Little Men, Louisa May Alcott [classic literature books txt] 📗

With the October frosts came the cheery fires in the great fireplaces; and Demi's dry pine-chips helped Dan's oak-knots to blaze royally, and go roaring up the chimney with a jolly sound. All were glad to gather round the hearth, as the evenings grew longer, to play games, read, or lay plans for the winter. But the favorite amusement was story-telling, and Mr. and Mrs. Bhaer were expected to have a store of lively tales always on hand. Their supply occasionally gave out, and then the boys were thrown upon their own resources, which were not always successful. Ghost-parties were the rage at one time; for the fun of the thing consisted in putting out the lights, letting the fire die down, and then sitting in the dark, and telling the most awful tales they could invent. As this resulted in scares of all sorts among the boys, Tommy's walking in his sleep on the shed roof, and a general state of nervousness in the little ones, it was forbidden, and they fell back on more harmless amusements.

One evening, when the small boys were snugly tucked in bed, and the older lads were lounging about the school-room fire, trying to decide what they should do, Demi suggested a new way of settling the question.

Seizing the hearth-brush, he marched up and down the room, saying, “Row, row, row;” and when the boys, laughing and pushing, had got into line, he said, “Now, I'll give you two minutes to think of a play.” Franz was writing, and Emil reading the Life of Lord Nelson, and neither joined the party, but the others thought hard, and when the time was up were ready to reply.

“Now, Tom!” and the poker softly rapped him on the head.

“Blind-man's Buff.”

“Jack!”

“Commerce; a good round game, and have cents for the pool.”

“Uncle forbids our playing for money. Dan, what do you want?”

“Let's have a battle between the Greeks and Romans.”

“Stuffy?”

“Roast apples, pop corn, and crack nuts.”

“Good! good!” cried several; and when the vote was taken, Stuffy's proposal carried the day.

Some went to the cellar for apples, some to the garret for nuts, and others looked up the popper and the corn.

“We had better ask the girls to come in, hadn't we?” said Demi, in a sudden fit of politeness.

“Daisy pricks chestnuts beautifully,” put in Nat, who wanted his little friend to share the fun.

“Nan pops corn tip-top, we must have her,” added Tommy.

“Bring in your sweethearts then, we don't mind,” said Jack, who laughed at the innocent regard the little people had for one another.

“You shan't call my sister a sweetheart; it is so silly!” cried Demi, in a way that made Jack laugh.

“She is Nat's darling, isn't she, old chirper?”

“Yes, if Demi don't mind. I can't help being fond of her, she is so good to me,” answered Nat, with bashful earnestness, for Jack's rough ways disturbed him.

“Nan is my sweetheart, and I shall marry her in about a year, so don't you get in the way, any of you,” said Tommy, stoutly; for he and Nan had settled their future, child-fashion, and were to live in the willow, lower down a basket for food, and do other charmingly impossible things.

Demi was quenched by the decision of Bangs, who took him by the arm and walked him off to get the ladies. Nan and Daisy were sewing with Aunt Jo on certain small garments, for Mrs. Carney's newest baby.

“Please, ma'am, could you lend us the girls for a little while? We'll be very careful of them,” said Tommy, winking one eye to express apples, snapping his fingers to signify pop-corn, and gnashing his teeth to convey the idea of nut-cracking.

The girls understood this pantomime at once, and began to pull of their thimbles before Mrs. Jo could decide whether Tommy was going into convulsions or was brewing some unusual piece of mischief. Demi explained with elaboration, permission was readily granted, and the boys departed with their prize.

“Don't you speak to Jack,” whispered Tommy, as he and Nan promenaded down the hall to get a fork to prick the apples.

“Why not?”

“He laughs at me, so I don't wish you to have any thing to do with him.”

“Shall, if I like,” said Nan, promptly resenting this premature assumption of authority on the part of her lord.

“Then I won't have you for my sweetheart.”

“I don't care.”

“Why, Nan, I thought you were fond of me!” and Tommy's voice was full of tender reproach.

“If you mind Jack's laughing I don't care for you one bit.”

