Suddenly, as he emptied the remaining pockets of his burned clothes, he found the letter which he had intended to mail to his sweetheart from some convenient post-office. At sight of this his heart gave a mighty3 bound, and he retracted4 his resolution to remain at home all his life, unless, indeed, his mother might be brought to fully5 approve the choice of his heart. He would lose no time in consulting both his parents about this affair of the affections, and he counted it as a sin that he had not done so long before. What very different people from what he had supposed them to be, that night had taught him his father and mother were!
The expected punishment not manifesting itself, Jack ventured out of his room and stood upon the back piazza6 to look at the garden, which suddenly appeared to him to be the finest garden that the world ever knew—the garden of Eden excepted, perhaps.
From here he listened to the breakfast bell, and wondered if any bread and water would be sent to him; if not, he would at least have the consolation7 of knowing that he didn't deserve any. But suddenly his father shouted that his breakfast would be cold if he didn't eat it soon, so Jack descended8, in a maze9, to the nicest breakfast he had ever seen, and oh! wonder of wonders, his father gave him a cup of coffee, a luxury which he had been taught to forego, because the doctor thought it very injurious to growing boys with large heads. Jack occasionally stole a loving look at both parents, but it pained him greatly to discover for the first time, that his father looked as if he was going to be an old man, and he was confused by seeing his mother's eyes fill with tears at short intervals10.
When breakfast was over, the doctor went into his office without saying a word to Jack, and Mrs. Wittingham, first kissing her boy, went to her household affairs, and Jack felt very uncomfortable. He was too full to be silent, but it was not the sort of fullness, so often experienced, that could be relieved by whistling, or singing, or dancing, or teasing the family cat. He was absolutely longing11 to pay the penalty of his misdeeds, and he was determined12 not to be the cause of any delay, so he followed his father into the office—a thing he had never done before in his life in the face of impending13 conflict. The doctor was surprised beyond measure by this unexpected demonstration14, and his astonishment15 increased as Jack, after lounging about uncomfortably for a few moments, suddenly exclaimed:
"Father, I want to be punished."
"Bless me!" exclaimed the doctor, turning so suddenly that a powder which he was preparing dusted all over his clothing. "Have you lost your senses, my boy?"
"No, sir," said Jack, hanging his head. "I guess I've just found them. I've been a dreadfully bad boy, and I think I deserve to be punished severely16."
"Well," said the doctor, after several moments of silent contemplation of his boy, "that's the strangest case I ever heard of."
The doctor dropped the paper which had held the powder, hurried to the desk, took out the notes for his work on heredity, and made the following memorandum17: "It is undeniable that the mental, like the physical nature, sometimes generates a quality utterly18 different from itself." Then the doctor erased19 this, and re-wrote and amplified20 it. The second form did not satisfy him entirely21, so again he erased and wrote, and repeated the process several times. As he was making his sixth erasure23 he became conscious that Jack had lounged up to his elbow.
"Oh!" said the doctor, "you said you wanted to be punished, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
The doctor wanted to say "Confound it!" but he habitually24 refrained from such remarks before his boy; as he looked back to his doubly scrawled25 page, however, he unconsciously penned "Confound it!" directly after his late erasure, and he followed it with exclamation26 points to the end of the line.
"What do you think should be done to you?" asked the doctor, finally.
"I don't know," said Jack, "but it ought to be something dreadful, for I've been so bad."
"Why did you get drunk?"
"I didn't mean to do it," said Jack, "but that's just the way with everything I do," and Jack explained the affair with the brandy-bottle.
"You did something worse than get drunk when you took that brandy, my boy," said the doctor.
"I suppose so," said Jack; "I always do something worse. But I don't know what it was."
"You showed yourself to be a coward," replied the doctor. "What do you think of cowards?"
"They'd have called me a coward if I hadn't drunk it," said Jack.
"Yes," said the doctor, "and that's what you were cowardly about, can't you see?"
Jack admitted that he could.
"Wouldn't it have taken more bravery to have laughed and fought down such a charge, than it required to drink the liquor?" asked the doctor.
"Yes, sir. And I want to be punished for being a coward too."
"Goodness!" exclaimed the doctor, seizing his hat and vanishing. A few minutes later the Reverend Mr. Daybright, just as he had entered his study, received a call from Dr. Wittingham, and the doctor promptly27 proceeded to detail Jack's case and ask for advice. Now Mr. Daybright belonged to a denomination28 which has very pronounced ideas on the subject of sin and punishment, and the minister preached as his church believed, and was sure that he believed what he preached, yet he counselled the doctor to let the boy alone.
"But he wants to be punished," urged the doctor.
