“Now, you go in the bath-room and wash your face in cold water, and you will be all right,” and the boy did so, and came back with almost a smile on his face, and he looked at the papers on the table, and said:
“Uncle Ike, you didn’t send that appendicitis story to my girl, did you? Gosh, but I am all right now, and I am not going to die.”
“No, I didn’t send it; but next time I will, by ginger,” and the old man laughed. “Here, have a smoke on me,” but the boy went out in the open air and kicked himself.
CHAPTER XVI
It was a beautiful, hot, sunny morning, and after breakfast Uncle Ike came out on the porch in his shirt sleeves, and with a pair of old hunting shoes on, and his shirt sleeves rolled up, showing the sleeves of a red flannel undershirt, a kind he always wore, winter and summer. He leaned against the post of the porch, lit his pipe, and looked away toward the hazy, hot horizon, and thought of old days that had been brought to his mind the day before, when he saw the parade of a Wild West show. The old man was a ’49er, who went across the plains for gold when the country was young, and the yells of the Indians had made him nervous, as they did half a century ago. He had staked the red-headed boy and several of his chums to go to the show, and was waiting for them to show up and report. He stepped down on the lawn and took up the nozzle of a sprinkler and turned it on a lilac bush, when suddenly there was a yell that was unmistakably that of a Comanche Indian; and he stopped and looked at the bush, and could plainly see a moccasin and a leg with buckskin fringe on it, and he knew the boys were laying for him, to scalp him and have fun with him; so he held the nozzle as his only protection against the bloodthirsty band of savages, headed by Chief Red Head, his nephew, but a bad Indian when off the reservation. From behind an evergreen tree down by the gate there came a blood-curdling yell, which was evidently from the throat of “Watermelon Jim,” a neighbor’s boy, while from the wild cucumber vine on the south porch came a noise like that of a pack of wolves breakfasting on a fawn.
“Surrender!” shouted a damp voice from behind the lilac bush, where the hose was turned. “Surrender, or we burn down your ranch over your head!” and a painted Indian, with red, short hair showing under the feather, crawled toward a rosebush, where it was dry.
“Never!” said Uncle Ike, as he bit the stem of his pipe, and smiled at the boys who were peeking out from behind the different hiding places. “Your Uncle Ike often dies, but he never surrenders,” and he cocked the nozzle of the lawn sprinkler, and stood ready for the attack.
The red-headed Indian lit a parlor match and held it aloft, which was apparently a smoke signal, for an Indian behind the porch appeared and suddenly a swish was heard in the air, and a piece of clothesline with a noose in it came near going over Uncle Ike’s head; so near that it broke his clay pipe, leaving the stem between his lips.
“Ah, ha! You will, will you? Vamoose!” said Uncle Ike, as he turned the hose on the Indian with the lasso, and drove him behind the porch with water dripping down his calico shirt, taking the color out. Then an Indian near the gate began to fire blank cartridges with a toy pistol and Uncle Ike put his elbow up in front of his face, as he said afterward, to save his beauty, and Uncle Ike started toward that Indian, dragging the hose, and shouting, “Take to the chaparral, condemn you, or I will drown you out like a gopher!”
For a moment there was an ominous silence. The Indians had withdrawn behind the currant bushes, but Uncle Ike knew enough of Indian warfare to know that the silence was only temporary. Suddenly there was a blazing and crackling, and a big smoke from the back of the house, and it seemed the redskins had set fire to the house, the hired girl yelled fire and murder, and came out with a pail of water, while the chief yelled “Charge!” and in a minute Uncle Ike was surrounded by the tribe, his legs tied with the clothesline, though he fought with the garden hose until there was not a dry rag on one of the boys or himself.
“Burn him at the stake!” shouted a little shrimp who carries papers every afternoon, after school, as he wiped the red paint off his cheek on to his bare arm, and shook water out of his trousers leg.
“No, let’s hold him for a ransom,” said the redheaded boy. “Aunt Almira will give us enough to buy a melon, and make us a pail of lemonade, if we let this gray-haired old settler off without scalping him.”
“Chief, spare me, please,” said Uncle Ike, as he sat up in a puddle of water on the battle ground, with his legs tied. “I am the mother of eleven orphan children. O, spare me! and don’t walk on that pipe of mine on the grass there, with your moccasins. I will compromise this thing myself, and pay the ransom. Here is a dollar. Go and buy melons, and we will have a big feed right here. But what was the fire behind the house, and is it put out?”
