My Road To Rotary

Chapter 10

Rapscallions

WHEN MALE HUMANS turn the corner from childhood to boyhood changes take place, biological of course but diabolical as well; at least it seems so to unprejudiced observers. Even loving papas and mammas frequently doubt whether, after all, Junior has the makings of a preacher in accordance with their cherished hope, or whether Junior's talents are not better suited to some other vocation, gangster or racketeer perhaps. In some cases doting parents come to see that their chief concern is not to educate Junior but rather to keep him from educating them.

Jerome Hilliard, the wagon maker, who was undoubtedly our best authority on terminology, not even excepting Mr. "Polite" Johnson, whose conversation was more elegant but less expressive, used to call our gang "rapscallions," and one must admit that the term seemed to fit.

Rapscallions have undergone great changes during recent years and yet, in principle, they are about the same. The clowns in the circus made certain patterns of carefree, joyous living which rapscallions of my time most naturally followed as long as impressions remained fresh and vigorous, but the circus came but once a year. During the remainder of the year rapscallions had to cut up their own didos, or get along without them, which of course was unthinkable.

In my day we had to make our own "funnies;" we had to be our own playwrights and actors and furnish our own applause as well. Old folks used to think it was our legs that set us running about so but I am here to say that our self-starters were not always in our legs; if our legs had been cut off entirely we could have started ourselves just the same. Our arms, hands, toes, eyes and ears were all capable of throwing the machinery into gear.

Boys are not the only creatures which develop propensities for mischief; it is the same instinct which makes puppy dogs chew up straw hats. Boys and dogs understand each other; there is a spiritual affinity between them; they think the same thoughts, experience the same joys and even speak the same language up to a certain point. Of course boys, having no tails to wag, have to resort to other means of expressing their joy.

Every town and village in our beloved land has its rapscallions. One sees them, followed by dogs, cavorting around village streets; chasing each other though barns, stores, factories and flower gardens, climbing trees, telegraph poles, jumping fences, frightening old men, women, horses, cows and hens-yes, they are rapscallions and one had best give them right of way.

Rapscallions know a lot of things not learned in home, school or church. When Junior at the dinner table, or elsewhere, gives papa and mamma the benefit of some of his advanced thoughts, mamma gives papa a nudge or a troubled wink and says, "Where in the name of conscience 'do you suppose Junior got that?" and papa has to admit that the question is too much for him.

I can tell where Junior gets the low-down on things in your town, Senior; he gets it from his brother rapscallions. Rapscallions know many things of which their elders have not even dreamed; rapscallions never take anything for granted whether it refers to the works of man or God.

For instance: Rapscallions know, and even grown folks ought to know, that trees talk to each other in a language of their own. In the early autumn of each and every year, the trees of the mountainside get their heads together and make elaborate plans for the annual grand pageant they expect to stage in October to gladden the hearts of the good folk who live in the valley.

Each tree according to its species is assigned its part. The mighty oaks, with such help as the sumacs may give in touching up the low corners, agree to supply the deep wine color admired by all nature lovers; the beech trees, the elms and the birches supply miles of yellow and red; the maples are never confined to any one color; they are permitted to run riot with everything they have in their paint pots, red, brown, wine color, yellow, green and what not. All the trees of the forest place their trust in the maples to do the right thing when it comes to painting the forests in the month of October just before the leaves wither and die.

The rapscallions of our valley were fortunate indeed; nature was bounteous in its distribution of trees on the mountainsides. They are of many varieties and the hand which is so lavish in its gifts is also painstaking in its care. After the seed has once taken root in the rock bound soil it seldom fails to give a good account of itself. Rain and melting snow supply a dependable supply of moisture and the bright sun brings the frost out of the ground in due time. Folks from other parts frequently wonder at the perseverence of seeds in their search for suitable abiding places between boulders or in crevices between different parts of the same boulder. Well, we must remember that the seeds are aided and abetted by the winds, rains, snows, ice, and, in the case of the hickory, beech, walnut and oak trees, our four-footed friends the squirrels playing their parts. Within their respective spheres, the birds, bees, ants and innumerable species of microscopic creatures conspire and combine to keep nature's economic scheme in balance and to make it possible for men to live and enjoy this beautiful world.

