Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1915 — Page 2

TOD

By James Whitcomb Riley

(Oopnicbt by JkBM Wbltcomb RUey)

Stoddard Anderson was the boy's name, though had you made inquiry for Stoddard Anderson of any boy of the town in which he lived —and I myself lived there, a handy boy in the Aifw old days—you doubtless would have been informed that nobody of that name lived there. Your juvenile informant, however, by way of gratuitous intelligence, might have gone on to state that two families of Andersons resided there—“ Old Do-good” Anderson, the preacher, and his brother, John. But bad you asked for “Tod" Anderson, or simply “Tod," your boy would have known Tod; your boy, in all likelihood, would have h«/| especial reasons for remembering Tod. although his modesty, perhaps, might not allow him to inform you how Tod had “waxed it to him more’n onct!” But he would have told you, as I tell you now, that Tod Anderson was the preacher's boy, and lived at the parsonage. Tod was a queer boy. Stoddard Anderson was named in honor of some obscure divine his father joined church under when a boy. It was a peculiar weakness of the father to relate the experience of his early conviction; and as he never tired of repeating it, by way of precept and admonition to the wayward lambkins of his flock. Tod mastered its most intricate and sacred phraseology, together even with the father's most religious formulas, to a degree of perfection that enabled him to preside at mock meetings in the hayloft, and offer the baptismal service at the “swimmin’ hole."

In point of personal or moral resemblance; Tod was in nowise like his father. Some said he was the picture of his mother, they who could remember her, for she fell asleep when Tod was-three days old, with her motherarms locked around him so closely that he cried, and they had to take him away from her. No —Death had taken her away from him. It needs now no chronicle to tell how Tod thrived in spite of his great loss, and how he grew to be a big, fat, two-fisted baby with a double chin, the pride and constant worry of the dear old grandmother into whose care he had fallen. It requires no space in history's crowded page to tell how he could stand up by a chair when eight months old, and crow and laugh and doddle his little chubby arms till he quite upset his balance, and, pulling the chair down with him, would laugh, and cry louder than ever, and kick, and crawl, and sprawl, and jabber; and never lift a whimper of distress but when being rocked to to sleep. Let a babyhood of usual interest be inferred —then add a few more years, and you will have the Tod .of ten I knew.

o moraS saintlike and consistent Christian, what is it in the souls of little children so antagonistic to your own sometimes? What is it in their wayward and impulsive natures that you cannot brook? And what strange tincture of rebellious feeling is it that embitters all the tenderness and love you pour out so lavishly upon their .stubborn and resentful hearts? Why is it yon so covetously cherish the command divine, “Children, obey your parents.” and yet find no warm nook within the breast for that old houseless truth that goes wailing through the world:

A boy's will is the wind’s win. And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts? 1 Tod went to school —the thriftless Tod! —not wholly thriftless, either; for, although he had not that apt way of skimming like a swallow down the placid rills of learning, he did pos- * sess, in some mysterious strength, a most extraordinary knack of acquiring Just such information as was not taught at school, and had no place within the busy hive of knowledge. Tod was a failure in arithmetic. •Tod couldn't tell twice ten from twice eternity. Tod knew absolutely nothing of either Christopher Columbus or the glorious country he discovered expressly for the use of industry and learning, as the teacher would have had him implicitly believe. Tod couldn't tell you anything of John Smith, even, that very noted captain who walks cheek by Jowl with the dusky Pocahontas across* the illimitable fancy of the ten-year-oid school boy of oar glorious republic. Tod knew all about the famous Captain Kidd, however/ In fact, Tod could sing his history with more lively interest mnA real appreciation than his fellow schoolmates sang geography. The simple Tod oaoe joined the geographical chorus with: I'd a Bible in my hand, A* I sailed, as I sailed, I ausk her in tbs sand, And Tod—not* Captain Kidd-had k

