Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1876 — HOW LIDLE’S PICTURE WAS TAKEN. [ARTICLE]

HOW LIDLE’S PICTURE WAS TAKEN.

Jacky Cttmmtngs was a queer boy; and his little sister Lidle wasn’t pretty well acquainted with him. Odd? It ought to be odd, but it isn’t;-at least it is common for grown folks to sleep under the same roof and dine at the same table, and still not know each other very well. Little Lidle got some acquainted with her brother every summer, but in winter they got to be as strangers again. Winters they were in town at the big house, and Jacky went to the public school daytimes, and to the public streets nights, while Lidle was at home with her mother. But in summer, when Mr. and Mrs. Laidlaw went out into the country to the farm, they took Mr. and Mrs. Cummings, and of course Mr. and Mrs. Cummings took their little boy and girl. Mr. Cummings was the gardener, and Mrs. Cummings was the cook. From the farm to the nearest village it was five miles. There was no neighbors with children: so, you see, Jacky was obliged, while at the farm, to make the most he could of little Lidle as a playmate. , Jacky was not a very nice boy. He didn’t care for the country and its wholesome pleasures. He didn’t care for the farm and its innocent sights and sounds. He didn’t care for the calves, only when they would kick up their heels and caper, nor for the colts, only when they would caper, and as for such mild creatures as lambs, he tolerated them only because they were there, and he wouldn’t look at Liale’s pets, the fowls, at all, though he sometimes found it worth his while to tease the turkeys with a red rag and mock the peacock into spreading his tail. He said if he was a farmer he wouldn’t keep anything on his farm but race-horses. In fact, I am rather sorry to take such an ungentle boy as Jacky for a hero, but, seeing that he is the hero, how can I help it? I only hope I shall not be blamed for his ways and tricks, since I didn’t have the bringing of him up. Jacky regarded girls much in the same manner that he did animals. Some little girls, the spunky temper-y ones, and the little romps ana gypsies, rather amused him; but he looked oh little Lidle and her sort much as he would at a quiet little biddie-hen who went demurely about her small business eveiy day. Jacky was a bom skeptic and scoffer, while little Lidle believed eveiytliing she was told. Sometimes little Lidle’s faith in everything made her a very poor playmate when there waa fun on hand, and sometimes it made her a very good one. The children had pretty much their own way at the farm. Mr. and Mrs. Laidlaw came there to take rest and comfort, and held no very tight reins; and Mrs. Cummings knew there was no bad company in Jacky’s reach; so, in their old clothes, the fewest of them possible, bare-headed and bare-legged, the two roamed at will through the grass and under the trees. Forenoons Jacky was off by himself, exploring the world like a man. He built ships, whittled whistles and tops, and raised a melee from time to time among the animals. In the afternoon, tired and disgusted, he was generally ready to fall back on Lidle.

One day they were out back of the house. It was hot and still, so still that the gentle noise of the hens, and the chirp of the grasshoppers, made it seem still more still. Mrs. Laidlaw was asleep in her room, and Mrs. Cummings was asleep in her room. Mrs. Laidlaw was a nice woman; and, when the work was done, she just as soon the cook should lie down and have a good nap as not. In fact, she always brought Mrs. Cummings with her out to the farm purposely that the faithful woman should have a change of air, and get rested, as well asherself, from the winter dinner-giving. As I said, the children were around in the shade at the back of the house. Lidle sat in the grass, under the kitchen window, playing with some flowers. Jacky, lolling under , the hollyhocks, lay and looked at her, and wondered how girls could hold up first one flower and stare at it, then hold up another and stare at it, and then put the two together and stare at them, and think it was good time.

After a while he got up. “Come, Lidle,” said he,. “I’m going to take your picture.” Lidle thought of her darling picture, a chromo which Mrs. Laidlaw had given her. “You can’t, she said, with a happy smile; “ 1 didn’t bring it.” “ Goose!” said Jacky. “ I mean lam going to take your photograph.” “ I wish you could, Jacky, but you don’t know how,” said Lidle. “ Don’t you be too sure, now,” said Jacky. “I know lots of things I never told you.” “I know that, Jacky,” said Lidle, honestly. “But if you know how, you haven’t got any gallery, or any instrument —I wish you had, .Tacky.” “ What’ll you bet?” said Jacky. “ You just turn around your face to the wall, and sfcty so three minutes.” So Lidle—her real name was Eliza—turned round.