The pines, spruce hemlocks, firs and cedars on hillside and mountain give cheer the year round; in the winter they contrast their greenery with the whiteness of the snow and assure folks that all is not dead.

In our valley the maple trees were the most common and at the same time the most useful of the trees. The maple is a good shade tree; under its protecting cover rapscallions lie on green grass and dream to their heart's content. It makes good hard timber and fire wood and yields its sap for the delectable syrup and sugar in the spring and it lights up the mountain with its blaze of autumnal glory.

The mightiest of all trees is the oak; it bends to storm only grudgingly notwithstanding the fact that, except for its deeply sunk tap root, it is shallow rooted; some of the roots being only partially under ground.

Most majestic are the elms. None compares with them to border the highway or driveways of dignified homes. Many think the wide spreading beech the most picturesque and beautiful of all. Artists find themselves lured by the fascinations of the beech tree. Some of the species of willow bend gracefully in the wind, and rapscallions favor them because the soft buds known as the pussy willows are harbingers of spring and also because whistles can be made of the young shoots if one knows how and all honest-to-goodness rapscallions do know how.

To some lovers of nature the white birches are symbolic of purity as are the shy lilies of the valley in the village gardens down below. The mountain ash is beautiful as well as useful as are also the hickory, butternut and the black walnut trees. Even the horse chestnut plays its part; it provides ammunition for the slingshots of rapscallions.

Rapscallions sometimes wonder why God takes the clothes off the trees in November at just the time folks put extra clothes on. One never would think of shearing sheep in autumn; spring is the time to shear sheep. It's a shivery sight to see trees in the winter time as stark naked as rapscallions themselves are when they dive into Otter Creek in the good old summertime. It is a blessing, however, that the leaves of trees do not have to be buried in the ground as folks are; they are raked up by rapscallions and banked behind planks against the foundations of houses to keep the folks inside snug and warm while the cold winds blow.

Oh, for boyhood painless play,

Sleep that wakes in laughing day,

Health that mocks the doctor's rules,

Knowledge never learned of schools.

Of the wild bee's morning chase,

Of the wild flower's time and place,

Of the tenants of the wood;

Flight of fowl and habitude,

How the tortoise bears his shell,

How the wood-chuck digs his cell,

And the ground mole sinks his well;

How the robin feeds her young,

How the oriole's nest is hung;

Where the whitest lillies blow,

Where the freshest berries grow,

Where the ground nut trails its vine,

Where the wood grape's clusters shine;

Of the black wasp's cunning way,

Mason of his walls of clay,

And the architectural plans

Of gray hornet artisans!

 

For, eschewing books and tasks,

Nature answers all he asks;

Hand in hand with her he walks

Face to face with her he talks,

Part and parcel of her joy,- Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!

 

-John Greenleaf Whittier.

We rapscallions of the Wallingford chapter had to keep ourselves posted as to everything going on about town. The barber shop, the post-office and the railroad station were important centers of information. In one way and another we learned all the important railway news up and down the line; even the names of the brakemen and the engineers were known to us. We knew whether they chewed tobacco or not and if not why not. It gave the rapscallions a mighty good feeling when they happened to wake up in the night and hear the two-thirty train come thundering through and to know that their friends were on it-Jim Gillespie at the lever and Jack McGuire shoveling coal.

Once upon a time when a rapscallion friend of mine was serving an apprenticeship at the depot he dared me to steal a ride on the cowcatcher of the ten-thirty p.m. train; to ride as far as Manchester and come back on the cowcatcher of the two-thirty a.m. train. He always had advance information when the two-thirty was scheduled to make a stop at Wallingford. He had studied it all out. When the ten-thirty train stopped, I was to start to cross the track in front of the locomotive but was to mount the cowcatcher when I had passed the view of the engineer, while Willie was to play the same trick on the fireman. The scheme worked perfectly just as planned.

We had a thrilling ride through the mists of the night on the rocking engine and what a thrill it was to dash in and out of the covered bridge in the vicinity of Manchester while grandfather and grandmother slept the sleep of the just. If some busybody had awakened grandmother at midnight and told her that her young hopeful was not in his bed; that he was in Manchester and that he would come back home on the cowcatcher of the two-thirty train, grandmother would have declared that either she, I or her informant had gone completely crazy, or perhaps, all three.

