jack was so overjoyed at getting home again that his plain little room seemed a palatial residence when he entered it. as long sections of bare skin were visible through his dried but burned clothing, and as the latter was also well sprinkled with hay-seed, he made haste to change his apparel. he really hoped his father would whip him, he had been so bad, and lest the punishment should not be as heavy as he deserved he put on very thin clothing, and neglected to put anything between jacket and skin to temper the blows. if his father did not punish him, he would punish himself; he would go without pie and cake for a year, or he would commit to memory a chapter of the bible every day. of course nobody in the village would speak to him now, but he didn't care, if only he could remain at home, never to go away, not even when he became a man.
suddenly, as he emptied the remaining pockets of his burned clothes, he found the letter which he had intended to mail to his sweetheart from some convenient post-office. at sight of this his heart gave a mighty bound, and he retracted his resolution to remain at home all his life, unless, indeed, his mother might be brought to fully approve the choice of his heart. he would lose no time in consulting both his parents about this affair of the affections, and he counted it as a sin that he had not done so long before. what very different people from what he had supposed them to be, that night had taught him his father and mother were!
the expected punishment not manifesting itself, jack ventured out of his room and stood upon the back piazza to look at the garden, which suddenly appeared to him to be the finest garden that the world ever knew—the garden of eden excepted, perhaps.
from here he listened to the breakfast bell, and wondered if any bread and water would be sent to him; if not, he would at least have the consolation of knowing that he didn't deserve any. but suddenly his father shouted that his breakfast would be cold if he didn't eat it soon, so jack descended, in a maze, to the nicest breakfast he had ever seen, and oh! wonder of wonders, his father gave him a cup of coffee, a luxury which he had been taught to forego, because the doctor thought it very injurious to growing boys with large heads. jack occasionally stole a loving look at both parents, but it pained him greatly to discover for the first time, that his father looked as if he was going to be an old man, and he was confused by seeing his mother's eyes fill with tears at short intervals.
when breakfast was over, the doctor went into his office without saying a word to jack, and mrs. wittingham, first kissing her boy, went to her household affairs, and jack felt very uncomfortable. he was too full to be silent, but it was not the sort of fullness, so often experienced, that could be relieved by whistling, or singing, or dancing, or teasing the family cat. he was absolutely longing to pay the penalty of his misdeeds, and he was determined not to be the cause of any delay, so he followed his father into the office—a thing he had never done before in his life in the face of impending conflict. the doctor was surprised beyond measure by this unexpected demonstration, and his astonishment increased as jack, after lounging about uncomfortably for a few moments, suddenly exclaimed:
"father, i want to be punished."
"bless me!" exclaimed the doctor, turning so suddenly that a powder which he was preparing dusted all over his clothing. "have you lost your senses, my boy?"
"no, sir," said jack, hanging his head. "i guess i've just found them. i've been a dreadfully bad boy, and i think i deserve to be punished severely."
"well," said the doctor, after several moments of silent contemplation of his boy, "that's the strangest case i ever heard of."
the doctor dropped the paper which had held the powder, hurried to the desk, took out the notes for his work on heredity, and made the following memorandum: "it is undeniable that the mental, like the physical nature, sometimes generates a quality utterly different from itself." then the doctor erased this, and re-wrote and amplified it. the second form did not satisfy him entirely, so again he erased and wrote, and repeated the process several times. as he was making his sixth erasure he became conscious that jack had lounged up to his elbow.
"oh!" said the doctor, "you said you wanted to be punished, didn't you?"
"yes, sir."
the doctor wanted to say "confound it!" but he habitually refrained from such remarks before his boy; as he looked back to his doubly scrawled page, however, he unconsciously penned "confound it!" directly after his late erasure, and he followed it with exclamation points to the end of the line.
"what do you think should be done to you?" asked the doctor, finally.
"i don't know," said jack, "but it ought to be something dreadful, for i've been so bad."
"why did you get drunk?"
"i didn't mean to do it," said jack, "but that's just the way with everything i do," and jack explained the affair with the brandy-bottle.
"you did something worse than get drunk when you took that brandy, my boy," said the doctor.
"i suppose so," said jack; "i always do something worse. but i don't know what it was."
"you showed yourself to be a coward," replied the doctor. "what do you think of cowards?"
"they'd have called me a coward if i hadn't drunk it," said jack.
"yes," said the doctor, "and that's what you were cowardly about, can't you see?"
jack admitted that he could.
