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                         THE MADNESS OF PHILIP
                     _AND OTHER TALES OF CHILDHOOD_


                                  _BY_
                         JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM

[Illustration]

                      _Illustrated by F. Y. Cory_

                                   ❦

                        MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
                                NEW YORK
                                  1902




                          COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY
                        McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

                        1901, by Harper & Bros.
               1900, 1901 and 1902, by S. S. McClure Co.

                                   ❦


                        _Published, March, 1902_

                           SECOND IMPRESSION




                             _To my Father
                      kindest of many kind critics
                           these stories are
                               dedicated_

                                   ❦

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                CONTENTS


                                   ❦

                                                  PAGE

                 THE MADNESS OF PHILIP               1

                 A STUDY IN PIRACY                  31

                 BOBBERT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS          69

                 THE HEART OF A CHILD               95

                 ARDELIA IN ARCADY                 119

                 EDGAR, THE CHOIR BOY UNCELESTIAL  153

                 THE LITTLE GOD AND DICKY          191




                         THE MADNESS OF PHILIP


[Illustration: “_Checking her vivid denunciations by a judicious
application of the pillow._”]

His mother, being a woman of perception, realized early that something
was wrong. Even before breakfast she found Philip trying to put his
sister into the bolster case, checking her vivid denunciations by a
judicious application of the pillow. After breakfast it was impossible
to get him ready in time, as his rubbers had been hidden by a revengeful
sister, and the bus was kept waiting fully five minutes, to the
irritation of the driver, who made up the lost interval by a rapid pace.
This jolted the children about, and frightened the youngest ones, so
that they arrived at the kindergarten bumped and breathless, and only
too disposed to take offense at the first opportunity. This opportunity
Philip supplied. As they swarmed out of the bus he irritated Joseph
Zukoffsky by a flat contradiction of his pleased statement that he was
to lead the line into the house.

“Oh, no, you ain’t!” said Philip.

Joseph stared and reiterated his assertion Philip again denied it. He
did nothing to prevent Joseph from assuming the head of the line, but
his tone was most exasperating, and Joseph sat down on the lowest step
of the bus and burst into angry tears—he was not a person of strong
character.

Some of the more sympathetic children joined their tears to his, and the
others disputed violently if vaguely; they lacked a clear idea of the
difficulty, but that fact did not prevent eager partisanship. Two
perplexed teachers quieted the outbreak and marshaled a wavering line,
one innocently upholding Philip to the disgusted group, “because he
walks along so quietly,” the other supporting Joseph, whose shoulders
heaved convulsively as he burst out into irregular and startling sobs.
It was felt that the day had begun inauspiciously.

They sat down on the hall floor and began to pull off their rubbers and
mufflers. As Philip’s eye fell to the level of his feet a disagreeable
association stirred his thoughts, and in a moment it had taken definite
form: his rubbers had been stolen and hidden! His under lip crept slowly
out; a distinctly dangerous expression grew in his eyes; he looked
balefully about him. Marantha Judd pirouetted across his field of
vision, vainglorious in a new plaid apron with impracticable pockets.
Her pigtails bobbed behind her. She had just placed her diminutive
rubbers neatly parallel, and was attaching the one to the other with a
tight little clothes-pin provided for the purpose.

[Illustration: “_Tore off the clothes-pin with a jerk._”]

Casually, and as if unconscious that Marantha was curiosity incarnate,
Philip took his own clothes-pin and adjusted it to his nose. It gave him
an odd and, to Marantha, a distinguished appearance, and she inquired of
him if the sensations he experienced were pleasurable. His answer
expressed unconditional affirmation, and unclasping her clothes-pin
Marantha snapped it vigorously over her own tip-tilted little feature. A
sharp and uncompromising tweak was the result, and Marantha, shrieking,
tore off the clothes-pin with a jerk that sent little Richard Willetts
reeling against his neighbor. Out of the confusion—Richard was a
timorous creature, and fully convinced that the entire kindergarten
meditated continual assault upon his small person—rose the chiding voice
of Marantha:

“You are a bad, _bad_ boy, Philup, you are!”

To her tangled accusations the bewildered teacher paid scant heed.

“I can’t see why all you little children find so much fault with
Philip,” she said reprovingly. “What if he did put his clothes-pin on
his nose? It was a foolish thing to do, but why need you do it? _You_
have made more trouble than he, Marantha, for you frightened little
Richard!”

Marantha’s desperation was dreadful to witness. She realized that her
vocabulary was hopelessly inadequate to her situation: she knew herself
unable to present her case effectively, but she felt that she was the
victim of a glaring injustice. Her chin quivered, she sank upon the
stairs, and her tears were even as the tears of Joseph Zukoffsky.

The youngest assistant now appeared on the scene.

“Miss Hunt wants to know why you’re so late with them,” she inquired.
“She hopes nothing’s the matter. Mrs. R. B. M. Smith is here to-day to
visit the primary schools and kindergartens, and——”

“Oh, goodness!” the attempted consolation of Marantha ceased abruptly.
“I can’t _bear_ that woman! She’s always read Stanley Hall’s _last_
article that proves that what he said before was wrong! Come along,
Marantha, and don’t be a foolish little girl any longer. We shall be
late for the morning exercise.”

Upstairs a large circle was forming under the critical scrutiny of a
short, stout woman with crinkly, gray hair. They took their places,
Marantha pink-nosed and mutinous, Joseph not yet recovered from a
distressing tendency to burst out into gulping sobs—he was naturally
pessimistic and treasured his grievances indefinitely. Philip’s eyes
were fixed upon the floor.

“Now what shall we sing?” inquired the principal briskly. “I think we
will let Joseph choose, because he doesn’t look very happy this bright
morning. Perhaps we can cheer him up.”

[Illustration: “_Marantha... upheld Joseph with all her powers of heart
and voice._”]

In a husky voice Joseph suggested “My heart is God’s little garden.” In
reply to Miss Hunt’s opening question Eddy Brown had proposed “Happy
greeting to the rain,” a sufficiently maudlin request, as there was
absolutely no indication of that climatic condition, past, present, or
future. Eddy possessed the not unusual combination of a weak mind and a
strong voice, and though the piano prelude was that of Joseph’s choice,
the effect of a voice near him starting the well-known air of his own
suggestion was overwhelming, and Eddy began shouting it lustily.
Marantha, whose susceptibilities were, like those of others of her sex,
distinctly sharpened by suffering,