there was no doubt about it—johnny had, to use one of his own expressions, “got up wrong end foremost,” that morning. not that he had really and literally come out of bed upon his head instead of his feet; that would not have mattered at all, for he would have been right end up again in a minute. no, it was much worse than that, for the plain english of it was, that he was in a very bad humor, and did not know it!
what he thought he knew was, that everything went wrong. the fire had gone out in the furnace, the night before, and his room, although by no means freezing cold, was uncomfortably chilly. a button snapped off his new school jacket as he was dressing; the bell rang before he was quite ready, and he had intended, lately, to be punctual at every meal, “really and truly”; it was one of the ways in which, without saying anything about it, he was trying to do right.
he was only a moment or two late, after all; the rest of the family had only just sat down, and he was in time for grace, but he felt “flustered.” he was ashamed to grumble aloud when he found the smoking brown batter-cakes were “only flannel-cakes,” instead of his favorite buckwheats, but his face certainly grumbled.
he strapped his books together, after breakfast, with a good deal of needless force; the strap suddenly gave way, and the books flew about the floor in various directions.
“bother the old strap!” said johnny, savagely, as he gathered up his books.
“i think the old strap has bothered you!” said tiny, merrily, as she stooped to help him.
“i wouldn’t be so silly, if i were you, tiny!” and johnny turned his nose up, and the corners of his mouth down, all at once.
“oh yes you would, don’t you see, johnny, if you were me!” and tiny laughed again. she thought johnny was being solemn “for fun,” or she would not have laughed.
johnny grunted something which sounded a little like “thank you,” as she handed him the last book, and a nice strong piece of twine, which was conveniently lying in a little coil on the table. the strap had broken in the middle, so there was no use in trying to do anything with it, and he discontentedly used the twine instead. his mother passed through the hall just as he was tying up his books, and, seeing the broken strap, said pleasantly,—
“so the new jacket must needs have a new strap to keep it company? how much will it be? fifteen cents? well, here it is—you can buy one as you come home from school, i am afraid you would hardly have time before.”
johnny thanked his mother, and kissed her goodbye, with a pretty good grace; he even said, of his own accord,—
“i’m afraid i pulled a little harder than i needed to, mamma, but the old thing couldn’t have been good for much, anyway, to break just for that!”
“it will make lovely trunk-straps; and a shawl-strap too. may i have it, johnny?” and tiny measured the pieces approvingly on her finger, as she spoke. it is needless to say that the articles she mentioned were for the latest addition to her doll family.
“oh yes, you may have it, but how girls can be so foolish about dolls—!” and johnny marched off, leaving tiny to make the most of this gracious permission.
“i was afraid he would want it for a sling or something,” she said, contentedly. “you don’t think dolls are foolish, do you, mamma?”
“no, darling, or i wouldn’t have helped papa to give you that beauty for christmas. i cared more for my dolls than for all the rest of my toys put together, and while you are such a good mother to your family, and make such neat clothes for it, and at the same time are such a good little daughter to me, i shall find no fault with either the dolls or their mamma.”
tiny looked very much pleased, and went, in her usual orderly manner, to put the strap away, until she could coax johnny into cutting it up for her. it was remarkable, considering his contempt for the whole doll race, how much he had done to better its condition! trunks and furniture, vehicles of various sorts, and even a complete summer residence, had in turn been coaxed from him, and not a few of tiny’s small playmates openly expressed the wish that they had brothers “just like johnny leslie.”
though the cloud had lifted for a moment, it lowered again as johnny walked to school. the twine cut his hand, the wind blew his hat off, as he was passing jim’s stand, and i am afraid that jim’s kindness in picking up and restoring the wanderer, just before it reached the gutter, was quite lost sight of because jim clapped it on johnny’s head with rather more force than was strictly necessary.
“got the toothache?” asked jim, sympathizingly, as he caught sight of johnny’s glum face.
“no; what makes you think i have?” and johnny “bristled”; he was not a little afraid of jim’s sharp tongue.
“oh, i thought i saw a sort of a swelled-out look around your mouth,” said jim, very gravely, “and you don’t look happy; and those two things are what i heard a big doctor call symptom-atic!”
johnny’s face cleared a little.
“look out you don’t choke, jim,” he said, briskly, and, with a nod by way of good morning, began to run, to make up for lost time.
he barely did it, and he felt that he was looking red and breathless, while everybody else had a particularly cool and comfortable expression—“as if they’d been here a week!” he grumbled to himself.
things went on in this style all day. he nearly quarrelled with one of his best friends, at recess, about such a mere trifle that he was ashamed to remember it, afterward. his sums “came wrong”; he lost a place in one of his classes; he tripped and tumbled, scattering his books again, just as he was starting for home; the stationery store was entirely out of book straps, and although the polite stationer promised to have a very superior one, direct from the saddle-and-harness-maker’s, by the next afternoon, at latest, johnny was not consoled.
so, altogether, he came home in a rather worse humor than that in which he had gone away, and although, fortunately, nothing happened to cause an explosion, he certainly did not add to the general happiness at the tea table. he studied his lessons in silence, for the half hour after tea which was all the evening time he was allowed for study, and then took up a book in which he had been very much interested, but it seemed suddenly to have turned dull, and he rose with unusual promptness, when the clock struck nine, and bade his father good night. his good night to his mother came later, when he was snugly in bed.
