two manuscript pages (about 300 words) missing Ⓐemendation
me that put the apple there. I don’t know how long I waited, but it was very long. I didn’t mind it, because I was fixing up what I was going to say, and so it was delicious. First I thought I would call her Dear AmyⒺexplanatory note, though I was a little afraid; but soon I got used to it and it was beautiful. Then I changed it to Sweet Amy—which was better—and then I changed it again, to Darling Amy—which was bliss. When I got it all fixed at last, I was going to say, “Darling Amy, if you found an apple on the doorstep, which I think you did find one there, it was me that done it, and I hope you’ll think of me sometimes, if you can—only a little”—and I said that over ever so many times and got it all by heart so I could say it right off without ever thinking at all. And directly I saw a blue ribbon and a white frock—my heart began to beat again and my head began to swim and I began to choke—it got worse and worse the closer she came—and so, just in time I jumped behind the lumber and she went by. I only had the strength to sing out “ Apples Ⓐemendation!” and then I shinned it through the lumber yard and hid. How I did wish she knew my voice! And then I [begin page 2] got chicken-hearted and all in a tremble for fear she did know it. But I got easy after a while, when I came to remember that she didn’t know me, and so perhaps she wouldn’t know my voice either. When I said my prayers at night, I prayed for her. And I prayed the good God not to let the apple make her sick, and to bless her every way for the sake of Christ the Lord. And then I tried to go to sleep but I was troubled about Jimmy Riley, though she don’t know him, and I said the first chance I got I would lick him again.Ⓔexplanatory note Which I will.
Tuesday.—I played hookey yesterday morning, and stayed around about her street pretending I wasn’t doing it for anything, but I was looking out sideways at her window all the time, because I was sure I knew which one it was—and when people came along I turned away and sneaked off a piece when they looked at me, because I was dead sure from the way they looked that they knew what I was up to—but I watched out, and when they had got far away I went back again. Once I saw part of a dress flutter in that window, and O, how I felt! I was so happy as long as it was in sight—and so awful miserable when it went away—and so happy again when it came back. I could have staid there a year. Once I was watching it so close I didn’t notice, and kept getting further and further out in the street, till a man hollered “Hi!” and nearly ran over me with his wagon. I wished he had, because then I would have been crippled and they would have carried me into her house all bloody and busted up, and she would have cried, and I would have been per-fectly happy, because I would have had to stay there till I got wellⒺexplanatory note, which I wish I never would get well. But by and bye it turned out that that was the nigger chambermaid fluttering her dress at the window, and then I felt so down-hearted I wished I had never found it out. But I know which is her window now, because she came to it all of a sudden, and I thought my heart,Ⓐemendation was going to burst with happiness—but I turned my back and pretended I didn’t know she was there, and I went to shouting at some boys (there wasn’t any in sight,) [begin page 3] and “showing off” all I could. But when I sort of glanced around to see if she was taking notice of me she was gone—and then I wished I hadn’t been such a fool, and had looked at her when I had a chance. Maybe she thought I was cold towards her? It made me feel awful to think of it. Our torchlight procession came off last night. There was nearly eleven of us, and we had a lantern. It was splendid. It was John Wagner’s uncle’s lantern. I walked right alongside of John Wagner all the evening. Once he let me carry the lantern myself a little piece. Not when we were going by her house, but if she was where she could see us she could see easy enough that I knowed the boy that had the lantern. It was the best torchlight procession the boys ever got up—all the boys said so. I only wish I could find out what she thinks of it. I got them to go by her house four times. They didn’t want to go, because it is in a back street, but I hired them with marbles. I had twenty-two commas and a white alleyⒺexplanatory note when I started out, but I went home dead broke. Suppose I grieved any? No. I said I didn’t mind any expense when her happiness was concerned. I shouted all the time we were going by her house, and ordered the procession around lively, and so I don’t make any doubt but she thinks I was the captain of it—that is, if she knows me and my voice. I expect she does. I’ve got acquainted with her brother Tom, and I expect he tells her about me. I’m always hanging around him, and giving him things, and following him home and waiting outside the gate for him. I gave him a fish-hook yesterday; and last night I showed him my sore toe where I stumped it—and to-day I let him take my tooth that was pulled out New-Year’s to show to his mother. I hope she seen it. I was a-playing for that, anyway. How awful it is to meet her father and mother! They seem like kings and queens to me. And her brother Tom—I can hardly understand how it can be—but he can hug her and kiss her whenever he wants to. I wish I was her brother. But it can’t be, I don’t reckon.
