as time went on, from that fourth of july when johnny had reason to change his views about independence, and as he thought more about that, and other matters connected with it, he grew only the more firmly convinced that any of his rights which trod upon the toes of other people’s rights, were only wrongs under a false name.
the boys at his school nearly all liked him; he “went into things” so heartily, that he was wanted on both sides in all the games that had more than one. but with all his love of fun, the boys soon found that there were some sorts of fun—or what they called so—for which it was useless to ask his help. so when recess came, the morning before school closed for the summer, a group of boys gathered in a corner of the playground, whispering together, and did not ask him to join them. he felt a little left out in the cold, for some of his best friends were in the group, but he was not naturally suspicious, and his mother had brought him up in a wholesome fear of imagining himself injured or slighted.
“always take good-will for granted, johnny,” she said to him once, when he fancied himself neglected by somebody, “at least until you have the most positive proof of ill-will.”
so he joined some of the smaller boys, who did not seem to have been invited to the conference, and made them supremely happy by getting up a game of football.
he had just parted from one of the larger boys, on his way home from school that afternoon, and was near his gate, when a little fellow, the youngest of all his schoolmates, stuck his head cautiously out of the nearly closed gate, and, after seeing that the coast was clear, said in a mysterious whisper,—
“hold on, johnny, will you? i’ve got something to tell you, but if you ever say i told you, you’ll get me into the awfullest scrape that ever was!”
if little jamie hughes had been talking to anybody but johnny, he would have exacted a very solemn “indeed and double deed and upon my sacred honor i’ll never tell!”
but the boys all felt very sure, by this time, that johnny would not do them an ill-turn, no matter what chance he might have; so jamie went hurriedly on, linking his arm in johnny’s as he spoke, and drawing him inside the gate and up the walk, as if he feared being seen.
“you see, they didn’t mean me to hear,” said jamie, talking very fast, “but it wasn’t my fault. i was up the apple tree cutting[63] my name, and two of them were under it, and one of them said, ‘the old gentleman will open his eyes, for once in his life,’ and then the other said, kind of uneasy, ‘i don’t think we need take cannon crackers; wouldn’t the small ones do just as well?’ and then i began to sing, and they never let on they heard me, but the first fellow said: ‘my dear boy, my grandfather expressly requested that the salute in his honor should be fired with cannon-crackers!’ and then they both burst out laughing, and walked away, and i never thought, till ever so long afterward, that that one who spoke last hadn’t a grandfather to his name, and i’m sure they’re going to do something to—to mr. foster.”
“what makes you think that, jamie?” asked johnny, kindly, “it may be all a joke; perhaps they saw you up there, and are just putting up a game on you.”
jamie shook his head.
“no, they’re not!” he said, very positively, “they both jumped like everything when i began to sing, and the one who said little crackers would do turned as red as a beet. now, johnny, i came to you because i knew you wouldn’t give me away, and because i thought you could think of some way to checkmate them, and you’d just better believe it’s what i think! you know mr. foster always leaves his window wide open at night, and the ceilings are so low in that house where he boards that anybody could throw a pack of crackers into a second-story window easy enough. i was in his room once, and his bed’s right opposite the window, and suppose those fellows should throw so hard that the crackers would hit him in the face, or light in the bed and set the clothes afire? i can’t tell you all i know, or you’d believe me, and spot the fellows in a minute, and then they’d spot me, and i wouldn’t give much for my skin if they did!”
jamie would have been a good deal more nervous than he was if he had known that johnny had already, and without the least difficulty, “spotted the fellows.” jamie was a timid little boy, and his affection for mr. foster, who was the teacher of mathematics at the school, had grown out of that gentleman’s patient kindness to him. mr. foster never mistook timidity for stupidity, but he was a very clear-headed man, with little patience for boys who tried to make shifts and tricks do duty for honestly-learned lessons. so the school was divided into two pretty equal camps concerning him. the boys who really studied hard were his enthusiastic admirers, and those who studied only enough to “pull through,” as they expressed it, were very much the reverse. but when it came to a question of “fun,” things were sometimes a little mixed, and it seemed, in this particular case, as if some of the boys had thoughtlessly gone over to the enemy, and then been somewhat dismayed when they saw where they were being led.
johnny was very much troubled by what he had heard, and the more he thought of it the less he liked it. a pack of cannon-crackers, flung at random through a window, and flung all the harder by reason of the flinger’s haste to put himself out of sight, might do untold mischief. beside the possibility that they would start a fire in the room, there was another even worse one—they might explode dangerously near the face of the sleeping victim.
no, the thing must be stopped; but how to stop it? he thought of asking the boys, point-blank, what they were whispering about, but, even should any of them give him a truthful answer, they would probably suspect that somebody had suggested the question to him, and then, of course, remember jamie’s presence in the tree. he thought of giving mr. foster a confidential warning, but, if it took effect, it would be open to the same objection, and he did not like to think of the life jamie would lead for the next few months were he even suspected of being the informer.
johnny’s face wore so puzzled and hopeless an expression, that evening after he had learned his lessons, that his father said, kindly,—
“there’s nothing so desperate that it can’t be helped somehow, my boy; what’s the special desperation this evening? grief at the prospect of a temporary separation from your beloved studies?”
johnny laughed a little at that.