“Then you may take back your old ring; I won't wear it any longer;” and Tommy plucked off a horsehair pledge of affection which Nan had given him in return for one made of a lobster's feeler.

“I shall give it to Ned,” was her cruel reply; for Ned liked Mrs. Giddy-gaddy, and had turned her clothespins, boxes, and spools enough to set up housekeeping with.

Tommy said, “Thunder turtles!” as the only vent equal to the pent-up anguish of the moment, and, dropping Nan's arm, retired in high dudgeon, leaving her to follow with the fork, a neglect which naughty Nan punished by proceeding to prick his heart with jealousy as if it were another sort of apple.

The hearth was swept, and the rosy Baldwins put down to roast. A shovel was heated, and the chestnuts danced merrily upon it, while the corn popped wildly in its wire prison. Dan cracked his best walnuts, and every one chattered and laughed, while the rain beat on the window-pane and the wind howled round the house.

“Why is Billy like this nut?” asked Emil, who was frequently inspired with bad conundrums.

“Because he is cracked,” answered Ned.

“That's not fair; you mustn't make fun of Billy, because he can't hit back again. It's mean,” cried Dan, smashing a nut wrathfully.

“To what family of insects does Blake belong?” asked peacemaker Franz, seeing that Emil looked ashamed and Dan lowering.

“Gnats,” answered Jack.

“Why is Daisy like a bee?” cried Nat, who had been wrapt in thought for several minutes.

“Because she is queen of the hive,” said Dan.

“No.”

“Because she is sweet.”

“Bees are not sweet.”

“Give it up.”

“Because she makes sweet things, is always busy, and likes flowers,” said Nat, piling up his boyish compliments till Daisy blushed like a rosy clover.

“Why is Nan like a hornet?” demanded Tommy, glowering at her, and adding, without giving any one time to answer, “Because she isn't sweet, makes a great buzzing about nothing, and stings like fury.”

“Tommy's mad, and I'm glad,” cried Ned, as Nan tossed her head and answered quickly,

“What thing in the china-closet is Tom like?”

“A pepper pot,” answered Ned, giving Nan a nut meat with a tantalizing laugh that made Tommy feel as if he would like to bounce up like a hot chestnut and hit somebody.

Seeing that ill-humor was getting the better of the small supply of wit in the company, Franz cast himself into the breach again.

“Let's make a law that the first person who comes into the room shall tell us a story. No matter who it is, he must do it, and it will be fun to see who comes first.”

The others agreed, and did not have to wait long, for a heavy step soon came clumping through the hall, and Silas appeared, bearing an armful of wood. He was greeted by a general shout, and stood staring about him with a bewildered grin on his big red face, till Franz explained the joke.

“Sho! I can't tell a story,” he said, putting down his load and preparing to leave the room. But the boys fell upon him, forced him into a seat, and held him there, laughing, and clamoring for their story, till the good-natured giant was overpowered.

“I don't know but jest one story, and that's about a horse,” he said, much flattered by the reception he received.

“Tell it! tell it!” cried the boys.

“Wal,” began Silas, tipping his chair back against the wall, and putting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, “I jined a cavalry regiment durin' the war, and see a consid'able amount of fightin'. My horse, Major, was a fust-rate animal, and I was as fond on him as ef he'd ben a human critter. He warn't harnsome, but he was the best-tempered, stiddyest, lovenest brute I ever see. I fust battle we went into, he gave me a lesson that I didn't forgit in a hurry, and I'll tell you how it was. It ain't no use tryin' to picter the noise and hurry, and general horridness of a battle to you young fellers, for I ain't no words to do it in; but I'm free to confess that I got so sort of confused and upset at the fust on it, that I didn't know what I was about. We was ordered to charge, and went ahead like good ones, never stoppin' to pick up them that went down in the scrimmage. I got a shot in the arm, and was pitched out of the saddle don't know how, but there I was left behind with two or three others, dead and wounded, for the rest went on, as I say. Wal, I picked myself up and looked round for Major, feeling as ef I'd had about enough for that spell. I didn't see him nowhere, and was kinder walking back to camp, when I heard a whinny that sounded nateral. I looked round, and there was Major stopping for me a long way off, and lookin' as ef he didn't understand why I