“The ransom is agreed to,” said the red-headed boy, as he took off his string of feathers, and gave a yell, hitting his lips with the back of his hand so it would “gargle,” “and the fire is out. We put some kerosene on an empty beer case, that was all.” So Uncle Ike handed over the dollar, and was released, while a boy who had washed his paint off was sent to a grocery after a melon. Then they wiped the mud off Uncle Ike, and all went upon the porch, a new pipe of peace was provided, and they talked about the Wild West show of the night before, while Uncle Ike did the most of the smoking of the pipe of peace, though he wiped the stem once and handed it to the red-headed chief to take a whiff, but the chief, after his experience with plug tobacco cholera a few days before, declined with thanks.
“What interested you most at the show?” said Uncle Ike, puffing away, as he sat on the floor of the porch, and leaned his back against one of the posts. “When you go to a show you always want to get your mind on something that makes an impression on you.”
“Well, sir,” said the boy who had worked the lasso on Uncle Ike, “the way these Mexicans handled the lariat struck me the hardest, only they look so darned lazy. They just wait for a horse to get in the right place, and then pull up. I would like to see them chase something, and catch it by the leg, that was trying to get away. But the Cossacks! O, my! couldn’t they ride, standing up, or dragging on the ground with one foot in the stirrup. Gosh! if Russia turned about a million of those Cossacks loose on China, they wouldn’t do a thing to John Chinaman.”
“The Indians got me,” said another boy, as he took off a moccasin and hung it up in the sun to dry, after his fight to the death with Uncle Ike’s waterworks. “I would like to be an Indian, or a squaw, and never have anything to do but travel with a show, and yell. They just have a soft snap, dressing up in feathers, and paint, and buckskin, and living on the fat of the land, and yelling ki-yi! in a falsetto voice.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the red-headed boy, “what struck me as the most exciting was the battle of San Juan hill. Say, did you see our boys just walk right up to the Spaniards, in the face of a perfect hailstorm of blank cartridges, with a gatling gun stuttering smokeless powder, and the boys in blue firing volleys, and the rough riders walking on foot, and the Spaniards just falling back, and pretty soon we went right over them, and down came the Spanish flag, and then the Stars and Stripes went up, and there was where I yelled so the roof ripped. But what made me cry was to see Old Glory and the British flag get together, every little while, and float side by side, and seem to be grown together as one flag, and everybody seemed glad. What you think about things, Uncle Ike? Don’t sit there and smoke up, all the time, but tell us what you think about the American and British flags waving together so much lately. Are you in favor of an alliance? Do you want to be an assistant Englishman, Uncle Ike?”
“Well, I don’t want to be quoted much on this business,” said Uncle Ike, as he looked around at the boys, who were listening intently. “I have watched the course of England and all the countries, for over, fifty years, in their relations with this country, and the only friendship England ever showed to us was in the last war. They did us good, no doubt, and I trust I am grateful, as becomes a good citizen. It was like a big boy and
little boy fighting. The big boy can whip if he is not interfered with, but a lot of boys are standing around, ready to mix in to help the little fellow. They are ready to trip up the big fellow, so the little one can jump on him, and they are getting ready to throw stones at him, and kick him on the shins. Then a big bully that they are all afraid to tackle, comes along and says: ‘This little fellow picked on the big fellow, and kept nagging him till he had to fight or run. Now the little fool has got to take his medicine, and you fellows mustn’t mix in, or you got me to fight. Just keep hands off, that’s all.’ That’s all there was to it, but it came in mighty handy, and we appreciate it, but there is too much grand stand play about an alliance. In other wars with England, Germans and French and Poles have fought with us, and for us, and yet we have never felt like having an alliance with them. Do you ever take much stock in Russia, boys? Don’t ever forget Russia. During our war between the North and South, we were once in a tight place. England and other countries were about to recognize the Southern Confederacy, and England was doing everything possible to break us up, furnishing privateers, and harboring confederate gunboats, and making it warm for us. Boys, your Uncle Abraham Lincoln was perspiring a good deal those days. They say he couldn’t wear a collar, he sweat so. It was believed that England and several other countries were going to simultaneously recognize the Confederacy, and maybe turn in and fight us. Warships from other countries were hovering around our southern coast, and our soldiers were feeling pretty blue, the cabinet never smiled, and nobody laughed out loud except Uncle Abe, and even his laugh seemed to have a hollow, croupy sound. One day, when the strain was the greatest, and everybody felt as though there was a funeral in the family, and there were funerals in most families, a flock of warships flying the flag of Russia, steamed by Sandy Hook, and up to New York, saluted the forts and the Stars and Stripes all along up to the Battery. It seemed as though those battleships never would stop coming. They lined up all around New York, and their guns pointed toward the sea, and every Russian on board acted as though he was loaded for bear. The news went to Washington that night, and they say Uncle Abe had night sweats. The next morning a Russian admiral, who had gone over to Washington on a night train, called to pay his respects to the President, and presented him with a document in the Russian language, which had to be interpreted by the Russian minister. When it was interpreted they say old Abe danced a highland fling, and hugged the Russians and danced all hands around. That document has never been published, but it was to the effect that the Russian fleet was at the disposal of the President of the United States, to fight any country on the face of God’s green earth that attempted to mix in. See? It was not long before other nations discovered that Russia had sent her fleet to stay, and every Russian on every vessel acted as though he was spoiling for a fight, and seemed to say to the world, ‘Come on, condemn you!’ And nobody ever came along to fight. And Uncle Abe began to be in a laughing mood, and you know the rest, if you have read up about the war. Nobody has ever suggested an alliance with Russia, and yet we are under more obligations to that old Czar than to anybody. In fact, we don’t want an alliance with anybody. We want the friendship of all. If I have any more love for one country than another, I do not know which it is, only when I see a Russian, even one of those Cossacks that rode so well, I feel like taking him by the hand and telling him, when he goes home, to go up to the Winter palace and give my love to the Czar, because I always have before me the picture of that Russian fleet in New York harbor, when things were hot. England has done a similar favor during this last war, and if we had another war, and the newspapers would quit nagging him, you would find the young emperor of Germany doing something for us equally as good. So, boys, don’t get stuck on one country, but give them all a chance to be good to us.”
“Gosh, Uncle Ike, I never heard anything about that Russian fleet,” said the red-headed boy. “England can go plum to thunder. I thought England was the only country that was ever even polite to us.”
“Come on, boys, let’s go and play Cossack,” said one of the Indians, and they went rolling over the picket fence on their stomachs, leaving Uncle Ike to go and put on some dry clothes.
CHAPTER XVII
Uncle Ike had been having twinges of rheumatism in one of his legs ever since he had the scrap with the Indians, and turned the hose on them and got wet himself, and he sat out on the porch one morning with a blanket over his leg trying to warm it up, smoking his pipe in silence, and wondering why the good Lord arranged things so a good man should grow old, and have pains. The red-headed boy and quite a flock of kids of about his age were sitting on the sidewalk, outside the fence, arguing something in loud voices, and finally he heard them agree to leave it to Uncle Ike, and then they piled over the fence and came up to the porch, and the red-headed boy was the spokesman.
He said: “Say, Uncle Ike, us boys have got a bet and you are to decide it. Isn’t it true that the people of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines are gamblers, and hasn’t our government fought them to a standstill to send people there to induce them to stop gambling and to attend to business? Isn’t gambling a sin, and is it not our duty as a nation, to teach these ignorant people the wickedness of gambling, bull fighting, cock fighting, and all that?” and the boys sat all around Uncle Ike, waiting for a decision to be handed down, as they say in court.
