The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (i can read book club .txt) 📗

"Well, anyhow, I reckon it didn't be much value," Peggy insisted.

"I saw that young lady come back,"—Johnny-Ivan had switched on to a new track leading to grisly possibilities—"maybe she'll find it!"

"Well, we're gone, all right."

Peggy gave an unprincipled giggle; "Maybe she'll think it was him."

"Then we got to tell," moaned Johnny.

"No, we ain't. He'll run off and so she won't ask him questions."

"But she'll think it's him. It'll be mean."

"No it won't."

"It's mean to have somebody else take your blame or your punishment; mamma said so."

The small casuist was too discreet to attack Johnny's oracle; she only pouted her pretty lips and quibbled:

"'Tain't mean if the people who get blamed are mean themselves—like him. I don't care how blamed he gets; I wouldn't care if he got licked."

But Johnny's conscience was not so elastic. "I don't care, either," he protested. "I—I wouldn't care if he was deaded"—anxious to propitiate—"but it would be mean just the same. I got to tell papa, Peggy, I truly have."

Peggy grew very cross. "You are just the foolest, obsternatest little boy I ever did see," she grumbled; "you're a plumb idiot! I'd like to slap you! Your papa'll be awful mad."

Johnny-Ivan essayed an indifferent mien, but his eyes were miserable.

"Say, Jo'nivan,"—her voice sank to a whisper that curdled his blood—"were you ever spanked?"

"Only Hilma sorter kinder—not really spanking, you know," confessed Johnny with a toss of his head. "I just made faces at her; I didn't cry!" he bragged.[Pg 1071]

"Never your mamma or your papa?"

"Course not," said Johnny with a haughty air; "but, Peggy," he said very low, "were you—did—"

"Oh, my, yes! Mammy did when I was little. I'm too big now."

"I'm too big, too, now, ain't I?"

"I don't know," said Peggy. "Wulf Greiner was licked by teacher, and he's thirteen. It's whether it's mighty bad, you know."

Johnny-Ivan caught his breath and his legs shook under him; the horror of his father's "licking" him came over him cold; it was not the pain; he had never minded Hilma's sturdy blows and he had let Michael cut a splinter out of his thumb with a pocket-knife, and never whimpered; it was the ignominy, the unknown terror of his father's wrath that looked awful to him. As he looked down the crowded room and suddenly beheld Winslow's face bent gravely over Miss Hopkins, who was talking earnestly, he could hardly move his feet. Yet he had no thought of wavering. "I got to tell," he said, and walked as fast as he could, with his white face, straight to the group.

Winslow looked down and saw the two children; and one could discover the signals of calamity in their faces: Peggy's a fine scarlet and Johnny-Ivan's grayish-white.

"What's the matter, Johnny?" asked Winslow.

Johnny's eyelids were glued tight—just as they were when he pulled Peggy's tooth—he blurted everything out breathlessly: "I've done something awful, papa! It'll cost thousands of dollars."

Emma Hopkins had considered Winslow an unattractive man, of a harsh visage, but now, as he looked at his little son, she changed her mind.

"What did you do, son?" said he quietly; his hand found Johnny's brown curls and lay on them a second.[Pg 1072]

"He didn't do it, really; it was me," Peggy broke in, too agitated for grammar. "I was playing with the little tricks on the table, the models, sah, and I was making the v'losipid run round and he was 'fraid I'd break it; but I did it, really, sah."

"And the model fell on to something valuable? I see."

"But he wasn't playing with it, he was only trying to keep me from breaking—"

"Well, young lady, you two are evidently in the same boat; but you aren't a bit sneaky, either of you. Let's see the wreckage; I suppose you got into trouble because you wanted to see how things worked, and Johnny, as usual, couldn't keep out of other folks' hot water. Where's the ruin?"

"The show-case is broked, too," said Johnny-Ivan in a woeful, small voice.

"But it was cracked before," interjected Peggy.

Winslow looked at her with a little twist. "That's a comfort," said he, "and you have horse sense, my little Southerner. I guess you didn't either of you mean any harm—"

"Indeed, no, sah, and Johnny was just as good; never touched a thing—"

"But you see your intentions didn't protect you. Distrust good intentions, my dears; look out for the possible consequences. However, I think there is one person to blame you haven't mentioned, and that is one Josiah C. Winslow, who let two such giddy young persons explore by themselves. Contributory negligence is proved; and said Winslow will pay the bill and not kick."

So saying, he took Peggy's warm, chubby little fingers in one of his big white hands and Johnny-Ivan's cold little palm in the other, and nodded a farewell to Emma.[Pg 1073]