Wednesday.—I don’t take any pleasure, nights, now, but [begin page 4] carrying on with the boys out in the street before her house, and talking loud and shouting, so she can hear me and know I’m there. And after school I go by about three times, all in a flutter and afraid to hardly glance over, and always letting on that I am in an awful hurry—going after the doctor or something. But about the fourth time I only get in sight of the house, and then I weaken—because I am afraid the people in the houses along will know what I am about. I am all the time wishing that a wild bull or an Injun would get after her so I could save her, but somehow it don’t happen so. It happens so in the books, but it don’t seem to happen so to me. After I go to bed, I think all the time of big boys insulting her and me a-licking them. Here lately, sometimes I feel ever so happy, and then again, and dreadful often, too, I feel mighty bad. Then I don’t take any interest in anything. I don’t care for apples, I don’t care for molasses candy, swinging on the gate don’t do me no good, and even sliding on the cellar door don’t seem like it used to did. I just go around hankering after something I don’t know what. I’ve put away my kite. I don’t care for kites now. I saw the cat pull the tail off of it without a pang. I don’t seem to want to go in a-swimming, even when Ma don’t allow me to. I don’t try to catch flies any more. I don’t take any interest in flies. Even when they light right where I could nab them easy, I don’t pay any attention to them. And I don’t take any interest in property. To-day I took everything out of my pockets, and looked at them—and the very things I thought the most of I don’t think the least about now. There was a ball, and a top, and a piece of chalk, and two fish hooks, and a buckskin string, and a long piece of twine, and two slate pencils, and a sure-enough chinaⒺexplanatory note, and three white alleys, and a spool cannonⒺexplanatory note, and a wooden soldier with his leg broke, and a real Barlow, and a hunk of maple sugar, and a jewsharp, and a dead frog, and a jaybird’s egg, and a door knob, and a glass thing that’s broke off of the top of a decanter (I traded two fish-hooks and a tin injun for it,) and a penny, and a potato-gunⒺexplanatory note, and two grasshoppers which their legs was pulled off, and a spectacle glass, and a [begin page 5] picture of Adam and Eve without a rag. I took them all up stairs and put them away. And I know I shall never care anything about property any more. I had all that trouble accumulating a fortune, and now I am not as happy as I was when I was poor. Joe Baldwin’s cat is dead, and they are expecting me to go to the funeral, but I shall not go. I don’t take any interest in funerals any more. I don’t wish to do anything but just go off by myself and think of her. I wish I was dead—that is what I wish I was. Then maybe she would be sorry.
Friday.—My mother don’t understand it. And I can’t tell her. She worries about me, and asks me if I’m sick, and where it hurts me—and I have to say that I ain’t sick and nothing don’t hurt me, but she says she knows better, because it’s the measles. So she gave me ipecac, and calomel, and all that sort of stuff and made me awful sick. And I had to go to bed, and she gave me a mug of hot sage tea and a mug of hot saffron tea, and covered me up with blankets and said that that would sweat me and bring it to the surface. I suffered. But I couldn’t tell her. Then she said I had bile. And so she gave me some warm salt water and I heaved up everything that was in me. But she wasn’t satisfied. She said there wasn’t any bile in that. So she gave me two blue mass pillsⒺexplanatory note, and after that a tumbler of Epsom salts to work them off—which it did work them off. I felt that what was left of me was dying, but still I couldn’t tell. The measles wouldn’t come to the surface and so it wasn’t measles; there wasn’t any bile, and so it wasn’t bile. Then she said she was stumped—but there was some thing Ⓐemendation the matter, and so there was nothing to do but tackle it in a sort of a general way. I was too weak and miserable to care much. And so she put bottles of hot water to my feet, and socks full of hot ashes on my breast, and a poultice on my head. But they didn’t work, and so she gave me some rhubarb to regulate my bowels, and put a mustard plaster on my back. But at last she said she was satisfied it wasn’t a cold on the chest. It must be general stagnation of the blood, and then I knew what was coming. But I [begin page 6] couldn’t tell, and so, with her name on my lips I delivered myself up and went through the water treatment—douche, sitz, wet-sheet and shower-bathⒺexplanatory note (awful,)—and came out all weak, and sick, and played out. Does she—ah, no, she knows nothing of it. And all the time that I lay suffering, I did so want to hear somebody only mention her name—and I hated them because they thought of everything else to please me but that. And when at last somebody did mention it my face and my eyes lit up so that my mother clasped her hands and said: “ThanksⒶemendation, O thanks, the pills are operating!”
