Only page of title Moderate
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once abrupt and novel. Why he came, when
he came, or how he came, we boys never knew. My
first remembrance of him is of his sudden appearance
in the midst of a game of "Ant'ny-over," in
which a dozen boys besides myself were most
enthusiastically engaged. The scene of the exciting
contest was the center of the main street of the
town, the elevation over which we tossed the ball
being the skeleton remains of a grand triumphal
arch, left as a sort of cadaverous reminder of some
recent political demonstration. Although I recall
the boy's external appearance upon that occasion
with some vagueness, I vividly remember that his
trousers were much too large and long, and that
his heavy, flapping coat was buttonless, and very
badly worn and damaged at the sleeves and elbows.
hat he wore; it was a high, silk, bell-crowned hat --
a man's hat and a veritable "plug" -- not a new and
shiny "plug," by any means, but still of dignity and
gloss enough to furnish a noticeable contrast to the
other appurtenances of its wearer's wardrobe. In
fact, it was through this latter article of dress that the
general attention of the crowd came at last to
be drawn particularly to its unfortunate possessor,
who, evidently directed by an old-time instinct, had
mechanically thrust the inverted "castor" under a
falling ball, and the ball, being made of yarn
wrapped tightly over a green walnut, and dropping
from an uncommon height, had gone through the
hat like a round shot.
by the singular mishap, and the victim of
the odd occurrence seemed himself inclined to join
in the boisterous laughter and make the most of
his ridiculous misfortune. He pulled the hat back
over his tousled head, and with the flapping crown
of it still clinging by one frayed hinge, he capered
through a grotesquely executed jig that made the
clamorous crowd about him howl again.
and with a palpably rancorous twinge of envy in
his heart; for Billy was the bad boy of our town,
and would doubtless have enjoyed the strange boy's
sudden notoriety in thus being able to convert
disaster into positive fun. "Wo! what a hat! "
reiterated Billy, making a feint to knock it from the
boy's head as the still capering figure pirouetted
past him.
suddenly in a backward course and danced past his
reviler again, this time much nearer than before.
"Better try it," he said, in a low, half-laughing
tone that no one heard but Billy and myself. He
was out of range in an instant, still laughing as he
went.
with a side-sweeping, flat-handed lick that sounded
like striking a rusty sheet of tin, the crownless
"plug" went spinning into the gutter, while, as
suddenly, the assaulted little stranger, with a peculiarly
pallid smile about his lips and an electric glitter
in his eye, adroitly flung his left hand forward,
smiting his insulter such a blow in the region of the
brow that the unguarded Billy went tumbling
backward, his plucky assailant prancing wildly
around his prostrate form.
in a contemptuous tone, cocking his fists up in a
scientific manner, and dropping into a stoop-
shouldered swagger that would have driven envy into
the heart of a bullying hack-driver. "Git the bloke
on his pins! " he sneered, turning to the crowd. --
"S'pose I'm goin' to hit a man w'en he's down?"
Stung with his unlooked-for downfall, bleeding
from the first blow ever given him by mortal boy,
and goaded to absolute frenzy by the taunts of his
swaggering enemy, Billy sprang to his feet, and a
moment later had succeeded in closing with the
boy in a rough-and-tumble fight, in which his
adversary was at a disadvantage, being considerably
smaller, hampered, too, with his loose, unbuttoned
coat and baggy trousers. But, for all that, he did
some very efficient work in the way of a deft and
telling blow or two upon the nose of his overpowering
foe, who sat astride his wriggling body, but
wholly unable to get in a lick.
challenge, I regret to say that in his passion he snatched
up from the street a broken buggy-spoke, before
which warlike weapon the strange boy was forced
warily to retreat. Step by step he gave way, and
step by step his threatening foe advanced. I think,
perhaps, part of the strange boy's purpose in thus
retreating was to arm himself with one of the "ax-
handles" that protruded from a churn standing in
front of a grocery, toward which he slowly backed
across the sidewalk. However that may be, it is
evident he took no note of an open cellar-way that
lay behind him, over the brink of which he deliberately
backed, throwing up his hands as he disappeared.
