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diff --git a/15585.txt b/15585.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ae4df1 --- /dev/null +++ b/15585.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6920 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Humorous Masterpieces from American +Literature, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 8, 2005 [EBook #15585] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMOROUS MASTERPIECES FROM *** + + + + +Produced by Alicia Williams, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +HUMOROUS MASTERPIECES + +FROM + +AMERICAN LITERATURE + + +EDITED BY + +EDWARD T. MASON + + +NEW YORK & LONDON + +G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS + +The Knickerbocker Press + +1886 + + +COPYRIGHT +G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS +1886 + + +Press of +G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS +New York + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + BAYARD TAYLOR + Selections from the Experiences of the A.C. + + WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER + Dobbs His Ferry + + JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST + Father Higgins's Preferment + + JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE + Fred Trover's Little Iron-Clad + + OLIVER BELL BUNCE + Mr. Bluff Discourses on the Country and Kindred Themes + + CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER + Garden Ethics + + FRANCES LEE PRATT + Captain Ben's Choice + + LOUISA MAY ALCOTT + Street Scenes in Washington + Selections from Transcendental Wild Oats + + WILLIAM WIRT HOWE + Conversational Depravity + + CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE ("_Artemus Ward_") + The Tower of London + Science and Natural History + From the "Lecture" + + FRANK R. STOCKTON + Our Tavern + A Piece of Red Calico + + HARRIETT PRESCOTT SPOFFORD + Aunt Pen's Funeral + + SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS ("_Mark Twain_") + The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County + + FITZ HUGH LUDLOW + Ben Thirlwall's School-days + Selections from a Brace of Boys + + THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH + A Rivermouth Romance + + + + +BAYARD TAYLOR. + +(BORN, 1825--DIED, 1878) + + * * * * * + +SELECTIONS FROM THE EXPERIENCES OF THE A.C. + + +"Bridgeport! Change cars for the Naugatuck Railroad!" shouted the +conductor of the New York and Boston Express Train, on the evening of +May 27, 1858.... Mr. Johnson, carpet-bag in hand, jumped upon the +platform, entered the office, purchased a ticket for Waterbury, and was +soon whirling in the Naugatuck train towards his destination. + +On reaching Waterbury, in the soft spring twilight, Mr. Johnson walked +up and down in front of the station, curiously scanning the faces of the +assembled crowd. Presently he noticed a gentleman who was performing the +same operation upon the faces of the alighting passengers. Throwing +himself directly in the way of the latter, the two exchanged a steady +gaze. + +"Is your name Billings?" "Is your name Johnson?" were simultaneous +questions, followed by the simultaneous exclamations,--"Ned!" "Enos!" + +Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause, in +testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to +practical life asked: + +"Is that all your baggage? Come, I have a buggy here: Eunice has heard +the whistle, and she'll be impatient to welcome you." + +The impatience of Eunice (Mrs. Billings, of course) was not of long +duration; for in five minutes thereafter she stood at the door of her +husband's chocolate-colored villa, receiving his friend.... + +J. Edward Johnson was a tall, thin gentleman of forty-five.... A year +before, some letters, signed "Foster, Kirkup, & Co., per Enos Billings," +had accidentally revealed to him the whereabouts of the old friend of +his youth with whom we now find him domiciled.... + +"Enos," said he, as he stretched out his hand for the third cup of tea +(which he had taken only for the purpose of prolonging the pleasant +table-chat), "I wonder which of us is most changed." + +"You, of course," said Mr. Billings, "with your brown face and big +moustache. Your own brother wouldn't have known you, if he had seen you +last, as I did, with smooth cheeks and hair of unmerciful length. Why, +not even your voice is the same!" + +"That is easily accounted for," replied Mr. Johnson. "But in your case, +Enos, I am puzzled to find where the difference lies. Your features seem +to be but little changed, now that I can examine them at leisure; yet it +is not the same face. But really, I never looked at you for so long a +time, in those days. I beg pardon; you used to be so--so remarkably +shy." + +Mr. Billings blushed slightly, and seemed at a loss what to answer. His +wife, however, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming: + +"Oh, that was before the days of the A.C.!" + +He, catching the infection, laughed also; in fact, Mr. Johnson laughed, +but without knowing why. + +"The 'A.C.'!" said Mr. Billings. "Bless me, Eunice! how long it is since +we have talked of that summer! I had almost forgotten that there ever +was an A.C.... Well, the A.C. culminated in '45. You remember something +of the society of Norridgeport, the last winter you were there? Abel +Mallory, for instance?" + +"Let me think a moment," said Mr. Johnson, reflectively. "Really, it +seems like looking back a hundred years. Mallory,--wasn't that the +sentimental young man, with wispy hair, a tallowy skin, and big, sweaty +hands, who used to be spouting Carlyle on the 'reading evenings' at +Shelldrake's? Yes, to be sure; and there was Hollins, with his clerical +face and infidel talk,--and Pauline Ringtop, who used to say, 'The +Beautiful is the Good.' I can still hear her shrill voice singing, +'Would that _I_ were beautiful, would that _I_ were fair!'" + +There was a hearty chorus of laughter at poor Miss Ringtop's expense. It +harmed no one, however; for the tar-weed was already thick over her +Californian grave. + +"Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities of +those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them then. But I +was younger, and far from being so clearheaded, and I looked upon those +evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at least, to the _symposia_ of +Plato. Something in Mallory always repelled me. I detested the sight of +his thick nose, with the flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed +lips, of the bluish color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these +feelings as unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing +the admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the +subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except Graham +bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he +considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of +health,--or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left +temple should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as the last +feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the meat he had +formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory was, that through +a body so purged and purified none but true and natural impulses could +find access to the soul. Such, indeed, was the theory we all held.... + +"Shelldrake was a man of more pretence than real cultivation, as I +afterwards discovered. He was in good circumstances, and always glad to +receive us at his house, as this made him virtually the chief of our +tribe, and the outlay for refreshments involved only the apples from his +own orchard, and water from his well.... + +"Well, 't was in the early part of '45,--I think in April,--when we +were all gathered together, discussing, as usual, the possibility of +leading a life in accordance with Nature. Abel Mallory was there, and +Hollins, and Miss Ringtop, and Faith Levis, with her knitting,--and also +Eunice Hazleton, a lady whom you have never seen, but you may take my +wife as her representative.... + +"I wish I could recollect some of the speeches made on that occasion. +Abel had but one pimple on his temple (there was a purple spot where the +other had been), and was estimating that in two or three months more he +would be a true, unspoiled man. His complexion, nevertheless, was more +clammy and whey-like than ever. + +"'Yes,' said he, 'I also am an Arcadian! This false dual existence which +I have been leading will soon be merged in the unity of Nature. Our +lives must conform to her sacred law. Why can't we strip off these +hollow Shams,' (he made great use of that word,) 'and be our true +selves, pure, perfect, and divine?' ... + +"Shelldrake, however, turning to his wife, said,-- + +"'Elviry, how many up-stairs rooms is there in that house down on the +Sound?' + +"'Four,--besides three small ones under the roof. Why, what made you +think of that, Jesse?' said she. + +"'I've got an idea, while Abel's been talking,' he answered. 'We've +taken a house for the summer, down the other side of Bridgeport, right +on the water, where there's good fishing and a fine view of the Sound. +Now, there's room enough for all of us,--at least, all that can make it +suit to go. Abel, you and Enos, and Pauline and Eunice might fix matters +so that we could all take the place in partnership, and pass the summer +together, living a true and beautiful life in the bosom of Nature. There +we shall be perfectly free and untrammelled by the chains which still +hang around us in Norridgeport. You know how often we have wanted to be +set on some island in the Pacific Ocean, where we could build up a true +society, right from the start. Now, here's a chance to try the +experiment for a few months, anyhow.' + +"Eunice clapped her hands (yes, you did!) and cried out,-- + +"'Splendid! Arcadian! I'll give up my school for the summer.' ... + +"Abel Mallory, of course, did not need to have the proposal repeated. +He was ready for any thing which promised indolence, and the indulgence +of his sentimental tastes. I will do the fellow the justice to say that +he was not a hypocrite. He firmly believed both in himself and his +ideas,--especially the former. He pushed both hands through the long +wisps of his drab-colored hair, and threw his head back until his wide +nostrils resembled a double door to his brain. + +"'O Nature!' he said, 'you have found your lost children! We shall obey +your neglected laws! we shall hearken to your divine whispers! we shall +bring you back from your ignominious exile, and place you on your +ancestral throne!' ... + +"The company was finally arranged to consist of the Shelldrakes, +Hollins, Mallory, Eunice, Miss Ringtop, and myself. We did not give much +thought, either to the preparations in advance, or to our mode of life +when settled there. We were to live near to Nature: that was the main +thing. + +"'What shall we call the place?" asked Eunice. + +"'Arcadia!' said Abel Mallory, rolling up his large green eyes. + +"'Then,' said Hollins, 'let us constitute ourselves the Arcadian +Club!'" + +--"Aha!" interrupted Mr. Johnson, "I see! The A.C.!" + +"Yes, you see the A.C. now, but to understand it fully, you should have +had a share in those Arcadian experiences.... It was a lovely afternoon +in June when we first approached Arcadia.... Perkins Brown, Shelldrake's +boy-of-all-work, awaited us at the door. He had been sent on two or +three days in advance, to take charge of the house, and seemed to have +had enough of hermit-life, for he hailed us with a wild whoop, throwing +his straw hat half-way up one of the poplars. Perkins was a boy of +fifteen, the child of poor parents, who were satisfied to get him off +their hands, regardless as to what humanitarian theories might be tested +upon him. As the Arcadian Club recognized no such thing as caste, he was +always admitted to our meetings, and understood just enough of our +conversation to excite a silly ambition in his slow mind.... + +"Our board, that evening, was really tempting. The absence of meat was +compensated to us by the crisp and racy onions, and I craved only a +little salt, which had been interdicted, as a most pernicious substance. +I sat at one corner of the table, beside Perkins Brown, who took an +opportunity, while the others were engaged in conversation, to jog my +elbow gently. As I turned towards him, he said nothing, but dropped his +eyes significantly. The little rascal had the lid of a blacking-box, +filled with salt, upon his knee, and was privately seasoning his onions +and radishes. I blushed at the thought of my hypocrisy, but the onions +were so much better that I couldn't help dipping into the lid with him. + +"'Oh,' said Eunice, 'we must send for some oil and vinegar! This lettuce +is very nice.' + +"'Oil and vinegar?' exclaimed Abel. + +"'Why, yes,' said she, innocently: 'they are both vegetable substances.' + +"Abel at first looked rather foolish, but quickly recovering herself, +said,-- + +"'All vegetable substances are not proper for food: you would not taste +the poison-oak, or sit under the upas-tree of Java.' + +"'Well, Abel,' Eunice rejoined, 'how are we to distinguish what is best +for us? How are we to know _what_ vegetables to choose, or what animal +and mineral substances to avoid?' + +"'I will tell you,' he answered, with a lofty air. 'See here!' pointing +to his temple, where the second pimple--either from the change of air, +or because, in the excitement of the last few days, he had forgotten +it--was actually healed. 'My blood is at last pure. The struggle between +the natural and the unnatural is over, and I am beyond the depraved +influences of my former taste. My instincts are now, therefore, entirely +pure also. What is good for man to eat, that I shall have a natural +desire to eat: what is bad will be naturally repelled. How does the cow +distinguish between the wholesome and the poisonous herbs of the meadow? +And is man less than a cow, that he cannot cultivate his instincts to an +equal point? Let me walk through the woods and I can tell you every +berry and root which God designed for food, though I know not its name, +and have never seen it before. I shall make use of my time, during our +sojourn here, to test, by my purified instinct, every substance, animal, +mineral, and vegetable, upon which the human race subsists, and to +create a catalogue of the True Food of Man!' ... + +"Our lazy life during the hot weather had become a little monotonous. +The Arcadian plan had worked tolerably well, on the whole, for there +was very little for any one to do,--Mrs. Shelldrake and Perkins Brown +excepted. Our conversation, however, lacked spirit and variety. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, a little tired of hearing and assenting to the +same sentiments. But, one evening, about this time, Hollins struck upon +a variation, the consequences of which he little foresaw. We had been +reading one of Bulwer's works, (the weather was too hot for Psychology,) +and came upon this paragraph, or something like it:-- + +"'Ah, Behind the Veil! We see the summer smile of the Earth,--enamelled +meadow and limpid stream,--but what hides she in her sunless heart? +Caverns of serpents, or grottoes of priceless gems? Youth, whose soul +sits on thy countenance, thyself wearing no mask, strive not to lift the +masks of others! Be content with what thou seest; and wait until Time +and Experience shall teach thee to find jealousy behind the sweet smile, +and hatred under the honeyed word!' + +"This seemed to us a dark and bitter reflection but one or another of us +recalled some illustration of human hypocrisy, and the evidences, by the +simple fact of repetition, gradually led to a division of +opinion,--Rollins, Shelldrake, and Miss Ringtop on the dark side, and +the rest of us on the bright. The last, however, contented herself with +quoting from her favorite poet Gamaliel J. Gawthrop:-- + + "'I look beyond thy brow's concealment! + I see thy spirit's dark revealment! + Thy inner self betrayed I see: + Thy coward, craven, shivering ME!' + +"'We think we know one another,' exclaimed Rollins; 'but do we? We see +the faults of others, their weaknesses, their disagreeable qualities, +and we keep silent. How much we should gain, were candor as universal as +concealment Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would truly +know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much +hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, +honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate +misfortune,--in short, how much brighter and happier the world would +become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at all times, his true and +entire feeling! Why, even Evil would lose half its power!' + +"There seemed to be so much practical wisdom in these views that we were +all dazzled and half-convinced at the start. So, when Hollins, turning +towards me, as he continued, exclaimed,--'Come, why should not this +candor be adopted in our Arcadia? Will any one--will you, Enos--commence +at once by telling me now--to my face--my principal faults?' I answered, +after a moment's reflection,--'You have a great deal of intellectual +arrogance, and you are, physically, very indolent.' + +"He did not flinch from the self-invited test, though he looked a little +surprised. + +"'Well put,' said he, 'though I do not say that you are entirely +correct. Now, what are my merits?' + +"'You are clear-sighted,' I answered, 'an earnest seeker after truth, +and courageous in the avowal of your thoughts.' + +"This restored the balance, and we soon began to confess our own private +faults and weaknesses. Though the confessions did not go very deep,--no +one betraying any thing we did not all know already,--yet they were +sufficient to strengthen Hollins in his new idea, and it was unanimously +resolved that Candor should thenceforth be the main charm of our +Arcadian life.... + +"The next day, Abel, who had resumed his researches after the True +Food, came home to supper with a healthier color than I had before seen +on his face. + +"'Do you know,' said he, looking shyly at Hollins, 'that I begin to +think Beer must be a natural beverage? There was an auction in the +village to-day, as I passed through, and I stopped at a cake-stand to +get a glass of water, as it was very hot. There was no water,--only +beer: so I thought I would try a glass, simply as an experiment. Really, +the flavor was very agreeable. And it occurred to me, on the way home, +that all the elements contained in beer are vegetable. Besides, +fermentation is a natural process. I think the question has never been +properly tested before.' + +"'But the alcohol!' exclaimed Hollins. + +"'I could not distinguish any, either by taste or smell. I know that +chemical analysis is said to show it; but may not the alcohol be +created, somehow, during the analysis?' + +"'Abel,' said Hollins, in a fresh burst of candor, 'you will never be a +Reformer, until you possess some of the commonest elements of +knowledge.' + +"The rest of us were much diverted: it was a pleasant relief to our +monotonous amiability. + +"Abel, however, had a stubborn streak in his character. The next day he +sent Perkins Brown to Bridgeport for a dozen bottles of 'Beer.' Perkins, +either intentionally or by mistake, (I always suspected the former,) +brought pint-bottles of Scotch ale, which he placed in the coolest part +of the cellar. The evening happened to be exceedingly hot and sultry; +and, as we were all fanning ourselves and talking languidly, Abel +bethought him of his beer. In his thirst, he drank the contents of the +first bottle, almost at a single draught. + +"'The effect of beer,' said he, 'depends, I think, on the commixture of +the nourishing principle of the grain with the cooling properties of the +water. Perhaps, hereafter, a liquid food of the same character may be +invented, which shall save us from mastication and all the diseases of +the teeth.' + +"Hollins and Shelldrake, at his invitation, divided a bottle between +them, and he took a second. The potent beverage was not long in acting +on a brain so unaccustomed to its influence. He grew unusually talkative +and sentimental, in a few minutes. + +"'Oh, sing, somebody!' he sighed in hoarse rapture: 'the night was made +for Song.' + +"Miss Ringtop, nothing loath, immediately commenced, 'When stars are in +the quiet skies'; but scarcely had she finished the first verse before +Abel interrupted her. + +"'Candor's the order of the day, isn't it?' he asked. + +"'Yes!' 'Yes!' two or three answered. + +"'Well, then,' said he, 'candidly, Pauline, you've got the darn'dest +squeaky voice'-- + +"Miss Ringtop gave a faint little scream of horror. + +"'Oh, never mind!' he continued. 'We act according to impulse, don't we? +And I've the impulse to swear; and it's right. Let Nature have her way. +Listen! Damn, damn, damn, damn! I never knew it was so easy. Why, +there's a pleasure in it! Try it, Pauline! try it on me!' + +"'Oh-ooh!' was all Miss Ringtop could utter. + +"'Abel! Abel!' exclaimed Hollins, 'the beer has got into your head.' + +"'No, it isn't Beer,--it's Candor!' said Abel. 'It's your own proposal, +Hollins. Suppose it's evil to swear: isn't it better I should express +it, and be done with it, than keep it bottled up, to ferment in my +mind? Oh, you're a precious, consistent old humbug, _you_ are!' + +"And therewith he jumped off the stoop, and went dancing awkwardly down +towards the water, singing in a most unmelodious voice, ''Tis home +where'er the heart is.' ... + +"We had an unusually silent breakfast the next morning. Abel scarcely +spoke, which the others attributed to a natural feeling of shame, after +his display of the previous evening. Hollins and Shelldrake discussed +Temperance, with a special view to his edification, and Miss Ringtop +favored us with several quotations about 'the maddening bowl,'--but he +paid no attention to them.... + +"The forenoon was overcast, with frequent showers. Each one occupied his +or her room until dinner-time, when we met again with something of the +old geniality. There was an evident effort to restore our former flow of +good feeling. Abel's experience with the beer was freely discussed. He +insisted strongly that he had not been laboring under its effects, and +proposed a mutual test. He, Shelldrake, and Hollins were to drink it in +equal measures, and compare observations as to their physical +sensations. The others agreed,--quite willingly, I thought,--but I +refused.... + +"There was a sound of loud voices, as we approached the stoop. Hollins, +Shelldrake and his wife, and Abel Mallory were sitting together near the +door. Perkins Brown, as usual, was crouched on the lowest step, with one +leg over the other, and rubbing the top of his boot with a vigor which +betrayed to me some secret mirth. He looked up at me from under his +straw hat with the grin of a malicious Puck, glanced towards the group, +and made a curious gesture with his thumb. There were several empty pint +bottles on the stoop. + +"'Now, are you sure you can bear the test?' we heard Hollins ask, as we +approached. + +"'Bear it? Why, to be sure!' replied Shelldrake 'if I couldn't bear it, +or if _you_ couldn't, your theory's done for. Try! I can stand it as +long as you can.' + +"'Well, then,' said Hollins, 'I think you are a very ordinary man. I +derive no intellectual benefit from my intercourse with you, but your +house is convenient to me. I'm under no obligations for your +hospitality, however, because my company is an advantage to you. Indeed, +if I were treated according to my deserts, you couldn't do enough for +me.' + +"Mrs. Shelldrake was up in arms. + +"'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'I think you get as good as you deserve, and +more too.' + +"Elvira,' said he, with a benevolent condescension, 'I have no doubt you +think so, for your mind belongs to the lowest and most material sphere. +You have your place in Nature, and you fill it; but it is not for you to +judge of intelligences which move only on the upper planes.' + +"'Hollins,' said Shelldrake, 'Elviry's a good wife and a sensible woman, +and I won't allow you to turn up your nose at her.' + +"'I am not surprised,' he answered, 'that you should fail to stand the +test. I didn't expect it.' + +"'Let me try it on _you_!' cried Shelldrake. 'You, now, have some +intellect,--I don't deny that,--but not so much, by a long shot, as you +think you have. Besides that, you're awfully selfish in your opinions. +You won't admit that anybody can be right who differs from you. You've +sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned something from +you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call acting +according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own laziness.' + +"'Gosh! that's it!' interrupted Perkins, jumping up; then, recollecting +himself, he sank down on the steps again, and shook with a suppressed +'Ho! ho! ho!' + +"Hollins, however, drew himself up with an exasperated air. + +"'Shelldrake,' said he, 'I pity you. I always knew your ignorance, but I +thought you honest in your human character. I never suspected you of +envy and malice. However, the true Reformer must expect to be +misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds. That love which I bear +to all creatures teaches me to forgive you. Without such love, all plans +of progress must fail. Is it not so, Abel?'" + +"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, 'Pity!' 'Forgive!' in his +most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking violently in her +chair, gave utterance to that peculiar clucking '_ts, ts, ts, ts_,' +whereby certain women express emotions too deep for words. + +"Abel, roused by Hollins' question, answered, with a sudden energy,-- + +"Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me, +and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were +like mine, we might have an Arcadia; but most men have no hearts. The +world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy. +No: let us give up. We were born before our time: this age is not worthy +of us.' + +"Hollins stared at the speaker in utter amazement. Shelldrake gave a +long whistle, and finally gasped out,-- + +"'Well, what next?' + +"None of us were prepared for such a sudden and complete wreck of our +Arcadian scheme. The foundations had been sapped before, it is true; but +we had not perceived it; and now, in two short days, the whole edifice +tumbled about our ears. Though it was inevitable, we felt a shock of +sorrow, and a silence fell upon us. Only that scamp of a Perkins Brown, +chuckling and rubbing his boot, really rejoiced. I could have kicked +him. + +"We all went to bed, feeling that the charm of our Arcadian life was +over.... In the first revulsion of feeling, I was perhaps unjust to my +associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries, which +originated in a genuine aspiration, and failed from an ignorance of the +true nature of Man, quite as much as from the egotism of the +individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society were made about the +same time by men of culture and experience, but in the A.C. we had +neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their +minds, were speedly warped into errors." ...--_The Atlantic Monthly_, +February, 1862. + + + + +WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER. + +(BORN, 1825.) + + * * * * * + +DOBBS HIS FERRY. + +A Legend of the Lower Hudson. + + + The days were at their longest, + The heat was at its strongest, + When Brown, old friend and true, + Wrote thus: "Dear Jack, why swelter + In town when shade and shelter + Are waiting here for you? + Quit Bulls and Bears and gambling, + For rural sports and rambling + Forsake your Wall Street tricks; + Come without hesitation, + Check to Dobbs' Ferry Station, + We dine at half-past six." + + I went,--a welcome hearty, + A merry country party, + A drive, and then croquet, + A quiet, well-cooked dinner, + Three times at billiards winner,-- + The evening sped away; + When Brown, the dear old joker, + Cried, "Come, my worthy broker, + The hour is growing late; + Your room is cool and quiet, + As for the bed, just try it, + Breakfast at half-past eight." + + I took Brown's hand, applauded + His generous care, and lauded + Dobbs' Ferry to the skies. + A shade came o'er his features, + "We should be happy creatures, + And this a paradise, + But, ah! the deep disgrace is, + This loveliest of places + A vulgar name should blight! + But, death to Dobbs! we'll change it, + If money can arrange it, + So, pleasant dreams; good night!" + + I could not sleep, but, raising + The window, stood, moon-gazing, + In fairyland a guest; + "On such a night," _et cetera_-- + See Shakespeare for much better a + Description of the rest,-- + I mused, how sweet to wander + Beside the river, yonder; + And then the sudden whim + Seized my head to pillow + On Hudson's sparkling billow, + A midnight, moonlight swim! + + Soon thought and soon attempted; + At once my room was emptied + Of its sole occupant; + The roof was low, and easily, + In fact, quite Japanese-ily, + I took the downward slant, + Then, without stay or stopping, + My first and last eaves-dropping, + By leader-pipe I sped, + And through the thicket gliding, + Down the steep hillside sliding, + Soon reached the river's bed. + + But what was my amazement,-- + The fair scene from the casement, + How changed! I could not guess + Where track or rails had vanished, + Town, villas, station, banished,-- + All was a wilderness. + Only one ancient gable, + A low-roofed inn and stable, + A creaking sign displayed, + An antiquated wherry, + Below it--"DOBBS HIS FERRY"-- + In the clear moonlight swayed. + + I turned, and there the craft was, + Its shape 'twixt scow and raft was, + Square ends, low sides, and flat, + And standing close beside me, + An ancient chap who eyed me, + Beneath a steeple-hat; + Short legs--long pipe--style very + Pre-Revolutionary,-- + I bow, he grimly bobs, + Then, with some perturbation, + By way of salutation, + Says I, "How are you, Dobbs!" + + He grum and silent beckoned, + And I, in half a second, + Scarce knowing what I did, + Took the stern seat, Dobbs throwing + Himself 'midships, and rowing, + Swift through the stream we slid; + He pulled awhile, then stopping, + And both oars slowly dropping, + His pipe aside he laid, + Drew a long breath, and taking + An attitude, and shaking + His fist towards shore, thus said:-- + + "Of all sharp cuts the keenest, + Of all mean turns the meanest, + Vilest of all vile jobs, + Worse than the Cow-Boy pillagers, + Are these Dobbs' Ferry villagers + A going back on Dobbs! + 'Twould not be more anom'lous + If Rome went back on Rom'lus + (Old rum-un like myself), + Or Hail Columbia, played out + By Southern Dixie, laid out + Columbus on the shelf! + + "They say 'Dobbs' ain't melodious, + It's 'horrid,' 'vulgar,' 'odious,' + In all their crops it sticks; + And then the worse addendum + Of 'Ferry' does offend 'em + More than its vile prefix. + Well, it does seem distressing, + But, if I'm good at guessing, + Each one of these same nobs, + If there was money in it, + Would ferry in a minute, + And change his name to Dobbs! + + "That's it, they're not partic'lar, + Respecting the auric'lar, + At a stiff market rate; + But Dobbs' especial vice is, + That he keeps down the prices + Of all their real estate! + A name so unattractive + Keeps villa-sites inactive, + And spoils the broker's jobs; + They think that speculation + Would rage at 'Paulding's Station,' + Which stagnates now at 'Dobbs.' + + "'Paulding's!"--that's sentimental! + An old Dutch Continental, + Bushwhacked up there a spell; + But why he should come blustering + Round here, and filibustering, + Is more than I can tell; + Sat playing for a wager, + And nabbed a British major. + Well, if the plans and charts + From Andre's boots he hauled out, + Is his name to be bawled out + Forever, round these parts? + + "Guess not! His pay and bounty + And mon'ment from the county + Paid him off, every cent, + While this snug town and station, + To every generation, + Shall be Dobbs' monument; + Spite of all speculators + And ancient-landmark traitors, + Who, all along this shore, + Are ever substitutin' + The modern, highfalutin', + For the plain names of yore. + + "Down there, on old Manhattan, + Where land-sharks breed and fatten, + They've wiped out Tubby Hook. + That famous promontory, + Renowned in song and story, + Which time nor tempest shook, + Whose name for aye had been good, + Stands newly christened 'Inwood,' + And branded with the shame + Of some old rogue who passes + By dint of aliases, + Afraid of his own name! + + "See how they quite outrival, + Plain barnyard Spuytenduyvil, + By peacock Riverdale, + Which thinks all else it conquers, + And over homespun Yonkers + Spreads out its flaunting tail! + There's new-named Mount St. Vincent, + Where each dear little inn'cent + Is taught the Popish rites,-- + Well, ain't it queer, wherever + These saints possess the river + They get the finest sites! + + "They've named a place for Irving, + A trifle more deserving + Than your French, foreign saints, + But if he has such mention, + It's past my comprehension + Why Dobbs should cause complaints; + Wrote histories and such things, + About Old Knick and Dutch things, + Dolph Heyligers and Rips; + But no old antiquary + Like him could keep a ferry, + With all his authorships! + + "By aid of these same showmen, + Some fanciful cognomen + Old Cro'nest stock might bring + As high as Butter Hill is, + Which, patronized by Willis, + Leaves cards now as 'Storm-King!' + Can't some poetic swell-beau + Re-christen old Crum Elbow + And each prosaic bluff, + Bold Breakneck gently flatter, + And Dunderberg bespatter, + With euphony and stuff! + + "'T would be a _magnum opus_ + To bury old Esopus + In Time's sepulchral vaults, + Or in Oblivion's deep sea + Submerge renowned Poughkeepsie, + And also ancient Paltz; + How it would give them rapture + Brave Stony Point to capture, + And make it face about; + Bid Rhinebeck sound much smoother + Than in the tongue of Luther, + And wipe the Catskills out! + + "Well, DOBBS is DOBBS, and faster + Than pitch or mustard-plaster + Shall it stick hereabouts, + While Tappan Sea rolls yonder, + Or round High Torn the thunder + Along these ramparts shouts. + No corner-lot banditti, + Or brokers from the City-- + Like you--" Here Dobbs began + Wildly both oars to brandish, + As fierce as old Miles Standish, + Or young Phil Sheridan. + + Sternwards he rushed,--I, ducking, + Seized both his legs, and chucking + Dobbs sideways, splash he went,-- + The wherry swayed, then righted, + While I, somewhat excited, + Over the water bent; + Three times he rose, but vainly + I clutched his form ungainly, + He sank, while sighs and sobs + Beneath the waves seemed muttered, + And all the night-winds uttered + In sad tones, "Dobbs! Dobbs! Dobbs!" + + Just then some giant boulders + Upon my head and shoulders + Made sudden, fearful raids, + And on my face and forehead, + With din and uproar horrid, + Came several Palisades; + I screamed, and woke, in screaming, + To see, by gaslight's gleaming, + Brown's face above my bed; + "Why, Jack, what is the matter? + We heard a dreadful clatter + And found you on the shed! + + "It's plain enough, supposing + You sat there, moon-struck, dozing, + Upon the window's edge, + Then lost yourself, and falling, + Just where we found you, sprawling, + Struck the piazza ledge; + A lucky hit, old fellow, + Of black and blue and yellow + It gives your face a touch, + You saved your neck, but barely; + To state the matter fairly, + You took a drop too much!" + + I took the train next morning, + Some lumps my nose adorning, + My forehead, sundry knobs, + My ideas slightly wandering, + But, as I went, much pondering + Upon my night with Dobbs; + Brown thinks it, dear old sinner, + A case of "after dinner," + And won't believe a word, + Talks of "hallucination," + "Laws of association," + And calls my tale "absurd." + + Perhaps it is, but never, + Say I, should we dissever + Old places and old names; + Guard the old landmarks truly, + On the old altars duly + Keep bright the ancient flames. + For me the face of Nature, + No luckless nomenclature + Of grace or beauty robs; + No, when of town I weary, + I'll make a strike in Erie, + And buy a place at DOBBS! + +--_Poems._ + + + + +JOHN WILLIAM DE FOREST. + +(BORN, 1826.) + + * * * * * + +FATHER HIGGINS'S PREFERMENT. + + +Father Higgins was not the kind of divine who easily finds preferment in +the Catholic Church, or who would be apt to make a shining mark in any +other. + +Fat and red-faced and pudding-headed was Father Higgins; uncommonly in +the way of good eating, and now and then disposed for good drinking; as +lazy as he dared be, ignorant enough for a hermit, and simple enough for +a monk. His chief excellence lay in his kindliness of heart, which would +doubtless have made him very serviceable and comfortable to his +fellow-men, had it not been for his indolence, his spare intellectual +gifts, and perhaps a little leaven of selfishness. + +Such as he was, however, Father Higgins had no small "consate" of +himself, and sometimes thought that even a bishopric would not be +"beyant his desarts." He pleased himself with imagining how finely he +would fill an episcopal chair, what apostolic labors he would accomplish +in his diocese, what swarms of heretics or pagans he would convert, what +a self-sacrificing and heroic life he would lead, and what a saintly +name he would leave. One day, or to speak with a precision worthy of +this true history, one evening, he became a bishop. + +It happened on this wise. Father Higgins had ventured to treat himself +to a spectacle. He had attended, for the first time in his life, an +exhibition of legerdemain; this one being given by that celebrated +master of the black-art, Professor Heller. He had seen the professor +change turnips into gold watches, draw a dozen live pigeons in +succession out of an empty box, send rings into ladies' handkerchiefs at +the other end of the hall, catch a bullet out of an exploded pistol in +his hand, and perform other marvels equally irrational and disturbing. +From this raree-show Father Higgins had gone home feeling that he had +witnessed something about as unearthly as he was likely to be confronted +with in the next world. + +For an hour or more he sat in his elbow-chair, puzzling over the +professor's "diviltries," and crossing himself at the remembrance of +each one of them. It was black midnight, and stormy at that; there was +such an uproar in the elm branches over his house as if all the Salem +witches were holding Sabbath there; the whole village of Sableburg +swarmed with windy rushings and shriekings and slammings. It was one of +those midnights when the devil evidently "has business on his hand." + +Of a sudden there was a rustle in the room, and looking around to +discover the cause of it, Father Higgins beheld a tall and dark man with +startling black eyes, in whom he recognized Professor Heller. + +"What's yer will, sir?" demanded the Father, a good deal astonished, but +not a bit frightened. + +"I understand, sir, that you would like to be a bishop," replied the +professor, bowing politely, but seating himself unceremoniously. + +"That's thrue enough, sir," replied Father Higgins, who somehow felt +curiously at his ease, and disposed at once to be confidential with this +utter stranger. "I've often imagined meself a bishop, an' doin' wondhers +in me office. But it's nonsinse." + +"What post would suit you?" inquired the visitor. "The diocese of New +York?" + +"No, no," said the father. "I'm not ayqual to sich a risponsebility; +that is, not at wanst, ye ondherstand. I'd like best to come up to sich +a place as that gintly an' by degrays. It's been a drame av mine to +begin my prefarmint as biship av some far-away continent or archypilago, +like, an' convart slathers av haythins an' cannebals for a practice. It +ud plase me imagenation to prache among corrils an' coky-nuts an' naked +crachurs. Y' are aware, I suppose, Misther Heller--or Professor +Heller--av sich islands as Owyhee an' the Marquesas, famous a'ready in +the history av the Propaganda Fide. Jist suppose me havin' me episkepal +raysedence on wan av 'um, an' makin' me progresses to the others. There +be great devoshin to a spiritual father among thim simple people, I'm +thinkin.' I'd be a god to 'um, like. Sich obeyjince ud jist shuit me. +Yes, I'd enj'y bein' Biship av the Cannebal Islands, or even av wan av +um." + +"Faith is necessary," replied Heller. "You must believe