his name was johnny leslie, and he was standing on an empty flour barrel; in his hand was his united states history, and he was shouting at the top of his little voice,—
“all men are born free and equal, and endowed with certain in-in-alienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
he stopped a minute to draw a long breath, and his audience, who was sitting in an easy position upon the upturned kitchen coal scuttle, with her oldest child in her arms, took the opportunity to ask meekly,—
“what does that dreadful long word mean, johnny? i never heard of that kind of rights before.”
“you’ll know when you’re older, tiny,” said johnny, loftily, and he was going on with his oration, but the audience was not to be silenced in this easy manner, and persisted,—
“but i want to know right away, now! i don’t believe you know yourself, johnny leslie!”
“well, i don’t believe i do,” said johnny, candidly, and in his own natural voice. “we might ask mamma, she’s up there at her window, i can see the back of her head. o mamma!”
there was no doubt about mrs. leslie’s hearing; if she had been in the top of the apple tree, at the foot of the garden, she could have heard that “o mamma!” perfectly well.
a pleasant face appeared where johnny had seen the head, and a sweet voice said, “o johnny!”
“mamma, what does in-a-li-en-able mean?” shouted the orator, still loudly enough for the top of the apple tree.
“i’ve the greatest mind in the world to drop my new ‘webster’s unabridged’ on your head, you wild indian,” said mrs. leslie, holding the big dictionary threateningly, over the edge of the window-sill, and johnny’s head. “don’t you suppose i have any inalienable rights? and do you think i can even pursue my happiness, much less catch it, with all this hullaballoo under my window when i am trying to write a letter?”
“well, mamma, tiny and i would just as lief go to the barn,” replied johnny, in a reasonable tone of voice, “if you’ll just please tell us first what that word means. you see, as tiny’s asked me, maybe some of the boys might ask, and i ought to be able to tell them.”
“come up here, then, if you please,” said mrs. leslie. “i am not a fourth-of-july orator, and so i do not need to practise shouting, just now.”
so johnny and tiny and veronica—who was tiny’s oldest child, and was made of what had once been white muslin, with cotton stuffing—came upstairs, and had it explained to them that inalienable meant that which cannot be separated, or taken away.
“but, i don’t see how that works,” said johnny, looking puzzled, “for folks do take our rights away; i’m having lots of mine taken away, all the time. i’m very fond of you, mammy, and you know it, but still you sometimes take away my rights yourself.”
“for a fourth-of-july orator,” said mrs. leslie, gravely, “you are showing a painful amount of ignorance. we will suppose, for the sake of argument, that i take away, or deprive you of, certain things to which you have a right, but the right to have them is there, all the same. taking away the things does not touch that. do you see what i mean?”
“yes, mamma, i think i do,” answered johnny, thoughtfully, “but it’s kind of puzzling. it’s most as bad as ‘if a herring and a half cost a cent and a half, how much will three herrings cost?’ but i did get that through my head, and i suppose i can get this.”
“but, sometimes,” said mrs. leslie, “people’s ‘inalienable rights’ seem to conflict; i say seem, for they never really do. for instance, as you have a gentleman for a father, and a woman who tries to be a lady for a mother, i feel as if i had an inalienable right to a gentleman for a son, and a lady for a daughter; and when my son talks about getting a thing through his head, i begin to wonder what is becoming of my rights!”
“now, mamma,” said johnny, appealingly, “that’s just nothing at all to what some of the boys say. but i’d like to hear anybody say that you aren’t a lady, or that papa isn’t a gentleman!” and johnny doubled his fists fiercely at the bare idea of such a statement.
“you may live to have that pleasure,” said mrs. leslie, “if you let the boys have more of a right in you than i have.”
johnny caught his mother in a “bear hug.” “i never thought of it that way,” he said. “no ma’am! you’ve the very first, best right and title to me, mrs. mother, and the boys may go bang—oh, there i go again! i mean the boys may—what shall i say?”
“you might say that the boys may exercise their inalienable rights over somebody else,” said his mother, laughing and kissing him. “but now i’ll tell you what we will do—i really don’t think it would look well for a fourth-of-july orator to read his oration out of an united states history, so when papa comes home, i will ask him to have the declaration of independence printed on two or three sheets of paper for you, and we’ll tie them together with a handsome bow of blue ribbon, and meanwhile, if you’ve no objection, you will practise in the barn.”
