A Sweet Tommy
As turns the needle to the pole,
So Tommy to the sugar-bowl.
Tra la la, tra la la!
Sweet, sweet Tommy!
Tommy always takes a toll
Going by the sugar-bowl.
Tra la la, tra la la!
Sweet, sweet Tommy!
Were Tommy blind as any mole,
He’d always find the sugar-bowl.
Tra la la, tra la la!
Sweet, sweet Tommy!
He’s a funny talking fellow. We took him into town last night, to see the illumination. This morning we heard him and Frankie Snow telling Benny Joyce about it. Father and I were listening behind the blinds. Made father’s eyes twinkle. Don’t you know how they twinkle when he’s tickled?
“You didn’t see the rumination and we did!” we heard Tommy say.
“Rumination? What’s a rumination?” asked Benny.
“O hoo! hoo!” cried Tommy. “Denno what a rumination is!”
“Why,” said Frankie, “don’t you know the publicans? Wal, that’s it.”
“O poh!” said Benny. “Publicans and sinners! I knew they’s coming!”
“And soldiers!” said Frankie. “O my! All a marching together!”
“O poh!” said Benny. “I see ’em go by. Paint-pots on their heads, and brushes in ’em! I wasn’t goin’ to chase!”
“Guess nobody wouldn’t let ye?” said Frankie.
“Didn’t either!” cried Tommy, “didn’t have paint-pots!”
“Did!” said Benny. “Guess my great brother knows!”
“Guess we know,” said Frankie, “when we went!”
“And the town was all celebrated,” said Tommy. And the houses all gloomed up! And horses! O my!
“O poh!” said Benny. “When I grow up, I’m goin’ to have a span!”
If mother does go, she’ll take Tommy, for she wouldn’t sleep a wink away from him over night. Father pretends he’d go if he had a handsome span. Says he hasn’t got a horse in the barn good enough to take mother out riding. When Mammy Sarah was here washing, she told him how he could get a good span. You know he’s always joking about taking summer boarders. Says Mammy Sarah, “Now ’t is a wonder to me you don’t do it, for summer boarders is as good as a gold-mine. Money runs right out of their pockets, and all you have to do is to catch it.” She says we could make enough out of a couple of them, in a month’s time, to buy a handsome span, and she isn’t sure but the harness.
I think we begin to be a little in earnest about summer boarders. For we have rooms enough, in both houses together, and milk and vegetables, and mother’s a splendid cook. Mammy Sarah says, “They ain’t diffikilt, and after they’ve been in the country couple of weeks, they don’t eat so very much more than other folks.”
Father says he wants to take them more for the entertainment than the money. He wants rich ones, but not the sensible kind, that know money isn’t the only thing worth having. Says what he wants is that silly, stuck-up kind, that put on airs, and make fools of themselves, they’d be so amusing! Thinks the best sort for our use would be specimens that went up quite sudden from poor to rich, like balloons, all filled with gas. I believe there’d be lots of fun to be made out of them. I’ve seen one or two. Gracious! You’d think they weren’t born on the same planet with poor folks. Mother’d rather have the really well-informed, sensible kind, that we may learn something from them. A couple of each would be just the thing. How do you like mother’s picture? We don’t feel at all satisfied with it. If she could only be taken at home! Then she’d look natural. Father says the world is going ahead so fast, he believes the time will come when every family will have its own picture-machine, much as it has its own frying-pan. Then when folks have on their best expressions, why, clap it right before them. Then they’ll look homish. Says what he wants is to have mother’s face when she’s just made a batch of uncommon light biscuits, or when Tommy’s said something smart. Won’t there be funny pictures when we can hold up a machine before anybody any minute, like a frying-pan, and catch faces glad, or mad, or sad, or any way? I made believe take Tommy’s and then showed them to him on a piece of paper. Guess I’ll put them in the letter. They’ll do to amuse you. I draw an hour or so every day. First, I have to make my hour. Sometimes I have to make more. For I will read a little, if the world stops because of it. But about the faces. First one is when he was crying because he couldn’t have sugar on his potatoes. Next one is when he was spunky at Frankie Snow for bursting his little red balloon. The pleased-looking face is when father brought him home a little ship all rigged, and the laughing one is when the cow put her head in the window. We tell him we’ll have them framed and hung up so he can see just how he looks. Mother says ’t is all very well to laugh at Tommy, but she guesses some older ones’ pictures wouldn’t always look smiling and pleasant, take them the year through!
As soon as your finger is itself again do write, for we miss your letters. We expect to have gay times here this summer. Company coming, but we sha’ n’t make company of them. Except to have splendid times. What shall we do evenings? If you go anywhere where there is anything going on, do write us about it, so we can go on the same way. When are you coming? Write me a good long letter when you can.
Your affectionate Cousin,
Lucy Maria.
Your father is going to write you a letter. Quite wonderful for him. O William Henry, you don’t know how much I think of your father, and what a good man he is! I guess you’d better write to your grandmother before you do me; she’s so pleased to have you write to her.
Father wants to know when that ball hit you if you bawled.
Lucy Maria’s “picture-taker” made a great deal of fun for them, and possibly did some good. She constructed a queer long-handled affair, and, at the most unexpected moments, this would be thrust before the faces of different members of the family, more especially Tommy, Matilda, or Georgiana, and their “pictures” would be sure to appear to them soon after, “glad, or mad, or sad, or any way.”
And the plan of “summer boarders” also furnished entertainment. The talk on this subject was quite amusing, particularly when it touched the subject of “advertising.” Lucy Maria suggested this ending:—
“None but the silly, or the really well-informed need apply.” But Mr. Carver thought such a notice would fail of bringing a single boarder. For silly people did not know they were silly, and the really well-informed were the very last ones to think themselves so.