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diff --git a/28503.txt b/28503.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..098e89e --- /dev/null +++ b/28503.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7687 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wit of Women, by Kate Sanborn + + +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: The Wit of Women + Fourth Edition + + +Author: Kate Sanborn + + + +Release Date: April 5, 2009 [eBook #28503] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIT OF WOMEN*** + + +E-text prepared by Bryan Ness, Jen Haines, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital +material generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/witofwomen00sanbiala + + + + + +THE WIT OF WOMEN + +by + +KATE SANBORN + + * * * * * + + "The Wit of Women," by Miss Kate Sanborn, [Funk & + Wagnalls,] proves that the authoress is one of those + rare women who are gifted with a sense of humor. + Fortunately for her, the female sense of humor, when it + does exist, is not affected by such trifles as + "chestnuts." Therefore, women will read with pleasure + Miss Sanborn's choice collection of these dainties. + There are, however, many new anecdotes in Miss + Sanborn's collection, and, taken as a whole, it may + fairly be said to establish the fact that there have + been feminine wits not inferior to the best of the + opposite sex. + + [Newspaper clipping pasted into front cover] + + * * * * * + +THE WIT OF WOMEN + +by + +KATE SANBORN + +Fourth Edition + + + + + + + +New York +Funk & Wagnalls Company +London and Toronto +1895 + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by +Funk & Wagnalls, +In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C. + + + + + Miss Addie Boyd, of the Cincinnati "Commercial," and + Miss Anna M.T. Rossiter, alias Lilla M. Cushman, of the + Meriden "Recorder," will probably represent the gentler + sex in the convention of paragraphers which meets next + month. They are a pair o' graphic writers and equal to + the best in the profession.--Waterloo Observer. + + [Newspaper clipping pasted into book] + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +It is refreshing to find an unworked field all ready for harvesting. + +While the wit of men, as a subject for admiration and discussion, is now +threadbare, the wit of women has been almost utterly ignored and +unrecognized. + +With the joy and honest pride of a discoverer, I present the results of +a summer's gleaning. + +And I feel a cheerful and Colonel Sellers-y confidence in the success of +the book, for every woman will want to own it, as a matter of pride and +interest, and many men will buy it just to see what women think they can +do in this line. In fact, I expect a call for a second volume! + + KATE SANBORN. + HANOVER, N.H., August, 1885. + + +My thanks are due to so many publishers, magazine editors, and personal +friends for material for this book, that a formal note of acknowledgment +seems meagre and unsatisfactory. Proper credit, however, has been given +all through the volume, and with special indebtedness to Messrs. Harper +& Brothers and Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Houghton, +Mifflin & Co. of Boston. I add sincere gratitude to all who have so +generously contributed whatever was requested. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + PAGE + THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY--PUNS, GOOD + AND BAD--EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS--CYNICISM OF FRENCH + WOMEN--SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING 13 + + + CHAPTER II. + + HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN 32 + + + CHAPTER III. + + FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE 47 + + + CHAPTER IV. + + "SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE 67 + + + CHAPTER V. + + A BRACE OF WITTY WOMEN 85 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + GINGER-SNAPS 103 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY 122 + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + HUMOROUS POEMS 150 + + + CHAPTER IX. + + GOOD-NATURED SATIRE 179 + + + CHAPTER X. + + PARODIES--REVIEWS--CHILDREN'S POEMS--COMEDIES BY + WOMEN--A DRAMATIC TRIFLE--A STRING OF FIRECRACKERS 195 + + + + + TO + G.W.B. + In Grateful Memory. + + + + + _"There was in her soul a sense of delicacy mingled + with that rarest of qualities in woman--a sense of + humor," writes Richard Grant White in "The Fate of + Mansfield Humphreys." I have noticed that when a + novelist sets out to portray an uncommonly fine type of + heroine, he invariably adds to her other intellectual + and moral graces the above-mentioned "rarest of + qualities." I may be over-sanguine, but I anticipate + that some sagacious genius will discover that woman as + well as man has been endowed with this excellent gift + from the gods, and that the gift pertains to the large, + generous, sympathetic nature, quite irrespective of the + individual's sex. In any case, having heard so + repeatedly that woman has no sense of humor, it would + be refreshing to have a contrariety of opinion on that + subject._--THE CRITIC. + + + + + PROEM.[A] + + + We are coming to the rescue, + Just a hundred strong; + With fun and pun and epigram, + And laughter, wit, and song; + + With badinage and repartee, + And humor quaint or bold, + And stories that _are_ stories, + Not several aeons old; + + With parody and nondescript, + Burlesque and satire keen, + And irony and playful jest, + So that it may be seen + + That women are not quite so dull: + We come--a merry throng; + Yes, we're coming to the rescue, + And just a hundred strong. + + KATE SANBORN. +[Footnote A: _Not_ Poem!] + + + + +THE WIT OF WOMEN. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY--PUNS, GOOD AND BAD--EPIGRAMS AND +LACONICS--CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN--SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING. + + +To begin a deliberate search for wit seems almost like trying to be +witty: a task quite certain to brush the bloom from even the most +fruitful results. But the statement of Richard Grant White, that humor +is the "rarest of qualities in woman," roused such a host of brilliant +recollections that it was a temptation to try to materialize the ghosts +that were haunting me; to lay forever the suspicion that they did not +exist. Two articles by Alice Wellington Rollins in the _Critic_, on +"Woman's Sense of Humor" and "The Humor of Women," convinced me that the +deliberate task might not be impossible to carry out, although I felt, +as she did, that the humor and wit of women are difficult to analyze, +and select examples, precisely because they possess in the highest +degree that almost essential quality of wit, the unpremeditated glow +which exists only with the occasion that calls it forth. Even from the +humor of women found in books it is hard to quote--not because there is +so little, but because there is so much. + +The encouragement to attempt this novel enterprise of proving ("by their +fruits ye shall know them") that women are not deficient in either wit +or humor has not been great. Wise librarians have, with a smile, +regretted the paucity of proper material; literary men have predicted +rather a thin volume; in short, the general opinion of men is condensed +in the sly question of a peddler who comes to our door, summer and +winter, his stock varying with the season: sage-cheese and home-made +socks, suspenders and cheap note-paper, early-rose potatoes and the +solid pearmain. This shrewd old fellow remarked roguishly "You're +gittin' up a book, I see, 'baout women's wit. 'Twon't be no great of an +undertakin', will it?" The outlook at first was certainly discouraging. +In Parton's "Collection of Humorous Poetry" there was not one woman's +name, nor in Dodd's large volume of epigrams of all ages, nor in any of +the humorous departments of volumes of selected poetry. + +Griswold's "Female Poets of America" was next examined. The general air +of gloom--hopeless gloom--was depressing. Such mawkish sentimentality +and despair; such inane and mortifying confessions; such longings for a +lover to come; such sighings over a lover departed; such cravings for +"only"--"only" a _grave_ in some dark, dank solitude. As Mrs. Dodge puts +it, "Pegasus generally feels inclined to pace toward a graveyard the +moment he feels a side-saddle on his back." + +The subjects of their lucubrations suggest Lady Montagu's famous speech: +"There was only one reason she was glad she was a woman: she should +never have to _marry_ one." + +From the "Female Poets" I copy this "Song," representing the average +woman's versifying as regards buoyancy and an optimistic view of this +"Wale of Tears": + + "Ask not from me the sportive jest, + The mirthful jibe, the gay reflection; + These social baubles fly the breast + That owns the sway of pale Dejection. + + "Ask not from me the changing smile, + Hope's sunny glow, Joy's glittering token; + It cannot now my griefs beguile-- + My soul is dark, my heart is broken! + + "Wit cannot cheat my heart of woe, + Flattery wakes no exultation; + And Fancy's flash but serves to show + The darkness of my desolation! + + "By me no more in masking guise + Shall thoughtless repartee be spoken; + My mind a hopeless ruin lies-- + My soul is dark, my heart is broken!" + +In recalling the witty women of the world, I must surely go back, +familiar as is the story, to the Grecian dame who, when given some +choice old wine in a tiny glass by her miserly host, who boasted of the +years since it had been bottled, inquired, "Isn't it very small of its +age?" + +This ancient story is too much in the style of the male +story-monger--you all know him--who repeats with undiminished gusto for +the forty-ninth time a story that was tottering in senile imbecility +when Methuselah was teething, and is now in a sad condition of +anec_dotage_. + +It is affirmed that "women seldom repeat an anecdote." That is well, +and no proof of their lack of wit. The discipline of life would be +largely increased if they did insist on being "reminded" constantly of +anecdotes as familiar as the hand-organ repertoire of "Captain Jinks" +and "Beautiful Spring." Their sense of humor is too keen to allow them +to aid these aged wanderers in their endless migrations. It is +sufficiently trying to their sense of the ludicrous to be obliged to +listen with an admiring, rapt expression to some anecdote heard in +childhood, and restrain the laugh until the oft-repeated crisis has been +duly reached. Still, I know several women who, as brilliant +_raconteurs_, have fully equalled the efforts of celebrated after-dinner +wits. + +It is also affirmed that "women cannot make a pun," which, if true, +would be greatly to their honor. But, alas! their puns are almost as +frequent and quite as execrable as are ever perpetrated. It was Queen +Elizabeth who said: "Though ye be burly, my Lord Burleigh, ye make less +stir than my Lord Leicester." + +Lady Morgan, the Irish novelist, witty and captivating, who wrote "Kate +Kearney" and the "Wild Irish Girl," made several good puns. Some one, +speaking of the laxity of a certain bishop in regard to Lenten fasting, +said: "I believe he would eat a horse on Ash Wednesday." "And very +proper diet," said her ladyship, "if it were a _fast_ horse." + +Her special enemy, Croker, had declared that Wellington's success at +Waterloo was only a fortunate accident, and intimated that he could have +done better himself, under similar circumstances. "Oh, yes," exclaimed +her ladyship, "he had his secret for winning the battle. He had only to +put his notes on Boswell's Johnson in front of the British lines, and +all the Bonapartes that ever existed could never _get through_ them!" + +"Grace Greenwood" has probably made more puns in print than any other +woman, and her conversation is full of them. It was Grace Greenwood who, +at a tea-drinking at the Woman's Club in Boston, was begged to tell one +more story, but excused herself in this way: "No, I cannot get more than +one story high on a cup of tea!" + +You see puns are allowed at that rarely intellectual assemblage--indeed, +they are sometimes _very_ bad; as when the question was brought up +whether better speeches could be made after simple tea and toast, or +under the influence of champagne and oysters. Miss Mary Wadsworth +replied that it would depend entirely upon whether the oysters were +cooked or raw; and seeing all look blank, she explained: "Because, if +raw, we should be sure to have a raw-oyster-ing time." + +Louisa Alcott's puns deserve "honorable mention." I will quote one. +"Query--If steamers are named the Asia, the Russia, and the Scotia, why +not call one the _Nausea_?" + +At a Chicago dinner-party a physician received a menu card with the +device of a mushroom, and showing it to the lady next him, said: "I hope +nothing invidious is intended." "Oh, no," was the answer, "it only +alludes to the fact that you spring up in the night." + +A gentleman, noticeable on the porch of the sanctuary as the pretty +girls came in on Sabbath mornings, but _not_ regarded as a devout +attendant on the services within, declared that he was one of the +"pillars of the church!" "Pillar-sham, I am inclined to think," was the +retort of a lady friend. + +To a lady who, in reply to a gentleman's assertion that women sometimes +made a good pun, but required time to think about it, had said that +_she_ could make a pun as quickly as any man, the gentleman threw down +this challenge: "Make a pun, then, on horse-shoe." "If you talk until +you're horse-shoe can't convince me," was the instant answer. + + * * * * * + +The best punning poem from a woman's pen was written by Miss Caroline B. +Le Row, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a teacher of elocution, and the writer of +many charming stories and verses. It was suggested by a study in butter +of "The Dreaming Iolanthe," moulded by Caroline S. Brooks on a +kitchen-table, and exhibited at the Centennial in Philadelphia. I do not +remember any other poem in the language that rings so many changes on a +single word. It was published first in _Baldwin's Monthly_, but ran the +rounds of the papers all over the country. + + I. + + "One of the Centennial buildings + Shows us many a wondrous thing + Which the women of our country + From their homes were proud to bring. + In a little corner, guarded + By Policeman Twenty-eight, + Stands a crowd, all eyes and elbows, + Seeing butter butter-plate + + II. + + "'Tis not 'butter faded flower' + That the people throng to see, + Butter crowd comes every hour, + Nothing butter crowd we see. + Butter little pushing brings us + Where we find, to our surprise, + That within the crowded corner + Butter dreaming woman lies. + + III. + + "Though she lies, she don't deceive us, + As it might at first be thought; + This fair maid is made of butter, + On a kitchen-table wrought. + Nothing butter butter-paddle, + Sticks and straws were used to bring + Out of just nine pounds of butter + Butter fascinating thing. + + IV. + + "Butter maid or made of butter, + She is butter wonder rare; + Butter sweet eyes closed in slumber, + Butter soft and yellow hair, + Were the work of butter woman + Just two thousand miles away; + Butter fortune's in the features + That she made in butter stay. + + V. + + "Maid of all work, maid of honor, + Whatsoever she may be, + She is butter wondrous worker, + As the crowd can plainly see. + And 'tis butter woman shows us + What with butter can be done, + Nothing butter hands producing + Something new beneath the sun. + + VI. + + "Butter line we add in closing, + Which none butter could refuse: + May her work be butter pleasure, + Nothing butter butter use; + May she never need for butter, + Though she'll often knead for bread, + And may every churning bring her + Butter blessing on her head." + + * * * * * + +The second and last example is much more common in its form, but is just +as good as most of the verses of this style in Parton's "Humorous +Poetry." I don't pretend that it is remarkable, but it is equally worthy +of presentation with many efforts of this sort from men with a +reputation for wit. + + +THE VEGETABLE GIRL. + +BY MAY TAYLOR. + + Behind a market-stall installed, + I mark it every day, + Stands at her stand the fairest girl + I've met within the bay; + Her two lips are of cherry red, + Her hands a pretty pair, + With such a charming turn-up nose, + And lovely reddish hair. + + 'Tis there she stands from morn till night, + Her customers to please, + And to appease their appetite + She sells them beans and peas. + Attracted by the glances from + The apple of her eye, + And by her Chili apples, too, + Each passer-by will buy. + + She stands upon her little feet + Throughout the livelong day, + And sells her celery and things-- + A big feat, by the way. + She changes off her stock for change, + Attending to each call; + And when she has but one beet left, + She says, "Now, that beats all." + + * * * * * + +As to puns in conversation, my only fear is that they are too generally +indulged in. Only one of this sort can be allowed, and that from the +highest lady in the land, who is distinguished for culture and good +sense, as well as wit. A friend said to her as she was leaving Buffalo +for Washington: "I hope you will hail from Buffalo." + +"Oh, I see you expect me to hail from Buffalo and reign in Washington," +said the quick-witted sister of our President. + +In epigrams there is little to offer. But as it is stated that "women +cannot achieve a well-rounded epigram," a few specimens must be +produced. + +Jane Austen has left two on record. The first was suggested by reading +in a newspaper the marriage of a Mr. Gell to Miss Gill, of Eastborne. + + "At Eastborne, Mr. Gell, from being perfectly well, + Became dreadfully ill for love of Miss Gill; + So he said, with some sighs, 'I'm the slave of your iis; + Oh, restore, if you please, by accepting my ees.'" + +The second is on the marriage of a middle-aged flirt with a Mr. Wake, +whom gossips averred she would have scorned in her prime. + + "Maria, good-humored and handsome and tall, + For a husband was at her last stake; + And having in vain danced at many a ball, + Is now happy to jump at a Wake." + +It was Lady Townsend who said that the human race was divided into men, +women, and _Herveys_. This epigram has been borrowed in our day, +substituting for Herveys the _Beecher_ family. + +When some one said of a lady she must be in spirits, for she lives with +Mr. Walpole, "Yes," replied Lady Townsend, "spirits of hartshorn." + +Walpole, caustic and critical, regarded this lady as undeniably witty. + +It was Hannah More who said: "There are but two bad things in this +world--sin and bile." + +Miss Thackeray quotes several epigrammatic definitions from her friend +Miss Evans, as: + +"A privileged person: one who is so much a savage when thwarted that +civilized persons avoid thwarting him." + +"A musical woman: one who has strength enough to make much noise and +obtuseness enough not to mind it." + +"Ouida" has given us some excellent examples of epigram, as: + +"A pipe is a pocket philosopher, a truer one than Socrates, for it never +asks questions. Socrates must have been very tiresome, when one thinks +of it." + +"Dinna ye meddle, Tam; it's niver no good a threshin' other folks' corn; +ye allays gits the flail agin' i' yer own eye somehow." + +"Epigrams are the salts of life; but they wither up the grasses of +foolishness, and naturally the grasses hate to be sprinkled therewith." + +"A man never is so honest as when he speaks well of himself. Men are +always optimists when they look inward, and pessimists when they look +round them." + +"Nothing is so pleasant as to display your worldly wisdom in epigram and +dissertation, but it is a trifle tedious to hear another person display +theirs." + +"When you talk yourself you think how witty, how original, how acute you +are; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only, 'What a +crib from Rochefoucauld!'" + +"Boredom is the ill-natured pebble that always _will_ get in the golden +slipper of the pilgrim of pleasure." + +"It makes all the difference in life whether hope is left or--left out!" + +"A frog that dwelt in a ditch spat at a worm that bore a lamp. + +"'Why do you do that?' said the glow-worm. + +"'Why do you shine?' said the frog." + +"Calumny is the homage of our contemporaries, as some South Sea +Islanders spit on those they honor." + +"Hived bees get sugar because they will give back honey. All existence +is a series of equivalents." + +"'Men are always like Horace,' said the Princess. 'They admire rural +life, but they remain, for all that, with Augustus.'" + +"If the Venus de Medici could be animated into life, women would only +remark that her waist was large." + + * * * * * + +The brilliant Frenchwomen whose very names seem to sparkle as we write +them, yet of whose wit so little has been preserved, had an especial +facility for condensed cynicism. + +Think of Madame du Deffand, sceptical, sarcastic; feared and hated even +in her blind old age for her scathing criticisms. When the celebrated +work of Helvetius appeared he was blamed in her presence for having made +selfishness the great motive of human action. + +"Bah!" said she, "he has only revealed every one's secret." + +And listen to this trio of laconics, with their saddening knowledge of +human frailty and their bitter Voltaireish flavor: + +We shall all be perfectly virtuous when there is no longer any flesh on +our bones.--_Marguerite de Valois._ + +We like to know the weakness of eminent persons; it consoles us for our +inferiority.--_Mme. de Lambert._ + +Women give themselves to God when the devil wants nothing more to do +with them.