“ Say * Honor bright,’ now,” commanded Jacky. “ Honor bright,” said Lidle. There were things carried about, and much clattering and hammering. Jacky went to and fro for a long time, but Lidle never thought of looking. “ Now you can look,” said Jacky. Lidle turned around. There was a camera all ready. After a minute Lidle was alittle tempted to resolve it into its components parti—a chair, a box, and two lengths of old stove-pipe shoved into each other, pointing at her, and a shawl thrown over the back of the chair. She did venture to tell Jacky she couldn’t think it was a “real” one. “.Don’t, hey? What’ll you bet? Suppose I take a photograph with it—will that satisfy r*

Lidle said it would. Jacky fixed her a seat It was rather shaky, being a pail laid on its side, and somewhat given to rolling along, and taking poor Lidle along with it. | But as Jacky by this time had'ner hand laid against her heart just as he wished it, and the flowers arranged to his satisfaction in the other hand, she said nothing about her discomfort, but held the pail back as well as she could with her heel. Jacky curly-cued her hair with his fingers, and, as it wouldn’t stay down, he stood it up all around her head. Then he went back to the camera.. He looked through it a great deal at Lidld. He piuned a sheet of paper to the chairback. He laid a long vine upon the pipe. Then lie went to Lialc and moved her head. Then he went back and squinted at her again. At last he took his station behind the chair. He pulled the shawl over his .head, drawing It along over thd pipe. A l' Eyes wide open, so, 4 ’ he called. ‘‘/Mouth a trifle more qpen, just so. Beady!” fHe clattered the pipe fiaely for a tpoment, then leaned his head on the chair in silence. * “ Subject may move, now.” He took the paper from the chair-back and went away, around the corner of the house. When lie returned he said phe would have.to sit again. So she sat again. This time, when he came back from around the house, he said it was a very good picture, and the lady might call for it in half an hour. “ H-m! h-ml” said the photographer, after his sister had gone. He stood looking down on the sheet of paper. “Guess I’ll have to leave town on a sudden call ’fore she comes. Then at supper time I’ll make her believe .she dreamed the whole —bet I could do it!”

He laid down the sheet with a grin. “Hello! just Uie thing!” he cried out. Jacky was looking at a smear left by sooty thumb. He waited to cut an antic or twq over the plan which had popped into his head, and then, on a clean place in the paper, he carefully rubbed a little soot. With a piece of coal, and many a flourish here and there, he added various touches, rubbing out with his handkerchief and scratching out with his knife whenever necessary. Just as he had cut the paper to photograph size, his sitter appeared round the corner. “ All right, madam, walk in. Picture done, and a very fine one it is, without flattering you in the least.” Jacky placed it in her hands with a bow. There really was a faint, shadowy, caricatur-ish likeness to herself about the silhouette. Lidle gazed at in bewilderment and horror. “Why, Jacky!” she said; it did take, didn’t it? but it’s so black!” “ That’s owing to the insterment, Miss Lidle. All the latest style insterments take you iq black.” Lidle, her eyes still fixed on it, carried it in. Mrs. Cummings was almost as bewildered as Lidle. Sue showed it to Mrs. Laidlaw, and Mrs. Laidlaw came to the kitchen window to see the camera. She laughed. She said it was, of course, the kind of photograph a stove-pipe would take, but she looked a little bewildered, too, as if, maybe, the stove-pipe “insterment” had done it. In fact, the more one looked at the camera, and the more one looked at the picture, the more uncertain and bewildered one became. At all events, nobody explained it to dear little Lidle. She has the photograph still, and, I dare say, regards her brother as a perfect wizard of science; but when she reads this she will know the whole.— Wide-Awake.