Then Harris tried it; then Charley Marden;
then I took it again, and after three or four trials was on the point
of giving it up as a bad job, when the obstinate thing went off with
a tremendous explosion, nearly jerking my arm from the socket. The
smoke cleared away, and there I stood with the stock of the pistol
clutched convulsively in my hand-the barrel, lock, trigger, and
ramrod having vanished into thin air.

"Are you hurt?" cried the boys, in one breath.

"N-no," I replied, dubiously, for the concussion had bewildered
me a little.

When I realized the nature of the calamity, my grief was
excessive. I can't imagine what led me to do so ridiculous a thing,
but I gravely buried the remains of my beloved pistol in our back
garden, and erected over the mound a slate tablet to the effect that
"Mr. Barker formerly of new Orleans, was killed accidentally on the
Fourth of July, 18-- in the 2nd year of his Age."1 Binny Wallace,
arriving on the spot just after the disaster, and Charley Marden (who
enjoyed the obsequies immensely), acted with me as chief mourners. I,
for my part, was a very sincere one.

As I turned away in a disconsolate mood from the garden, Charley
Marden remarked that he shouldn't be surprised if the pistol-butt
took root and grew into a mahogany-tree or something. He said he once
planted an old musket-stock, and shortly afterwards a lot of shoots
sprung up! Jack Harris laughed; but neither I nor Binny Wallace saw
Charley's wicked joke.

We were now joined by Pepper Whitcomb, Fred Langdon, and several
other desperate characters, on their way to the Square, which was
always a busy place when public festivities were going on. Feeling
that I was still in disgrace with the Captain, I thought it politic
to ask his consent before accompanying the boys.

He gave it with some hesitation, advising me to be careful not
to get in front of the firearms. Once he put his fingers mechanically
into his vest-pocket and half drew forth some dollar bills, then
slowly thrust them back again as his sense of justice overcame his
genial disposition. I guess it cut the old gentleman to the heart to
be obliged to keep me out of my pocket-money. I know it did me.
However, as I was passing through the hall, Miss Abigail, with a very
severe cast of countenance, slipped a brand-new quarter into my hand.
We had silver currency in those days, thank Heaven!

Great were the bustle and confusion on the Square. By the way, I
don't know why they called this large open space a square, unless
because it was an oval-an oval formed by the confluence of half a
dozen streets, now thronged by crowds of smartly dressed towns-people
and country folks; for Rivermouth on the Fourth was the centre of
attraction to the inhabitants of the neighboring villages.

On one side of the Square were twenty or thirty booths arranged
in a semi-circle, gay with little flags and seductive with lemonade,
ginger-beer, and seedcakes. Here and there were tables at which could
be purchased the smaller sort of fireworks, such as pin-wheels,
serpents, double-headers, and punk warranted not to go out. Many of
the adjacent houses made a pretty display of bunting, and across each
of the streets opening on the Square was an arch of spruce and
evergreen, blossoming all over with patriotic mottoes and paper
roses.

It was a noisy, merry, bewildering scene as we came upon the
ground. The incessant rattle of small arms, the booming of the
twelve-pounder firing on the Mill Dam, and the silvery clangor of the
church-bells ringing simultaneously-not to mention an ambitious
brass-band that was blowing itself to pieces on a balcony-were enough
to drive one distracted. We amused ourselves for an hour or two,
darting in and out among the crowd and setting off our crackers. At
one o'clock the Hon. Hezekiah Elkins mounted a platform in the middle
of the Square and delivered an oration, to which his
"feller-citizens" didn't pay much attention, having all they could do
to dodge the squibs that were set loose upon them by mischievous boys
stationed on the surrounding housetops.

Our little party which had picked up recruits here and there,
not being swayed by eloquence, withdrew to a booth on the outskirts
of the crowd, where we regaled ourselves with root beer at two cents
a glass. I recollect being much struck by the placard surmounting
this tent:

ROOT BEER

SOLD HERE

It seemed to me the perfection of pith and poetry. What could be
more terse? Not a word to spare, and yet everything fully expressed.
Rhyme and rhythm faultless. It was a delightful poet who made those
verses. As for the beer itself-that, I think, must have been made
from the root of all evil! A single glass of it insured an
uninterrupted pain for twenty-four hours.