--_Sophie Arnould._ + +Madame de Sevigne's letters present detached thoughts worthy of +Rochefoucauld without his cynicism. She writes: "One loves so much to +talk of one's self that one never tires of a _tete-a-tete_ with a lover +for years. That is the reason that a devotee likes to be with her +confessor. It is for the pleasure of talking of one's self--even though +speaking evil." And she remarks to a lady who amused her friends by +always going into mourning for some prince, or duke, or member of some +royal family, and who at last appeared in bright colors, "Madame, I +congratulate myself on the health of Europe." + +I find, too, many fine aphorisms from "Carmen Sylva" (Queen of +Roumania): + +"Il vaut mieux avoir pour confesseur un medecin qu'un pretre. Vous dites +au pretre que vous detestez les hommes, il vous reponds que vous n'etes +pas chretien. Le medecin vous donne de la rhubarbe, et voila que vous +aimez votre semblable." + +"Vous dites au pretre que vous etes fatigue de vivre; il vous reponds +que le suicide est un crime. Le medecin vous donne un stimulant, et +voila que vous trouvez la vie supportable." + +"La contradiction anime la conversation; voila pourquoi les cours sont +si ennuyeuses." + +"Quand on veut affirmer quelque chose, on appelle toujours Dieu a +temoin, parce qu'il ne contredit jamais." + +"On ne peut jamais etre fatigue de la vie, on n'est fatigue que de +soi-meme." + +"Il faut etre ou tres-pieux ou tres-philosophe! il faut dire: Seigneur, +que ta volonte soit faite! ou: Nature, j'admets tes lois, meme +lorsqu'elles m'ecrasent." + +"L'homme est un violon. Ce n'est que lorsque sa derniere corde se brise +qu'il devient un morceau de bois." + +In the recently published sketch of Madame Mohl there are several +sentences which show trenchant wit, as: "Nations squint in looking at +one another; we must discount what Germany and France say of each +other." + +Several Englishwomen can be recalled who were noted for their +epigrammatic wit: as Harriet, Lady Ashburton. On some one saying that +liars generally speak good-naturedly of others, she replied: "Why, if +you don't speak a word of truth, it is not so difficult to speak well of +your neighbor." + +"Don't speak so hardly of ----," some one said to her; "he lives on your +good graces." + +"That accounts," she answered, "for his being so thin." + +Again: "I don't mind the canvas of a man's mind being good, if only it +is completely hidden by the worsted and floss." + +Or: "She never speaks to any one, which is, of course, a great advantage +to any one." + +Mrs. Carlyle _was_ an epigram herself--small, sweet, yet possessing a +sting--and her letters give us many sharp and original sayings. + +She speaks in one place of "Mrs. ----, an insupportable bore; her neck +and arms were as naked as if she had never eaten of the tree of the +knowledge of good and evil." + +And what a comical phrase is hers when she writes to her "Dearest"--"I +take time by the _pig-tail_ and write at night, after post-hours"--that +growling, surly "dearest," of whom she said, "The amount of bile that he +brings home is awfully grand." + +For a veritable epigram from an American woman's pen we must rely on +Hannah F. Gould, who wrote many verses that were rather graceful and +arch than witty. But her epitaph on her friend, the active and +aggressive Caleb Cushing, is as good as any made by Saxe. + + "Lay aside, all ye dead, + For in the next bed + Reposes the body of Cushing; + He has crowded his way + Through the world, they say, + And even though dead will be pushing." + +Such a hit from a bright woman is refreshing. + +Our literary foremothers seemed to prefer to be pedantic, didactic, and +tedious on the printed page. + +Catharine Sedgwick dealt somewhat in epigram, as when she says: "He was +not one of those convenient single people who are used, as we use straw +and cotton in packing, to fill up vacant places." + +Eliza Leslie (famed for her cook-books and her satiric sketches), when +speaking of people silent from stupidity, supposed kindly to be full of +reserved power, says: "We cannot help thinking that when a head is full +of ideas some of them must involuntarily _ooze_ out." + +And is not this epigrammatic advice? "Avoid giving invitations to +bores--they will come without." + +Some of our later literary women prefer the epigrammatic form in +sentences, crisp and laconic; short sayings full of pith, of which I +have made a collection. + +Gail Hamilton's books fairly bristle with epigrams in condensed style, +and Kate Field has many a good thought in this shape, as: "Judge no one +by his relations, whatever criticism you pass upon his companions. +Relations, like features, are thrust upon us; companions, like clothes, +are more or less our own selection." + +Miss Jewett's style is less epigrammatic, but just as full of humor. +Speaking of a person who was always complaining, she says: "Nothing ever +suits her. She ain't had no more troubles to bear than the rest of us; +but you never see her that she didn't have a chapter to lay before ye. +I've got 's much feelin' as the next one, but when folks drives in their +spiggits and wants to draw a bucketful o' compassion every day right +straight along, there does come times when it seems as if the bar'l was +getting low." + +"The captain, whose eyes were not much better than his ears, always +refused to go forth after nightfall without his lantern. The old couple +steered slowly down the uneven sidewalk toward their cousin's house. The +captain walked with a solemn, rolling gait, learned in his many long +years at sea, and his wife, who was also short and stout, had caught +the habit from him. If they kept step all went well; but on this +occasion, as sometimes happened, they did not take the first step out +into the world together, so they swayed apart, and then bumped against +each other as they went along. To see the lantern coming through the +mist you might have thought it the light of a small craft at sea in +heavy weather." + +"Deaf people hear more things that are worth listening to than people +with better ears; one likes to have something worth telling in talking +to a person who misses most of the world's talk." + +"Emory Ann," a creation of Mrs. Whitney's, often spoke in epigrams, as: +"Good looks are a snare; especially to them that haven't got 'em." While +Mrs. Walker's creed, "I believe in the total depravity of inanimate +things," is more than an epigram--it is an inspiration. + +Charlotte Fiske Bates, who compiled the "Cambridge Book of Poetry," and +has given us a charming volume of her own verses, which no one runs any +"Risk" in buying, in spite of the title of the book, has done a good +deal in this direction, and is fond of giving an epigrammatic turn to a +bright thought, as in the following couplet: + + "Would you sketch in two words a coquette and deceiver? + Name two Irish geniuses, Lover and Lever!" + +She also succeeds with the quatrain: + + +ON BEING CALLED A GOOSE. + + A signal name is this, upon my word! + Great Juno's geese saved Rome her citadel. + Another drowsy Manlius may be stirred + And the State saved, if I but cackle well. + + * * * * * + +I recall a charming _jeu d'esprit_ from Mrs. Barrows, the beloved "Aunt +Fanny," who writes equally well for children and grown folks, and whose +big heart ranges from earnest philanthropy to the perpetration of +exquisite nonsense. + +It is but a trifle, sent with a couple of peanut-owls to a niece of +Bryant's. The aged poet was greatly amused. + + "When great Minerva chose the Owl, + That bird of solemn phiz, + That truly awful-looking fowl, + To represent her wis- + Dom, little recked the goddess of + The time when she would howl + To see a Peanut set on end, + And called--Minerva's Owl." + + * * * * * + +Miss Phelps has given us some sentences which convey an epigram in a +keen and delicate fashion, as: + +"All forms of self-pity, like Prussian blue, should be sparingly used." + +"As a rule, a man can't cultivate his mustache and his talents +impartially." + +"As happy as a kind-hearted old lady with a funeral to go to." + +"No men are so fussy about what they eat as those who think their brains +the biggest part of them." + +"The professor's sister, a homeless widow, of excellent Vermont +intentions and high ideals in cup-cake." + +And this longer extract has the same characteristics: + +"You know how it is with people, Avis; some take to zoology, and some +take to religion. That's the way it is with places. It may be the +Lancers, and it may be prayer-meetings. Once I went to see my grandmother +in the country, and everybody had a candy-pull; there were twenty-five +candy-pulls and taffy-bakes in that town that winter. John Rose says, in +the Connecticut Valley, where he came from, it was missionary barrels; +and I heard of a place where it was cold coffee. In Harmouth it's +improving your mind. And so," added Coy, "we run to reading-clubs, and +we all go fierce, winter after winter, to see who'll get the 'severest.' +There's a set outside of the faculty that descends to charades and music +and inconceivably low intellectual depths; and some of our girls sneak +off and get in there once in a while, like the little girl that wanted +to go from heaven to hell to play Saturday afternoons, just as you and I +used to do, Avis, when we dared. But I find I've got too old for that," +said Coy, sadly. "When you're fairly past the college-boys, and as far +along as the law students--" + +"Or the theologues?" interposed Avis. + +"Yes, or the theologues, or even the medical department; then there +positively _is_ nothing for it but to improve your mind." + +Listen to Lavinia, one of Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke's sensible Yankee women: + +"Land! if you want to know folks, just hire out to 'em. They take their +wigs off afore the help, so to speak, seemingly." + +"Marryin' a man ain't like settin' alongside of him nights and hearin' +him talk pretty; that's the fust prayer. There's lots an' lots o' +meetin' after that!" + +And what an amount of sense, as well as wit, in Sam Lawson's sayings in +"Old Town Folks." As this book is not to be as large as Worcester's +Unabridged Dictionary, I can only give room to one. + +"We don't none of us like to have our sins set in order afore us. There +was _David_, now, he was crank as could be when he thought Nathan was a +talkin' about _other_ people's sins. Says David: 'The man that did that +shall surely die.' But come to set it home and say, '_Thou_ art the +man!' David caved right in. 'Lordy massy, bless your soul and body, +Nathan!' says he, 'I don't want to die.'" + +And Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney must not be forgotten. "As Emory Ann said once +about thoughts: 'You can't hinder 'em any more than you can the birds +that fly in the air; but you needn't let 'em light and make a nest in +your hair.'" + +And what a capital hit on the hypocritical apologies of conceited +housekeepers is this bit from Mrs. Whicher ("Widow Bedott"): "A person +that didn't know how wimmin always go on at such a place would a thought +that Miss Gipson had tried to have everything the miserablest she +possibly could, and that the rest on 'em never had anything to hum but +what was miserabler yet." + +And Marietta Holley, who has caused a tidal-wave of laughter by her +"Josiah Allen's Wife" series, shall have her say. + +"We, too, are posterity, though mebby we don't realize it as we ort to." + +"She didn't seem to sense anything, only ruffles and such like. Her mind +all seemed to be narrowed down and puckered up, just like trimmin'." + +But I must have convinced the most sceptical of woman's wit in +epigrammatic form, and will now return to an older generation, who claim +a fair share of attention. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. + + +In reviewing the _bon-mots_ of Stella, whom Swift pronounced the most +witty woman he had ever known, it seems that we are improving. I will +give but two of her sayings, which were so carefully preserved by her +friend. + +When she was extremely ill her physician said, "Madam, you are near the +bottom of the hill, but we will endeavor to get you up again;" she +answered: "Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to +the top." + +After she had been eating some sweet thing a little of it happened to +stick on her lips. A gentleman told her of it, and offered to lick it +off. She said: "No, sir, I thank you; I have a tongue of my own." + +Compare these with the wit of George Eliot or the irony of Miss Phelps. + +Some of Jane Taylor's stories and poems were formerly regarded as +humorous; for instance, the "Discontented Pendulum" and the +"Philosopher's Scales." They do not now raise the faintest smile. + +Fanny Burney's novels were considered immensely humorous and diverting +in their day. Burke complimented her on "her natural vein of humor," and +another eminent critic speaks of "her sarcasm, drollery, and humor;" but +it would be almost impossible to find a passage for quotation that +would now satisfy on these points. Even Jane Austen's novels, which +strangely retain their hold on the public taste, are tedious to those +who dare to think for themselves and forget Macaulay's verdict. + +Mrs. Barbauld, in her poem on "Washing Day," shows a capacity seldom +exercised for seeing the humorous side of every-day miseries. + + "Woe to the friend + Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim + On such a day the hospitable rites! + Looks, blank at best, and stinted courtesy + Shall he receive. Vainly he feeds his hopes + With dinner of roast chicken, savory pie, + Or tart, or pudding; pudding he nor tart + That day shall eat; nor, though the husband try + Mending what can't be helped to kindle mirth + From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow + Cheer up propitious; the unlucky guest + In silence dines, and early slinks away." + +But her style is too stiff and stately for every day. + +There were many literary Englishwomen who had undoubted humor. Hannah +More did get unendurably poky, narrow, and solemn in her last days, and +not a little sanctimonious; and we naturally think of her as an aged +spinster with black mitts, corkscrew curls, and a mob cap, always +writing or presenting a tedious tract, forgetting her brilliant youth, +when she was quite good enough, and lively, too. She was a perennial +favorite in London, meeting all the notables; the special pet of Dr. +Johnson, Davy Garrick, and Horace Walpole, who called her his "holy +Hannah," but admired and honored her, corresponding with her through a +long life. She was then full of spirit and humor and versatile talent. +An extract from her sister's lively letter shows that Hannah could hold +her own with the Ursa Major of literature: + +"Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir Joshua's with Dr. Johnson. Hannah +is certainly a great favorite. She was placed next him, and they had the +entire conversation to themselves. They were both in remarkably high +spirits. It was certainly her lucky night. I never heard her say so many +good things. The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one +very pleasant. You would have imagined we had been at some comedy had +you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried which could pepper +the highest, and it is not clear to me that the lexicographer was really +the highest seasoner." + +And how deliciously does she set out the absurdity then prevailing, and +seen now in editions of Shakespeare and Chaucer, of writing books, the +bulk of which consists of notes, with only a line or two at the top of +each page of the original text. + +It seems that a merry party at Dr. Kennicott's had each adopted the name +of some animal. Dr. K. was the elephant; Mrs. K., dromedary; Miss Adams, +antelope; and H. More, rhinoceros. + + "HAMPTON, December 24, 1728. + + "DEAR DROMY (a): Pray, send word if _Ante_ + (b) is come, and also how _Ele_ (c) does, to your + very affectionate RHYNEY" (d). + +The following notes on the above epistle are by a commentator of the +latter end of the nineteenth century. This epistle is all that is come +down to us of this voluminous author, and is probably the only thing she +ever wrote that was worth preserving, or which might reasonably expect +to reach posterity. Her name is only presented to us in some beautiful +hendecasyllables written by the best Latin poet of his time (Bishop +Lowth): + + _Note_ (_a_). + + "_Dromy._--From the termination of this address it + seems to have been written to a woman, though there is + no internal evidence to support this hypothesis. The + best critics are much puzzled about the orthography of + this abbreviation. Wartonius and other skilful + etymologists contend that it ought to be spelled + _drummy_, being addressed to a lady who was probably + fond of warlike instruments, and who had a singular + predilection for a _canon_. Drummy, say they, was a + tender diminutive of drum, as the best authors in their + more familiar writings now begin to use gunny for gun. + But _Hardius_, a contemporary critic, contends, with + more probability, that it ought to be written _Drome_, + from hippodrome; a learned leech and elegant bard of + Bath having left it on record that this lady spent much + of her time at the riding-school, being a very + exquisite judge of horsemanship. _Colmanus_ and + _Horatius Strawberryensis_ insist that it ought to be + written _Dromo_, in reference to the Dromo Sorasius of + the Latin dramatist." + + _Note_ (_b_). + + "_Ante._--Scaliger 2d says this name simply signifies + the appellation of uncle's wife, and ought to be + written _Aunty_. But here, again, are various readings. + Philologists of yet greater name affirm that it was + meant to designate _pre-eminence_, and therefore ought + to be written _ante_, before, from the Latin, a + language now pretty well forgotten, though the authors + who wrote in it are still preserved in French + translations. The younger Madame Dacier insists that + this lady was against all men, and that it ought to be + spelled _anti_; but this Kennicotus, a rabbi of the + most recondite learning, with much critical wrath, + vehemently contradicts, affirming it to have been + impossible she could have been against mankind whom all + mankind admired. He adds that ante is for _antelope_, + and is emblematically used to express an elegant and + slender animal, or that it is an elongation of _ant_, + the _emblem of virtuous citizenship_." + +And so she continues her comments to close of notes. + +Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford" is full of the most delicate but veritable +humor, as her allusion to the genteel and cheerful poverty of the lady +who, in giving a tea-party, "now sat in state, pretending not to know +what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that +we knew; and we knew that she knew that we knew she had been busy all +the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes." + +The humor of Mary Russell Mitford, quiet and delectable, must not be +forgotten. We will sympathize with her woes as she describes a +visitation from + + +THE TALKING LADY. + +"Ben Jonson has a play called _The Silent Woman_, who turns out, as +might be expected, to be no woman at all--nothing, as Master Slender +said, but 'a great lubberly boy,' thereby, as I apprehend, +discourteously presuming that a silent woman is a nonentity. If the +learned dramatist, thus happily prepared and predisposed, had happened +to fall in with such a specimen of female loquacity as I have just +parted with, he might, perhaps, have given us a pendant to his picture +in the talking lady. Pity but he had! He would have done her justice, +which I could not at any time, least of all now; I am too much stunned, +too much like one escaped from a belfry on a coronation day. I am just +resting from the fatigue of four days' hard listening--four snowy, +sleety, rainy days; days of every variety of falling weather, all of +them too bad to admit the possibility that any petticoated thing, were +she as hardy as a Scotch fir, should stir out; four days chained by 'sad +civility' to that fireside, once so quiet, and again--cheering +thought!--again I trust to be so when the echo of that visitor's +incessant tongue shall have died away.... + +"She took us in her way from London to the west of England, and being, +as she wrote, 'not quite well, not equal to much company, prayed that no +other guest might be admitted, so that she might have the pleasure of +our conversation all to herself (_ours!_ as if it were possible for any +of us to slide in a word edgewise!), and especially enjoy the +gratification of talking over old times with the master of the house, +her countryman.' + +"Such was the promise of her letter, and to the letter it has been kept. +All the news and scandal of a large county forty years ago, and a +hundred years before, and ever since; all the marriages, deaths, births, +elopements, law-suits, and casualties of her own times, her father's, +grandfather's, great-grandfather's, nephews', and grandnephews', has she +detailed with a minuteness, an accuracy, a prodigality of learning, a +profuseness of proper names, a pedantry of locality, which would excite +the envy of a county historian, a king-at-arms, or even a Scotch +novelist. + +"Her knowledge is most astonishing; but the most astonishing part of all +is how she came by that knowledge. It should seem, to listen to her, as +if at some time of her life she must have listened herself; and yet her +countryman declares that in the forty years he has known her, no such +event has occurred; and she knows new news, too! It must be +intuition!... + +"The very weather is not a safe subject. Her memory is a perpetual +register of hard frosts and long droughts, and high winds and terrible +storms, with all the evils that followed in their train, and all the +personal events connected with them; so that, if you happen to remark +that clouds are come up and you fear it may rain, she replies: 'Ay, it +is just such a morning as three-and-thirty years ago, when my poor +cousin was married--you remember my cousin Barbara; she married +so-and-so, the son of so-and-so;' and then comes the whole pedigree of +the bridegroom, the amount of the settlements, and the reading and +signing them overnight; a description of the wedding-dresses in the +style of Sir Charles Grandison, and how much the bride's gown cost per +yard; the names, residences, and a short subsequent history of the +bridesmaids and men, the gentleman who gave the bride away, and the +clergyman who performed the ceremony, with a learned antiquarian +digression relative to the church; then the setting out in procession; +the marriage, the kissing, the crying, the breakfasting, the drawing the +cake through the ring, and, finally, the bridal excursion, which brings +us back again, at an hour's end, to the starting-post, the weather, and +the whole story of the sopping, the drying, the clothes-spoiling, the +cold-catching, and all the small evils of a summer shower. By this time +it rains, and she sits down to a pathetic see-saw of conjectures on the +chance of Mrs. Smith's having set out for her daily walk, or the +possibility that Dr. Brown may have ventured to visit his patients in +his gig, and the certainty that Lady Green's new housemaid would come +from London on the outside of the coach.... + +"I wonder, if she had happened to be married, how many husbands she +would have talked to death. It is certain that none of her relatives are +long-lived, after she comes to reside with them. Father, mother, uncle, +sister, brother, two nephews, and one niece, all these have +successively passed away, though a healthy race, and with no visible +disorder--except--But we must not be uncharitable." + + * * * * * + +Mary Ferrier, the Scotch novelist, was gifted with genial wit and a +quick sense of the ludicrous. Walter Scott admired her greatly, and as a +lively guest at Abbotsford she did much to relieve the sadness of his +last days. He said of her: + + "She is a gifted personage, having, besides her great talents, + conversation the least _exigeante_ of any author, female at + least, whom I have ever seen, among the long list I have + encountered. Simple and full of humor, and exceedingly ready at + repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the + blue-stocking. The general strain of her writing relates to the + foibles and oddities of mankind, and no one has drawn them with + greater breadth of comic humor or effect. Her scenes often + resemble the style of our best old comedies, and she may boast, + like Foote, of adding many new and original characters to the + stock of our comic literature." + +Here is one of her admirably-drawn portraits: + + +THE SENSIBLE WOMAN. + +"Miss Jacky, the senior of the trio, was what is reckoned a very +sensible woman--which generally means a very disagreeable, obstinate, +illiberal director of all men, women, and children--a sort of +superintendent of all actions, time, and place, with unquestioned +authority to arraign, judge, and condemn upon the statutes of her own +supposed sense. Most country parishes have their sensible woman, who +lays down the law on all affairs, spiritual and temporal. Miss Jacky +stood unrivalled as the sensible woman of Glenfern. She had attained +this eminence partly from having a little more understanding than her +sisters, but principally from her dictatorial manner, and the pompous, +decisive tone in which she delivered the most commonplace truths. At +home her supremacy in all matters of sense was perfectly established; +and thence the infection, like other superstitions, had spread over the +whole neighborhood. As a sensible woman she regulated the family, +which she took care to let everybody hear; she was a sort of +postmistress-general, a detector of all abuses and impositions, and +deemed it her prerogative to be consulted about all the useful and +useless things which everybody else could have done as well. She was +liberal of her advice to the poor, always enforcing upon them the +iniquity of idleness, but doing nothing for them in the way of +employment, strict economy being one of the many points in which she was +particularly sensible. The consequence was that, while she was lecturing +half the poor women in the parish for their idleness, the bread was kept +out of their mouths by the incessant carding of wool, and knitting of +stockings, and spinning, and reeling, and winding, and pirning, that +went on among the ladies themselves. And, by the by, Miss Jacky is not +the only sensible woman who thinks she is acting a meritorious part when +she converts what ought to be the portion of the poor into the +employment of the affluent. + +"In short, Min Jacky was all over sense. A skilful physiognomist would +at a single glance have detected the sensible woman in the erect head, +the compressed lips, square elbows, and firm, judicious step. Even her +very garments seemed to partake of the prevailing character of their +mistress. Her ruff always looked more sensible than any other body's; +her shawl sat most sensibly on her shoulders; her walking-shoes were +acknowledged to be very sensible, and she drew on her gloves with an air +of sense, as if the one arm had been Seneca, the other Socrates. From +what has been said it may easily be inferred that Miss Jacky was, in +fact, anything but a sensible woman, as, indeed, no woman can be who +bears such visible outward marks of what is in reality the most quiet +and unostentatious of all good qualities." + + * * * * * + +Frederika Bremer, the Swedish novelist, whose novels have been +translated into English, German, French, and Dutch, had a style +peculiarly her own. Her humor reminds me of a bed of mignonette, with +its delicate yet permeating fragrance. One paragraph, like one spray of +that shy flower, scarcely reveals the dainty flavor. + +From the "Neighbors," her best story, and one that still has a moderate +sale, I take her description of Franziska's first little lover-like +quarrel with her adoring husband, the "Bear." (Let us remember Miss +Bremer with appreciation and gratitude, as one of the very few visitors +we have entertained who have written kindly of our country and our +"Homes.") + + +THE FIRST QUARREL. + +"Here I am again sitting with a pen in my hand, impelled by a desire for +writing, yet with nothing particular to write about. Everything in the +house and in the whole household arrangement is in order. Little patties +are baking in the kitchen, the weather is oppressively hot, and every +leaf and bird seem as if deprived of motion. The hens lie outside in the +sand before the window, the cock stands solitarily on one leg, and looks +upon his harem with the countenance of a sleepy sultan. Bear sits in his +room writing letters. I hear him yawn; that infects me. Oh! oh! I must +go and have a little quarrel with him on purpose to awaken us both. + +"I want at this moment a quire of writing-paper on which to drop +sugar-cakes. He is terribly miserly of his writing-paper, and on that +very account I must have some now. + +"_Later._--All is done! A complete quarrel, and how completely lively we +are after it! You, Maria, must hear all, that you may thus see how it +goes on among married people. + +"I went to my husband and said quite meekly, 'My Angel Bear, you must be +so very good as to give me a quire of your writing-paper to drop +sugar-cakes upon.' + +"_He_ (_in consternation_). 