ringing in his ears as he sang, as he sang, and an overflow of tears as he sang. And then he ran away from school that afternoon, and sang Captain Kidd, from A to izzard, in the foil hearing of the “Industrial Hive," to the very evident amusement of “the workers," and the discomfiture of the ruler of "the swarm.” The teacher called on the good minister that evening, and after a long talk on the back porch, left late In the dusk, wiping his eyes with one hand, and shaking the other very warmly with the preacher. And Tod slipped noiselessly along the roof above them, and slipped uown the other side and watched the teacher’s departure with a puzzled face. Tod was at school next morning long before the call of “Books;” in fact, so early, that he availed himself of his isolated situation to chalk the handle of the teacher's pointer, to bore a gimlet hole In the water bucket, to slip a chip under one corner of the clock in order to tilt it out of balance and time, and In many more ingenious ways to contribute to the coming troubles of the day. The most audacious act, however, was to climb above the teacher’s desk and paste a paper scrap over a letter “o” in the motto, “Be Good,” that had offered him its vain advice for years. As one by one these depredations met the teacher’s notice through the day, the culprit braced himself for some disastrous issue, but hlB only punishment was the assured glance the teacher always gave him, and the settled yet forbearing look of pain upon his face. In sheer daring Tod laughed aloud — a hollow, hungry laugh that had no mirth in it —but as suddenly subsided in a dose investigation of a problem in mental arithmetic, when the teacher backed slowly toward his desk and stood covertly awaiting further developments. But Tod was left again to htii own Inclinations, after having, with a brazen air of innocence, solicited and gained the master’s assistance in the solution of a very knotty problem, which it is needless to say he knew no more of than before. Throughout the remainder of the day Tod was thoughtful, and was evidently evolving in his mind a problem far more serious than could be found in books. Of his own accord, that evening at the close of school, he stayed In for some mysterious reason that even his deskmaie could pot comprehend. When, an hour later, this latter worthy from the old barn opposite, watched Tod and the teacher hand in hand come slowly down the walk, he whispered to himself with bated breath: “What’s the dum fool up to, anyhow?”

Prom that time Tod grew to be a deeper mystery than he could fathom, inasmuch as some strange spirit of industry fell upon him, and he became a student. Though a perverse fate had seemingly decreed that Tod should remain A failure in all branches wherein most schoolboys readily succeed, he rapidly advanced in, reading; and In the declamatory art he soon acquired a fame that placed him high above the reach of competitors. Tod never cried when he got up to “speak.” Tod never blanched, looked silly, and hung down his head. Tod never mumbled In an undertone, was never at a loss to use his hands, nor ever had “his piece” so poorly memorized that he must hesitate with awkward repetitions, to sit down at last in wordless misery among the unfeeling and derisive plaudits of the school. Tod, In a word, knew no such word as fail when his turn was called to entertain his hearers either with the gallant story of the youthful “Casablanca.” “The Speech of Logan,” or “Catiline’s Defiance.” Let a pupil bo in training for the old-time exercises of Friday afternoon, and he was told to speak out clear and full—not hang his head —not let his arms hang down like empty sleeves —but to Btand up like a king, look everybody in the face, as though he were doing something to be proud of —In short, to take Tod for his model and “speak out like a man!”

When Tod failed to njake his appearance with his usual promptness one Friday afternoon, and the last day of the term, there was evidence of general disappointment. Tod was to deliver an oration written especially for that occasion by the teacher. The visitors were all there —the school committee, and the minister, Tod’s father, who occupied Tod’s desk alone when “Books” was called. The teacher, with his pallid, care-worn face, tiptoed up and down the aisles, bending occasionally to ask a whispered question, and to let the look of anxious wonder deepen on his face as the respectful pupils shook their heads In silent response. But upon a whispered colloquy with the minister, his face brightened, as he learned that “Tod was practicing his oration in the wood house half an hour before the ringing of the bell.” A boy was sent to bring him, but returned alone, to say that he had not been able to find any trace of him. “Oh, he’ll be here in time enough,” said the teacher apologetically to the sad-faced minister. “He’s deeply interested in his effort for this afternoon, and I'm certain he wouldn’t purposely disappoint me-” The good m»n in reply shook his head resignedly, with a' prayerful flight of the eyes Indicative of long suffering and forbearance. The opening services of singing and prayer. No Tod. 1 flttt class in arithmetic called—examined. No Tod. ■ 1 Second class, ditto; still—no Tod. Primary class in ditto, -composed of little twin sisters, aged six, with very red hairand very fair skin, and very if'

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, INP.