Saturday Night.—This was a blessed day. Mrs. Johnson came to call and as she passed through the hall I saw—O, I like to jumped out of bed!—I saw the flash of a little red dress, and I knew who was in it. Mrs. Johnson is her aunt. And when they came in with Ma to see me I was perfectly happy. I was perfectly happy but I was afraid to look at her except when she was not looking at me. Ma said I had been very sick, but was looking ever so much better now. Mrs. Johnson said it was a dangerous time, because children got hold of so much fruit. Now she said Amy found an apple [I started,] on the doorstep [Oh!] last Sunday, [Oh, geeminy, the very, very one!] and ate it all up, [Bless her heart!] and it gave her the colic. [Dern that apple!] And so she had been sick, too, poor dear, and it was her Billy that did it—though she couldn’t know that, of course. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her all about it and ask her to forgive me, but I was afraid to even speak to her. But she had suffered for my sake, and I was happy. By and bye she came near the bed and looked at me with her big blue eyes, and never flinched. It gave me some spunk. Then she said:
“What’s your name?—Eddie, or Joe?”
I said, “It ain’t neither—it’s Billy.”
“Billy what?”
“Billy Rogers.”
“Has your sister got a doll?”
“I ain’t got any sister.”
[begin page 7] “It ain’t a pretty name I don’t think—much.”
“Which?”
“Why Billy Rogers—Rogers ain’t, but Billy is. Did you ever see two cats fighting?—I have.”
“Well I reckon I have. I’ve made ’em fight. More’n a thousand times. I’ve fit ’em over close-lines, and in boxes, and under barrels—every way. ButⒶemendation the most fun is to tie fire-crackers to their tails and see ’em scatter for home. Your name’s Amy, ain’t it?—and you’re eight years old, ain’t you?”
“Yes, I’ll be nine, ten months and a half from now, and I’ve got two dolls, and one of ’em can cry and the other’s got its head broke and all the sawdust is out of its legs—it don’t make no difference, though—I’ve give all its dresses to the other. Is this the first time you ever been sick?”
“ No! Ⓐemendation I’ve had the scarlet fever and the mumps, and the hoop’n cough, and ever so many things. H’mph! I don’t consider it anything to be sick.”
“My mother don’t, either. She’s been sick maybe a thousand times—and once, would you believe it, they thought she was going to die.”
“They always think I’m going to die. The doctors always gives me up and has the family crying and snuffling round here. But I only think it’s bully.”
“Bully is naughty, my mother says, and she don’t ’low Tom to say it. Who do you go to school to?”
“Peg-leg Bliven. That’s what the boys calls him, cause he’s got a cork leg.”
“Goody! I’m going to him, too.”
“Oh, that’s Ⓐemendation bul—. I like that. When?”
“To-morrow. Will you play with me?”
“You bet!”
Then Mrs. Johnson called her and she said “Good-bye, Billy”—she called me Billy—and then she went away and left me so happy. And she gave me a chunk of molasses candy, and I put it next my heart, and it got warm and stuck, and it won’t come off, and I can’t get my shirt off, but I don’t mind it. I’m only glad. But [begin page 8] won’t I be out of this and at school Monday? I should think so.
