A Child-World | Page 6

knife, and plate?Dropped saggingly, with its all-bounteous weight,?And dragged in place voraciously; and then?Pent exclamations, and the lull again.--?The garland of glad faces 'round the board--?Each member of the family restored?To his or her place, with an extra chair?Or two for the chance guests so often there.--?The father's farmer-client, brought home from?The courtroom, though he "didn't want to come?Tel he jist saw he hat to!" he'd explain,?Invariably, time and time again,?To the pleased wife and hostess, as she pressed?Another cup of coffee on the guest.--?Or there was Johnty's special chum, perchance,?Or Bud's, or both--each childish countenance?Lit with a higher glow of youthful glee,?To be together thus unbrokenly,--?Jim Offutt, or Eck Skinner, or George Carr--?The very nearest chums of Bud's these are,--?So, very probably, one of the three,?At least, is there with Bud, or ought to be.?Like interchange the town-boys each had known--?His playmate's dinner better than his own--?Yet blest that he was ever made to stay?At Almon Keefer's, any blessed day,?For any meal!... Visions of biscuits, hot?And flaky-perfect, with the golden blot?Of molten butter for the center, clear,?Through pools of clover-honey--dear-o-dear!--?With creamy milk for its divine "farewell":?And then, if any one delectable?Might yet exceed in sweetness, O restore?The cherry-cobbler of the days of yore?Made only by Al Keefer's mother!--Why,?The very thought of it ignites the eye?Of memory with rapture--cloys the lip?Of longing, till it seems to ooze and drip?With veriest juice and stain and overwaste?Of that most sweet delirium of taste?That ever visited the childish tongue,?Or proved, as now, the sweetest thing unsung.
ALMON KEEFER
Ah, Almon Keefer! what a boy you were,?With your back-tilted hat and careless hair,?And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes?With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise?And joyous interest in flower and tree,?And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee.
The fields and woods he knew; the tireless tramp?With gun and dog; and the night-fisher's camp--?No other boy, save Bee Lineback, had won?Such brilliant mastery of rod and gun.?Even in his earliest childhood had he shown?These traits that marked him as his father's own.?Dogs all paid Almon honor and bow-wowed?Allegiance, let him come in any crowd?Of rabbit-hunting town-boys, even though?His own dog "Sleuth" rebuked their acting so?With jealous snarls and growlings.
But the best?Of Almon's virtues--leading all the rest--?Was his great love of books, and skill as well?In reading them aloud, and by the spell?Thereof enthralling his mute listeners, as?They grouped about him in the orchard grass,?Hinging their bare shins in the mottled shine?And shade, as they lay prone, or stretched supine?Beneath their favorite tree, with dreamy eyes?And Argo-fandes voyaging the skies.?"Tales of the Ocean" was the name of one?Old dog's-eared book that was surpassed by none?Of all the glorious list.--Its back was gone,?But its vitality went bravely on?In such delicious tales of land and sea?As may not ever perish utterly.?Of still more dubious caste, "Jack Sheppard" drew?Full admiration; and "Dick Turpin," too.?And, painful as the fact is to convey,?In certain lurid tales of their own day,?These boys found thieving heroes and outlaws?They hailed with equal fervor of applause:?"The League of the Miami"--why, the name?Alone was fascinating--is the same,?In memory, this venerable hour?Of moral wisdom shorn of all its power,?As it unblushingly reverts to when?The old barn was "the Cave," and hears again?The signal blown, outside the buggy-shed--?The drowsy guard within uplifts his head,?And "'Who goes there?'" is called, in bated breath--?The challenge answered in a hush of death,--?"Sh!--'Barney Gray!_'" And then "'_What do you seek?'"?"'Stables of The League!'" the voice comes spent and weak, For, ha! the Law is on the "Chieftain's" trail--?Tracked to his very lair!--Well, what avail??The "secret entrance" opens--closes.--So?The "Robber-Captain" thus outwits his foe;?And, safe once more within his "cavern-halls,"?He shakes his clenched fist at the warped plank-walls?And mutters his defiance through the cracks?At the balked Enemy's retreating backs?As the loud horde flees pell-mell down the lane,?And--Almon Keefer is himself again!
Excepting few, they were not books indeed?Of deep import that Almon chose to read;--?Less fact than fiction.--Much he favored those--?If not in poetry, in hectic prose--?That made our native Indian a wild,?Feathered and fine-preened hero that a child?Could recommend as just about the thing?To make a god of, or at least a king.?Aside from Almon's own books--two or three--?His store of lore The Township Library?Supplied him weekly: All the books with "or"s--?Sub-titled--lured him--after "Indian Wars,"?And "Life of Daniel Boone,"--not to include?Some few books spiced with humor,--"Robin Hood"?And rare "Don Quixote."--And one time he took?"Dadd's Cattle Doctor."... How he hugged the book?And hurried homeward, with internal glee?And humorous spasms of expectancy!--?All this confession--as he promptly made?It, the day later, writhing in the shade?Of the old apple-tree with Johnty and?Bud, Noey Bixler, and The Hired Hand--?Was quite as funny as the book was not....?O Wonderland of wayward Childhood! what?An easy, breezy realm of summer calm?And dreamy gleam and gloom and bloom and balm?Thou art!--The Lotus-Land the poet sung,?It is