The Story of a Bad Boy

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THE STORY OF A BAD BOY


by Thomas Bailey Aldrich




Chapter One--In Which I Introduce Myself


This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty
bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy
myself.

Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here
that I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of
a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young
gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly
because I really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an
amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no
hypocrite. I didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I
didn't think the missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird
Hawkins were half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my
little pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent
it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real
human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more
like the impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one
that has been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning.

Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I used to confront him at
recess with the following words: "My name's Tom Bailey; what's your
name?" If the name struck me favorably, I shook hands with the new
pupil cordially; but if it didn't, I would turn on my heel, for I was
particular on this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and Spriggins
were deadly affronts to my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the
like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.

Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather elderly boys by this
time--lawyers, merchants, sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not? Phil
Adams (a special good name that Adams) is consul at Shanghai, where I
picture him to myself with his head closely shaved--he never had too much
hair--and a long pigtail banging down behind. He is married, I hear;
and I hope he and she that was Miss Wang Wang are very happy together,
sitting cross-legged over their diminutive cups of tea in a skyblue
tower hung with bells. It is so I think of him; to me he is henceforth
a jewelled mandarin, talking nothing but broken China. Whitcomb is a
judge, sedate and wise, with spectacles balanced on the bridge of that
remarkable nose which, in former days, was so plentifully sprinkled with
freckles that the boys christened him Pepper Whitcomb. Just to think
of little Pepper Whitcomb being a judge! What would he do to me now, I
wonder, if I were to sing out "Pepper!" some day in court? Fred Langdon
is in California, in the native-wine business--he used to make the best
licorice-water I ever tasted! Binny Wallace sleeps in the Old South
Burying-Ground; and Jack Harris, too, is dead--Harris, who commanded us
boys, of old, in the famous snow-ball battles of Slatter's Hill. Was it
yesterday I saw him at the head of his regiment on its way to join the
shattered Army of the Potomac? Not yesterday, but six years ago. It was
at the battle of the Seven Pines. Gallant Jack Harris, that never drew
rein until he had dashed into the Rebel battery! So they found him--lying
across the enemy's guns.

How we have parted, and wandered, and married, and died! I wonder what
has become of all the boys who went to the Temple Grammar School at
Rivermouth when I was a youngster? "All, all are gone, the old familiar
faces!"

It is with no ungentle hand I summon them back, for a moment, from that
Past which has closed upon them and upon me. How pleasantly they live
again in my memory! Happy, magical Past, in whose fairy atmosphere even
Conway, mine ancient foe, stands forth transfigured, with a sort of
dreamy glory encircling his bright red hair!

With the old school formula I commence these sketches of my boyhood. My
name is Tom Bailey; what is yours, gentle reader? I take for granted
it is neither Wiggins nor Spriggins, and that we shall get on famously
together, and be capital friends forever.




Chapter Two--In Which I Entertain Peculiar Views


I was born at Rivermouth, but, before I had a chance to become very well
acquainted with that pretty New England town, my parents removed to New
Orleans, where my father invested his money so securely in the banking
business that he was never able to get any of it out again. But of this
hereafter.

I was only eighteen months old at the time of the removal, and it didn't
make much difference to me where I was, because I was so small; but
several years later, when my father proposed to take me North to be
educated, I had my own peculiar views on the subject. I instantly kicked
over the little Negro boy who happened to be standing by me at the
moment, and, stamping my foot violently on the floor of the piazza,
declared that I would not be taken away to live among a lot of Yankees!

You see I was what is called "a Northern man with Southern principles."
I had no recollection of New England: my earliest memories were
connected with the South, with Aunt Chloe, my old Negro nurse, and
with the great ill-kept garden in the centre of which stood our house--a
whitewashed stone house it was, with wide verandas--shut out from the
street by lines of orange, fig, and magnolia trees. I knew I was born
at the North, but hoped nobody would find it out. I looked upon the
misfortune as something so shrouded by time and distance that maybe
nobody remembered it. I never told my schoolmates I was a Yankee,
because they talked about the Yankees in such a scornful way it made
me feel that it was quite a disgrace not to be born in Louisiana, or at
least in one of the Border States. And this impression was strengthened
by Aunt Chloe, who said, "dar wasn't no gentl'men in the Norf no way,"
and on one occasion terrified me beyond measure by declaring that,
"if any of dem mean whites tried to git her away from marster, she was
jes'gwine to knock 'em on de head wid a gourd!"