short dresses and very slim legs. Tod failed to join his class. The long-suffering minister was ill at ease. The exercise failed in some way to appease the hunger of the soul within. He looked out of the open window nervously, and watched a saucy little sapsucker hopping up and down a tree; first up one side and then down the other, suddenly disappearing near the roots, and as suddenly surprising him with a mischievous pecking near the top fork. He thought of his poor, wayward boy, with a vague, vague hope that he might yet, in some wise ruling of a gracious Providence, escape the gallows; and with a deep sigh turned to the noisy quiet of the school room; he did not even smile as he took up Tod’s geography, opened at the boy’s latest work —a picture of the state seal, where a Btalwart pioneer In his shirtsleeves hacked away at a gnarled and stubborn looking tree, without deigning to notice a stampeding herd of buffalo that dashed by in most alarming proximity. The nonchalance of the sturdy yeoman was intensified by Tod’s graphic pen, which had mounted each plunging monßter with a daring rider, holding a slack bridle-rein in one band, and with the other swinging a plug hat in the most exultant and defiant manner. This piece of grotesque art and others equally suggestive of the outcropping genius of their author, were put wearily aside, only serving, as it seemed, to deepen rather than dissolve the gloom enshrouding the good father’s face. And so the exercises wore along till recess came, and with it came the missing Tod.

“I’m in time, am I? Goody!” shouted Tod, jumping over a small boy who had stooped to pick up a slate pencil, and stopping abruptly in front of the teacher's desk.

“Why Tod; what in the world!” Tod’s features wore a proud, exultant smile, though somewhat glamoured with a network of spiteful-looking scratches; and his eyes were more than usually bright, although their lids were blue and swollen to a size that half concealed them. His head, held Jauntily erect, suggested nothing but boyish spirit; but his hair, tousled beyond all reason, with little wisps of It glued together with clots

Tod, in a Word, Knew No Such Word as Fail When His Turn Was Called to Entertain His Hearers.

of blood; his best clothes soiled and torn; a braised and naked knee showing through a straight rent across one leg of his trousers, conveyed the idea of a recent passage through some gauntlet of disastrous fortune. It was nothing, Tod said, only on his way to school he had come upon a blind man who played the fiddle and sold lead pencils, and the boy who been leading him had stolen something from him; and Tod had voluntarily started in pursuit of the fugitive, to overtake him only after a prolonged chase of more than a mile. “And now I’ve got you out o' town," said the offender, wheeling suddenly upon him, *TU Jes’ meHer your head fer you!" After a long pause, in which Tod*B face was hidden from the curious group about him, as the teacher bent above him at the back steps pouring water on his head, he continued: “Didn’t think the little cuss was so stout! Oh! I’m scratched up, but you ought to se© him! And you ought to hear him holler ‘Nuff!’ and you see him hand over three boxes of pens and them penholders and pencils he gtol’d, and a whole bunch o’ envelopes; there’s blood on some of ’em. and he give me a leadpencil, too, with red In one end and blue In the other. Father, you sharpen it” Tod never spoke better to Wa M*®

than on that memorable afternoon—so well. Indeed, did he acquit himself that the good old father failed to censure him that evening for the sin of fighting, and perhaps never would have done so had not the poor blind man bo far forgotten the dignity of his great affliction as to get as drunk, as he was blind two evenings following, and play the fiddle in front of the meeting house during divine service. It was in the vacation following these latter mentioned incidents that a far more serious occurrence took place.

Tod had never seen a circus, for until this eventful epoch in our simple history the humble little village had never been honored with the presence of this “most highly moral and instructive exhibition of the age.” When the grand cavalcade, with its blaring music and its richly caparisoned horses, with their nodding plumes and spangles, four abreast, drawing the identical “fiery chariot” Tod had heard his father talk about; when all the highly painted wagons with their mysterious contents, and the cunning fairy ponies with their little, fluffy manes and flossy tails —when all this burst upon Tod’s enraptured eyes, he fell mutely into place behind the band wagon, with its myriad followers; and so. dazed, awestricken and entranced, accompanied the pageant on its grand triumphal march around the town. Tod carried water for the animals; Tod ran errands of all kinds for the showmen; Tod looked upon the gruff, ill-tempered canvas hand with an awe approaching reverence. Tod was going to the show, too, for he had been most fortunate in exchanging his poor services of the morning for the “open sesame” of all the dreamed-of wonders of the arena. Tod would laugh and whisper to himself, hugging the ticket closely to his palpitating side, $s he ran about op errands of 'a hundred kinds, occupying every golden interlude of time in drawing the magic passport from his pocket and gloating over the cabalistic legend “Complimentary,” with the accompanying autograph of the fat old manager with the broad, bejeweled expanse of shirtfront, and a watch seal as big as a walnut; while on the reverse side he would glut his vision with an “exterior view of the monster pavilion,”

