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Page 35
One day he came down upon us with a tremendous crash. Amenda was walking
along the passage at the moment, and the result to her was that she
received a violent blow first on the left side of her head and then on
the right.
She was accustomed to accept one bump as a matter of course, and to
regard it as an intimation from the boy that he had come; but this double
knock annoyed her: so much "style" was out of place in a mere ferry-boy.
Accordingly she went out to him in a state of high indignation.
"What do you think you are?" she cried, balancing accounts by boxing his
ears first on one side and then on the other, "a torpedo! What are you
doing here at all? What do you want?"
"I don't want nothin'," explained the boy, rubbing his head; "I've
brought a gent down."
"A gent?" said Amenda, looking round, but seeing no one. "What gent?"
"A stout gent in a straw 'at," answered the boy, staring round him
bewilderedly.
"Well, where is he?" asked Amenda.
"I dunno," replied the boy, in an awed voice; "'e was a-standin' there,
at the other end of the punt, a-smokin' a cigar."
Just then a head appeared above the water, and a spent but infuriated
swimmer struggled up between the houseboat and the bank.
"Oh, there 'e is!" cried the boy delightedly, evidently much relieved at
this satisfactory solution of the mystery; "'e must ha' tumbled off the
punt."
"You're quite right, my lad, that's just what he did do, and there's your
fee for assisting him to do it." Saying which, my dripping friend, who
had now scrambled upon deck, leant over, and following Amenda's excellent
example, expressed his feelings upon the boy's head.
There was one comforting reflection about the transaction as a whole, and
that was that the ferry-boy had at last received a fit and proper reward
for his services. I had often felt inclined to give him something
myself. I think he was, without exception, the most clumsy and stupid
boy I have ever come across; and that is saying a good deal.
His mother undertook that for three-and-sixpence a week he should "make
himself generally useful" to us for a couple of hours every morning.
Those were the old lady's very words, and I repeated them to Amenda when
I introduced the boy to her.
"This is James, Amenda," I said; "he will come down here every morning at
seven, and bring us our milk and the letters, and from then till nine he
will make himself generally useful."
Amenda took stock of him.
"It will be a change of occupation for him, sir, I should say, by the
look of him," she remarked.
After that, whenever some more than usually stirring crash or
blood-curdling bump would cause us to leap from our seats and cry: "What
on earth has happened?" Amenda would reply: "Oh, it's only James, mum,
making himself generally useful."
Whatever he lifted he let fall; whatever he touched he upset; whatever he
came near--that was not a fixture--he knocked over; if it was a fixture,
it knocked _him_ over. This was not carelessness: it seemed to be a
natural gift. Never in his life, I am convinced, had he carried a
bucketful of anything anywhere without tumbling over it before he got
there. One of his duties was to water the flowers on the roof.
Fortunately--for the flowers--Nature, that summer, stood drinks with a
lavishness sufficient to satisfy the most confirmed vegetable toper:
otherwise every plant on our boat would have died from drought. Never
one drop of water did they receive from him. He was for ever taking them
water, but he never arrived there with it. As a rule he upset the pail
before he got it on to the boat at all, and this was the best thing that
could happen, because then the water simply went back into the river, and
did no harm to any one. Sometimes, however, he would succeed in landing
it, and then the chances were he would spill it over the deck or into the
passage. Now and again, he would get half-way up the ladder before the
accident occurred. Twice he nearly reached the top; and once he actually
did gain the roof. What happened there on that memorable occasion will
never be known. The boy himself, when picked up, could explain nothing.
It is supposed that he lost his head with the pride of the achievement,
and essayed feats that neither his previous training nor his natural
abilities justified him in attempting. However that may be, the fact
remains that the main body of the water came down the kitchen chimney;
and that the boy and the empty pail arrived together on deck before they
knew they had started.
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