The way this poor creature's eyes flashed, and the tragic air with which
she struck at an imaginary "mean white," are among the most vivid things
in my memory of those days.

To be frank, my idea of the North was about as accurate as that
entertained by the well-educated Englishmen of the present day
concerning America. I supposed the inhabitants were divided into two
classes--Indians and white people; that the Indians occasionally dashed
down on New York, and scalped any woman or child (giving the preference
to children) whom they caught lingering in the outskirts after
nightfall; that the white men were either hunters or schoolmasters, and
that it was winter pretty much all the year round. The prevailing style
of architecture I took to be log-cabins.

With this delightful picture of Northern civilization in my eye, the
reader will easily understand my terror at the bare thought of being
transported to Rivermouth to school, and possibly will forgive me for
kicking over little black Sam, and otherwise misconducting myself, when
my father announced his determination to me. As for kicking little Sam--I
always did that, more or less gently, when anything went wrong with me.

My father was greatly perplexed and troubled by this unusually violent
outbreak, and especially by the real consternation which he saw written
in every line of my countenance. As little black Sam picked himself up,
my father took my hand in his and led me thoughtfully to the library.

I can see him now as he leaned back in the bamboo chair and questioned
me. He appeared strangely agitated on learning the nature of my
objections to going North, and proceeded at once to knock down all my
pine log houses, and scatter all the Indian tribes with which I had
populated the greater portion of the Eastern and Middle States.

"Who on earth, Tom, has filled your brain with such silly stories?"
asked my father, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Aunt Chloe, sir; she told me."

"And you really thought your grandfather wore a blanket embroidered with
beads, and ornamented his leggins with the scalps of his enemies?"

"Well, sir, I didn't think that exactly."

"Didn't think that exactly? Tom, you will be the death of me."

He hid his face in his handkerchief, and, when he looked up, he seemed
to have been suffering acutely. I was deeply moved myself, though I did
not clearly understand what I had said or done to cause him to feel so
badly. Perhaps I had hurt his feelings by thinking it even possible that
Grandfather Nutter was an Indian warrior.

My father devoted that evening and several subsequent evenings to giving
me a clear and succinct account of New England; its early struggles, its
progress, and its present condition--faint and confused glimmerings
of all which I had obtained at school, where history had never been a
favorite pursuit of mine.

I was no longer unwilling to go North; on the contrary, the proposed
journey to a new world full of wonders kept me awake nights. I promised
myself all sorts of fun and adventures, though I was not entirely at
rest in my mind touching the savages, and secretly resolved to go on
board the ship--the journey was to be made by sea--with a certain little
brass pistol in my trousers-pocket, in case of any difficulty with the
tribes when we landed at Boston.

I couldn't get the Indian out of my head. Only a short time previously
the Cherokees--or was it the Camanches?--had been removed from their
hunting-grounds in Arkansas; and in the wilds of the Southwest the red
men were still a source of terror to the border settlers. "Trouble
with the Indians" was the staple news from Florida published in the New
Orleans papers. We were constantly hearing of travellers being attacked
and murdered in the interior of that State. If these things were done in
Florida, why not in Massachusetts?

Yet long before the sailing day arrived I was eager to be off. My
impatience was increased by the fact that my father had purchased for me
a fine little Mustang pony, and shipped it to Rivermouth a fortnight
previous to the date set for our own departure--for both my parents were
to accompany me. The pony (which nearly kicked me out of bed one night
in a dream), and my father's promise that he and my mother would come to
Rivermouth every other summer, completely resigned me to the situation.
The pony's name was Gitana, which is the Spanish for gypsy; so I always
called her--she was a lady pony--Gypsy.

At length the time came to leave the vine-covered mansion among the
orange-trees, to say goodby to little black Sam (I am convinced he was
heartily glad to get rid of me), and to part with simple Aunt Chloe,
who, in the confusion of her grief, kissed an eyelash into my eye, and
then buried her face in the bright bandana turban which she had mounted
that morning in honor of our departure.