Thursday.—They’ve been plaguing us. We’ve been playing together three days, and to-day I asked her if she would be my little wife and she said she would, and just then Jim Riley and Bob Sawyer jumped up from behind the fence where they’d been listening, and begun to holler at the other scholars and told them all about it. So she went away crying, and I felt bad enough to cry myself. I licked Jim Riley, and Bob Sawyer licked me, and Jo Bryant licked Sawyer, and Peg-leg licked all of us. But nothing could make me happy. I was too dreadful miserable on account of seeing her cry.
Friday.—She didn’t come to school this morning, and I felt awful. I couldn’t study, I couldn’t do anything. I got a black mark because I couldn’t tell if a man had five apples and divided them equally among himself and gave the rest away, how much it was—or something like that. I didn’t know how many parts of speech there was, and I didn’t care. I was head of the spelling class and I spellt baker with two k’s and got turned down footⒺexplanatory note. I got lathered for drawing a picture of her on the slate, though it looked more like women’s hoops with a hatchet on top than it looked like her. But I didn’t care for sufferings. Bill Williams bent a pin and I set down on it, but I never even squirmed. Jake Warner hit me with a spit-ball, but I never took any notice of it. The world was all dark to me. The first hour that morning was awful. Something told me she wouldn’t be there. I don’t know what, but something told me. And my heart sunk away down when I looked among all the girls and didn’t find her. No matter what was going on, that first hour, I was watching the door. I wouldn’t hear the teacher sometimes, and then I got scolded. I kept on hoping and hoping— and starting, a little, every time the door opened—till it was no use—she wasn’t coming. And when she came in the afternoon, it was all bright again. But she passed by me and never even looked at me. I felt so bad. I tried to catch her eye, but I couldn’t. She always looked the other way. At last she set up close to Jimmy [begin page 9] Riley and whispered to him a long, long time—five minutes, I should think. I wished that I could die right in my tracks. And I said to myself I would lick Jim Riley till he couldn’t stand. Presently she looked at me—for the first time—but she didn’t smile. She laid something as far as she could toward the end of the bench and motioned that it was for me. Soon as the teacher turned I rushed there and got it. It was wrote on a piece of copy-book, and so the first line wasn’t hers. This is the letter:
“Time and Tide wait for no Man.
“mister william rogers i do not love you dont come about me any more i will not speak to you”
I cried all the afternoon, nearly, and I hated her. She passed by me two or three times, but I never noticed her. At recess I licked three of the boys and put my arms round May Warner’s neck, and she saw me do it, too, and she didn’t play with anybody at all. Once she came near me and said very low, “Billy, I—I’m sorry.” But I went away and wouldn’t look at her. But pretty soon I was sorry myself. I was scared, then. I jumped up and ran, but school was just taking in and she was already gone to her seat. I thought what a fool I was; and I wished it was to do over again, I wouldn’t go away. She had said she was sorry—and I wouldn’t notice her. I wished the house would fall on me. I felt so mean for treating her so when she wanted to be friendly. How I did wish I could catch her eye!—I would look a look that she would understand. But she never, never looked at me. She sat with her head down, looking sad, poor thing. She never spoke but once during the afternoon, and then it was to that hateful Jim Riley. I will pay him for this conduct.
Saturday.—Going home from school Friday evening, she went with the girls all around her, and though I walked on the outside, and talked loud, and ran ahead sometimes, and cavorted around, and said all sorts of funny things that made the other girls laugh, she wouldn’t laugh, and wouldn’t take any notice of me at all. At her gate I was close enough to her to touch her, and she knew it, but she wouldn’t look around, but just went straight [begin page 10] in and straight to the door, without ever turning. And Oh, how I felt! I said the world was a mean, sad place, and had nothing for me to love or care for in it—and life, life was only misery. It was then that it first came into my head to take my life. I don’t know why I wanted to do that, except that I thought it would make her feel sorry. I liked that, but then she could only feel sorry a little while, because she would forget it, but I would be dead for always. I did not like that. If she would be sorry as long as I would be dead, it would be different. But anyway, I felt so dreadful that I said at last that it was better to die than to live. So I wrote a letter like this:
“Darling Amy
“I take my pen in hand to inform you that I am in good health and hope these fiew lines will find you injoying the same god’s blessing I love you. I cannot live and see you hate me and talk to that Jim riley which I will lick every time I ketch him and have done so already I do not wish to live any more as we must part. I will pisen myself when I am done writing this and that is the last you will ever see of your poor Billy forever. I enclose my tooth which was pulled out newyears, keep it always to remember me by, I wish it was larger. Your dyeing Billy Rogers.”