where a “girl poised high in air on a cord, in spangled dress,” was kissing her > nrirt to a mighty concourse of 'who waved their hats and handkerchiefs in wildest token of approval and acclaim. Nor was this the Bole cause of Tod’s delight, for the fat man with the big watch seal had seemed to take a special fancy to him, and had told him he might bring a friend along, that his ticket would pass two. As the gleeful Tod Was scampering off to ask the teacher if he wouldn’t go, he met hiß anxious father in a deep state of distress, and was led home to listen in agony and tears to a dismal dissertation on the wickedness of shows, and the unending punishment awaiting the poor, giddy moths that fluttered round them. Tod was missing next morning. He had retired very early the evening previous. ‘Tie acted* strange-like,’ the good grandmother, recalling vaguely that he hadn’t eaten any supper, "and I thought I heard him crying in the night. What was the matter with him, Isaac T” Two weeks later Tod was discovered by his distracted father gnd an 'officer cowering behind a roll of canvas, whereon a fat man sat declaring with a breezy nonchalance that no boy of Tod’s description was “along o' thls-’ere party.” And the defiant Tod,

when brought to light, emphatically asserted that the fat man was in nowise blamable; that he had run away on his own hook, and would do it again if he wanted to. But he broke there with a heavy sob; and the fat ttimti said: “There! there! Cootsey, go along with the old *un, and here’s a dollar for you.” And Tod cried aloud. The good minister had brought 'a letter for him, too, and as the boy read it through his tears he turnedhomeward almost eagerly. Dear Tod Pt ran], I have been quite sick since you left me. You must come back, for I miss you, and I can never get well again without you. I’ve got a new kink on a pair of stilts I’ve made you, but I can’t tell how long to make them till you come back. Fanny cornea over every day, and talks about you so much I half believe sometimes she likes you better than she does her old sick uncle; but I can stand that, because you' deserve It, and I’m too old for little girls to like very much. It’ll soon be the Fourth, you know, and we must be getting ready for a big time. Come home at once, for I am waiting. ” To Stoddard Anderson, from his old friend and teacher. Tod went home.- He hastened to the teacher’s darkened room. The dear old face had grown pale—so very pale! The kindly hand that reached out to grasp the boy’s was thin and wasted, and the gentle voice that he had learned to love was faint and low —so very low, it sounded like a prayer. The good minister turned silently and left the two old friends together; and there were, teardrops in his eyes. And so the little, staggering life went on alone. Some old woman gossip, peering through the eye of a needle on the institution known as the "Ladies’ Benevolent Sewing society,” said that it ’peared to her like that boy of the preacher’s Jes’ kep apinin’ and a-pinin’ away, ever sence they fetched him hack from his runaway scrape. She’d seen him time and again sence then, and although the little snipe was innocentlike to ail appearances, she’d be bound that he was In devilment enough! Reckoned he was too proud to march in the school p’cession at the teacher's funer’i; and he didn’t go to the meetin’ house at all, but put off to the graveyard by hisself; and when they got there with the corpse, Tod was a-settin’ with his legs a-hangin’ in the grave, and apitchin’ clods in, and a-emilin’. “And only Jes’ the other evening,” she continued, “as I was cornin’ past there kind o’ In the dusklike, that boy was a-settin’ a-straddle o’ the grave, and jes’ a-cryin’! And I thought It kind o’ strangelike, and stopped and hollered: *What’s the matter of ye, Tod?’ and he ups and hollers back: ‘Stumpt my toe, durn ye!’ and thinks I, ‘My youngster, they’ll be a day o’ reckonin’ fer you!'”

The old world worried on, till July came at last', and with It that most glorious day that wrapped the baby nation in its swaddling clothes of stripes and stars and laid it in the lap of Liberty. And what a day that was! And how the birds did sing that morning from the green tops of the trees when the glad sunlight came glancing through the jeweled leaves and woke them! And not more joyous Were the birds, or more riotous their little throbbing hearts to “pipe the trail and cheep and twitter twenty million loves,” than the merry children that came fluttering to the grove to join their revelry.

