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Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 9 |
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_ CHAPTER IX "Go away from me! Don't you come any nearer or I will smite you!" said Uncle Ike, as the redheaded boy came into the room with his red hair cut short with the clippers, a green neglige shirt, with a red necktie, a white collar, a tan belt with a nickel buckle, and short trousers with golf socks of a plaid pattern that were so loud they would turn out a fire department. "I am afraid of you. Who in the world got you to have your red hair shingled so it looks like red sand-paper? And who is your tailor? Have I got to go down to my grave with the thought that a nephew of mine would appear in daylight looking like that? Get me a piece of smoked glass, or I shall have cataracts on both eyes," and the old man knocked the ashes and deceased tobacco out of his pipe on his boot heel, and dug the stuff out of the bottom of the pipe with a jack-knife. "Well, I had to have my hair cut, because the boys at the picnic filled my hair with burdock burrs, and it couldn't be combed out," said the boy, as he took a match and scratched it on top of his head, and lit it, while the uncle sniffed at the burned hair. "Aunt Almira cut my hair first with a pair of dull shears, to get the burrs out, and then a barber cut off all there was left, with these horse-clippers, and I feel like a dog that has had his hindquarters clipped to make a lion of him. Aunt Almira says I have got a great head. Say, Uncle Ike, did you ever examine the bumps on my head? I was at a phrenology lecture once, and the feeler could tell all that was going on in a man's head just by the bumps. Feel of mine, Uncle, and tell my fortune," and the red-headed boy came up to the old man for examination. "I am no phrenologist," said Uncle Ike, as he smoked up and got the boy to coughing, "but there are some bumps I know the names of," and he felt all around the boy's head, and looked wise. "This place where there is a dent in your head is where the bump of veneration will grow, later, if you get in the habit of letting old people have a show, and get up and offer them your chair, and run errands for them without expecting them to pay you. This place on the back of your head, where there is a bump as big as a hickory nut, is what we call the hat rack bump, because you can hang your hat on it. The barber ought to have cut a couple of slices off that bump with his lawn mower. Here is a bump that shows that you are color blind. Be careful, or you will marry a negro girl by mistake. As a precaution, when you begin to get in love serious, bring the girl to me that I may see if she is white. Here is a soft bump that indicates that you will steal-------" [Illustration: Bump that indicates that you will steal 077] "Oh, come off," said the boy, laughing, and removing his head from the investigation. "That is where I was struck by a golf ball. You are no phrenologist. I know what you are, Uncle Ike; you are a fakir. But, say, I was sick last night, after we had that green watermelon for dinner, and Aunt Almira said I was troubled with sewer gas, and she gave me the peppermint test. Do you think peppermint will detect sewer gas, Uncle Ike?" "I know what you want, boy, you want to get me mad," said Uncle Ike, as he threw his pipe into the grate because it wouldn't draw, and took a new one and filled it. "There is no greater fraud on the earth than this peppermint test for sewer gas. I had a house to rent, years ago, and was ruined by peppermint. When a tenant had anything the matter, from grip to corns, the doctor would look wise, snuff around, and say he detected sewer gas, and they would call in a health officer and he would put a little peppermint oil in somewhere, and go into another room, and when he smelled the peppermint he would say it was sewer gas, and send for a plumber, and they would begin to plumb, and I had to pay. I had nine tenants in two years, and every disease they had was laid to sewer gas, and I had to ease up on the rent or stand a lawsuit. When one family had triplets, and tried to stand me off on the rent on account of sewer gas, I became a walking delegate, and struck, and turned the house into a livery stable, and now, do you know, every time I go to collect rent I am afraid a horse has got sick, and the livery man will lay it to sewer gas. Why, boy, peppermint oil will go through an asphalt pavement. You might put peppermint oil on top of the Egyptian pyramids and you could smell it in fifteen minutes in Cairo. If anybody ever talks to you about sewer gas and peppermint test, call them a liar and charge it to me," and the old man was so mad the boy's hair began to curl. "Here, Uncle Ike, what you staring out of the window