I directed it to her and took it and put it under her father’s door. Then I looked up at her window a long time, and prayed that she might be forgiven for what I was going to do—and then cried and kissed the ground where she used to step out at the door, and took a pinch of the dirt and put it next my heart where the candy was, and started away to die. But I had forgotten to get any poison. Something else had to be done. I went down to the river, but it would not do, for I remembered that there was no place there but was over my head. I went home and thought I would jump off of the kitchen, but every time, just I had clumb nearly to the eaves I slipped and fell, and it was plain to be seen that it was dangerous—so I gave up that plan. I thought of hanging, and started up stairs, because I knew where there was a new bed-cord, but I recollected my father telling me if he ever caught [begin page 11] me meddling with that bed-cord he would thrash me in an inch of my life—and so I had to give that up. So there was nothing for it but poison. I found a bottle in the closet, labeled laudanum on one side and castor oil on the other. I didn’t know which it was, but I drank it all. I think it was oil. I was dreadful sick all night, and not constipated, my mother says, and this morning I had lost all interest in things, and didn’t care whether I lived or died. But Oh, by nine o’clock she was here, and came right in—how my heart did beat and my face flush when I saw her dress go by the window!—she came right in and came right up to the bed, before Ma, and kissed me, and the tears were in her eyes, and she said, “Oh, Billy, how could you be so naughty!—and Bingo is going to die, too, because another dog’s bit him behind and all over, and Oh, I shan’t have anybody to love!”—and she cried and cried. But I told her I was not going to die and I would love her, always—and then her face brightened up, and she laughed and clapped her hands and said now as Ma was gone out, we’d talk all about it. So I kissed her and she kissed me, and she promised to be my little wife and love me forever and never love anybody else; and I promised just the same to her. And then I asked her if she had any plans, and she said No, she hadn’t thought of that—no doubt I could plan everything. I said I could, and it would be my place, being the husband, to always plan and direct, and look out for her, and protect her all the time. She said that was right. But I said she could make suggestions—she ought to say what kind of a house she would rather live in. So she said she would prefer to have a little cosy cottage, with vines running over the windows and a four-story brick attached where she could receive company and give parties—that was all. And we talked a long time about what profession I had better follow. I wished to be a pirate, but she said that would be horrid. I said there was nothing horrid about it—it was grand. She said pirates killed people. I said of course they did—what would you have a pirate do?—it’s in his line. She said, But just think of the blood! I said I loved blood and carnage. She shuddered. She said, well, perhaps [begin page 12] it was best, and she hoped I would be great. Great! I said, where was there ever a pirate that wasn’t great? Look at Capt. Kydd—look at Morgan—look at Gibbs—look at the noble Lafitte—look at the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!Ⓔexplanatory note —names that ’llⒶemendation never die. That pleased her, and so she said, let it be so. And then we talked about what she should do. She wanted to keep a milliner shop, because then she could have all the fine clothes she wanted; and on Sundays, when the shop was closed, she would be a teacher in Sunday-school. And she said I could help her teach her class Sundays when I was in port. So it was all fixed that as soon as ever we grow up we’ll be married, and I am to be a pirate and she’s to keep a milliner shop. Oh, it is splendid. I wish we were grown up now. Time does drag along so! But won’t it be glorious! I will be away a long time cruising, and then some Sunday morning I’ll step into Sunday School with my long black hair, and my slouch hat with a plume in it, and my long sword and high boots and splendid belt and red satin doublet and breeches, and my black flag with scull and cross-bones on it, and all the children will say, “Look—look—that’s Rogers the pirate!” Oh, I wish time would move along faster.