“of course i will, you loveliest woman alive!” said johnny, rapturously, “and i shall try not to have my rights treading on anybody else’s rights’ toes!” with which extraordinary declaration, he pranced off to the barn, closely followed by tiny and veronica.
there was to be a picnic on the fourth-of-july. mr. and mrs. leslie and three or four neighbor families had agreed to take their dinners in baskets and butter-kettles, to a very pretty grove which grew obligingly near to the little village-city where they lived, and where mr. leslie edited the one newspaper of the place, which fact enabled him to have the declaration conveniently printed for johnny, who had been chosen by the boys for the orator of the day, because he stood highest in his reading and declamation classes. it wanted three or four days, yet, of the “glorious fourth,” and johnny was diligently practising his voice, for he was afraid, notwithstanding his mother’s earnest assurances to the contrary, that it was not loud enough for an open air oration!
johnny was a very sociable and friendly little boy, and he had recently made acquaintance with a boy somewhat older than himself, whose profession was bootblacking. this boy had a cool, knowing, and business-like air, which had greatly taken johnny’s fancy, and it occurred to him that a partnership with jim brady might be a very good thing. jim had happened to mention that he owned a wheelbarrow, and johnny owned an apple tree, which had been planted by his father on the day of johnny’s birth, and which, this season, was full of promising apples. so johnny resolved, if jim improved on acquaintance, and showed symptoms of honor and honesty, to propose to him, when the apples should be ripe, to take his wheelbarrow and peddle them “on shares.”
he would probably have made jim the offer on the second day of their acquaintance, but his mother advised him to wait a little. she felt sure that johnny would tell her at once, if jim should use bad language, or say or do anything which would make him a dangerous acquaintance for her boy, and she thought it would be time enough then to break off the intercourse which might put a little pleasure into the hard life of the bootblack, whose sturdy figure and face she had often noticed in passing his stand, and she had also noticed that he was almost always busy, even when other boys of his trade were idle.
johnny was such a very small boy that it had never entered his mother’s head to forbid him to smoke. she thought of it once in a while, and hoped that when the time came for him to choose about it, he would elect to go without a habit which is certainly useless, and which in many cases involves a great deal of selfishness. she wished johnny’s wife, if he should be so fortunate as to have a good wife some day in the far future, to love him altogether, not with a “putting-up” with one thing, and “making allowances” for another; and she meant, when the time came, to lay the whole subject plainly before him, and let him choose rationally for himself. it was quite true that his father smoked; but he smoked very moderately, never where it could annoy any one, and, whenever he bought cigars, he deposited a sum equal to that spent for them, in the little earthern jug with which he presented his wife once a year, and this money was neither “house money” nor “pin money”; it was for mrs. leslie to spend absolutely as she liked. and johnny’s mother meant him, if he should smoke at all, to be just such a smoker as his father was.
but on the third of july, as “johnny came marching home,” he met jim at the usual corner, and jim had a long cigar in his mouth! johnny felt a good deal awed. he thought jim looked very manly indeed.
“have a cigar?” asked jim affably. “one of my best customers gave me this,” he added, “and the one i’m smoking, and i tell you it’s not many fellows i’d offer this to, for they’re prime! it was a regular joke on him—he’s always poking fun at me, and this morning, when i said i’d give anything to be a sailor, he just pulls these out of his pocket, and says, seriously, ‘smoke these, my boy, and you’ll be as sure you’re at sea as you ever will if you really get there!’ he thought i wouldn’t take ’em, but i did,” and jim chuckled, “i thanked him kindly, and told him i’d learned to smoke years ago!”
“learned?” said johnny, “why, what is there to learn? it looks easy enough.”
“so it is,” said jim, with another chuckle, “it’s like what the irishman said about his fall; ‘sure, it’s not the fall, it’s the fetch up that hurts!’ i wasn’t sea-sick after that first cigar? oh, no! not at all!” and he gave an indescribable wink.
all this time johnny held the cigar doubtfully in his hand. was it worth while deliberately to make himself “sea-sick?” that long, coarse, black thing did not look as if it would taste nice.