"What good can it do him?" asked the minister; "if he is in that frame of mind, the sole object of punishment is attained29 in advance."
"But he has done wrong; he has kept his mother and me in intolerable misery30 for twenty-four hours, and it seems to me that something should be done to him."
"Ah!" said the minister, "you're thinking about revenge, which is very different from punishment. And it is my duty, as your pastor31, to urge you to give up the thought at once, for it is unchristian and brutal32."
"Why," said the doctor, flushing angrily, "I don't want to punish him; I simply think it a matter of duty."
"Yes," sighed the minister, "revenge has generally been considered a duty, so great is the influence of inheritance even upon minds intentionally33 honest."
The doctor abruptly34 departed, muttering to himself:
"That's a point for the book, any how!"
Arrived at his office, the doctor found Jack still there. He picked the boy up in his arms, and as Jack mentally submitted to whatever was to be his fate, his father sat down, hugged the boy close, and said:
"My darling fellow, tell me what I can do to keep you out of further mischief35 and trouble. That shall be your punishment."
The exquisite36 sarcasm37 of the potter questioning his clay did not strike Jack, which is not very strange, as the doctor himself was unconscious of it. But Jack could only say:
"I don't know."
"I would sell everything I own, if money would do it," said the doctor.
Jack was still unable to answer, but the doctor's assertion caused the boy to squeeze closer to his father's breast, which movement greatly comforted the old gentleman.
"I think if you'd always let me be with you, father, I would be a real good boy," said Jack. "I like you better than I do anybody—but Matt; yes, better than Matt either."
"Thank you, my boy," said the doctor, with some little coolness which Jack detected.
"I've got to do something," said Jack, "and if I can't see things that's good to do, I have to do others."
The doctor remembered having had some such experience himself, in the days of his own mischief-making, but he answered gravely:
"I have to spend a great deal of time in sickrooms, my boy, where it would be inconvenient38 for you to be."
"Then let me be with you when you're at home," said Jack, "and," he continued, rather hesitatingly, "let me ask questions, and you try to answer so I can understand you."
The doctor dimly realized that when he was busy he did not answer questions willingly or lucidly39, but he replied:
"You ask a great many questions about things which I don't think you should know about, Jack."
"Well," said Jack, "I can't help thinking about them, and when you turn me off, I nearly always ask somebody else and I find out anyhow."
The idea that other people should be telling his boy about matters which he declined informing him upon was a blow to the doctor's self-respect, and his sense of propriety40, too, for he knew what class of people Jack would be likely to apply to for information, and the nature of the answers which would be given. The doctor pondered a little while, and then said:
"Jack, how would you like to learn a trade? You could be with me in the evenings, you know."
"What sort of a trade?" said Jack.
"Whatever you like," said the doctor, "I wouldn't for anything have you at any that was distasteful to you. You certainly like to use tools—you have ruined all of mine in various ways."
"I think I'd like to be a carpenter," said Jack.
"Then you shall," said the doctor. "If you like it, and stick to it, I'll set you up as a builder when you learn it, but the moment you grow sick of it I want you to let me know. You are smart enough to become a good architect, and that's a more profitable profession than mine."
"May I have tools of my own?" asked Jack.
"Yes," replied his father, "the best that money can buy. And I will go right away and find some one who will teach you."
The doctor went straightway to the best builder in the neighborhood, and had the proposition civilly but promptly declined.
"Every boy I ever took managed to ruin all my best tools within a year," explained the builder, "to say nothing of the lumber41 which he worked up into fancies of his own, and ruined by failures of one sort and another."
"I'll buy my boy the best and largest set of tools that you can select," said the doctor.
For a moment this offer seemed an inducement to the builder, for there were many tools which he disliked to buy yet needed occasionally to use; he might borrow from the promised outfit42. But as he thought further, he replied:
"You're very fair, but tools aren't everything. If I do the square thing by the boy, I must use a great deal of time in teaching him, and time is money. My time is worth a great deal more than the boy's work will be for a couple of years."
"I'll pay you cash for your time," said the doctor; "I'll give you a thousand dollars in advance, if you say so."
This offer staggered the builder, prosperous though he was, for where is the man who does not want a thousand dollars?
But still the builder hesitated, and the doctor asked:
"What else do you want?"
"Well," said the builder, prudently43 retiring to the doorway44 of a house he was building, "what I want is to tell you something that maybe you won't like, but I can't help taking it into consideration. They do say—I don't say it, mind, but I've heard it from a good many—that Jack is the worst boy in town."
"It's a lie!" roared the doctor. "He's the best—that is, he has the best stuff in him. He's never quiet; he learns his lessons as quickly as a flash; he hates work about the house, just as I'll warrant you did when you were a boy, and he must do something. He likes to handle tools, though, and wants to be a carpenter."
