me you wouldn’t let him act like that, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I said. “But all you do’s talk. Why don’t you show him?”
“You make me sick!” I said truculently. “Didn’t you just hear me say I’m going to——”
I stopped muttering, having realized that I was almost quarreling with somebody. With whom?
I stood in wonder, becoming aware that it was a habit of mine to hold debate with this unknown; and there seemed to be, also, a third person present—somebody who listened coldly to both of us—but of him I could make nothing at all except that it was uncomfortable to think about him. The second person, my talkative opponent, tried to goad me into actions that I couldn’t take; yet at heart seemed really sympathetic. What puzzled me most was the way we said “You” to each other, since both of us must, after all, be me. I hadn’t solved the puzzle when, at about this time, I became—almost officially with some people—the Worst Boy in Town.
My mother’s piano had been salvaged from the financial wreck; evenings on New York Street were gay with the singing of the three older members of my family—ballads, songs old and new, melodies from The Bohemian Girl and the Verdi operas—and once a week a shattered friend of my mother’s taught a small dancing class of children in our parlor, with an assistant at the piano. The children were accompanied by their mothers, and one of these ladies had an emotional aversion to cats. Therefore, our cat, though lovable, was kept in a back room during the dancing hour, but one day an older boy secretly talked me into becoming a comedian. He convinced me that if I’d fetch the cat privately, approach little Eva Townley’s mother from behind as she sat watching the lesson, and drop pussy over her shoulder to alight upon her lap, Mrs. Townley’d be surprised and all would be joy and nice harmless merriment. I needn’t tell anybody that the idea was his; I could take all credit for it.
Expecting to delight the world, I tried for the credit and got it. More uproar, confusion, and fury can seldom have been so simply created; and it was I who had the real surprise. When Mrs. Townley stopped screaming her opinion of me, she ran from the house, dragging her daughter with her, nevermore to return; the dancing class dispersed, and I was placed in a sequestration lasting longer than pussy’s. Released from this first actual punishment, I had it made clear to me, verbally, that even my father couldn’t look upon me as a funny dog. Neither he nor my mother could bear to think of the reputation I’d made for myself.
They were right. For the following fifteen years Mrs. Townley never mentioned me, or heard anyone speak of me, without supplying her unvaried synonym for me; and reiteration so sincere carries weight. I had many an acquaintance who at times became temporarily known as the Worst Boy in Town; but they were only runners-up. I held the title longest.
Conviction of Sin
When I was six, my father had begun to get a little the better of the Panic of ’73. We moved into a commodious house in the new North Side, had a yard and big trees again, had a cook again, had a horse and vehicles. We rented this house, extravagantly, for fifty dollars a month, which was high for those days in Indianapolis; and now I didn’t play with street children. Beyond an iron fence, on the day of our installation, I saw two clean-faced, dressed-up children, a brother and sister near my own age. They looked at me; and immediately I began to display my New York Street accomplishments.
In New York Street were current various knowing phrases too shady to be used in the presence of grown people; I’d acquired them from Brick-top and others. Upon the clean little boy and his sister I tried one of these mots after another. I looked at them derisively and called out, “Wipe off your chins!”
I was sat upon, not admired; they took a moral tone with me. “That’s bad. You’re bad! You mustn’t say that.”
I went further. “Wipe off your chins and pull down your vests!”
The brother and sister, grave and instructive, said. “That’s bad. You musn’t say that. You’re bad!”
They invited me to come into their yard and play with them. I again tried to be clever in the New York Street manner. “I don’t haf to!” I said. “Doctor says it ain’t healthy!”
“That’s bad,” the brother and sister told me. “You mustn’t say that. You’re bad!”
Dispirited, I gave up the effort to impress them and just talked naturally.
“That’s bad. You’re bad,” they said, as before, and began to reform my vocabulary.
They became my playmates, but I never felt quite on a level with them—even when they were most genial they were still helpfully critical, always right and two to one. The little girl, six, one day informed me—in the manner of a notification—that I was her sweetheart, and I said, “Am I? Well—all right”; but neither she nor her brother, who was unblushingly present, seemed to feel that my new position placed me upon an equality with them—nor did I.
Of course I hadn’t thus precociously lost my high opinion of myself; but the mirrorlike surface of self-conceit was showing a few dents. I’d begun to find difficulties in proving myself as important as I felt. In all gatherings of my kind I of course strove incessantly to be the central figure. Desiring applause, I would squeal, bellow, try to sing, try to whistle, would leap, run, hop, and fling myself about, screeching, “Look at me! Look at me, everybody! Look at me—me—me!”
They wouldn’t. They, too, were screaming, “Look at me!” What they did seemed to me of no merit and uninteresting; and, when those who could stand on their heads did so, and I couldn’t, I squealed, “Look at me,” announced that I would turn somersaults, tried, and but flopped soggily upon the grass.
I was approaching defeat by something profound, years beyond my comprehension. Every one of these other children had been as brilliantly an infant prodigy in his own family as had I in mine. In one way or another, all of them had been applauded celebrities; hence every one of them now believed himself the beloved sole star of the age. This was hard on me, but good for the human species; we’re told that babies and little children, not made much of, thrive ill. A deep instinct in the race makes the fuss over little children that enlarges their vanity. Egoism, fertilized early from without, is one of humanity’s necessities; fertilized only from within, it can become as monstrous as Hitler.
When our country was just a hundred years old, the year of the great Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, I was seven, had a little “campaign uniform” with a lard-oil lamp fastened to my blue-and-white-oilcloth cap, and discovered that I was a Republican. The children of our neighborhood were all Republicans, loved Hayes and Wheeler, hated Tilden and Hendricks, and learned to squeal fiercely at known or suspected opponents:
“Stewed rats and dead cats
Are good enough for Democrats!”
I hadn’t yet been sent to school, and couldn’t write; but for a year or two I’d been able to read, though I’ve no recollection of learning this art. The only child in the house, and enticed by suggestive talk in the small family circle, I’d rather prematurely read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and The Old Curiosity Shop; and my first literary attempt was made at about this time. As I couldn’t write, my indulgent sister, chivalrously concealing her amusement, became my amanuensis. I dictated to her the opening of a story, and, though the manuscript disappeared, I remember that it concerned a full-grown young man who rode forth from a castle on a bright morning and would have had a startling adventure if I’d been able to construct one for him. I seem to have encountered the obstacle of complete vacuity after the first paragraph or two; nevertheless,