“what are you waiting for?” asked jim, “a light? here’s one,” and he drew a match from his pocket, struck it, and handed it to johnny, who, prevented by a false and foolish shame, from saying what was in his mind, lighted the cigar, hastily thanked jim, and walked off, smoking.
but he had not gone a block before a queer, dizzy feeling, and a bitter, puckery taste in his mouth, which reminded him of a green persimmon, made him resolve to finish his cigar another time; so he put it out, wrapped it carefully in paper, thrust it into his trousers pocket, and then hurried home.
when he kissed his mother, she exclaimed, “why, johnny! you smell exactly as if you had been smoking!”
johnny had never, in all his life, concealed anything from his mother; what made him wish to, now?
i stopped to talk to jim,” he said, hastily, “and he was smoking a cigar that a gentleman had given him.”
“i’m sorry to hear that,” said mrs. leslie, gravely; “i must speak to jim. he is too young to begin to smoke.”
johnny said nothing, but his mind was made up; he was not going to be beaten by that cigar! there were no lessons to be learned for the next day, and he could give the whole afternoon, and the whole of his mind to it.
he did. i am not going into particulars, they are not agreeable; but late that afternoon, as a heavy thunderstorm was coming up, mrs. leslie grew uneasy about johnny, who had not been seen since dinner.
“run to the barn, tiny,” she said, “and see if he is there—though i don’t think he can be, for i haven’t heard a word of the oration.”
tiny ran, and came back in five minutes, breathless, and with a horrified face.
“oh, mamma!” she exclaimed, “johnny’s cap and his speech are on the barn floor, and the most dreadfullest groans are coming out of the haymow!”
mrs. leslie was running to the barn before tiny had finished.
“johnny!” she called wildly. “my darling! what has happened?”
a pale face, a rough-looking head, with hay sticking out of its hair, appeared at the top of the ladder, and johnny staggered weakly down.
“oh, mamma!” he groaned, “i think i must be going to die! i never felt this way before!”
his mother caught him in her arms, and as she did so, the smell of the rank cigar which johnny, with wasted heroism, had smoked to the end, struck her indignant nose.
“johnny!” she exclaimed, reproachfully, “you’ve been smoking, and you told me what was just as bad as a lie about it!”
and the warm-hearted, offended little mother burst out crying, and sobbed with her head on johnny’s dusty shoulder.
nothing she could have said would have gone to johnny’s heart of hearts as those sobs did. he forgot his alarming illness as he caught her in his arms, and said, imploringly,—
“oh, mammy, my darling mammy, please don’t cry like that; i’ll die before i’ll ever tell you a lie, or act you one, again. oh, please say you forgive me!”
of course tiny felt obliged to help with the crying, and when mr. leslie, coming home to a deserted house, traced his family to the barn, he came upon a place of wailing.
at first, he was inclined to laugh, but when he heard of the deceit which had followed johnny’s first effort at smoking, he looked very grave. no one, however, could doubt johnny’s penitence, and as he lay on the lounge in his mother’s room, while the heavy thunder and sharp lightning seemed to fill the air, and waves of deathly sickness rolled over him, he made some very good resolutions, which were not forgotten, as such resolutions sometimes are, after his recovery.
the orator of the day was somewhat paler than he usually was when he took his place upon the barrel which he had previously assisted to the grove, the next morning.
he read the declaration of independence in a voice which reached the ears of his most distant listener with perfect distinctness, and when he had finished, and the applause had subsided, he added, “out of his head,” as tiny proudly announced.
“i’ve got a declaration of my own to make, now—it’s not at all long, so you needn’t worry—it’s just this: folks sometimes think they’re being independent, when they’re only being most uncommonly foolish, and you never need think that anything you’re afraid to have anybody know is independence—it’s pretty sure to be sneaking meanness! and i’ve heard somebody that knows more than all of us put together, say that if we want to be presidents and things, and govern other folks, we’d better begin on ourselves!”
and johnny stepped, in a dignified manner, from the barrel to a box, and thence to the ground, amid a storm of applause, while mr. leslie rose and bowed gracefully, from his place among the audience, in acknowledgment of the tribute paid him by the orator.
a prisoner in a dungeon may be one of those “freemen whom the truth makes free,” and an absolute monarch may be “the servant of sin.” each one of us must frame for himself his own especial declaration of independence.