I fancy them standing by the open garden gate; the tears are rolling
down Aunt Chloe's cheeks; Sam's six front teeth are glistening like
pearls; I wave my hand to him manfully then I call out "goodby" in a
muffled voice to Aunt Chloe; they and the old home fade away. I am never
to see them again!




Chapter Three--On Board the Typhoon


I do not remember much about the voyage to Boston, for after the first
few hours at sea I was dreadfully unwell.

The name of our ship was the "A No. 1, fast-sailing packet Typhoon."
I learned afterwards that she sailed fast only in the newspaper
advertisements. My father owned one quarter of the Typhoon, and that is
why we happened to go in her. I tried to guess which quarter of the ship
he owned, and finally concluded it must be the hind quarter--the cabin,
in which we had the cosiest of state-rooms, with one round window in the
roof, and two shelves or boxes nailed up against the wall to sleep in.

There was a good deal of confusion on deck while we were getting under
way. The captain shouted orders (to which nobody seemed to pay any
attention) through a battered tin trumpet, and grew so red in the face
that he reminded me of a scooped-out pumpkin with a lighted candle
inside. He swore right and left at the sailors without the slightest
regard for their feelings. They didn't mind it a bit, however, but went
on singing--

"Heave ho!
With the rum below,
And hurrah for the Spanish Main O!"

I will not be positive about "the Spanish Main," but it was hurrah for
something O. I considered them very jolly fellows, and so indeed they
were. One weather-beaten tar in particular struck my fancy--a thick-set,
jovial man, about fifty years of age, with twinkling blue eyes and a
fringe of gray hair circling his head like a crown. As he took off his
tarpaulin I observed that the top of his head was quite smooth and flat,
as if somebody had sat down on him when he was very young.

There was something noticeably hearty in this man's bronzed face, a
heartiness that seemed to extend to his loosely knotted neckerchief. But
what completely won my good-will was a picture of enviable loveliness
painted on his left arm. It was the head of a woman with the body of a
fish. Her flowing hair was of livid green, and she held a pink comb in
one hand. I never saw anything so beautiful. I determined to know that
man. I think I would have given my brass pistol to have had such a
picture painted on my arm.

While I stood admiring this work of art, a fat wheezy steamtug, with
the word AJAX in staring black letters on the paddlebox, came puffing up
alongside the Typhoon. It was ridiculously small and conceited, compared
with our stately ship. I speculated as to what it was going to do. In a
few minutes we were lashed to the little monster, which gave a snort and
a shriek, and commenced backing us out from the levee (wharf) with the
greatest ease.

I once saw an ant running away with a piece of cheese eight or ten times
larger than itself. I could not help thinking of it, when I found the
chubby, smoky-nosed tug-boat towing the Typhoon out into the Mississippi
River.

In the middle of the stream we swung round, the current caught us, and
away we flew like a great winged bird. Only it didn't seem as if we were
moving. The shore, with the countless steamboats, the tangled rigging of
the ships, and the long lines of warehouses, appeared to be gliding away
from us.

It was grand sport to stand on the quarter-deck and watch all this.
Before long there was nothing to be seen on other side but stretches of
low swampy land, covered with stunted cypress trees, from which drooped
delicate streamers of Spanish moss--a fine place for alligators and Congo
snakes. Here and there we passed a yellow sand-bar, and here and there a
snag lifted its nose out of the water like a shark.

"This is your last chance to see the city, To see the city, Tom," said
my father, as we swept round a bend of the river.

I turned and looked. New Orleans was just a colorless mass of something
in the distance, and the dome of the St. Charles Hotel, upon which
the sun shimmered for a moment, was no bigger than the top of old Aunt
Chloe's thimble.

What do I remember next? The gray sky and the fretful blue waters of the
Gulf. The steam-tug had long since let slip her hawsers and gone panting
away with a derisive scream, as much as to say, "I've done my duty, now
look out for yourself, old Typhoon!"

The ship seemed quite proud of being left to take care of itself, and,
with its huge white sails bulged out, strutted off like a vain turkey.
I had been standing by my father near the wheel-house all this while,
observing things with that nicety of perception which belongs only
to children; but now the dew began falling, and we went below to have
supper.