"Liking45 is all very well," said the builder, "but sticking to work don't naturally follow."
"Did you ever hear of his dropping a job of mischief until he had thoroughly46 finished it?" asked the doctor.
"No," answered the builder with great promptness.
The final result was that sundry47 papers and moneys passed between the doctor and the builder, and on the following Monday morning, Jack was at work at seven o'clock nailing planking upon a barn. The news got about town very rapidly, and by noon there were at least twenty boys looking at the unexpected spectacle, and tormenting48 Jack with ironical49 questions. When night came Jack's hand felt as if it could never grasp a hammer again, and he was otherwise so weary that he declined, without thanks, an invitation to go with the other boys to serenade a newly-married couple with horns and bells. Then he helped shingle50 a portion of the roof of the new barn, but his mind was greatly distracted by the awkwardness of a boy, in an adjoining pasture, who was trying to braid together the tips of the tails of two calves51; the consequence was that he had progressed so short a distance with his own row of shingles52 that the other workmen had gone across the barn and returned to start afresh, and, as they rested until Jack got out of the way, they ungratefully upbraided53 him because of his slowness, and he wasn't going to be called slow again, not for all the calves' tails in the universe.
This book might have been continued indefinitely, had it not been that Jack was steadily54 at work which he liked, and had a great deal of his father's society out of working hours. Gaining these, he lost his reputation for being the worst boy in town, for although he remained for several years a boy and a very lively one, he had something besides mischief to exercise his busy brain upon, and a boy cannot be honestly busy and mischievous55 also, any more than he can eat his cake and have it too. Even the doctor and Mrs. Wittingham reformed, though it was very hard for the latter to stop fretting56 at the boy, and for the former to cease acting57 as if his son, like his horse, merely needed food, rest and correction.
Jack did not go about preaching reform to the boys and advising them all to be carpenters, but he unconsciously talked from a standpoint very different from that which he had habitually occupied in other days, and his talk came gradually to exert considerable influence among the boys, though they seldom noticed the change themselves. Jack's very title, "The Worst Boy in Town," was in considerable danger of lapsing58 for lack of a successor, and the inhabitants of Doveton are still undecided as to where it belongs.
As for the doctor's great work on heredity, it is not in print yet, for the doctor happened one day, while mourning over a neglected and consequently unproductive Bartlett pear tree, to drift into some analogies between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, with the result that he realized that if the splendid hereditary60 tendencies of the tree could not prevent its bareness and its running to superfluous61 wood, there could be no hope of an untrained boy, even if he was a scion62 of the Wittingham stock. This idea took such entire possession of the doctor that he went into the house and burned his manuscript as far as completed, and all the notes beside.
According to Jack, who professes63 to be an infallible authority on the subject, nice little Mattie Barker grows nicer every day, and she has promised to change her name in the course of time, and her parents have endorsed64 her decision, for though Jack is not yet of age, steady boys who are also bright, and have learned a business which is not akin22 either to gambling65 or theft, are not numerous enough to be despised. And Jack has a whole portfolio66 full of cottage plans, all of his own designing, over which he and Mattie spend long and industrious67 evenings, and Jack has taken a solemn vow68 that when the proper plan is decided59 upon, and the building begins, Nuderkopf Trinkelspiel shall be the sole hod-carrier, and shall be paid the highest market rates for his services.
Being practically a successful man, Jack is the receptacle for the confidences of hosts of his old playmates, who feel that their good qualities are not appreciated by a world which is quick to complain of their occasional irregularities, but he has sent many of these youths sadly away by remarking:
"It doesn't matter how many good qualities are inside of a fellow, if only his bad ones make themselves lively on the surface."
The End
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1
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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palatial
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| adj.宫殿般的，宏伟的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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retracted
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| v.撤回或撤消( retract的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝执行或遵守；缩回；拉回 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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memorandum
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| n.备忘录，便笺 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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amplified
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| 放大，扩大( amplify的过去式和过去分词 )； 增强； 详述 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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erasure
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| n.擦掉，删去；删掉的词；消音；抹音 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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denomination
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| n.命名，取名，(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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30
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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lucidly
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| adv.清透地，透明地 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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41
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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prudently
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| adv. 谨慎地，慎重地 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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47
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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48
tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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50
shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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51
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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52
shingles
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| n.带状疱疹；（布满海边的）小圆石( shingle的名词复数 )；屋顶板；木瓦（板）；墙面板 | |
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53
upbraided
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| v.责备，申斥，谴责( upbraid的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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58
lapsing
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| v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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scion
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| n.嫩芽，子孙 | |
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professes
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| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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64
endorsed
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| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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