"wouldn't it have taken more bravery to have laughed and fought down such a charge, than it required to drink the liquor?" asked the doctor.
"yes, sir. and i want to be punished for being a coward too."
"goodness!" exclaimed the doctor, seizing his hat and vanishing. a few minutes later the reverend mr. daybright, just as he had entered his study, received a call from dr. wittingham, and the doctor promptly proceeded to detail jack's case and ask for advice. now mr. daybright belonged to a denomination which has very pronounced ideas on the subject of sin and punishment, and the minister preached as his church believed, and was sure that he believed what he preached, yet he counselled the doctor to let the boy alone.
"but he wants to be punished," urged the doctor.
"what good can it do him?" asked the minister; "if he is in that frame of mind, the sole object of punishment is attained in advance."
"but he has done wrong; he has kept his mother and me in intolerable misery for twenty-four hours, and it seems to me that something should be done to him."
"ah!" said the minister, "you're thinking about revenge, which is very different from punishment. and it is my duty, as your pastor, to urge you to give up the thought at once, for it is unchristian and brutal."
"why," said the doctor, flushing angrily, "i don't want to punish him; i simply think it a matter of duty."
"yes," sighed the minister, "revenge has generally been considered a duty, so great is the influence of inheritance even upon minds intentionally honest."
the doctor abruptly departed, muttering to himself:
"that's a point for the book, any how!"
arrived at his office, the doctor found jack still there. he picked the boy up in his arms, and as jack mentally submitted to whatever was to be his fate, his father sat down, hugged the boy close, and said:
"my darling fellow, tell me what i can do to keep you out of further mischief and trouble. that shall be your punishment."
the exquisite sarcasm of the potter questioning his clay did not strike jack, which is not very strange, as the doctor himself was unconscious of it. but jack could only say:
"i don't know."
"i would sell everything i own, if money would do it," said the doctor.
jack was still unable to answer, but the doctor's assertion caused the boy to squeeze closer to his father's breast, which movement greatly comforted the old gentleman.
"i think if you'd always let me be with you, father, i would be a real good boy," said jack. "i like you better than i do anybody—but matt; yes, better than matt either."
"thank you, my boy," said the doctor, with some little coolness which jack detected.
"i've got to do something," said jack, "and if i can't see things that's good to do, i have to do others."
the doctor remembered having had some such experience himself, in the days of his own mischief-making, but he answered gravely:
"i have to spend a great deal of time in sickrooms, my boy, where it would be inconvenient for you to be."
"then let me be with you when you're at home," said jack, "and," he continued, rather hesitatingly, "let me ask questions, and you try to answer so i can understand you."
the doctor dimly realized that when he was busy he did not answer questions willingly or lucidly, but he replied:
"you ask a great many questions about things which i don't think you should know about, jack."
"well," said jack, "i can't help thinking about them, and when you turn me off, i nearly always ask somebody else and i find out anyhow."
the idea that other people should be telling his boy about matters which he declined informing him upon was a blow to the doctor's self-respect, and his sense of propriety, too, for he knew what class of people jack would be likely to apply to for information, and the nature of the answers which would be given. the doctor pondered a little while, and then said:
"jack, how would you like to learn a trade? you could be with me in the evenings, you know."
"what sort of a trade?" said jack.
"whatever you like," said the doctor, "i wouldn't for anything have you at any that was distasteful to you. you certainly like to use tools—you have ruined all of mine in various ways."
"i think i'd like to be a carpenter," said jack.
"then you shall," said the doctor. "if you like it, and stick to it, i'll set you up as a builder when you learn it, but the moment you grow sick of it i want you to let me know. you are smart enough to become a good architect, and that's a more profitable profession than mine."
"may i have tools of my own?" asked jack.
"yes," replied his father, "the best that money can buy. and i will go right away and find some one who will teach you."
the doctor went straightway to the best builder in the neighborhood, and had the proposition civilly but promptly declined.
"every boy i ever took managed to ruin all my best tools within a year," explained the builder, "to say nothing of the lumber which he worked up into fancies of his own, and ruined by failures of one sort and another."
"i'll buy my boy the best and largest set of tools that you can select," said the doctor.
for a moment this offer seemed an inducement to the builder, for there were many tools which he disliked to buy yet needed occasionally to use; he might borrow from the promised outfit. but as he thought further, he replied:
"you're very fair, but tools aren't everything. if i do the square thing by the boy, i must use a great deal of time in teaching him, and time is money. my time is worth a great deal more than the boy's work will be for a couple of years."