so for, with your eyes sot, like a dying horse, and your body as rigid as a statue?" and the boy rushed up to the window and looked out to see what had come over the old man. "Hush, keep still, and don't scare her away," said Uncle Ike, as he held up his hand and motioned the boy to keep still. "By gosh, if it isn't a woman, Uncle Ike, that has paralyzed you, and you always said you didn't care for them any more," said the red-headed boy, as he looked out the window and saw a blonde-haired young woman standing on the corner waiting for a street car, and glancing up at Uncle Ike through the frowsy hair that was loosely flying about her forehead. "And she is a blonde, too, and blondes have gone out of style. Didn't you read in the papers that the shows won't hire blondes any more, and that nothing but brunettes are in it? It must be pretty tough on a blonde to get her hair all fixed fluffy, after years of patient coloring, and then find she has gone out of style, and no op'ry will hire her to shed blonde hair on the coats of the chorus fellows. Oh, Uncle Ike, come away from the window or you will be stolen," and the boy dragged the old man away from the window, handed him his pipe, and said, "Smoke up and try to forget it." "Forget nothing," said the old man, as he lit the torch and a smile came over his good-natured face. "Don't you worry about blonde girls going out of style. These bleached ones, who never were the real thing, may go back to their natural, beautiful brunetticism, and when they realize how foolish they have been, trying to bunko nature, they will be happier than ever, but the natural blonde will never go out of style. She is a joy forever. Do you know, when a man gets in love with a girl he couldn't tell what the color of her hair was, to save him? He knows all about her eyes, and her hands, and her face, but unless he finds a hair on his coat he can't tell what is the color of the hair of his beloved. Love is like smoking. You may smoke in the dark, and if your pipe goes out you smoke right along and don't know the difference. You sit up with a girl in the dark and you can't see her, and she may go to sleep, but love keeps smoking right along and never seems to go out. When I was wounded at the battle of Pea Ridge, and was taken to a young ladies' seminary to be doctored and nursed back to life----" "Oh, do quit, Uncle Ike! If you had been taken wounded to a young ladies' seminary, say in 1863, thirty-six years ago, you would have been there yet, and your wound would still be paining you, and the girls who saved your life would be grown up to be gray-haired old women," and the boy jollied the old man until he blushed. "You must have known a man named Ananias in the army. Say, Uncle Ike, you know you wanted me to learn a trade, and I have decided that I would like to learn the trade of a bishop. I read of the death of a bishop the other day who was worth half a million dollars, and now you must tell me how to become a bishop, like Newman," and the boy laughed as though he had got the old man in a tight place. "Well," said Uncle Ike, after stopping to think a moment, "you might do worse. Do you know, boy, that Bishop Newman, who died recently, did learn a trade? Well, he did. When he was a boy, he seemed to be a no-account sort of a duck, some like you. His parents were poor, and lived in the slums of New York. His hair was some the color of yours, and he loafed around, and made fun of his old uncle, no doubt, the same as you do. He had to do something to help earn the bread and beer for the family, and so he went to work stripping tobacco in a factory near his home. Somehow he got vaccinated with a desire to learn something, and after he had stripped tobacco, and snuffed it, and got some sense in his head, he began to learn to read. A girl stripper taught him first to read the labels on packages of tobacco, and taught him to spell. Then he got a taste for education, and became the smarty of the factory, and the boys who could not read called him 'snuff,' because his hair and freckles were the color of Scotch snuff. Some white man connected with the factory saw that the little rat had stuff in him, and he helped him to get an education, and he stripped tobacco daytimes and studied nights, and became a preacher, and finally a bishop. So, you smarty, if you want to learn the trade of a bishop, strip the wrapper off that package of tobacco and fill my pipe. Who knows but Bishop Newman stripped the very tobacco I am smoking now?" and the old man puffed and laughed at the boy. "Gosh! it smells old enough to have been stripped when the bishop was a boy," said the red-headed boy, and then he dodged behind a table, while Uncle Ike tried to catch him and teach him how to be a bishop. _ |
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