The old man rapped the bowl of his pipe on the arm of the rocking chair, blew through the stem, made up a face when he got some of the nicotine on his tongue, took a piece off the broom and run through it, blew again, reached for the tobacco bag, filled it up, lighted it, smoked a minute or two in silence, while five pairs of big boys’ eyes watched him as though he was a chief justice. He wiggled around a little, to ease his leg, knitted his brow as the pain shot through his leg, almost said damn; then the pain let up, his face cleared off, a smile came over it, he looked at the little statesmen around him, and finally said:
“Well, boys, you must not grow up with the idea that our own beloved country has no faults. Just love it, with all its faults; fight for it, if necessary, but don’t get daffy over it. In the countries you speak of, everybody gambles more or less. In this country only a small proportion gamble, and yet the element of chance is something that is very attractive to most people here at home. The other evening your Aunt Almira brought home a beautiful goblet she won at a progressive euchre party of neighbors. How much more of a sin is it for the Cuban woman to win five dollars at monte, and buy a goblet? It is scarcely three years since tickets in Havana lotteries were publicly sold in this country. There is more money lost and won on draw poker in one day in New York than is lost and won in Havana on monte and roulette. You can find almost any gambling game in Chicago or Milwaukee that you can find in the Philippines; and while we do not have bull fighting, we have prize fighting every night in the week, far more brutal. It is the gambling instinct in men and women that keeps the stock exchanges going, and industrial stocks, manipulated by those who control the prices, is tinhorn gambling, as much as pulling faro cards from a silver box in a brace game, where the dealer gets a rake-off, the same as the commission man, who deals the cards in stock or wheat. I don’t know whether it is the object of our government to attempt to show the people of these new possessions the wickedness of gambling, and cock fighting, and all that; but if it is, thousands of men who have become bankrupt from gambling here at home could be sent there as object lessons; but the chances are they would put up a job to skin the natives out of their last dollar on some game they did not understand. If gambling is a sin, let he who is without sin throw the first stone into a Porto Rican cock fight. Let the senator who never played draw poker be the first to introduce a resolution to stop gambling in Manila. Let the army general that never sat up all night at a faro bank issue the first order against monte and roulette in Havana. Let the men who furnished embalmed beef for widows’ sons, issue edicts against making fresh meat out of live bulls. I can’t decide your bet. You better call it a draw,
” and the old man looked at the boys as though he wanted to change the subject.
“Say, boys, Uncle Ike knows more than any man in the world,” said the red-headed boy, “but he argues too much. Let’s go and play shinny and call it golf,” and they went off on a gallop, leaving Uncle Ike with his lame leg and his pipe.
Uncle Ike sat and thought for an hour or more, on the porch, occasionally moving his rheumatic leg so it hurt him worse than it did before he moved it, and then he wondered what in the deuce he had moved it for. He thought of his experience as a gambler, since the boys had talked about gambling. He thought of the time he went to a State fair, when he was a boy, right fresh off the farm, with his white shirt his mother had sat up the night before to iron for him, his ready-made black frock-coat that the sun had faded out on the shoulders, the old brown slouch hat he had traded another one for with a lightning rod peddler, his shoes blacked with stove blacking, instead of being greased, as usual. He thought how a gambler at the State fair picked him out for a greeny before he had fairly got through the gate, and wondered how the gambler could have known he was so green without being told, and yet he carried a sign of greenness, from the faded and sunburned hair of his head to the sole of his stove-blacking shoes. He thought how the gambler got him to bet that he could find the pea in the shell, and how he had been so confident that he could find it that he had bet his whole month’s wages, and when the gambler had taken it, and wound it around a wad he had, and put it in his vest pocket, he remembered, here sitting on the porch with his rheumatic leg, how mad he was when the gambler who had ruined him, shouted, “Next gentleman, now! Roll up, tumble up, any way to get up!” As he sat there waiting for the boys to come back and be company for him, he thought how destitute he was when the gambler had taken his money, how he was twenty miles from home, with only 20 cents in his pocket, and he sat down on a chicken coop, and ate 10 cents’ worth of the hardest-hearted pie that ever was, and the tears came to his eyes, and the great crowd at the fair all mixed up with the horses and cattle, and he wandered about like a crazy person, all the afternoon, and at night started to walk home, with the balance of his wealth invested in gingerbread that stuck in his throat as he walked along the road in the dust, and he drank at all the wells he passed, until before he got home the peaches he had eaten before he gambled, combined with the corrugated iron pie, and the gingerbread and the various waters, gave him a case of cholera morbus big enough for a grown person, and when he got home along toward morning he wanted to die, and rather thought he would. Then he began to wonder if that gambler ever prospered, and whether he wound up his career in the penitentiary, or in politics, when he saw a big dust down the road, where the boys had gone, and presently the whole crowd came on a run, barefooted, and the first to arrive hit Uncle Ike on the arm and said, “Tag; you’re it,” and they all laid down on the grass and panted, and accused each other of shoving, and not running fair. After they had got so they could breathe easy, and each had taken a lot of green apples out of his shirt, and were biting into them and looking sorry they did so, the red-headed boy said:
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