Chapter Two. In Which I Entertain Peculiar Views

The Story of a Bad Boy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I was born at Rivermouth, but, before I had a chance to become
very well acquainted with that pretty New England town, my parents
removed to New Orleans, where my father invested his money so
securely in the banking business that be was never able to get any of
it out again. But of this hereafter.

I was only eighteen months old at the time of the removal, and
it didn't make much difference to me where I was, because I was so
small; but several years later, when my father proposed to take me
North to be educated, I had my own peculiar views on the subject. I
instantly kicked over the little Negro boy who happened to be
standing by me at the moment, and, stamping my foot violently on the
floor of the piazza, declared that I would not be taken away to live
among a lot of Yankees!

You see I was what is called "a Northern man with Southern
principles." I had no recollection of New England: my earliest
memories were connected with the South, with Aunt Chloe, my old Negro
nurse, and with the great ill-kept garden in the centre of which
stood our house-a whitewashed stone house it was, with wide
verandas-shut out from the street by lines of orange, fig, and
magnolia trees. I knew I was born at the North, but hoped nobody
would find it out. I looked upon the misfortune as something so
shrouded by time and distance that maybe nobody remembered it. I
never told my schoolmates I was a Yankee, because they talked about
the Yankees in such a scornful way it made me feel that it was quite
a disgrace not to be born in Louisiana, or at least in one of the
Border States. And this impression was strengthened by Aunt Chloe,
who said, "dar wasn't no gentl'men in the Norf no way," and on one
occasion terrified me beyond measure by declaring that, "if any of
dem mean whites tried to git her away from marster, she was jes'gwine
to knock 'em on de head wid a gourd!"

The way this poor creature's eyes flashed, and the tragic air
with which she struck at an imaginary "mean white," are among the
most vivid things in my memory of those days.

To be frank, my idea of the North was about as accurate as that
entertained by the well-educated Englishmen of the present day
concerning America. I supposed the inhabitants were divided into two
classes-Indians and white people; that the Indians occasionally
dashed down on New York, and scalped any woman or child (giving the
preference to children) whom they caught lingering in the outskirts
after nightfall; that the white men were either hunters or
schoolmasters, and that it was winter pretty much all the year round.
The prevailing style of architecture I took to be log-cabins.

With this delightful picture of Northern civilization in my eye,
the reader will easily understand my terror at the bare thought of
being transported to Rivermouth to school, and possibly will forgive
me for kicking over little black Sam, and otherwise misconducting
myself, when my father announced his determination to me. As for
kicking little Sam-I always did that, more or less gently, when
anything went wrong with me.

My father was greatly perplexed and troubled by this unusually
violent outbreak, and especially by the real consternation which be
saw written in every line of my countenance. As little black Sam
picked himself up, my father took my hand in his and led me
thoughtfully to the library.

I can see him now as he leaned back in the bamboo chair and
questioned me. He appeared strangely agitated on learning the nature
of my objections to going North, and proceeded at once to knock down
all my pine log houses, and scatter all the Indian tribes with which
I had populated the greater portion of the Eastern and Middle
States.

"Who on earth, Tom, has filled your brain with such silly
stories?" asked my father, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Aunt Chloe, sir; she told me."

"And you really thought your grandfather wore a blanket
embroidered with beads, and ornamented his leggins with the scalps of
his enemies?"

"Well, sir, I didn't think that exactly."

"Didn't think that exactly? Tom, you will be the death of
me."

He hid his face in his handkerchief, and, when he looked up, he
seemed to have been suffering acutely. I was deeply moved myself,
though I did not clearly understand what I had said or done to cause
him to feel so badly. Perhaps I had hurt his feelings by thinking it
even possible that Grandfather Nutter was an Indian warrior.

My father devoted that evening and several subsequent evenings
to giving me a clear and succinct account of New England; its early
struggles, its progress, and its present condition-faint and confused
glimmerings of all which I had obtained at school, where history had
never been a favorite pursuit of mine.

I was no longer unwilling to go North; on the contrary, the
proposed journey to a new world full of wonders kept me awake nights.
I promised myself all sorts of fun and adventures, though I was not
entirely at rest in my mind touching the savages, and secretly
resolved to go on board the ship-the journey was to be made by
sea-with a certain little brass pistol in my trousers-pocket, in case
of any difficulty with the tribes when we landed at Boston.

I couldn't get the Indian out of my head. Only a short time
previously the Cherokees-or was it the Camanches?-had been removed
from their hunting-grounds in Arkansas; and in the wilds of the
Southwest the red men were still a source of terror to the border
settlers. "Trouble with the Indians" was the staple news from Florida
published in the New Orleans papers. We were constantly hearing of
travellers being attacked and murdered in the interior of that State.
If these things were done in Florida, why not in Massachusetts?

Yet long before the sailing day arrived I was eager to be off.
My impatience was increased by the fact that my father had purchased
for me a fine little Mustang pony, 20and shipped it to Rivermouth a
fortnight previous to the date set for our own departure-for both my
parents were to accompany me. The pony (which nearly kicked me out of
bed one night in a dream), and my father's promise that he and my
mother would come to Rivermouth every other summer, completely
resigned me to the situation. The pony's name was Gitana, which is
the Spanish for gypsy; so I always called her-she was a lady
pony-Gypsy.

At length the time came to leave the vine-covered mansion among
the orange-trees, to say goodby to little black Sam (I am convinced
he was heartily glad to get rid of me), and to part with simple Aunt
Chloe, who, in the confusion of her grief, kissed an eyelash into my
eye, and then buried her face in the bright bandana turban which she
had mounted that morning in honor of our departure.

I fancy them standing by the open garden gate; the tears are
rolling down Aunt Chloe's cheeks; Sam's six front teeth are
glistening like pearls; I wave my hand to him manfully. then I call
out "goodby" in a muffled voice to Aunt Chloe; they and the old home
fade away. I am never to see them again!