loungers in the grocery, attracted by the clamor of
the throng without, came to the door inquiringly;
one man, learning what had happened, peered down
the stairway of the cellar, and called to ask the boy
if he was hurt, which query was answered an instant
later by the appearance of the boy himself, his face
far whiter than his shirt, and his lips trembling,
but his teeth clenched.
the man leaned over and helped him up the steps,
the boy sweeping his keen eyes searchingly over the
faces of the crowd. "It's the RIGHT arm, though,"
he continued, glancing at the injured member dangling
helplessly at his side -- "THIS-'UN'S all right yet! "
and as he spoke he jerked from the man's assistance,
wheeled round, and an instant later, as a
buggy-spoke went hurtling through the air, he
slapped the bewildered face of Billy with his open
hand. "Dam' coward! " he said.
and the crowd closed in between the combatants,
following, as the boy with the broken arm was
hurried down street to the doctor's office, where the
door was immediately closed on the rabble and all
the mystery within -- not an utter mystery, either,
for three or four enterprising and sagacious boys
slipped off from the crowd that thronged in front,
and climbing by a roundabout way and over a high
board fence into the back yard, secretly posted
themselves at the blinded window in the rear of the little
one-roomed office and breathlessly awaited news
from within.
in Zeeny -- in Ohio som'er's, -- but he daresn't stay
round THERE no more, 'cause he broke up there, and
had to skedaddle er they'd clean him out! He says
he hain't got no mother, ner no brothers, ner no
sisters, ner no nothin' -- on'y," the boy in the window
added, with a very dry and painful swallow, "he
says he hain't got nothin' on'y thist the clothes on
his back!"
to novel and disastrous happenings, for once,
at least, had come upon a streak of better fortune;
for the doctor, it appeared, had someway taken a
fancy to him, and had offered him an asylum at
his own home and hearth -- the compensation stipulated,
and suggested by the boy himself, being a
conscientious and efficient service in the doctor's
stable. Even with his broken arm splinted and
bandaged and supported in a sling, The Boy from
Zeeny could daily be seen loping the doctor's spirited
horse up the back alley from the stable to the office,
with the utter confidence and careless grace
of a Bedouin. When, at last, the injured arm was
wholly well again, the daring feats of horsemanship
of which the boy was capable were listened to with
incredulity by the "good" boys of the village school,
who never played "hooky" on long summer afternoons,
and, in consequence, never had a chance of
witnessing The Boy from Zeeny loping up to the
"swimmin'-hole," a mile from town, barebacked,
with nothing but a halter, and his face turned
toward the horse's tail. In fact The Boy from
Zeeny displayed such a versatility of accomplishments,
and those, too, of a character but faintly
represented in the average boy of the country town,
that, for all the admiration their possessor evoked,
an equal envy was aroused in many a youthful
breast.
boy, with a slow, prophetic flourish of his head --
"the boys in this town says 'cause you come from
Zeeny and blacked Billy Kinzey's eye, 'at you think
you're goin' to run things round here! And you'll
find out you ain't the bosst o' this town! " and the
cross-eyed boy shook his head again with dire foreboding.
trying to focus a direct gaze on the boy's delusive
eyes, "w'y don't you talk straight out from the
shoulder? I reckon 'the boys in this town,' as you
call 'em, didn't send YOU round here to tell me what
THEY was goin' to do! But ef you want to take it
up fer 'em, and got any sand to back you, jest say it,
and I'll come down there and knock them durn
twisted eyes o' yourn straight ag'in!"
feebly; and then, as a sudden and most bewildering
smile lighted up his defective eyes, he exclaimed:
"Oh, I tell you what le's do! Le's me and you
git up a show in your stable, and don't let none o'
the other boys be in it! I kin turn a handspring
like you, and purt' nigh walk on my hands; and
you kin p'form on the slack-rope -- and spraddle
out like the 'inja-rubber man' -- and hold a pitch-
fork on yer chin-and stand up on a horse 'ithout
a-holdin' -- and -- and -- Oh! ever'thing! " And as the
cross-eyed boy breathlessly concluded this list of
strong attractions, he had The Boy from Zeeny so
thoroughly inoculated with the enterprise that he
warmly closed with the proposition, and the preparations
and the practise for the show were at once
inaugurated.