Oh, yes! rapscallions have many experiences and learn many things which their elders do not know. Most naturally, they have to keep much of their higher learning to themselves; their elders would not understand it, nor could they be trusted. What, for instance, would grandmother have said if I had told her not to wait up for me on that memorable night; that Willie and I were going to give ourselves an excursion on the cowcatcher. Better by far to do as I did; that was, crawl through a window when the sitting room clock announced the hour of ten p.m., join my friend Willie, and then all aboard for Manchester.

To moderns the cowcatcher of a locomotive is little known. As its name indicates its purpose was to bump stray cows off the track if they happened to be standing or walking on the right of way when the trains were coming through. There was ample space on the cowcatcher of the Bennington and Rutland Railway's locomotive for Willie and me to sit comfortably but not for Willie and me and a cow. If we had happened to pick up a cow on the night of our adventure, there wouldn't have been enough left of us for the makings of one respectable funeral unless the undertaker included parts of the cow's remains to make up for the deficiency.

Another favorite meeting place for the rapscallions of my day was the Friday evening prayer meeting in the little brick chapel of the Congregational church. There was the singing of hymns from the Moody and Sankey hymnal and, the musical program not having been prepared in advance, it was the custom of the leader to ask those in the audience for selections. "Pull for the Shore, Sailor, Pull for the Shore" was a favorite with us boys because of its nautical character and its ringing chorus in which we joined vociferously, surreptitiously giving a pantomime of sailors rowing a boat in order to lend reality to the presentation.

The women sat on one side of the chapel and the men on the other and we rapscallions gathered on the last seat of the men's side where we had the best chance to take in all that went on and where our leader and our elders had the least chance to observe us. The last seat was the best strategic position and there the rapscallions held conferences, bent pins into suitable shape to function as bent pins are supposed to do when placed on seats to be occupied by grown-ups; bent pins stand up better than tacks.

It was considered good practice to put the bent pins on the seats directly in front of those occupied by innocent and unsophisticated boys if any such could be found and inveigled into the back seat. If anyone had to have his ears cuffed by a justly outraged parishioner, it was well to have a victim near at hand. The worst offender was usually the farthest away from the scene of the tragedy. By the exercise of good generalship a wise and prudent boy could engineer his way through an entire season at the little brick chapel without being cuffed, kicked out or even reproved. He had, of course, to learn how to control his emotions; how to enjoy the stentorian, "Ouch!" of the immolated adult and still retain his own composure, looking deeply sympathetic and hurt, if possible. In nine cases out of ten the boy who laughed the loudest would be the innocent and unsophisticated stranger, and most naturally he, if any, would be the one cuffed. A well versed rapscallion would not even smile until he had gotten at least a block from the little brick chapel.

I recall the night that Mr. Harlan Strong, our Sabbath school superintendent, rushed out from behind the pulpit which he was occupying at the time, down the center aisle, into the pew immediately in front of us and seized George Wilder by the ears, one in each hand and shook him until we half expected to see George's head wrenched from its moorings on his very thin neck. What Mr. Strong proposed to do with George's head if and when he had gotten it off, was a question. He might have intended to put it on the pulpit as a permanent reminder to boys that laughter was out of place in the little brick chapel. After what had already happened, the rapscallions would not have been surprised if he had sent his trophy spinning down the aisle like a bowling ball down an alley. The question which agitated us most was whether one head would be enough to satisfy Mr. Harlan Strong's purpose, whatever it might be, and if not, whose head would be next in order.

As a matter of fact George was the only innocent boy in the pew. All that he had done, up to the time Harlan Strong entered the lists, was to laugh, and all he did after Harlan entered was to howl as if in protest against his head being used in that manner and as a passionate assurance to all members of the Congregational church who were present that the entire procedure was distasteful and that the part which had been assigned to him, as his in the impromptu drama, was especially repugnant.

In mitigation of Harlan's offense, if any, I will say that George's ears were long and wide and invitingly extended out from the remainder of his bead. Almost anyone might have been excused for experiencing an impulse to seize George by the ears and give his head a shake or two; it would only be human; the only way George’s folks could have removed the temptation, would have been to keep him at home, of course.