Our house is so nearly on the towpath, that the mules eat the honeysuckle from the fence, and as there is only a tiny flower-bed between the house and the fence, you can hear the voices, and the tramping of the mules, as plainly indoors as out.
At night, when you wake up in the dark, you think they are coming in. That's at first. By and by you get so used to them that you don't think about it.
One reason why we came down so early in the spring is that I'm not to be sent to school until the fall, because I'm not to use my eyes too much, until they get stronger. Measles made them a little weak. So I have one hour with Aunty May for reading and sums, and half an hour with Aunty Edith for French; and then I don't have to do anything else for the rest of the day, until nearly dark, when I water the flower-beds for both the aunties.
But from eleven until four, except at lunch-time, I must not bust into the house and holler at Aunty May—for she is writing; and I must not run after and plague Aunty Edith, when she goes up the towpath—for she's painting.
Mr. Taylor, being seventy-three, can be spoken to at any time, except when he's doing his baking. Then he doesn't want anything or anybody round his feet, he says. Just as if I was cats!
This morning I'm writing about. I was out on the towpath, fishing for eels, so I could put one in the tub which stands by the pump to catch the overflow; because Aunty May is very much afraid of snakes and eels, and she squeals so funny when she sees them that it is what Mr. Taylor calls "a fair treat" to hear her.
I thought if I got her good and scared with seeing one in the tub, she might be so mad that she'd not be able to write, and would chase me round the garden.
It's too bad Aunty May's grown up. She likes to play as well as any boy I know, and she's good at it, too, if it wasn't for her writing. Uncle Burt used to complain of that writing, too, when he was home. He said it interfered a lot—when he wanted her to play with him.
Anyway the eels didn't bite, but I thought maybe I'd get a sunfish, and that's nearly as good a scream-starter, if Aunty May doesn't expect it to be there.
All at once, I felt my cap pushed right off, and I looked up and there was a boy, riding on the top of an old gray mule, that was one of two tired-looking mules, dragging a canal boat.
There was nobody on the boat that I could see, 'cept one man asleep on the top.
"Gimme my cap, boy," I said.
"Aw, you and your fishin'," he says. "Git off the towpath."
And I said: "You can't say that to me. We've got the right of way here, because I live in that house with the green door."
"Oh, you do," says he. "Well, baby dear, go in and tell yer wimmin folks ye've lost your cap"; and he chucked my cap right into the canal!
Well, I couldn't get it, without falling in, and there was the canal-boat coming along ready to run over it. So I took my fishing-rod and flicked it at him, and there—I had caught the eel after all! It struck him, all cold and slippery, and he yelled, and it hit the mule, and the mule ran away, dragging the other mule with it, right up the slope to Rabbit Run Bridge!
The boy had grabbed the fishing-rod, so that my rod and my eel went with them.
My! but I was mad, but kind of excited, too, for a man came up from the inside of the canal boat and yelled, and the man on the deck woke up and yelled, and the boy was yelling!
There was a farmer driving along the road and across the bridge and when he saw mules coming, lickity-split, where mules never come,—right up to the bridge,—he yelled too, and licked his horse to get out of the way. The boy, he licked the mules with my rod. He'd thrown my eel back into the water.
He was as cool as could be, and by and by he got the mules calmed down, and one of the men from the boat jumped off and helped him and they got the ropes all straight again and started off. The boy never said a word, except when the man asked him what did it. Then he told him, "The mule didn't like the looks of that baby boy there on the canal bank." The man shook his fist at me, and I called, "Gimme my cap." And the boy said, "Wait till we come back"; and he made an awful face as they went away, turning round and riding backwards to do it.
I knew then that he was the same boy that made a face at me when I was in the train.
Well, I had to tell Aunty Edith, and she looked very severe, and gave me my second-best cap and said, "William, do be careful, this time." But I only told her that the boy threw my cap into the water. I didn't tell that he said he was coming back.
But I talked to Mr. Taylor about it, and he agreed that when I saw the boy again, I'd have to have it out with him, and he'd stand referee to see that there was no unfair advantage took of me or him.
"For," says he, "you can't be called baby darling free and often by them boat boys, and neither can you eel them boat boys and scare their mules. All things being equal, you ask him his intentions next time and come to some mew-tual feeling on the matter, which won't reach the ears of your Aunty Edith. The ears of your Aunty May," say she, "could be reached and enjyed by them fine, if took alone, and without t'other Aunty present."