“don’t you feel well to-night, my boy?” asked mr. leslie, laying a kind hand on johnny’s head, as he spoke.
“oh, yes, papa, i’m all right, i suppose,” replied johnny, soberly, “but it just seems as if everything had gone sort of upside down, to-day, somehow!”
“will you allow me to try a simple and comparatively painless experiment upon you, john?”
mr. leslie spoke very seriously, but there was a twinkle in his eye which johnny well knew meant mischief. it meant fun, too, though, and johnny replied with equal gravity,—
“certainly, papa, unless it is very painful.”
he had hardly finished speaking when, with alarming suddenness, he found himself standing on his head, his feet held firmly up in the air by his father’s strong hands. he was reversed, immediately, and mr. leslie inquired,—
“how did the world—or what you saw of it—look to you while you were standing on your head, my son?”
“why, upside down, papa, of course!” said johnny, laughing in spite of himself as he recalled the queer effect which had come from seeing everything, apparently, hanging from the ceiling, “without visible means of support.”
“do you believe,” continued mr. leslie, “that the world really was upside down for a moment?”
“why no, papa; i’m not such a goose as all that, i hope!”
“and yet,” said mr. leslie, thoughtfully, “i think you remarked, a while ago, that it seemed as if everything had sort of gone upside down to-day.”
“but that’s quite different, papa,” said johnny, hastily.
“oh!” said mr. leslie, “when mamma comes to tuck you up, suppose you ask her to tell you the story of the little boy and the field glass. good night, my dear little son, and pleasant, right-side-up dreams to you!”
johnny went off, almost in a good humor. it was not the first time he had taken what his father called “an order for a story” to his mother, and he knew he should hear something entertaining, even though, as his heart misgave him, he should also be made to feel the point of the story a little.
his mother laughed when she, heard the “order.”
“i must make haste,” she said, “or you’ll lose your beauty sleep; but, fortunately, it is not a long story.”
“once upon a time there was a little boy about five years[184] old, who had been very ill indeed, and, when he grew well enough to be up and dressed, the doctor said he must be taken to the sea-side. so his mother took him for two weeks to a beautiful rocky place on the new england coast.”
“like prout’s neck, mamma?”
“very much like prout’s neck, dear. and she put a little blue flannel suit, and a big hat on him, and tried to keep him out in the salt air and the sunshine all day. but he was weak, and grew tired very soon, and did not seem to feel able to play with the healthy, strong little children, of whom there were plenty about, and he used to beg to go indoors, and be read to, so that his mother was very glad when the kind-hearted old sailor, whose wife kept the boarding-house, offered them the use of a fine field-glass.
“‘the little man can lie on the rocks and watch the ships go by,’ said the captain, ‘and he’ll soon lose that peak-ed look he has, and be as brown as a berry.’
“and sure enough, the boy was quite willing, now, to go out and sit on the rocks, for he was eager to use the wonderful glass, which was to make the great ships seem almost within reach of his hand. he took the glass, and when his mother had screwed it to the right length, he put it to his eyes, and slowly turned about, first toward the sea, then toward the house where they were lodging, and last to his mother; then he let the glass drop, with a puzzled, almost frightened look on his little face.
“‘why, mamma!’ he said, ‘the ships look miles and miles and miles farther away, and the captain’s house looks like a pigeon-house, and you look like a little bit of a girl at the end of a great long lane. and the captain said it would make everything look large and near.’” johnny began to laugh.
“what a little goose!” he said. “he’d turned the wrong end foremost, hadn’t he, mamma?”
“that was just what he had done,” said mrs. leslie, smiling, “and you should have seen his face clear, and have heard his exclamations of delight, when his mother showed him how to use the glass, and he turned it the right way. there was no more trouble about keeping him out of doors, after that. and now, perhaps you’d like to know who he was. his name was johnny leslie, and he had just had measles.”
“oh, mamma! really and truly? i remember all about the sea and the rocks, but i’d forgotten about the glass. what a little simpleton i must have been! and i do believe i’ve been growing into a bigger one ever since! i see what papa meant, now. but just look here, mamma—how could things have seemed right to-day, any way i looked at them?”
and johnny gave a rapid sketch of his various annoyances and misfortunes.
“it’s too late to settle all that to-night,” said his mother, “and besides, i’d rather have you think it all out for yourself, first, so we will postpone the ‘how’ till to-morrow night. can you say ‘let me with light and truth be blest,’ for me, before i go?”
it was the psalm johnny had learned for the previous sunday, and he said it very perfectly, for he had liked it, and so remembered it better than he did some things. his mother tucked him up, and kissed him, and left him with his heart full of love and repentance, and a determination to “begin all over again” the next morning.