with the freckles of his face thrown into vivid relief
by an intense pallor, rushed pantingly into the
doctor's office with the fateful intelligence that The
Boy from Zeeny had "fell and broke his arm ag'in. "
And this time, as it seemed, the hapless boy had
surpassed the seriousness of all former fractures,
this last being of a compound nature, and very
painful in the setting, and tedious in recovery; the
recovery, too, being anything but perfect, since it
left the movement of the elbow somewhat restricted,
and threw the little fellow's arm into an unnatural
position, with the palm of the hand turned forward
as he walked. But for all that, the use of it was,
to all appearances, little impaired.
rough service as these accidents afforded that The
Boy from Zeeny had acquired the meager education
he possessed. The doctor's wife, who had from the
first been kind to him, grew to like him very much.
Through her gentle and considerate interest he was
stimulated to study by the occasional present of a
simple volume. Oftentimes the good woman would
devote an hour to his instruction in the mysteries of
the book's orthography and rhetoric.
been gathered by the doctor and his wife, was
corroborative in outline with the brief hint of it
communicated to the curious listeners at the rear
window of the doctor's office on the memorable day
of the boy's first appearance in the town. He was
without family, save a harsh, unfeeling father, who,
from every evidence, must have neglected and
abused the child most shamefully, the circumstantial
proof of this fact being evidenced in the boy's
frank acknowledgment that he had repeatedly "run
away" from him, and his still firm resolve to keep
his name a secret, lest he might thereby be traced
to his present security and fall once more into the
hands of his unnatural parent.
the lad's story showed hearty sympathy with him,
and when one morning it was rumored that The Boy
from Zeeny had mysteriously disappeared, and the
rumor rapidly developed into an unquestionable
fact, there was a universal sense of regret in the
little town, which in turn resolved itself into positive
indignation when it was learned from the doctor
that an explanation, printed in red keel on the
back of a fragment of circus-poster, had been
found folded and tucked away an the buckle-strap
of his horse's bridle. The somewhat remarkable
communication, in sprawling capitals, ran thus:
assuredly, and marred, maybe, with an unpardonable
profanity -- but it served. In the silence and gloom
of the old stable, the doctor's fingers trembled as
he read, and the good wife's eyes, peering anxiously
above his heaving shoulder, filled and overflowed
with tears.
this simple history to give this wayward boy back
to the hearts that loved him, and that still in memory
enshrine him with affectionate regard; but the
hapless lad -- the little ragged twelve-year-old that
wandered out of nowhere into town, and wandered
into nowhere out again -- never returned. Yet we
who knew him in those old days -- we who were
children with him, and, in spite of boyish jealousy
and petty bickerings, admired the gallant spirit of
the lad -- are continually meeting with reminders of
him; the last instance of which, in my own experience,
I can not refrain from offering here:
old town of my nativity, but through all my
wanderings a gracious fate has always kept me somewhere
in its pleasant neighborhood, and, in consequence,
I often pay brief visits to the scenes of my
long-vanished boyhood. It was during such a visit,
but a few short years ago, that remembrances of
my lost youth were most forcibly recalled by the
progress of the county fair, which institution I
was permitted to attend through the kindness of an
old chum who drove me over in his buggy.
down the track, I caught sight of a glossy span of
horses that in their perfect beauty of symmetry,
high heads and tossing manes looked as though
they were just prancing out of some Arabian dream.
The animals seemed nude of rein or harness, save
only a jeweled strap that crossed the breast of each,
together with a slender trace at either side connecting
with a jaunty little phaeton whose glittering
wheels slivered the sunshine into splinters as they
spun. Upon the narrow seat of the airy vehicle sat
the driver. No lines were wound about his hands
-- no shout or lash to goad the horses to their telling
speed. They were simply directed and controlled
by the graceful motions of a long and slender whip
which waved slowly to and fro above their heads.
The great crowd cheered the master as he came. He
arose deliberately, took off his hat, and bowed. The
applause was deafening. Still standing, he whizzed
past us and was gone. But something in the manner
of the handsome fellow struck me with a strange
sense of familiarity. Was it the utter disregard of
fear that I saw on his face? Was it the keenness
of the eye and the perfect self-possession of the
man? Or was it -- was it the peculiar way in which
the right arm had dropped to his side after his
salute to us while curving past us, and did I fancy,
for that reason, that the palm of his hand turned
forward as he stood?