'A quire of writing-paper?' + +"_She._ 'Yes, my dear friend, of your very best writing-paper.' + +"_He._ 'Finest writing-paper? Are you mad?' + +"_She._ 'Certainly not; but I believe you are a little out of your +senses.' + +"_He._ 'You covetous sea-cat, leave off raging among my papers! You +shall not have my paper!' + +"_She._ 'Miserly beast! I shall and will have the paper.' + +"_He._ '"I shall"! Listen a moment. Let's see, now, how you will +accomplish your will.' And the rough Bear held both my small hands fast +in his great paws. + +"_She._ 'You ugly Bear! You are worse than any of those that walk on +four legs. Let me loose! Let me loose, else I shall bite you!' And as he +would not let me loose I bit him. Yes, Maria, I bit him really on the +hand, at which he only laughed scornfully and said: 'Yes, yes, my little +wife, that is always the way of those who are forward without the power +to do. Take the paper. Now, take it!' + +"_She._ 'Ah! Let me loose! let me loose!' + +"_He._ 'Ask me prettily.' + +"_She._ 'Dear Bear!' + +"_He._ 'Acknowledge your fault.' + +"_She._ 'I do.' + +"_He._ 'Pray for forgiveness.' + +"_She._ 'Ah, forgiveness!' + +"_He._ 'Promise amendment.' + +"_She._ 'Oh, yes, amendment!' + +"_He._ 'Nay, I'll pardon you. But now, no sour faces, dear wife, but +throw your arms round my neck and kiss me.' + +"I gave him a little box on the ear, stole a quire of paper, and ran off +with loud exultation. Bear followed into the kitchen growling horribly; +but then I turned upon him armed with two delicious little patties, +which I aimed at his mouth, and there they vanished. Bear, all at once, +was quite still, the paper was forgotten, and reconciliation concluded. + +"There is, Maria, no better way of stopping the mouths of these lords of +the creation than by putting into them something good to eat." + + * * * * * + +I wish I had room for my favorite Irishwoman, Lady Morgan, and her +description of her first rout at the house of the eccentric Lady Cork. + +The off-hand songs of her sister, Lady Clarke, are fine illustrations of +rollicking Irish wit and badinage. + +At one of Lady Morgan's receptions, given in honor of fifty philosophers +from England, Lady Clarke sang the following song with "great effect:" + + +FUN AND PHILOSOPHY. + + Heigh for ould Ireland! Oh, would you require a land + Where men by nature are all quite the thing, + Where pure inspiration has taught the whole nation + To fight, love, and reason, talk politics, sing; + 'Tis Pat's mathematical, chemical, tactical, + Knowing and practical, fanciful, gay, + Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, + There's nothing in life that is out of his way. + + He makes light of optics, and sees through dioptrics, + He's a dab at projectiles--ne'er misses his man; + He's complete in attraction, and quick at reaction, + By the doctrine of chances he squares every plan; + In hydraulics so frisky, the whole Bay of Biscay, + If it flowed but with _whiskey_, he'd store it away. + Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, + There's nothing in life that is out of his way. + + So to him cross over savant and philosopher, + Thinking, God help them! to bother us all; + But they'll find that for knowledge 'tis at our own college + Themselves must inquire for--beds, dinner, or ball. + There are lectures to tire, and good lodgings to hire, + To all who require and have money to pay; + While fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, + Ladies and lecturing fill up the day. + + So at the Rotunda we all sorts of fun do, + Hard hearts and pig-iron we melt in one flame; + For if Love blows the bellows, our tough college fellows + Will thaw into rapture at each lovely dame. + There, too, sans apology, tea, tarts, tautology, + Are given with zoology, to grave and gay; + Thus fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry + Send all to England home, happy and gay. + + * * * * * + +From George Eliot, whose humor is seen at its best in "Adam Bede" and +"Silas Marner," how much we could quote! How some of her searching +comments cling to the memory! + +"I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but I know very well I +shouldn't like her to cook my victuals. When a man comes in hungry and +tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'ull lie heavy on +his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin' +up Mr. Tryan's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes was as watery as +watery. It's right enough to be speritial, I'm no enemy to that, but I +like my potatoes mealy." + +"You're right there, Tookey; there's allays two 'pinions: there's the +'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on +him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear +itself." + +"You're mighty fond o' Craig; but for my part, I think he's welly like a +cock as thinks the sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow." + +"When Mr. Brooke had something painful to tell it was usually his way to +introduce it among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a +medicine that would get a milder flavor by mixing." + +"Heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited +people we speak ill of; we should live like Egyptian hermits, in crowded +solitude." + +"No, I ain't one to see the cat walking into the dairy and wonder what +she's come after." + +"I have nothing to say again' Craig, on'y it is a pity he couldna be +hatched o'er again, and hatched different." + +"I'm not denyin' the women are foolish; God Almighty made 'em to match +the men." + +"It's a waste of time to praise people dead whom you maligned while +living; for it's but a poor harvest you'll get by watering last year's +crop." + +"I suppose Dinah's like all the rest of the women, and thinks two and +two will come to make five, if she only cries and makes bother enough +about it." + +"Put a good face on it and don't seem to be looking out for crows, else +you'll set other people to watchin' for 'em, too." + +"I took pretty good care, before I said 'sniff,' to be sure she would +say 'snaff,' and pretty quick, too. I warn't a-goin' to open my mouth +like a dog at a fly, and snap it to again wi' nothin' to swaller." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE. + + +The same gratifying progress and improvement noticed in the wit of women +of other lands is seen in studying the literary annals of our own +countrywomen. + +Think of Anne Bradstreet, Mercy Warren, and Tabitha Tenney, all extolled +to the skies by their contemporaries. + + * * * * * + +Mercy Warren was a satirist quite in the strain of Juvenal, but in +cumbrous, artificial fashion. + +Hon. John Winthrop consulted her on the proposed suspension of trade +with England in all but the _necessaries_ of life, and she playfully +gives a list of articles that would be included in that word: + + "An inventory clear + Of all she needs Lamira offers here; + Nor does she fear a rigid Cato's frown, + When she lays by the rich embroidered gown, + And modestly compounds for just enough, + Perhaps some dozens of mere flighty stuff; + With lawns and lute strings, blonde and Mechlin laces, + Fringes and jewels, fans and tweezer-cases; + Gay cloaks and hat, of every shape and size, + Scarfs, cardinals, and ribands, of all dyes, + With ruffles stamped and aprons of tambour, + Tippets and handkerchiefs, at least threescore; + With finest muslins that fair India boasts, + And the choice herbage from Chinesian coasts; + Add feathers, furs, rich satin, and ducapes, + And head-dresses in pyramidal shapes; + Sideboards of plate and porcelain profuse, + With fifty dittoes that the ladies use. + So weak Lamira and her wants so few + Who can refuse? they're but the sex's due." + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Sigourney, voluminous and mediocre, is amusing because so +absolutely destitute of humor, and her style, a feminine _Johnsonese_, +is absurdly hifalutin and strained. + +This is the way in which she alludes to green apples: + +"From the time of their first taking on orbicular shape, and when it +might be supposed their hardness and acidity would repulse all save +elephantine tusks and ostrich stomachs, they were the prey of roaming +children." + +And in her poem "To a Shred of Linen": + + "Methinks I scan + Some idiosyncrasy that marks thee out + A defunct pillow-case." + +She preserved, however, a long list of the various solicitations sent +her to furnish poems for special occasions, and I think this shows that +she possessed a sense of humor. Let me quote a few: + +"Some verses were desired as an elegy on a pet canary accidentally +drowned in a barrel of swine's food. + +"A poem requested on the dog-star Sirius. + +"To write an ode for the wedding of people in Maine, of whom I had never +heard. + +"To punctuate a three-volume novel for an author who complained that the +work of punctuating always brought on a pain in the small of his back. + +"Asked to assist a servant-man not very well able to read in getting his +Sunday-school lessons, and to write out all the answers for him clear +through the book--to save his time. + +"A lady whose husband expects to be absent on a journey for a month or +two wishes I would write a poem to testify her joy at his return. + +"An elegy on a young man, one of the nine children of a judge of +probate." + + * * * * * + +Miss Sedgwick, in her letters, occasionally showed a keen sense of +humor, as, when speaking of a certain novel, she said: + +"There is too much force for the subject. It is as if a railroad should +be built and a locomotive started to transport skeletons, specimens, and +one bird of Paradise." + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Caroline Gilman, born in 1794, and still living, author of +"Recollections of a Southern Matron," etc., will be represented by one +playful poem, which has a veritable New England flavor: + + +JOSHUA'S COURTSHIP. + +A NEW ENGLAND BALLAD. + + Stout Joshua was a farmer's son, + And a pondering he sat + One night when the fagots crackling burned, + And purred the tabby cat. + + Joshua was a well-grown youth, + As one might plainly see + By the sleeves that vainly tried to reach + His hands upon his knee. + + His splay-feet stood all parrot-toed + In cowhide shoes arrayed, + And his hair seemed cut across his brow + By rule and plummet laid. + + And what was Joshua pondering on, + With his widely staring eyes, + And his nostrils opening sensibly + To ease his frequent sighs? + + Not often will a lover's lips + The tender secret tell, + But out he spoke before he thought, + "My gracious! Nancy Bell!" + + His mother at her spinning-wheel, + Good woman, stood and spun, + "And what," says she, "is come o'er you, + Is't _airnest_ or is't fun?" + + Then Joshua gave a cunning look, + Half bashful and half sporting, + "Now what did father do," says he, + "When first he came a courting?" + + "Why, Josh, the first thing that he did," + With a knowing wink, said she, + "He dressed up of a Sunday night, + And _cast sheep's eyes_ at me." + + Josh said no more, but straight went out + And sought a butcher's pen, + Where twelve fat sheep, for market bound, + Had lately slaughtered been. + + He bargained with a lover's zeal, + Obtained the wished-for prize, + And filled his pockets fore and aft + With twice twelve bloody eyes. + + The next night was the happy time + When all New England sparks, + Drest in their best, go out to court, + As spruce and gay as larks. + + When floors are nicely sanded o'er, + When tins and pewter shine, + And milk-pans by the kitchen wall + Display their dainty line; + + While the new ribbon decks the waist + Of many a waiting lass, + Who steals a conscious look of pride + Toward her answering glass. + + In pensive mood sat Nancy Bell; + Of Joshua thought not she, + But of a hearty sailor lad + Across the distant sea. + + Her arm upon the table rests, + Her hand supports her head, + When Joshua enters with a scrape, + And somewhat bashful tread. + + No word he spake, but down he sat, + And heaved a doleful sigh, + Then at the table took his aim + And rolled a glassy eye. + + Another and another flew, + With quick and strong rebound, + They tumbled in poor Nancy's lap, + They fell upon the ground. + + While Joshua smirked, and sighed, and smiled + Between each tender aim, + And still the cold and bloody balls + In frightful quickness came. + + Until poor Nancy flew with screams, + To shun the amorous sport, + And Joshua found to _cast sheep's eyes_ + Was not the way to court. + + * * * * * + +"Fanny Forrester" and "Fanny Fern" both delighted the public with +individual styles of writing, vastly successful when a new thing. + +When wanting a new dress and bonnet, as every woman will in the spring +(or any time), Fanny Forrester wrote to Willis, of the _New Mirror_, an +appeal which he called "very clever, adroit, and fanciful." + + "You know the shops in Broadway are very tempting this season. + _Such_ beautiful things! Well, you know (no, you don't know + that, but you can guess) what a delightful thing it would be to + appear in one of those charming, head-adorning, + complexion-softening, hard-feature-subduing Neapolitans, with a + little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of + those exquisite _balzarines_, to be seen any day at Stewart's + and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you _must_ know) that + shopkeepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange + for these things, even of a lady; and also that some people have + a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the + yellow "root" in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am + one of that class. I have the most beautiful little purse in the + world, but it is only kept for show. I even find myself under + the necessity of counterfeiting--that is, filling the void with + tissue-paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping + expedition. Well, now to the point. As Bel and I snuggled down + on the sofa this morning to read the _New Mirror_ (by the way, + Cousin Bel is never obliged to put tissue-paper in her purse), + it struck us that you would be a friend in need, and give good + counsel in this emergency. Bel, however, insisted on my not + telling what I wanted the money for. She even thought that I had + better intimate orphanage, extreme suffering from the bursting + of some speculative bubble, illness, etc.; but did I not know + you better? Have I read the _New Mirror_ so much (to say nothing + of the graceful things coined under a bridge, and a thousand + other pages flung from the inner heart) and not learned who has + an eye for everything pretty? Not so stupid, Cousin Bel, no, + no!... + + "And to the point. Maybe you of the _New Mirror_ PAY for + acceptable articles, maybe not. _Comprenez vous?_ Oh, I do hope + that beautiful _balzarine_ like Bel's will not be gone before + another Saturday! You will not forget to answer me in the next + _Mirror_; but pray, my dear Editor, let it be done very + cautiously, for Bel would pout all day if she should know what I + have written. + + "Till Saturday, your anxiously-waiting friend, + + "FANNY FORRESTER." + +Such a note received by an editor of this generation would promptly fall +into the waste-basket. But Willis was captivated, and answered: + +"Well, we give in! On _condition_ that you are under twenty-five and +that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time +you appear in Broadway with the hat and _balzarine_, we will pay the +bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done +as this letter, and you may 'snuggle' down on the sofa and consider us +paid, and the public charmed with you." + +This style of ingratiating one's self with an editor is as much a bygone +as an alliterative pen-name. + + * * * * * + +Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton) also established a style of her own--"a +new kind of composition; short, pointed paragraphs, without beginning +and without end--one clear, ringing note, and then silence." + +Her talent for humorous composition showed itself in her essays at +school. I'll give a bit from her "Suggestions on Arithmetic after +Cramming for an Examination": + +"Every incident, every object of sight seemed to produce an arithmetical +result. I once saw a poor wretch evidently intoxicated; thought I, 'That +man has overcome three scruples, to say the least, for three scruples +make one dram.' Even the Sabbath was no day of rest for me--the psalms, +prayers, and sermons were all translated by me into the language of +arithmetic. A good man spoke very feelingly upon the manner in which our +cares and perplexities were multiplied by riches. Muttered I: 'That, +sir, depends upon whether the multiplier is a fraction or a whole +number; for if it be a fraction, it makes the product less.' And when +another, lamenting the various divisions of the Church, pathetically +exclaimed: 'And how shall we unite these several denominations in one?' + +"'Why, reduce them to a common denominator,' exclaimed I, half aloud, +wondering at his ignorance. + +"And when an admiring swain protested his warm 'interest,' he brought +only one word that chimed with my train of thought. + +"'Interest?' exclaimed I, starting from my reverie. 'What per cent, +sir?' + +"'Ma'am?' exclaimed my attendant, in the greatest possible amazement. + +"'How much per cent, sir?' said I, repeating my question. + +"His reply was lost on my ear save: 'Madam, at any rate do not trifle +with my feelings.' + +"'At any rate, did you say? Then take six per cent; that is the easiest +to calculate.'" + +Her style, too, has gone out of fashion; but in its day it was thought +very amusing. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Stowe needs no introduction, and she is another of those from whom +we quote little, because she could contribute so much, and one does not +know where to choose. Her "Sam Lawson" is, perhaps, the most familiar of +her odd characters and talkers. + + +SAM LAWSON'S SAYINGS. + +"Well, Sam, what did you think of the sermon?" said Uncle Bill. + +"Well," said Sam, leaning over the fire with his long, bony hands +alternately raised to catch the warmth, and then dropped with an utter +laxness when the warmth became too pronounced, "Parson Simpson's a smart +man; but I tell ye, it's kind o' discouragin'. Why, he said our state +and condition by natur war just like this: We war clear down in a well +fifty feet deep, and the sides all round nothin' but glare ice; but we +war under immediate obligations to get out, 'cause we war free, +voluntary agents. But nobody ever had got out, and nobody would, unless +the Lord reached down and took 'em. And whether he would or not nobody +could tell; it was all sovereignty. He said there warn't one in a +hundred, not one in a thousand, not one in ten thousand, that would be +saved. 'Lordy massy,' says I to myself, 'ef that's so they're any of 'em +welcome to my chance.' And so I kind o' ris up and come out, 'cause I'd +got a pretty long walk home, and I wanted to go round by South Pond and +inquire about Aunt Sally Morse's toothache."... + +"This 'ere Miss Sphyxy Smith's a rich old gal, and 'mazin' smart to +work," he began. "Tell you, she holds all she gets. Old Sol, he told me +a story 'bout her that was a pretty good un." + +"What was it?" said my grandmother. + +"Wal, ye see, you 'member old Parson Jeduthun Kendall that lives up in +Stonytown; he lost his wife a year ago last Thanksgivin', and he thought +'twar about time he hed another; so he comes down and consults our +Parson Lothrop. Says he: 'I want a good, smart, neat, economical woman, +with a good property. I don't care nothin' about her bein' handsome. In +fact, I ain't particular about anything else,' says he. Wal, Parson +Lothrop, says he: 'I think, if that's the case, I know jest the woman to +suit ye. She owns a clear, handsome property, and she's neat and +economical; but she's no beauty!' 'Oh, beauty is nothin' to me,' says +Parson Kendall; and so he took the direction. Wal, one day he hitched up +his old one-hoss shay, and kind o' brushed up, and started off +a-courtin'. Wal, the parson come to the house, and he war tickled to +pieces with the looks o' things outside, 'cause the house is all well +shingled and painted, and there ain't a picket loose nor a nail wantin' +nowhere. + +"'This 'ere's the woman for me,' says Parson Kendall. So he goes up and +raps hard on the front door with his whip-handle. Wal, you see, Miss +Sphyxy she war jest goin' out to help get in her hay. She had on a pair +o' clompin' cowhide boots, and a pitchfork in her hand, jest goin' out, +when she heard the rap. So she come jest as she was to the front door. +Now, you know Parson Kendall's a little midget of a man, but he stood +there on the step kind o' smilin' and genteel, lickin' his lips and +lookin' _so_ agreeable! Wal, the front door kind o' stuck--front doors +generally do, ye know, 'cause they ain't opened very often--and Miss +Sphyxy she had to pull and haul and put to all her strength, and finally +it come open with a bang, and she 'peared to the parson, pitchfork and +all, sort o' frownin' like. + +"'What do you want?' says she; for, you see, Miss Sphyxy ain't no ways +tender to the men. + +"'I want to see Miss Asphyxia Smith,' says he, very civil, thinking she +war the hired gal. + +"'I'm Miss Asphyxia Smith,' says she. 