that you are to +be Bishop of the Cannibal Islands." + +"Sure an' it's not aisy at this distance to belave in the islands +thimselves, let alone bein' spiritual father av the same," smiled the +priest. "Howandiver, there's no harrum in tryin' to belave, an' so here +goes for the exparimint. If ye'll kape silence a bit, I'll jist collect +me moind on the subject, an' we'll see what happens." + +For a moment the gray, piggish eyes of the Father, and the black, +gleaming, mysterious orbs of his visitor were fixed upon each other. In +the next moment Heller, bowing with a ceremonious air of respect, +inquired, "What are your commands, my lord bishop?" + +Startled by a consciousness of some wonderful change, doubtful in what +land he was, or even in what age of the world, Father Higgins stared +about him in expectation. A sunny shore, scattered groves of cocoa-nut +trees, distant villages of circular huts, beyond them far-stretching +forests and a smoking volcano; on the hither side bays alive with carved +and painted canoes, near at hand a gathering crowd of half-naked +savages--such were the objects that filled his vision. + +"So this is me diocese," he said, without feeling the least surprise. +"Well, the climate is deloightful. Let us hope that the coky-nuts will +agree wid us, an' that the natives won't urge upon us the blissins av +martyrdom. Professor, what may be the spiritual condition av things +hereaway, do ye think?" + +"A clear field--not a convert yet. Your predecessor, who went through +the office of being eaten a year ago, had not even learned the +language." + +"The blissid saints watch over us! To hear the likes av that, whin I +expected to be a god, like, among these wretches! Well, it's our duty we +must do, Heller; we mustn't run away from our post; indade, we can't. +Moreover, I feel a sthrong confidence that the howly Catholic Church is +to be greatly glorified by me on these islands. What do ye say now to +meself exhibitin' the gift av miracles an' tongues? If I should +discoorse to these cannebals in their own contimptible language, would +it surprise ye, Heller?" + +"No," smiled the professor. "I have seen greater marvels in my time. I +have seen men preach not merely words, but feelings and faiths, that +they were ignorant of." + +Father Higgins, closely followed by Heller, now advanced to a green +hillock, a few rods from the shelly and pebbly beach, knelt down upon +the thin sward, and repeated a prayer. Meantime the population gathered; +behind them canoe after canoe touched the shore; before them there was +a swift, tumultuous hurrying from the villages; presently they were +surrounded by a compact, eager, barbaric multitude. The babble of its +wonder turned to silence as the priest rose, extended his fat hands, and +commenced a sermon. + +Father Higgins was not a bit astonished at hearing himself pour forth a +torrent of words which he did not understand, nor at seeing in the faces +of his wild listeners that they perfectly comprehended his discourse. It +was merely a supernatural inspiration; it was but another exhibition of +the heavenly gifts of the Church; he was as much at his ease as if he +had been in the habit of working miracles from his cradle. At the close +of his harangue he took out his breviary, and translated a prayer into +the unknown tongue. Evidently the auditors understood this also, for +while some crouched to earth in undisguisable terror, others looked +upward as if expecting an answer from the sky. + +Presently a savage, in a many-colored robe of feathers, stepped in front +of the multitude, and uttered a few sentences. + +"It's a mighty quare providence that this miracle works ownly wan way," +observed Father Higgins to Heller. "It's meself can prache acceptably to +this poor haythin, an' it's meself, loikewise, can't sense a blissid +word he gabbles." + +"He is comparing you with your predecessor," exclaimed the professor. +"He says the other man called himself a messenger from God; but as he +could not talk Feejee, they saw that he was a liar, because God knows +every language; and so, having found him a liar, they fattened him with +fish and cocoa-nuts, and ate him. As for you, they admit that you are a +heavenly personage, and they mean to worship you." + +"How came ye to larn the language, annyway?" demanded the priest. + +"I have wandered to and fro in the earth a good deal," replied Heller. +"I have performed some of my best black-art in these islands." + +Father Higgins, rather bothered by these statements, was about to ask +further questions, when he was seized by four sturdy natives, who +mounted him upon their naked shoulders, while four others uplifted the +professor in like manner, all then setting off rapidly toward the +village, followed by the whole crowd in procession. + +"An' what if I should tell ye I had conscientious scruples agenst +lettin' meself be adored for a heavenly personage?" objected the good +Father. + +"Don't think of it," counselled Heller. "Being worshipped is infinitely +more agreeable than being eaten. Besides, consider the interests of the +Church. If you are set up as a god, you can use the position to sprinkle +holy water on your adorers, and so convert the whole island without +trouble." + +"Sure y' are mighty well varsed in the precepts and customs av the +Jesuit Fathers," answered the priest, with a stare of wonder and +admiration. "I moind me now that the missionaries in Chaynee baptized +lashins av haythin babies under pretinse av rubbin' um with medicine. +An' it's a maxim that whin the ind is salvatory, the manes are +justified. It's a maxim, also, that y' ave no business to lead yer +felly-crachurs into sin. Now cannebalism is a sin; it ud be a sin +capital for these fellies to ate us; an', av coorse, it follies that it +ud be a sin in me to timpt um to do it. But, by sufferin' meself to be +worshipped I prevint that same. So, I advise an' counsel, Heller, that +we go on as we are for a bit longer, until a proper time comes to +expose the whole av the thrue faith." + +Beguiling the way with such like discourse, Father Higgins journeyed on +to the nearest village, where his bearers halted before an unusually +large hut, evidently serving as a temple. In the door of this building +the principal chief took post, and waving his hand toward the crowd, +made the following speech: + +"Hear, O chiefs! hear, O priests of our religion ye men of Feejee, hear! +The god who can come over the waters is greater than the god who can +only abide upon the land, and shall have his house and his sacrifices. +Whosoever disapproves of this, let him offer himself for the trial of +the sacred poison; if he is not ready so to do, let him hereafter hold +his peace and submit." + +No one objecting, the chief beckoned the bearers to follow him, and led +the way into the temple. Mounting a platform eight or ten feet high, he +advanced to an ugly scarecrow of an idol, slapped it, kicked it, and +toppled it to the ground. Then, with vast labor and much joyful +shouting, the ponderous form of Father Higgins was hoisted aloft, and +installed in the seat of the dethroned deity. Next Professor Heller was +set down upon his feet beside an altar which stood in front of the +platform. + +"What are ye afther doin', Heller?" inquired the clergyman from his +eminence. + +"I am about to sacrifice to your divinity two green cocoa-nuts, two +roasted bread-fruit, and half a dozen fishes," was the answer. + +"Well, I suppose it must be permitted," sighed Father Higgins. "Go on +wid yer sacrifice, me dear felly. I presume, av coorse, that it will be +in ordher for me to ate some av it. Let the fishes be well cooked, +by-the-way, and sarved wid some kind av sauce. I'd almost as lave be +devoured meself as devour raw fishes." + +"Really, I have some scruples," smiled the mischievous professor. "You +might shock the devotional feelings of your new worshippers." + +"I insist upon it, Heller. I tell ye I won't ate raw fishes to convart a +continent av haythins, much less a little bit island av 'um." + +The fish being promptly broiled on the coals of the altar, were handed +up to Father Higgins on a large leaf, together with one of the +cocoa-nuts and a bread-fruit. The worthy man immediately proceeded to +make a hearty meal, vastly to the delight and confirmation in the faith +of his worshippers, they having never before been blessed with a god +who could fairly and squarely eat his dinner. After another brief speech +from the chief, and a benediction from the padre, the multitude +dispersed. + +"Is it me unavoidable duty to live on this perch, Heller?" demanded +Father Higgins. "Me opinion is that in that case I shall get mightily +tired av me mission. I'd about as lave be a parrot, an' sit in a tin +ring." + +"My dear Father, remember that blessed saint who roosted for twenty +years on the top of a pillar," urged the professor. "Stay where you are +until you have got a firm grip on the faith of these cannibals." + +"Very good," assented Higgins, with a yawn. "But get me a bucket of +wather, me dear felly. Sure I must have some blessed an' ready for use. +The next time sarvice is conducted here I propose to sprinkle the +worshippers. It'll benefit um in more ways nor wan, if I'm a judge of +ayther sowl or body." + +Such was the installation of Bishop Higgins, or, as the Feejeeans +insisted upon considering him, Divinity Higgins, over the diocese of the +Pacific. + +There was something mysterious about the Cannibal Islands. Time flew +like a bird there; the days seemed no more than minutes; they were +coming, and they were gone. Events, emotions, changes of belief, +transformations of character, succeeded each other with magical +rapidity. Every thing was transacted at the wildest speed of dreams; and +yet, what was strangest of all, every thing went smoothly and naturally; +nothing excited astonishment. In a few days, or a few seconds, whatever +the period of time might have been, Father Higgins enjoyed being +Divinity Higgins. + +"I think it best for the eventual spiritual interests av me paple that +they should continue to worship me for a while longer," he said to +Heller. "Human nature in a savage state, ye see, wont go at wan jump +from a log av wood to the thrue Deity. I'm playin' the part av a +steppin'-stone betwixt the two. Afther they've larned to lift their +sowls to Higgins, they'll be able to go a bit higher, say to the saints +first, an' thin to the blissid Vargin, an' so on, wan step at a time, +till they've got the whole av it. But it'll be mortial slow, I'm +doubtin'. I may have to bear an' forbear as I am for an intire +gineration av the poor crachurs." + +"Certainly," assented the professor. "Nothing so injurious to weak eyes +as too much light." + +"Y' 'ave put it in a nutshell," replied the priest. "Sure an' that's +the rason we're opposed to gineral schoolin', an' to readin' the Bible +to the children. Y' are a masther mind, Heller, an' ought to been in +howly ordhers. An' that brings me to another idee av high importince. +There should be somebody to run about with howly wather an' exthrame +unction, an' the like. Now that business wouldn't shuit me pheesical +conformation, an' nayther would it shuit the character I have to bear. +It's betther that you should do the outside trampin', Heller. Ye know +the tradditions an' docthrines av the Church well enough, an' y' are a +dab at Latin. As for yer not bein' av the prastely office, I'll jist lay +hands on ye an' qualify ye for the same. If it happens to be a bit +irregular, why, the ind justifies the manes, ye remimber, or the ancient +Fathers are all wrong, which is onpossible. An' now, Heller, do tell +these poor, benighted, lazy loons that I must have me coky-nuts fresh, +an' as great a variety av fish as can be procured in these wathers. The +chap that preshumes to bring me an owld coky-nut I'll curse his basket +an' his shtore." + +After a brief missionary effort, Heller reported that the whole +population of the island, barring a few obstinate seniors, had been +baptized. + +"That's well, me son," replied Father Higgins. "I s'pose y' 'ave done it +rather on the wholesale, sprinklin' a hundred or so at a fling, but I've +no doubt y' 'ave done it the best ye could in the time y' 'ave had; and +surely it's a great work, no matter how done. As for the apostates--I +mane the fellows that stick to their owld haythinism--it might be well +to make an example av a few av thim, jist for the encouragemint av the +faithful. Suppose ye should organize an inquisition, or howly office, +Heller, an' conduct the proceedin's yerself intirely, be way av seein' +that they are regular an' effective? Y' are parfectly able for it, wid +your knowledge av Church history." + +It was not long before Heller was able to state that all the old fogies +and silver-grays who remained alive had been converted. + +"Ah, but isn't that blissid news!" responded Father Higgins, joyfully. +"An' wouldn't me brethren, the other biships, be glad to hear that same +concernin' their dioceses! That's betther nor coky-nuts--of which, +be-the-way, I'm gettin' a bit tired. I wondher, Heller, if some av +these other islands wouldn't furnish us a change of diet? If we could +find pataties an' grapes, it ud be a blessin' to body an' sowl. Surely +it ud be a good deed to bring all this archypilago into the thrue faith. +Couldn't the chafe, now, take an army out in his doubled-barrelled +canoes, an' commince the work av convarsion? Tell him if he'll do that +same, I'll grant him all the indulgences he can think av." + +Another magical moment of these lightning-like days brought about +important events. With an armament of scores of canoes and hundreds of +warriors the chief invaded a large island, and was beaten in a bloody +battle by its painim inhabitants, escaping with but a remnant of his +followers. Then came a counter invasion. The worshippers of Father +Higgins fought for their deity under his eye; the unbelievers were +defeated and driven with great slaughter to their dug-outs. But as the +hostile fleet still held command of the sea and hovered menacingly off +the coast, keeping the faithful under arms and preventing them from +fishing, the good Father decided that peace was necessary. + +"This livin' on coky-nuts and bread-fruits intirely is bad for the +stomich, Heller," he observed. "We must come to an ondherstandin' wid +these raskilly infidels an' idolaters. See if ye can't make tarms wid +um." + +The adroit Heller soon arranged a secret treaty with the enemy to the +following effect: Their chief, Umbaho, was to be universal king and his +orthodox rival, Patoo-patoo, was to be beheaded; polygamy, cannibalism, +and the use of the sacred poison were to continue in force; both islands +were to adore Father Higgins and bring him sacrifices. + +"Seems to me they're mighty sevare tarms," commented the Father. "I'd 'a +been glad to get howld av a bit av timporal sovereighnty, don't you see? +Moreover, I'm sorry about that poor divil, Patoo-patoo; he was my first +convart. Annyway, I'll give um full absolution, so that death can't hurt +um sariously, an' I'll canonize him as a martyr. Saint Patoo-patoo! If +that don't satisfy um, an' if he ain't willin' to die for the extinsion +av the faith, he's no thrue belayver, and desarves no pity. So jist see +to gettin' um off aisy." + +After another brief period of time, such as periods of time were in +these mysterious islands, Father Higgins found himself the acknowledged +divinity of the whole archipelago. + +"This cannebalism an' polygamy an' the like greatly distresses me, +however," he confessed to Heller. "Be moments I'm timpted to unfold the +naked truth, an' bring these paple square up to the canons of the Church +at wanst. But it ud be risky. We read av times, ye know, Heller, that +God winked at. No doubt it's me duty, as a divinity, to go on winkin' at +these polygamies an' cannebalisms a bit longer. Slow an' aisy is me +motto, an' I've noticed it's the way of Providence mostly. Sure it was +so at home in Sableburg, ye know, Heller; we didn't average a convart in +twinty years." + +Now ensued an event which troubled the holy Father more than any thing +that had yet occurred during his episcopate. Two German priests, Heller +informed him, had landed on one of the islands of the archipelago, and +were preaching the pure doctrines of the Christian faith, denouncing +cannibalism and polygamy, and otherwise sapping the established +religion. + +"Some av the New Catholics, I'll warrant ye!" exclaimed Higgins, +indignantly. "Some of thim blatherskites av the Doellinger school, come +over here to stir up sedition in the Church, as though they hadn't made +worry enough in the owld counthries. An' what business has Dutchmen +here, annyway, whin an Irishman has begun the good worrk? They've no +right to take the labor of convartin' these haythins out of me hands +that a-way. Me conscience won't allow me to permit such distarbances an' +innovations. See if ye can't get um to lave the islands peaceable, +Heller. If they won't, I shall have to let Umbaho settle wid um afther +his fashion." + +An embassy to the missionaries having obtained from them no other +response than that they would welcome martyrdom rather than relinquish +their labors, Umbaho was dispatched against them at the head of a +sufficient army, with instructions to treat them as enemies of Feejee +and of the unity of the Church. + +But instead of slaughtering the missionaries, Umbaho was converted by +them. He renounced cannibalism, polygamy, and the sacred poison; he +denied Father Higgins. Accompanied by one of the Germans, he returned to +Feejee at the head of his army, bent on establishing the true Christian +faith. + +"We must press a lot av min, an' beat um," responded the good Father, +when Heller informed him of the approach and purposes of the chief. +"Tell the faithful to give no quarter; tell um to desthroy ivery wan of +these schismatics; an' as for the Dutchman, burrn him at the stake, as +they used to do in the good owld times." + +A great battle ensued; the adherents of Higginsism were defeated and +dispersed; the door of the temple opened to Umbaho and the German. +Father Higgins, by this time a helpless mass of fat, swaying perilously +on his unsteady platform, looked down upon them with terror through the +smoke of his altar. + +"Sacrilegious wretch!" cried the German, God has put an end to thy mad +and selfish and wicked dominion." + +"I wish I had niver been a biship!" screamed Father Higgins at the top +of his voice, as he rolled off the platform. + +All the way from the Cannibal Islands he fell and tumbled and dropped, +until, with a dull thump, he alighted upon the floor of his own study. + +"There! y' 'ave rolled out av yer chair agen, Father Higgins," said his +housekeeper, who at that moment entered the room to order him to bed, as +was her merciful custom. + +"So I have," returned the Father, picking himself up. "An' sarved me +right, too. I thought I was the biggest raskil on the face av the earth. +I wondher if it's true. The Lord presarve me from the timptation av +great power, or I'll abuse it, an' abuse me felly-men and the +Church!"--_Harper's Magazine_, May, 1872. + + + + +JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. + +(BORN, 1827.) + + * * * * * + +FRED TROVER'S LITTLE IRON-CLAD. + + +Did I never tell you the story? Is it possible? Draw up your chair. +Stick of wood, Harry. Smoke? + +You've heard of my Uncle Popworth, though. Why, yes! You've seen +him;--the eminently respectable elderly gentleman who came one day last +summer just as you were going; book under his arm, you remember; weed on +his hat; dry smile on bland countenance; tall, lank individual in very +seedy black. With him my tale begins; for if I had never indulged in an +Uncle Popworth I should never have sported an Iron-Clad. + +Quite right, sir; his arrival _was_ a surprise to me. To know how great +a surprise, you must understand why I left city, friends, business, and +settled down in this quiet village. It was chiefly, sir, to escape the +fascinations of that worthy old gentleman that I bought this place, and +took refuge here with my wife and little ones. Here we had respite, +respite and nepenthe from our memories of Uncle Popworth; here we used +to sit down in the evening and talk of the past with grateful and +tranquil emotions, as people speak of awful things endured in days that +are no more. To us the height of human happiness was raising green corn +and strawberries, in a retired neighborhood where uncles were unknown. +But, sir, when that Phantom, that Vampire, that Fate, loomed before my +vision that day, if you had said, "Trover, I'll give ye sixpence for +this neat little box of yours," I should have said, "Done!" with the +trifling proviso that you should take my uncle in the bargain. + +The matter with him? What indeed could invest human flesh with such +terrors,--what but this? he was--he is--let me shriek it in your ear--a +bore--a BORE! of the most malignant type; an intolerable, terrible, +unmitigated BORE! + +That book under his arm was a volume of his own sermons;--nine hundred +and ninety-nine octavo pages, O Heaven! It wasn't enough for him to +preach and re-preach those appalling discourses, but then the ruthless +man must go and print 'em! When I consider what booksellers--worthy men, +no doubt, many of them, deserving well of their kind--he must have +talked nearly into a state of syncope before ever he found one to give +way, in a moment of weakness, of utter exhaustion and despair, and +consent to publish him; and when I reflect what numbers of inoffensive +persons, in the quiet walks of life, have been made to suffer the +infliction of that Bore's Own Book, I pause, I stand aghast at the +inscrutability of Divine Providence. + +Don't think me profane, and don't for a moment imagine I underrate the +function of the preacher. There's nothing better than a good +sermon,--one that puts new life into you. But what of a sermon that +takes life out of you? instead of a spiritual fountain, a spiritual +sponge that absorbs your powers of body and soul, so that the longer you +listen the more you are impoverished? A merely poor sermon isn't so bad; +you will find, if you are the right kind of a hearer, that it will +suggest something better than itself; a good hen will lay to a bit of +earthen. But the discourse of your ministerial vampire, fastening by +some mystical process upon the hearer who has life of his own,--though +not every one has that,--sucks and sucks and sucks; and he is exhausted +while the preacher is refreshed. So it happens that your born bore is +never weary of his own boring; he thrives upon it; while he seems to be +giving, he is mysteriously taking in--he is drinking your blood. + +But you say nobody is obliged to _read_ a sermon. O my unsophisticated +friend! if a man will put his thoughts--or his words, if thoughts are +lacking--between covers,--spread his banquet, and respectfully invite +Public Taste to partake of it, Public Taste being free to decline, then +your observation is sound. If an author quietly buries himself in his +book,--very good! hic jacet; peace to his ashes! + + "The times have been, + That, when the brains were out, the man would die, + And there an end; but now they rise again," + +as Macbeth observes, with some confusion of syntax, excusable in a +person of his circumstances. Now, suppose they--or he--the man whose +brains are out--goes about with his coffin under his arm, like my worthy +uncle? and suppose he blandly, politely, relentlessly insists upon +reading to you, out of that octavo sarcophagus, passages which in his +opinion prove that he is not only not dead, but immortal? If such a man +be a stranger, snub him; if a casual acquaintance, met in an evil hour, +there is still hope,--doors have locks, and there are two sides to a +street, and nearsightedness is a blessing, and (as a last resort) +buttons may be sacrificed (you remember Lamb's story of Coleridge), and +left in the clutch of the fatal fingers. But one of your own kindred, +and very respectable, adding the claim of misfortune to his other claims +upon you,--pachydermatous to slights, smilingly persuasive, gently +persistent,--as imperturbable as a ship's wooden figurehead through all +the ups and downs of the voyage of life, and as insensible to cold +water;--in short, an uncle like my uncle, whom there was no getting rid +of;--what the deuce would you do? + +Exactly; run away as I did. There was nothing else to be done, unless, +indeed, I had throttled the old gentleman; in which case I am confident +that one of our modern model juries would have brought in the popular +verdict of justifiable insanity. But, being a peaceable man, I was +averse to extreme measures. So I did the next best thing,--consulted my +wife, and retired to this village. + +Then consider the shock to my feelings when I looked up that day and saw +the enemy of our peace stalking into our little Paradise with his book +under his arm and his carpet-bag in his hand! coming with his sermons +and his shirts, prepared to stay a week--that is to say a year--that is +to say forever, if we would suffer him,--and how was he to be hindered +by any desperate measures short of burning the house down! + +"My dear nephew!" says he, striding toward me with eager steps, as you +perhaps remember, smiling his eternally dry, leathery smile,--"Nephew +Frederick!"--and he held out both hands to me, book in one and bag in +t'other,--"I am rejoiced! One would almost think you had tried to hide +away from your old uncle! for I've been three days hunting you up. And +how is Dolly? she ought to be glad to see me, after all the trouble I've +had in finding you! And, Nephew Frederick!--h'm!--can you lend me three +dollars for the hackman? for I don't happen to have--thank you! I should +have been saved this if you had only known I was stopping last night at +a public house in the next village, for I know how delighted you would +have been to drive over and fetch me!" + +If you were not already out of hearing, you may have noticed that I made +no reply to this affecting speech. The old gentleman has grown quite +deaf of late years,--an infirmity which was once a source of untold +misery to his friends, to whom he was constantly appealing for their +opinions, which they were obliged to shout in his ear. But now, happily, +the world has about ceased responding to him, and he has almost ceased +to expect responses from the world. He just catches your eye, and, when +he says, "Don't you think so, sir?" or, "What is your opinion, sir?" an +approving nod does your business. + +The hackman paid, my dear uncle accompanied me to the house, unfolding +the catalogue of his woes by the way. For he is one of those worthy, +unoffending persons, whom an ungrateful world jostles and tramples +upon,--whom unmerciful disaster follows fast and follows faster. In his +younger days, he was settled over I don't know how many different +parishes; but secret enmity pursued him everywhere, poisoning the +parochial mind against him, and driving him relentlessly from place to +place. Then he relapsed into agencies, and went through a long list of +them, each terminating in flat failure, to his ever-recurring +surprise,--the simple old soul never suspecting, to this day, who his +one great, tireless, terrible enemy is! + +I got him into the library, and went to talk over this unexpected +visit--or visitation--with Dolly. She bore up under it more cheerfully +than could have been expected,--suppressed a sigh,--and said she would +go down and meet him. She received him with a hospitable smile (I verily +believe that more of the world's hypocrisy proceeds from too much +good-nature than from too little), and listened patiently to his +explanations. + +"You will observe that I have brought my bag," says he, "for I knew you +wouldn't let me off for a day or two,--though I must positively leave in +a week,--in two weeks, at the latest. I have brought my volume, too, for +I am contemplating a new edition" (he is always contemplating a new +edition, making that a pretext for lugging the book about with him), +"and I wish to enjoy the advantages of your and Frederick's +criticism;--I anticipate some good, comfortable, old-time talks over the +old book, Frederick!" + +We had invited some village friends to come in and eat strawberries and +cream with us that afternoon; and the question arose, what should be +done with the old gentleman? Harry, who is a lad of a rather lively +fancy, coming in while we were taking advantage of his great uncle's +deafness to discuss the subject in his presence, proposed a pleasant +expedient. "Trot him out into the cornfield, introduce him to the +scarecrow, and let him talk to that," says he, grinning up into the +visitor's face, who grinned down at him, no doubt thinking what a +wonderfully charming boy he was! If he were as blind as he is deaf, he +might have been disposed of very comfortably in some such ingenious +way;--the scarecrow, or any other lay figure, might have served to +engage him in one of his immortal monologues. As it was, the suggestion +bore fruit later, as you will see. + +While we were consulting--keeping up our scattering fire of small-arms +under the old talker's heavy guns--our parish minister called,--old +Doctor Wortleby, for whom we have a great liking and respect. Of course +we had to introduce him to Uncle Popworth,--for they met face to face; +and of course Uncle Popworth fastened at once upon the brother +clergyman. Being my guest, Wortleby could do no less than listen to +Popworth, who is my uncle. He listened with interest and sympathy for +the first half-hour; and then continued listening for another half-hour, +after his interest and sympathy were exhausted. Then, attempting to go, +he got his hat, and sat with it in his hand half an hour longer. Then he +stood half an hour on his poor old gouty feet, desperately edging toward +the door. + +"Ah, certainly," says he, with a weary smile, repeatedly endeavoring to +break the spell that bound him. "I shall be most happy to hear the +conclusion of your remarks at some future time" (even ministers can lie +out of politeness); "but just now--" + +"One word more, and I am done," cries my Uncle Popworth, for the +fiftieth time; and Wortleby, in despair, sat down again. + +Then our friends arrived. + +Dolly and I, who had all the while been benevolently wishing Wortleby +would go, and trying to help him off, now selfishly hoped he would +remain and share our entertainment--and our Uncle Popworth. + +"I ought to have gone two hours ago," he said, with a plaintive smile, +in reply to our invitation; "but, really, I am feeling the need of a +cup of tea" (and no wonder!) "and I think I will stay." + +We cruelly wished that he might continue to engage my uncle in +conversation; but that would have been too much to hope from the sublime +endurance of a martyr,--if ever there was one more patient than he. +Seeing the Lintons and the Greggs arrive, he craftily awaited his +opportunity, and slipped off, to give them a turn on the gridiron. First +Linton was secured; and you should have seen him roll his mute, +appealing orbs, as he settled helplessly down under the infliction. +Suddenly he made a dash. "I am ignorant of these matters," said he; "but +Gregg understands them;--Gregg will talk with you." But Gregg took +refuge behind the ladies. The ladies receiving a hint from poor +distressed Dolly, scattered. But no artifice availed against the +dreadful man. Piazza, parlor, garden,--he ranged everywhere, and was +sure to seize a victim. + +At last tea was ready, and we all went in. The Lintons and Greggs are +people of the world, who would hardly have cared to wait for a blessing +on such lovely heaps of strawberries and mugs of cream as they saw +before them; but, there being two clergymen at the table, the ceremony +was evidently expected. We were placidly seated; there was a hush, +agreeably filled with the fragrance of the delicious fruit: even my +uncle Popworth, from long habit, turned off his talk at that suggestive +moment: when I did what I thought a shrewd thing. I knew too well my +relative's long-windedness at his devotions, as at everything else (I +wonder if Heaven itself isn't bored by such fellows!)--I had suffered, I +had seen my guests suffer, too much from him already,--to think of +deliberately yielding him a fearful advantage over us; so I coolly +passed him by, and gave an expressive nod to the old Doctor. + +Wortleby began; and I was congratulating myself on my adroit management +of a delicate matter, when--conceive my consternation!--Popworth--not to +speak it profanely--followed suit! The reverend egotist couldn't take in +the possibility of anybody but himself being invited to say grace at our +table, he being present;--he hadn't noticed my nod to the Doctor, and +the Doctor's low, earnest voice didn't reach him;--and there, with one +blessing going on one side of the table, he, as I said, pitched in on +the other! His eyes shut, his hands spread over his plate, his elbows on +the board, his head bowed, he took care that grace should abound with us +for once! His mill started, I knew there was no stopping it, and I hoped +Wortleby would desist. But he didn't know his man. He seemed to feel +that he had the stroke-oar, and he pulled away manfully. As Popworth +lifted up his loud, nasal voice, the old Doctor raised his voice, in the +vain hope, I suppose, of making himself heard by his lusty competitor. +If you have never had two blessings running opposition at your table, in +the presence of invited guests, you can never imagine how astounding, +how killingly ludicrous it was! I felt that both Linton and Gregg were +ready to tumble over, each in an apoplexy of suppressed emotions; while +I had recourse to my handkerchief to hide my tears. At length, poor +Wortleby yielded to fate,--withdrew from the unequal contest--hauled +off--for repairs; and the old seventy-two gun-ship thundered away in +triumph. + +At last (as there must be an end to everything under the sun) my uncle +came to a close; and a moment of awful silence ensued, during which no +man durst look at another. But in my weak and jelly-like condition I +ventured a glance at him, and noticed that he looked up and around with +an air of satisfaction at having performed a solemn duty in a becoming +manner, blissfully unconscious of having run a poor brother off the +track. Seeing us all with moist eyes and much affected,--two or three +handkerchiefs still going,--he no doubt flattered himself that the +pathetic touches in his prayer had told. + +This will give you some idea of the kind of man we had on our hands; and +I won't risk making myself as great a bore as he is, by attempting a +history of his stay with us; for I remember I set out to tell you about +my little Iron-Clad. I'm coming to that. + +Suffice it to say, he stayed--he _stayed_--he STAYED!