Tuesday.—I was disgraced in school before her yesterday. These long summer days are awful. I couldn’t study. I couldn’t think of anything but being free and far away on the bounding billow. I hate school, anyway. It is so dull. I sat looking out of the window and listening to the buzz, buzz, buzzing of the scholars learning their lessons, till I was drowsy and did want to be out of that place so much. I could see idle boys playing on the hill-side, and catching butterflies whose fathers ain’t able to send them to school, and I wondered what I had done that God should pick me out more than any other boy and give me a father able to send me to school. But I never could have any luck. There wasn’t anything I could do to pass off the time. I caught some flies, but I got tired of that. I couldn’t see Amy, because they’ve moved her seat. I got mad looking out of the window at those boys. By and bye, my chum, Bill Bowen, he bought a louse from Archy Thompson [begin page 13] —he’s got millions of them—bought him for a white alley and put him on the slate in front of him on the desk and begun to stir him up with a pinⒺexplanatory note. He made him travel a while in one direction, and then he headed him off and made him go some other way. It was glorious fun. I wanted one, but I hadn’t any white alley. Bill kept him a-moving—this way—that way—every way—and I did wish I could get a chance at him myself, and I begged for it. Well, Bill made a mark down the middle of the slate, and he says,
“Now when he is on my side, I’ll stir him up—and I’ll try to keep him from getting over the line, but if he does get over it, then you can stir him up as long as he’s over there.”
So he kept stirring him up, and two or three times he was so near getting over the line that I was in a perfect fever; but Bill always headed him off again. But at last he got on the line and all Bill could do he couldn’t turn him—he made a dead set to come over, and presently over he did come, head over heels, upside down, a-reaching for things and a-clawing the air with all his hands! I snatched a pin out of my jacket and begun to waltz him around, and I made him git up and git—it was splendid fun—but at last, I kept him on my side so long that Bill couldn’t stand it any longer, he was so excited, and he reached out to stir him up himself. I told him to let him alone, and behave himself. He said he wouldn’t. I said
“You’ve got to—he’s on my side, now, and you haven’t got any right to punch him.”
He said, “I haven’t, haven’t I? By George he’s my louse—I bought him for a white alley, and I’ll do just as I blame please with him!”
And then I felt somebody nip me by the ear, and I saw a hand nip Bill by the ear. It was Peg-leg the schoolmaster. He had sneaked up behind, just in his natural mean way, and seen it all and heard it all, and we had been so taken up with our circus that we hadn’t noticed that the buzzing was all still and the scholars watching Peg-leg and us. He took us up to his throne by the ears and thrashed us good, and Amy saw it all. I felt so mean that I sneaked away from school without speaking to her, and at night [begin page 14] when I said my prayers I prayed that I might be taken away from school and kept at home until I was old enough to be a pirate.*
Tuesday Week.—For six whole days she has been gone to the
country. The first three days, I played hookey all the time, and got licked for it
as much as a dozen times. But I didn’t
care. I was desperate. I didn’t care for anything. Last Saturday was the day for the
battle between our school and Hog
Davis’s school (that is the boys’s name for their teacher). I’m captain of a company
of the littlest boys in
our school. I came on the ground without any paper hat and without any wooden sword,
and with my jacket on my arm. The Colonel
said I was a fool—said I had kept both armies waiting for me a half an hour, and now
to come looking like that—and I
better not let the General see me. I said him and the General both could lump it if
they didn’t like it. Then he put me
under arrest—under arrest of that Jim Riley—and I just licked Jim Riley and got out of
arrest—and then I waltzed into Hog Davis’s infant department and the way I made the
fur fly was awful. I wished Amy
could see me then. We drove the whole army over the hill and down by the slaughter
house and lathered them good, and then they
surrendered till next Saturday. I was made a lieutenant-colonel for desperate conduct
in the field and now I am almost the
youngest lieutenant-colonel we’ve got. I reckon I ain’t no slouch. We’ve got thirty-two
officers and fourteen
men in our army, and we can take that Hog Davis crowd and do for them any time, even
if they have got two
more men than we have, and eleven more officers. But nobody knew what made me fight
so—nobody but two or three, I guess.
