[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

MEANTIME Reuben grew into a knowledge of
all the town mischief, and into the practice
of such as came within the scope of his years. The
proposed introduction of the young stranger from
abroad to the advantages of the parsonage home did
not weigh upon his thought greatly. The prospect
of such a change did not soften him, whatever might
come of the event. In his private talk with Esther,
he had said, “I hope that French girl 'll be a clever
un; if she a'n't, I 'll” — and he doubled up a little
fist, and shook it, so that Esther laughed outright.

Not that the boy had any cruelty in him, but he
was just now learning from his older companions of
the village, who were more steeped in iniquity, that
defiant manner by which the Devil in all of us makes
his first pose preparatory to the onslaught that is to
come.

“Nay, Ruby, boy,” said Esther, when she had recovered
from her laughter, “you would n't hurt the
little un, would ye? Don't ye want a little playfellow,
Ruby?”

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

“I don't play with girls, I don't,” said Reuben.
“But, I say, Esther, what 'll papa do, if she dances?”

“What makes the boy think she 'll dance?” said
Esther.

“Because the Geography says the French people
dance; and Phil Elderkin showed me a picture with
girls dancing under a tree, and, says he, `That 's the
sort that 's comin' to y'r house.'”

“Well, I don't know,” said Esther, “but I guess
your Aunt Eliza 'd cure the dancin'.”

“She would n't cure me, if I wanted to,” said Reuben,
who thought it needful to speak in terms of bravado
about the spinster, with whom he kept up a series
of skirmishing fights from week to week. The truth is,
the keen eye of the good lady ferreted out a great many
of his pet plans of mischief, and nipped them before
they had time to ripen. Over and over, too, she warned
him against the evil associates whom he would find
about the village tavern, where he strayed from time to
time to be witness to some dog-fight, or to receive a
commendatory glance of recognition from one Nat
Boody, the tavern-keeper's son, who had run away two
years before and made a voyage down the river in a
sloop laden with apples and onions to “York.” He
was a head taller than Reuben, and the latter admired
him intensely: we never cease admiring those “a head
taller” than ourselves. Reuben absolutely pined in

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

longing wonderment at the way in which Nat Boody
could crack a coach-whip, and with a couple of hickory
sticks could “call the roll” upon a pine table equal to a
drum-major. Wonderful were the stories this boy could
tell, to special cronies, of his adventures in the city:
they beat the Geography “all hollow.” Such an air, too,
as this Boody had, leaning against the pump-handle
by his father's door, and making cuts at an imaginary
span of horses! — such a pair of twilled trousers,
cut like a man's! — such a jacket, with lapels to the
pockets, which he said “the sailors wore on the sloops,
and called 'em monkey-jackets”! — such a way as
he had of putting a quid in his mouth! for Nat Boody
chewed. It is not strange that Reuben, feeling a little
of ugly constraint under the keen eye of the spinster
Eliza, should admire greatly the free-and-easy manner
of the tavern-boy, who had such familiarity with the
world and such large range of action. The most of us
never get over a wonderment at the composure and
complacency which spring from a wide knowledge of
the world; and the man who can crack his whip well,
though only at an imaginary pair of horses, is sure to
have a throng of admirers.

By this politic lad, Nat Boody, the innocent Reuben
was decoyed into many a little bargain which told more
for the shrewdness of the tavern than for that of the
parsonage. Thus, he bartered one day a new

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

pocket-knife, the gift of his Aunt Mabel, of Greenwich Street,
for a knit Scotch cap, half-worn, which the tavern traveler
assured him could not be matched for any money.
And the parson's boy, going back with this trophy on
his head, looking very consciously at those who give an
admiring stare, is pounced upon at the very door-step
by the indefatigable spinster.

“What now, Reuben? Where in the world did you
get that cap?”

“Bought it,” — in a grand way.

“But it 's worn,” says the aunt. “Ouf! whose was
it?”

“Bought it of Nat Boody,” says Reuben; “and he
says there is n't another can be had.”

“Bah!” says the spinster, making a dash at the cap,
which she seizes, and, straightway rushing in-doors,
souses in a kettle of boiling water.

After which comes off a new skirmish, followed by
the partial defeat of Reuben, who receives such a combing
down (with sundry killed and wounded) as he remembers
for a month thereafter.

The truth is, that it was not altogether from admiration
of the accomplished Nat Boody that Reuben was
prone to linger about the tavern neighborhood. The
spinster had so strongly and constantly impressed it
upon him that it was a low and vulgar and wicked place,
that the boy, growing vastly inquisitive in these years,

