Dym

From A London Child Of The 1870s, by M.V. Hughes

My second brother had mother's family name of Vivian. This I could not pronounce in my early days, and turned it into Dymond, which soon became Dym.

He was the only one who took kindly to school-work, and devoted himself to mathematics. Reserved almost to being morose at times, he was a bit lonely, and was glad to have me as a confidante. He had a secret love of poetry, and would get me up into the study alone and read aloud to me.

He had a marvelously modulated voice, now tender, now thunderous. As I sat on the floor in open-mouthed admiration, he let himself go, moving me to pity over Sir Federigo's falcon, and to great excitement over the poor jester who cried out, 'I am, I am the King!'...

[He] brought out the idea one day that a stone, if you wrapped it in a cloth, wouldn't break glass. We dared him to try it on a window.

He said, oh yes, but perhaps it would be better to make it go some distance. We then suggested his trying it on the next-door-but-one's conservatory. I ran down to fetch a stone from the garden, and this was duly tied up in his handkerchief. He had been dared, and from a 'dare' there was no retreat.

Whizz it went--crash through the glass roof.

At this, with one accord we became absorbed in pursuits of a studious nature, and after a bit began to feel that the affair had blown over. But then came a message by the housemaid that Master Vivian was wanted in the dining-room. There sat a frail old lady with mother, who was holding the stone-laden handkerchief, marked with Vivian's full name.

Mother was breathing out the direst punishments on him, but the injured one was pleading that she only wanted it not to happen again, and it didn't matter at all, that boys would be boys, bless them, she only wished she had a child of her own, and so on, until poor old Vivian was a mush of contrition...


posted by Justin on 07.07.07 at 09:33 AM





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