They never thought of Amy. Going home, Wart Hopkins overtook me (that’s his nickname—because
he’s all over
warts). He’d been out to the cross-roads burying a bean that he’d bloodied with a
wart to make them go away and he
was going home,Ⓐemendation now. I was in business with him once, and we had fell out. We had a circus and both
of
*Every detail of the above incident is strictly true, as I have excellent reason to remember.—[M.T. [begin page 15] us wanted to be clown, and he wouldn’t give up. He was always contrary that way. And he wanted to do the zam, and I wanted to do the zam (which the zam means the zampillerostation), and there it was again. He knocked a barrel from under me when I was a-standing on my head one night, and once when we were playing Jack the Giant-KillerⒶemendation I tripped his stilts up and pretty near broke him in two. We charged two pins admission for big boys and one pin for little ones—and when we came to divide up he wanted to shove off all the pins on me that hadn’t any heads on. That was the kind of a boy he was—always mean. He always tied the little boys’ clothes when they went in a-swimming. I was with him in the nigger-show business once, too, and he wanted to be bonesⒺexplanatory note all the time himself. He would sneak around and nip marbles with his toes and carry them off when the boys were playing knucksⒶemendation, or anything like that; and when he was playing himself he always poked or he always hunched. He always throwed his nutshells under some small boy’s bench in school and let him get lammed. He used to put shoemaker’s wax in the teacher’s seat and then play hookey and let some other fellow catch it. I hated Wart Hopkins. But now he was in the same fix as myself, and I did want somebody to talk to so bad, who was in that fix. He loved Susan Hawkins and she was gone to the country too. I could see he was suffering, and he could see I was. I wanted to talk, and he wanted to talk, though we hadn’t spoken for a long, long time. Both of us was full. So he said let bygones be bygones—let’s make up and be good friends, because we’d ought to be, fixed as we were. I just overflowed, and took him around the neck and went to crying, and he took me around the neck and went to crying, and we were perfectly happy because we were so miserable together. And I said I would always love him and Susan, and he said he would always love me and Amy—beautiful, beautiful Amy, he called her, which made me feel good and proud; but not quite so beautiful as Susan, he said, and I said it was a lie and he said I was another and a fighting one and darsn’t take it up; and I hit him and he hit me back, and then we [begin page 16] had a fight and rolled down a gulley into the mud and gouged and bit and hit and scratched, and neither of us was whipped; and then we got out and commenced it all over again and he put a chip on his shoulder and dared me to knock it off and I did, and so we had it again, and then he went home and I went home, and Ma asked me how I got my clothes all tore off and was so ragged and bloody and bruised up, and I told her I fell down, and then she black-snaked me and I was all right. And the very next day I got a letter from Amy! Mrs. Johnson brought it to me. It said:
“mister william rogers dear billy i have took on so i am all Wore out a crying becos i Want to see you so bad the cat has got kittens but it Dont make me happy i Want to see you all the Hens lays eggs excep the old Rooster and mother and me Went to church Sunday and had hooklebeary pie for Dinner i think of you Always and love you no more from your amy at present
Amy.”
I read it over and over and over again, and kissed it, and studied out new meanings in it, and carried it to bed with me and read it again first thing in the morning. And I did feel so delicious I wanted to lay there and think of her hours and hours and never get up. But they made me. The first chance I got I wrote to her, and this is it:
“Darling Amy
“I have had lots of fights and I love you all the same. I have changed my dog which his name was Bull and now his name is Amy. I think its splendid and so does he I reckon because he always comes when I call him Amy though he’d come anyhow ruther than be walloped, which I would wallop him if he didn’t. I send you my picture. The things on the lower side are the legs, the head is on the other end, the horable thing which its got in its hand is you though not so pretty by a long sight. I didn’t mean to put only one eye in your face but there wasnt room. I have been thinking sometimes I’ll be a pirate and sometimes I’ll keep grocery on account of candy And I would like ever so much to be a brigadire General or a deck hand on a steamboat because [begin page 17] they have fun you know and go everywheres. But a fellow cant be everything I dont reckon. I have traded off my sunday school book and Ma’s hatchet for a pup and I reckon I’m going to ketch it, maybe. Its a good pup though. It nipped a chicken yesterday and goes around raising cain all the time. I love you to destruction Amy and I can’t live if you dont come back. I had the branch dammed up beautiful for water-mills, but I dont care for water mills when you are away so I traded the dam to Jo Whipple for a squirt gun though if you was here I wouldnt give a dam for a squirt gun because we could have water mills. So no more from your own true love.