'What do you want o' me?' + +"Parson Kendall he jest took one good look on her, from top to toe. +'NOTHIN',' says he, and turned right round and went down the steps like +lightnin'." + + * * * * * + +Years ago Mrs. Stowe published some capital stories of New England life, +which were collected in a little volume called "The Mayflower," a book +which is now seldom seen, and almost unknown to the present generation. +From this I take her "Night in a Canal-Boat." Extremely effective when +read with enthusiasm and proper variety of tone. I quote it as a boon +for the boys and girls who are often looking for something "funny" to +read aloud. + + +THE CANAL-BOAT. + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. + +Of all the ways of travelling which obtain among our locomotive nation, +this said vehicle, the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and +inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the +lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go take your stand +on some overhanging bluff, where the blue Ohio winds its thread of +silver, or the sturdy Mississippi tears its path through unbroken +forests, and it will do your heart good to see the gallant boat walking +the waters with unbroken and powerful tread, and, like some fabled +monster of the wave, breathing fire and making the shores resound with +its deep respirations. Then there is something mysterious--even +awful--in the power of steam. See it curling up against a blue sky some +rosy morning, graceful, floating, intangible, and to all appearance the +softest and gentlest of all spiritual things, and then think that it is +this fairy spirit that keeps all the world alive and hot with motion; +think how excellent a servant it is, doing all sorts of gigantic works, +like the genii of old; and yet, if you let slip the talisman only for a +moment, what terrible advantage it will take of you! and you will +confess that steam has some claims both to the beautiful and the +terrible! For our own part, when we are down among the machinery of a +steamboat in full play, we conduct ourselves very reverently, for we +consider it as a very serious neighborhood, and every time the steam +whizzes with such red-hot determination from the escape-valve, we start +as if some of the spirits were after us. But in a canal-boat there is no +power, no mystery, no danger; one cannot blow up, one cannot be +drowned--unless by some special effort; one sees clearly all there is in +the case--a horse, a rope, and a muddy strip of water--and that is all. + +Did you ever try it, reader? If not, take an imaginary trip with us, +just for experiment. "There's the boat!" exclaims a passenger in the +omnibus, as we are rolling down from the Pittsburg Mansion House to the +canal. "Where?" exclaim a dozen of voices, and forthwith a dozen heads +go out of the window. "Why, down there, under that bridge; don't you see +those lights?" "What, that little thing!" exclaims an inexperienced +traveller; "dear me! we can't half of us get into it!" "We! indeed," +says some old hand in the business; "I think you'll find it will hold us +and a dozen more loads like us." "Impossible!" say some. "You'll see," +say the initiated; and as soon as you get out you _do_ see, and hear, +too, what seems like a general breaking loose from the Tower of Babel, +amid a perfect hail-storm of trunks, boxes, valises, carpet-bags, and +every describable and indescribable form of what a Westerner calls +"plunder." + +"That's my trunk!" barks out a big, round man. "That's my bandbox!" +screams a heart-stricken old lady, in terror for her immaculate Sunday +caps. "Where's my little red box? I had two carpet-bags and a--My trunk +had a scarle--Halloo! where are you going with that portmanteau? +Husband! Husband! do see after the large basket and the little +hair-trunk--Oh, and the baby's little chair!" "Go below, go below, for +mercy's sake, my dear; I'll see to the baggage." At last the feminine +part of creation, perceiving that, in this particular instance, they +gain nothing by public speaking, are content to be led quietly under +hatches; and amusing is the look of dismay which each new-comer gives to +the confined quarters that present themselves. Those who were so +ignorant of the power of compression as to suppose the boat scarce large +enough to contain them and theirs, find, with dismay, a respectable +colony of old ladies, babies, mothers, big baskets, and carpet-bags +already established. "Mercy on us!" says one, after surveying the little +room, about ten feet long and six feet high, "where are we all to sleep +to-night?" "Oh, me, what a sight of children!" says a young lady, in a +despairing tone. "Pooh!" says an initiated traveller, "children! scarce +any here; let's see: one; the woman in the corner, two; that child with +the bread and butter, three; and then there's that other woman with two. +Really, it's quite moderate for a canal-boat. However, we can't tell +till they have all come." + +"All! for mercy's sake, you don't say there are any more coming!" +exclaim two or three in a breath; "they _can't_ come; _there is not +room_!" + +Notwithstanding the impressive utterance of this sentence the contrary +is immediately demonstrated by the appearance of a very corpulent +elderly lady with three well-grown daughters, who come down looking +about them most complacently, entirely regardless of the unchristian +looks of the company. What a mercy it is that fat people are always +good-natured! + +After this follows an indiscriminate raining down of all shapes, sizes, +sexes, and ages--men, women, children, babies, and nurses. The state of +feeling becomes perfectly desperate. Darkness gathers on all faces. "We +shall be smothered! we shall be crowded to death! we _can't stay_ here!" +are heard faintly from one and another; and yet, though the boat grows +no wider, the walls no higher, they do live, and do stay there, in spite +of repeated protestations to the contrary. Truly, as Sam Slick says, +"there's a _sight of wear_ in human natur'!" + +But meanwhile the children grow sleepy, and divers interesting little +duets and trios arise from one part or another of the cabin. + +"Hush, Johnny! be a good boy," says a pale, nursing mamma, to a great, +bristling, white-headed phenomenon, who is kicking very much at large in +her lap. + +"I won't be a good boy, neither," responds Johnny, with interesting +explicitness; "I want to go to bed, and so-o-o-o!" and Johnny makes up a +mouth as big as a tea-cup, and roars with good courage, and his mamma +asks him "if he ever saw pa do so," and tells him that "he is mamma's +dear, good little boy, and must not make a noise," with various +observations of the kind, which are so strikingly efficacious in such +cases. Meanwhile the domestic concert in other quarters proceeds with +vigor. "Mamma, I'm tired!" bawls a child. "Where's the baby's +nightgown?" calls a nurse. "Do take Peter up in your lap, and keep him +still." "Pray get out some biscuits to stop their mouths." Meanwhile +sundry babies strike in _con spirito_, as the music-books have it, and +execute various flourishes; the disconsolate mothers sigh, and look as +if all was over with them; and the young ladies appear extremely +disgusted, and wonder "what business women have to be travelling round +with children." + +To these troubles succeeds the turning-out scene, when the whole caravan +is ejected into the gentlemen's cabin, that the beds may be made. The +red curtains are put down, and in solemn silence all the last mysterious +preparations begin. At length it is announced that all is ready. +Forthwith the whole company rush back, and find the walls embellished by +a series of little shelves, about a foot wide, each furnished with a +mattress and bedding, and hooked to the ceiling by a very suspiciously +slender cord. Direful are the ruminations and exclamations of +inexperienced travellers, particularly young ones, as they eye these +very equivocal accommodations. "What, sleep up there! _I_ won't sleep on +one of those top shelves, _I_ know. The cords will certainly break." The +chambermaid here takes up the conversation, and solemnly assures them +that such an accident is not to be thought of at all; that it is a +natural impossibility--a thing that could not happen without an actual +miracle; and since it becomes increasingly evident that thirty ladies +cannot all sleep on the lowest shelf, there is some effort made to +exercise faith in this doctrine; nevertheless all look on their +neighbors with fear and trembling; and when the stout lady talks of +taking a shelf, she is most urgently pressed to change places with her +alarmed neighbor below. Points of location being after a while adjusted, +comes the last struggle. Everybody wants to take off a bonnet, or look +for a shawl, to find a cloak, or get a carpet-bag, and all set about it +with such zeal that nothing can be done. "Ma'am, you're on my foot!" +says one. "Will you please to move, ma'am?" says somebody, who is +gasping and struggling behind you. "Move!" you echo. "Indeed, I should +be very glad to, but I don't see much prospect of it." "Chambermaid!" +calls a lady who is struggling among a heap of carpet-bags and children +at one end of the cabin. "Ma'am!" echoes the poor chambermaid, who is +wedged fast in a similar situation at the other. "Where's my cloak, +chambermaid?" "I'd find it, ma'am, if I could move." "Chambermaid, my +basket!" "Chambermaid, my parasol!" "Chambermaid, my carpet-bag!" +"Mamma, they push me so!" "Hush, child; crawl under there and lie still +till I can undress you." At last, however, the various distresses are +over, the babies sink to sleep, and even that much-enduring being, the +chambermaid, seeks out some corner for repose. Tired and drowsy, you are +just sinking into a doze, when bang! goes the boat against the sides of +a lock; ropes scrape, men run and shout; and up fly the heads of all the +top-shelfites, who are generally the more juvenile and airy part of the +company. + +"What's that! what's that!" flies from mouth to mouth; and forthwith +they proceed to awaken their respective relations. "Mother! Aunt Hannah! +do wake up; what is this awful noise?" "Oh, only a lock." "Pray, be +still," groan out the sleepy members from below. + +"A lock!" exclaim the vivacious creatures, ever on the alert for +information; "and what _is_ a lock, pray?" + +"Don't you know what a lock is, you silly creatures. Do lie down and go +to sleep." + +"But say, there ain't any _danger_ in a lock, is there?" respond the +querists. "Danger!" exclaims a deaf old lady, poking up her head. +"What's the matter? There hain't nothing burst, has there?" "No, no, +no!" exclaim the provoked and despairing opposition party, who find that +there is no such thing as going to sleep till they have made the old +lady below and the young ladies above understand exactly the philosophy +of a lock. After a while the conversation again subsides; again all is +still; you hear only the trampling of horses and the rippling of the +rope in the water, and sleep again is stealing over you. You doze, you +dream, and all of a sudden you are startled by a cry, "Chambermaid! wake +up the lady that wants to be set ashore." Up jumps chambermaid, and up +jump the lady and two children, and forthwith form a committee of +inquiry as to ways and means. "Where's my bonnet?" says the lady, half +awake and fumbling among the various articles of that name. "I thought I +hung it up behind the door." "Can't you find it?" says the poor +chambermaid, yawning and rubbing her eyes. "Oh, yes, here it is," says +the lady; and then the cloak, the shawl, the gloves, the shoes, receive +each a separate discussion. At last all seems ready, and they begin to +move off, when lo! Peter's cap is missing. "Now, where can it be?" +soliloquizes the lady. "I put it right here by the table-leg; maybe it +got into some of the berths." At this suggestion the chambermaid takes +the candle, and goes round deliberately to every berth, poking the light +directly in the face of every sleeper. "Here it is," she exclaims, +pulling at something black under one pillow. "No, indeed, those are my +shoes," says the vexed sleeper. "Maybe it's here," she resumes, darting +upon something dark in another berth. "No, that's my bag," responds the +occupant. The chambermaid then proceeds to turn over all the children on +the floor, to see if it is not under them. In the course of which +process they are most agreeably waked up and enlivened; and when +everybody is broad awake, and most uncharitably wishing the cap, and +Peter too, at the bottom of the canal, the good lady exclaims, "Well, if +this isn't lucky; here I had it safe in my basket all the time!" And she +departed amid the--what shall I say? execrations!--of the whole company, +ladies though they be. + +Well, after this follows a hushing up and wiping up among the juvenile +population, and a series of remarks commences from the various shelves +of a very edifying and instructive tendency. One says that the woman did +not seem to know where anything was; another says that she has waked +them all up; a third adds that she has waked up all the children, too; +and the elderly ladies make moral reflections on the importance of +putting your things where you can find them--being always ready; which +observations, being delivered in an exceedingly doleful and drowsy tone, +form a sort of sub-bass to the lively chattering of the upper-shelfites, +who declare that they feel quite awake--that they don't think they shall +go to sleep again to-night, and discourse over everything in creation, +until you heartily wish you were enough related to them to give them a +scolding. + +At last, however, voice after voice drops off; you fall into a most +refreshing slumber; it seems to you that you sleep about a quarter of an +hour, when the chambermaid pulls you by the sleeve. "Will you please to +get up, ma'am? We want to make the beds." You start and stare. Sure +enough, the night is gone. So much for sleeping on board canal-boats! + +Let us not enumerate the manifold perplexities of the morning toilet in +a place where every lady realizes most forcibly the condition of the old +woman who lived under a broom: "All she wanted was elbow-room." Let us +not tell how one glass is made to answer for thirty fair faces, one ewer +and vase for thirty lavations; and--tell it not in Gath--one towel for a +company! Let us not intimate how ladies' shoes have, in a night, +clandestinely slid into the gentlemen's cabin, and gentlemen's boots +elbowed, or, rather, _toed_ their way among ladies' gear, nor recite the +exclamations after runaway property that are heard. + +"I can't find nothing of Johnny's shoe!" "Here's a shoe in the +water-pitcher--is this it?" "My side-combs are gone!" exclaims a nymph +with dishevelled curls. "Massy! do look at my bonnet!" exclaims an old +lady, elevating an article crushed into as many angles as there are +pieces in a mince-pie. "I never did sleep _so much together_ in my +life," echoes a poor little French lady, whom despair has driven into +talking English. + +But our shortening paper warns us not to prolong our catalogue of +distresses beyond reasonable bounds, and therefore we will close with +advising all our friends, who intend to try this way of travelling for +_pleasure_, to take a good stock both of patience and clean towels with +them, for we think that they will find abundant need for both. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +"SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE. + + +Next comes Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland with her Western sketches. Many +will remember her laughable description of "Borrowing Out West," with +its two appropriate mottoes: "Lend me your ears," from Shakespeare, and +from Bacon: "Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely." + +"'Mother wants your sifter,' said Miss Ianthe Howard, a young lady of +six years' standing, attired in a tattered calico thickened with dirt; +her unkempt locks straggling from under that hideous substitute for a +bonnet so universal in the Western country--a dirty cotton +handkerchief--which is used _ad nauseam_ for all sorts of purposes. + +"'Mother wants your sifter, and she says she guesses you can let her +have some sugar and tea, 'cause you've got plenty.' This excellent +reason, ''cause you've got plenty,' is conclusive as to sharing with +neighbors. + +"Sieves, smoothing-irons, and churns run about as if they had legs; one +brass kettle is enough for a whole neighborhood, and I could point to a +cradle which has rocked half the babies in Montacute. + +"For my own part, I have lent my broom, my thread, my tape, my spoons, +my cat, my thimble, my scissors, my shawl, my shoes, and have been asked +for my combs and brushes, and my husband for his shaving apparatus and +pantaloons." + +Mrs. Whither, whose "Widow Bedott" is a familiar name, resembles Mrs. +Kirkland in her comic portraitures, which were especially good of their +kind, and never betrayed any malice. The "Bedott Papers" first appeared +in 1846, and became popular at once. They are good examples of what they +simply profess to be: an amusing series of comicalities. + +I shall not quote from them, as every one who enjoys that style of humor +knows them by heart. It would be as useless as copying "Now I lay me +down to sleep," or "Mary had a little lamb," for a child's collection of +verses! + + * * * * * + +There are many authors whom I cannot represent worthily in these brief +limits. When, encouraged by the unprecedented popularity of this +venture, I prepare an encyclopaedia of the "Wit and Humor of American +Women," I can do justice to such writers as "Gail Hamilton" and Miss +Alcott, whose "Transcendental Wild Oats" cannot be cut. Rose Terry Cooke +thinks her "Knoware" the only funny thing she has ever done. She is +greatly mistaken, as I can soon prove. "Knoware" ought to be printed by +itself to delight thousands, as her "Deacon's Week" has already done. To +search for a few good things in the works of my witty friends is +searching not for the time-honored needle in a hay-mow, but for two or +three needles of just the right size out of a whole paper of needles. + +"The Insanity of Cain," by Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, an inimitable satire +on the feebleness of our jury system and the absurd pretence of +"temporary insanity," must wait for that encyclopaedia. And her "Miss +Molony on the Chinese Question" is known and admired by every one, +including the Prince of Wales, who was fairly convulsed by its fun, when +brought out by our favorite elocutionist, Miss Sarah Cowell, who had the +honor of reading before royalty. + +I regretfully omit the "Peterkin Letters," by Lucretia P. Hale, and time +famous "William Henry Letters," by Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz. The very best +bit from Miss Sallie McLean would be how "Grandma Spicer gets Grandpa +Ready for Sunday-school," from the "Cape Cod Folks;" but why not save +space for what is not in everybody's mouth and memory? This is equally +true of Mrs. Cleaveland's "No Sects in Heaven," which, like Arabella +Wilson's "Sextant," goes the rounds of all the papers every other year +as a fresh delight. + +Marietta Holley, too, must be allowed only a brief quotation. "Samantha" +is a family friend from Mexico to Alaska. Mrs. Metta Victoria Victor, +who died recently, has written an immense amount of humorous sketches. +Her "Miss Slimmens," the boarding-house keeper, is a marked character, +and will be remembered by many. + +I will select a few "samples," unsatisfactory because there is so much +more just as good, and then give room for others less familiar. + + +MISS LUCINDA'S PIG. + +BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. + +"You don't know of any poor person who'd like to have a pig, do you?" +said Miss Lucinda, wistfully. + +"Well, the poorer they was, the quicker they'd eat him up, I guess--ef +they could eat such a razor-back." + +"Oh, I don't like to think of his being eaten! I wish he could be got +rid of some other way. Don't you think he might be killed in his sleep, +Israel?" + +"I think it's likely it would wake him up," said he, demurely. "Killin' +'s killin', and a critter can't sleep over it 's though 'twas the +stomachache. I guess he'd kick some, ef he _was_ asleep--and screech +some, too!" + +"Dear me!" said Miss Lucinda, horrified at the idea. "I wish he could be +sent out to run in the woods. Are there any good woods near here, +Israel?" + +"I don't know but what he'd as lieves be slartered to once as to starve +an' be hunted down out in the lots. Besides, there ain't nobody as I +knows of would like a hog to be a-rootin' round among their turnips and +young wheat." + +"Well, what I shall do with him I don't know!" despairingly exclaimed +Miss Lucinda. "He was such a dear little thing when you bought him, +Israel! Do you remember how pink his pretty little nose was--just like a +rosebud--and how bright his eyes were, and his cunning legs? And now +he's grown so big and fierce! But I can't help liking him, either." + +"He's a cute critter, that's sartain; but he does too much rootin' to +have a pink nose now, I expect; there's consider'ble on 't, so I guess +it looks as well to have it gray. But I don't know no more'n you do what +to do abaout it." + +"If I could only get rid of him without knowing what became of him!" +exclaimed Miss Lucinda, squeezing her forefinger with great earnestness, +and looking both puzzled and pained. + +"If Mees Lucinda would pairmit?" said a voice behind her. + +She turned round to see Monsieur Leclerc on his crutches, just in the +parlor-door. + +"I shall, mees, myself dispose of piggie, if it please. I can. I shall +have no sound; he shall to go away like a silent snow, to trouble you no +more, never!" + +"Oh, sir, if you could! But I don't see how!" + +"If mees was to see, it would not be to save her pain. I shall have him +to go by _magique_ to fiery land." + +Fairy-land, probably. But Miss Lucinda did not perceive the _equivoque_. + +"Nor yet shall I trouble Meester Israyel. I shall have the aid of myself +and one good friend that I have; and some night, when you rise of the +morning, he shall not be there." + +Miss Lucinda breathed a deep sigh of relief. + +"I am greatly obliged--I mean, I shall be," said she. + +"Well, I'm glad enough to wash my hands on 't," said Israel. "I shall +hanker arter the critter some, but he's a-gettin' too big to be handy; +'n it's one comfort about critters, you ken git rid on 'em somehaow when +they're more plague than profit. But folks has got to be let alone, +excep' the Lord takes 'em; an' He generally don't see fit."--_From +Somebody's Neighbors._ + + +A GIFT HORSE. + +BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. + +"Well, he no need to ha' done it, Sary. I've told him more'n four times +he hadn't ought to pull a gun tow'rds him by the muzzle on't. Now he's +up an' did it once for all." + +"He won't never have no chance to do it again, Scotty, if you don't +hurry up after the doctor," said Sary, wiping her eyes on her dirty +calico apron, thereby adding an effective shadow under their redness. + +"Well, I'm a-goin', ain't I? But ye know yerself 'twon't do to go so fur +on eend, 'thout ye're vittled consider'ble well." + +So saying, he fell to at the meal she had interrupted, hot potatoes, +cold pork, dried venison, and blueberry pie vanishing down his throat +with an alacrity and dispatch that augured well for the thorough +"vittling" he intended, while Sary went about folding chunks of boiled +ham, thick slices of brown bread, solid rounds of "sody biskit," and +slab-sided turnovers in a newspaper, filling a flat bottle with whiskey, +and now and then casting a look at the low bed where young Harry +McAlister lay, very much whiter than the sheets about him, and quite as +unconscious of surroundings, the blood oozing slowly through such +bandages as Scott Peck's rude surgery had twisted about a gunshot-wound +in his thigh, and brought to close tension by a stick thrust through the +folds, turned as tight as could be borne, and strapped into place by a +bit of coarse twine. + +It was a long journey paddling up the Racquette River, across creek and +carry, with the boat on his back, to the lakes, and then from Martin's +to "Harri'tstown," where he knew a surgeon of repute from a great city +was spending his vacation. It was touch-and-go with Harry before Scott +and Dr. Drake got back. Sary had dosed him with venison-broth, hot and +greasy, weak whiskey and water, and a little milk (only a little), for +their cow was old and pastured chiefly on leaves and twigs, and she only +came back to the shanty when she liked or needed to come, so their milk +supply was uncertain, and Sary dared not leave her patient long enough +to row to the end of Tupper's Lake, where the nearest cow was kept. But +youth has a power of recovery that defies circumstance, and Dr. Drake +was very skilful. Long weeks went by, and the green woods of July had +brightened and faded into October's dim splendor before Harry McAlister +could be carried up the river and over to Bartlett's, where his mother +had been called to meet him. She was a widow, and he her only child; +and, though she was rather silly and altogether unpractical, she had a +tender, generous heart, and was ready to do anything possible for Scott +and Sarah Peck to show her gratitude for their kindness to her boy. She +did not consult Harry at all. He had lost much blood from his accident +and recovered strength slowly. She kept everything like thought or +trouble out of his way as far as she could, and when the family +physician found her heart was set on taking him to Florida for the +winter, because he looked pale and her grandmother's aunt had died of +consumption, Dr. Peet, like a wise man, rubbed his hands together, +bowed, and assured her it would be the very thing. But something must be +done for the Pecks before she went away. It occurred to her how +difficult it must be for them to row everywhere in a small boat. A horse +would be much better. Even if the roads were not good they could ride, +Sarah behind Scott. And so useful in farming, too. Her mind was made up +at once. She dispatched a check for three hundred dollars to Peter Haas, +her old coachman, who had bought a farm in Vermont with his savings, and +retired, with the cook for his wife, into the private life of a farmer. +Mrs. McAlister had much faith in Peter's knowledge of horses and his +honesty. She wrote him to buy a strong, steady animal, and convey it to +Scott Peck, either sending him word to come up to Bartlett's after it, +or taking it down the river; but, at any rate, to make sure he had it. +If the check would not pay all expenses, he was to draw on her for more. +Peter took the opportunity to get rid of a horse he had no use for in +winter; a beast restive as a racer when not in daily use, but strong +enough for any work, and steady enough if he had work. Two hundred and +fifty dollars was the price now set on his head, though Peter had bought +him for seventy-five, and thought him dear at that. The remaining fifty +was ample for expenses; but Peter was a prudent German and liked a +margin. There was no difficulty in getting the horse as far as Martin's, +and by dint of patient insistence Peter contrived to have him conveyed +to Bartlett's; but here he rested and sent a messenger down to Scott +Peck, while he himself returned to Bridget at the farm, slowly cursing +the country and the people as he went his way, for his delays and +troubles had been numerous. + +"Gosh!" said Scott Peck, when he stepped up to the log-house that served +for the guides, unknowing what awaited him, for the messenger had not +found him at home, but left word he was to come to Bartlett's for +something, and the first thing he saw was this gray horse. + +"What fool fetched his hoss up here?" + +The guides gathered about the door of their hut, burst into a loud +cackle of laughter; even the beautiful hounds in their rough kennel +leaped up and bayed. + +"W-a-a-l;" drawled lazy Joe Tucker, "the feller 't owns him ain't +nobody's fool. Be ye, Scotty?" + +"Wha-t!" ejaculated Scott. + +"It's your'n, man, sure as shootin'!" laughed Hearty Jack, Joe Tucker's +brother. + +"Mine? Jehoshaphat! Blaze that air track, will ye? I'm lost, sure." + +"Well, Bartlett's gone out Keeseville way, so't kinder was lef' to me to +tell ye. 