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

was curious to find out what shape the wickedness
took; and as he walked by, sometimes at dusk, when
thoroughly infused with the last teachings of Miss Eliza,
it seemed to him that he might possibly catch a glimpse
of the hoofs of some devil (as he had seen devils pictured
in an illustrated Milton) capering about the doorway, —
and if he had seen them, truth compels us to
say that he would have felt a strong inclination to follow
them up, at a safe distance, in order to see what
kind of creatures might be wearing them. But he was
far more apt to see the lounging figure of the shoemaker
from down the street, or of Mr. Postmaster
Troop, coming thither to have an evening's chat about
Vice-President Calhoun, or William Wirt and the Anti-Masons.
Or possibly, it might be, he would see the light
heels of Suke Boody, the pretty daughter of the tavern-keeper,
who had been pronounced by Phil Elderkin,
who knew, (being a year his senior,) the handsomest
girl in the town. This might well be; for Suke was
just turned of fifteen, with pink arms and pink cheeks
and blue eyes and a great flock of brown hair: not
very startling in her beauty on ordinary days, when she
appeared in a pinned-up quilted petticoat, and her curls
in papers, sweeping the tavern-steps; but of a Saturday
afternoon, in red and white calico, with the curls all
streaming, — no wonder Phil Elderkin, who was tall
of his age, thought her handsome. So it happened that

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in
his furtive observations, but encountering always either
the rosy Suke, or “Scamp,” (which was Nat's pet fighting-dog,)
or the shoemaker, or the round-faced Mr.
Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt's
charge of the tavern wickedness only by distributing it
over them all. And when, one Sunday, Miss Suke appeared
at meeting (where she rarely went) in hat all
aflame with ribbons, Reuben, sorely puzzled at the
sight, says to his Aunt Eliza, —

“Why did n't the sexton put her out?”

“Put her out!” says the spinster, horrified, —
“what do you mean, Reuben?”

“Is n't she wicked?” says he; “she came from the
tavern, and she lives at the tavern.”

“But don't you know that preaching is for the
wicked, and that the good had much better stay away
than the bad?”

“Had they?” said Reuben, thoughtfully, pondering
if there did not lie somewhere in this averment the
basis for some new moral adjustment of his own conduct.

There are a vast many prim preachers, both male
and female, in all times, who imagine that certain styles
of wickedness or vulgarity are to be approached with
propriety only across a church; — as if better preaching
did not lie, nine times out of ten, in the touch of a
hand or a whisper in the ear!

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

Pondering, as Reuben did, upon the repeated warnings
of the spinster against any familiarity with the
tavern or tavern people, he came in time to reckon the
old creaking sign-board of Mr. Boody, and the pump in
the inn-yard, as the pivotal points of all the town
wickedness, just as the meeting-house was the center of
all the town goodness; and since the great world was
very wicked, as he knew from overmuch iteration at
home, and since communication with that wicked world
was kept up mostly by the stage-coach that stopped
every noon at the tavern-door, it seemed to him that
relays of wickedness must flow into the tavern and
town daily upon that old swaying stage-coach, just as
relays of goodness might come to the meeting-house on
some old lumbering chaise of a neighboring parson,
who once a month, perhaps, would “exchange” with
the Doctor. And it confirmed in Reuben's mind a good
deal that was taught him about natural depravity, when
he found himself looking out with very much more
eagerness for the rumbling coach, that kept up a daily
wicked activity about the tavern, than he did for Parson
Hobson, who snuffled in his reading, and who
drove an old, thin-tailed sorrel mare, with lopped ears
and lank jaws, that made passes at himself and Phil, if
they teased her, — as they always did.

So, too, he came to regard, in virtue of misplaced
home instruction, the monkey-jacket of Nat Boody, and

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

his fighting-dog “Scamp,” and the pink arms and pink
cheeks and brown ringlets of Suke Boody, as so many
types of human wickedness; and, by parity of reasoning,
he came to look upon the two flat curls on either
temple of his Aunt Eliza, and her pragmatic way, and
upon the yellow ribbons within the scoop-hat of Almira
Tourtelot, who sang treble and never went to the
tavern, as the types of goodness. What wonder, if he
swayed more and more toward the broad and easy
path that lay around the tavern-pump, (“Scamp” lying
there biting at the flies,) and toward the bar-room,
with its flaming pictures of some past menagerie-show,
and big tumblers with lemons atop, rather than to the
strait and narrow path in which his Aunt Eliza and
Miss Almira would guide him with sharp voices, thin
faces, and decoy of dyspeptic doughnuts?

Phil and he sauntering by one day, Phil says, —

“Darst you go in, Reub?”

Phil was under no law of prohibition. And Reuben,
glancing around the Common, says, —

“Yes, I 'll go.”

“Then,” says Phil, “we 'll call for a glass of lemonade.
Fellows 'most always order somethin', when they
go in.”

So Phil, swelling with his ten years, and tall of his
age, walks to the bar and calls for two tumblers of lemonade,
which Old Boody stirs with an appetizing rattle

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

of the toddy-stick, — dropping, meantime, a query or
two about the Squire, and a look askance at the parson's
boy, who is trying very hard to wear an air as if
he, too, were ten, and knew the ropes.

“It 's good, a'n't it?” says Phil, putting down his
money, of which he always had a good stock.

“Prime!” says Reuben, with a smack of the lips.

And then Suke comes in, hunting over the room for
last week's “Courant”; and the boys, with furtive
glances at those pink cheeks and brown ringlets, go
down the steps.

“A'n't she handsome?” says Phil.

Reuben is on the growth. And when he eats dinner
that day, with the grave Doctor carving the rib-roast
and the prim aunt ladling out the sauces, he is elated
with the vague, but not unpleasant consciousness, that
he is beginning to be familiar with the world.

Previous section

Next section