"i'll pay you cash for your time," said the doctor; "i'll give you a thousand dollars in advance, if you say so."
this offer staggered the builder, prosperous though he was, for where is the man who does not want a thousand dollars?
but still the builder hesitated, and the doctor asked:
"what else do you want?"
"well," said the builder, prudently retiring to the doorway of a house he was building, "what i want is to tell you something that maybe you won't like, but i can't help taking it into consideration. they do say—i don't say it, mind, but i've heard it from a good many—that jack is the worst boy in town."
"it's a lie!" roared the doctor. "he's the best—that is, he has the best stuff in him. he's never quiet; he learns his lessons as quickly as a flash; he hates work about the house, just as i'll warrant you did when you were a boy, and he must do something. he likes to handle tools, though, and wants to be a carpenter."
"liking is all very well," said the builder, "but sticking to work don't naturally follow."
"did you ever hear of his dropping a job of mischief until he had thoroughly finished it?" asked the doctor.
"no," answered the builder with great promptness.
the final result was that sundry papers and moneys passed between the doctor and the builder, and on the following monday morning, jack was at work at seven o'clock nailing planking upon a barn. the news got about town very rapidly, and by noon there were at least twenty boys looking at the unexpected spectacle, and tormenting jack with ironical questions. when night came jack's hand felt as if it could never grasp a hammer again, and he was otherwise so weary that he declined, without thanks, an invitation to go with the other boys to serenade a newly-married couple with horns and bells. then he helped shingle a portion of the roof of the new barn, but his mind was greatly distracted by the awkwardness of a boy, in an adjoining pasture, who was trying to braid together the tips of the tails of two calves; the consequence was that he had progressed so short a distance with his own row of shingles that the other workmen had gone across the barn and returned to start afresh, and, as they rested until jack got out of the way, they ungratefully upbraided him because of his slowness, and he wasn't going to be called slow again, not for all the calves' tails in the universe.
this book might have been continued indefinitely, had it not been that jack was steadily at work which he liked, and had a great deal of his father's society out of working hours. gaining these, he lost his reputation for being the worst boy in town, for although he remained for several years a boy and a very lively one, he had something besides mischief to exercise his busy brain upon, and a boy cannot be honestly busy and mischievous also, any more than he can eat his cake and have it too. even the doctor and mrs. wittingham reformed, though it was very hard for the latter to stop fretting at the boy, and for the former to cease acting as if his son, like his horse, merely needed food, rest and correction.
jack did not go about preaching reform to the boys and advising them all to be carpenters, but he unconsciously talked from a standpoint very different from that which he had habitually occupied in other days, and his talk came gradually to exert considerable influence among the boys, though they seldom noticed the change themselves. jack's very title, "the worst boy in town," was in considerable danger of lapsing for lack of a successor, and the inhabitants of doveton are still undecided as to where it belongs.
as for the doctor's great work on heredity, it is not in print yet, for the doctor happened one day, while mourning over a neglected and consequently unproductive bartlett pear tree, to drift into some analogies between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, with the result that he realized that if the splendid hereditary tendencies of the tree could not prevent its bareness and its running to superfluous wood, there could be no hope of an untrained boy, even if he was a scion of the wittingham stock. this idea took such entire possession of the doctor that he went into the house and burned his manuscript as far as completed, and all the notes beside.
according to jack, who professes to be an infallible authority on the subject, nice little mattie barker grows nicer every day, and she has promised to change her name in the course of time, and her parents have endorsed her decision, for though jack is not yet of age, steady boys who are also bright, and have learned a business which is not akin either to gambling or theft, are not numerous enough to be despised. and jack has a whole portfolio full of cottage plans, all of his own designing, over which he and mattie spend long and industrious evenings, and jack has taken a solemn vow that when the proper plan is decided upon, and the building begins, nuderkopf trinkelspiel shall be the sole hod-carrier, and shall be paid the highest market rates for his services.
being practically a successful man, jack is the receptacle for the confidences of hosts of his old playmates, who feel that their good qualities are not appreciated by a world which is quick to complain of their occasional irregularities, but he has sent many of these youths sadly away by remarking:
"it doesn't matter how many good qualities are inside of a fellow, if only his bad ones make themselves lively on the surface."
