Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical NarrativeKemp, Harry
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Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical Narrative
Kemp, Harry
Kemp, Harry, 1883-1960
"I suppose it's all right to wear your hair long ... but, last summer,
it got so damned hot with the huge mop I had, that I always had a
headache ... so one day I went down town to the barber and slipped into
his chair. 'Hello, Hank,' says he, 'what do you want, a shave?' (joking
you know--I didn't have but one or two cat-hairs on my face)....
"'No, Jim, I want a hair-cut.' At first he refused ... said 'The
Master' would bite his head off ... but then he did it--
"John wouldn't speak to me that night, at table ... but the other
fellows shouted and clapped....
"I don't exactly get dad's idea all the time ... he's a mighty clever
man, though....
"Books? Oh, yes ... the only ones I care about are those on Indians and
Indian lore ... I have all the Smithsonian Institution books on the
subject ... and I have a wigwam back of the bindery--haven't you noticed
it?--where I like to go and sit cross-legged and meditate ... no, I
don't want to study regular things. Dad always makes me give in, in
fact, whenever I act stubborn, by threatening to send me off to a
regular school....
"No, I want nothing else but to work with my hands all my life."
* * * * *
But, with all his thinking for himself, "Hank" was also childishly
vulgar. He gulped loudly as he ate, thinking it an evidence of hearty
good-fellowship. And he deliberately broke wind at the table ... then
would rap on wood and laugh....
I, on my dignity as cook, and because the others, rough as they were,
complained to me in private about this behaviour, but did not openly
speak against it because "Hank" was their employer's son. I took
exception to the good-natured "lummox's" behaviour.
One morning he was the last to climb out from over the bench at the
rough, board table....
"Hank ... wait. I want to speak to you a minute."
"Yes, Razorre, what is it?" he asked, waiting....
"Hank, the boys have delegated me to tell you that you must use better
manners than you do, at meals."
"The hell you say! and what are you going to do if I don't?"
"I--why, Hank, I hadn't thought of that ... but, since you bring up the
question, I'm going to try to stop you, if you won't stop yourself."
"--think you can?--think you're strong enough?"
"I said '_try_'!"
"Listen, Razorre," and he came over to me with lazy, good-natured
strength, "I'll pick you up, take you out, and roll you in the snow, if
you don't keep still."
"And I'll try my best to give you a good whipping," replied I, setting
my teeth hard, and glaring at him.
He started at me, grinning. I put the table between us, and began taking
deep breaths to thoroughly oxygenate my blood, so it would help me in my
forthcoming grapple with the big, over-grown giant.
He toppled the table over. We were together. I kept on breathing like a
hard-working bellows, as I wrestled about with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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