“oh, no, papa!” he said. “i like one or two of them well enough, but i think i can stand it without them for a while. i wish i could tell you all about what’s the matter, but i haven’t any right to. i will ask you a question, though. can you think of any kind of game, or spree, or anything that would make the fellows at school take such an early start on the fourth that they wouldn’t have time for anything else first?”
mr. leslie had not in the least forgotten how he had felt and acted when he was a boy, and he also remembered various things which johnny had said from time to time about the way in which mr. foster was regarded by the boys, so he had no great difficulty in guessing that some mischief was on foot which johnny was anxious to forestall, but could not hinder by attacking the enemy on high moral grounds.
“i should not be much of an editor if i had not enough invention and to spare for such an emergency as that,” said mr. leslie, smiling; “how many fellows are there, altogether?”
johnny thought a minute, and then said,—
“only thirty, papa, since the mumps broke loose—we had over forty before that.”
“i’ll call around to-morrow, just before the exercises are over,” said mr. leslie, “and ask permission to address the meeting. by a curious coincidence, a plan for jollifying the fourth was seething in my brain before you spoke, and i think a trifling alteration will make it fit the case to a nicety.”
johnny fell upon his father’s neck with smothering affection, and went to bed with a light and easy heart; if “papa” undertook the business, all would go right.
“and he didn’t ask me a single question, except about how many of us there were!” said johnny to himself, proudly, “what a first-class boy he must have been himself!”
mr. leslie was on very good terms with the principal of johnny’s school, and had no difficulty in obtaining leave to “address the meeting.” his address was an invitation to attend an all-day picnic, on the fourth of july, and included teachers as well as scholars. two hay-wagons, half filled with hay, were to be the vehicles, and a brass band was to be in attendance. the refreshments, mr. leslie stated, would be simple, but abundant, nobody need feel called upon to bring anything, but anybody who chose to bring fruit, and could bring it from home, would community.
“it is not usual,” concluded mr. leslie, “to impose conditions in giving an invitation, but i must ask a promise from all of you, as we are to start at seven, sharp, on our collecting tour, not to leave your homes that morning until you are called for. we shall have a long drive to take, and i wish to have it over before the heat of the day begins. will all the boys who agree to grant me this favor raise their right hands?”
most of the right hands flew up as if their owners had nothing to do with it; there was a very short pause, and then the remainder followed. johnny drew a long breath of intense relief. he knew that, although some of the boys were anything but strictly truthful, they would consider it “a little too mean” to break their pledge to their entertainer, and besides, mr. leslie had said, emphatically, that there would be no hunting for absentees, but simply a call at each door.
that picnic was unanimously pronounced the most brilliant of this, or of any, season. mr. leslie was voted “as good as forty boys,” and the woods rang again with laughter and joyous shouting. but when a long tin horn had given the signal which had been agreed upon, and the boys were gathered together for the return, mr. leslie mounted a convenient stump.
“boys!” he said, as the noisy throng grew silent to listen, “no fourth of july celebration is complete without a speech, so i feel called upon to make a short one. how does the declaration of independence begin?”
“‘all men are born free and equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights!’” shouted at least half the party.
“and what does ‘inalienable’ mean?” pursued the orator.
silence. and then somebody said doubtfully, “something you can’t lose or give away?”
“exactly,” said mr. leslie. “so, as we travel through life, we are to bear in mind this fact, that no matter how great, or wise, or rich, or powerful, or poor, or oppressed, or injured we may be, we are bound to respect the ‘inalienable rights’ of other people, and that we shall never gain anything really worth gaining, or that will bring a blessing with it, by disregarding those rights.
“i will not undertake to tell you what they are; i think we can generally tell nearly enough for all practical purposes by two ways; remembering what we consider our own rights, and imagining what we should consider our rights, were we in the places of the people with whom we are dealing. we have had a happy day, i think; i know i have——”
“so have we!” in a vast shout from the audience——
“——and i have been pleased to see what good republicans you all may be, if you choose. i see you are pleased with my pleasure, and i want to ask you all to remember, as each day closes, leaving its record of good or evil, that the longest life must close some time, and that nothing will be of much value to us then, but the master’s ‘well done, good and faithful servant.’ thank you for listening to me so patiently. this day will be a pleasant memory, i hope, for all of us.”
“three cheers for mr. leslie!” shouted the “fellow” who had not any grandfather, and the amount of noise that followed was truly astonishing.
but a good many people’s ideas of what it is to be manly underwent a gradual change from that evening.
“if johnny’s father thinks so—why, there’s nothing mean about johnny’s father! i should hope we all knew that!”