'Member that ar chap that shot hisself in the leg down to your +shanty this summer?" + +"Well, I expect I do, seein' I ain't more'n a hundred year old," +sarcastically answered Scott. + +"He's cleared out South-aways some'eres, and his ma consaited she was +dredful obleeged to ye; 'n I'm blessed if she didn't send an old Dutch +feller up here fur to fetch ye that hoss fur a present. He couldn't +noways wait to see ye pus'nally, he sed, fur he mistrusted the' was +snows here sometimes 'bout this season. Ho! ho! ho!" + +"Good land!" said Scott, sitting down on a log, and putting his hands in +his pockets, the image of perplexity, while the men about him roared +with fresh laughter. "What be I a-goin' to do with the critter?" he +asked of the crowd. + +"Blessed if I know," answered Hearty Jack. + +"Can't ye get him out to 'Sable Falls or Keeseville 'n sell him fur what +he'll fetch?" suggested Joe Tucker. + +"I can't go now, noways. Sary's wood-pile's nigh gin out, 'n there was a +mighty big sundog yesterday; 'nd moreover I smell snow. It'll be suthin' +to git hum as 'tis. Mabbe Bartlett'll keep him a spell." + +"No, he won't; you kin bet your head. His fodder's a-runnin' short for +the hornid critters. He's bought some up to Martin's, that's a-comin' +down dyrect; but 'tain't enough. He's put to't for more. Shouldn't +wonder ef he had to draw from North Elby when sleddin' sets in." + +"Well, I dono's there's but one thing for to do; fetch him hum somehow +or 'nother; 'nd there's my boat over to the carry!" + +"You'd better tie the critter on behind an' let him wade down the +Racket!" + +Another shout of laughter greeted this proposal. + +"I s'all take ze boat for you!" quietly said a little brown +Canadian--Jean Poiton. "I am go to Tupper to-morrow. I have one hunt to +make. I can take her." + +"Well said, Gene. I'll owe you a turn. But, fur all, how be I goin' to +get that animile 'long the trail?" + +"I dono!" answered Joe Tucker. "I expect, if it's got to be did, you'll +fetch it somehow. But I'm mighty glad 'tain't my job!" + +Scott Peck thought Joe had good reason for joy in that direction before +he had gone a mile on his homeward way! The trail was only a trail, +rough, devious, crossed with roots of trees, brushed with boughs of fir +and pine, and the horse was restive and unruly. By nightfall he had gone +only a few miles, and when he had tied the beast to a tree and covered +him with a blanket brought from Bartlett's for the purpose, and strapped +on his own back all the way, the light of the camp-fire startled the +horse so that Scott was forced to blind him with a comforter before he +would stand still. Then in the middle of the night, a great owl hooting +from the tree-top just above him was a fresh scare, and but that the +strap and rope both were new and strong he would have escaped. Scott +listened to his rearing, trampling, snorts, and wild neigh with the +composure of a sleepy man; but when he awoke at daylight, and found +four inches of snow had fallen during the night, he swore. + +This was too much. Even to his practised woodcraft it seemed impossible +to get the horse safe to his clearing without harm. It was only by dint +of the utmost care and patience, the greatest watchfulness of the way, +that he got along at all. Every rod or two he stumbled, and all but fell +himself. Here and there a loaded hemlock bough, weighed out of its +uprightness by the wet snow, snapped in his face and blinded him with +its damp burden; and he knew long before nightfall that another night in +the woods was inevitable. He could feed the horse on young twigs of +beech and birch; fresh moss, and new-peeled bark (fodder the animal +would have resented with scorn under any other conditions); but hunger +has no law concerning food. Scott himself was famished; but his pipe and +tobacco were a refuge whose value he knew before, and his charge was +tired enough to be quiet this second night; so the man had an +undisturbed sleep by his comfortable fire. It was full noon of the next +day when he reached his cabin. Jean Poiton had tied his boat to its +stake, and gone on without stopping to speak to Sarah; so her surprise +was wonderful when she saw Scott emerge from the forest, leading a gray +creature, with drooping head and shambling gait, tired and dispirited. + +"Heaven's to Betsey, Scott Peck! What hev you got theer?" + +"The devil!" growled Scott. + +Sary screamed. + +"Do hold your jaw, gal, an' git me su'thin' hot to eat 'n drink. I'm +savager'n an Injin. Come, git along." And, tying his horse to a stump, +the hungry man followed Sarah into the house and helped himself out of +a keg in the corner to a long, reviving draught. + +"Du tell!" said Sarah, when the pork began to frizzle in the pan. "What +upon airth did you buy a hoss for?" (She had discovered it was a horse.) + +"Buy it! I guess not. I ain't no such blamed fool as that comes to. That +feller you nussed up here a spell back, he up an' sent it roun' to +Bartlett's, for a present to me." + +"Well! Did he think you was a-goin' to set up canawl long o' Racket?" + +"I expect he calc'lated I'd go racin'," dryly answered Scott. + +"But what be ye a-goin' to feed him with?" said Sary, laying venison +steaks into the pan. + +"Lord knows! I don't. Shut up, Sary! I'm tuckered out with the beast. +I'd ruther still-hunt three weeks on eend than fetch him in from +Sar'nac, now I tell ye. Ain't them did enough? I could eat a raw bear." + +Sary laughed and asked no more questions till the ravenous man had +satisfied himself with the savory food; but, if she had asked them, +Scott would have had no answer, for his mind was perplexed to the last +degree. He fed the beast for a while on potatoes; but that was taking +the bread out of his own mouth, though he supplemented it with now and +then a boat-load of coarse, frost-killed grass, but the horse grew more +and more gaunt and restive. His eyes glared with hunger and fury. He +kicked out one side of the cowshed and snapped at Scott whenever he came +near him. Want of use and food had restored him to the original savagery +of his race. Hitherto Scott had never acknowledged Mrs McAlister's gift; +but Sary, who had a vague idea of good manners, caught from the picture +papers and occasional dime novels the tribe of Adirondack travellers +strew even in such a wilderness, kept pecking at him. + +"Ta'n't no more'n civil to say thank ye, to the least," she said, till +Scott's temper gave way. + +"Stop a-pesterin' of me! I've hed too much. I ain't a speck thankful! +I'm mightily t'other thing, whatever 'tis. Write to her yourself, if +you're a mind tu. You can make a better fist at it, anyways. Comes as +nateral to women to lie as sap to run. I'll be etarnally blessed ef I +touch paper for to do it." And he flung out of the door with a bang. + +Of course Sary wrote the letter, which one balmy day electrified Harry +and his mother as they sat basking in Southern sunshine: + + "MIS MACALLISTUR: This is fur to say wee is reel + obliged to ye fur the HOSS." + +"Good gracious, mother! Did you send them a horse?" ejaculated Harry. + +"Why, my dear, I wanted to show my sense of their kindness, and I could +not offer these people money. I thought a horse would be so useful!" + +"Useful! in the Adirondack woods!" And Harry burst into a fit of +laughter that scarcely permitted his mother to go on; but at last she +proceeded: + + "But Scotty and me ain't ackwainted So to speak with + Hoss ways; he seems kinder Hum-sick if you may say that + of a Cretur. We air etarnally gratified to You for sech + a Valewble Pressent, but if you was Wiling we shood + Like to swapp it of in spring fur a kow, ourn Being + some in years. + + "yours to Command, SARY PECK." + +But long before Mrs. McAlister's permission to "swap" the horse reached +Scott Peck, the creature took his destiny into his own hands. Scott had +gone away on a desperate errand, to fetch some sort of food for the poor +creature, whose bones stared him in the face, and Sary went out one +morning to give him her potato-peelings and some scraps of bread, when, +suddenly, he jerked his head fiercely, snapped his halter in two, and +wheeled round upon the frightened woman, rearing, snorting, and showing +his long, yellow teeth. Sary fled at once and barred the door behind +her; but neither she nor Scott ever saw their "gift horse" again. For +aught I know he still roams the Adirondack forest, and maybe personates +the ghostly and ghastly white deer of song and legend. Who can tell? But +he was lifted off Scott Peck's shoulders, and all Scott said by way of +epitaph on the departed, when he came home to find his white steed gone, +was, "Hang presents!" + + * * * * * + +"Samantha Allen" will now have "a brief opportunity for remark." + +Admire her graphic description of the excitement Josiah caused by +voting, at a meeting of the "Jonesville Creation Searchers," for his own +spouse as a delegate from Jonesville to the "Sentinel." She reports +thus: + +"It was a fearful time, but right where the excitement was raining most +fearfully I felt a motion by the side of me, and my companion got up and +stood on his feet and says, in _pretty_ firm accents, though _some_ +sheepish: + +"'_I_ did, and there's where I stand now; _I_ vote for _Samantha_!' + +"And then he sot down again. Oh, the fearful excitement and confusion +that rained down again! The president got up and tried to speak; the +editor of the _Auger_ talked wildly; Shakespeare Bobbet talked to +himself incoherently, but Solomon Cypher's voice drowned 'em all out, as +he kep' a-smitin' his breast and a hollerin' that he wasn't goin' to be +infringed upon, or come in contract with _no_ woman! + +"No female woman needn't think she was the equal of man; and I should go +as a woman or stay to home. I was so almost wore out by their talk, that +I spoke right out, and, says I, '_Good land!_ how did you _s'pose_ I was +a-goin'?' + +"The president then said that he meant, if I went I mustn't look upon +things with the eye of a 'Creation Searcher' and a man (here he p'inted +his forefinger right up in the air and waved it round in a real free and +soarin' way), but look at things with the eye of a private investigator +and a _woman_ (here he p'inted his finger firm and stiddy right down +into the wood-box and a pan of ashes). It war impressive--VERY." + + +MISS SLIMMENS SURPRISED. + +_A Terrible Accident._ + +BY METTA VICTORIA VICTOR. + +"Dora! Dora! Dora! wake up, wake up, I say! Don't you smell something +burning? Wake up, child! Don't you smell fire? Good Lord! so do I. I +thought I wasn't mistaken. The room's full of smoke. Oh, dear! what'll +we do? Don't stop to put on your petticoat. We'll all be burned to +death. Fire! fire! fire! fire! + +"Yes, there is! I don't know where! It's all over--our room's all in a +blaze, and Dora won't come out till she gets her dress on. Mr. Little, +you _shan't_ go in--I'll hold you--you'll be killed just to save that +chit of a girl, when--I--I--He's gone--rushed right into the flames. Oh, +my house! my furniture! all my earnings! Can't anything be done? Fire! +fire! fire! Call the fire-engines! ring the dinner-bell! Be quiet! How +can I be quiet? Yes, it is all in flames. I saw them myself! Where's my +silver spoons? Oh, where's my teeth, and my silver soup-ladle? Let me +be! I'm going out in the street before it's too late! Oh, Mr. Grayson! +have you got water? have you found the place? are they bringing water? + +"Did you say the fire was out? Was that you that spoke, Mr. Little? I +thought you were burned up, sure; and there's Dora, too. How did they +get it out? My clothes-closet was on fire, and the room, too! We would +have been smothered in five minutes more if we hadn't waked up! But it's +all out now, and no damage done, but my dresses destroyed and the carpet +spoiled. Thank the Lord, if that's the worst! But it _ain't_ the worst. +Dora, come along this minute to my room. I don't care if it is cold, and +wet, and full of smoke. Don't you see--don't you see I'm in my +night-clothes? I never thought of it before. I'm ruined, ruined +completely! Go to bed, gentlemen; get out of the way as quick as you can +Dora, shut the door. Hand me that candle; I want to look at myself in +the glass. To think that all those gentlemen should have seen me in this +fix! I'd rather have perished in the flames. It's the very first night +I've worn these flannel night-caps, and to be seen in 'em! Good +gracious! how old I do look! Not a spear of hair on my head scarcely, +and this red nightgown and old petticoat on, and my teeth in the +tumbler, and the paint all washed off my face, and scarred besides! It's +no use! I never, never can again make any of _those_ men believe that +I'm only twenty-five, and I felt so sure of some of them. + +"Oh, Dora Adams! _you_ needn't look pale; you've lost nothing. I'll +warrant Mr. Little thought you never looked so pretty as in that ruffled +gown, and your hair all down over your shoulders. He says you were +fainting from the smoke when he dragged you out. You must be a little +fool to be afraid to come out looking _that_ way. They say that new +boarder is a drawing-master, and I seen some of his pictures yesterday; +he had some such ridiculous things. He'll caricature me for the +amusement of the young men, I know. Only think how my portrait would +look taken to-night! and he'll have it, I'm sure, for I noticed him +looking at me--the first that reminded me of my situation after the fire +was put out. Well, there's but one thing to be done, and that's to put a +bold face on it. I can't sleep any more to-night; besides, the bed's +wet, and it's beginning to get daylight. I'll go to work and get myself +ready for breakfast, and I'll pretend to something--I don't know just +what--to get myself out of this scrape, if I can.... + +"Good-morning, gentlemen, good-morning! We had quite a fright last +night, didn't we? Dora and I came pretty near paying dear for a little +frolic. You see, we were dressing up in character to amuse ourselves, +and I was all fixed up for to represent an old woman, and had put on a +gray wig and an old flannel gown that I found, and we'd set up pretty +late, having some fun all to ourselves; and I expect Dora must have been +pretty sleepy when she was putting some of the things away, and set fire +to a dress in the closet without noticing it. I've lost my whole +wardrobe, nigh about, by her carelessness; but it's such a mercy we +wasn't burned in our bed that I don't feel to complain so much on that +account. Isn't it curious how I got caught dressed up like my +grandmother? We didn't suppose we were going to appear before so large +an audience when we planned out our little frolic. What character did +Dora assume? Really, Mr. Little, I was so scared last night that I +disremember. She took off _her_ rigging before she went to bed. Don't +you think I'd personify a pretty good old woman, gentlemen--ha! ha!--for +a lady of my age? What's that, Mr. Little? You wish I'd make you a +present of that nightcap, to remember me by? Of course; I've no further +use for it. Of course I haven't. It's one of Bridget's, that I borrowed +for the occasion, and I've got to give it back to her. Have some coffee, +Mr. Grayson--do! I've got cream for it this morning. Mr. Smith, help +yourself to some of the beefsteak. It's a very cold morning--fine +weather out of doors. Eat all you can, all of you. Have you any profiles +to take yet, Mr. Gamboge? I _may_ make up my mind to set for mine before +you leave us; I've always thought I should have it taken some time. In +character? He! he! Mr. Little, you're so funny! But you'll excuse _me_ +this morning, as I had such a fright last night. I must go and take up +that wet carpet." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A BRACE OF WITTY WOMEN. + + +By the courtesy of Harper Brothers I am allowed to give you "Aunt +Anniky's Teeth," by Sherwood Bonner. The illustrations add much, but the +story is good enough without pictures. + + +AUNT ANNIKY'S TEETH. + +BY SHERWOOD BONNER. + +Aunt Anniky was an African dame, fifty years old, and of an imposing +presence. As a waffle-maker she possessed a gift beyond the common, but +her unapproachable talent lay in the province of nursing. She seemed +born for the benefit of sick people. She should have been painted with +the apple of healing in her hand. For the rest, she was a funny, +illiterate old darkey, vain, affable, and neat as a pink. + +On one occasion my mother had a dangerous illness. Aunt Anniky nursed +her through it, giving herself no rest, night nor day, until her patient +had come "back to de walks an' ways ob life," as she expressed the dear +mother's recovery. My father, overjoyed and grateful, felt that we owed +this result quite as much to Aunt Anniky as to our family doctor, so he +announced his intention of making her a handsome present, and, like King +Herod, left her free to choose what it should be. I shall never forget +how Aunt Anniky looked as she stood there smiling and bowing, and +bobbing the funniest little courtesies all the way down to the ground. + +And you would never guess what it was the old woman asked for. + +"Well, Mars' Charles," said she (she had been one of our old servants, +and always called my father 'Mars' Charles'), "to tell you de livin' +trufe, my soul an' body is a-yearnin' fur a han'sum chany set o' teef." + +"A set of teeth!" said father, surprised enough. "And have you none left +of your own?" + +"I has gummed it fur a good many ye'rs," said Aunt Anniky, with a sigh; +"but not wishin' ter be ongrateful ter my obligations, I owns ter havin' +five nateral teef. But dey is po' sogers; dey shirks battle. One ob +dem's got a little somethin' in it as lively as a speared worm, an' I +tell you when anything teches it, hot or cold, it jest makes me _dance_! +An' anudder is in my top jaw, an' ain't got no match fur it in de bottom +one; an' one is broke off nearly to de root; an' de las' two is so +yaller dat I's ashamed ter show 'em in company, an' so I lif's my +turkey-tail ter my mouf every time I laughs or speaks." + +Father turned to mother with a musing air. "The curious student of +humanity," he remarked, "traces resemblances where they are not +obviously conspicuous. Now, at the first blush, one would not think of +any common ground of meeting for our Aunt Anniky and the Empress +Josephine. Yet that fine French lady introduced the fashion of +handkerchiefs by continually raising delicate lace _mouchoirs_ to her +lips to hide her bad teeth. Aunt Anniky lifts her turkey-tail! It +really seems that human beings should be classed by _strata_, as if +they were metals in the earth. Instead of dividing by nations, let us +class by quality. So we might find Turk, Jew, Christian, fashionable +lady and washerwoman, master and slave, hanging together like cats on a +clothes-line by some connecting cord of affinity--" + +"In the mean time," said my mother, mildly, "Aunt Anniky is waiting to +know if she is to have her teeth." + +"Oh, surely, surely!" cried father, coming out of the clouds with a +start. "I am going to the village to-morrow, Anniky, in the spring +wagon. I will take you with me, and we will see what the dentist can do +for you." + +"Bless yo' heart, Mars' Charles!" said the delighted Anniky; "you're +jest as good as yo' blood and yo' name, and mo' I _couldn't_ say." + +The morrow came, and with it Aunt Anniky, gorgeously arrayed in a +flaming red calico, a bandanna handkerchief, and a string of carved +yellow beads that glittered on her bosom like fresh buttercups on a +hill-slope. + +I had petitioned to go with the party, for, as we lived on a plantation, +a visit to the village was something of an event. A brisk drive soon +brought us to the centre of "the Square." A glittering sign hung +brazenly from a high window on its western side, bearing, in raised +black letters, the name, "Doctor Alonzo Babb." + +Dr. Babb was the dentist and the odd fish of our village. He beams in my +memory as a big, round man, with hair and smiles all over his face, who +talked incessantly, and said things to make your blood run cold. + +"Do you see this ring?" he said, as he bustled about, polishing his +instruments and making his preparations for the sacrifice of Aunt +Anniky. He held up his right hand, on the forefinger of which glistened +a ring the size of a dog-collar. "Now, what d'ye s'pose that's made of?" + +"Brass," suggested father, who was funny when not philosophical. + +"_Brass!