--five mortal +weeks; refusing to take hints when they almost became kicks; driving our +friends from us, and ourselves almost to distraction; his misfortunes +alone protecting him from a prompt and vigorous elimination: when a +happy chance helped me to a solution of this awful problem of destiny. + +More than once I had recalled Harry's vivacious suggestion of the +scarecrow--if one could only have been invented that would sit +composedly in a chair and nod when spoken to! I was wishing for some +such automaton, to bear the brunt of the boring with which we were +afflicted, when one day there came a little man into the garden, where I +had taken refuge. + +He was a short, swarthy, foreign-looking, diminutive, stiff, rather +comical fellow,--little figure mostly head, little head mostly face, +little face mostly nose, which was by no means little--a sort of human +vegetable (to my horticultural eye) running marvellously to seed in that +organ. The first thing I saw, on looking up at the sound of footsteps, +was the said nose coming toward me, among the sweet-corn tassels. Nose +of a decidedly Hebraic cast,--the bearer respectably dressed, though his +linen had an unwholesome sallowness, and his cloth a shiny, +much-brushed, second-hand appearance. + +Without a word he walks up to me, bows solemnly, and pulls from his +pocket (I thought he was laying his hand on his heart) the familiar, +much-worn weapon of his class,--the folded, torn yellow paper, ready to +fall to pieces as you open it,--in short, the respectable beggar's +certificate of character. With another bow (which gave his nose the +aspect of the beak of a bird of prey making a pick at me) he handed the +document. I found that it was dated in Milwaukee, and signed by the +mayor of that city, two physicians, three clergymen, and an editor, who +bore united testimony to the fact that Jacob Menzel--I think that was +his name--the bearer, any way,--was a deaf mute, and, considering that +fact, a prodigy of learning, being master of no less than five different +languages (a pathetic circumstance, considering that he was unable to +speak one); moreover, that he was a converted Jew; and, furthermore, a +native of Germany, who had come to this country in company with two +brothers, both of whom had died of cholera in St. Louis in one day; in +consequence of which affliction, and his recent conversion, he was now +anxious to return to Fatherland, where he proposed to devote his life to +the conversion of his brethren;--the upshot of all which was that good +Christians and charitable souls everywhere were earnestly recommended to +aid the said Jacob Menzel in his pious undertaking. + +I was fumbling in my pocket for a little change wherewith to dismiss +him,--for that is usually the easiest way of getting off your premises +and your conscience the applicant for "aid," who is probably an +impostor, yet possibly not,--when my eye caught the words (for I still +held the document), "would be glad of any employment which may help to +pay his way." The idea of finding employment for a man of such a large +nose and little body, such extensive knowledge and diminutive legs--who +had mastered five languages yet could not speak or understand a word of +any one of them,--struck me as rather pleasant, to say the least; yet, +after a moment's reflection,--wasn't he the very thing I wanted, the +manikin, the target for my uncle? + +Meanwhile he was scribbling rapidly on a small slate he had taken from +his pocket. With another bow (as if he had written something wrong and +was going to wipe it out with his nose), he handed me the slate, on +which I found written in a neat hand half-a-dozen lines in as many +different languages,--English, Latin, Hebrew, German, French, +Greek,--each, as far as I could make out, conveying the cheerful +information that he could communicate with me in that particular tongue. +I tried him in English, French, and Latin, and I must acknowledge that +he stood the test; he then tried me In Greek and Hebrew, and I as freely +confess that I didn't stand the test. He smiled intelligently, nodded, +and condescendingly returned to the English tongue, writing quickly,--"I +am a poor exile from Fatherland, and I much need friends." + +I wrote: "You wish employment?" He replied: "I shall be much obliged for +any service I shall be capable to do,"--and passed me the slate with a +hopeful smile. + +"What can you do?" I asked. He answered: "I copy the manuscripts, I +translate from the one language to others with some perfect exactitude, +I arrange the libraries, I make the catalogues, I am capable to be any +secretary." And he looked up as if he saw in my eyes a vast vista of +catalogues, manuscripts, libraries, and Fatherland at the end of it. + +"How would you like to be companion to a literary man?" I inquired. + +He nodded expressively, and wrote: "I should that like overall. But I +speak and hear not." + +"No matter," I replied. "You will only have to sit and appear to listen, +and nod occasionally." + +"You shall be the gentleman?" he asked with a bright, pleased look. + +I explained to him that the gentleman was an unfortunate connection of +my family, whom we could not regard as being quite in his right mind. + +Jacob Menzel smiled, and touched his fore head interrogatively. + +I nodded, adding on the slate,--"He is perfectly harmless; but he can +only be kept quiet by having some person to talk and read to. He will +talk and read to you. He must not know you are deaf. He is very deaf +himself, and will not expect you to reply." And, for a person wishing a +light and easy employment, I recommended the situation. + +He wrote at once, "How much you pay?" + +"One dollar a day, and board you," I replied. + +He of the nose nodded eagerly at that, and wrote, "Also you make to be +washed my shirt?" + +I agreed; and the bargain was closed. I got him into the house, and gave +him a bath, a clean shirt, and complete instructions how to act. + +The gravity with which he entered upon the situation was astonishing. He +didn't seem to taste the slightest flavor of a joke in it all. It was a +simple matter of business; he saw in it only money and Fatherland. + +Meanwhile I explained my intentions to Dolly, saying in great glee: "His +deafness is his defence: the old three-decker may bang away at him; he +is IRON-CLAD!" And that suggested the name we have called him by ever +since. + +When he was ready for action, I took him in tow, and ran him in to draw +the Popworth's fire--in other words, introduced him to my uncle in the +library. The meeting of my tall, lank relative and the big-nosed little +Jew was a spectacle to cure a hypochondriac! "Mr. Jacob +Menzel--gentleman from Germany--travelling in this country," I yelled in +the old fellow's ear. He of the diminutive legs and stupendous nose +bowed with perfect decorum, and seated himself, stiff and erect, in the +big chair I placed for him. The avuncular countenance lighted up: here +were fresh woods and pastures new to that ancient shepherd. As for +myself, I was wellnigh strangled by a cough which just then seized me, +and obliged to retreat,--for I never was much of an actor, and the +comedy of that first interview was overpowering. + +As I passed the dining-room door, Dolly, who was behind it, gave my arm +a fearful pinch, that answered, I supposed, in the place of a scream, as +a safety-valve for her hysterical emotions. "O you cruel man--you +miserable humbug!" says she; and went off into convulsions of laughter. +The door was open, and we could see and hear every thing. + +"You are travelling, h'm?" says my uncle. The nose nodded duly. "H'm! I +have travelled, myself," the old gentleman proceeded; "my life has been +one of vicissitudes, h'm! I have journeyed, I have preached, I have +published;--perhaps you have heard of my literary venture"--and over +went the big volume to the little man, who took it, turned the leaves, +and nodded and smiled, according to instructions. + +"You are very kind to say so; thank you!" says my uncle, rubbing his +husky hands with satisfaction. "Rejoiced to meet with you, truly! It is +always a gratification to have an intelligent and sympathizing brother +to open one's mind to; it is especially refreshing to me, for, as I may +say without egotism, my life and labors have _not_ been appreciated." + +From that the old interminable story took its start and flowed on, the +faithful nose nodding assent at every turn in that winding stream. + +The children came in for their share of the fun; and for the first time +in our lives we took pleasure in the old gentleman's narration of his +varied experiences. + +"O hear him! see him go it!" said Robbie. "What a nose!" + +"Long may it wave!" said Harry. + +With other remarks of a like genial nature; while there they sat, the +two,--my uncle on one side, long, lathy, self-satisfied, gesticulating, +earnestly laying his case before a grave jury of one, whom he was bound +to convince, if time would allow; my little Jew facing him, upright in +his chair, stiff, imperturbable, devoted to business, honorably earning +his money, the nose in the air, immovable, except when it played duly up +and down at fitting intervals: in which edifying employment I left them, +and went about my business, a cheerier man. + +Ah, what a relief it was to feel myself free for a season from the +attacks of the enemy--to know that my plucky little Iron-Clad was +engaging him! In a hour I passed through the hall again, heard the loud +blatant voice still discoursing (it had got as far as the difficulties +with the second parish), and saw the unflinching nasal organ perform its +graceful see-saw of assent. An hour later it was the same,--except that +the speaker had arrived at the persecutions which drove him from parish +number three. When I went to call them to dinner, the scene had changed +a little, for now the old gentleman, pounding the table for a pulpit, +was reading aloud passages from a powerful farewell sermon preached to +his ungrateful parishioners. I was sorry I couldn't give my man a hint +to use his handkerchief at the affecting periods, for the nose can +hardly be called a sympathetic feature (unless indeed you blow it), and +these nods were becoming rather too mechanical, except when the old +gentleman switched off on the argumentative track, as he frequently did. +"What think you of that?" he would pause in his reading to inquire. +"Isn't that logic? isn't that unanswerable?" In responding to which +appeals nobody could have done better than my serious, my devoted, my +lovely little Jew. + +"Dinner!" I shouted over my uncle's dickey. It was almost the only word +that had the magic in it to rouse him from the feast of reason which his +own conversation was to him. It was always easy to head him toward the +dining-room--to steer him into port for necessary supplies. The little +Iron-Clad followed in his wake. At table, the old gentleman resumed the +account of his dealings with parish number three, and got on as far as +negotiations with number four; occasionally stopping to eat his soup or +roast-beef very fast; at which time Jacob Menzel, who was very much +absorbed in his dinner, but never permitted himself to neglect business +for pleasure, paused at the proper intervals, with his spoon or fork +half-way to his mouth, and nodded,--just as if my uncle had been +speaking,--yielding assent to his last remarks after mature +consideration, no doubt the old gentleman thought. + +The fun of the thing wore off after a while, and then we experienced +the solid advantages of having an Iron-Clad in the house; +Afternoon--evening--the next day--my little man of business performed +his function promptly and assiduously. But in the afternoon of the +second day he began to change perceptibly. He wore an aspect of languor +and melancholy that alarmed me. The next morning he was pale, and went +to his work with an air of sorrowful resignation. + +"He is thinking of Fatherland," said the sympathizing Dolly; while +Harry's less refined but more sprightly comment was, that the nose had +about played out. + +Indeed it had almost ceased to wave; and I feared that I was about to +lose a most valuable servant, whose place it would be impossible to +fill. Accordingly I wrote on a slip of paper, which I sent in to him,"-- + +"You have done well, and I raise your salary to a dollar and a quarter a +day. Your influence over our unfortunate relative is soothing and +beneficial. Go on as you have begun,--continue in well-doing, and merit +the lasting gratitude of an afflicted family." + +That seemed to cheer him a little--to wind him up, as Harry said, and +set the pendulum swinging again. But it was not long before the +listlessness and low spirits returned; Menzel showed a sad tendency to +shirk his duty; and before noon there came a crash. + +I was in the garden, when I heard a shriek of rage and despair, and saw +the little Jew coming toward me with frantic gestures. + +"I yielt! I abandone! I take my moneys and my shirt, and I go!" says he. + +I stood in perfect astonishment at hearing the dumb speak; while he +threw his arms wildly above his head, exclaiming: + +"I am not teaf! I am not teaf! I am not teaf! He is one terreeble mon! +He vill haf my life! So I go--I fly--I take my moneys and my shirt--I +leafe him, I leafe your house! I vould earn honest living, but--Gott im +himmel! dieu des dieux! all de devils!" he shrieked, mixing up several +of his languages at once, in his violent mental agitation. + +"Jacob Menzel!" said I, solemnly, "I little thought I was having to do +with an impostor!" + +"If I haf you deceive, I haf myself more dan punish!" was his reply. +"Now I resign de position. I ask for de moneys and de shirt, and I +part!" + +Just then my uncle came up, amazed at his new friend's sudden revolt and +flight, and anxious to finish up with his seventh parish. "I vill hear +no more of your six, of your seven,--I know not how many parish!" +screamed the furious little Jew, turning on him. + +"What means all this?" said my bewildered uncle. + +"I tell you vat means it all!" the vindictive little impostor, tiptoeing +up to him, yelled at his cheek. "I make not vell my affairs in your +country; I vould return to Faderlant; for conwenience I carry dis +pappeer. I come here; I am suppose teaf; I accept de position to be your +companion, for if a man hear, you kill him tead soon vid your book and +your ten, twenty parish! I hear! you kill me! and I go!" + +And, having obtained his moneys and his shirt, he went. That is the last +I ever saw of my little Iron-Clad. I remember him with gratitude, for he +did me good service, and he had but one fault, namely, that he was _not_ +iron-clad! + +As for my uncle, for the first time in his life, I think, he said never +a word, but stalked into the house. Dolly soon came running out to ask +what was the matter; Popworth was actually packing his carpet-bag! I +called Andrew, and ordered him to be in readiness with the buggy to take +the old gentleman over to the railroad. + +"What! going?" I cried, as my uncle presently appeared, bearing his book +and his baggage. + +"Nephew Frederick!" said he, "after this treatment, can you ask me if am +going?" + +"Really," I shouted, "it is not my fault that the fellow proved an +impostor. I employed him with the best of intentions, for your--and +our--good!" "Nephew Frederick," said he, "this is insufferable; you +will regret it! I shall never--NEVER" (as if he had been pronouncing my +doom)--"accept of your hospitalities again!" + +He did, however, accept some money which I offered him, and likewise a +seat in the buggy. I watched his departure with joy and terror,--for at +any moment he might relent and stay nor was I at ease in my mind until I +saw Andrew come riding back alone. + +We have never seen the old gentleman since But last winter I received a +letter from him he wrote in a forgiving tone, to inform me that he had +been appointed chaplain in a prison, and to ask for a loan of money to +buy a suit of clothes. I sent him fifty dollars and my congratulations. +I consider him eminently qualified to fill the new situation. As a +hardship he can't be beat; and what are the rogues sent to prison for, +but to suffer punishment? + +Yes, it would be a joke if my little Iron-Clad should end his career of +imposture in that public institution, and sit once more under my +excellent uncle! But I can't wish him any such misfortune. His mission +to us was one of mercy. The place has been Paradise again, ever since +his visit.--_Scribners Magazine_, August, 1873. + + + + +OLIVER BELL BUNCE. + +(BORN, 1828.) + + * * * * * + +MR. BLUFF DISCOURSES OF THE COUNTRY AND KINDRED THEMES. + +(_In a Country Lane_.) + +BACHELOR BLUFF. A LISTENER. + + +"The country," exclaimed Mr. Bluff, with an air of candor and +impartiality, "is, I admit, a very necessary and sometimes a very +charming place. I thank Heaven for the country when I eat my first green +peas, when the lettuce is crisp, when the potatoes are delicate and +mealy, when the well-fed poultry comes to town, when the ruddy peach and +the purple grape salute me at the fruit-stands. I love the country when +I think of a mountain ramble; when I am disposed to wander with rod and +reel along the forest-shadowed brook; when the apple-orchards are in +blossom; when the hills blaze with autumn foliage. But I protest +against the dogmatism of rural people, who claim all the cardinal and +all the remaining virtues for their rose-beds and cabbage-patches. The +town, sir, bestows felicities higher in character than the country does; +for men and women, and the works of men and women, are always worthier +our love and concern than the rocks and the hills ... + +--"Oh, yes! I have heard before of the pleasures of the garden. Poets +have sung, enthusiasts have written, and old men have dreamed of them +since History began her chronicles. But have the _pains_ of the garden +ever been dwelt upon? Have people, now, been entirely honest in what +they have said and written on this theme? When enthusiasts have told us +of their prize pears, their early peas of supernatural tenderness, their +asparagus, and their roses, and their strawberries, have they not hidden +a good deal about their worm-eaten plums--about their cherries that were +carried off by armies of burglarious birds; about their potatoes that +proved watery and unpalatable; about their melons that fell victims to +their neighbors' fowls; about their peaches that succumbed to the +unexpected raid of Jack Frost; about their grapes that fell under the +blight of mildew; about their green corn that withered in the hill; +about the mighty host of failures that, if all were told, would tower in +high proportion above the few much blazoned successes? + +"Who is it that says a garden is a standing source of pleasure? Amend +this, I say, by asserting that a garden is a standing source of +discomfort and vexation ... A hopeless restlessness, according to my +observation, takes possession of every amateur gardener. Discontent +abides in his soul. There is, indeed, so much to be done, changed, +rearranged, watched, nursed, that the amateur gardener is really +entitled to praise and generous congratulations when one of his thousand +schemes comes to fruition. We ought in pity to rejoice with him over his +big Lawton blackberries, and say nothing of the cherries, and the pears, +and the peaches, that once were budding hopes, but have gone the way of +Moore's 'dear gazelle.' Then the large expenditures which were needed to +bring about his triumph of the Lawtons. 'Those potatoes,' said an +enthusiastic amateur gardener to me once, 'cost twenty-five cents +apiece!' And they were very good potatoes, too--almost equal to those +that could be bought in market at a dollar a bushel. + +"And then, amateur gardeners are feverishly addicted to early rising. +Men with gardens are like those hard drinkers whose susceptibilities are +hopelessly blunted. Who but a man diverted from the paths of honest +feeling and natural enjoyment, possessed of a demoniac mania, lost to +the peace and serenity of the virtuous and the blessed, could find +pleasure amid the damps, and dews, and chills, and raw-edgedness of a +garden in the early morning, absolutely find pleasure in saturated +trousers, in shoes swathed in moisture, in skies that are gray and +gloomy, in flowers that are, as Mantalini would put it, 'demnition +moist'? The thing is incredible! Now, a garden, after the sun has dried +the paths, warmed the air, absorbed the dew, is admissible. But a +possession that compels an early turning out into fogs and discomforts +deserves for this fact alone the anathema of all rational beings. + +"I really believe, sir, that the literature of the garden, so abundant +everywhere, is written in the interest of suburban land-owners. The +inviting one-sided picture so persistently held up is only a covert bit +of advertising, intended to seduce away happy cockneys of the town--men +supremely contented with their attics, their promenades in Fifth Avenue, +their visits to Central Park, where all is arranged for them without +their labor or concern, their evenings at the music gardens, their soft +morning slumbers, which know no dreadful chills and dews! How could a +back-ache over the pea-bed compensate for these felicities? How could +sour cherries, or half-ripe strawberries, or wet rosebuds, even if they +do come from one's own garden, reward him for the lose of the ease and +the serene conscience of one who sings merrily in the streets, and cares +not whether worms burrow, whether suns burn, whether birds steal, +whether winds overturn, whether droughts destroy, whether floods drown, +whether gardens flourish, or not?"--_Bachelor Bluff: his Opinions, +Sentiments, and Disputations_. + + + + +CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + +(BORN, 1829.) + + * * * * * + +GARDEN ETHICS. + + +I believe that I have found, if not original sin, at least vegetable +total depravity in my garden; and it was there before I went into it. It +is the bunch-, or joint-, or snake-grass,--whatever it is called. As I +do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam +did in his garden,--name things as I find them. This grass has a +slender, beautiful stalk: and when you cut it down, or pull up a long +root of it, you fancy it is got rid of; but in a day or two it will come +up in the same spot in half a dozen vigorous blades. Cutting down and +pulling up is what it thrives on. Extermination rather helps it. If you +follow a slender white root, it will be found to run under the ground +until it meets another slender white root; and you will soon unearth a +network of them, with a knot somewhere, sending out dozens of +sharp-pointed, healthy shoots, every joint prepared to be an independent +life and plant. The only way to deal with it is to take one part hoe and +two parts fingers, and carefully dig it out, not leaving a joint +anywhere. It will take a little time, say all summer, to dig out +thoroughly a small patch; but if you once dig it out, and keep it out, +you will have no further trouble. + +I have said it was total depravity. Here it is. If you attempt to pull +up and root out sin in you, which shows on the surface,--if it does not +show, you do not care for it,--you may have noticed how it runs into an +interior network of sins, and an ever-sprouting branch of these roots +somewhere; and that you cannot pull out one without making a general +internal disturbance, and rooting up your whole being. I suppose it is +less trouble to quietly cut them off at the top--say once a week, on +Sunday, when you put on your religious clothes and face,--so that no one +will see them, and not try to eradicate the network within. + +_Remark_.--This moral vegetable figure is at the service of any +clergyman who will have the manliness to come forward and help me at a +day's hoeing on my potatoes. None but the orthodox need apply. + +I, however, believe in the intellectual, if not the moral, qualities of +vegetables, and especially weeds. There was a worthless vine that (or +who) started up about midway between a grape-trellis and a row of +bean-poles, some three feet from each, but a little nearer the trellis. +When it came out of the ground, it looked around to see what it should +do. The trellis was already occupied. The bean-pole was empty. There was +evidently the a little best chance of light, air, and sole +proprietorship on the pole. And the vine started for the pole, and began +to climb it with determination. Here was as distinct an act of choice, +of reason, as a boy exercises when he goes into a forest, and, looking +about, decides which tree he will climb. And, besides, how did the vine +know enough to travel in exactly the right direction, three feet, to +find what it wanted? This is intellect. The weeds, on the other hand, +have hateful moral qualities. To cut down a weed is, therefore, to do a +moral action. I feel as if I were destroying a sin. My hoe becomes an +instrument of retributive justice. I am an apostle of nature. This view +of the matter lends a dignity to the art of hoeing which nothing else +does, and lifts it into the region of ethics. Hoeing becomes, not a +pastime, but a duty. And you get to regard it so, as the days and the +weeds lengthen. + +_Observation_.--Nevertheless, what a man needs in gardening is a +cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. The hoe is an ingenious instrument, +calculated to call out a great deal of strength at a great disadvantage. + +The striped bug has come, the saddest of the year. He is a moral +double-ender, iron-clad at that. He is unpleasant in two ways. He +burrows in the ground so that you cannot find him, and he flies away so +that you cannot catch him. He is rather handsome, as bugs go, but +utterly dastardly, in that he gnaws the stem of the plant close to the +ground, and ruins it without any apparent advantage to himself. I find +him on the hills of cucumbers (perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and we +shall not want any), the squashes (small loss), and the melons (which +never ripen). The best way to deal with the striped bug is to sit down +by the hills, and patiently watch for him. If you are spry, you can +annoy him. This, however, takes time. It takes all day and part of the +night. For he flieth in the darkness, and wasteth at noonday. If you get +up before the dew is off the plants,--it goes off very early,--you can +sprinkle soot on the plant (soot is my panacea: if I can get the +disease of a plant reduced to the necessity of soot, I am all right); +and soot is unpleasant to the bug. But the best thing to do is set a +toad to catch the bugs. The toad at once establishes the most intimate +relations with the bug. It is a pleasure to see such unity among the +lower animals. The difficulty is to make the toad stay and watch the +hill. If you know your toad, it is all right. If you do not, you must +build a tight fence round the plants, which the toad cannot jump over. +This, however, introduces a new element. I find that I have a zoological +garden on my hands. It is an unexpected result of my little enterprise, +which never aspired to the completeness of the Paris "Jardin des +Plantes."--_My Summer in a Garden_. + + +THE PLUMBER. + +Speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose +society is to be more desired for this quality than that of plumbers! +They are the most agreeable men I know; and the boys in the business +begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is, that +they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain became +disabled: the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with the +implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a +good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found +the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,--talk by +the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious; +and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their +way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job. +The work dragged a little,--as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers +had occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon +arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would +go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would +await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and +talk,--always by the hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have +something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and +always willing to stop and talk about the job, or any thing else, when I +went near them. Nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to +be the bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it said, +that I never observed any thing of it in them. They can afford to wait. +Two of them will sometimes wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes +for a tool. They are patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure +to meet such men. One only wishes there was some work he could do for +_them_ by the hour. There ought to be reciprocity. I think they have +very nearly solved the problem of Life: it is to work for other people, +never for yourself, and get your pay by the hour. You then have no +anxiety, and little work. If you do things by the job, you are +perpetually driven: the hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you +gently sail on the stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the +haven of Pay, whether you make any effort or not. Working by the hour +tends to make one moral. A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew +a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs +continually slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them +swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by +the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the +flight of time seems to his calm mind!--_My Summer in a Garden_. + + + + +FRANCES LEE PRATT. + +(BORN, 1830.) + + * * * * * + +CAPTAIN BEN'S CHOICE. + + +An old red house on a rocky shore, with a fisherman's blue boat rocking +on the bay, and two white sails glistening far away over the water. +Above, the blue, shining sky; and below, the blue shining sea. + +"It seems clever to have a pleasant day," said Mrs. Davids, sighing. + +Mrs. Davids said every thing with a sigh, and now she wiped her eyes +also on her calico apron. She was a woman with a complexion like faded +sea-weed, who seemed always pitying herself. + +"I tell them," said she, "I have had real hard luck. My husband is +buried away off in California, and my son died in the army, and he is +buried away down South. Neither one of them is buried together." + +Then she sighed again. Twice, this time. + +"And so," she continued, taking out a pinch of bayberry snuff, "I am +left alone in the world. _Alone_, I say! why, I've got a daughter, but +she is away out West. She is married to an engineer-man. And I've got +two grandchildren." + +Mrs. Davids took the pinch of bayberry and shook her head, looking as +though that was the "hardest luck" of all. + +"Well, everybody has to have their pesters, and you'll have to take +yours," rejoined Miss Persis Tame, taking a pinch of snuff--the real +Maccaboy--twice as large, with twice as fierce an action. "I don't know +what it is to bury children, nor to lose a husband; I s'pose I don't; +but I know what it is to be jammed round the world and not have a ruff +to stick my head under. I wish I had all the money I ever spent +travelling,--and _that's_ twelve dollars," she continued, regretfully. + +"Why in the world don't you marry and have a home of your own," sighed +Mrs. Davids. + +"Well, I don't _expect_ to marry. I don't know as I do at my time of +life," responded the spinster. "I rather guess my day for chances is +gone by." + +"You ain't such a dreadful sight older than I am, though," replied Mrs. +Davids, reflectively. + +"Not so old by two full years," returned Miss Tame, taking another smart +pinch of snuff, as though it touched the empty spot in her heart and did +it good. "But _you_ ain't looking out for opportunities yet, I suppose." + +Mrs. Davids sighed, evasively. "We can't tell what is before us. There +is more than one man in want of a wife." + +As though to point her words, Captain Ben Lundy came in sight on the +beach, his head a long way forward and his shambling feet trying in vain +to keep up. + +"Thirteen months and a half since Lyddy was buried," continued Mrs. +Davids, accepting this application to her words, "and there is Captain +Ben taking up with just what housekeeper he can get, and _no_ +housekeeper at all. It would be an excellent home for you, Persis. +Captain Ben always had the name of making a kind husband." + +She sighed again, whether from regret for the bereaved man, or for the +multitude of women bereft of such a husband. + +By this time Captain Ben's head was at the door. + +"Morning!" said he, while his feet were coming up. "Quite an accident +down here below the lighthouse last night. Schooner ran ashore in the +blow and broke all up into kindling-wood in less than no time. Captain +Tisdale's been out looking for dead bodies ever since daylight." + +"I knowed it," sighed Mrs. Davids. "I heard a rushing sound sometime +about the break of day that waked me out of a sound sleep, and I knowed +then there was a spirit leaving its body. I heard it the night Davids +went, or I expect I did. It must have been very nearly at that time." + +"Well, I guess it wasn't a spirit, last night," said Captain Ben; "for +as I was going on to say, after searching back and forth, Captain +Tisdale came upon the folks, a man and a boy, rolled up in their wet +blankets asleep behind the life-boat house. He said he felt like he +could shake them for staying out in the wet. Wrecks always make for the +lighthouse, so he s'posed those ones were drowned to death, sure +enough." + +"Oh, then it couldn't have been them, I was warned of!" returned Mrs. +Davids, looking as though she regretted it. "It was right over my head, +and I waked up just as the thing was rushing past. You haven't heard, +have you," she continued, "whether or no there was any other damage +done by the gale?" + +"I don't know whether you would call it damage exactly," returned +Captain Ben; "but Loizah Mullers got so scared she left me and went +home. She said she couldn't stay and run the chance of another of our +coast blows, and off she trapsed." + +Mrs. Davids sighed like November. "So you have some hard luck as well as +myself. I don't suppose you can _get_ a housekeeper to keep her long," +said she, dismally. + +"Abel Grimes tells me it is enough sight easier getting wives than +housekeepers, and I'm some of a mind to try that tack," replied Captain +Ben, smiling grimly. + +Mrs. Davids put up her hand to feel of her back hair, and smoothed down +her apron; while Miss Persis Tame blushed like a withered rose, and +turned her eyes modestly out of the window. + +"I am _so_. But the difficulty is, who will it be? There are so many to +select from it is fairly bothersome," continued Captain Ben, winking +fast and looking as though he was made of dry corncobs and hay. + +Miss Persis Tame turned about abruptly. "The land alive!" she +ejaculated with such sudden emphasis that the dishes shook on their +shelves and Captain Ben in his chair. "It makes me mad as a March hare +to hear men go on as though all they'd got to do was to throw down their +handkerchers to a woman, and, no matter who, she'd spring and run to +pick it up. It is always 'Who will I marry?' and not 'Who will marry +me?'" + +"Why, there is twice the number of widders that there is of widderers +here at the P'int. That was what was in my mind," said Captain Ben, in a +tone of meek apology. "There is the Widow Keens, she that was Azubah +Muchmore. I don't know but what she would do; Lyddy used to think every +thing of her, and she is a first-rate of a housekeeper." + +"Perhaps so," assented Mrs. Davids, dubiously. "But she is troubled a +sight with the head complaint; I suppose you know she is. That is +against her." + +"Yes," assented Miss Tame. "The Muchmores all have weak heads. And, too, +the Widow Keens, she's had a fall lately. She was up in a chair cleaning +her top buttery shelf, and somehow one of the chair-leg's give way,--it +was loose or something, I expect,--and down she went her whole heft. +She keeps about, but she goes with two staves." + +"I want to know if that is so," said Captain Ben, his honest soul +warming with sudden sympathy. "The widder has seen a sight of trouble." + +"Yes, she has lived through a good deal, that woman has. I couldn't live +through so much, 'pears to me; but we don't know what we can live +through," rejoined Miss Tame. + +Captain Ben did not reply, but his ready feet began to move to and fro +restlessly; for his heart, more ready yet, had already gone out toward +the unfortunate widow. + +"It is so bad for a woman to be alone," said he to himself, shambling +along the shingly beach a moment after. "Nobody to mend her chairs or +split up her kindlings, or do a chore for her; and she lame into the +bargain. It is _too_ bad." + +"He has steered straight for the Widow Keens's, as sure as A is +apple-dumpling," remarked Miss Persis, peering after him from the +window. + +"Well, I must admit I wouldn't have thought of Captain Ben's being +en-a-mored after such a sickly piece of business. But men never know +what they want. Won't you just hand me that gum-cam-phyer bottle, now +you are up? It is on that chest of drawers behind you." + +"No more they don't," returned Miss Tame, with a plaintive cadence, +taking a sniff from the camphor-bottle on the way. "However, I don't +begrutch him to her,--I don't know as I do. It will make her a good hum, +though, if she concludes to make arrangements." + +Meantime, Captain Ben Lundy's head was wellnigh to Mrs. Keens's door, +for it was situated only around the first sand-hill. She lived in a +little bit of a house that looked as though it had been knocked together +for a crockery-crate, in the first place, with two windows and a rude +door thrown in as afterthoughts. In the rear of this house was another +tiny building, something like a grown-up hen-coop; and this was where +Mrs. Keens carried on the business bequeathed to her by her deceased +husband, along with five small children, and one not so small. But, +worse than that, one who was "not altogether there," as the English say. + +She was about this business now, dressed in a primitive sort of bloomer, +with a wash-tub and clothes-ringer before her, and an army of +bathing-suits of every kind and color flapping wildly in the fresh sea +air at one side. + +From a little farther on, mingling with the sound of the beating surf, +came the merry voices of bathers,--boarders at the great hotels on the +hill. + +"Here you be! Hard at it!" said Captain Ben, puffing around the corner +like a portable west-wind. I've understood you've had a hurt. Is that +so?" + +"Oh, no! Nothing to mention," returned Mrs. Keens, turning about a face +bright and cheerful as the full moon; and throwing, as by accident, a +red bathing-suit over the two broomsticks that leaned against her tub. + +Unlike Mrs. Davids, Mrs. Keens neither pitied herself nor would allow +anybody else to do so. + +"Sho!" remarked Captain Ben, feeling defrauded. He had counted on +sacrificing himself to his sympathies, but he didn't give up yet. "You +must see some pretty tough times 'pears to me with such a parcel of +little ones, and only yourself to look to," said he, proceeding +awkwardly enough to hang the pile of wrung-out clothes upon an empty +line. + +"I don't complain," returned the widow, bravely. "My children are not +_teusome_; and Jack, why you would be surprised to see how many things +Jack can do, for all he isn't quite right." + +As she spoke thus with affectionate pride, Jack came up wheeling a +roughly made cart filled with wet bathing clothes from the beach. He +looked up at sound of his mother's voice with something of the dumb +tenderness of an intelligent dog. "Jack helps, Jack good boy," said he, +nodding with a happy smile. + +"Yes, Jack helps. We don't complain," repeated the mother. + +"It would come handy, though, to have a man around to see to things and +kind o' provide, wouldn't it, though?" persisted Captain Ben. + +"Some might think so," replied Mrs. Keens, stopping her wringer to +reflect a little. "But I haven't any wish to change my situation," she +added, decidedly, going on again with her work. + +"Sure on 't?" persisted the Captain. + +"Certain," replied the widow. + +Captain Ben sighed. "I thought ma'be you was having a hard row to hoe, +and I thought like enough--" + +_What_ he never said, excepting by a beseeching glance at the cheerful +widow, for just then an interruption came from some people after +bathing-suits. + +So Captain Ben moved off with a dismal countenance. But before he had +gone far it suddenly brightened. "It might not be for the best," quoth +he to himself, "Like enough not. I was very careful not to commit +myself, and I am very glad I didn't." He smiled as he reflected on his +judicious wariness. "But, however," he continued, "I might as well +finish up this business now. There is Rachel Doolittle. Who knows but +she'd make a likely wife? Lyddy sot a good deal by her. She never had a +quilting or a sewing bee but what nothing would do but she must give +Rachel Doolittle an invite. Yes; I wonder I never decided on her before. +She will be glad of a home sure enough, for she haves to live around, as +it were, upon her brothers." + +Captain Ben's feet quickened themselves at these thoughts, and had +almost overtaken his head, when behold! at a sudden turn in the road +there stood Miss Rachel Doolittle, picking barberries from a wayside +bush. "My sakes! If she ain't right here, like Rachel in the Bible!" +ejaculated Captain Ben, taking heart at the omen. + +Miss Doolittle looked up from under her tied-down brown hat in surprise +at such a salutation. But her surprise was increased by Captain Ben's +next remark. + +"It just came into my mind," said he, "that you was the right one to +take Lyddy's place. You two used to be such great knit-ups that it will +seem 'most like having Lyddy back again. No," he continued, after a +little reflection, "I don't know of anybody I had rather see sitting in +Lyddy's chair and wearing Lyddy's things than yourself." + +"Dear me, Captain Lundy, I couldn't think of it. Paul's folks expect me +to stay with them while the boarder-season lasts, and I've as good as +promised Jacob's wife I'll spend the winter with her." + +"Ain't that a hard life you are laying out for yourself? And then bum-by +you will get old or sick ma' be, and who is going to want you around +then? Every woman needs a husband of her own to take care of her." + +"I'm able to take care of myself as yet, thanks to goodness! And I am +not afraid my brothers will see me suffer in case of sickness," +returned Miss Doolittle, her cheeks flaming up like a sumach in October. + +"But hadn't you better take a little time to think it over? Ma' be it +come sudden to you," pleaded Captain Ben. + +"No, I thank you. Some things don't need thinking over," answered Miss +Doolittle, plucking at the barberries more diligently than ever. + +"I wish Lyddy was here. She would convince you you were standing in your +own light," returned Lyddy's widower in a perplexed tone. + +"I don't need one to come from the dead to show me my own mind," +retorted Miss Doolittle, firmly. + +"Well, like enough you are right," said Captain Ben, mildly, putting a +few stems of barberries in her pail; "ma' be it wouldn't be best. I +don't want to be rash." + +And with that he moved off, on the whole congratulating himself he had +not decided to marry Miss Doolittle. + +"I thought after she commenced her miserable gift of the gab, that Lyddy +used to be free to admit she had a fiery tongue, for all they were such +friends. And I'm all for peace myself. I guess, on the whole, ma' be she +ain't the one for me, perhaps, and it is as well to look further. +_Why_! what in _the_ world! Well, there! what have I been thinking of? +There is Mrs. Davids, as neat as a new cent, and the master hand to +save. She is always taking on; and she will be glad enough to have +somebody to look out for her,--why, sure enough! And there I was right +at her house this very day, and never once thought of her! What an old +dunce!" + +But, fortunately, this not being a sin of commission, it could easily be +rectified; and directly Captain Ben had turned about and was trotting +again toward the red house on the beach. + +"Pound for pound of the best white sugar," he heard Miss Tame say as he +neared the door. + +"White, sugar!" repeated Mrs. Davids, her usual sigh drawn out into a +little groan. "_White_ sugar for _cram_ berries! Who ever heard of such +a thing? I've always considered I did well when I had plenty of brown." + +"Poor creeter!" thought Captain Ben. "How she will enjoy getting into my +pantry. Lyddy never complained that she didn't have enough of every +thing to do _with_" + +And in the full ardor of his intended benevolence, he went right in and +opened the subject at once. But, to his astonishment, Mrs. Davids +refused him. She sighed, but she refused him. + +"I've seen trouble enough a'ready, without my rushing into more with my +eyes wide open," sighed she. + +"Trouble? Why, that is just what I was meaning to save you!" exclaimed +the bewildered widower. "Pump right in the house, and stove e'enamost +new. And Lyddy never knew what it was to want for a spoonful of sugar or +a pound of flour. And such a _handy_ buttery and sink! Lyddy used to say +she felt the worst about leaving her buttery of any thing." + +"Should thought she would," answered Mrs. Davids, forgetting to sigh. +"However, I can't say that I feel any hankering after marrying a +buttery. I've got buttery-room enough here, without the trouble of +getting set up in a new place." + +"Just as you say," returned the rejected. "I ain't sure as you'd be +exactly the one. I _was_ a thinking of looking for somebody a little +younger." + +"Well, here is Persis Tame. Why don't you bespeak her? _She_ is younger, +and she is in need of a good home. I can recommend her, too, as the +first-rate of a cook," remarked Mrs. Davids, benevolently. + +Miss Tame had been sitting a little apart by the open window, smiling to +herself. + +But now she turned about at once. "Hm!" said she, with contempt. "I +should rather live under an umbrella tied to a stake, than marry for a +_hum_." + +So Captain Ben went home without engaging either wife or housekeeper. + +And the first thing he saw was Captain Jacob Doolittle's old one-eyed +horse eating the apples Loizah Mullers had strung and festooned from +nails against the house, to dry. + +The next thing he saw was, that, having left a window open, the hens had +flown in and gone to housekeeping on their own account. But they were +not, like Mrs. Davids, as neat as a new cent, and _not_, also, such +master hands to save. + +"Shoo! shoo! Get out. Go 'long there with you!" cried Captain Ben, +waving the dish-cloth and the poker. "I declare for 't! I most hadn't +ought to have left that bread out on the table. They've made a pretty +mess of it, and it is every spec there is in the house too. Well, I +must make a do of potatoes for supper, with a bit of pie and a mouthful +of cake." + +Accordingly he went to work building a fire that wouldn't burn. Then, +forgetting the simple matter of dampers, the potatoes wouldn't bake. The +tea-kettle boiled over and cracked the stove, and after that boiled dry +and cracked itself. Finally the potatoes fell to baking with so much +ardor that they overdid it and burnt up. And, last of all, the cake-jar +and pie-cupboard proved to be entirely empty. Loizah had left on the eve +of baking-day. + +"The old cat! Well, I'd just as soon live on slapjacks a spell," said +Captain Ben, when he made this discovery. + +But even slapjacks palled on his palate, especially when he had them +always to cook for himself. + +"'T ain't no way to live, this ain't," said he at last. "I'm a good mind +to marry as ever I had to eat." + +So he put on his hat and walked out. The first person he met was Miss +Persis Tame, who turned her back and fell to picking thoroughwort +blossoms as he came up. + +"Look a here," said he, stopping short, "I'm dreadful put to 't. I +can't get ne'er a wife nor ne'er a housekeeper, and I am e'enamost +starved to death. I wish you _would_ consent to marry with me, if you +feel as if you could bring your mind to it. I am sure it would have been +Lyddy's wish." + +Miss Tame smelt of the thoroughwort blossoms. + +"It comes pretty sudden on me," she replied. "I hadn't given the subject +any thought. But you _are_ to be pitied in your situation." + +"Yes. And I'm dreadful lonesome. I've always been used to having Lyddy +to talk over things with, and I miss her a sight. And I don't know +anybody that has her ways more than you have. You are a good deal such a +built woman, and you have the same hitch to your shoulders when you +walk. You've got something the same look to your eyes, too; I noticed it +last Sunday in meeting-time," continued the widower, anxiously. + +"I do feel for you. A man alone is in a deplorable situation," replied +Miss Tame. "I'm sure I'd do any thing in my power to help you." + +"Well, marry with me then. That is what I want. We could be real +comfortable together. I'll go for the license this minute, and we'll be +married right away," returned the impatient suitor. "You go up to Elder +Crane's, and I'll meet you there as soon as I can fetch around." + +Then he hurried away, "without giving me a chance to say 'no,'" said +"she that was" Persis Tame, afterward. "So I _had_ to marry with him, as +you might say. But I've never seen cause to regret it, I've got a +first-rate of a hum, and Captain Ben makes a first-rate of a husband. +And no hain't he, I hope, found cause to regret it," she added, with a +touch of wifely pride; "though I do expect he might have had his pick +among all the single women at the Point; but out of them all he chose +_me_."