Well, every day I kept a watch-out for that boy, and for a whole week I didn't see him.
One Monday, Aunty May asked Aunty Edith if I couldn't go down,—it was raining,—if I put on my raincoat and boots, with Mr. Taylor, when he went to the mail, and bring her some stamps and stamped envelopes. Aunty Edith said, "Oh, all right, May, but it seems to me you eat stamps. They disappear so fast." Aunty May laughed, and said,
"Be-that-as-it-may," which is what she always says when she wants to stop discussing, "William goes."
So I got ready, and Mr. Taylor and me started down. It's a mile away.
Mr. Taylor doesn't like umbrellas, neither do I, so, as it was only misting, Aunty May said I needn't.
Just as we got to Rabbit Run Bridge, who came along, with his mules, and the same canal boat, and the same man asleep, under an umbrella this time, but that BOY!
Mr. Taylor says, that the et-i-ket of such things makes him leave me and go sit on the bridge while I had it out. So I went down and said to the boy, "Hey, you, where's my cap?" And he grinned and said, "I give it to your eel. He's a-wearing of it now, and it looks fine on him."
That strikes me so funny that I began to laugh; then I remembered that wasn't what I wanted to do. So I says, "Come on down till I polish you up for what you did to my cap"; and he says, "I'll be down in a minute to fix you for what you done to my mule. I've gotter put him in trousers to-morrow, his legs is so damaged."
Then I began to laugh again, at the thought of a mule in trousers. "Aw, come on down," I said. "You ain't got any trousers for him." "Have, too," he said; "I'm making them spare minutes out of Turkey red. And when I adds brass buttons and pockets I'll put 'em on, the next time he passes your house."
I began to laugh again, and then he jumped down, and before I knew it hit me a punch on the nose. That made me so mad that I hit at him and it struck his leg, and he said, "Ouch," and jumped so that I looked at his leg, and saw it was black and blue already.
"Who did that?" I said.
"Never you mind, baby dear," he said: "come on. If my leg did get catched between the boat and the bank and ground agin a stone this morning, I can still fight an eel-catcher."
And he hopped up to me on one foot, and I saw he wasn't much bigger than me, maybe eleven or twelve, and he had all he could do to keep from crying because his leg hurt him so; but he was so quick that I just had to dodge to get out of the way.
"Say," I said, after I'd gotten out of his reach, "I don't want to hit you when you're hurt. And anyway," I said, "I don't know that I care about fighting with anybody who can make eels wear caps and mules red trousers. Wait a minute and I'll get a clean rag and some witch-hazel for your leg."
"No, you don't," he says; "I ain't going to be fussed over, but if you gotta pitcher-book, like the one I seen you reading one day, that, an' something to chew'll keep my mind off my leg, and when it's all right again, I'll come past and smash you into bait for eels."
That didn't seem quite what I wanted, but I told Mr. Taylor the boy was hurt and I couldn't fight, and he said "Certainly not—agin reg-u-lations."
Then he said he'd wait for me a minute, and I ran back home, because I knew I'd get there faster than any canal mule, and I bust into the room, and told Aunty May, and first she didn't like my busting in like that, and then she got interested. She gave me a picture-book and a piece of rag, and some witch-hazel in a bottle, and a big piece of cake. When I got out, the boy was just coming up to the fence, and Aunty May wanted to tie up his leg for him, but he wouldn't. So she explained to him that the stuff in the bottle and the rag was for his leg, and he said, "Yes, 'm, thanks," and then she went in the house quick, so's I could speak to him myself. I'd asked her to.
He said, "Well, eel-catcher, this will help me some. And if I pass this way agin, I'll look you up."
"Oh, do," I said.
"Want yer book back?" he calls.
"No," I said, "when you get through with it, give it to the eel."
"No," says he, "he's not fond of reading, but I know an old mushrat that's fond of anything like print. I'll give it to him, so any time you see him reading it by moonlight, with his spectacles on, you'll know it's my friend."
"Oh, come back soon," I called, "and tell me more about it"; for he was getting slowly and slowly away from me.
"I will," he shouted, "if I don't make a mistake and swallow the witch-hazel."
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