The fresh fruit and milk, and the slices of cold chicken, looked very
nice; yet somehow I had no appetite There was a general smell of tar
about everything. Then the ship gave sudden lurches that made it a
matter of uncertainty whether one was going to put his fork to his mouth
or into his eye. The tumblers and wineglasses, stuck in a rack over the
table, kept clinking and clinking; and the cabin lamp, suspended by four
gilt chains from the ceiling, swayed to and fro crazily. Now the floor
seemed to rise, and now it seemed to sink under one's feet like a
feather-bed.

There were not more than a dozen passengers on board, including
ourselves; and all of these, excepting a bald-headed old gentleman--a
retired sea-captain--disappeared into their staterooms at an early hour
of the evening.

After supper was cleared away, my father and the elderly gentleman,
whose name was Captain Truck, played at checkers; and I amused myself
for a while by watching the trouble they had in keeping the men in the
proper places. Just at the most exciting point of the game, the ship
would careen, and down would go the white checkers pell-mell among the
black. Then my father laughed, but Captain Truck would grow very angry,
and vow that he would have won the game in a move or two more, if
the confounded old chicken-coop--that's what he called the ship--hadn't
lurched.

"I--I think I will go to bed now, please," I said, laying my band on my
father's knee, and feeling exceedingly queer.

It was high time, for the Typhoon was plunging about in the most
alarming fashion. I was speedily tucked away in the upper berth, where
I felt a trifle more easy at first. My clothes were placed on a narrow
shelf at my feet, and it was a great comfort to me to know that my
pistol was so handy, for I made no doubt we should fall in with
Pirates before many hours. This is the last thing I remember with any
distinctness. At midnight, as I was afterwards told, we were struck by
a gale which never left us until we came in sight of the Massachusetts
coast.

For days and days I had no sensible idea of what was going on around me.
That we were being hurled somewhere upside-down, and that I didn't like
it, was about all I knew. I have, indeed, a vague impression that my
father used to climb up to the berth and call me his "Ancient Mariner,"
bidding me cheer up. But the Ancient Mariner was far from cheering up,
if I recollect rightly; and I don't believe that venerable navigator
would have cared much if it had been announced to him, through a
speaking-trumpet, that "a low, black, suspicious craft, with raking
masts, was rapidly bearing down upon us!"

In fact, one morning, I thought that such was the case, for bang! went
the big cannon I had noticed in the bow of the ship when we came on
board, and which had suggested to me the idea of Pirates. Bang! went
the gun again in a few seconds. I made a feeble effort to get at my
trousers-pocket! But the Typhoon was only saluting Cape Cod--the
first land sighted by vessels approaching the coast from a southerly
direction.

The vessel had ceased to roll, and my sea-sickness passed away as
rapidly as it came. I was all right now, "only a little shaky in my
timbers and a little blue about the gills," as Captain Truck remarked to
my mother, who, like myself, had been confined to the state-room during
the passage.

At Cape Cod the wind parted company with us without saying as much
as "Excuse me"; so we were nearly two days in making the run which in
favorable weather is usually accomplished in seven hours. That's what
the pilot said.

I was able to go about the ship now, and I lost no time in cultivating
the acquaintance of the sailor with the green-haired lady on his arm.
I found him in the forecastle--a sort of cellar in the front part of the
vessel. He was an agreeable sailor, as I had expected, and we became the
best of friends in five minutes.

He had been all over the world two or three times, and knew no end of
stories. According to his own account, he must have been shipwrecked
at least twice a year ever since his birth. He had served under Decatur
when that gallant officer peppered the Algerines and made them promise
not to sell their prisoners of war into slavery; he had worked a gun
at the bombardment of Vera Cruz in the Mexican War, and he had been on
Alexander Selkirk's Island more than once. There were very few things he
hadn't done in a seafaring way.

"I suppose, sir," I remarked, "that your name isn't Typhoon?"

"Why, Lord love ye, lad, my name's Benjamin Watson, of Nantucket. But
I'm a true blue Typhooner," he added, which increased my respect for
him; I don't know why, and I didn't know then whether Typhoon was the
name of a vegetable or a profession.