--_The Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1870. + + + + +LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. + +(BORN, 1832.) + + * * * * * + +STREET SCENES IN WASHINGTON. + + +The mules were my especial delight; and an hour's study of a constant +succession of them introduced me to many of their characteristics; for +six of these odd little beasts drew each army wagon, and went hopping +like frogs through the stream of mud that gently rolled along the +street. The coquettish mule had small feet, a nicely trimmed tassel of a +tail, perked-up ears, and seemed much given to little tosses of the +head, affected skips and prances; and, if he wore the bells, or were +bedizened with a bit of finery, put on as many airs as any belle. The +moral mule was a stout, hardworking creature, always tugging with all +his might; often pulling away after the rest had stopped, laboring under +the conscientious delusion that food for the entire army depended upon +his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and, had I +possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him, with thanks +for his excellent example. The histrionic mule was a melodramatic +quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild +plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his +vicious heels; now and then falling flat, and apparently dying _a la_ +Forrest; a gasp--a squirm--a flop, and so on, till the street was well +blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the +chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, +cuff, jerk, and haul. When the last breath seemed to have left his body, +and "doctors were in vain," a sudden resurrection took place; and if +ever a mule laughed with scornful triumph, that was the beast, as he +leisurely rose, gave a comfortable shake, and, calmly regarding the +excited crowd seemed to say--"A hit! a decided hit! for the stupidest of +animals has bamboozled a dozen men. Now, then! what are _you_ stopping +the way for?" The pathetic mule was, perhaps, the most interesting of +all; for, though he always seemed to be the smallest, thinnest, weakest +of the six, the postillion, with big boots, long-tailed coat, and heavy +whip, was sure to bestride this one, who struggled feebly along, head +down, coat muddy and rough, eye spiritless and sad, his very tail a +mortified stump, and the whole beast a picture of meek misery, fit to +touch a heart of stone. The jovial mule was a roly poly, happy-go-lucky +little piece of horse-flesh, taking every thing easily, from cudgeling +to caressing; strolling along with a roguish twinkle of the eye, and, if +the thing were possible, would have had his hands in his pockets, and +whistled as he went. If there ever chanced to be an apple core, a stray +turnip, or wisp of hay, in the gutter, this Mark Tapley was sure to find +it, and none of his mates seemed to begrudge him his bite. I suspected +this fellow was the peacemaker, confidant, and friend of all the others, +for he had a sort of "Cheer-up,-old-boy,-I'll-pull-you-through" look, +which was exceedingly engaging. + +Pigs also possessed attractions for me, never having had an opportunity +of observing their graces of mind and manner, till I came to Washington, +whose porcine citizens appeared to enjoy a larger liberty than many of +its human ones. Stout, sedate-looking pigs, hurried by each morning to +their places of business, with a preoccupied air, and sonorous greeting +to their friends. Genteel pigs, with an extra curl to their tails, +promenaded in pairs, lunching here and there, like gentlemen of leisure. +Rowdy pigs pushed the passers-by off the sidewalk; tipsy pigs hiccoughed +their version of "We won't go home till morning," from the gutter; and +delicate young pigs tripped daintily through the mud, as if they plumed +themselves upon their ankles, and kept themselves particularly neat in +point of stockings. Maternal pigs, with their interesting families, +strolled by in the sun; and often the pink, baby-like squealers lay +down for a nap, with a trust in Providence worthy of human +imitation.--_Hospital Sketches_. + + +SELECTIONS FROM TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS. + +On the first day of June, 184-, a large wagon, drawn by a small horse, +and containing a motley load, went lumbering over certain New England +hills, with the pleasing accompaniments of wind, rain, and hail. A +serene man with a serene child upon his knee was driving, or rather +being driven, for the small horse had it all his own way. A brown boy +with a William Penn style of countenance sat beside him, firmly +embracing a bust of Socrates. Behind them was an energetic-looking +woman, with a benevolent brow, satirical mouth, and eyes brimful of hope +and courage. A baby reposed upon her lap, a mirror leaned against her +knee, and a basket of provisions danced about at her feet, as she +struggled with a large, unruly umbrella. Two blue-eyed little girls, +with hands full of childish treasures, sat under one old shawl, chatting +happily together. + +In front of this lively party stalked a tall, sharp-featured man, in a +long blue cloak; and a fourth small girl trudged along beside him +through the mud as if she rather enjoyed it. + +The wind whistled over the bleak hills; the rain fell in a despondent +drizzle, and twilight began to fall. But the calm man gazed as +tranquilly into the fog as if he beheld a radiant bow of promise +spanning the gray sky. The cheery woman tried to cover every one but +herself with the big umbrella. The brown boy pillowed his head on the +bald pate of Socrates and slumbered peacefully. The little girls sang +lullabies to their dolls in soft, maternal murmers. The sharp-nosed +pedestrian marched steadily on, with the blue cloak streaming out behind +him like a banner; and the lively infant splashed through the puddles +with a duck-like satisfaction pleasant to behold. + +Thus these modern pilgrims journeyed hopefully out of the old world, to +found a new one in the wilderness. + +The editors of "The Transcendental Tripod" had received from Messrs. +Lion & Lamb (two of the aforesaid pilgrims) a communication from which +the following statement is an extract: + +"We have made arrangements with the proprietor of an estate of about a +hundred acres which liberates this tract from human ownership. Here we +shall prosecute our effort to initiate a Family in harmony with the +primitive instincts of man. + +"Ordinary secular farming is not our object. Fruit, grain, pulse, herbs, +flax, and other vegetable products, receiving assiduous attention, will +afford ample manual occupation, and chaste supplies for the bodily +needs. It is intended to adorn the pastures with orchards, and to +supersede the labor of cattle by the spade and the pruning-knife. + +"Consecrated to human freedom, the land awaits the sober culture of +devoted men. Beginning with small pecuniary means, this enterprise must +be rooted on a reliance on the succors of an over-bounteous Providence, +whose vital affinities being secured by this union with uncorrupted +field and unwordly persons, the cares and injuries of a life of gain are +avoided. + +"The inner nature of each member of the Family is at no time neglected. +Our plan contemplates all such disciplines, cultures, and habits as +evidently conduce to the purifying of the inmates. + +"Pledged to the spirit alone, the founders anticipate no hasty or +numerous addition to their numbers. The kingdom of peace is entered only +through the gates of self-denial; and felicity is the test and the +reward of loyalty to the unswerving law of Love." + +This prospective Eden at present consisted of an old red farm-house, a +dilapidated barn, many acres of meadow-land, and a grove. Ten ancient +apple-trees were all the "chaste supply" which the place offered as yet; +but, in the firm belief that plenteous orchards were soon to be evoked +from their inner consciousness, these sanguine founders had christened +their domain Fruitlands. + +Here Timon Lion intended to found a colony of Latter Day Saints, who, +under his patriarchal sway, should regenerate the world and glorify his +name for ever. Here Abel Lamb, with the devoutest faith in the high +ideal which was to him a living truth, desired to plant a Paradise, +where Beauty, Virtue, Justice, and Love might live happily together, +without the possibility of a serpent entering in. And here his wife, +unconverted but faithful to the end, hoped, after many wanderings over +the face of the earth, to find rest for herself and a home for her +children. + +"There is our new abode," anounced the enthusiast, smiling with the +satisfaction quite undamped by the drops dripping from his hat-brim, as +they turned at length into a cart-path that wound along a steep hillside +into a barren-looking valley. + +"A little difficult of access," observed his practical wife, as she +endeavored to keep her various household gods from going overboard with +every lurch of the laden ark. + +"Like all good things. But those who earnestly desire and patiently seek +will soon find us," placidly responded the philosopher from the mud, +through which he was now endeavoring to pilot the much-enduring horse. + +"Truth lies at the bottom of a well, Sister Hope," said Brother Timon, +pausing to detach his small comrade from a gate, whereon she was perched +for a clearer gaze into futurity. + +"That's the reason we so seldom get at it, I suppose," replied Mrs. +Hope, making a vain clutch at the mirror, which a sudden jolt sent +flying out of her hands. + +"We want no false reflections here," said Timon, with a grim smile, as +he crunched the fragments under foot in his onward march. + +Sister Hope held her peace, and looked wistfully through the mist at her +promised home. The old red house with a hospitable glimmer at its +windows cheered her eyes; and, considering the weather, was a fitter +refuge than the sylvan bowers some of the more ardent souls might have +preferred. + +The new-comers were welcomed by one of the elect precious,--a regenerate +farmer, whose idea of reform consisted chiefly in wearing white cotton +raiment and shoes of untanned leather. This costume, with a snowy beard, +gave him a venerable, and at the same time a somewhat bridal appearance. + +The goods and chattels of the Society not having arrived, the weary +family reposed before the fire on blocks of wood, while Brother Moses +White regaled them with roasted potatoes, brown bread and water, in two +plates, a tin pan, and one mug; his table service being limited. But, +having cast the forms and vanities of a depraved world behind them, the +elders welcomed hardship with the enthusiasm of new pioneers, and the +children heartily enjoyed this foretaste of what they believed was to be +a sort of perpetual picnic. + +During the progress of this frugal meal, two more brothers appeared. One +a dark, melancholy man, clad in homespun, whose peculiar mission was to +turn his name hind part before and use as few words as possible. The +other was a bland, bearded Englishman, who expected to be saved by +eating uncooked food and going without clothes. He had not yet adopted +the primitive costume, however; but contented himself with meditatively +chewing dry beans out of a basket. + +"Every meal should be a sacrament, and the vessels used should be +beautiful and symbolical," observed Brother Lamb, mildly, righting the +tin pan slipping about on his knees. "I priced a silver service when in +town, but it was too costly; so I got some graceful cups and vases of +Britannia ware." + +"Hardest things in the world to keep bright. Will whiting be allowed in +the community?" inquired Sister Hope, with a housewife's interest in +labor-saving institutions. + +"Such trivial questions will be discussed at a more fitting time," +answered Brother Timon, sharply, as he burnt his fingers with a very hot +potato. "Neither sugar, molasses, milk, butter, cheese, nor flesh are to +be used among us, for nothing is to be admitted which has caused wrong +or death to man or beast." + +"Our garments are to be linen till we learn to raise our own cotton or +some substitute for woollen fabrics," added Brother Abel, blissfully +basking in an imaginary future as warm and brilliant as the generous +fire before him. + +"Haou abaout shoes?" asked Brother Moses, surveying his own with +interest. + +"We must yield that point till we can manufacture an innocent substitute +for leather. Bark, wood, or some durable fabric will be invented in +time. Meanwhile, those who desire to carry out our idea to the fullest +extent can go barefooted," said Lion, who liked extreme measures. + +"I never will, nor let my girls," murmured rebellious Sister Hope, under +her breath. + +"Haou do you cattle'ate to treat the ten-acre lot? Ef things ain't +'tended to right smart, we sha'n't hev no crops," observed the practical +patriarch in cotton. + +"We shall spade it," replied Abel, in such perfect good faith that Moses +said no more, though he indulged in a shake of the head as he glanced at +hands that held nothing heavier than a pen for years. He was a paternal +old soul and regarded the younger men as promising boys on a new sort of +lark. + +"What shall we do for lamps, if we cannot use any animal substance? I do +hope light of some sort is to be thrown upon the enterprise," said Mrs. +Lamb, with anxiety, for in those days kerosene and camphene were not, +and gas was unknown in the wilderness. + +"We shall go without till we have discovered some vegetable oil or wax +to serve us," replied Brother Timon, in a decided tone, which caused +Sister Hope to resolve that her private lamp should be always trimmed, +if not burning. + +"Each member is to perform the work for which experience, strength, and +taste best fit him," continued Dictator Lion. "Thus drudgery and +disorder will be avoided and harmony prevail. We shall rise at dawn, +begin the day by bathing, followed by music, and then a chaste repast +of fruit and bread. Each one finds congenial occupation till the +meridian meal; when some deep-searching conversation gives rest to the +body, and development to the mind. Healthful labor again engages us till +the last meal, when we assemble in social communion, prolonged till +sunset, when we retire to sweet repose, ready for the next day's +activity." + +"What part of the work do you incline to yourself?" asked Sister Hope, +with a humorous glimmer in her keen eyes. + +"I shall wait till it is made clear to me. Being in preference to doing +is the great aim, and this comes to us rather by a resigned willingness +than a wilful activity, which is a check to all divine growth," +responded Brother Timon. + +"I thought so," and Mrs. Lamb sighed audibly, for during the year he had +spent in her family, Brother Timon had so faithfully carried out his +idea of "being, not doing," that she had found his "divine growth" both +an expensive and unsatisfactory process. + +Here her husband struck into the conversation, his face shining with the +light and joy of the splendid dreams and high ideals hovering before +him. + +"In these steps of reform, we do not rely so much on scientific +reasoning or physiological skill as on the spirit's dictates. The +greater part of man's duty consists in leaving alone much that he now +does. Shall I stimulate with tea, coffee, or wine? No. Shall I consume +flesh? Not if I value health. Shall I subjugate cattle? Shall I claim +property in any created thing? Shall I trade? Shall I adopt a form of +religion? Shall I interest myself in politics? To how many of these +questions--could we ask them deeply enough and could they be heard as +having relation to our eternal welfare--would the response be +'Abstain'?" + +A mild snore seemed to echo the last word of Abel's rhapsody, for +Brother Moses had succumbed to mundane slumber, and sat nodding like a +massive ghost. Forest Absalom, the silent man, and John Pease, the +English member, now departed to the barn; and Mrs. Lamb led her flock to +a temporary fold, leaving the founders of the "Consociate Family" to +build castles in the air till the fire went out and the symposium ended +in smoke. + +The furniture arrived next day, and was soon bestowed; for the +principal property of the community consisted in books. To this rare +library was devoted the best room in the house, and the few busts and +pictures that still survived many flittings were added to beautify the +sanctuary, for here the family was to meet for amusement, instruction, +and worship. + +Any housewife can imagine the emotions of Sister Hope, when she took +possession of a large, dilapidated kitchen, containing an old stove and +the peculiar stores out of which food was to be evolved for her little +family of eleven. Cakes of maple sugar, dried peas and beans, barley and +hominy, meal of all sorts, potatoes, and dried fruit. No milk, butter, +cheese, tea, or meat appeared. Even salt was considered a useless +luxury, and spice entirely forbidden by these lovers of Spartan +simplicity. A ten years' experience of vegetarian vagaries had been good +training for this new freak, and her sense of the ludicrous supported +her through many trying scenes. + +Unleavened bread, porridge, and water for breakfast; bread, vegetables, +and water for dinner; bread, fruit, and water for supper was the bill of +fare ordained by the elders. No teapot profaned that sacred stove, no +gory steak cried aloud for vengeance from her chaste gridiron and only +a brave woman's taste, time, and temper were sacrificed on that domestic +altar. + +The vexed question of light was settled by buying a quantity of bayberry +wax for candles; and, on discovering that no one knew how to make them, +pine-knots were introduced, to be used when absolutely necessary. Being +summer, the evenings were not long, and the weary fraternity found it no +great hardship to retire with the birds. The inner light was sufficient +for most of them. But Mrs. Lamb rebelled. Evening was the only time she +had to herself, and while the tired feet rested the skilful hands mended +torn frocks and little stockings, or anxious heart forgot its burden in +a book. + +So "mother's lamp" burned steadily, while the philosophers built a new +heaven and earth by moonlight; and through all the metaphysical mists +and philanthropic pyrotechnics of that period Sister Hope played her own +little game of "throwing light," and none but the moths were the worse +for it. + +Such farming probably was never seen before since Adam delved. The band +of brothers began by spading garden and field; but a few days of it +lessened their ardor amazingly. Blistered hands and aching backs +suggested the expediency of permitting the use of cattle till the +workers were better fitted for noble toil by a summer of the new life. + +Brother Moses brought a yoke of oxen from his farm,--at least, the +philosophers thought so till it was discovered that one of the animals +was a cow; and Moses confessed that he "must be let down easy, for he +couldn't live on garden sarse entirely." + +Great was Dictator Lion's indignation at this lapse from virtue. But +time pressed, the work must be done; so the meek cow was permitted to +wear the yoke, and the recreant brother continued to enjoy forbidden +draughts in the barn, which dark proceeding caused the children to +regard him as one set apart for destruction. + +The sowing was equally peculiar, for, owing to some mistake, the three +brethren who devoted themselves to this graceful task, found when about +half through the job that each had been sowing a different sort of grain +in the same field; a mistake which caused much perplexity, as it could +not be remedied; but, after a long consultation and a good deal of +laughter, it was decided to say nothing and see what would come of it. + +The garden was planted with a generous supply of useful roots and herbs; +but, as manure was not allowed to profane the virgin soil, few of these +vegetable treasures ever came up. Purslane reigned supreme, and the +disappointed planters ate it philosophically, deciding that Nature knew +what was best for them, and would generously supply their needs, if they +could only learn to digest her "sallets" and wild roots. + +The orchard was laid out, a little grafting done, new trees and vines +set, regardless of the unfit season and entire ignorance of the +husbandmen, who honestly believed that in the autumn they would reap a +bounteous harvest. + +Slowly things got into order, and rapidly rumors of the new experiment +went abroad, causing many strange spirits to flock thither, for in those +days communities were the fashion and transcendentalism raged wildly. +Some came to look on and laugh, some to be supported in poetic idleness, +a few to believe sincerely and work heartily. Each member was allowed to +mount his favorite hobby, and ride it to his heart's content. Very queer +were some of the riders, and very rampant some of the hobbies. + +One youth, believing that language was of little consequence if the +spirit was only right, startled new-comers by blandly greeting them with +"good-morning, damn you," and other remarks of an equally mixed order. A +second irrepressible being held that all the emotions of the soul should +be freely expressed, and illustrated his theory by antics that would +have sent him to a lunatic asylum, if, as an unregenerate wag said, he +had not already been in one. When his spirit soared, he climbed trees +and shouted; when doubt assailed him, he lay upon the floor and groaned +lamentably. At joyful periods, he raced, leaped, and sang; when sad, he +wept aloud; and when a great thought burst upon him in the watches of +the night, he crowed like a jocund cockerel, to the great delight of the +children and the great annoyance of the elders. One musical brother +fiddled whenever so moved, sang sentimentally to the four little girls, +and put a music-box on the wall when he hoed corn. + +Brother Pease ground away at his uncooked food, or browsed over the farm +on sorrel, mint, green fruit, and new vegetables. Occasionally he took +his walks abroad, airily attired in an unbleached cotton _poncho_, which +was the nearest approach to the primeval costume he was allowed to +indulge in. At midsummer he retired to the wilderness, to try his plan +where the woodchucks were without prejudices and huckleberry-bushes were +hospitably full. A sunstroke unfortunately spoilt his plan, and he +returned to semi-civilization a sadder and wiser man. + +Forest Absalom preserved his Pythagorean silence, cultivated his fine +dark locks, and worked like a beaver, setting an excellent example of +brotherly love, justice, and fidelity by his upright life. He it was who +helped overworked Sister Hope with her heavy washes, kneaded the endless +succession of batches of bread, watched over the children, and did the +many tasks left undone by the brethren, who were so busy discussing and +defining great duties that they forgot to perform the small ones. + +Moses White placidly plodded about, "chorin' raound," as he called it, +looking like an old-time patriarch, with his silver hair and flowing +beard, and saving the community from many a mishap by his thrift and +Yankee shrewdness. + +Brother Lion domineered over the whole concern; for, having put the +most money into the speculation, he was resolved to make it pay,--as if +any thing founded on an ideal basis could be expected to do so by any +but enthusiasts. + +Abel Lamb simply revelled in the Newness, firmly believing that his +dream was to be beautifully realized and in time not only little +Fruitlands, but the whole earth, be turned into a Happy Valley. He +worked with every muscle of his body, for _he_ was in deadly earnest. He +taught with his whole head and heart; planned and sacrificed, preached +and prophesied, with a soul full of the purest aspirations, most +unselfish purposes, and desires for a life devoted to God and man, too +high and tender to bear the rough usage of this world. + +It was a little remarkable that only one woman ever joined this +community. Mrs. Lamb merely followed wheresoever her husband led,--"as +ballast for his balloon," as she said, in her bright way. + +Miss Jane Gage was a stout lady of mature years, sentimental, amiable, +and lazy. She wrote verses copiously, and had vague yearnings and +graspings after the unknown, which led her to believe herself fitted for +a higher sphere than any she had yet adorned. + +Having been a teacher, she was set to instructing the children in the +common branches. Each adult member took a turn at the infants; and, as +each taught in his own way, the result was a chronic state of chaos in +the minds of these much-afflicted innocents. + +Sleep, food, and poetic musings were the desires of dear Jane's life, +and she shirked all duties as clogs upon her spirit's wings. Any thought +of lending a hand with the domestic drudgery never occurred to her; and +when to the question, "Are there any beasts of burden on the place?" +Mrs. Lamb answered, with a face that told its own tale, "Only one +woman!" the buxom Jane took no shame to herself, but laughed at the +joke, and let the stout-hearted sister tug on alone. + +Unfortunately, the poor lady hankered after the flesh-pots, and +endeavored to stay herself with private sips of milk, crackers, and +cheese, and on one dire occasion she partook of fish at a neighbor's +table. + +One of the children reported this sad lapse from virtue, and poor Jane +was publicly reprimanded by Timon. + +"I only took a little bit of the tail," sobbed the penitent poetess. + +"Yes, but the whole fish had to be tortured and slain that you might +tempt your carnal appetite with that one taste of the tail. Know ye not, +consumers of flesh meat, that ye are nourishing the wolf and tiger in +your bosoms?" + +At this awful question and the peal of laughter which arose from some of +the younger brethren, tickled by the ludicrous contrast between the +stout sinner, the stern judge, and the naughty satisfaction of the young +detective, poor Jane fled from the room to pack her trunk, and return to +a world where fishes' tails were not forbidden fruit. + +Transcendental wild oats were sown broadcast that year, and the fame +thereof has not yet ceased in the land; for, futile as this crop seemed +to outsiders, it bore an invisible harvest, worth much to those who +planted in earnest. As none of the members of this particular community +have ever recounted their experiences before, a few of them may not be +amiss, since the interest in these attempts has never died out and +Fruitlands was the most ideal of all these castles in Spain.--_Silver +Pitchers, and Other Stories_. + + + + +WILLIAM WIRT HOWE. + +(BORN, 1833.) + + * * * * * + +CONVERSATIONAL DEPRAVITY + + +_To the Chief-Justice of Glenwood_, + +SUBLIME SIR: ... What can be more destructive of the higher forms of +conversation than a pun? What right has any one to explode a petard in +the midst of sweet sociality, and blow every thing like sequence and +sentiment sky-high? And therefore, since you, as translator of the +Pasha's Letters, have taken pains to publish his observations on many +social subjects, I think it eminently proper that you should ventilate +the ideas of his friend Tompkins upon a not less important theme. + +Happily, I have been saved the trouble of original composition, by a +discovery made by my landlady while I was boarding a year ago on St. +John's Park. Mr. Green, our attic boarder, went off suddenly one day to +see a friend in the country, as he said. Of course our landlady +searched his room, with a view of reading his letters; and in a brown +hair-trunk, with a boot-jack, a razor-strop, a box of Seidlitz powders, +and an odd volume of Young's Night Thoughts, she found the following +manuscript. The females of the house were satisfied with reading such +letters as were left by Mr. Green in his apartment, and so this paper +was handed over to me. I may say that it was marked with pencil, +"Declined with Thanks." + + +"THE PUN FIEND. + +"BY C. GREEN. + +"I used to be corpulent, rosy-cheeked, and cheerful. I am gaunt, pale, +and morose now. I used to sleep sweetly; but now I toss about upon my +bed, terrified by hideous visions, and feelings as of a clammy hand or +wet cloth laid on my face. I was wont to walk about our streets after +business hours, and on Sundays, with a genuine smile of enjoyment +lighting up my face; but now I hurry along with my eyes cast down, and I +seek by-ways and dark lanes for my rambles. My friends think I am in +love; persons who know me but slightly, suppose me a victim to +remorse--imagine that I wear a hair shirt, and macerate my flesh. They +are all wrong. An old bachelor like myself has long ago buried the +light of love in a tomb, and set a seal upon the great stone at the +door; and as for remorse, I owe no tailor any thing, and do not at +present blame myself for any great fault, except having once subscribed +for six months to the New York _Morning Cretan_. Nevertheless, my face +grows haggard, my step weary, and even our Thursday's beef _a la mode_ +fails to tempt my enfeebled appetite. + +"I am haunted, haunted by a foul fiend. He meets me at six, P.M., in our +festive dining-room, and the fork or spoon drops from my nerveless +grasp. He follows me up to the parlor, where I sometimes talk of an +evening to Miss Pipkin (Miss P. is our fourth story, front), and I +become silent in his presence, and Pipkin votes me a bore. He sits by my +side when I am playing at whist, and I trump my partner's trick, and the +dear old game becomes disgusting. He even dared once to follow me into +church, but I cried 'Avaunt!' in a tone so peremptory, that he fled for +a moment. He joined me, however, as soon as service was over, and walked +from Tenth Street to Madison Square, with his grizzly arm thurst through +mine, and his diabolical jeers drumming on my tympana. In dreams he +perches on my breast, and clutches me by the throat. + +"Like the arch fiend, he assumes many shapes. He is now a tall man, and +again a short man; sometimes young and audacious, sometimes old and +leering. He only once took a feminine guise: that blessed form was +irksome to him. He prefers the freedom of masculinity and ineffables. He +was once a bookkeeper like myself; then a young attorney; then a medical +student; then a bald-headed old gentleman, who seemed to blow a +flageolet for a living; and lately, he has taken the shape of a +well-to-do President of 'The Arkansas and Arizona Sky Rocket +Transportation Company,' but through all these shifting shapes, I +recognize him and shudder. + +"He is known as the Funny Fellow. + +"Very glorious are wit and humor. I have heard many eminent lecturers +discourse on the distinctions, definitions, and value of these airy good +gifts. I remember being especially edified by the skill with which +Spout, the eloquent, dissected the philosophy of mirth in the same style +and with the same effect that the boy in the story dissected his +grandmamma's bellows to see how the wind was raised. I agree with Spout +that wit and humor are glorious; that satire, pricking the balloons of +conceit, vain glory, and hypocrisy, is invaluable; that a good laugh can +come only from a warm heart; that the man in motley is often wiser than +the judge in ermine or the priest in lawn. These qualities are goodly in +literature. We all love the kindly humorist from Chaucer to Holmes, +inclusive. How genial and gentle they are, as they sit with us around +the fireside, chucking us under the chins, and slyly poking us in the +ribs; and in the field how nobly they have charged upon humbugs and +shams. They have been true knights, chivalrous, kind-hearted, brave, +religious; their spears are slender, perhaps, yet sharp and elastic as +the blades of Toledo; and as they have galloped up and down in the +lists, gaily caparisoned and cheery, it has done our hearts good to see +how they have hurled into the dust the pompous, sleepy champions of +error and hypocrisy. + +"So too, consider how pleasant a thing is mirth on the stage. Who does +not thank William the Great for Falstaff, and Hackett for his +personation of the fat knight? Who does not chuckle over the humors of +Autolycus, rogue and peddler? Who has not felt his eye glisten, as his +lips smiled, when Jesse Rural has spoken, and who will not say to +Ollapod, 'Thank you, good sir, I owe you one'? + +"Ah me! how I used to read those jolly unctuous authors when I was +young, in the old 'sitting-room' at home! The great fire-place glows +before me now; its light dances on the wall; my mother's hand is on my +head; my sister's eyes are beaming on her lover over in the darker +corner; there is a murmur of pleasant voices; there are quiet mirth and +deep joy. I lose myself in revery when I think of these pleasures, and +almost forget the Funny Fellow. + +"He is pestiferous. If I were in the habit of profanity, I would let +loose upon him an octagonal oath. If I were a man of muscle, it would be +pleasant to get his head in chancery, and bruise it. It would be a +relief to serve him with subpoenas, or present him long bills and demand +immediate payment. Was my name providentially ordered to be Green, that +he might pass verbal contumely upon it? Does he suppose that a man can +live thirty-five years in this state of probation, without becoming +slightly calloused to a pun on his own name? Yet he continues to pun on +mine as if the process were highly amusing. Then again he interrupts +any little attempts at pleasing conversation with his infernal +absurdities. I was speaking one day at the dinner-table of a well-known +orator who had been entertaining the town, and I flatter myself that my +remarks were critically just as well as deeply interesting. The wretched +being interposed-- + +"'Mr. Green, when you say there was too much American Eagle in the +speaker's discourse, do you mean that it was a talon-ted production, and +to what claws of the speech do you especially refer?' + +"Miss Pipkin, who had been deeply intent on my observations, commenced +to titter; what could I do but hang my head and swallow the rest of the +meal in silence? If I had been possessed of a quick tongue, I would have +lashed him with sarcasms, and Pipkin would have rejoiced with me in his +groans. But no--I am slow of speech--and so I was bound to submit. After +that he was more tyrannical than ever. He would come stealthily into my +room and garotte me in a conversational way. He would seem to take me by +the throat, saying, 'why don't you laugh--why don't you burst with +merriment?' and then I would force a dismal grin, just to get rid of +him. + +"I said to myself, I will leave this selfish Sahara called the city and +county of New York I will leave its dust, dirt, carts, confusion, bulls, +bears, Peter Funks, Jeremy Diddlers, and, best of all, the Funny Fellow. +I will take board in some rural, as well as accessible place; the +mosquitoes and ague of Flushing shall refresh my frame; the cottages of +Astoria, with their pleasant view of the Penitentiary, shall revive my +wounded spirit; I will exile myself from my native land to the shores of +Jersey; I will sit beneath the shadow of the Quarantine on Staten +Island. No--I won't--I will go to Yonkers--Yonkers that looks as though +it had been built on a gentle slope, and then had suffered a violent +attack of earthquake; daily boats shall convey me from my ledger to my +bed and board, at convenient hours, so that while I post books in New +York by day, I may revel in breezes, moonbeams, sweet milk, and gentle +influences, by night. There, said I, in a burst of excusable enthusiasm, +I will recline beneath wide-spreading beeches, and pipe upon an oaten +reed. There will I listen to the soft bleating of lambs, and scent the +fresh breath of cows; Nature shall touch and thrill me with her gentle +hand; I will see the dear flowers turn their faces up to receive the +kiss of the rising sun, or the benediction of the summer shower. There, +too, I will meet the members of the mystic P.B., so that I shall talk of +books other than day-books and blotters: we will discourse reverently of +authors and their creations. I will not meet the Funny Fellow, for such +a wretch can be produced only in the corrupt social hot-bed of Gotham. + +"So to Yonkers I went. I chose a room looking out upon the Hudson and +the noble Palisades. I took with me a flute, a copy of the Bucolics of +Virgil, and numerous linen garments. A great calm came over me. I was no +longer haunted, goaded, oppressed. With peace nestling in my bosom, I +went down to my first supper in the new boarding-house. A goodly meal +smoked on the table, and the savor of baked shad, sweetest of smells, +went up. While I sat choking myself with the bones of this delicious +fish, I heard a voice on the opposite side of the table that sent the +blood to my heart. If I had been feminine, there would have been a +scene. + +"He was there: his eyes gloated over the board, a