0 brighter than a dream swept the procession of children from the town .toward the boy that swung his hat from the tree top near the brook. And he flushed with some Strange ecstasy as he saw a little girl in white, with a wreath of evergreen, wave her crimson sash in answer to him, while the column slowly filed across the open bridge, where yet again he saw. her reappear.in the reflection in the stream below. Then, after the dull opening of prayer, and the more tedious exercises following, how the woods did ring with laughter; how the boys vied with one another in their labors of arranging swings and clearing underbrush away preparatory to a day of unconfined enjoyment; and how.the girls shrieked to "see the black man coming,” and how coquettishly they struggled when captured and carried off by that dread being, and yet what eagerness they displayed in his behalf! And "Ring”—men and women even joining in the game, and kissing one another’s wives and husbands like mad. Why, even the ugly old gentleman with a carbuncle on the back of his neck, grew riotous with mirth, and when tripped full length upon the sward by the little widow in half-mourning, hustled nimbly to his feet and kissed her, with some wicked pun about "grass” widows, that made him laugh till his face grew as red as his carbuncle. That bashful young man who had straggled off alone, sitting so uncomfortably upon a log, killing hugs and spiders, like an ugly giant with a monster club —how he must have envied the airy freedom of those "old boys and giris.” Then there was a group of older men talking so long and earnestly about the weather and the crops that they had not discovered that the shade of the old beech they sat beneath had stolen silently away and left them sitting in the sun, and was even then performing Its refreshing office for a big, sore-eyed dog, who, with panting jaws and lolling tongue, was winking away the lives of a swarm of gnats with the most stoical Indifference. And go time wore along till dinner came, and women, with big open baskets, bent above the snowy cloths spread out upon the grass, arranging "the substantials” and the dainties of a feast too varied and too toothsome for anything but epicurean memories to describe. And then the abandon of the voracious guests! No

dainty affectations —no formalities—no etiquette—no anything byt the full away of healthful appetites incited by the exhilarant exercises of the day into keenest rapacity and relish. ♦‘‘Don’t you think it's goin* to rain?* asked someone suddenly. A little rosy-gilled gentleman, with the aid of a chicken leg for a lever, raised his fat face skyward, and after a serious contemplation of the clouds, wouldn’t say for certain whether it would rain or not, but informed the unfortunate querist, after pulling his head into its usual position and laying down the

Tod Carried Water for the Animals. lever to make room for a bite of bread, that “if It didn’t rain there’d be a long dry spell;” and then he snorted a mimic snowstorm of breadcrumbs on his vls-a-vls, who looked wronged, and said he “guessed he’d take another piece of that-air pie down there.”

It was looking very much, like rain by the time the dinner things were cleared away. Anxious mothers, with preserve stains on their dresses, were running here and there with such exclamations to the men folks as “Do hurry up!” and “For goodness’ sake, John,’ take the baby till I find my para- 1 sol,” and “There, Thomas, don’t lug that basket off till I find my pickle dish!” Already the girls had left the swings, which were being taken down, and were tying handkerchiefs over their hats and standing in despairing contemplation of the ruin of their dresses. Someone called from the stand for the ladies not to be tit all alarmed, it wasn’t going to rain, and there wasn’t a particle of danger of —; but there a clap of thunder Interrupted, and went on growling menacingly, while a little girl, with her hair blown wildly over her bare Bhoulders, and a face, which a moment before glowed like her crimson scarf, now grown whiter than her snowy dress, ran past the stand and fell fainting to the ground. “Is there a doctor on the grounds?” called a loud voice In the distance, and, without waiting for a —“For God’s sake, come here quick; a boy has fallen from the swing, and maybe killed himself!” And then the crowd gathered round him there, men with white faces, and frightened wonjen and little, shivering children.

“Whose boy is it?" “Hush; here comes his father.” And the good minister, with stark features and clenched hands, passed through the surging throng that closed behind him even as the waves on Pharaoh. Did I say all were excited? Not all; for there was one dalm face, though very pale—paler yet for being pillowed on the green grass and the ferns. "You mustn’t move me,” the boy said when he could speak; "tell ’em to come here.” He smiled and tried to lift his arms about his father’s neck. “Poor father! poor father!” as speaking to himself, "I always loved you, father, only you’d never believe it —never believe it. Now yon will. Til see mother, now—mother. Don’t cry—l’m hurt, and I don’t cry. And I’ll .pee teacher, too. He said I would. He said we would always be together there. Where’s Fanny? Tell her—tell her—” But that strange unending silence fell upon his lips, and as the dying eyes looked up and out beyond the sighing tree tops, he smiled to catch a gleam of sunshine through the foolish cloud that tried so hard to weep.

Perfect Gold Mine.

Niggs—So Batly is one of those inventor chaps, is he? Too bad?. Why, he’ll live along from hand to mouth all his Hfe! -V Siggs—Oh, no, he won’t! He’ll soon be a rich man. believe me! He’s just worked out an automobile attachment which will permit a man to put hte’ arm around a girl and 4tiTft.tta. wte without accident at the same time!