My pen is bad my ink is paleRoses is red the violets blue
But my love for you shall never change.
William T. Rogers.
“P.S. I learnt that poetry from Sarah Mackleroy—its beautiful.”
Tuesday Fortnight.—I’m thankful that I’m free. I’ve come to myself. I’ll never love another girl again. There’s no dependence in them. If I was going to hunt up a wife I would just go in amongst a crowd of girls and say
“Eggs, cheese, butter, bread,Stick, stock, stone—dead!”
and take the one it lit on just the same as if I was choosing up for fox or basteⒶemendation or three-cornered cat or hide’n’whoopⒺexplanatory note or anything like that. I’d get along just as well as by selecting them out and falling in love with them the way I did with—with—I can’t write her name, for the tears will come. But she has treated me Shameful. The first thing she did when she got back from the country was to begin to object to me being a pirate—because some of her kin is down on pirates I reckon—though she said it was because I would be away from home so much. A likely story, indeed—if she knowed anything about pirates she’d know that they go and come just whenever they please, which other people can’t. Well I’ll be a pirate now, in spite of all the girls in the world. And next [begin page 18] she didn’t want me to be a deck hand on a steamboat, or else it was a judge she didn’t want me to be, because one of them wasn’t respectable, she didn’t know which—some more bosh from relations I reckon. And then she said she didn’t want to keep a milliner shop, she wanted to clerk in a toy-shop, and have an open barouche and she’d like me to sell peanuts and papers on the railroad so she could ride without it costing anything.
“What!” I said, “and not be a pirate at all?”
She said yes. I was disgusted. I told her so. Then she cried, and said I didn’t love her, and wouldn’t do anything to please her, and wanted to break her heart and have some other girl when she was dead, and then I cried, too, and told her I did love her, and nobody but her, and I’d do anything she wanted me to and I was sorry, Oh, so sorry. But she shook her head, and pouted—and I begged again, and she turned her back—and I went on pleading and she wouldn’t answer—only pouted—and at last when I was getting mad, she slammed the jewsharp, and the tin locomotive and the spool cannonⒶemendation and everything I’d given her, on the floor, and flourished out mad and crying like sin, and said I was a mean, good-for-nothing thing and I might go and be a pirate and welcome!—she never wanted to see me any more! And I was mad and crying, too, and I said By George I would be a pirate, and an awful bloody one, too, or my name warn’t Bill Rogers!
And so it’s all over between us. But now that it is all over, I feel mighty, mighty bad. The whole school knowed we were engaged, and they think itⒶemendation strange to see us flirting with other boys and girls, but we can’t help that. I flirt with other girls, but I don’t care anything about them. And I see her lip quiver sometimes and the tears come in her eyes when she looks my way when she’s flirting with some other boy—and then I do want to rush there and grab her in my arms and be friends again!
Saturday.—I am happy again, and forever, this time. I’ve seen her! I’ve seen the girl that is my doom. I shall die if I cannot get her. The first time I looked at her I fell in love with her. She [begin page 19] looked at me twice in church yesterday, and Oh how I felt! She was with her mother and her brother. When they came out of church I followed them, and twice she looked back and smiled, and I would have smiled too, but there was a tall young man by my side and I was afraid he would notice. At last she dropped a leaf of a flower—rose geranium Ma calls it—and I could see by the way she looked that she meant it for me, and when I stooped to pick it up the tall young man stooped too. I got it, but I felt awful sheepish, and I think he did, too, because he blushed. He asked me for it, and I had to give it to him, though I’d rather given him my bleeding heart, but I pinched off just a little piece and kept it, and shall keep it forever. Oh, she is so lovely! And she loves me. I know it. I could see it, easy. Her name’s Laura Miller. She’s nineteen years old, Christmas. I never, never, never will part with this one! Never.