malicious quirk sat +astride his fat lips. The Funny Fellow spoke to Miss Grasscloth: + +"'Why are the fishermen who catch these shad like wigmakers?' + +"'I don't know,' + +"'Because they make their living from bare poles.' + +"I ate no more supper. A nausea supervened. I left the table, rushed +into the cool evening air, and let the fresh breeze visit my faded +cheek. I strolled up the main street of Yonkers, and as I crushed my +toes against the stones which then adorned that highway, I resolved to +call on my sweet friend Julia ----. Her gentle smile, said I, will +console me. She is not a Funny Fellow. We will talk together calmly, +earnestly, in the moonlight, close by the great river. I will sit as +near to her as her fashionable garments will permit, and forget my foe. + +"We walked together--Julia and I. We talked of things good and true. We +spoke of the beauty of the nocturnal scene. Alas! a fearful, a demoniac +change came over the girl's face. She said: + +"'Yes, my friend, we ought to enjoy this scene--for we are fine-night +beings.' + +"I bid a hasty farewell to the large eyes and gentle smile. She was not +much offended at my abrupt and angry departure, for my salary is small, +my hair is turning grey, and I do not dance. But I was not entirely +discouraged. I resolved to give Yonkers a fair trial, and a true verdict +to render according to the evidence. So I frequented the tea-parties and +sociables so common in that wretched town, and strove to shake off the +melancholy that clung to me like the Old Man of the Sea. To my horror, +the Funny Fellow became multiplied like the reflections in a shivered +mirror. Men and women, and even young innocent children, became Funny, +and danced about me in a horrible maze, and squeaked and gibbered, and +tossed their jokes in my face. In one week I made five mortal enemies by +refusing to smile when their tormenting squibs were exploded in my eyes. +I felt like a rustic pony, who comes in his simple way into town on the +Fourth of July, and has Chinese crackers and fiery serpents cast under +his heels. One evening, in particular, they asked me to play the game of +Comparisons (a proverbially odious game, that could exist only in an +effete and degenerate civilization), in which the entire company tried +to see how Funny they could be; and because I made stupid answers, I was +laughed at by the young ladies. + +"I became disgusted with Yonkers, and returned to my intramural +boarding-house in St. John's Park. The sidewalk near the house was in a +dilapidated state, through the carelessness of the contractor, who had +stipulated to pave it properly, but had not paved it at all, except with +good intentions. And therefore, as I came along, I first besmeared my +boots with muck then tripped my toes against a pile of brick: and +finally fell headlong into the gutter. As I rose up and denounced, in +somewhat loud language, the idleness and inefficiency of the contractor +who had the work in charge, the Funny Fellow stood before me, his eyes +glaring with triumph. He spoke in reply to my denunciations: + +"' My dear Green, do not call the contractor lazy and inefficient. I am +sure that his is an energy that never FLAGS!' + +"I rushed to the room where I am now sealed. There is but one hope left +me. + +"In the Territory of Nebraska, far to the west thereof, lies a tract of +land which the early French trappers, with shrewd fitness called the' +Mauvaises Terres.' It is a region of rocks, petrifactions, and other +pre-Adamite peculiarities. In a paper written by Dr. Leid of +Philadelphia, and published by the Smithsonian Institute, we are assured +that there once lived in these bad lands, turtles six feet square, and +alligators, compared with which the present squatter sovereigns of the +territory are lovely and refined. The fossil remains of these ancient +inhabitants still encumber the earth of that region, and make it +unpleasant to view with an agricultural eye; but here and there the +general desolation is relieved by a fertile valley, with a running brook +and green slopes. White men, whisky, and Funny Fellows have not yet +penetrated there. I will go to this sanctuary. A snug cabin will contain +my necessary household--to wit--twelve shirts and a Bible. I will plant +my corn, and tobacco, and vines on the fertile slope that looks to the +south; my cattle and sheep shall browse the rest of the valley, while a +few agile goats shall stand in picturesque positions upon the rocky +monsters described by Dr. Leidy. My guests shall be the brave and wise +red men who never try to make bad jokes. I do not think they ever try to +be Funny; but to make assurance doubly sure, I shall not learn their +language, so that any melancholy attempts they may possibly make, will +fall upon unappreciative ears. By day I will cultivate my crops and +tend my flocks and herds; and in the long evenings smoke the calumet +with the worthy aborigines. If I should find there some dusky maiden, +like Palmer's Indian girl, who has no idea of puns, polkas, crinoline, +or eligible matches, I will woo her in savage hyperbole, and she shall +light my pipe with her slender fingers, and beat for me the tom-tom when +I am sad. I will live in a calm and conscientious way; the Funny Fellow +shall become like the dim recollection of some horrible dream, and"-- + +Mr. Green seems not to have finished his interesting reflections, and I +shall not attempt to complete them. As well might I try to finish the +Cathedral at Cologne. But I heartily sympathize with the feelings he has +expressed, and trust that his new home in the West will never be invaded +by conversational garroters. + +Sincerely your friend, + +TOMPKINS. + +--_The Pasha Papers_. + + + + +CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE. + +("ARTEMUS WARD.") + +(BORN, 1834--DIED, 1867.) + + * * * * * + +THE TOWER OF LONDON. + + +MR. PUNCH,--_My Dear Sir_:--I skurcely need inform you that your +excellent Tower is very pop'lar with pe'ple from the agricultooral +districks, and it was chiefly them class which I found waitin at the +gates the other mornin. + +I saw at once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In the +entire history of firm basisis I don't find a basis more firmer than +this one. + +"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had somehow +detected my denomination. + +"Alars! no," I anserd; "we boste of our enterprise and improovements, +and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America oh my onhappy country! thou +hast not got no Tower! It's a sweet Boon." + +The gates was opened after a while, and we all purchist tickets, and +went into a waitin-room. + +"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "this is a sad +day." + +"Inasmuch as to how?" I said. + +"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed within +these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!" + +"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like +it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion +were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for +those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own +relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd +during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continnered. +"Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannil jackets. They are +cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?" + +A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the Trater's Gate, the +armers, and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit about +twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't see +that it was superior to gates in gen'ral. + +Traters, I will here remark, are a onfornit class of peple. If they +wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a +country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they become +statesmen and heroes. + +Take the case of Gloster, afterwards Old Dick the Three, who may be seen +at the Tower on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat--take Mr. Gloster's +case. Mr. G. was a conspirator of the basist dye, and if he'd failed, he +would have been hung on a sour apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded, and +became great. He was slewed by Col. Richmond, but he lives in history, +and his equestrian figger may be seen daily for a sixpence, in +conjunction with other em'nent persons, and no extra charge for the +Warder's able and bootiful lectur. + +There's one king in this room who is mounted onto a foaming steed, his +right hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn his name. + +The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is +interestin. Among this collection of choice cuttlery I notist the bow +and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with. +It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certain tribes +of American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent +precision that I almost sigh'd to be an Injun when I was in the Rocky +Mountain regin. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr. +Catlin have told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence, and I found it +so. Our party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones, +whose chief said: + +"Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinking in the +west, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor +red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink." + +He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky, +and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions. + +I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the +main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians, and when I +hear philanthropists bewailin the fack that every year "carries the +noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of +it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name +of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their +Thomas-hawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower. + +At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of +Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye +flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as +if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth +with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theatre, +where _Troo to the Core_ is bein acted, and in which a full bally core +is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens +the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he +conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is _Troo to the Core_, +notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very +nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet. + +The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews, +throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkered from the Spanish +Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them +days--which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve +summers the remark that she tho't it _was_ rich to talk about the +crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower +where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder +stammer and turn red. + +I was so pleased with the little girl's brightness that I could have +kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older. + +I think my companions intended makin a day of it, for they all had +sandwiches, sassiges, etc. The sad-lookin man, who had wanted us to drop +a tear afore we started to go round, fling'd such quantities of sassige +into his mouth that I expected to see him choke hisself to death; he +said to me, in the Beauchamp Tower, where the poor prisoners writ their +onhappy names on the cold walls, "This is a sad sight." + +"It is indeed," I anserd. "You're black in the face. You shouldn't eat +sassige in public without some rehearsals beforehand. You manage it +orkwardly." + +"No," he said, "I mean this sad room." + +Indeed, he was quite right. Tho' so long ago all these drefful things +happened, I was very glad to git away from this gloomy room, and go +where the rich and sparklin Crown Jewils is kept. I was so pleased with +the Queen's Crown, that it occurd to me what a agree'ble surprise it +would be to send a sim'lar one home to my wife; and I asked the Warder +what was the vally of a good, well-constructed Crown like that. He told +me, but on cypherin up up with a pencil the amount of funs I have in the +Jint Stock Bank, I conclooded I'd send her a genteel silver watch +instid. + +And so I left the Tower. It is a solid and commandin edifis, but I deny +that it is cheerful. I bid it adoo without a pang. + +I was droven to my hotel by the most melancholly driver of a +four-wheeler that I ever saw. He heaved a deep sigh as I gave him two +shillings. + +"I'll give you six d.'s more," I said, "if it hurts you so." + +"It isn't that," he said, with a hart-rendin groan, "it's only a way I +have. My mind's upset to-day. I at one time tho't I'd drive you into the +Thames. I've been readin all the daily papers to try and understand +about Governor Eyre, and my mind is totterin. It's really wonderful I +didn't drive you into the Thames." + +I asked the onhappy man what his number was, so I could redily find him +in case I should want him agin, and bad him good-bye. And then I tho't +what a frollicsome day I'd made of it. Respectably, etc., + +ARTEMUS WARD. + +--_Punch_,1866. + + +SCIENCE AND NATURAL HISTORY. + +Mr. Punch _My Dear Sir_:--I was a little disapinted at not receivin a +invitation to jine in the meetins of the Social Science Congress.... + +I prepared an Essy on Animals to read before the Social Science meetins. +It is a subjeck I may troothfully say I have successfully wrastled with. +I tackled it when only nineteen years old. At that tender age I writ a +Essy for a lit'ry Institoot entitled, "Is Cats to be trusted?" Of the +merits of that Essy it doesn't becum me to speak, but I may be excoos'd +for mentionin that the Institoot parsed a resolution that "whether we +look upon the length of this Essy, or the manner in which it is written, +we feel that we will not express any opinion of it, and we hope it will +be read in other towns." + +Of course the Essy I writ for the Social Science Society is a more +finisheder production than the one on Cats, which was wroten when my +mind was crood, and afore I had masterd a graceful and ellygant stile +of composition. I could not even punctooate my sentences proper at that +time, and I observe with pane, on lookin over this effort of my youth, +that its beauty is in one or two instances mar'd by ingrammaticisms. +This was inexcusable, and I'm surprised I did it. A writer who can't +write in a grammerly manner better shut up shop. + +You shall hear this Essy on Animals. Some day when you have four hours +to spare, I'll read it to you. I think you'll enjoy it. Or, what will be +much better, if I may suggest--omit all picturs in next week's _Punch_, +and do not let your contributors write eny thing whatever (et them have +a holiday; they can go to the British Mooseum;) and publish my Essy +intire. It will fill all your collumes full, and create comment. Does +this proposition strike you? Is it a go? + +In case I had read the Essy to the Social Sciencers, I had intended it +should be the closin attraction. I intended it should finish the +proceedins. I think it would have finished them. I understand animals +better than any other class of human creatures. I have a very animal +mind, and I've been identified with 'em doorin my entire perfessional +career as a showman, more especial bears, wolves, leopards and +serpunts. + +The leopard is as lively a animal as I ever came into contack with. It +is troo he cannot change his spots, but you can change 'em for him with +a paint-brush, as I once did in the case of a leopard who wasn't +nat'rally spotted in a attractive manner. In exhibitin him I used to +stir him up in his cage with a protracted pole, and for the purpuss of +makin him yell and kick up in a leopardy manner, I used to casionally +whack him over the head. This would make the children inside the booth +scream with fright, which would make fathers of families outside the +booth very anxious to come in--because there is a large class of parents +who have a uncontrollable passion for takin their children to places +where they will stand a chance of being frightened to death. + +One day I whacked this leopard more than ushil, which elissited a +remonstrance from a tall gentleman in spectacles, who said, "My good +man, do not beat the poor caged animal. Rather fondle him." + +"I'll fondle him with a club," I ansered, hitting him another whack. + +"I prithy desist," said the gentleman; "stand aside, and see the effeck +of kindness. I understand the idiosyncracies of these creeturs better +than you do." + +With that he went up to the cage, and thrustin his face in between the +iron bars, he said, soothingly, "Come hither, pretty creetur." + +The pretty creetur come-hithered rayther speedy, and seized the +gentleman by the whiskers, which he tore off about enuff to stuff a +small cushion with. + +He said "You vagabone, I'll have you indicted for exhibitin dangerous +and immoral animals." + +I replied, "Gentle Sir, there isn't a animal here that hasn't a +beautiful moral, but you mustn't fondle 'em. You mustn't meddle with +their idiotsyncracies." + +The gentleman was a dramatic cricket, and he wrote a article for a +paper, in which he said my entertainment wos a decided failure. + +As regards Bears, you can teach 'em to do interestin things, but they're +onreliable. I had a very large grizzly bear once, who would dance, and +larf, and lay down, and bow his head in grief, and give a mournful wale, +etsetry. But he often annoyed me. It will be remembered that on the +occasion of the first battle of Bull Run, it suddenly occurd to the +Fed'ral soldiers that they had business in Washington which ought not to +be neglected, and they all started for that beautiful and romantic city, +maintainin a rate of speed durin the entire distance that would have +done credit to the celebrated French steed _Gladiateur_. Very nat'rally +our Gov'ment was deeply grieved at this defeat; and I said to my Bear +shortly after, as I was givin a exhibition in Ohio--I said, "Brewin, are +you not sorry the National arms has sustained a defeat?" His business +was to wale dismal, and bow his head down, the band (a barrel origin and +a wiolin) playing slow and melancholy moosic. What did the grizzly old +cuss do, however, but commence darncin and larfin in the most joyous +manner? I had a narrer escape from being imprisoned for +disloyalty.--_Works_. + + +FROM THE "LECTURE." + +Some years ago I engaged a celebrated Living American Skeleton for a +tour through Australia. He was the thinnest man I ever saw. He was a +splendid skeleton. He didn't weigh any thing scarcely,--and I said to +myself,--the people of Australia will flock to see this tremendous +curiosity. It is a long voyage--as you know--from New York to +Melbourne--and to my utter surprise the skeleton had no sooner got out +to sea than he commenced eating in the most horrible manner. He +had never been on the ocean before--and he said it agreed with +him.--I thought so!--I never saw a man eat so much in my life. +Beef--mutton--pork--he swallowed them all like a shark--and between +meals he was often discovered behind barrels eating hard-boiled eggs. +The result was that when we reached Melbourne this infamous skeleton +weighed sixty-four pounds more than I did! + +I thought I was ruined--but I wasn't. I took him on to +California--another very long sea voyage--and when I got him to San +Francisco I exhibited him as a fat man. + +This story hasn't any thing to do with my Entertainment, I know--but one +of the principal features of my Entertainment is that it contains so +many things that don't have any thing to do with it.... + + * * * * * + +I like Music.--I can't sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am +saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even +than I am.... + + * * * * * + +I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth--not a tooth in his head--yet +that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met.... + + * * * * * + +Brigham Young has two hundred wives. Just think of that! Oblige me by +thinking of that. That is--he has eighty actual wives, and he is +spiritually married to one hundred and twenty more. These spiritual +marriages--as the Mormons call them--are contracted with aged +widows--who think it a great honor to be sealed--the Mormons call it +being sealed--to the Prophet. + +So we may say he has two hundred wives. He loves not wisely--but two +hundred well. He is dreadfully married. He's the most married man I ever +saw in my life.... + + * * * * * + +I regret to say that efforts were made to make a Mormon of me while I +was in Utah. + +It was leap-year when I was there--and seventeen young widows--the wives +of a deceased Mormon--offered me their hearts and hands. I called on +them one day--and taking their soft white hands in mine--which made +eighteen hands altogether--I found them in tears. + +And I said--"Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?" + +They hove a sigh--seventeen sighs of different size.--They said-- + +"Oh--soon thou wilt be gonested away!" + +I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested. + +They said--"Doth not like us?" + +I said--"I doth--I doth!" + +I also said--"I hope your intentions are honorable--as I am a lone +child--my parents being far--far away." + +They then said--"Wilt not marry us?" + +I said--"Oh no--it cannot was." + +Again they asked me to marry them--and again I declined. When they +cried-- + +"Oh--cruel man! This is too much--oh! too much!" + +I told them that it was on account of the muchness that I +declined.--_Works_. + + + + +FRANK R. STOCKTON. + +(BORN, 1834.) + + * * * * * + +OUR TAVERN. + + +It was about noon of a very fair July day, when Euphemia and myself +arrived at the little town where we were to take the stage up into the +mountains. We were off for a two weeks' vacation and our minds were a +good deal easier than when we went away before, and left Pomona at the +helm. We had enlarged the boundaries of Rudder Grange, having purchased +the house, with enough adjoining land to make quite a respectable farm. +Of course I could not attend to the manifold duties on such a place, and +my wife seldom had a happier thought than when she proposed that we +should invite Pomona and her husband to come and live with us. Pomona +was delighted, and Jonas was quite willing to run our farm. So +arrangements were made, and the young couple were established in +apartments in our back building, and went to work as if taking care of +us and our possessions was the ultimate object of their lives. Jonas was +such a steady fellow that we feared no trouble from tree-man or +lightning rodder during this absence. + +Our destination was a country tavern on the stage-road, not far from the +point where the road crosses the ridge of the mountain range, and about +sixteen miles from the town. We had heard of this tavern from a friend +of ours, who had spent a summer there. The surrounding country was +lovely, and the house was kept by a farmer, who was a good soul, and +tried to make his guests happy. These were generally passing farmers and +wagoners, or stage-passengers, stopping for a meal, but occasionally a +person from the cities, like our friend, came to spend a few weeks in +the mountains. + +So hither we came, for an out-of-the-world spot like this was just what +we wanted. When I took our place at the stage-office, I inquired for +David Button, the farm tavern-keeper before mentioned, but the agent did +not know of him. + +"However," said he, "the driver knows everybody on the road, and he'll +set you down at the house." + +So, off we started, having paid for our tickets on the basis that we +were to ride about sixteen miles. We had seats on top, and the trip, +although slow,--for the road wound uphill steadily,--was a delightful +one. Our way lay, for the greater part of the time, through the woods, +but now and then we came to a farm, and a turn in the road often gave us +lovely views of the foot-hills and the valleys behind us. + +But the driver did not know where Dutton's tavern was. This we found out +after we had started. Some persons might have thought it wiser to settle +this matter before starting, but I am not at all sure that it would have +been so. We were going to this tavern, and did not wish to go anywhere +else. If people did not know where it was, it would be well for us to go +and look for it. We knew the road that it was on, and the locality in +which it was to be found. + +Still, it was somewhat strange that a stage-driver, passing along the +road every week-day,--one day one way, and the next the other +way,--should not know a public-house like Dutton's. + +"If I remember rightly," I said, "the stage used to stop there for the +passengers to take supper." + +"Well, then, it ain't on this side o' the ridge," said the driver; "we +stop for supper, about a quarter of a mile on the other side, at Pete +Lowry's. Perhaps Dutton used to keep that place. Was it called the +'Ridge House'?" + +I did not remember the name of the house, but I knew very well that it +was not on the other side of the ridge. + +"Then," said the driver, "I'm sure I don't know where it is. But I've +only been on the road about a year, and your man may 'a' moved away +afore I come. But there ain't no tavern this side the ridge, arter ye +leave Delhi, and, that's nowhere's nigh the ridge." + +There were a couple of farmers who were sitting by the driver, and who +had listened with considerable interest to this conversation. Presently, +one of them turned around to me and said: + +"Is it Dave Dutton ye're askin' about?" + +"Yes," I replied, "that's his name." + +"Well, I think he's dead," said he. + +At this, I began to feel uneasy, and I could see that my wife shared my +trouble. + +Then the other farmer spoke up. + +"I don't believe he's dead, Hiram," said he to his companion. "I heerd +of him this spring. He's got a sheep-farm on the other side o' the +mountain, and he's a livin' there. That's what I heerd, at any rate. But +he don't live on this road any more," he continued, turning to us. "He +used to keep tavern on this road, and the stages did used to stop fur +supper--or else dinner. I don't jist ree-collect which. But he don't +keep tavern on this road no more." + +"Of course not," said his companion, "if he's a livin' over the +mountain. But I b'lieve he's dead." + +I asked the other farmer if he knew how long it had been since Dutton +had left this part of the country. + +"I don't know fur certain," he said, "but I know he was keeping tavern +here two year' ago, this fall, fur I came along here, myself, and +stopped there to git supper--or dinner, I don't jist ree-collect which." + +It had been three years since our friend had boarded at Dutton's house. +There was no doubt that the man was not living at his old place now. My +wife and I now agreed that it was very foolish in us to come so far +without making more particular inquiries. But we had had an idea that a +man who had a place like Dutton's tavern would live there always. + +"What are ye goin' to do?" asked the driver, very much interested, for +it was not every day that he had passengers who had lost their +destination. "Ye might go on to Lowry's. He takes boarders sometimes." + +But Lowry's did not attract us. An ordinary country-tavern, where +stage-passengers took supper, was not what we came so far to find. + +"Do you know where this house o' Dutton's is?" said the driver, to the +man who had once taken either dinner or supper there. + +"Oh yes! I'd know the house well enough, if I saw it. It's the fust +house this side o' Lowry's." + +"With a big pole in front of it?" asked the driver. + +"Yes, there was a sign-pole in front of it." + +"An' a long porch?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh! well!" said the driver, settling himself in his seat. "I know all +about that house. That's a empty house. I didn't think you meant that +house. There's nobody lives there. An' yit, now I come to remember, I +have seen people about, too. I tell ye what ye better do. Since ye're so +set on staying on this side the ridge, ye better let me put ye down at +Dan Carson's place. That's jist about quarter of a mile from where +Dutton used to live. Dan's wife can tell ye all about the Duttons, an' +about everybody else, too, in this part o' the country, and if there +aint nobody livin' at the old tavern, ye can stay all night at Carson's, +and I'll stop an' take you back, to-morrow, when I come along." + +We agreed to this plan, for there was nothing better to be done, and, +late in the afternoon, we were set down with our small trunk--for we +were traveling under light weight--at Dan Carson's door. The stage was +rather behind time, and the driver whipped up and left us to settle our +own affairs. He called back, however, that he would keep a good look-out +for us to-morrow. + +Mrs. Carson soon made her appearance, and, very naturally, was somewhat +surprised to see visitors with their baggage standing on her little +porch. She was a plain, coarsely dressed woman, with an apron full of +chips and kindling wood, and a fine mind for detail, as we soon +discovered. + +"Jist so," she said, putting down the chips and inviting us to seats on +a bench. "Dave Dutton's folks is all moved away. Dave has a good farm +on the other side o' the mountain, an' it never did pay him to keep that +tavern, 'specially as he didn't sell liquor. When he went away, his son +Al come there to live with his wife, an' the old man left a good deal o' +furniture and things for him, but Al's wife aint satisfied here, and, +though they've been here, off an' on, the house is shet up most o' the +time. It's for sale an' to rent, both, ef enybody wants it. I'm sorry +about you, too, fur it was a nice tavern, when Dave kept it." + +We admitted that we were also very sorry, and the kind-hearted woman +showed a great deal of sympathy. + +"You might stay here, but we haint got no fit room where you two could +sleep." + +At this, Euphemia and I looked very blank. + +"But you could go up to the house and stay, jist as well as not," Mrs. +Carson continued. "There's plenty o' things there, an' I keep the key. +For the matter o' that, ye might take the house for as long as ye want +to stay; Dave 'd be glad enough to rent it; and, if the lady knows how +to keep house, it wouldn't be no trouble at all, jist for you two. We +could let ye have all the victuals ye'd want, cheap, and there's plenty +o' wood there, cut, and every thing handy." + +We looked at each other. We agreed. Here was a chance for a rare good +time. It might be better, perhaps, than any thing we had expected. + +The bargain was struck. Mrs. Carson, who seemed vested with all the +necessary powers of attorney, appeared to be perfectly satisfied with +our trustworthiness, and when I paid on the spot the small sum she +thought proper for two weeks' rent, she evidently considered she had +done a very good thing for Dave Dutton and herself. + +"I'll jist put some bread, an' eggs, an' coffee, an' pork, an' things in +the basket, an' I'll have 'em took up for ye, with yer trunk, an' I'll +go with ye an' take some milk. Here, Danny!" she cried, and directly her +husband, a long, thin, sun-burnt, sandy-headed man, appeared, and to him +she told, in a few words, our story, and ordered him to hitch up the +cart and be ready to take our trunk and the basket up to Dutton's old +house. + +When all was ready, we walked up the hill, followed by Danny and the +cart. We found the house a large, low, old-fashioned farm-house, +standing near the road with a long piazza in front, and a magnificent +view of mountain-tops in the rear. Within, the lower rooms were large +and low, with quite a good deal of furniture in them. There was no +earthly reason why we should not be perfectly jolly and comfortable +here. The more we saw the more delighted we were at the odd experience +we were about to have. Mrs. Carson busied herself in getting things in +order for our supper and general accommodation. She made Danny carry our +trunk to a bedroom in the second story, and then set him to work +building a fire in a great fire-place, with a crane for the kettle. + +When she had done all she could, it was nearly dark, and after lighting +a couple of candles, she left us, to go home and get supper for her own +family. + +As she and Danny were about to depart in the cart, she ran back to ask +us if we would like to borrow a dog. + +"There aint nuthin to be afeard of," she said; "for nobody hardly ever +takes the trouble to lock the doors in these parts, but bein' city +folks, I thought ye might feel better if ye had a dog." + +We made haste to tell her that we were not city folks, but declined the +dog. Indeed, Euphemia remarked that she would be much more afraid of a +strange dog than of robbers. + +After supper, which we enjoyed as much as any meal we ever ate in our +lives, we each took a candle, and after arranging our bedroom for the +night, we explored the old house. There were lots of curious things +everywhere,--things that were apparently so "old timey," as my wife +remarked, that David Dutton did not care to take them with him to his +new farm, and so left them for his son, who probably cared for them even +less than his father did. There was a garret extending over the whole +house, and filled with old spinning-wheels, and strings of onions, and +all sorts of antiquated bric-a-brac, which was so fascinating to me that +I could scarcely tear myself away from it; but Euphemia, who was +dreadfully afraid that I would set the whole place on fire, at length +prevailed on me to come down. + +We slept soundly that night, in what was probably the best bedroom in +the house, and awoke with a feeling that we were about to enter on a +period of some uncommon kind of jollity, which we found to be true when +we went down to get breakfest. I made the fire, Euphemia made the +coffee, and Mrs. Carson came with cream and some fresh eggs. The good +woman was in high spirits. She was evidently pleased at the idea of +having neighbors, temporary though they were, and it had probably been a +long time since she had had such a chance of selling milk, eggs, and +sundries. It was almost the same as opening a country store. We bought +groceries and every thing of her. + +We had a glorious time that day. We were just starting out for a +mountain stroll when our stage-driver came along on his down trip. + +"Hello!" he called out. "Want to go back this morning?" + +"Not a bit of it," I cried. "We wont go back for a couple of weeks. +We've settled here for the present." + +The man smiled. He didn't seem to understand it exactly, but he was +evidently glad to see us so well satisfied. If he had had time to stop +and have the matter explained to him, he would probably have been better +satisfied; but as it was, he waved his whip to us and drove on. He was a +good fellow. + +We strolled all day, having locked up the house and taken our lunch with +us; and when we came back, it seemed really like coming home. Mrs. +Carson, with whom we had left the key, had brought the milk and was +making the fire. This woman was too kind. We determined to try and repay +her in some way. After a splendid supper we went to bed happy. + +The next day was a repetition of this one, but the day after it rained. +So we determined to enjoy the old tavern, and we rummaged about +everywhere. I visited the garret again, and we went to the old barn, +with its mows half full of hay, and had rare times climbing about there. +We were delighted that it happened to rain. In a wood-shed, near the +house, I saw a big square board with letters on it. I examined the +board, and found it was a sign,--a hanging sign,--and on it was painted +in letters that were yet quite plain: + + "FARMERS' + AND + MECHANICS' + HOTEL." + +I called to Euphemia and told her that I had found the old tavern sign. +She came to look at it, and I pulled it out. + +"Soldiers and sailors!" she exclaimed; "that's funny." + +I looked over on her side of the sign, and, sure enough, there was the +inscription: + + "SOLDIERS' + AND + SAILORS' + HOUSE." + +"They must have bought this comprehensive sign in some town," I said. +"Such a name would never have been chosen for a country tavern like +this. But I wish they hadn't taken it down. The house would look more +like what it ought to be with its sign hanging before it." + +"Well, then," said Euphemia, "let's put it up." + +I agreed instantly to this proposition, and we went to look for a +ladder. We found one in the wagon-house, and carried it out to the +sign-post in the front of the house. It was raining, gently, during +these performances, but we had on our old clothes, and were so much +interested in our work that we did not care for a little rain. I carried +the sign to the post, and then, at the imminent risk of breaking my +neck, I hung it on its appropriate hooks on the transverse beam of the +sign-post. Now our tavern was really what it pretended to be. We gazed +on the sign with admiration and content. + +"Do you think we had better keep it up all the time?" I asked of my +wife. + +"Certainly," said she. "It's a part of the house. The place isn't +complete without it." + +"But suppose some one should come along and want to be entertained?" + +"But no one will. And if people do come, I'll take care of the soldiers +and sailors, if you will attend to the farmers and mechanics." + +I consented to this, and we went in-doors to prepare dinner.