What queer places boys have of assembling. Sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. Hay-mows, river-banks, threshing-floors, these were the old places of resort for country boys. And nothing was so sweet to me, when I was a boy, as the newly cut clover-hay where I sat with two or three companions, watching the barn swallows chattering their incomprehensible gabble and gossip from the doors of their mud houses in the rafters. And what stories we told and what talks we had. In the city who does not remember the old-fashioned cellar-door, sloping down to the ground? These were always places of resort.
Tom Miller was the minister’s son, and there was a party of boys who met regularly on Parson Miller’s cellar-door. Mrs. Miller used herself to listen to the stories they told, as she sat by the window above them, though they were unconscious of her presence. They were boys full of life and ambition, but they were a good set of boys on the whole, and it was not till lessons were learned and work done that they met thus on the cellar-door. They belonged to the same class in school, and besides were “cronies” in all respects. There was Tom Miller, the minister’s son, who intended to be a minister himself, and Jimmy Jackson, the shoemaker’s boy, as full of fun and playfulness as a kitten, and poor Will Sampson, who stammered, and Harry Wilson, the son of a wealthy banker, and a brave boy too, and John Harlan, the widow’s son, pale and slender, the pet of all, and great, stout Hans Schlegal, who bade fair to be a great scholar. These half dozen were nearly always on the cellar-door for half an hour on Friday evenings, when they happened to have a little more leisure than on other evenings.
“I say, boys,” said Hans, “I’ve got an idea.”
“How strange it must seem to you,” said Tom Miller; whereupon they all laughed, good-natured Hans with the rest.
“Do let’s hear it,” said Harry; “there has not been an idea in this crowd for a month.”
“Well,” said Hans, “let’s every fellow tell a story here on the cellar door, turn about, on Friday evenings.”
“All except m-m-me,” stammered Sampson, who was always laughing at his own defect; “I c-c-couldn’t g-g-get through be-be-fore midnight.”
“Well,” said Miller, “we’ll make Will Sampson chairman, to keep us in order.”
They all agreed to this, and Sampson moved up to the top of the cellar-door and said: “G-g-gentlemen, th-th-this is th-th-the proudest m-m-moment of my life. I’m president of the C-c-cellar-d-d-door C-club! M-m-many thanks! Harry Wilson will tell the first st-st-story.”
“Agreed!” said the boys. After thinking a minute, Harry began.