University of Virginia Library

A MODEL BOY.

THE man across the way recently rented the upper part of his house to a family from an outside district. The head of the family came to secure the rent. He was a tall, bony man, with a sunburned face, and light, tawny chin-whiskers. He looked very much like a cross between a farmer and a planing-mill. He explained,—

"What I want is a peaceful naberhood; and the comforts of a home I get myself. There's the ole woman, my wife, and our boy. James is but seven years old. He ain't strong, bein' given more to study than to work; but he's got a head on him, I can tell you. But I want a peaceful naberhood, and you look like the man that kin just supply the demand. We'll be around on time."

They moved in two weeks ago. On the close of the third day, the boy James had succeeded in flooding the first floor by leaving a pipe running on the second, and had pulled off all the tomatoes to throw against the barn. The man across the way mildly intimated to his new tenant what James had done.

"He didn't eat any of them green termatys, did he?" inquired the anxious parent.

"I don't suppose he did," was the reply of the landlord, who was evidently trying to see the relevance of the query.

"And he didn't get his feet wet, I hope?" was the next question.

"I believe not," was the feeble reply.

"Well," said the grateful father, "let us be thankful that it is no worse. James must be more keerful. A single green termaty, or a pair of wet socks, might waft his little soul into eternity before you'd know. I'll reason with James at once. I thank you, sir, for your interest in James." And he went into the house; while the man across the way sat hastily down on the stoop, and smote his forehead.

Before he had entirely recovered from this affair, James again became conspicuous. This time, he stuck a lath through the sash of the front-door.

The man across the way met the parent at the gate that evening. He mentioned James's exploit.

"What, with his hand did he do it?" gasped the agitated father. "Oh, no, no! Not the little hand which I have held so often in mine. Not the little hand which has pulled these whiskers so many times in babyhood. Oh! say it was not with his hand he broke the glass."

The man across the way explained that it was done with a lath.

"Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the grateful father. "Poor James! He ain't strong; an' weak folks are always unfortunit, mostly. But I'm glad he didn't hurt himself. He ain't a strong boy; but I'm in hopes, with quiet and pleasant surroundings,

he'll improve. This is just the naberhood for James. It's peaceful, and I like peace: so does James an' the ole woman." And he passed in to his tea, leaving the man across the way with a stony stare in his eyes.

The next day James turned on the hose, and, before he was discovered, had prostrated twenty-five plants, broken down a hanging-basket, torn up the flower-bed, and nearly blinded the little girl from the next house, who was peering through the fence at the performance.

The man across the way came home to tea, and saw the ruin which had been effected, and he was nearly beside himself with rage. There was a look of determination on his face when he encountered, an hour later, the peaceable tenant coming up the yard.

"I tell you, sir," he began, "this last freak of your boy is altogether too much;" and he pointed to the devastation.

"Why, how did James do that?" inquired the father.

"He turned on the hose," explained the man across the way between his clinched teeth.

The face of the tenant blossomed into a genial smile.

"Why, what an observing little fellow he is!" said he. "I was saying this noon to the ole woman, that your plants ought to be watered, or they'd all

dry up; an' he must have heard me, an' gone an' done it himself. That's just like James. He's so thoughtful for one so young!"

The man across the way grew black enough in the face to strangle.

"I tell you, sir, I won't stand this again," he declared in a voice quivering with passion. "What that boy wants is a skinning from head to foot; and, if he had the right kind of father, he'd get it before he was an hour older."

It was painful to see the expression of grief and astonishment which settled like a cloud upon the face of the new tenant.

"What!" he gasped, "skin James, little James, the sunshine of our home,—a poor little weakling, whose only fault is trying to do too much? And you, a man forty years old, an' weighing a hundred an' sixty pounds, I dare say, get mad with a little boy like James? Look here, you!" he suddenly blurted, stretching his stature to the utmost: "I come here for peace; and I'll have peace, you bet! If you're opposed to peace, why didn't you say so when I got the house of you? Wasn't I frank an' open an' above-board with you? Didn't I tell you on the start that I wanted a peaceful naberhood? Why didn't you deal as honest-like with me, and own up that you was of a quarrelsome nature? Why didn't you do that, I want to know? I don't want to have any words with you, an' I

ain't a-going to have. I am a peaceful citizen, I've lived with twenty-five different families, an' I never had any trouble. I'm for peace every time; an' I'll have peace where I live, or I'll git at once: you can just bet your money on that. If you can't keep your temper down, we'll git; for I won't have James worried for all the houses between here and the perfumed plains of Araby. Gosh all hemlock! what's life without peace?"

Yesterday we observed the second-floor furniture loading on a wagon; by which we conclude the man across the way is not able to keep his temper down.