--_Rudder +Grange_. + + +A PIECE OF RED CALICO. + +Mr. Editor:--If the following true experience shall prove of any +advantage to any of your readers, I shall be glad. + +I was going into town the other morning, when my wife handed me a little +piece of red calico, and asked me if I would have time during the day, +to buy her two yards and a half of calico like that. I assured her that +it would be no trouble at all; and putting the piece of calico in my +pocket, I took the train for the city. + +At lunch-time I stopped in at a large dry-goods store to attend to my +wife's commission. I saw a well-dressed man walking the floor between +the counters, where long lines of girls were waiting on much longer +lines of customers, and asked him where I could see some red calico. + +"This way, sir," and he led me up the store. "Miss Stone," said he to a +young lady, "show this gentleman some red calico." + +"What shade do you want?" asked Miss Stone. + +I showed her the little piece of calico that my wife had given me. She +looked at it and handed it back to me. Then she took down a great roll +of red calico and spread it out on the counter. + +"Why, that isn't the shade!" said I. + +"No, not exactly," said she; "but it is prettier than your sample." + +"That may be," said I; "but, you see, I want to match this piece. There +is something already made of this kind of calico, which needs to be made +larger, or mended, or something. I want some calico of the same shade." + +The girl made no answer, but took down another roll. + +"That's the shade," said she. + +"Yes," I replied, "but it's striped." + +"Stripes are more worn than any thing else in calicoes," said she. + +"Yes; but this isn't to be worn. It's for furniture, I think. At any +rate, I want perfectly plain stuff, to match something already in use." + +"Well, I don't think you can find it perfectly plain, unless you get +Turkey-red." + +"What is Turkey-red?" I asked. + +"Turkey-red is perfectly plain in calicoes," she answered. + +"Well, let me see some." + +"We haven't any Turkey-red calico left," she said, "but we have some +very nice plain calicoes in other colors." + +"I don't want any other color. I want stuff to match this." + +"It's hard to match cheap calico like that," she said, and so I left +her. + +I next went into a store a few doors farther up Broadway. When I entered +I approached the "floor-walker," and handing him my sample, said: + +"Have you any calico like this?" + +"Yes, sir," said he. "Third counter to the right." + +I went to the third counter to the right, and showed my sample to the +saleman in attendance there. He looked at it on both sides. Then he +said: + +"We haven't any of this." + +"That gentleman said you had," said I. + +"We had it, but we're out of it now. You'll get that goods at an +upholsterer's." + +I went across the street to an upholsterer's. + +"Have you any stuff like this?' I asked. + +"No," said the salesman. "We haven't. Is it for furniture?" + +"Yes," I replied. + +"Then Turkey-red is what you want?" + +"Is Turkey-red just like this?" I asked. + +"No," said he; "but it's much better." + +"That makes no difference to me," I replied. "I want something just like +this." + +"But they don't use that for furniture," he said. + +"I should think people could use any thing they wanted for furniture," I +remarked, somewhat sharply. + +"They can, but they don't," he said quite calmly. "They don't use red +like that. They use Turkey-red." + +I said no more, but left. The next place I visited was a very large +dry-goods store. Of the first salesman I saw I inquired if they kept red +calico like my sample. + +"You'll find that on the second story," said he. + +I went up-stairs. There I asked a man: + +"Where will I find red calico?" + +"In the far room to the left. Right over there." And he pointed to a +distant corner. + +I walked through the crowds of purchasers and salespeople, and around +the counters and tables filled with goods, to the far room to the left. +When I got there I asked for red calico. + +"The second counter down this side," said the man. + +I went there and produced my sample. "Calicoes down-stairs," said the +man. + +"They told me they were up here," I said. + +"Not these plain goods. You'll find 'em down-stairs at the back of the +store, over on that side." + +I went down-stairs to the back of the store. + +"Where will I find red calico like this?" I asked. + +"Next counter but one," said the man addressed, walking with me in the +direction pointed out. + +"Dunn, show red calicoes." + +Mr. Dunn took my sample and looked at it. + +"We haven't this shade in that quality of goods," he said. + +"Well, have you it in any quality of goods?" I asked. + +"Yes; we've got it finer." And he took down a piece of calico, and +unrolled a yard or two of it on the counter. + +"That's not this shade," I said. + +"No," said he. "The goods is finer and the color's better." + +"I want it to match this," I said. + +"I thought you weren't particular about the match," said the salesman. +"You said you didn't care for the quality of the goods, and you know you +can't match goods without you take into consideration quality and color +both. If you want that quality of goods in red, you ought to get +Turkey-red." + +I did not think it necessary to answer this remark, but said: + +"Then you've got nothing to match this?" + +"No, sir. But perhaps they may have it in the upholstery department, in +the sixth story." + +So I got in the elevator and went up to the top of the house. + +"Have you any red stuff like this?" I said to a young man. + +"Red stuff? Upholstery department,--other end of this floor." + +I went to the other end of the floor. + +"I want some red calico," I said to a man. + +"Furniture goods?" he asked. + +"Yes," said I. + +"Fourth counter to the left." + +I went to the fourth counter to the left, and showed my sample to a +salesman. He looked at it, and said: + +"You'll get this down on the first floor--calico department." + +I turned on my heel, descended in the elevator, and went out on +Broadway. I was thoroughly sick of red calico. But I determined to make +one more trial. My wife had bought her red calico not long before, and +there must be some to be had somewhere. I ought to have asked her where +she bought it, but I thought a simple little thing like that could be +bought anywhere. + +I went into another large dry-goods store. As I entered the door a +sudden tremor seized me. I could not bear to take out that piece of red +calico. If I had had any other kind of a rag about me--a pen-wiper or +any thing of the sort--I think I would have asked them if they could +match that. + +But I stepped up to a young woman and presented my sample, with the +usual question. + +"Back room, counter on the left," she said. + +I went there. + +"Have you any red calico like this?" I asked of the lady behind the +counter. + +"No, sir," she said, "but we have it in Turkey-red." + +Turkey-red again! I surrendered. + +"All right," I said, "give me Turkey-red." + +"How much, sir?" she asked. + +"I don't know--say five yards." + +The lady looked at me rather strangely, but measured off five yards of +Turkey-red calico. Then she rapped on the counter and called out "cash!" +A little girl, with yellow hair in two long plaits, came slowly up. The +lady wrote the number of yards, the name of the goods, her own number, +the price, the amount of the bank-note I handed her, and some other +matters, probably the color of my eyes, and the direction and velocity +of the wind, on a slip of paper. She then copied all this in a little +book which she kept by her. Then she handed the slip of paper, the +money, and the Turkey-red to the yellow-haired girl. This young girl +copied the slip in a little book she carried, and then she went away +with the calico, the paper slip, and the money. + +After a very long time,--during which the little girl probably took the +goods, the money, and the slip to some central desk, where the note was +received, its amount and number entered in a book, change given to the +girl, a copy of the slip made and entered, girl's entry examined and +approved, goods wrapped up, girl registered, plaits counted and entered +on a slip of paper and copied by the girl in her book, girl taken to a +hydrant and washed, number of towel entered on a paper slip and copied +by the girl in her book, value of my note and amount of change branded +somewhere on the child, and said process noted on a slip of paper and +copied in her book,--the girl came to me, bringing my change and the +package of Turkey-red calico. + +I had time for but very little work at the office that afternoon, and +when I reached home, I handed the package of calico to my wife She +unrolled it and exclaimed: + +"Why, this don't match the piece I gave you!" + +"Match it!" I cried. "Oh, no! it don't match it. You didn't want that +matched. You were mistaken. What you wanted was Turkey-red--third +counter to the left. I mean, Turkey-red is what they use." + +My wife looked at me in amazement, and then I detailed to her my +troubles. + +"Well," said she, "this Turkey-red is a great deal prettier than what I +had, and you've got so much of it that I needn't use the other at all. I +wish I had thought of Turkey-red before." + +"I wish from my heart you had," said I. + +ANDREW SCOGGIN. + +--_The Lady or the Tiger, and other stories._ + + + + +HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. + +(BORN, 1835.) + + * * * * * + +AUNT PEN'S FUNERAL. + + +Poor Aunt Pen! I am sorry to say it, but for a person alive and +well--tolerably well and very much alive, that is--she did use to make +the greatest business of dying! Alive! why, when she was stretched out +on the sofa, after an agony of asthma, or indigestion, or whatever, and +had called us all about her with faltering and tears, and was apparently +at her last gasp, she would suddenly rise, like her own ghost, at the +sound of a second ringing of the door-bell, which our little renegade +Israel had failed to answer, and declare if she could only once lay +hands on Israel she would box his ears till they heard! + +For the door-bell was, perhaps, among many, one of Aunt Pen's weakest +points. She knew everybody in town, as you might say. She was +exceedingly entertaining to everybody outside the family. She was a +great favorite with everybody. Countless gossips came to see her, +tinkling at the door-bell, and hated individually by Israel, brought her +all the news, heard all the previous ones had brought, admired her, +praised her, pitied her, listened to her, and went away leaving her in +such satisfied mood that she did not die any more that day. And as they +went away they always paused at the door to say to some one of us what a +cheerful invalid Aunt Pen had made herself, and what a nest of sunbeams +her room always was, and what a lesson her patience and endurance ought +to be. But, oh dear me, how very little they knew about it all! + +We all lived together, as it happened; for when we children were left +alone with but a small income, Aunt Pen--who was also alone, and only +five years my senior--wrote word that we might as well come to her house +in the city, for it wouldn't make expenses more, and might make them +less if we divided them; and then, too, she said she would always be +sure of one out of three bright and reasonable nurses. Poor Aunt Pen! +perhaps she didn't find us either so bright or so reasonable as she had +expected; for we used to think that in her less degree she went on the +same principle with the crazy man who declared all the rest of the world +except himself insane. + +In honest truth, as doctor after doctor was turned away by the impatient +and distempered woman up-stairs, each one took occasion to say to us +down-stairs that our aunt's illness was of that nature that all the +physic it required was to have her fancies humored, and that we never +need give ourselves any uneasiness, for she would doubtless live to a +good old age, unless some acute disease should intervene, as there was +nothing at all the matter with her except a slight nervous +sensitiveness, that never destroyed anybody. I suppose we were a set of +young heathen, for really there were times, if you will believe it, when +that was not the most reassuring statement in the world. + +However. Sometimes Aunt Pen found a doctor, or a medicine, or a course +of diet, or something, that gave her great sensations of relief, and +then she would come down, and go about the house, and praise our +administration, and say every thing went twice as far as it used to go +before we came, and tell us delightful stories, of our mother's +housewifely skill, and be quite herself again; and she would make the +table ring with laughing, and give charming little tea-parties; and then +we all did wish that Aunt Pen would live forever--and be down-stairs. +But probably the next day, after one of the tea-parties, oysters, or +claret punch, or hot cakes, or all together, had wrought their +diablerie, and the doctor was sent for, and the warming-pan was brought +out, and there was another six weeks' siege, in which, obeyed by every +one, and physicked by herself, and sympathized with to her heart's +content by callers, and shut up in a hot room with the windows full of +flowering plants, and somebody reading endless novels to her with the +lights burning all night long--if she wasn't ill she had every +inducement to be, and nothing but an indomitable constitution hindered +it. It was perfectly idle for us to tell her she was hurting herself; it +only made her very indignant with us, and more determined than ever to +persist in doing so. + +Of course, then, the longer Aunt Pen staid in her own room the worse she +really did get, and her nerves, with confinement and worry and +relaxation, would by-and-by be in a condition for any sort of an +outburst if we attempted the least reasoning with her. She would +become, for one thing, as sleepless as an owl; then she was thoroughly +sure she was going to be insane, and down would go the hydrate of +chloral till the doctor forbade it on pain of death. After the chloral, +too, such horrid eyes as she had! the eyes, you know, that chloral +always leaves--inflamed, purple, swollen, heavy, crying, and good for +any thing but seeing. Immediately then Aunt Pen went into a new tantrum; +she was going to be stone-blind, and dependent on three heartless +hussies for all her mercies in this life; but no, thank goodness! she +had friends that would see she did not go absolutely to the wall, and +would never suffer her to be imposed on by a parcel of girls who didn't +care whether she lived or died--who perhaps would rather she did +die--who stood open-handed for her bequests; she would leave her money +to the almshouse, and if we wanted it we could go and get it there! And +after that, to be sure, Aunt Pen would have a fit of remorse for her +words, and confess her sin chokingly, and have us all come separately +and forgive her, and would say she was the wretchedest woman on the face +of the earth, that she should live undesired until her friends were all +tired, and then die unlamented; and would burst into tears and cry +herself into a tearing headache, and have ice on her head and a blister +on the back of her neck, and be quite confident that now she was really +going off with congestion of the brain. + +After that, for a day or two, she would be in a heavenly frame of mind +with the blister and cabbage leaves and simple cerate, and a couple of +mirrors by which to examine the rise and fall of the blister; and, +having had a hint of real illness, she would consent quite smilingly to +the act of convalescence, and a descent to the healthy region of the +parlors once more. + +But no sooner were we all gay and happy in the house again, running out +as we pleased, beginning to think of parties and drives and theatres and +all enjoyment--and rather unobservant, as young folks are apt to be +unobservant of Aunt Pen's slight habitual pensiveness in the absence of +guests or excitement, and of her ways generally--than Aunt Pen would +challenge some lobster-salad to mortal combat, and, of course, come out +floored by the colic. A little whiskey then; and as a little gave so +much ease, she would try a great deal. The result always was a +precipitate retreat up-stairs, a howling hysteric, bilious cramps, the +doctor, a subcutaneous injection of morphine in her arm; then chattering +like a magpie, relapsed into awful silence, and, convinced that the +morphine had been carried straight to her heart, a composing of her +hands and feet, an injured dismissal of every soul from the room, with +the assurance that we should find her straight and stiff and stone-dead +in the morning. + +We never did. For, as we seldom had opportunity of an undisturbed +night's rest, we usually took her at her word if any access of ill +temper, or despair, or drowsiness occasioned banishment from the +presence. Not that we had always been so calm about it; there was a time +when we were excited with every alarm, thrown into flurries and panics +quite to Aunt Pen's mind, running after the doctor at two o'clock of the +morning, building a fire in the range ourselves at midnight to make +gruel for her, rubbing her till we rubbed the skin off our hands, +combing her hair till we went to sleep standing; but Aunt Pen had cried +wolf so long, and the doctors had all declared so stoutly that there was +no wolf, that our once soft hearts had become quite hard and concrete. + +When at last Aunt Pen had had an alarm from nearly every illness for +which the pharmacopoeia prescribes, and she knew that neither we nor +the doctors would listen to the probability of their recurrence; she had +an attack of "sinking." No, there was no particular disease, she used to +say, only sinking; she had been pulled down to an extent from which she +had no strength to recuperate; she was only sinking, a little weaker +to-day than she was yesterday--only sinking. But Aunt Pen ate a very +good breakfast of broiled birds and toast and coffee; a very good lunch +of cold meats and dainties, and a great goblet of thick cream; a very +good dinner of soup and roast and vegetables and dessert, and perhaps a +chicken bone at eleven o'clock in the evening. And when the saucy little +Israel, who carried up her tray, heard her say she was sinking, he +remarked that it was because of the load on her stomach. + +One day, I remember, Aunt Pen was very much worse than usual. We were +all in her room, a sunshiny place which she had connected with the +adjoining one by sliding-doors, so that it might be big enough for us +all to bring our work on occasion, and make it lively for her. She had +on a white-cashmere dressing-gown trimmed with swan's-down, and she lay +among the luxurious cushions of a blue lounge, with a paler blue +blanket, which she had had one of us tricot for her, lying over her +feet, and altogether she looked very ideal and ethereal; for Aunt Pen +always did have such an eye to picturesque effect that I don't know how +she could ever consent to the idea of mouldering away into dust like +common clay. + +She had sent Maria down for Mel and me to come up-stairs with whatever +occupied us, for she was convinced that she was failing fast, and knew +we should regret it if we did not have the last of her. As we had +received the same message nearly every other day during the last three +or four weeks, we did not feel extraordinarily alarmed, but composedly +took our baskets and scissors, and trudged along after Maria. + +"I am sure I ought to be glad that I've succeeded in training my nieces +into such industrious habits," said Aunt Pen, after a little while, +looking at Mel; "but I should think that when a near relative approached +the point of death, the fact might throw needle and thread into the +background for a time." Then she paused for Maria to fan a little more +breath into her. "It's different with Helen," soon she said; "the white +silk shawl she is netting for me may be needed at any moment to lay me +out in." + +"Dear me, Aunt Pen!" cried Mel; "what a picture you'd be, laid out in a +white net shawl!" For the doctor had told us to laugh at these whims all +we might. + +"Oh, you heartless girl!" said Aunt Pen. "To think of pictures at such a +time!" And she closed her eyes as if weary of the world. + +"I never saw anybody who liked to revel in the ghastly the way you do, +Aunt Pen." + +"Mel!" said Aunt Pen, with quite a show of color in her cheek; "I shall +send you down stairs." + +"Do," said Mel; "where I can cut out my gown in peace." + +"Cutting a gown at the bedside of the dying! Are you cold-blooded, or +are you insensible?" + +"Aunt Pen," said Mel, leaning on the point of her scissors, "you know +very well that I have to make my own dresses or go without them. And you +have kept me running your idle errands, up and down two flights of +stairs, to the doctor's and the druggist's, and goodness knows where +and all, till I haven't a thread of any thing that is fit to be seen. +You've been posturing this grand finale of yours, too, all the last +three weeks, and it's time you had it perfect now; and you must let me +alone till I get my gown done." + +"It will do to wear at my funeral," said Aunt Pen bitterly, as she +concluded. + +"No, it won't," said Mel, doggedly; "it's red." + +"Red!" cried Aunt Pen, suddenly opening her eyes, and half raising on +one hand. "What in wonder have you bought a red dress for? You are quite +aware that I can't bear the least intimation of the color. My nerves are +in such a state that a shred of red makes me--" + +"You won't see it, you know," said Mel in what did seem to me an +unfeeling manner. + +"No," said Aunt Pen. "Very true. I sha'n't see it. But what," added she +presently snapping open her eyes, "considered as a mere piece of +economy, you bought a red dress for when you are immediately going into +black, passes common-sense to conjecture! You had better send it down +and have it dyed at once before you cut it, for the shrinkage will spoil +it forever if you don't." + +"Much black I shall go into," said Mel. + +Maria laughed. Aunt Pen cried. + +"Aunt Pen," said the cruel Mel, "if you were going to die you wouldn't +be crying. Dying people have no tears to shed, the doctors say." + +"Somebody ought to cry," said poor Aunt Pen, witheringly. "Don't talk to +me about doctors," she continued, after a silence interrupted only by +the snipping of the scissors. "They are a set of quacks. They know +nothing. I will have all the doctors in town at my funeral for +pall-bearers. It will be a satire too delicate for them to appreciate, +though. Speaking of that occasion, Helen," she went on, turning to me as +a possible ally, "I have so many friends that I suppose the house will +be full." + +"Wouldn't you enjoy it more from church, auntie?" said I. + +"Oh, you hard and wicked girls!" she cried. "You're all alike. Listen to +me! If you won't hear my wishes, you must take my commands. Now, in the +first place, I want the parlors to be overflowing with flowers, +literally lined with flowers. I don't care how much money it takes; +there'll be enough left for you--more than you deserve. And I want you +to be very sure that I'm not to be exposed unless I look exactly as I'd +like to look. You're to put on my white silk that I was to have been +married in, and my veil, and the false orange blossoms. They're all in +the third drawer of the press, and the key's on my chatelaine. And +if--if--well," said Aunt Pen, more to herself than us, "if he comes, +he'll understand. The Bride of Death." + +After that she did not say any more for some minutes, and we were all +silent and sorry, and Mel was fidgeting in a riot of repentance; we had +never, either of us, heard a word of any romance of Aunt Pen's before. +We began to imagine that there might be some excuse for the overthrow of +Aunt Pen's nervous system, some reality in the overthrow. "You will +leave this ring on my finger;" said she; by-and-by. "If Chauncey Read +comes, and wants it, he will take it off. It will fit his finger as well +now, I suppose, as it did when he wore it before he gave it to me." Then +Aunt Pen bit her lip and shut her eyes, and seemed to be slipping off +into a gentle sleep. + +"By-the-way!" said she, suddenly, sitting upright on the lounge, "I +won't have the horses from Brown's livery-- + +"The what, auntie?" + +"The horses for the cortege. You know Brown puts that magnificent span +of his in the hearse on account of their handsome action. I'm sure Mrs. +Gaylard would have been frightened to death if she could only have seen +the way they pranced at her funeral last fall. I was determined then +that they should never draw me;" and Aunt Pen shivered for herself +beforehand. "And I can't have them from Timlin's, for the same reason," +said she. "All his animals are skittish; and you remember when a pair of +them took fright and dashed away from the procession and ran straight to +the river, and there'd have been four other funerals if the schooner at +the wharf hadn't stopped the runaways. And Timlins has a way, too, of +letting white horses follow the hearse with the first mourning-coach, +and it's very bad luck, very--an ill omen; a prophecy of Death and the +Pale Horse again, you know. And I won't have them from Shust's, either," +said Aunt Pen, "for he is simply the greatest extortioner since old +Isaac the Jew." + +"Well, auntie," said Mel, forgetful of her late repentance, "I don't see +but you'll have to go with Shank's mare." + +Even Aunt Pen laughed then. "Don't you really think you are going to +lose me, girls?" asked she. + +"No, auntie," replied Maria. "We all think you are a hypo." + +"A hypo?" + +"Not a hypocrite," said Mel, "but a hypochondriac." + +"I wish I were," sighed Aunt Pen; "I wish I were. I should have some +hope of myself then," said the poor inconsistent innocent. "Oh no, no; I +feel it only too well; I am going fast. You will all regret your +disbelief when I am gone;" and she lay back among her pillows. "That +reminds me," she murmured, presently. "About my monument." + +"Oh, Aunt Pen, do be still," said Mel. + +"No," said Aunt Pen, firmly; "it may be a disagreeable duty, but that is +all the better reason for me to bring my mind to it. And if I don't +attend to it now, it never will be attended to. I know what relatives +are. They put down a slab of slate with a skull and cross-bones +scratched on it, and think they've done their duty. Not that I mean any +reflections on you; you're all well-meaning, but you're giddy. I shall +haunt you if you do any thing of the kind! No; you may send Mr. Mason up +here this afternoon, and I will go over his designs with him. I am +going to have carved Carrara marble, set in a base of polished Scotch +granite, and the inscription is--Girls!" cried Aunt Pen, rising and +clasping her knees with unexpected energy, "I expressly forbid my age +being printed in the paper, or on the lid, or on the stone! I won't +gratify every gossip in town, that I won't! I shall take real pleasure +in baffling their curiosity. And another thing, while I am about it, +don't you ask Tom Maltby to my funeral, or let him come in, if he comes +himself, on any account whatever. I should rise in my shroud if he +approached me. Yes, I should! Tom Maltby may be all very well; I dare +say he is; and I hope I die at peace with him and all mankind, as a good +Christian should. I forgive him; yes, certainly, I forgive him; but it +doesn't follow that I need forget him; and, so long as I remember him, +the way he conducted in buying the pew over my head I can't get over, +dead or alive. And if I only do get well we shall have a reckoning that +will make his hair stand on end--that he may rely on!" And here Aunt Pen +took the fan from Maria, and moved it actively, till she remembered +herself, when she resigned it. "One thing more," she said. "Whatever +happens, Helen, don't let me be kept over Sunday. There'll certainly be +another death in the family within the year if you do. If I die on +Saturday, there's no help for it. Common decency won't let you shove me +into the ground at once, and so you will have to make up your minds for +a second summons." And Aunt Pen, contemplating the suttee of some one of +us with great philosophy, lay down and closed her eyes again. "You might +have it by torchlight on Sunday night, though," said she, half opening +them. "That would be very pretty." And then she dropped off to sleep +with such a satisfied expression of countenance that we judged her to be +welcoming in imagination the guests at her last rites herself. + +Whatever the dream was, she was rudely roused from it by the wreched +little Israel, who came bounding up the stairs, and, without word or +warning, burst into the room, almost white with horror. Why Israel was +afraid I can't conjecture, but, at any rate, a permanent fright would +have been of great personal advantage to him. "Oh, ma'am! oh, miss! +dere's a pusson down stairs, a cullud woman, wid der small-pox!" he +almost whistled in his alarm. + +"With the small-pox!" cried Aunt Pen, springing into the middle of the +floor, regardless of her late repose _in articulo mortis_. "Go away, +Israel! Have you been near her? Put her out immediately! How on earth +did she get there?" + +"You allus telled me to let everybody in," chattered Israel. + +"Put her out! put her out!" cried Aunt Pen, half dancing with +impatience. + +"We can't get her out. She's right acrost der door-step. We's feared ter +tech her." + +But Aunt Pen's head was out of the window, and she was shouting: +"Police! fire! murder! thieves!" possibly in the order of importance of +the four calamities, but quite as if she had a plenty of breath left; +and, for a wonder, the police came to the rescue, and directly afterward +an ambulance took the poor victim of the frightful epidemic to the +hospital. I believe it turned out to be only measles after all, though. + +"Run, Israel!" screamed Aunt Pen then; "run instantly and bring home a +couple of pounds of roll-brimstone, and tell the maids to riddle the +furnace fire and make it as bright and hot as possible, and to light +fires in the parlor grates, and in the old Latrobe, and in every room +in the house, without losing a minute. We'll make this house too warm +for it!" + +And, to our amazement, as soon as Israel came darting back with the +impish material, Aunt Pen took a piece in each hand, directed us to do +the same, and wrapping the blue afghan round her shoulders, descended to +the lower rooms three steps at a time, sent for the doctor to come and +vaccinate us, and having set a chair precisely over the register where a +red-hot stream of air was pouring up, she placed herself upon it and +issued her orders. + +Every window was closed, every grate from basement to attic had a fire +lighted in it, and little pans of brimstone were burning in every room +and hall in the house, while we, astonished, indignant, frightened, and +amused, sat enduring the torments of vapor and sulphur baths to the +point of suffocation. + +"I can't bear this another moment," wheezed Mel. + +"It's the only way," replied Aunt Pen, serenely, with a rivulet +trickling down her nose. "You kill the germs by heat, and since we can't +bake ourselves quite to death, we make sure of the work by the fumes." + +And as she sat there, her face rubicund, her swan's-down straight, +drops on her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, and wherever drops could +cling, her eyes watering, her curls limp, and an atmosphere of +unbearable odor enveloping her in its cloud, the front door opened, and +a footstep rung on the tiles. + +"Jess you keep out o' yer!" yelled Israel to the intruder, seeing it +wasn't the doctor. "We's got der small-pox, and am a-killing de +gemmens--" + +"Pen!" cried a man's voice through the smoke--a deep, melodious voice. + +"What!" exclaimed Aunt Pen, starting up, and then pausing as if she +fancied the horrid fumes might have befogged her brain. + +"Pen!" the voice cried again. + +"Chauncey! Chauncey Read!" she shrieked. "Where do you come from? Am I +dreaming?" + +"From the North Pacific," answered the voice; and we dimly discerned its +owner groping his way forward. "From the five years' whaling voyage into +which I was gagged and dragged--shanghaied, they call it. O, Pen, I +didn't dare to hope I should find--" + +"Oh, Chauncey, is it you?" she cried, and fell fainting at his feet. + +The draught from the open door after him was blowing away the smoke, +and we saw what a great, sunburned, handsome fellow it was that had +caught her in his arms, and was bearing her out to the back balcony and +the fresh air there, used in the course of his whaling voyage, perhaps, +to odors no more belonging to Araby the Blest than those of burning +brimstone do; and, seeing the movement, we divined that he knew as much +about the resources of the house as we did, and so we discreetly +withdrew, Israel's head being twisted behind him as he went to such +extent that you might have supposed he had had his neck wrung. + +Well, we put the white silk and the tulle on Aunt Pen after all; yellow +as it was, she would have no other--only fresh, natural orange blossoms +in place of the false wreath. And if we had not so often had her word +for it in past times, we never should have taken her for any thing but +the gayest bride, the most alive and happy woman in the world. They +returned to the old house from their wedding journey, and we all live +together in great peace and pleasantness. But though three years are +passed and gone since Chauncey Read came home and brought a new +atmosphere with him into our lives, Aunt Pen has never had a sick day +yet; and we find that any allusion to her funeral gives her such a +superstitious trembling that we are pleased to believe it indefinitely +postponed, and by tacit and mutual consent we never say any thing about +it.--_Harper's Magazine_, June, 1872. + + + + +SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS. + +("MARK TWAIN.") + +(BORN, 1835.) + + * * * * * + +THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY. + + +In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from +the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and +inquired after my friend's friend, _Leonidas W._ Smiley, as requested to +do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that +_Leonidas W._ Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a +personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler +about him, it would remind him of his infamous _Jim_ Smiley, and he +would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal +reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless for me. +If that was the design, it certainly succeeded. + +I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the +old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I +noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of +winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He +roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had +commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of +his boyhood named _Leonidas W._ Smiley--_Rev. Leonidas W._ Smiley--a +young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a +resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me any +thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many +obligations to him. + +Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his +chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative +which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he +never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned +the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of +enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein +of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, +so far from his imagining that there was any thing ridiculous or funny +about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and +admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in _finesse_. To +me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer +yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I +asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he +replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never +interrupted him once: + +There was a feller here once by the name of _Jim_ Smiley, in the winter +of '49--or may be it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, +somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I +remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; +but any way he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing +that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other +side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the +other man would suit him--any way just so's he got a bet, _he_ was +satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come +out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't +be no solitry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and +take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a +horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of +it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, +he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if +there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would +fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar, to +bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about +here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug +start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to +get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller +that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was +bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has +seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no +difference to _him_--he would bet on _any_ thing--the dangdest feller. +Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it +seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, +and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable +better--thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy--and coming on so smart +that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, +before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, +any way." + +This-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, +but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster +than that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so +slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or +something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards +start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the +race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and +straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the +air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up +m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing +and blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck +ahead, as near as you could cipher it down. + +And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he +wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a +chance to steal something. But as soon as the money was up on him, he +was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the +fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage +like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and +bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew +Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let +on but what _he_ was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and +the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till +the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other +dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you +understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the +sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, +till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because +they'd been sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone +along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch +for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how +the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared +surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no +more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a +look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was _his_ fault, for +putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which +was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and +laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and +would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in +him, and he had genius--I know it, because he hadn't had no +opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could +make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no +talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of +his'n, and the way it turned out. + +Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats, +and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't +fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog +one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and +so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and +learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he _did_ learn him, too. He'd +give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog +whirling in the air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or may +be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all +right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and +kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far +as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he +could do most any thing--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l +Webster down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the +frog--and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink, +he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and +flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to +scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if +he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You +never see a frog so modest and straight-for'ard as he was, for all he +was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead +level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of +his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you +understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him +as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and +well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been everywheres, +all said he laid over any frog that ever _they_ see. + +Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to +fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a +stranger in the camp, he was--come across him with his box, and says, + +"What might it be that you've got in the box?" + +And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It might be a parrot, or it +might be a canary, may be, but it ain't--it's only just a frog." + +And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round +this way and that, and says, "H'm--so't is. Well, what's _he_ good for?" + +"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for _one_ +thing, I should judge--he can out-jump ary frog in Calaveras county." + +The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, +and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't +see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." + +"May be you don't," Smiley says. "May be you understand frogs, and may +be you don't understand 'em; may be you've had experience, and may be +you ain't, only a amature, as it were. Any ways, I've got _my_ opinion, +and