Uncle Ike

“ Lots of men are going to be fooled thinking they are going to get inside the pearly gates on the strength of their money, but some of them may have to be vouched for by a Salvation army lassie. So, boy, if you love your old uncle, always respect the religion of every soul on earth, and don't fire putty at any girl's bonnet. You hear me?” and the old man patted the boy on the back, and his old face looked angelic, through the tobacco smoke cloud.
“Well, Uncle Ike, you are the queerest man I ever saw,” said the red-headed boy, as he wiped a tear out of his eye with his shirt sleeve. ”

“ The pleasure of farming is largely in anticipation. The big crops and big prices are always coming next year. You would be about as good at farming as I would at preaching,” and Uncle Ike gradually ceased speaking, like an old clock that is running down, and ticking slower and slower, and then he fell asleep in his chair, and the red-headed boy sat and thought of what had been said, and looked at his hands as though he expected to find a blister, and smelled of them to see if he had actually been milking cows, and then he rolled over on the lounge and went to sleep, and the two snored a match. ”

“ I had rather she would think of me as dying a heroic death, than dying smoking plug tobacco. And, say, Uncle Ike, after you have written her, don't make a mistake and send my resignation to the syndicate to her. O, God! but it is hard to die so young,” and the boy went to sleep on the lounge, and Uncle Ike went to taking the kinks out of a fish line, knowing that when the boy woke up he wouldn't be dead worth a cent. ”

“ Uncle Ike shut his teeth with a snap. “That's worse than hoarding money as I've done. Mine may, as you say, do good in the future, but theirs is degrading human beings at the present. I wish I could do something for them, especially the mothers. It's a shame they have to suffer.”
“You can do something, Uncle Ike. My suggestion is, that you leave the bulk of your fortune to build a hospital in Fernborough, but provide in your will that the mill operatives of Cottonton, or all its poorer inhabitants, if you so wish it, shall be entitled to free treatment therein.” ”

“ Well, lemme tell you you missed something. When Uncle Ike hauls out that red bandana of his and grabs a-hold of his nose with it and lets her go, you’d think the train was whistling for a crossing. Wow! I’ve seen him scare horses so they ’most jumped out of their harness. Why, when Uncle Ike drove the bus to somebody’s house he never got out to ring the bell—he just blowed his nose. Sometimes, if he was in a hurry, he blowed it when he was a block away, and the folks would be all out and ready, standing waiting for him when he got there. ”

“ I went down to dinner with a tolerably composed countenance, a good appetite, and a well-digested scheme of vengeance in my mind. Uncle Ike was my only co-conspira [Pg 172] tor. I think I can see him now as he rolled back against the garden fence to laugh as I unfolded my design.
"Ef you ain't the beater!" he chuckled, his pepper-and-salt poll tilted to one shoulder, and eyeing me with undisguised admiration. "An' you say nobody ain' put it into your hade?" ”

“ Do you believe, Uncle Ike, that the Lord was in the ring there at Coney Island, seconding Jeffries, and that the prayers of Jeffries' preacher father had anything to do with Fitzsimmons getting it right and left in the slats and on the jaw?”
“No! No! No!” said Uncle Ike, as he shuddered with disgust at the thought that the good Lord should be mixed up in such things just to make newspaper sensations. “There is not much going on that the Lord is not an eye-witness of, but when it comes to being on one side or the other of a prize fight He has got other business of more importance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Earling was elected president of a railroad, and did you know that he started in as a telegraph operator and a poor boy, with hair the color of tow? They used to call him Tow-Head.”
“Yes, I read about that,” said Uncle Ike, as he looked in the glass to see if the lather was all right on his face, and began to strop his razor. “I knew that boy when he was telegraphing. But he knew what all those sounds meant. You just keep ticking away, and don't know one tick from another.” ”

“ At first it seemed so hard to be shut out from them all, but years ago Uncle Ike taught me to be a philosopher and to take life as it came, without constantly fretting or finding fault. Uncle Ike says, 'It is not work but worry that wears men out,' That's why he came down here to live in the woods. He said they wouldn't let him work and so he worried all the time, but when he came here he had plenty to do, and in his work he found happiness."
"I am learning a good lesson," said Quincy with a laugh. "I have studied much, but I actually never did a day's work in all my life, Miss Pettengill." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was the first cool and bracing morning since the extreme heat of the summer, and Uncle Ike had begun to feel like going duck shooting. He could almost smell duck feathers in the air, and he had put on an old dead-grass colored sweater, with a high collar that rubbed against his unshaven neck, and he had got out his gun to wipe it for the hundredth time since he laid it away at the close of the last season. He looked it over and petted it, and finally sat down in a rocking chair, with the gun between his knees and a few cartridges in his hand that he had found in the pocket of his sweater ”

“ I do not think much of people who on the appearance of every little trouble rush to kill themselves. It shows lack of mind strength. But come; I am to take you to meet your uncle."
The girl hesitated. She did not appear as glad as Ike had thought she would be. The fact was, he did not know the lovely girl yet. He was to learn more about her later on, and there was to follow an intense romance as a result of his meeting with this lovely little lady from the far West. ”