The influence of my liberality working on Charley Marden-for it
was I who paid for the beer-he presently invited us all to take an
ice-cream with him at Pettingil's saloon. Pettingil was the Delmonico
of Rivermouth. He furnished ices and confectionery for aristocratic
balls and parties, and didn't disdain to officiate as leader of the
orchestra at the same; for Pettingil played on the violin, as Pepper
Whitcomb described it, "like Old Scratch."

Pettingil's confectionery store was on the corner of Willow and
High Streets. The saloon, separated from the shop by a flight of
three steps leading to a door hung with faded red drapery, had about
it an air of mystery and seclusion quite delightful. Four windows,
also draped, faced the side-street, affording an unobstructed view of
Marm Hatch's back yard, where a number of inexplicable garments on a
clothes-line were always to be seen careering in the wind.

There was a lull just then in the ice-cream business, it being
dinner-time, and we found the saloon unoccupied. When we had seated
ourselves around the largest marble-topped table, Charley Marden in a
manly voice ordered twelve sixpenny icecreams, "strawberry and
verneller mixed."

It was a magnificent sight, those twelve chilly glasses entering
the room on a waiter, the red and white custard rising from each
glass like a church-steeple, and the spoon-handle shooting up from
the apex like a spire. I doubt if a person of the nicest palate could
have distinguished, with his eyes shut, which was the vanilla and
which the strawberry; but if I could at this moment obtain a cream
tasting as that did, I would give five dollars for a very small
quantity.

We fell to with a will, and so evenly balanced were our
capabilities that we finished our creams together, the spoons
clinking in the glasses like one spoon.

"Let's have some more!" cried Charley Marden, with the air of
Aladdin ordering up a fresh hogshead of pearls and rubies. "Tom
Bailey, tell Pettingil to send in another round."

Could I credit my ears? I looked at him to see if he were in
earnest. He meant it. In a moment more I was leaning over the counter
giving directions for a second supply. Thinking it would make no
difference to such a gorgeous young sybarite as Marden, I took the
liberty of ordering ninepenny creams this time.

On returning to the saloon, what was my horror at finding it
empty!

There were the twelve cloudy glasses, standing in a circle on
the sticky marble slab, and not a boy to be seen. A pair of hands
letting go their hold on the window-sill outside explained matters. I
had been made a victim.

I couldn't stay and face Pettingil, whose peppery temper was
well known among the boys. I hadn't a cent in the world to appease
him. What should I do? I heard the clink of approaching glasses-the
ninepenny creams. I rushed to the nearest window. It was only five
feet to the ground. I threw myself out as if I had been an old
hat.

Landing on my feet, I fled breathlessly down High Street,
through Willow, and was turning into Brierwood Place when the sound
of several voices, calling to me in distress, stopped my progress.

"Look out, you fool! The mine! The mine!" yelled the warning
voices.

Several men and boys were standing at the head of the street,
making insane gestures to me to avoid something. But I saw no mine,
only in the middle of the road in front of me was a common
flour-barrel, which, as I gazed at it, suddenly rose into the air
with a terrific explosion. I felt myself thrown violently off my
feet. I remember nothing else, excepting that, as I went up, I caught
a momentary glimpse of Ezra Wingate leering through is shop window
like an avenging spirit.

The mine that had wrought me woe was not properly a mine at all,
but merely a few ounces of powder placed under an empty keg or barrel
and fired with a slow-match. Boys who didn't happen to have pistols
or cannon generally burnt their powder in this fashion.

For an account of what followed I am indebted to hearsay, for I
was insensible when the people picked me up and carried me home on a
shutter borrowed from the proprietor of Pettingil's saloon. I was
supposed to be killed, but happily (happily for me at least) I was
merely stunned. I lay in a semi-unconscious state until eight o'clock
that night, when I attempted to speak. Miss Abigail, who watched by
the bedside, put her ear down to my lips and was saluted with these
remarkable words: "Strawberry and verneller mixed!"

"Mercy on us! What is the boy saying?" cried Miss Abigail.

"ROOTBEERSOLDHERE!"

1 This inscription is copied from a triangular-shaped piece of
slate, still preserved in the garret of the Nutter House, together
with the pistol butt itself, which was subsequently dug up for a
postmortem examination.