Not wishing to be outdone in frankness, I disclosed to him that my name
was Tom Bailey, upon which he said he was very glad to hear it.

When we got more intimate, I discovered that Sailor Ben, as he wished
me to call him, was a perfect walking picturebook. He had two anchors, a
star, and a frigate in full sail on his right arm; a pair of lovely blue
hands clasped on his breast, and I've no doubt that other parts of his
body were illustrated in the same agreeable manner. I imagine he was
fond of drawings, and took this means of gratifying his artistic taste.
It was certainly very ingenious and convenient. A portfolio might
be misplaced, or dropped overboard; but Sailor Ben had his pictures
wherever he went, just as that eminent person in the poem,

"With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes"--was accompanied by
music on all occasions.

The two bands on his breast, he informed me, were a tribute to the
memory of a dead messmate from whom he had parted years ago--and surely a
more touching tribute was never engraved on a tombstone. This caused me
to think of my parting with old Aunt Chloe, and I told him I should take
it as a great favor indeed if he would paint a pink hand and a black
hand on my chest. He said the colors were pricked into the skin with
needles, and that the operation was somewhat painful. I assured him, in
an off-hand manner, that I didn't mind pain, and begged him to set to
work at once.

The simple-hearted fellow, who was probably not a little vain of his
skill, took me into the forecastle, and was on the point of complying
with my request, when my father happened to own the gangway--a
circumstance that rather interfered with the decorative art.

I didn't have another opportunity of conferring alone with Sailor Ben,
for the next morning, bright and early, we came in sight of the cupola
of the Boston State House.




Chapter Four--Rivermouth


It was a beautiful May morning when the Typhoon hauled up at Long Wharf.
Whether the Indians were not early risers, or whether they were away
just then on a war-path, I couldn't determine; but they did not appear
in any great force--in fact, did not appear at all.

In the remarkable geography which I never hurt myself with studying
at New Orleans, was a picture representing the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers at Plymouth. The Pilgrim Fathers, in rather odd hats and coats,
are seen approaching the savages; the savages, in no coats or hats
to speak of, are evidently undecided whether to shake hands with the
Pilgrim Fathers or to make one grand rush and scalp the entire party.
Now this scene had so stamped itself on my mind, that, in spite of
all my father had said, I was prepared for some such greeting from
the aborigines. Nevertheless, I was not sorry to have my expectations
unfulfilled. By the way, speaking of the Pilgrim Fathers, I often used
to wonder why there was no mention made of the Pilgrim Mothers.

While our trunks were being hoisted from the hold of the ship, I mounted
on the roof of the cabin, and took a critical view of Boston. As we came
up the harbor, I had noticed that the houses were huddled together on an
immense bill, at the top of which was a large building, the State House,
towering proudly above the rest, like an amiable mother-hen surrounded
by her brood of many-colored chickens. A closer inspection did not
impress me very favorably. The city was not nearly so imposing as New
Orleans, which stretches out for miles and miles, in the shape of a
crescent, along the banks of the majestic river.

I soon grew tired of looking at the masses of houses, rising above one
another in irregular tiers, and was glad my father did not propose
to remain long in Boston. As I leaned over the rail in this mood, a
measly-looking little boy with no shoes said that if I would come down
on the wharf he'd lick me for two cents--not an exorbitant price. But I
didn't go down. I climbed into the rigging, and stared at him. This, as
I was rejoiced to observe, so exasperated him that he stood on his head
on a pile of boards, in order to pacify himself.

The first train for Rivermouth left at noon. After a late breakfast
on board the Typhoon, our trunks were piled upon a baggage-wagon, and
ourselves stowed away in a coach, which must have turned at least one
hundred corners before it set us down at the railway station.

In less time than it takes to tell it, we were shooting across the
country at a fearful rate--now clattering over a bridge, now screaming
through a tunnel; here we cut a flourishing village in two, like a
knife, and here we dived into the shadow of a pine forest. Sometimes
we glided along the edge of the ocean, and could see the sails of ships
twinkling like bits of silver against the horizon; sometimes we dashed
across rocky pasture-lands where stupid-eyed cattle were loafing. It was
fun to scare lazy-looking cows that lay round in groups under the newly
budded trees near the railroad track.