“ See?”
“Calc’late to,” says Uncle Ike.
“Comin’ to the auction?” says Mark, grinning like everything.
“Calc’late to,” says Uncle Ike, grinning back.
“Got t-time to stay around?”
“Put in the whole day,” says Uncle Ike.
“Wigglin’ the thumb means raise it a nickel,” says Mark. “Wigglin’ both thumbs means raise it a d-dime.”
“Listen to that, now,” says Uncle Ike to himself. “Easy, hain’t it? Jest as easy as swallerin’ slippery ellum. But it took him to think of it.” Then he looked at Mark and says, “Your Uncle Ike’ll be there, you can bet you; and will he bid? Jest you lissen to him holler.” ”

“ But that Prodigal Son makes me tired. He was a regular jay. He run away from home, and got in with a terrible crowd, and they pulled his leg for all the money he had. They steered him up against barrel houses, and filled him with liquor that would burn a hole in a copper kettle, got him mixed up with queer women, and he painted the towns red; and when his money was all gone, they kicked him out with a case of indigestion and a head on him that hurt so he could not wink without thinking there was an earthquake. Say, Uncle Ike, do you know that fellow had some sense after all? ”

“ Many a girl has acted just that way, and finally chewed off the line, and let the man fall with a dull thud, and after he has got over it he says to those who have watched the angling that she was not much account, anyway, but all the time he knows by the feeling of goneness inside of him that he lies like a Spaniard,” and Uncle Ike tied a handkerchief over the tomato can to keep the worms in, and said to the boy, “Now, if you can get up at four o'clock in the morning we will go and get a fine mess.” ”

“ I know she does not smile at anybody else the way she does at me, but the condum fools might think she did, and love her. I know if one of those ducks should squeeze her hand, she would be mad, and cuff him, but I could squeeze her hand till her fingers cracked, and she would enjoy it.”
“I see,” said Uncle Ike, smoking right along. “You are like a man who owns the most beautiful diamond in the world, and is not allowed for some reason to be known as its owner, but is allowed to wear it only two hours a week, and then other people are allowed to wear it. ”

“ And the red-headed boy added: “When a feller is so hungry his eyes look straight ahead, and he can't turn them in the sockets, there is nothing like a hot wiener to start things moving, and the man who invented wieners ought to have a chromo. By gosh, I am going to bed,” and the boys all started for their resting places, while Uncle Ike felt of his stomach where the fob rested, and looked as happy as though he had never been robbed. ”

“ I am going to be the kind of a prodigal who comes home with the good health, and the money, and the appetite for calf; and when you are old, Uncle Ike, you sha'n't get wet any more, for I will buy you a duck boat that can't be tipped over with jackscrews, that you can't break with an ax, and that has air chambers in both ends, so it couldn't be sunk if loaded with railroad iron; and I will buy you a pump gun that will shoot ducks without your aiming it, and you shall have a picnic as long as you live. ”

“ But all's well that ends well, as I've often had occasion to say in the past, and I wish you to meet your uncle."
Ike had no reason, however, to go and call the old miser, for there occurred a most unexpected metamorphosis. Our hero had just concluded the last remark above quoted when he chanced to turn, and there stood a fine-looking old gentleman, clean shaved, his hair cut and his attire perfect. Ike started in amazement, for despite the startling metamorphosis he recognized Mr. Sidney. Sara also beheld the old man, and she stood and gazed aghast. ”

“ Ike was sure the man would remain in the city and that he could locate him almost any time when he needed.
It was late on the following afternoon when our hero visited Sara Sidney. He listened to a long and hopeful talk of the girl's plans. He did not say anything direct, but did project:
"Suppose you should find your uncle, and he should disapprove of your plans?"
"I do not expect ever to find my uncle."
"Well, now, I once made you a promise."
"I know you did, but remember, it is thirty years since my father saw his brother."
"Well, some men live to a pretty old age. ”

“ Say, I'll bet I can blow a chunk of putty into that girl's bonnet and make her jump like a box car in a collision,” and the boy opened the window and was taking aim at the tambourine girl's bonnet when Uncle Ike reached out and took the putty blower away from him and said:
“Don't ever worry those poor people, or let any other boy bother them when you are around. ”

“ Uncle Ike, were you ever a prodigal son?” and the boy turned over the wet clothes so the sun would dry the other side.
“Yes, sir, I have been a prodigal son, and every boy who goes away from home to make his own living is a prodigal son, in a way,” and he and the boy sat down under a tree, the one to talk and the other to listen. “When a boy decides to leave the old roof tree at home to go out into the world, it is most always against the wishes of his parents ”

“ Yes, boy, you can go on playing football, and if you are injured your Uncle Ike will pay all the expenses, and sit up nights with you, but you better not take me to any more games, for the first thing you know I will be bringing home here more wives than that Utah congressman has got. ”

“ Well, us boys go around in the dark, and when we see a couple in that way, one boy comes to a point, like a dog, another boy walks up to the couple and flushes them, and as they get up quick to go somewhere else, I blow up a paper bag and bust it, and they start off on a run. Say, Uncle Ike, it is fun. ”

“ Don't you think a boy that takes that kind of medicine, without making up a face, ought to say, 'Thank you, ever so much,' and always wear pinafores, and stay in the kindergarten, and if he ever grows up and goes into business he better become a he-milliner, or a manicure, say? It's up to you, now, Uncle Ike, and I am ready to listen, and to follow your advice, and be a boy or a girl, just as you say, but I don't know any girl in my set that would let anybody smite her much, without pulling hair a little, at least. ”

“ And I'll write the biography of Uncle Ike, and send it in with the rest. His picture ought to go in the center of the layout. He'll be a hero, all right."
"All right!" Ned agreed. "We'll go and take the pictures, and we'll send them in when you get the story written! Will that answer?" ”