I'll risk forty dollars that he can out-jump any frog in Calaveras +county." + +And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well, +I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, +I'd bet you." + +And then Smiley says, "That's all right--that's all right--if you'll +hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller +took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set +down to wait. + +So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then +he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and +filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to his +chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped +around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and +fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says: + +"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws +just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, +"One--two--three--jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs +from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and +hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use--he +couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no +more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, +and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter +was, of course. + +The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at +the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulders--this way--at +Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no pints +about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." + +Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long +time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog +throw'd off for--I wonder if there ain't some thing the matter with +him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by +the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if +he don't weigh five pound!" and turned him upside down, and he belched +out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was +the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, +but he never ketched him. And-- + +(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got +up to see what was wanted.) And turning to me as he moved away, he said: +"Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I an't going to be +gone a second." + +But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history +of the enterprising vagabond _Jim_ Smiley would be likely to afford me +much information concerning the Rev. _Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I +started away. + +At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me +and recommenced: + +"Well, this-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no +tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--" + +"Oh, hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered, good-naturedly, and +bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed. + + + + +FITZ HUGH LUDLOW. (BORN, 1836--DIED, 1870.) + + * * * * * + +BEN THIRLWALL'S SCHOOLDAYS. + + +My name is Ben Thirlwall, and I am the son of rich but honest parents. I +never had a wish ungratified until I was twelve years of age. My wish +then was to stay on a two-year-old colt which had never been broken. He +did not coincide with me, and a vast revelation of the resistances to +individual will of which the universe is capable, also of a terrestrial +horizon, bottom upward, burst upon me during the brief space which I +spent in flying over his head. Picked up senseless, I was carried to the +bosom of my family on a wheelbarrow, and awoke to the consciousness that +my parents had decided on sending me to a boarding-school,--a remedy to +this day sovereign in the opinion of all well-regulated parents for all +tangential aberrations from the back of a colt or the laws of society. + +The principal's name was Barker; and my only clue to his character +consisted in overhearing that he was an excellent disciplinarian. I was +afraid to ask what that meant, but on reflection concluded it to be a +geographical distinction, and, associating him with Mesopotamia or +Beloochistan, expected to find him a person of mild manners, who shaved +his head, wore a tall hat of dyed sheep's wool, and did a large business +in spices with people who visited him on camels in a front-yard +surrounded by sheds, and having a fountain that played in the middle. + +Having read several books of travels, I was corroborated in my view when +I learned that Mr. Barker lived at the east, and still further, when on +going around point Judith on the steamboat with my father, I became very +sick at the stomach, as all the travellers had done in their first +chapter. + +I need not say that the reality of Mr. Barker was a very terrible +awakening, which contained no lineament of my purple dream, save the +bastinado. Without distinction of age or season the youths who, as per +circular, enjoyed the softening influence of his refined Christian home, +rose to the sound of the gong at five A.M., which may have been very +nice in a home for the early Christians, but was reported among the boys +to have entirely stopped the growth of Little Briggs. This was a child, +whose mother had married again, and whose step-father had felt his duty +to his future too keenly to deprive him of the benign influences of +Barker at any time in the last six years. After rising, we had ten +minutes to wash our faces and hands,--a period by the experience of +mankind demonstrably insufficient, where the soap is of that kind very +properly denominated cast-steel (though purists have a different +spelling), and you have to break an inch of ice to get into the +available region of your water-pitcher. Chunks, who has since made a +large fortune on war-contracts, kept himself in peanuts and four-cent +pies for an entire winter session, by selling an invention of his own, +which consisted of soap, dissolved in water on the stove during the +day-time, put in bottles hooked from the lamp-room by means of a false +key, to be carried to bed and kept warm by boys, whose pocket-money and +desire for a prompt detergent in the morning were adequate to the +disbursement of half a dime a package. I myself took several violent +colds from having the glass next my skin during severe nights; but that +was nothing so bad as the case of Little Briggs, who from lack of the +half-dime, often came down to prayers with a stripe of yesterday's +pencil black on one side of his nose, and a shaving of soap, which, in +the frenzy of despair he had gouged out of his stony cake, on the other. +The state of mind consistent with such a condition of countenance did +not favor correct recitation of the tougher names in Deuteronomy; so, it +can be a cause of surprise to no one, that, when called on at prayers, +and prompted by a ridiculous neighbor, little Briggs sometimes asserted +Joshua to have driven out the Hivites and the Amorites, and the +Canaanites and the Jebusites, and the Hittites and the Perizzites, and +the Moabites and the Musquito-bites, for which he was regularly sent to +bed on Saturday afternoon, as he had no pocket-money to stop, his papa +desiring him to learn self-denial young, as he was intended for a +missionary; though goodness knows that there wasn't enough of him to go +round among many heathen. + +From this specimen of discipline may be learned the entire Barkerian +system of training. I was about to say, "_ex uno disce omnes_," but, as +it's the only Latin I remember from the lot which got rubbed into--or +rather over--me at Barker's, I'm rather sparing of it, not knowing but I +can bring it in somewhere else with better effect. As with the Word of +God, so with that of man,--the grand Barkerian idea of how to fix it in +a boy's memory was to send him to bed, or excoriate his palm. If +religion and polite learning could have been communicated by sheets, +like chicken-pox, or blistered into one like the stern but curative +cantharides, Mr. Barker's boys would have become the envy of mankind and +the beloved of the gods; but not even Little Briggs died young from the +latter or any other cause, which speaks volumes for his constitution.... + +The two Misses Moodle came to establish a young ladies' seminary in the +village of Mungerville, on whose outskirts our own school was situated, +bringing along with them, as the county paper stated, "that charming +atmosphere of refinement and intellectuality in which they ever moved"; +and, what was of more consequence, a capital of twenty girls to start +with. Professional politeness inspired Mr. Barker to make a call on the +fair strangers, which the personal fascinations of the younger Miss +Moodle induced him to repeat. The atmosphere of refinement and +intellectuality gradually acted on him in the nature of an intoxicating +gas, until at length, after twenty-five years of successfully intrenched +widowhood, he laid his heart in the mits of the younger Miss Moodle, and +the two became one Barker. + +As a consequence of this union, social relations began to be established +between the two schools. Mrs. Barker, of an occasional evening, wished +to run down and visit her sister. If Mr. Barker was engaged in quarrying +a page of Cicero out of some stony boy in whom nature had never made any +Latin deposit, or had just put a fresh batch of offenders into the penal +oven of untimely bed, and felt compelled to run up now and then to keep +up the fire under them, by a harrowing description of the way their +parents would feel if they knew of their behavior--an instrument dear to +Mr. Barker as a favorite poker to a boss-baker in love with his +profession--then, after a clucking noise, indicative of how much he +would like to chuck her under the chin, but for the presence of company, +Mr. Barker would coo to Mrs. Barker, "Lovey, your pick, sweet!" waving +his hand comprehensively over the whole school-room; or "Dear, suppose +we say Briggs, or Chunks, or Thirlwall," as the case might be. The only +difficulty about Briggs was clothes. That used to be obviated by a +selection from the trunks of intimate friends; and Briggs was such a +nice boy, that it was a real gratification to see him with your best +jacket on. Many's the time the old fellow has said to Chunks or me, +"What a blessing that I grew! If I hadn't, how could I ever wear your +trousers?" In process of time these occasional visits, as escort to Mrs. +Barker, expanded into an attendance of all the older boys (when not in +bed for moral baking purposes) upon a series of bi-monthly soirees, +given by the remaining Miss Moodle, with a superficial view to her +pupils' attainment of ease in society; and a material substratum of +sandwiches, which Miss Moodle preferred to see, through the atmosphere +of refinement and intellectuality, as "a simple repast." To this was +occasionally added a refreshment, which I have seen elsewhere only at +Sunday-school picnics,--a mild tap of slightly sweetened water, which +tasted as if lemons had formerly been kept in the pail it was made +in;--only for Sunday-schools they make it strong at the outset, and add +water during the hymns, with a vague but praiseworthy expectation that, +in view of the sacredness of the occasion, there will be some miraculous +interposition, as in the case of the widow's cruse, to keep the beverage +up to proof; while Miss Moodle's liquor preserved throughout the evening +a weakness of which generous natures scorned to take advantage beyond +the first tumbler. + +At this portion of my career I was dawned upon by Miss Tucker. From +mature years I look back with a shudder upon the number of parchmenty +sandwiches which I ate, the reservoirs of lemony water which I drank, in +order to be in that lovely creature's society. I experienced agonies in +thinking how much longer it might be before I could get a coat with +tails, when I calculated how soon she would be putting up her back hair. +Her eyes were as blue as I was when I thought she liked Briggs; and she +had a complexion compared with which strawberries and cream were +nowhere. When she was sent to the piano, to show people what the Moodle +system could do in the way of a musical education, I fell into a +cataleptic state and floated off upon a flood of harmony. Miss Moodle +and her mits, self and lemon kids, even the sleepless eye of Barker, +watching for an indiscretion, upon the strength of which he might +defensibly send somebody to bed the next Saturday afternoon, all +vanished from before me, swallowed up in a mild glory, which contained +but two objects,--an angel with low neck and short sleeves, and an +insensate hippopotamus of a piano, which did not wriggle all over with +ecstasy when her white fingers tickled him. + +At such moments I would gladly have gone down on all fours, and had a +key-board mortised into my side at any expense of personal torture, if +Miss Tucker could only have played a piece on me, and herself been +conscious of the chords she was awakening inside my jacket. I loved her +to that degree that my hair never seemed brushed enough when I beheld +her; and I quite spoiled the shape of my best boots through an elevation +of the instep, caused by putting a rolled-up pair of stockings inside +each heel, to approximate the manly stature, at our bi-monthly meetings. +Even her friend, Miss Crickey, a mealy-faced little girl, with saffron +hair, who had been pushed by Miss Moodle so far into the higher +branches, that she had a look of being perpetually frightened to death +with the expectation of hearing them crack and let her down from a +great height,--seemed beautiful to me from the mere fact of daily +breathing the same air with such an angel, sharing her liquorice-stick, +and borrowing her sweet little thimble. + +I had other reasons for prejudice in Miss Crickey's favor. She was the +only person to whom I could talk freely regarding the depth of my +passion for Miss Tucker. Not even to the object of that tremendous +feeling could I utter a syllable which seemed in any way adequate. With +an overpowering consciousness how ridiculous it was, and not only so, +but how far from original, I could give her papers of lemon +Jackson-balls, hinting simultaneously that, though plump as her cheeks, +they were not half so sweet; and through a figure, whose correct name I +have since learned to be periphrasis, I could suggest how much my soul +yearned to expire on her ruby lips, by asking if she had ever played +doorkeeper; regretting that the atmosphere of refinement and +intellectuality did not admit of that healthful recreation at Moodle's, +and begging her to guess whom I would call out if I were doorkeeper +myself. When she opened her blue eyes innocently, and said, "Miss +Crickey?" the intimation was rejected with a melancholy +dissatisfaction, which would have been disdain but for the character of +my feelings to its source. And when, on my pressing her for the name of +the favored mortal whom she would call out if she were doorkeeper, she +slyly dropped her eyes and asked if Briggs sounded any thing like it, I +savagely refused to consider the proposition at all, and for the rest of +the evening ate sandwiches to that degree I wonder my life was not +despaired of, and fled for relief to the lemony bowl. The result of this +mad vortex having been colic and calomel, after my return to Barker's on +that evening, I foreswore such dangerous excesses at the next +bi-monthly; but putting a larger pair of stockings in each boot-heel, to +impress Miss Tucker with a sense of what she had lost, I devoted myself +during the earlier part of the evening to a growing young woman, of the +name of Wagstaff, considerably older than myself and runing straight up +and down from whatever side one might contemplate her. Her conversation +was not entertaining, unless from the Chinese point of view, which, I +understand, distinctly favors monosyllables, and she giggled at me so +persistently that I feared Miss Tucker would think I must be making +myself ridiculous; but, on her being sent to the piano, I stood and +turned over her music with a consciousness that if I ever looked +impressive it was then. All this I did in the effort to seem gay, +although my heart was breaking. I had no comfort on earth save the +thought that I had been brutal to Briggs, and that he sat in an obscure +corner of the room among some little girls in Long Division, hiding, +behind an assistant teacher's skirts, the whitey-brown toe which my +blacking-brush refused to refresh, while I bore my grief upon a pair of +new boots plentifully provided with squeak-leather. When Miss Tucker +slipped a little piece of paper into my hand, as I made a hollow show of +passing her the sandwiches, I came very near dropping the plate; and +when I had a chance to open it unobserved, and read the words, "Are you +mad with me?" I could not occupy my cold and dreary pinnacle a moment +longer, but sought an early opportunity of squeezing her hand two seats +behind the voluminous asylum of Briggs's toes, and whispering, slightly +confused by intensity of feeling, that if I had done any thing I was +sorry for, I was willing to be forgiven. From that moment I was Miss +Tucker's slave. Oh, woman, woman! The string on which you play us is as +long as life; it ties your baby-bib; it laces your queenly bodice; and +on its slenderest tag we dangle everywhere!--_Little Briggs and I._ +(_From Little Brother and Other Genre Pictures_.) + + +SELECTIONS FROM A BRACE OF BOYS. + +I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody; +but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially, +just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human race; +and if, through untoward circumstances,--which Heaven forbid,--I should +lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw me out in +the _Herald_ under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks to a marrying +tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little need to advertise, +all the business being thrown into my way which a single member of my +profession can attend to.... + +I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am, +through the flowery mead of several nurseries. I am detained by all the +little roots that run down into me to drink happiness, but I linger +longest among the children of my sister Lu. + +Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired with a fortune +amassed by the old-fashioned, slow processes of trade, and regards the +mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and gambling +Christianly baptized.... Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove an +unusually good article of brother-in-law and I cannot say that any of my +nieces and nephews interest me more than their two children, Daniel and +Billy, who are more unlike than words can paint them. They are far apart +in point of years; Daniel is twenty-two, Billy eleven. I was reminded of +this fact the other day by Billy, as he stood between my legs, scowling +at his book of sums. + +"'A boy has eighty-five turnips, and gives his sister thirty,'--pretty +present for a girl, isn't it?" said Billy, with an air of supreme +contempt. "Could _you_ stand such stuff,--say?" + +I put on my instructive face and answered,-- + +"Well, my dear Billy, you know that arithmetic is necessary to you if +you mean to be an industrious man and succeed in business. Suppose your +parents were to lose all their property, what would become of them +without a little son who could make money and keep accounts?" + +"Oh," said Billy, with surprise. "Hasn't father got enough stamps to +see him through?" + +"He has now, I hope; but people don't always keep them. Suppose they +should go by some accident, when your father was too old to make any +more stamps for himself?" + +"You haven't thought of brother Daniel--" + +True; for nobody ever had, in connection with the active employments of +life. + +"No, Billy," I replied, "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is +more of a student than a business man, and--" + +"O Uncle Teddy! you don't think I mean he'd support them? I meant I'd +have to take care of father and mother, and him too, when they'd all got +to be old people together. Just think! I'm eleven, and he's twenty-two +so he is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?" + +"Forty, Billy, last August." + +"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you, +Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than that, +and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed, and +wheels him round in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, I bet! +Well, I'll tell you how I'll keep my accounts; I'll have a stick, like +Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a piece out +of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll gouge a piece +out of the other." + +"Spend a _what_?" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister Lu, +who, unperceived, had slipped into the room. + +"A toadskin, ma," replied Billy, shutting up Colburn with a farewell +glance of contempt. + +"Dear, dear! Where does the boy learn such horrid words?" + +"Why, ma, don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one," said Billy, +drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I had +lots of 'em!" + +"Oh!" sighed his mother, "to think I should have a child so addicted to +slang! How I wish he were like Daniel!" + +"Well, mother," replied Billy, "if you wanted two boys just alike you'd +oughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like Daniel +now, when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a dog-fight; +hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog,--I know his bark!" + +With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the table +and bolted downstairs to see the fun. + +"What will become of him?" said Lu, hopelessly; "he has no taste for any +thing but rough play; and then such language as he uses! Why _isn't_ he +like Daniel?" + +"I suppose because his Maker never repeats himself. Even twins often +possess strongly marked individualities. Don't you think it would be a +good plan to learn Billy better before you try to teach him? If you do, +you'll make something as good of him as Daniel though it will be rather +different from that model." + +"Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you do Billy. +But we all know the proverb about old maid's daughters and old +bachelor's sons. I wish you had Billy for a month,--then you'd see." + +"I'm not sure that I'd do any better than you. I might err as much in +other directions But I'd try to start right by acknowledging that he was +a new problem, not to be worked without finding out the value of X in +his particular instance. The formula which solves one boy will no more +solve the next one than the rule-of-three will solve a question in +calculus,--or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt for +one-two-three-four cake will conduct you to a successful issue through +plum-pudding." + +I excel in metaphysical discussion, and was about giving further +elaboration to my favorite idea, when the door burst open. Master Billy +came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few +tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands. + +"Oh my! my!! my!!!" exclaimed his mother. + +"Don't you get scared, ma!" cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of +triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He wont sass me again for nothing +_this_ while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dog-fight, after all? +There was that nasty, good-for-nothing Joe Casey, 'n Patsy Grogan, and a +lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor little +ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail, and were trying to set Joe's +dog on him, though he's ten times littler." + +"You naughty, naughty boy! How did you suppose your mother'd feel to see +you playing with those ragamuffins?" + +"Yes, I _played_ 'em! I polished 'em,--that's the play I did! Says I, +'Put down that poor little pup; ain't you ashamed of yourself, Patsy +Grogan?' 'I guess you don't know who I am,' says he. That's the way they +always say, Uncle Teddy, to make a fellow think they're some awful great +fighters. So says I again, 'Well, you put down that dog, or I'll show +you who I am'; and when he held on, I let him have. Then he dropped the +pup, and as I stooped to pick it up he gave me one on the bugle." + +"_Bugle_! Oh! oh! oh!" + +"The rest pitched in to help him; but I grabbed the pup, and while I was +trying to give as good as I got,--only a fellow can't do it well with +only one hand, Uncle Teddy,--up came a policeman, and the whole crowd +ran away. So I got the dog safe, and here he is!" + +With that Billy set down his "ki-oodle," bid farewell to every fear, and +wiped his bleeding nose. The unhappy beast slunk back between the legs +of his preserver and followed him out of the room, as Lu, with an +expression of maternal despair, bore him away for the correction of his +dilapidated raiment and depraved associations. I felt such sincere pride +in this young Mazzini of the dog-nation, that I was vexed at Lu for +bestowing on him reproof instead of congratulation; but she was not the +only conservative who fails to see a good cause and a heroic heart +under a bloody nose and torn jacket. I resolved that if Billy was +punished he should have his recompense before long in an extra holiday +at Barnum's or the Hippotheatron. + +You already have some idea of my other nephew, if you have noticed that +none of us, not even that habitual disrespecter of dignities, Billy, +ever called him Dan. It would have seemed as incongruous as to call +Billy William. He was one of those youths who never gave their parents a +moment's uneasiness; who never had to have their wills broken, and never +forget to put on their rubbers or take an umbrella. In boyhood he was +intended for a missionary. Had it been possible for him to go to +Greenland's icy mountains without catching cold, or India's coral +strand, without getting bilious, his parents would have carried out +their pleasing dream of contributing him to the world's evangelization. +Lu and Mr. Lovegrove had no doubt that he would have been greatly +blessed if he could have stood it.... + +Both she and his father always encouraged old manners in him. I think +they took such pride in raising a peculiarly pale boy as a gardener +does in getting a nice blanch on his celery, and so long as he was not +absolutely sick, the graver he was the better. He was a sensitive plant, +a violet by a mossy stone, and all that sort of thing.... + +At the time I introduce Billy, both Lu and her husband were much +changed. They had gained a great deal in width of view and liberality of +judgment. They read Dickens, and Thackeray with avidity; went now and +then to the opera; proposed to let Billy take a quarter at Dodworth's; +had statues in their parlor without any thought of shame at their lack +of petticoats, and did multitudes of things which, in their early +married life, they would have considered shocking.... They would greatly +have liked to see Daniel shine in society. Of his erudition they were +proud even to worship. The young man never had any business, and his +father never seemed to think of giving him any, knowing, as Billy would +say, that he had stamps enough to "see him through." If Daniel liked, +his father would have endowed a professorship in some college and given +him the chair; but that would have taken him away from his own room and +the family physician. + +Daniel knew how much his parents wished him to make a figure in the +world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgetting +that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint the +small change of every-day society, in the exclusive cultivation of such +as fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful +blindness which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of +nerveless self-reproach, his parents were equally unaware of their share +in the harm done him, when they ascribed to a delicate organization the +fact that, at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could +not see a Balmoral without his cheeks rivalling the most vivid stripe in +it. They flattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness; but +Daniel had no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought +he should never marry at all. + +About two hours after Billy's disappearance under his mother's convoy, +the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the dog under +his arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy spitzenbergs, +and other indignities had been offered him to the extent of the brush +and comb. He also had a whole jacket on.... + +Billy and I also obtained permission to go out together and be gone the +entire afternoon. We put Crab on a comfortable bed of rags in an old +shoe-box, and then strolled hand-in-hand across that most delightful of +New York breathing-places--Stuyvesant Square. + +"Uncle Teddy," exclaimed Billy, with ardor, "I wish I could do something +to show you how much I think of you for being so good to me. I don't +know how. Would it make you happy if I was to learn a hymn for you,--a +smashing big hymn--six verses, long metre, and no grumbling?" + +"No, Billy; you make me happy enough just by being a good boy." + +"Oh, Uncle Teddy!" replied Billy, decidedly, "I'm afraid I can't do it. +I've tried so often, and I always make such an awful mess of it." ... + +We now got into a Broadway stage going down, and being unable, on +account of the noise, to converse further upon those spiritual conflicts +of Billy's which so much interested me, amused ourselves with looking +out until just as we reached the Astor House, when he asked me where we +were going. + +"Where do you guess?" said I. + +He cast a glance through the front window, and his face became +irradiated. Oh, there's nothing like the simple, cheap luxury of +pleasing a child, to create sunshine enough for the chasing away of the +bluest adult devils. + +"We're going to Barnum's!" said Billy, involuntarily clapping his hands. + +So we were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down on the +place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largely +represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believe +that they only come to amuse the children, or because they've country +cousins visiting them, and never fail to refer to the vulgar set one +finds there, and the fact of the animals smelling like any thing but +Jockey Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three +minutes they're as much interested as any of the people they come to +pooh-pooh, and only put on the high-bred air when they fancy some of +their own class are looking at them. I boldly acknowledge that I go +because I like it. I am especially happy, to be sure, if I have a child +along to go into ecstasies, and give me a chance, by asking questions, +for the exhibition of that fund of information which is said to be one +of my chief charms in the social circle, and on several occasions has +led that portion of the public immediately about the Happy Family into +the erroneous impression that I was Mr. Barnum, explaining his five +hundred thousand curiosities. + +On the present occasion, we found several visitors of the better class +in the room devoted to the aquarium. Among these was a young lady, +apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque of black velvet, +which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirt of garnet +silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiest imaginable +pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over the medium; her +eyes a soft, expressive brown, shaded by masses of hair which exactly +matched their color, and, at that rat-and-miceless day fell in such +graceful abandon as to show at once that nature was the only maid who +crimped their waves into them. Her complexion was rosy with health and +sympathetic enjoyment; her mouth was faultless, her nose sensitive, her +manners full of refinement, and her voice musical as a wood-robin's, +when she spoke to the little boy of six at her side, to whom she was +revealing the palace of the great show-king. Billy and I were +flattening our noses against the abode of the balloon-fish, and +determining whether he looked most like a horse-chestnut burr or a ripe +cucumber, when his eyes and my own simultaneously fell on the child and +lady, In a moment, to Billy, the balloon-fish was as though he had not +been. + +"That's a pretty little boy!" said I. And then I asked Billy one of +those senseless routine questions which must make children look at us, +regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at Bushmen. + +"How would you like to play with him?" + +"Him!" replied Billy, scornfully, "that's his first pair of boots; see +him pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to 'em! But, +crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher!" + +After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the learned +seal and the glass-blowers. Whenever we passed from one room into +another, Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the pretty +girl and child were coming, too. + +Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in astonishment at the +Lightning Calculator,--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigy for +him to do his sums by,--finally thought he had discovered it, and +resolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his arithmetic +lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full how +he became so confused among the wax-works that he pinched the solemnest +showman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautiful +Circassian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read all about +the way they sold girls like her in his geography. + +We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which the +Behemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of the +dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had always +languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood ready +to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the sign-board at the +head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seeming at +all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the child +following after,--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it be +possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down at +ten years,--a little boy's first love? + +We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional +glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compass, +whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, when +the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, +dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by +the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. Either in play or +as a mere coincidence the animal followed it. The other children about +the tank screamed and started back as he bumped his nose against the +side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove not an inch +from one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presented it +to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quite +surprising. + +"That's a real nice boy,--you said so, didn't you, Lottie?--and I wish +he'd come and play with me," said the little fellow by the young lady's +side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with +his cheeks roseate with blushes. + +As he heard this, Billy idled along the edge of the tank for a moment, +then faced about and said,-- + +"P'raps I will some day,--where do you live?" + +"I live on East Seventeenth street with papa,--and Lottie stays there, +too, now,--she's my cousin. Where d' you live?" + +"Oh, I live close by,--right on that big green square, where I guess the +nurse takes you once in a while," said Billy, patronizingly. Then, +looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you out +there." + +"No; Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and +I've just come to visit him." + +"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in the +inextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking-stove,--for real fire,--and +blocks and a ball with a string." + +Billy, who belonged to a club for the practice of the great American +game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battist among +the I.G.B.B.C., or "Infant Giants," smiled from that altitude upon +Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday afternoon. + +Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room +over Pickwick with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of +Daniel. I called "Come in!" and entering with a slow, dejected air, he +sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though +occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head +again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down Dickens, and spoke +myself. + +"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?" + +"I don't feel very well, uncle." + +"What's the matter, my boy?" + +"Oh-ah, I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you." + +I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered,-- + +"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you. +Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not harassed by +any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I +know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. +This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, +general dejection, and all--to three causes,--dyspepsia, religious +conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?" + +"No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melanancholy on religion, and"-- + +"You don't tell me you're in love?" + +"Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy." + +I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this +unimaginable revelation, then said: + +"Is your feeling returned?" + +"I really don't know, uncle; I don't believe it is. I don't see how it +can be. I never did any thing to make her love me. What is there in me +to love? I've borne nothing for her,--that is, nothing that could do her +any good,--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, +look at it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer any thing +that can get a woman's love." + +"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along with +you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive, and +neuter!" + +Daniel smiled faintly. + +"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you +hit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman, +I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the +philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry"-- + +"Thank God they don't, Daniel!" sighed I, devoutly. + +"Never mind,--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking +about the grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like +the star business, they say,--and I could tell her where all the +constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about +them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance +would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman he +loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to analyze her +bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of +Orion? I can't talk bread-and-butter talk. I can't do any thing that +makes a man even tolerable to a woman!" + +"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread-and-butter talk is +tolerable to a woman!" + +"No; but it's necessary to some extent,--at any rate the ability is,--in +order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet and +strike women. And oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in +society!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing +gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack +Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect +admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners,--and all sorts +of men without an idea in their heads have that,--while I turn all +colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy, and abrupt, and abstracted, +and bad at repartee,--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so +ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains for +me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've +ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before her!" + +"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman +is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I +don't ask you, because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), +you must seek her companionship until you're well enough acquainted with +her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she +meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard +than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and God forbid +you should marry her otherwise), she knows that people can't always be +dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange-ice. If she's a girl +capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry a +girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and, once +found, they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in +the show-case of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this +comes about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adapt +Milton, she'll drop into your lap 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'" + +"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you the +sacredest of secrets,--regularly every day of my life I send her a +little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanft's." + +"Does she know who sends them?'" + +"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a +word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, uncle, +for not mentioning her name yet? You see she may despise or hate me some +day when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; and +then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her by +any absurd connection with myself." + +"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, +though a little counsel with your head would show you that your only +absurdity is self-depreciation." + +Daniel bid me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed, my +mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the +afternoon with me and reversed his mother's wish, thinking,-- + +"Oh, if Daniel were more like Billy!" + +It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my +after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my +room till St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine. + +"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you been +under till this time of day? We sha'n't have a minute to look over our +spelling together, and I know a boy who's going in for promotion next +week. Have you had your breakfast, and taken care of Crab?" + +"Yes, sir; but I didn't feel like getting up this morning." + +"Are you sick?" + +"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you." + +"Indeed I won't, Billy!" + +"Well,"--his voice dropped to a whisper, and he stole close to my +side,--"I had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing before +the bell rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer,--so kinder good and +kinder bad,--and I wanted to see her so much, that if I hadn't been a +big boy I believe I should have blubbered. I tried ever so much to go to +sleep and see her again; but the more I tried the more I couldn't. After +all, I had to get up without it, though I didn't want any breakfast, and +only ate two buckwheat cakes, when I always eat six, you know, Uncle +Teddy. Can you keep a secret?" + +"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me +upside-down like a savings-bank." + +"Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell you +the secret, though,--that girl and I are going to get married. I mean to +ask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!" + +"My dear Billy, sha'n't you wait a little while to see if you always +like her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older." + +"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly! I'm as old as the +kings of France used to be when they got married,--I read it in Abbott's +histories. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run or I shall +get a tardy mark, and, perhaps, she'll want to see my certificate +sometimes." + +So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast as +his legs could carry him. O Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest neither +the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons buttoning on +his jacket,--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and teachers have +failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a good boy! + +With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored, and myself the confidant of +both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and +distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to +overcome his bashfulness; was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant +only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news, told +in his slangy New-York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim,--"Oh, +I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as I went +by the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a valentine to +her,--because it was too big to shove in a lamp-post, and she might +catch him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away. +Daniel wrote his own valentine; but, despite its originality, that +document gave him no such comfort as Billy got from twenty-five cents' +worth of embossed paper, pink cupids, and doggerel. Finally, Billy +announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy, and got introduced +to his girl. + +Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company,"--not a +party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family were +well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood. +There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there was to be dancing +but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile +usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the +splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable +gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to +the _beau monde_,--a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, +with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How +simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt +somewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests asking +leave to bring along her niece, who was making her a few weeks' visit. +As a matter of course, however, she returned answer to bring the young +lady and welcome. + +Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen I invited +him to make his toilet in mine, and, indeed, wanting him to create a +favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem._, tying his cravat, and +teasing the divinity-student look out of his side-hair. My little dandy +Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to +button his jacket for him so that it showed his shirt-studs "like a +man's," Count d'Orsay could not have felt a more pleasing sense of his +sufficiency for all the demands of the gay world. + +When we reached the parlor we found Pa and Ma Lovegrove already +receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old +married couples, which, after paying their devoirs, fell in two like +unriveted scissors,--the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa and the +ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such questions as +severally concerned them, such as "the way gold closed," and "how the +children were." + +Besides the old married people there were several old young men of +distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect, who, having nothing in common +with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to band +themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the arch +pillars, or appeared to be considering whether, on the whole, it would +not be feasible and best to sit down on the centre-table. These +subsisted upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional +chance to throw them by rapid sorties of conversation,--became +galvanically active the moment they were punched up, and fell flat the +moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, +having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, +lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be taken +preternaturally bashful, with his sails all aback, just as I wanted to +carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built cruiser of a +nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that last plank of +drowning conversationists, the photograph album. All the dejected young +men made for it at once, some reaching it just as they were about to +sink for the last time, but all getting a grip on it somehow, and +staying there in company with other people's babies whom they didn't +know, and celebrities whom they knew to death, until, one by one, they +either stranded upon a motherly dowager by the Fire-place Shoals, or +were rescued from the Sofa Reef by some gallant wrecker of a +strong-minded young lady, with a view to taking salvage out of them in +the German. + +Besides these, were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and girls, +who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to remind him +of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison with the queen +of his affections, they were in danger of being despised by him as small +fry. + +The younger ladies and gentlemen,--those who had fascinations to +disport, or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, +were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that +oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth. + +Daniel was in conversation with a perfect godsend of a girl, who +understood Latin and had begun Greek. Billy was taking a moment's +vacation from his boys and girls, busy with "Old Maid" in the +extension-room, and whispering with his hand in mine, "Oh, don't I wish +_she_ were here!" when a fresh invoice of ladies, just unpacked from the +dressing-room in all the airy elegance of evening costume, floated +through the door. I heard Lu say,-- + +"Ah, Mrs. Rumbullion! Happy to see your niece, too. How d'ye do, Miss +Pilgrim?" + +At this last word Billy jumped as if he had been shot, and the bevy of +ladies opening about sister Lu disclosed the charming face and figure of +the pretty girl we had met at Barnum's. + +Billy's countenance rapidly changed from astonishment to joy. + +"Isn't that splendid, Uncle Teddy? Just as I was wishing it! It's just +like the fairy books!" and, rushing up to the party of new-comers, "My +dear Lottie!" cried he, "if I'd only known you were coming I'd have gone +after you!" + +As he caught her by the hand I was pleased to see her soft eyes brighten +with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu looked on +naturally with astonishment in every feature. + +"Why, Billy!" said she, "you ought not to call a strange young lady' +_Lottie_!' Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy." + +"And you must excuse my mother, Lottie," said Billy, affectionately +patting Miss Pilgrim's rose kid, "for calling you a strange young lady. +You are not strange at all,--you're just as nice a girl as there is." + +"There are no excuses necessary," said Miss Pilgrim, with a bewitching +little laugh. "Billy and I know each other intimately well, Mrs. +Lovegrove; and I confess that when I heard the lady aunt had been +invited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing to infringe +etiquette this evening by coming where I had no previous introduction." + +"Don't you care!" said Billy, encouragingly. "I'll introduce you to +every one of our family; I know 'em if you don't." + +At this moment I came up as Billy's reinforcement, and fearing lest in +his enthusiasm he might forget the canon of society which introduces a +gentleman to a lady, not the lady to him, I ventured to suggest it +delicately by saying,-- + +"Billy, will you grant me the favor of a presentation to Miss Pilgrim?" + +"In a minute, Uncle Teddy," answered Billy, considerably lowering his +voice. "The older people first"; and after this reproof I was left to +wait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of introducing +to the young lady his father and his mother. + +Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with an +air of great dignity intrusted her to my care and left us promenading +while he went in search of Daniel. I myself looked in vain for that +youth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the last comers. Miss +Pilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in Billy, whom she spoke +of as one of the most delightfully original boys she had ever met; in +fact, altogether the most fascinating young gentleman she had seen in +New York society. You may be sure it wasn't Billy's left ear which +burned when I made my responses. + +In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of disappointment, +that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a light through his +keyhole, but the door was locked and he could get no admittance. Just +then Lu came up to present a certain--no, an uncertain--young man of the +fleet stranded on parlor furniture earlier in the evening. To Lu's great +astonishment Miss Pilgrim asked Billy's permission to leave him. It was +granted with all the courtesy of a _preux chevalier_, on the condition, +readily assented to by the lady, that she should dance one Lancers with +him during the evening. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior being +to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries, "Would any +body ever suppose that was our Billy?" + +"I should, my dear sister," said I, with proud satisfaction; "but you +remember I always was just to Billy." + +Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel. I found his door locked and +a light shining through the keyhole, as Billy had stated. I made no +attempt to enter by knocking; but going to my room and opening the +window next his, leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash with +my cane, and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method of +communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush. +When he saw me he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, +and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me +enter by the normal mode. + +"Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean? Are you sick?" + +"Uncle Edward, I am not sick,--and this means that I am a fool. Even a +little boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the very dust. +I wish I'd been a missionary and got massacred by savages. Oh that I'd +been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or that my mother +hadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't wrong to take my +life into my own hands, I'd open that window, and--and--sit in a draught +this very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter! Oh, oh, oh!" + +And Daniel paced the floor with strides of frenzy. + +"Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly a minute. What +brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough the first +ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight long enough +to speak to the Rumbullion party who had just come in, and when I turned +around you were gone. Now you are in this fearful condition. What is +there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such a bender of +bashfulness as this which I here behold?" + +"Rumbullion indeed!" said Daniel. "A hundred Rumbullions could not make +me feel as I do. But _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her little +finger; and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!" + +"What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?" + +"Miss Pilgrim!" + +I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and +argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would +bring up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling them +that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he +instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me down +stairs. This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I +would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him +surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes +and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a +favorable impression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there +was little tremor in his knees when he descended the stairs. Well-a-day! +So Daniel and Billy were rivals! + +The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase. + +"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" said he, cheerily. "I was just going to +look after you and Uncle Teddy. We've wanted you for the dances. We've +had the Lancers twice and three round dances; and I danced the second +Lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games,--to amuse the +children, you know," he added, loftily, with the adult gesture of +pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension-room. "Lottie's +going to play, too; so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here +comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim,--let me introduce +him to you. I'm sure you'll like him. There's nothing he don't know." + +Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel-post of the staircase, and, when +she looked into Daniel's face, blushed like the red, red rose, losing +her self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel. + +The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the opposite +party's falls, and Daniel made out to say, in a firm tone, that it was +long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss Pilgrim. + +"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss +Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the tell-tale. + +"Oho! so you don't want any introduction!" exclaimed Master Billy. "I +didn't know you knew each other, Lottie?" + +"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join the plays?" + +"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind,--all the grown +people are going too." + +On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being +almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of jolly +little Mrs. Bloomingal, sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant +Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be +young again, and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff till +we were tired of that,--Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out +splendidly as Blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the style he hunted +down and caught the ladies, as satisfied me that nothing but his +eyesight stood in the way of his making an audacious figure in the +world. Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a +premature flirt, proposed "Door-keeper,"--a suggestion accepted with +great _eclat_ by all the children, several grown people assenting. + +To Billy--quite as much on account of his shining prominence in the +executive faculties as of his character as host--was committed the duty +of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There were so +many of us that "Aina-maina-mona-mike" would not go quite round; but, +with that promptness of expedience which belongs to genius, Billy +instantly added on, "Intery-mintery-cutery-corn," and the last word of +the cabalistic formula fell upon me--Edward Balbus. I disappeared into +the entry amidst peals of happy laughter from both old and young, +calling, when the door opened again to ask me whom I wanted, for the +pretty lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After giving me a +coquettish little chirrup of a kiss, and telling me my beard scratched, +she bade me, on my return, send out to her "Mithter Billy Lovegrove." I +obeyed her; my youngest nephew retired; and after a couple of seconds, +during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy +being a great favorite with the little girls, she came back, pouting and +blushing, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. That young lady +showed no mock-modesty, but arose at once, and laughingly went out to +her youthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her +ardently, and told her he loved her better than any girl in the world. +As he turned to go back, she told him that he might send to her one of +her juvenile cousins, Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this +youthful Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most +terrible passion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing +practical jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy marched +into the room, and, having shut the door behind him, paralyzed the +crowded parlor by an announcement that Mr. Daniel Lovegrove was wanted. + +I was standing at his side, and could feel him tremble,--see him turn +pale. + +"Dear me!" he whispered, in a choking voice; "can she mean me?" + +"Of course she does," said I. "Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely you +can't refuse such an invitation from a lady." + +"No, I suppose not," said he, mechanically. And amidst much laughter +from the disinterested, while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his +mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit +from the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that +instrument described by Mr. Samuel Weller,--a pair of patent +double-million-magnifying microscopes of hextry power, to see +through a deal door. Instead of this, I had to learn what happened +only by report. + +Lottie Pilgrim was standing under the hall burners with her elbow on the +newel-post, looking more vividly charming than he had ever seen her +before at Mrs. Cramcroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled by the +apparition of Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of the little Rumbullion +whom she was expecting,--she had no time to exclaim or hide her mounting +color, none at all to explain to her own mind the mistake that had +occurred, before his arm was clasped around her waist, and his lips so +closely pressed to hers, that through her soft thick hair she could feel +the throbbing of his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking +dream, from which he waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes +with utter though not incensed stupefaction,--to stammer,-- + +"Forgive me! Do forgive me! I thought you were in earnest." + +"So I was," she said, tremulously, as soon as she could catch her voice, +"in sending for my cousin Reginald." + +"Oh, dear, what shall I do! Believe me, I was told you wanted me,--let +me go and explain it to mother,--she'll tell the rest,--I couldn't do +it,--I'd die of mortification. Oh, that wretched boy Billy!" + +On the principle already mentioned, his agitation reassured her. + +"Don't try to explain it now,--it may get Billy a scolding. Are there +any but intimate family friends here this evening?" + +"No--I believe--no--I'm sure," replied Daniel, collecting his +faculties. + +"Then I don't mind what they think. Perhaps they'll suppose we've known +each other long; but we'll arrange it by-and-by. They'll think the more +of it the longer we stay out here,--hear them laugh! I must run back +now. I'll send you somebody." + +A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the parlor, +and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her quick woman-wit +showed her how to retaliate and divide the embarrassment of the +occasion. As she passed me she said in an undertone,--"Answer quick! +Who's that fat lady on the sofa, that laughs so loud?" + +"Mrs. Cromwell Craggs," said I, as quietly. + +Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtesy, and spoke in a modest but +distinct voice,--"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger, +you know; but is there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs,--Mrs. _Cromwell_ +Craggs? For if so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. +Cromwell Craggs." + +Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had to +go and get kissed like the rest of us. + +Before the close of the evening, Billy was made as jealous as his +parents and I were surprised to see Daniel in close conversation with +Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and fuschias of the conservatory. "A +regular flirtation," said Billy, somewhat indignantly. The conclusion +they arrived at was, that after all no great harm had been done, and +that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun. If I +had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have +suspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was not +unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so much as I +could see showed me that the ice was broken.... + +--_Little Brother, and Other Genre Pictures_. + + + + +THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. + +(BORN, 1836.) + + * * * * * + +A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. + + +I. + +At five o'clock in the morning of the tenth of July, 1860, the front +door of a certain house on Anchor Street, in the ancient seaport town of +Rivermouth, might have been observed to open with great caution. This +door, as the least imaginative reader may easily conjecture, did not +open itself. It was opened by Miss Margaret Callaghan, who immediately +closed it softly behind her, paused for a few seconds with an +embarrassed air on the stone step, and then, throwing a furtive glance +up at the second-story windows, passed hastily down the street towards +the river, keeping close to the fences and garden walls on her left. + +There was a ghost-like stealthiness to Miss Margaret's movements, though +there was nothing whatever of the ghost about Miss Margaret herself. +She was a plump, short person, no longer young, with coal-black hair +growing low on the forehead, and a round face that would have been +nearly meaningless if the features had not been emphasized--italicized, +so to speak--by the small-pox. Moreover, the brilliancy of her toilet +would have rendered any ghostly hypothesis untenable. Mrs. Solomon (we +refer to the dressiest Mrs. Solomon, which ever one that was) in all her +glory was not arrayed like Miss Margaret on that eventful summer +morning. She wore a light-green, shot-silk frock, a blazing red shawl, +and a yellow crape bonnet profusely decorated with azure, orange, and +magenta artificial flowers. In her hand she carried a white parasol. The +newly risen sun, ricocheting from the bosom of the river and striking +point-blank on the top-knot of Miss Margaret's gorgeousness, made her an +imposing spectacle in the quiet street of that Puritan village. But, in +spite of the bravery of her apparel, she stole guiltily along by garden +walls and fences until she reached a small, dingy frame-house near the +wharves, in the darkened doorway of which she quenched her burning +splendor, if so bold a figure is permissible. + +Three quarters of an hour passed. The sunshine moved slowly up Anchor +Street, fingered noiselessly the well-kept brass knockers on either +side, and drained the heeltaps of dew which had been left from the +revels of the fairies overnight in the cups of the morning-glories. Not +a soul was stirring yet in this part of the town, though the +Rivermouthians are such early birds that not a worm may be said to +escape them. By and by one of the brown Holland shades at one of the +upper windows of the Bilkins Mansion--the house from which Miss Margaret +had emerged--was drawn up, and old Mr. Bilkins in spiral nightcap looked +out on the sunny street. Not a living creature was to be seen, save the +dissipated family cat--a very Lovelace of a cat that was not allowed a +night-key--who was sitting on the curbstone opposite, waiting for the +hall door to be opened. Three quarters of an hour, we repeat, had +passed, when Mrs. Margaret O'Rourke, _nee_ Callaghan, issued from the +small, dingy house by the river, and regained the door-step of the +Bilkins mansion in the same stealthy fashion in which she had left it. + +Not to prolong a mystery that must already oppress the reader, Mr. +Bilkins's cook had, after the manner of her kind, stolen out +of the premises before the family were up, and got herself +married--surreptitiously and artfully married, as if matrimony were an +indictable offence. + +And something of an offence it was in this instance. In the first place +Margaret Callaghan had lived nearly twenty years with the Bilkins +family, and the old people--there were no children now--had rewarded +this long service by taking Margaret into their affections. It was a +piece of subtle ingratitude for her to marry without admitting the +worthy couple to her confidence. In the next place, Margaret had married +a man some eighteen years younger than herself. That was the young man's +lookout, you say. We hold it was Margaret that was to blame. What does a +young blade of twenty-two know? Not half so much as he thinks he does. +His exhaustless ignorance at that age is a discovery which is left for +him to make in his prime. + + "Curly gold locks cover foolish brains, + Billing and cooing is all your cheer; + Sighing and singing of midnight strains, + Under Bonnybells window panes,-- + Wait till you come to Forty Year!" + +In one sense Margaret's husband _had_ come to forty year--she was forty +to a day. + +Mrs. Margaret O'Rourke, with the baddish cat following closely at her +heels, entered the Bilkins mansion, reached her chamber in the attic +without being intercepted, and there laid aside her finery. Two or three +times, while arranging her more humble attire, she paused to take a look +at the marriage certificate, which she had deposited between the leaves +of her Prayer-Book, and on each occasion held that potent document +upside down; for Margaret's literary culture was of the severest order, +and excluded the art of reading. + +The breakfast was late that morning. As Mrs. O'Rourke set the coffee-urn +in front of Mrs. Bilkins and flanked Mr. Bilkins with the broiled +mackerel and buttered toast, Mrs. O'Rourke's conscience smote her. She +afterwards declared that when she saw the two sitting there so +innocent-like, not dreaming of the _comether_ she had put upon them, she +secretly and unbeknownt let a few tears fall into the cream-pitcher. +Whether or not it was this material expression of Margaret's penitence +that spoiled the coffee does not admit of inquiry; but the coffee was +bad. In fact, the whole breakfast was a comedy of errors. + +It was a blessed relief to Margaret when the meal was ended. She retired +in a cold perspiration to the penetralia of the kitchen, and it was +remarked by both Mr. and Mrs. Bilkins that those short flights of +vocalism--apropos of the personal charms of one Kate Kearney, who lived +on the banks of Killarney--which ordinarily issued from the direction of +the scullery we're unheard that forenoon. + +The town clock was striking eleven, and the antiquated time-piece on the +staircase (which never spoke but it dropped pearls and crystals, like +the fairy in the story) was lisping the hour, when there came three +tremendous knocks at the street door. Mrs. Bilkins, who was dusting the +brass-mounted chronometer in the hall, stood transfixed, with arm +uplifted. The admirable old lady had for years been carrying on a +guerilla warfare with itinerant venders of furniture polish, and +pain-killer, and crockery cement and the like. The effrontery of the +triple knock convinced her the enemy was at her gates--possibly that +dissolute creature with twenty-four sheets of note-paper and twenty-four +envelopes for fifteen cents. + +Mrs. Bilkins swept across the hall, and opened the door with a jerk. +The suddenness of the movement was apparently not anticipated by the +person outside, who, with one arm stretched feebly towards the receding +knocker, tilted gently forward, and rested both hands on the threshold +in an attitude which was probably common enough with our ancestors of +the Simian period, but could never have been considered graceful. By an +effort that testified to the excellent condition of his muscles, the +person instantly righted himself, and stood swaying unsteadily on his +toes and heels, and smiling rather vaguely on Mrs. Bilkins. + +It was a slightly-built but well-knitted young fellow, in the not +unpicturesque garb of our marine service. His woollen cap, pitched +forward at an acute angle with his nose, showed the back part of a head +thatched with short yellow hair, which had broken into innumerable curls +of painful tightness. On his ruddy cheeks a sparse, sandy beard was +making a timid _debut_. Add to this a weak, good-natured mouth, a pair +of devil-may-care blue eyes, and the fact that the man was very drunk, +and you have a pre-Raphaelite portrait--we may as well say at once--of +Mr. Larry O'Rourke of Mullingar, County Westmeath, and late of the +United States sloop-of-war Santee. + +The man was a total stranger to Mrs. Bilkins but the instant she caught +sight of the double white anchors embroidered on the lapels of his +jacket, she unhesitatingly threw back the door, which with great +presence of mind she had partly closed. + +A drunken sailor standing on the step of the Bilkins mansion was no +novelty. The street, as we have stated, led down to the wharves, and +sailors were constantly passing. The house abutted directly on the +street; the granite door-step was almost flush with the sidewalk, and +the huge, old-fashioned brass knocker--seemingly a brazen hand that had +been cut off at the wrist, and nailed against the oak as a warning to +malefactors--extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. It +seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and when +there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would +frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. There +appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets. +Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins--a sad +losel, we fear--who ran away to try his fortunes before the mast, and +fell overboard in a gale off Hatteras. "Lost at sea," says the chubby +marble slab in the Old South Burying-Ground, "_aetat._ 18." Perhaps that +is why no blue-jacket, sober or drunk, was ever repulsed from the door +of the Bilkins mansion. + +Of course Mrs. Bilkins had her taste in the matter, and preferred them +sober. But as this could not always be, she tempered her wind, so to +speak, to the shorn lamb. The flushed, prematurely-old face that now +looked up at her moved the good lady's pity. + +"What do you want?" she asked, kindly. + +"Me wife." + +"There's no wife for you here," said Mrs. Bilkins, somewhat taken aback. +"His wife!" she thought; "it's a mother the poor boy stands in need of." + +"Me wife," repeated Mr. O'Rourke, "for betther or for worse." + +"You had better go away," said Mrs. Bilkins, bridling up, "or it will be +the worse for you." + +"To have and to howld," continued Mr. O'Rourke, wandering +retrospectively in the mazes of the marriage service, "to have and to +howld till death--bad luck to him!--takes one or the ither of us." + +"You're a blasphemous creature," said Mrs. Bilkins, severely. + +"Thim's the words his riverince spake this mornin', standin' foreninst +us," explained Mr. O'Rourke. "I stood here, see, and me jew'l stood +there, and the howly chaplain beyont." + +And Mr. O'Rourke with a wavering forefinger drew a diagram of the +interesting situation on the door-step. + +"Well," returned Mrs. Bilkins, "if you're a married man, all I have to +say is, there's a pair of fools instead of one. You had better be off; +the person you want doesn't live here." + +"Bedad, thin, but she does." + +"Lives here?" + +"Sorra a place else." + +"The man's crazy," said Mrs. Bilkins to herself. + +While she thought him simply drunk, she was not in the least afraid; but +the idea that she was conversing with a madman sent a chill over her. +She reached back her hand preparatory to shutting the door, when Mr. +O'Rourke, with an agility that might have been expected from his +previous gymnastics, set one foot on the threshold and frustrated the +design. + +"I want me wife," he said sternly. + +Unfortunately, Mr. Bilkins had gone uptown, and there was no one in the +house except Margaret, whose pluck was not to be depended on. The case +was urgent. With the energy of despair Mrs. Bilkins suddenly placed the +toe of her boot against Mr. O'Rourke's invading foot, and pushed it +away. The effect of this attack was to cause Mr. O'Rourke to describe a +complete circle on one leg, and then sit down heavily on the threshold. +The lady retreated to the hat-stand, and rested her hand mechanically on +the handle of a blue cotton umbrella. Mr. O'Rourke partly turned his +head and smiled upon her with conscious superiority. At this juncture a +third actor appeared on the scene, evidently a friend of Mr. O'Rourke, +for he addressed that gentleman as "a spalpeen," and told him to go +home. + +"Divil an inch," replied the spalpeen; but he got himself off the +threshold, and resumed his position on the step. + +"It's only Larry, mum," said the man, touching his forelock politely; +"as dacent a lad as ever lived, when he's not in liquor; an' I've known +him to be sober for days togither," he added, reflectively. "He don't +mane a ha'p'orth o' harum, but jist now he's not quite in his right +moind." + +"I should think not," said Mrs. Bilkins, turning from the speaker to Mr. +O'Rourke, who had seated himself gravely on the scraper, and was +weeping. "Hasn't the man any friends?" + +"Too many of 'em, mum, an' it's along wid dhrinkin' toasts wid 'em that +Larry got throwed. The punch that spalpeen has dhrunk this day would +amaze ye. He give us the slip awhiles ago, bad 'cess to him, an' come up +here. Didn't I tell ye, Larry, not to be afther ringin' at the owle +gintleman's knocker? Ain't ye got no sinse at all?" + +"Misther Donnehugh," responded Mr. O'Rourke with great dignity, "ye're +dhrunk again." + +Mr. Donnehugh, who had not taken more than thirteen ladles of rum-punch, +disdained to reply directly. + +"He's a dacent lad enough"--this to Mrs. Bilkins--"but his head is wake. +Whin he's had two sups o' whiskey he belaves he's dhrunk a bar'l full. A +gill o' wather out of a jimmy-john'd fuddle him, mum." + +"Isn't there anybody to look after him?" + +"No, mum, he's an orphan; his father and mother live in the owld +counthry, an' a fine hale owld couple they are." + +"Hasn't he any family in the town?" + +"Sure, mum, he has a family; wasn't he married this blessed mornin'?" + +"He said so." + +"Indade, thin, he was--the pore divil!" + +"And the--the person?" inquired Mrs. Bilkins. + +"Is it the wife, ye mane?" + +"Yes, the wife; where is she?" + +"Well, thin, mum," said Mr. Donnehugh, "it's yerself can answer that." + +"I?" exclaimed Mrs. Bilkins. "Good heavens this man's as crazy as the +other!" + +"Begorra, if anybody's crazy, it's Larry, for it's Larry has married +Margaret." + +"What Margaret?" cried Mrs. Bilkins, with a start. + +"Margaret Callaghan, sure." + +"_Our_ Margaret? Do you mean to say that Our Margaret has married +that--that good-for-nothing, inebriated wretch!" + +"It's a civil tongue the owld lady has, any way," remarked Mr. O'Rourke, +critically, from the scraper. + +Mrs. Bilkins's voice during the latter part of the colloquy had been +pitched in a high key; it rung through the hall and penetrated to the +kitchen, where Margaret was thoughtfully wiping the breakfast things. +She paused with a half-dried saucer in her hand, and listened. In a +moment more she stood, with bloodless face and limp figure, leaning +against the banister, behind Mrs. Bilkins. + +"Is it there ye are, me jew'l!" cried Mr. O'Rourke, discovering her. + +Mrs. Bilkins wheeled upon Margaret. + +"Margaret Callaghan, _is_ that thing your husband?" + +"Ye--yes, mum," faltered Mrs. O'Rourke, with a woful lack of spirit. + +"Then take it away!" cried Mrs. Bilkins. + +Margaret, with a slight flush on either cheek, glided past Mrs. Bilkins, +and the heavy oak door closed with a bang, as the gates of Paradise must +have closed of old upon Adam and Eve. + +"Come!" said Margaret, taking Mr. O'Rourke by the hand; and the two +wandered forth upon their wedding journey down Anchor Street, with all +the world before them where to choose. They chose to halt at the small, +shabby tenement-house by the river, through the doorway of which the +bridal pair disappeared with a reeling, eccentric gait; for Mr. +O'Rourke's intoxication seemed to have run down his elbow, and +communicated itself to Margaret. + +O Hymen! who burnest precious gums and scented woods in thy torch at the +melting of aristocratic hearts, with what a pitiful penny-dip thou hast +lighted up our little back-street romance.--_Marjorie Daw, and Other +Stories_. + + +END OF VOL. 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