_" cried Dr. Babb, with a withering look; "it's virgin gold, +that ring is. And where d'ye s'pose I found the gold?" + +My father ran his hands into his pockets in a retrospective sort of way. + +"In the mouths of my patients, every grain of it," said the dentist, +with a perfectly diabolical smack of the lips. "Old fillings--plugs, you +know--that I saved, and had made up into this shape. Good deal of +sentiment about such a ring as this." + +"Sentiment of a mixed nature, I should say," murmured my father, with a +grimace. + +"Mixed--rather! A speck here, a speck there. Sometimes an eye, oftener a +jaw, occasionally a front. More than a hundred men, I s'pose, have +helped in the cause." + +"Law, doctor! you beats de birds, you does," cries Aunt Anniky, whose +head was as flat as the floor, where her reverence should have been. +"You know dey snatches de wool from ebery bush to make deir nests." + +"Lots of company for me, that ring is," said the doctor, ignoring the +pertinent or impertinent interruption. "Often as I sit in the twilight, +I twirl it around and around, a-thinking of the wagon-loads of food it +has masticated, the blood that has flowed over it, the groans that it +has cost! Now, old lady, if you will sit just here." + +He motioned Aunt Anniky to the chair, into which she dropped in a limp +sort of way, recovering herself immediately, however, and sitting bolt +upright in a rigid attitude of defiance. Some moments of persuasion were +necessary before she could be induced to lean back and allow Dr. Babb's +fingers on her nose while she breathed the laughing-gas; but, once +settled, the expression faded from her countenance almost as quickly as +a magic-lantern picture vanishes. I watched her nervously, my attention +divided between her vacant-looking face and a dreadful picture on the +wall. It represented Dr. Babb himself, minus the hair, but with double +the number of smiles, standing by a patient from whose mouth he had +apparently just extracted a huge molar that he held triumphantly in his +forceps. A gray-haired old gentleman regarded the pair with benevolent +interest. The photograph was entitled, "His First Tooth." + +"Attracted by that picture?" said Dr. Alonzo, affably, his fingers on +Aunt Anniky's pulse. "My par had that struck off the first time I ever +got a tooth out. That's par with the gray hair and the benediction +attitude. Tell you, he was proud of me! I had such an awful tussle with +that tooth! Thought the old fellow's jaw was _bound_ to break! But I got +it out, and after that my par took me with him round the +country--starring the provinces, you know--and I practised on the +natives." + +By this time Aunt Anniky was well under the influence of the gas, and in +an incredibly short space of time her five teeth were out. As she came +to herself I am sorry to say she was rather silly, and quite mortified +me by winking at Dr. Babb in the most confidential manner, and +repeating, over and over again: "Honey, yer ain't harf as smart as yer +thinks yer is!" + +After a few weeks of sore gums, Aunt Anniky appeared, radiant with her +new teeth. The effect was certainly funny. In the first place, blackness +itself was not so black as Aunt Anniky. She looked as if she had been +dipped in ink and polished off with lamp-black. Her very eyes showed but +the faintest rim of white. But those teeth were white enough to make up +for everything. She had selected them herself, and the little ridiculous +milk-white things were more fitted for the mouth of a Titania than for +the great cavern in which Aunt Anniky's tongue moved and had its being. +The gums above them were black, and when she spread her wide mouth in a +laugh, it always reminded me of a piano-lid opening suddenly and showing +all the black and white ivories at a glance. Aunt Anniky laughed a good +deal, too, after getting her teeth in, and declared she had never been +so happy in her life. It was observed, to her credit, that she put on no +airs of pride, but was as sociable as ever, and made nothing of taking +out her teeth and handing them around for inspection among her curious +and admiring visitors. On that principle of human nature which glories +in calling attention to the weakest part, she delighted in tough meats, +stale bread, green fruits, and all other eatables that test the biting +quality of the teeth. But finally destruction came upon them in a way +that no one could have foreseen. Uncle Ned was an old colored man who +lived alone in a cabin not very far from Aunt Anniky's, but very +different from her in point of cleanliness and order. In fact, Uncle +Ned's wealth, apart from a little corn crop, consisted in a lot of fine +young pigs, that ran in and out of the house at all times, and were +treated by their owner as tenderly as if they had been his children. +One fine day the old man fell sick of a fever, and he sent in haste for +Aunt Anniky to come and nurse him. He agreed to give her a pig in case +she brought him through; should she fail to do so, she was to receive no +pay. Well, Uncle Ned got well, and the next thing we heard was that he +refused to pay the pig. My father was usually called on to settle all +the disputes in the neighborhood; so one morning Anniky and Ned appeared +before him, both looking very indignant. + +"I'd jes' like ter tell yer, Mars' Charles," began Uncle Ned, "ob de +trick dis miser'ble ole nigger played on me." + +"Go on, Ned," said my father, with a resigned air. + +"Well, it wuz de fift night o' de fever," said Uncle Ned, "an' I wuz +a-tossin' an' a-moanin', an' old Anniky jes' lay back in her cheer an' +snored as ef a dozen frogs wuz in her throat. I wuz a-perishin' an' +a-burnin' wid thirst, an' I hollered to Anniky; but Lor'! I might as +well 'a hollered to a tombstone! It wuz ice I wanted; an' I knowed dar +wuz a glass somewhar on my table wid cracked ice in it. Lor'! Lor'! how +dry I wuz! I neber longed fer whiskey in my born days ez I panted fur +dat ice. It wuz powerful dark, fur de grease wuz low in de lamp, an' de +wick spluttered wid a dyin' flame. But I felt aroun', feeble like an' +slow, till my fingers touched a glass. I pulled it to me, an' I run my +han' in an' grabbed de ice, as I s'posed, an' flung it in my mouf, an' +crunched, an' crunched--" + +Here there was an awful pause. Uncle Ned pointed his thumb at Anniky, +looked wildly at my father, and said, in a hollow voice: "_It wuz +Anniky's teef!_" + +My father threw back his head and laughed as I had never heard him +laugh. Mother from her sofa joined in. I was doubled up like a +jack-knife in the corner. But as for the principals in the affair, +neither of their faces moved a muscle. They saw no joke. Aunt Anniky, in +a dreadful, muffled, squashy sort of voice, took up the tale: + +"Nexsh ting I knowed, Marsh Sharles, somebody's sheizin' me by de head, +a-jammin' it up 'gin de wall, a-jawin' at me like de Angel Gabriel at de +rish ole sinners in de bad plashe--an' dar wash ole Ned a-spittin' like +a black cat, an' a-howlin' so dreadful dat I tought he wash de debil; +an' when I got de light, dar wash my beautiful chany teef a-flung +aroun', like scattered seed-corn, on de flo', an' Ned a-swarin' he'd +have de law o' me." + +"An' arter all dat," broke in Uncle Ned, "she pretends to lay a claim +fur my pig. But I says no, sir; I don't pay nobody nothin' who's played +me a trick like dat." + +"Trick!" said Aunt Anniky, scornfully, "whar's de trick? Tink I wanted +yer ter eat my teef? An' furder-mo', Marsh Sharles, dar's jes' dis about +it: when dat night set in dar warn't no mo' hope fur old Ned dan fur a +foundered sheep. Laws-a-massy! dat's why I went ter sleep. I wanted ter +hev strengt' ter put on his burial clo'es in de mornin'. But don' yer +see, Marsh Sharles, dat when he got so mad it brought on a sweat dat +_broke de fever_! It saved him! But, fur all dat, arter munchin' an' +manglin' my chany teef, he has de imperdence ob tryin' to 'prive me ob +de pig I honestly 'arned." + +It was a hard case. Uncle Ned sat there a very image of injured dignity, +while Aunt Anniky bound a red handkerchief around her mouth and fanned +herself with her turkey-tail. + +"I am sure I don't know how to settle the matter," said father, +helplessly. "Ned, I don't see but that you'll have to pay up." + +"Neber, Mars' Charles, neber." + +"Well, suppose you get married?" suggested father, brilliantly. "That +will unite your interests, you know." + +Aunt Anniky tossed her head. Uncle Ned was old, wizened, wrinkled as a +raisin, but he eyed Anniky over with a supercilious gaze, and said with +dignity: "Ef I wanted ter marry, I could git a likely young gal." + +All the four points of Anniky's turban shook with indignation. "Pay me +fur dem chany teef!" she hissed. + +Some visitors interrupted the dispute at this time, and the two old +darkies went away. + +A week later Uncle Ned appeared with rather a sheepish look. + +"Well, Mars' Charles," he said, "I's about concluded dat I'll marry +Anniky." + +"Ah! is that so?" + +"'Pears like it's de onliest way I kin save my pigs," said Uncle Ned, +with a sigh. "When she's married she boun' ter _'bey_ me. Women 'bey +your husbands; dat's what de good Book says." + +"Yes, she will _bay_ you, I don't doubt," said my father, making a pun +that Uncle Ned could not appreciate. + +"An' ef ever she opens her jaw ter me 'bout dem ar teef," he went on, +"I'll _mash_ her." + +Uncle Ned tottered on his legs like an unscrewed fruit-stand, and I had +my own opinion as to his "mashing" Aunt Anniky. This opinion was +confirmed the next day when father offered her his congratulations. "You +are old enough to know your own mind," he remarked. + +"I's ole, maybe," said Anniky, "but so is a oak-tree, an' it's +vigorous, I reckon. I's a purty vigorous sort o' growth myself, an' I +reckon I'll have my own way with Ned. I'm gwine ter fatten dem pigs o' +hisn, an' you see ef I don't sell 'em nex' Christmas fur money 'nouf ter +git a new string o' chany teef." + +"Look here, Anniky," said father, with a burst of generosity, "you and +Ned will quarrel about those teeth till the day of doom, so I will make +you a wedding present of another set, that you may begin married life in +harmony." + +Aunt Anniky expressed her gratitude. "An' _dis_ time," she said, with +sudden fury, "I sleeps wid 'em _in_." + +The teeth were presented, and the wedding preparations began. The +expectant bride went over to Ned's cabin and gave it such a clearing up +as it had never had. But Ned did not seem happy. He devoted himself +entirely to his pigs, and wandered about looking more wizened every day. +Finally he came to our gate and beckoned to me mysteriously. + +"Come over to my house, honey," he whispered, "an' bring a pen an' ink +an' a piece o' paper wid yer. I wants yer ter write me a letter." + +I ran into the house for my little writing-desk, and followed Uncle Ned +to his cabin. + +"Now, honey," he said, after barring the door carefully, "don't you ax +me no questions, but jes' put down de words dat comes out o' my mouf on +dat ar paper." + +"Very well, Uncle Ned, go on." + +"Anniky Hobbleston," he began, "dat weddin' ain't a-gwine ter come off. +You cleans up too much ter suit me. I ain't used ter so much water +splashin' aroun'. Dirt is warmin'. 'Spec I'd freeze dis winter if you +wuz here. An' you got too much tongue. Besides, I's got anudder wife +over in Tipper. An' I ain't a-gwine ter marry. As fur havin' de law, I's +a leavin' dese parts, an' I takes der pigs wid me. Yer can't fin' _dem_, +an' yer can't fin' _me_. _Fur I ain't a-gwine ter marry._ I wuz born a +bachelor, an' a bachelor will I represent myself befo' de judgment-seat. +If you gives yer promise ter say no mo' 'bout dis marryin' business, +p'r'aps I'll come back some day. So no mo' at present, from your humble +worshipper, + + "NED CUDDY." + +"Isn't that last part rather inconsistent?" said I, greatly amused. + +"Yes, honey, if yer says so; an' it's kind o' soothin' to de feelin's of +a woman, yer know." + +I wrote it all down and read it aloud to Uncle Ned. + +"Now, my chile," he said, "I'm a-gwine ter git on my mule as soon as der +moon rises, an' drive my pigs ter Col' Water Gap, whar I'll stay an' +fish. Soon as I am well gone, you take dis letter ter Anniky; but +_min'_, don't tell whar I's gone. An' if she takes it all right, an' +promises ter let me alone, you write me a letter, an' I'll git de fust +Methodis' preacher I run across in der woods ter read it ter me. Den, ef +it's all right, I'll come back an' weed yer flower-garden fur yer as +purty as preachin'." + +I agreed to do all uncle Ned asked, and we parted like conspirators. The +next morning Uncle Ned was missing, and, after waiting a reasonable time +I explained the matter to my parents, and went over with his letter to +Aunt Anniky. + +"Powers above!" was her only comment as I got through the remarkable +epistle. Then, after a pause to collect her thoughts, she seized me by +the shoulder, saying: "Run to yo' pappy, honey, quick, an' ax him ef +he's gwine ter stick ter his bargain 'bout de teef. Yer know he pintedly +said dey wuz a _weddin'_ gif'." + +Of course my father sent word that she must keep the teeth, and my +mother added a message of sympathy, with a present of a +pocket-handkerchief to dry Aunt Anniky's tears. + +"But it's all right," said that sensible old soul, opening her piano-lid +with a cheerful laugh. "Bless you, chile, it wuz de teef I wanted, not +de man! An', honey, you jes' sen' word to dat shif'less old nigger, ef +you know whar he's gone, to come back home and git his crap in de +groun'; an', as fur as _I'm_ consarned, yer jes' let him know dat I +wouldn't pick him up wid a ten-foot pole, not ef he wuz to beg me on his +knees till de millennial day."--_From "Dialect Tales," published in 1883 +by Harper Brothers._ + + * * * * * + +It is not easy to tell what satire is, or where it originated. "In +Eden," says Dryden, "the husband and wife excused themselves by laying +the blame on each other, and gave a beginning to those conjugal +dialogues in prose which poets have perfected in verse." Whatever it may +be, we know it when it cuts us, and Sherwood Bonner's hit on the Radical +Club of Boston was almost inexcusable. + +She was admitted as a guest, and her subsequent ridicule was a violation +of all good breeding. But like so many wicked things it is captivating, +and while you are shocked, you laugh. While I hold up both hands in +horror, I intend to give you an idea of it; leaving out the most +personal verses. + + +THE RADICAL CLUB. + +BY SHERWOOD BONNER. + + Dear friends, I crave attention to some facts that I shall mention + About a Club called "Radical," you haven't heard before; + Got up to teach the nation was this new light federation, + To teach the nation how to think, to live, and to adore; + To teach it of the heights and depths that all men should explore; + Only this and nothing more. + + It is not my inclination, in this brief communication, + To produce a false impression--which I greatly would deplore-- + But a few remarks I'm makin' on some notes a chiel's been takin,' + And, if I'm not mistaken, they'll make your soul upsoar, + As you bend your eyes with eagerness to scan these verses o'er; + Truly this and something more. + + And first, dear friends, the fact is, I'm sadly out of practice, + And may fail in doing justice to this literary bore; + But when I do begin it, I don't think 'twill take a minute + To prove there's nothing in it (as you've doubtless heard before), + But a free religious wrangling club--of this I'm very sure-- + Only this and nothing more! + + 'Twas a very cordial greeting, one bright morning of their meeting; + Such eager salutations were never heard before. + After due deliberation on the importance of the occasion, + To begin the organization, Mr. Pompous took the floor + With an air quite self-complacent, strutted up and took the floor, + As he'd often done before! + + With an air of condescension he bespoke their close attention + To an essay from a Wiseman versed in theologic lore; + He himself had had the pleasure of a short glance at the treasure, + And in no stinted measure said we had a treat in store; + Then he waved his hand to Wiseman and resigned to him the floor; + Only this and nothing more. + + Quick and nervous, short and wiry, with a look profound, yet fiery, + Mr. Wiseman now stepped forward and eyed us darkly o'er, + Then an arm-chair, quaint and olden, gay with colors green and golden, + By the pretty hostess rolled in from its place behind the door, + Was offered to the reader, in the centre of the floor, + And he took the chair be sure. + + Then with arguments elastic, and a voice and eye sarcastic, + Mr. Wiseman into flinders the Holy Bible tore; + And he proved beyond all question that the God of Moses' mention + Was a fraudulent invention of some Hebrews, three or four, + And the Son of God's ascension an imaginary soar! + Only this and nothing more. + + Each member then admitted that his part was well acquitted, + For his strong, impassioned reasoning had touched them to the core; + He felt sure, as he surveyed them through his specs, that + he had "played" them, + And was proud that he had made them all astonished by his lore; + Not a continental cared he for the fruits such lessons bore, + So he bowed and left the floor. + + Then a Colonel, cold and smiling, with a stately air beguiling, + Who punctuates his paragraphs on Newport's sounding shore, + Said his friend was wise and witty, and yet it seemed a pity + To destroy in this old city the belief it had before + In the ancient superstitions of the days of yore. + This he said, and something more. + + Orthodoxy, he lamented, thought the Christian world demented, + Yet still he felt a rev'rence as he read the Bible o'er, + And he thought the modern preacher, though a poor stick for a teacher, + Or a broken reed, like Beecher, ought to have his claims looked o'er, + And the "tyranny of science" was indeed, he felt quite sure, + _Our_ danger more and more. + + His remarks our pulses quicken, when a British Lion, stricken + With his wondrous self-importance--he knew everything and more-- + Said he _loathed_ such moderation; and he made his declaration + That, in spite of all creation, he found no God to adore; + And his voice was like the ocean as its surges loudly roar; + Only this and nothing more. + + * * * * * + + But the interest now grew lukewarm, for an ancient Concord book-worm + With authoritative tramping, forward came and took the floor, + And in Orphic mysticisms talked of life and light and prisms, + And the Infinite baptisms on a transcendental shore, + And the concrete metaphysic, till we yawned in anguish sore; + But still he kept the floor. + + Then uprose a kindred spirit almost ready to inherit + The rare and radiant Aiden that he begged us to adore; + His smile was beaming brightly, and his soft hair floated whitely + Round a face as fair and sightly as a pious priest's of yore; + And we forgave the arguments worn out years before, + For we loved this saintly bore. + + * * * * * + + Then a lively little charmer, noted as a dress reformer, + Because that mystic garment, chemiloon, she wore, + Said she had no "views" of Jesus, and therefore would not tease us, + But that she thought 'twould please us to look her figure o'er, + For she wore no bustles _anywhere_, and corsets, she felt sure, + Should squeeze her _nevermore_. + + This pretty little pigeon said of course the true religion + Demanded ease of body before the mind could soar; + But that no emancipation could come unto our nation + Until the aggregation of the clothes that women wore + Were suspended from the shoulders, and smooth with many a gore, + Plain behind and plain before! + + Her remarks were full of reason, but a little out of season, + And the proper tone of talking Mr. Fairman did restore, + When he sneered at priests and preaching, and indorsed + the _Index_ teaching, + And with philanthropic screeching, said he sought for evermore + The light of sense and freedom into darkened minds to pour; + Truly this, but something more! + + Then with eyes as bright as Phoebus, and hair dark as Erebus, + A maid with stunning eye-glass next appeared upon the floor; + In her aspect she looked regal, though her words were few and feeble, + But she vowed his logic legal and as pure as golden ore, + And indorsed the _Index_ editor in every word he swore, + And then--said nothing more. + + Then a tall and red-faced member, large and loose and somewhat limber + (And though his creed was shaky, he the name of Bishop bore), + Said that if he lived forever, he should forget, ah! never, + The Radicals so clever, in Boston by the shore; + But a bad _gold_ in his 'ead _bust_ stop his saying _bore_, + And we all cried _encore_. + + * * * * * + + Then a rarely gifted mortal, to whom the triple portal + Of Music, Art, and Poesy had opened years before, + With a look of sombre feeling, depths within his soul revealing, + Leaving room for no appealing, he decided o'er and o'er + The old, old vexing questions of the _why_ and the _wherefore_, + And taught us--nothing more. + + There are others I could mention who took part in this contention, + And at first 'twas my intention, but at present I forbear; + There's young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle, + And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door; + If you could only see them, you'd laugh till you were sore, + And then you'd laugh some more. + + But, dear friends, I now must close, of these Radicals dispose, + For I am sad and weary as I view their folly o'er; + In their wild Utopian dreaming, and impracticable scheming + For a sinful world's redeeming, common sense flies out the door, + And the long-drawn dissertations come to--words and nothing more; + Only words, and nothing more. + + * * * * * + +Mary Clemmer Hudson has spoken of Phoebe Cary as "the wittiest woman +in America." But she truly adds: + +"A flash of wit, like a flash of lightning, can only be remembered, it +cannot be reproduced. Its very marvel lies in its spontaneity and +evanescence; its power is in being struck from the present. Divorced +from that, the keenest representation of it seems cold and dead. We read +over the few remaining sentences which attempt to embody the repartees +and _bon mots_ of the most famous wits of society, such as Beau Nash, +Beau Brummel, Madame du Deffand, and Lady Mary Montagu; we wonder at the +poverty of these memorials of their fame. Thus it must be with Phoebe +Cary. Her most brilliant sallies were perfectly unpremeditated, and by +herself never repeated or remembered. When she was in her best moods +they came like flashes of heat lightning, like a rush of meteors, so +suddenly and constantly you were dazzled while you were delighted, and +afterward found it difficult to single out any distinct flash or +separate meteor from the multitude.... This most wonderful of her gifts +can only be represented by a few stray sentences gleaned here and there +from the faithful memories of loving friends.... + +"One tells how, at a little party, where fun rose to a great height, one +quiet person was suddenly attacked by a gay lady with the question: 'Why +don't you laugh? You sit there just like a post!' + +"'There! she called you a post; why don't you rail at her?' was Phoebe's +quick exclamation. + +"Mr. Barnum mentioned to her that the skeleton man and the fat woman +then on exhibition in his 'greatest show on earth' were married. + +"'I suppose they loved through thick and thin,' was her comment. + +"'On one occasion, when Phoebe was at the Museum looking about at the +curiosities,' says Mr. Barnum, 'I preceded her and had passed down a +couple of steps. She, intently watching a big anaconda in a case at the +top of the stairs, walked off, not noticing them, and fell. I was just +in time to catch her in my arms and save her from a good bruising'. + +"'I am more lucky than that first woman was who fell through the +influence of the serpent,' said Phoebe, as she recovered herself. + +"And when asked by some one at a dinner-party what brand of champagne +they kept, she replied: 'Oh, we drink Heidsieck, but we keep Mum.' + +"Again, a certain well-known actor, then recently deceased, and more +conspicuous for his professional skill than for his private virtues, was +discussed. 'We shall never,' remarked some one, 'see ---- again.' + +"'No,' quietly responded Phoebe, 'not unless we go to the pit.'" + +These stray shots may not fairly represent Miss Cary's brilliancy, but +we are grateful for what has been preserved, meagre as it would seem to +those who had the privilege of knowing her intimately and enjoying those +Sunday evening receptions, where, unrestrained and happy, every one was +at his best. + +Her verses on the subject of Woman's Rights, as discussed in masculine +fashion, with masculine logic, by Chanticleer Dorking, are capital, and +her parodies, shockingly literal, have been widely copied. Enjoy these +as given in her life, written by Mary Clemmer. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +GINGER-SNAPS. + + +I will now offer you some good things of various degrees of humor. I do +not feel it necessary to impress their merits upon you, for they speak +for themselves Here is a quaint bit of satire from a bright Boston +woman, which those on her side of the vexed Indian question will enjoy: + + +THE INDIAN AGENT. + +BY LOUISA HALL. + +He was a long, lean man, with a sad expression, as if weighed down by +pity for poor humanity. His heart was evidently a great many sizes too +large for him. He yearned to enfold all tribes and conditions of men in +his encircling arms. He surveyed his audience with such affectionate +interest that he seemed to look into the very depths of their pockets. + +A few resolute men buttoned their coats, but the majority knew that this +artifice would not save them, and they rather enjoyed it as a species of +harmless dissipation. They liked to be talked into a state of +exhilaration which obliged them to give without thinking much about it, +and they felt very good and benevolent afterward. So they cheered the +agent enthusiastically, as a signal for him to begin, and he came +forward bowing, while the three red brothers who accompanied him +remained seated on the platform. He appeared to smile on every one +present as he said: + +"Friends and Fellow-Citizens, I have the honor to introduce to you these +chiefs of the Laughing Dog Nation. Twenty-five years ago this tribe was +one of the fiercest on our Western plains. Snarling Bear, the most noted +chief of his tribe, was a great warrior. Fifty scalps adorned his +wigwam. Some of them had once belonged to his best friends. He was +murdered while in the prime of life by a white man whose wife he had +accidentally shot at the door of her cabin. He was one of the first to +welcome the white men and adopt the improvements they brought with them. +When he became sufficiently civilized to understand that polygamy was +unlawful, he separated from his oldest wife. Her scalp was carefully +preserved among those of the great warriors he had conquered. His son, +Flying Deer, who is with us to-day, will address you in his own +language, which I shall interpret for you. The last twenty years have +made a great change in their condition. These men are not savages, but +educated gentlemen. They are all graduates of Tomahawk College, at +Bloody Mountain, near the Gray Wolf country. They are chiefs of their +tribes, each one holding a position equal to the Governor of our own +State. Their influence at the West is great. Last year they sent a small +party of missionaries to the highlands of the Wolf country, where the +women and children pasture the ponies during the dry season. Not one of +these noble men ever returned. Unfortunately for the success of this +mission, the Gray Wolf warriors were at home. The medicine man's dreams +had been unfavorable, and they dared not set out on their annual hunt. +This year they will send a larger party well armed. + +"These devoted men have left their Western homes and come here to assure +you of their confidence in your affection, and the love and gratitude +they feel toward you. They come to ask for churches and schools, that +their children may grow up like yours. But these things require money. +On account of the great scarcity of stone in the Rocky Mountains, and +the necessity of preserving standing timber for the Indian +hunting-grounds, all building materials for churches and school-houses +must be carried from the East at great expense. The door-steps of the +third orthodox Kickapoo church cost one hundred and fifty dollars. But +it is money well invested. The gradual decrease of crime at the West has +convinced the most sceptical that a great work can be done among these +people. The number of murders committed in this country last year was +one hundred and twenty-five; this year only one hundred and +twenty-three. + +"Although a great deal has been done for these people, you will be +surprised to learn how much remains to be done. I need not tell you that +every dollar intrusted to me will be spent, and I hope you will live to +see the result of your generosity. + +"I wish to build at least fifteen churches and school-houses before the +cold weather sets in. The cost of building has been greatly lessened by +employing native workmen, who are capable of designing and erecting +simple edifices. The pulpits will be supplied by native preachers, and +the expense of light and heat will be paid by the congregation. + +"We have at least twenty-five well-qualified native teachers, who will +require no salary beyond the necessary expense of food and clothing. + +"A few boarding-houses must be built and tastefully furnished. We have a +large number of Laughing Dog widows, who would gladly take charge of +such establishments. + +"The native committee will make a careful selection of such matrons as +are most capable of guiding and encouraging young people. + +"All money for the benefit of these people has been used with the +strictest economy; and will be while I retain the agency. I have secured +a slender provision for my declining years, and shall return to spend my +days with my adopted people. + +"But I will let these men who once owned this great country speak for +themselves. Flying Deer, who will now address you, is about forty years +of age. He lives with his wife and ten children near the agency, at a +place called Humanketchet." + +Flying Deer came forward and spoke very distinctly, though rapidly. + +"O hoo bree-gutchee, gumme maw choo kibbe showain nemeshin. Dawmasse +choochugah goo waugh; kawboo. Nokka brewis goo, honowin nudwag moonoo +shugh kawmun menjeis. Babas kwasind waugh muskoday, wawa gessonwon goo. +Nahna naskeen oza yenadisse mayben mudjo, kenemoosha. Wawconassee +nushka kahgagoo, jossahut, wabenas ogu winemon jabs. Ahmuck wana +wayroossen chooponnuk segwan maysen. Opeechee annewayman, kewadoda +shenghen kad goo tagamengow." + +"He says, my friends, that he has always loved and trusted the white +people. He says that since he has seen the great cities and towns of the +East, he loves his white brothers more than before. His red brothers, +White Crow and the Rock on End, wish him to say that they also love you. +He says the savage Gray Wolf tribe threaten to shoot and scalp them if +they continue friendly to the whites. He asks for powder, guns, and +ponies, that they may defend themselves from their enemies. He wants to +convince you that they are rapidly becoming a civilized nation. The +assistance you are about to give will only be required for a short time. +They will soon become self-supporting, and relieve the Government of a +heavy tax. They thank you for the kindness you have shown, and for the +generous collection which will now be taken up. + +"Will some friend close the doors while we give every one an opportunity +to contribute to this good cause? Remember that he who shutteth up his +ears to the cry of the poor, he shall also cry himself and shall not be +heard. Those who prefer can leave a check with Deacon Meekham at the +door, or with me at the hotel. These substantial tokens of your regard +will cause the wilderness to blossom as the rose. + +"In the name of our red brethren, let me again thank you." + + * * * * * + +If one inclines to Irish fun, try this burlesque from Mrs. Lippincott. + + +MISTRESS O'RAFFERTY ON THE WOMAN QUESTION. + +BY GRACE GREENWOOD. + + No! I wouldn't demane myself, Bridget, + Like you, in disputin' with men-- + Would I fly in the face of the blissed + Apostles, an' Father Maginn? + + It isn't the talent I'm wantin'-- + Sure my father, ould Michael McCrary, + Made a beautiful last spache and confession + When they hanged him in ould Tipperary. + + So, Bridget Muldoon, howld yer talkin' + About Womins' Rights, and all that! + Sure all the rights I want is the one right, + To be a good helpmate to Pat; + + For he's a good husband--and niver + Lays on me the weight of his hand + Except when he's far gone in liquor, + And I nag him, you'll plase understand. + + Thrue for ye, I've one eye in mournin', + That's becaze I disputed his right, + To tak' and spind all my week's earnin's + At Tim Mulligan's wake, Sunday night. + + But it's sildom when I've done a washin', + He'll ask for more'n half of the pay; + An' he'll toss me my share, wid a smile, dear, + That's like a swate mornin' in May! + + Now where, if I rin to convintions, + Will be Patrick's home-comforts and joys? + Who'll clane up his broghans for Sunday, + Or patch up his ould corduroys. + + If we tak' to the polls, night and mornin', + Our dilicate charms will all flee-- + The dew will be brushed from the rose, dear, + The down from the pache--don't you see? + + We'll soon tak' to shillalahs and shindies + Whin we get to be sovereign electors, + And turn all our husbands' hearts from us, + Thin what will we do for protectors? + + We'll have to be crowners an' judges, + An' such like ould malefactors, + Or they'll make Common Councilmin of us; + Thin where will be our char-acters? + + Oh, Bridget, God save us from votin'! + For sure as the blissed sun rolls, + We'll land in the State House or Congress, + Thin what will become of our sowls? + + * * * * * + +Or the triumphs of a quack, by Miss Amanda T. Jones. + + +DOCHTHER O'FLANNIGAN AND HIS WONDHERFUL CURES. + + I. + + I'm Barney O'Flannigan, lately from Cork; + I've crossed the big watther as bould as a shtork. + 'Tis a dochther I am and well versed in the thrade; + I can mix yez a powdher as good as is made. + Have yez pains in yer bones or a throublesome ache + In yer jints afther dancin' a jig at a wake? + Have yez caught a black eye from some blundhering whack? + Have yez vertebral twists in the sphine av yer back? + Whin ye're walkin' the shtrates are yez likely to fall? + Don't whiskey sit well on yer shtomick at all? + Sure 'tis botherin' nonsinse to sit down and wape + Whin a bit av a powdher ull put yez to shlape. + Shtate yer symptoms, me darlins, and niver yez doubt + But as sure as a gun I can shtraighten yez out! + Thin don't yez be gravin' no more; + Arrah! quit all yer sighin' forlorn; + Here's Barney O'Flannigan right to the fore, + And bedad! he's a gintleman born! + + II. + + Coom thin, ye poor craytures and don't yez be scairt! + Have yez batin' and lumberin' thumps at the hairt, + Wid ossification, and acceleration, + Wid fatty accretion and bad vellication, + Wid liver inflation and hapitization, + Wid lung inflammation and brain-adumbration, + Wid black aruptation and schirrhous formation, + Wid nerve irritation and paralyzation, + Wid extravasation and acrid sacration, + Wid great jactitation and exacerbation, + Wid shtrong palpitation and wake circulation, + Wid quare titillation and cowld perspiration? + Be the powers! but I'll bring all yer woes to complation, + Onless yer in love--thin yer past all salvation! + Coom, don't yez be gravin' no more! + Be quit wid yer sighin' forlorn; + Here's the man all yer haling potations to pour, + And ye'll prove him a gintleman born + + III. + + Sure, me frinds, 'tis the wondherful luck I have had + In the thratement av sickness no matther how bad. + All the hundhreds I've cured 'tis not aisy to shpake, + And if any sowl dies, faith I'm in at the wake; + There was Misthriss O'Toole was tuck down mighty quare, + That wild there was niver a one dared to lave her; + And phat was the matther? Ye'll like for to hare; + 'Twas the double quotidian humerous faver. + Well, I tuck out me lancet and pricked at a vein, + (Och, murther! but didn't she howl at the pain!) + Six quarts, not a dhrap less I drew widout sham, + And troth she shtopped howlin', and lay like a lamb. + Thin for fare sich a method av thratement was risky, + I hasthened to fill up the void wid ould whiskey. + Och! niver be gravin' no more! + Phat use av yer sighin' forlorn? + Me patients are proud av me midical lore-- + They'll shware I'm a gintleman born. + + IV. + + Well, Misthriss O'Toole was tuck betther at once, + For she riz up in bed and cried: "Paddy, ye dunce! + Give the dochther a dhram." So I sat at me aise + A-brewin' the punch jist as fine as ye plaze. + Thin I lift a prascription all written down nate + Wid ametics and diaphoretics complate; + Wid anti-shpasmodics to kape her so quiet, + And a toddy so shtiff that ye'd all like to thry it. + So Paddy O'Toole mixed 'em well in a cup-- + All barrin' the toddy, and that be dhrunk up; + For he shwore 'twas a shame sich good brandy to waste + On a double quotidian faverish taste; + And troth we agrade it was not bad to take, + Whin we dhrank that same toddy nixt night--at the wake! + Arrah! don't yez be gravin' no more, + Wid yer moanin' and sighin' forlorn; + Here's Barney O'Flannigan thrue to the core + Av the hairt of a gintleman born! + + V. + + There was Michael McDonegan down wid a fit + Caught av dhrinkin' cowld watther--whin tipsy--a bit. + 'Twould have done yer hairt good to have heard him cry out + For a cup of potheen or a tankard av shtout, + Or a wee dhrap av whiskey, new out av the shtill;-- + And the shnakes that he saw--troth 'twas jist fit to kill! + It was Mania Pototororum, bedad! + Holy Mither av Moses! the divils he had! + Thin to scare 'em away we surroonded his bed, + Clapt on forty laches and blisthered his head, + Bate all the tin pans and set up sich a howl, + That the last fiery divil ran off, be me sowl! + And we writ on his tombsthone, "He died av a shpell + Caught av dhrinkin' cowld watther shtraight out av a well." + Now don't yez be gravin' no more, + Surrinder yer sighin' forlorn! + 'Twill be fine whin ye cross to the Stygian shore, + To be sint by a gintleman born. + + VI. + + There was swate Ellen Mulligan, sazed wid a cough, + And ivery one said it would carry her off. + "Whisht," says I, "thrust to me, now, and don't yez go crazy; + If the girlie must die, sure I'll make her die aisy!" + So I sairched through me books for the thrue diathesis + Of morbus dyscrasia tuburculous phthasis; + And I boulsthered her up wid the shtrongest av tonics. + Wid iron and copper and hosts av carbonics; + Wid whiskey served shtraight in the finest av shtyle, + And I grased all her inside wid cod-liver ile! + And says she (whin she died), "Och, dochther, me honey, + 'Tis you as can give us the worth av our money; + And begorra, I'll shpake to the divil this day + Not to kape yez a-waitin' too long for yer pay." + So don't yez be gravin' no more! + To the dogs wid yer sighin' forlorn! + Here's dhrugs be the handful and pills be the score, + And to dale thim a gintleman born. + + VII. + + There was Teddy Maloney who bled at the nose + Afther blowin' the fife; and mayhap ye'd suppose + 'Twas no matther at all; but the books all agrade + Twas a serious visceral throuble indade; + Wid the blood swimmin' roond in a circle elliptic, + The Schneidarian membrane was wantin' a shtyptic; + The anterior nares were nadin' a plug, + And Teddy himself was in nade av a jug. + Thin I rowled out a big pill av sugar av lead, + And I dosed him, and shtood him up firm on his head, + And says I: "Now, me lad, don't be atin' yer lingth, + But dhrink all ye plaze, jist to kape up yer shtringth." + Faith! His widdy's a jewel! But whisht! don't ye shpake! + She'll be Misthriss O'Flannigan airly nixt wake. + Coom, don't yez be gravin' no more! + Shmall use av yer sighin' forlorn; + For yer widdies, belike, whin their mournin' is o'er, + May marry some gintleman born. + + VIII. + + Ould Biddy O'Cardigan lived all alone, + And she felt mighty nate wid a house av her own-- + Shwate-smellin' and houlsome, swaped clane wid a rake, + Wid two or thray pigs jist for company's sake. + Well, phat should she get but the malady vile + Av cholera-phobia-vomitus-bile! + And she sint straight for me: "Dochther Barney, me lad," + Says she, "I'm in nade av assistance, bedad! + Have yez niver a powdher or bit av a pill? + Me shtomick's a rowlin'; jist make it kape shtill!" + "I'm the boy can do that," says I; "hould on a minit, + Here's me midicine-chist wid me calomel in it, + And I'll make yez a bowle full av rid pipper tay + So shtrong ye'll be thinkin' the divil's to pay," + Now don't yez be gravin' no more! + Be quit wid yer sighin' forlorn, + Wid shtrychnine and vitriol and opium galore, + Behould me--a gintleman born. + + IX. + + Wid a gallon av rum thin a flip I created, + Shwate, wid musthard and shpice; and the poker I hated + As rid as a guinea jist out av the mint-- + And into her shtomick, begorra, it wint! + Och, niver belave me, but didn't she roar! + I'd have kaped her alive wid a quart or two more; + And the thray little pigs in that house av her own + Wouldn't now be a-shtarvin' and shqualin' alone. + And that gossoon, her boy--the shpalpeen altogither!-- + Would niver have shworn that I murdhered his mither. + Troth, for sayin' that same, but I served him a thrick, + Whin I met him by chance wid a bit av a shtick. + Faith, I dochthered him well till the cure I complated, + And, be jabers! there's one man alive that I thrated! + So don't yez be gravin' no more; + To the dogs wid yez sighin' forlorn! + Arrah! knock whin ye're sick at O'Flannigan's door, + And die for a gintleman born! + + --_Scribner's Magazine._ 1880. + + * * * * * + +Or, if one prefers to laugh at the experience of a "culled" brother, +what can be found more irresistible than this? + + +THE OLD-TIME RELIGION. + +BY JULIA PICKERING. + +_Brother Simon._ I say, Brover Horace, I hearn you give Meriky de +terriblest beating las' nite. What you and she hab a fallin'-out about? + +_Brother Horace._ Well, Brover Simon, you knows yourself I never has no +dejection to splanifying how I rules my folks at home, and 'stablishes +order dar when it's p'intedly needed; and 'fore gracious! I leab you to +say dis time ef 'twant needed, and dat pow'ful bad. + +You see, I'se allers been a plain, straight-sided nigger, an' hain't +never had no use for new fandangles, let it be what it mout; 'ligion, +polytix, bisness--don't ker what. Ole Horace say: "De ole way am de bes' +way, an' you niggers dat's all runnin' teetotleum crazy 'bout ebery new +gimerack dat's started, better jes' stay whar you is and let them things +alone." But dey won't do it; no 'mount of preaching won't sarve um. And +dat is jes' at this partickeler pint dat Meriky got dat dressin'. She +done been off to Richmun town, a-livin' in sarvice dar dis las' winter, +and Saturday a week ago she camed home ter make a visit. Course we war +all glad to see our darter. But you b'l'eve dat gal hadn't turned stark +bodily naked fool? Yes, sir; she wa'n't no more like de Meriky dat went +away jes' a few munts ago dan chalk's like cheese. Dar she come in wid +her close pinned tight enuff to hinder her from squattin', an' her ha'r +a-danglin' right in her eyes, jes' for all de worl' like a ram +a-looking fru a brush-pile, and you think dat nigger hain't forgot how +to talk! She jes' rolled up her eyes ebery oder word, and fanned and +talked like she 'spected to die de nex' breff. She'd toss dat mush-head +ob hern and talk proper as two dixunarys. 'Stead ob she call-in' ob me +"daddy" and her mudder "mammy," she say: "Par and mar, how can you bear +to live in sech a one-hoss town as this? Oh! I think I should die." And +right about dar she hab all de actions ob an' old drake in a +thunder-storm. I jes' stared at dat gal tell I make her out, an' says I +to myself: "It's got to come;" but I don't say nothin' to nobody 'bout +it--all de same I knowed it had to come fus' as las'. Well, I jes' let +her hab more rope, as de sayin' is, tell she got whar I 'cluded war +'bout de end ob her tedder. Dat was on last Sunday mornin', when she +went to meetin' in sich a rig, a-puttin' on airs, tell she couldn't keep +a straight track. When she camed home she brung kumpny wid her, and, ob +course, I couldn't do nuthin' then; but I jes' kept my ears open, an' ef +dat gal didn't disquollify me dat day, you ken hab my hat. Bimeby dey +all gits to talkin' 'bout 'ligion and de churches, and den one young +buck he step up, an' says he: "Miss Meriky, give us your 'pinion 'bout +de matter." Wid dat she flung up her head proud as de Queen Victory, an' +says she: "I takes no intelligence in sich matters; dey is all too +common for _me_. Baptisses is a foot or two below _my_ grade. I 'tends +de 'Pisclopian Church whar I resides, an' 'specs to jine dat one de nex' +anniversary ob de bishop. Oh! dey does eberything so lovely, and in so +much style. I declar' nobody but common folks in de city goes to de +Babtiss Church. It made me sick 't my stomuck to see so much shoutin' +and groanin' dis mornin'; 'tis so ungenteel wid us to make so much +sarcumlocutions in meetin'." And thar she went a-giratin' 'bout de +preacher a-comin' out in a white shirt, and den a-runnin' back and +gittin' on a black one, and de people a-jumpin' up and a-jawin' ob de +preacher outen a book, and a-bowin' ob deir heads, and a-saying long +rigmaroles o' stuff, tell my head fairly buzzed, and were dat mad at de +gal I jes' couldn't see nuffin' in dat room. Well, I jes' waited tell +the kumpny riz to go, and den I steps up, and says I: "Young folks, you +needn't let what Meriky told you 'bout dat church put no change inter +you. She's sorter out ob her right mine now, but de nex' time you comes +she'll be all right on dat and seberal oder subjicks;" and den dey +stared at Meriky mighty hard and goed away. + +Well, I jes' walks up to her, and I says: "Darter," says I, "what chu'ch +are dat you say you gwine to jine?" And says she, very prompt like: "De +'Pisclopian, pa." And says I: "Meriky, I'se mighty consarned 'bout you, +kase I knows your mine ain't right, and I shall jes' hab to bring you +roun' de shortest way possible." So I retch me a fine bunch of hick'ries +I done prepared for dat 'casion. And den she jumped up, and says she: +"What make you think I loss my senses?" "Bekase, darter, you done forgot +how to walk and to talk, and dem is sure signs." And wid dat I jes' let +in on her tell I 'stonished her 'siderably. 'Fore I were done wid her +she got ober dem dying a'rs, and jumped as high as a hopper-grass. +Bimeby she 'gins to holler: "Oh, Lordy, daddy! daddy! don't give me no +more." + +And says I: "You're improvin', dat's a fac'; done got your natural voice +back. What chu'ch does you 'long to, Meriky?" And says she, a-cryin': +"I don't 'long to none, par." + +Well, I gib her anodder leetle tetch, and says I: "What chu'ch does you +'long to, darter?" And says she, all choked like: "I doesn't 'long to +none." + +Den I jes' make dem hick'ries ring for 'bout five minutes, and den I +say: "What chu'ch you 'longs to now, Meriky?" And says she, fairly +shoutin': "Baptiss; I'se a deep-water Baptiss." "Berry good," says I. +"You don't 'spect to hab your name tuck offen dem chu'ch books?" And +says she: "No, sar; I allus did despise dem stuck-up 'Pisclopians; dey +ain't got no 'ligion nohow." + +Brover Simon, you never see a gal so holpen by a good genteel thrashin' +in all your days. I boun' she won't neber stick her nose in dem +new-fandangle chu'ches no more. Why, she jes' walks as straight dis +morning, and looks as peart as a sunflower. I'll lay a tenpence she'll +be a-singin' before night dat good ole hyme she usened to be so fond ob. +You knows, Brover Simon, how de words run: + + "Baptis, Baptis is my name, + My name is written on high; + 'Spects to lib and die de same, + My name is written on high." + +_Brother Simon._ Yes, dat she will, I be boun'; ef I does say it, Brover +Horace, you beats any man on church guberment an' family displanement ob +anybody I ever has seen. + +_Brother Horace._ Well, Brover, I does my bes'. You mus' pray for me, so +dat my han's may be strengthened. Dey feels mighty weak after dat +conversion I give dat Meriky las' night.--_Scribner's Monthly_, +_Bric-a-Brac_, 1876. + + * * * * * + +If it is unadulterated consolation that you need, try + + +AUNTY DOLEFUL'S VISIT. + +BY MARY KYLE DALLAS. + +How do you do, Cornelia? I heard you were sick, and I stepped in to +cheer you up a little. My friends often say: "It's such a comfort to see +you, Aunty Doleful. You have such a flow of conversation, and _are_ so +lively." Besides, I said to myself, as I came up the stairs: "Perhaps +it's the last time I'll ever see Cornelia Jane alive." + +You don't mean to die yet, eh? Well, now, how do you know? You can't +tell. You think you are getting better, but there was poor Mrs. Jones +sitting up, and every one saying how smart she was, and all of a sudden +she was taken with spasms in the heart, and went off like a flash. +Parthenia is young to bring the baby up by hand. But you must be +careful, and not get anxious or excited. Keep quite calm, and don't fret +about anything. Of course, things can't go on jest as if you were +down-stairs; and I wondered whether you knew your little Billy was +sailing about in a tub on the mill-pond, and that your little Sammy was +letting your little Jimmy down from the veranda-roof in a +clothes-basket. + +Gracious goodness, what's the matter? I guess Providence'll take care of +'em. Don't look so. You thought Bridget was watching them? Well, no, she +isn't. I saw her talking to a man at the gate. He looked to me like a +burglar. No doubt she'll let him take the impression of the door-key in +wax, and then he'll get in and murder you all. There was a family at +Bobble Hill all killed last week for fifty dollars. Now, don't fidget +so; it will be bad for the baby. + +Poor, little dear! How singular it is, to be sure, that you can't tell +whether a child is blind, or deaf and dumb, or a cripple at that age. It +might be _all_, and you'd never know it. + +Most of them that have their senses make bad use of them though; _that_ +ought to be your comfort, if it does turn out to have anything dreadful +the matter with it. And more don't live a year. I saw a baby's funeral +down the street as I came along. + +How is Mr. Kobble? Well, but finds it warm in town, eh? Well, I should +think he would. They are dropping down by hundreds there with +sun-stroke. You must prepare your mind to have him brought home any day. +Anyhow, a trip on these railroad trains is just risking your life every +time you take one. Back and forth every day as he is, it's just trifling +with danger. + +Dear! dear! now to think what dreadful things hang over us all the time! +Dear! dear! + +Scarlet fever has broken out in the village, Cornelia. Little Isaac +Potter has it, and I saw your Jimmy playing with him last Saturday. + +Well, I must be going now. I've got another sick friend, and I sha'n't +think my duty done unless I cheer her up a little before I sleep. +Good-by. How pale you look, Cornelia! I don't believe you have a good +doctor. Do send him away and try some one else. You don't look so well +as you did when I came in. But if anything happens, send for me at once. +If I can't do anything else, I can cheer you up a little. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Dallas, who lives in New York City, is a regular correspondent of +the New York _Ledger_, having taken Fanny Fern's place on that widely +circulated paper, is a prominent member of "Sorosis," and her Tuesday +evening receptions draw about her some of the brightest society of that +cosmopolitan centre. + +All these selections are prizes for the long-suffering elocutionist who +is expected to entertain his friends with something new, +laughter-provoking, and fully up to the mark. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Ames, of Brooklyn, known to the public as "Eleanor Kirk," has +revealed in her "Thanksgiving Growl" a bit of honest experience, +refreshing with its plain Saxon and homely realism, which, when recited +with proper spirit, is most effective. + + +A THANKSGIVING GROWL. + + Oh, dear! do put some more chips on the fire, + And hurry up that oven! Just my luck-- + To have the bread slack. Set that plate up higher! + And for goodness' sake do clear this truck + Away! Frogs' legs and marbles on my moulding-board! + What next I wonder? John Henry, wash your face; + And do get out from under foot, "Afford more + Cream?" Used all you had? If that's the case, + Skim all the pans. Do step a little spryer! + I wish I hadn't asked so many folks + To spend Thanksgiving. Good gracious! poke the fire + And put some water on. Lord, how it smokes! + I never was so tired in all my life! + And there's the cake to frost, and dough to mix + For tarts. I can't cut pumpkin with this knife! + Some women's husbands know enough to fix + The kitchen tools; but, for all mine would care, + I might tear pumpkin with my teeth. John Henry, + If you don't plant yourself on that 'ere chair, + I'll set you down so hard that you'll agree + You're stuck for good. Them cranberries are sour, + And taste like gall beside. Hand me some flour, + And do fly round. John Henry, wipe your nose! + I wonder how 'twill be when I am dead? + "How my nose'll be?" Yes, how _your nose'll_ be, + And how _your back_'ll be. If that ain't red + I'll miss my guess. I don't expect you'll see-- + You nor your father neither--what I've done + And suffered in this house. As true's I live + Them pesky fowl ain't stuffed! The biggest one + Will hold two loaves of bread. Say, wipe that sieve, + And hand it here. You are the slowest poke + In all Fairmount. Lor'! there's Deacon Gubben's wife! + She'll be here to-morrow. That pan can soak + A little while. I never in my life + Saw such a lazy critter as she is. + If she stayed home, there wouldn't be a thing + To eat. You bet she'll fill up here! "It's riz?" + Well, so it has. John Henry! Good king! + How did that boy get out? You saw him go + With both fists full of raisins and a pile + Behind him, and you never let me know! + There! you've talked so much I clean forgot the rye. + I wonder if the Governor had to slave + As I do, if he would be so pesky fresh about + Thanksgiving Day? He'd been in his grave + With half my work. What, get along without + An Indian pudding? Well, that would be + A novelty. No friend or foe shall say + I'm close, or haven't as much variety + As other folks. There! I think I see my way + Quite clear. The onions are to peel. Let's see: + Turnips, potatoes, apples there to stew, + This squash to bake, and lick John Henry! + And after that--I really think I'm through. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY. + + +Mrs. Alice Wellington Rollins, in those interesting articles in the +_Critic_ which induced me to look further, says: + +"We claim high rank for the humor of women because it is almost +exclusively of this higher, imaginative type. A woman rarely tells an +anecdote, or hoards up a good story, or comes in and describes to you +something funny that she has seen. Her humor is like a flash of +lightning from a clear sky, coming when you least expect it, when it +could not have been premeditated, and when, to the average +consciousness, there is not the slightest provocation to humor, +possessing thus in the very highest degree that element of surprise +which is not only a factor in all humor, but to our mind the most +important factor. You tell her that you cannot spend the winter with her +because you have promised to spend it with some one else, and she +exclaims: 'Oh, Ellen! why were you not born twins!' She has, perhaps, +recently built for herself a most charming home, and coming to see +yours, which happens to be just a trifle more luxurious and charming, +she remarks as she turns away: 'All I can say is, when you want to see +_squalor_, come and visit me in Oxford Street!' She puts down her heavy +coffee-cup of stone-china with its untasted coffee at a little country +inn, saying, with a sigh: 'It's no use; I can't get at it; it's like +trying to drink over a stone wall.' She writes in a letter: 'We parted +this morning with mutual satisfaction; that is, I suppose we did; I know +my satisfaction was mutual enough for two.' She asks her little restless +daughter in the most insinuating tones if she would not like to sit in +papa's lap and have him tell her a story; and when the little daughter +responds with a most uncompromising 'no!' turns her inducement into a +threat, and remarks with severity: 'Well, be a good girl, or you will +have to!' She complains, when you have kept her waiting while you were +buying undersleeves, that you must have bought 'undersleeves enough for +a centipede.' You ask how poor Mr. X---- is--the disconsolate widower +who a fortnight ago was completely prostrated by his wife's death, and +are told in calm and even tones that he is 'beginning to take notice.' +You tell her that one of the best fellows in the class has been unjustly +expelled, and that the class are to wear crape on their left arms for +thirty days, and that you only hope that the President will meet you in +the college-yard and ask why you wear it; to all of which she replies +soothingly, 'I wouldn't do that, Henry; for the President might tell you +not to mourn, as your friend was not lost, only _gone before_.' You tell +her of your stunned sensation on finding some of your literary work +complimented in the _Nation_, and she exclaims: 'I should think so! It +must be like meeting an Indian and seeing him put his hand into his +no-pocket to draw out a scented pocket-handkerchief, instead of a +tomahawk.' Or she writes that two Sunday-schools are trying to do all +the good they can, but that each is determined at any cost to do more +good than the other." + + * * * * * + +I have selected several specimens of this higher type of humor. + +Mrs. Ellen H. Rollins was pre-eminently gifted in this direction. The +humor in her exquisite "New England Bygones" is so interwoven with the +simple pathos of her memories that it cannot be detached without +detriment to both. But I will venture to select three sketches from + + +OLD-TIME CHILD LIFE. + +BY E.H. ARR. + +Betsy had the reddest hair of any girl I ever knew. It was quite short +in front, and she had a way of twisting it, on either temple, into two +little buttons, which she fastened with pins. The rest of it she brought +quite far up on the top of her head, where she kept it in place with a +large-sized horn comb. Her face was covered with freckles, and her eyes, +in winter, were apt to be inflamed. She always seemed to have a mop in +her hand, and she had no respect for paint. She was as neat as old Dame +Safford herself, and was continually "straightening things out," as she +called it. Her temper, like her hair, was somewhat fiery; and when her +work did not suit her, she was prone to a gloomy view of life. If she +was to be believed, things were always "going to wrack and ruin" about +the house; and she had a queer way of taking time by the forelock. In +the morning it was "going on to twelve o'clock," and at noon it was +"going on to midnight." + +She kept her six kitchen chairs in a row on one side of the room, and +as many flatirons in a line on the mantelpiece. Everything where she was +had, she said, to "stand just so;" and woe to the child who carried +crookedness into her straight lines! Betsy had a manner of her own, and +made a wonderful kind of a courtesy, with which her skirts puffed out +all around like a cheese. She always courtesied to Parson Meeker when +she met him, and said: "I hope to see you well, sir." Once she +courtesied in a prayer-meeting to a man who offered her a chair, and +told him, in a shrill voice, to "keep his setting," though she was "ever +so much obleeged" to him. This was when she was under conviction, and +Parson Meeker said he thought she had met with a change of heart. Father +Lathem's wife hoped so too, for then "there would be a chance of having +some Long-noses and Pudding-sweets left over in the orchard." + +It was in time of the long drought, when fire ran over Grayface, and a +great comet appeared in the sky. Some of the people of Whitefield +thought the world was coming to an end. The comet stayed for weeks, +visible even at noon-day, stretching its tail from the zenith far toward +the western horizon, and at night staring in at windows with its eye of +fire. It was the talk of the people, who pondered over it with a +helpless wonder. I recall two Whitefield women as they stood, one +morning, bare-armed in a doorway, staring at and chattering about it. +One says they "might as well stop work" and "take it easy" while they +can. The other thinks the better way is to "keep on a stiddy jog until +it comes." They wish they knew "how near it is," and "what the tail +means anyway." + +Betsy comes along with a pail, which she sets down, and then looks up to +the comet. The air is dense with smoke from Grayface, and the dry earth +is full of cracks. Betsy declares that it is "going on two months since +there has been any rain." Everything is "going to wrack and ruin," and +"if that thing up there should burst, there'll be an end to Whitefield." + +Then she catches sight of me listening wide-mouthed, and she tells me +that I needn't suppose she is "going home to iron my pink muslin," for +she thinks the tail of the comet "has started, and is coming right down +to whisk it off from the line." I believe her, and distinctly remember +the terror that took hold of me as I rushed home and tore the pink +muslin from the line, lest it should be whisked off by the comet's tail. + +When the drought broke, a single day's rain washed all the smoke from +the air. Directly, the tail of the comet began to fade, and all of a +sudden its fiery eye went out of the sky. + +Some of the villagers thought it had "burst," others that it had "burned +out." Betsy said: "Whatever it was, it was a humbug;" and the wisest man +in Whitefield could neither tell whence it came nor whither it went. One +thing, however, was certain: Farmer Lathem said that never, since his +orchard began to bear, had he gathered such a crop of apples as he did, +despite the drought, in the year of the great comet. + + +MRS. MEEKER. + +BY E.H. ARR. + +When I read of Roman matrons I always think of Mrs. Meeker. Her features +were marked, and her eyes of deepest blue. She wore her hair combed +closely down over her ears, so that her forehead seemed to run up in a +point high upon her head: Its color was of reddish-brown, and, I am +sorry to say, so far as it was seen, it was not her own. It was called a +scratch, and Betsy said Mrs. Meeker "would look enough sight better if +she would leave it off." Whether any hair at all grew upon Mrs. Meeker's +head was a great problem with the village children, and nothing could +better illustrate the dignity of this woman than the fact that for more +than thirty years the whole neighborhood tried in vain to find out. + + +PARSON MEEKER. + +BY E.H. ARR. + +Every Sunday he preached two long sermons, each with five heads, and +each head itself divided. After the fifthly came an application, with an +exhortation at its close. The sermons were called very able, or, more +often, "strong discourses." I used to think this was because Mrs. Meeker +had stitched their leaves fast together. Betsy said they were just like +Deacon Saunders's breaking-up plough, "and went tearing right through +sin." The parson, when I knew him, was a little slow of speech and dull +of sight. He sometimes lost his place on his page. How afraid I used to +be lest, not finding it, he should repeat his heads! He always brought +himself up with a jerk, however, and sailed safely through to the +application. + +When that came, Benny almost always gave me a jog with his elbow or +foot. Once he stuck a pin into my arm, which made me jump so that Deacon +Saunders, who sat behind, waked up with a loud snort. The deacon was +always talking about the sermons being "powerful in doctrine." When +Benny asked Betsy what doctrines were, she told him to "let doctrines +alone;" that they were "pizen things, only fit for hardened old +sinners." + + * * * * * + +There are many delightful articles which must be merely alluded to in +passing, as the "Old Salem Shops," by Eleanor Putnam, so delicate and +delicious that, once read, it will ever be a fragrant memory; Louise +Stockton's "Woman in the Restaurant" I want to give you, and Mrs. +Barrow's "Pennikitty People;" a chapter from Miss Baylor's "On This +Side," and the opening chapters of Miss Phelps's "Old Maids' Paradise;" +also the description of "Joppa," by Grace Denio Litchfield, in "Only an +Incident." There are others from which it is not possible to make +extracts. Miss Woolson's admirable "For the Major," though pathetic, +almost tragic, in its underlying feeling, is, at the same time, a story +of exquisite humor, from which, nevertheless, not a single sentence +could be quoted that would be called "funny." Her work, and that of +Frances Hodgson Burnett, as well as that of Miss Phelps and Mrs. +Spofford, shine with a silver thread of humor, worked too intimately +into the whole warp and woof to be extracted without injuring both the +solid material and the tinsel. To appreciate the point and delicacy of +their finest wit, you must read the whole story and grasp the entire +character or situation. + +Mrs. E.W. Bellamy, a Southern lady, published in last year's _Atlantic +Monthly_ a sketch called "At Bent's Hotel," which ought to have a place +in this volume; but my publisher says authoritatively that there must be +a limit somewhere; so this gem must be included in--a second series! + + * * * * * + +There is so much truth as well as humor in the following article, that +it must be included. It gives in prose the agonies which Saxe told so +feelingly in verse: + + +A FATAL REPUTATION. + +BY ISABEL FRANCES BELLOWS. + +I am impelled to write this as an awful warning to young men and women +who are just entering upon life and its responsibilities. Years ago I +thoughtlessly took a false step, which at the time seemed trivial and of +little import, but which has since assumed colossal proportions that +threaten to overshadow much of the innocent happiness of my otherwise +placid existence. What wonder, then, that I try to avert this danger +from young and inexperienced minds who in their gay thoughtlessness rush +into the very jaws of the disaster, and before they are well aware find +they are entrapped for life, as there is no escape for those who have +thus brought their doom upon themselves. + +I will try and relate how, like the Lady of Shalott, when I first began +to gaze upon the world of realities "the curse" came upon me. It was in +this wise: + +I lived in my youth an almost cloistral life of seclusion and +self-absorption, from which I was suddenly shaken by circumstances, and +forced to mingle in the busy world; to which, after the first shock, I +was not at all averse, but found very interesting, and also--and there +was the weight that pulled me down--tolerably amusing. For I met some +curious people, and saw and heard some remarkable things; and as I went +among my friends I often used to give an account of my observations, +until at last I discovered that wherever I went, and under whatever +circumstances (except, of course, at the funeral of a member of the +family), I was expected to be amusing! I found myself in the same +relation to society that the clown bears to the circus-master who has +engaged him--he must either be funny or leave the troupe. + +Now, I am unfortunate in having no particular accomplishments. I cannot +sing either the old songs or the new; neither am I a performer on divers +instruments. I can paint a little, but my paintings do not seem to rouse +any enthusiasm in the beholder, nor do they add an inspiring strain to +conversation. I can, indeed, make gingerbread and six different kinds of +pudding, but I hesitate to mention it, because the cook is far in +advance of me in all these particulars, not to mention numerous other +ways in which she excels. I have thus but one resource in life; and when +I give one or two instances of the humiliation and distress of mind to +which I have been subjected on its account I am sure I shall win a +sympathizing thought even from those who are more favored by nature, and +possibly save a few young spirits from the pain of treading in my +footsteps. + +In the first place, I am not naturally witty. Epigrams do not rise +spontaneously to my lips, and it sometimes takes days and even weeks of +consideration after an opportunity of making one has occurred before the +appropriate words finally dawn upon me. By that time, of course, the +retort is what the Catholics call "a work of supererogation." I perhaps +possess a slight "sense of the humorous," which has undoubtedly given +rise to the fatal demand upon me, but I do not remember ever having been +very funny. There never was any danger of my experiencing difficulties +like Dr. Holmes on that famous occasion when he was as funny as he could +be. I have often been as funny as I could be, but the smallest of +buttons on the slenderest of threads never detached itself on my +account. I have never had to restrain my humorous remarks in the +slightest degree, but on the contrary have sometimes been driven into +making the most atrocious jokes, and even puns, because it was evident +something of the sort was expected from me--only, of course, something +better. + +One occurrence of this kind will remain forever fixed in my memory. I +was invited to a picnic, that most ghastly device of the human mind for +playing at having a good time. At first I had declined to go, but it was +represented to me that no less than three families had company for whose +entertainment something must be done; that two young and interesting +friends of mine just about to be engaged to each other would be simply +inconsolable if the plan were given up; and, in short, that I should +show by not going an extremely hateful and unseemly spirit--"besides, it +wouldn't do to have it without you, my dear," continued my amiable +friend, "because you know you are always the life of the party." So I +sighed and consented. + +The day arrived, and before nine o'clock in the morning the mercury +stood at ninety degrees in the shade. The cook overslept herself, and +breakfast was so late that William Henry missed the train into the city, +which didn't make it pleasanter for any of us. I had made an especially +delicate cake to take with me as my share of the feast, and while we +were at breakfast I heard a crash in the direction of the kitchen, and +hastening tremblingly to discover the origin of it I found the cake and +the plate containing it in one indistinguishable heap on the floor. + +"It slipped between me two hands as if it was alive, bad luck to it," +said the cook; "and it was meself that saw the heavy crack in the plate +before you set the cake onto it, mum!" + +I took cookies and boiled eggs to the picnic. + +The wreck had hardly been cleared away before my son and heir appeared +in the doorway with a hole of unimagined dimensions in his third worst +trousers. His second worst were already in the mending basket, so +nothing remained for me but to clothe him in his best suit and wonder +all day in which part of them I should find the largest hole when I came +home. + +Lastly, I had just put on my hat, and was preparing to set forth, warm, +tired and demoralized, when my youngest, in her anxiety to bid me a +sufficiently affectionate farewell, lost her small balance, and came +rolling down-stairs after me. No serious harm was done, but it took +nearly an hour before I succeeded in soothing and comforting her +sufficiently to be able to leave her, with two brown-paper patches on +her head and elbow, in the care of the nurse. + +When I arrived late, discouraged and with a headache, at the picnic +grounds, I found the assembled company sitting vapidly about among +mosquitoes and beetles, already looking bored to death, and I soon +perceived that it was expected of me to provide amusement and +entertainment for the crowd. I tried to rally, therefore, and proposed a +few games, which went off in a spiritless manner enough, and apparently +in consequence I began to be assailed with questions and remarks of a +reproachful character. + +"Don't you feel well to-day?" "Has anything happened?" "You don't seem +as lively as usual!" No one took the slightest notice of my +explanations, until at last, goaded into desperation by one evil-minded +old woman, who asked me if it were true that my husband was involved in +the failure of Smith, Jones & Co., I launched out and became wildly and +disgracefully silly. Nothing seemed too foolish, too senseless to say if +it only answered the great purpose of keeping off the attack of personal +questions. + +Thus the wretched day wore on, until at last it was time to go home, and +the first feeling approaching content was stealing into my weary bosom +as I gathered up my basket and shawls, when it was rudely dashed by the +following conversation, conducted by two ladies to whom I had been +introduced that day. They were standing at a little distance from the +rest of the company and from me, and evidently thought themselves far +enough away to talk quite loud, so that these words were plainly borne +to my ears: + +"I hate to see people try to make themselves so conspicuous, don't you?" + +"Yes, indeed; and to try to be funny when they haven't any fun in them." + +"I can't imagine what Maria was thinking about to call her witty!" + +"I know it. I should think such people had better keep quiet when they +haven't anything to say. I'm glad it's time to go home. Picnics are such +stupid things!" + +What more was said I do not know, for I left the spot as quickly as +possible, making an inward resolution to avoid all picnics in the +future till I should arrive at my second childhood. + +I cannot refrain from giving one other little instance of my sufferings +from this cause. I was again invited out; this time to a lunch party, +specially to meet the friend of a friend of mine. The very morning of +the day it was to take place I received a telegram stating that my +great-aunt had died suddenly in California. Now people don't usually +care much about their great-aunts. They can bear to be chastened in this +direction very comfortably; but I did care about mine. She had been very +kind to me, and though the width of a continent had separated us for the +last ten years her memory was still dear to me. + +I sat down immediately to write a note excusing myself from my friend's +lunch party, when, just as I took the paper, it occurred to me that it +was rather a selfish thing to do. My friend's guests were invited, and +her arrangements all made; and as the visit of her friend was to be very +short the opportunity of our meeting would probably be lost. So I wrote +instead a note to the daughter of my great aunt, and when the time came +I went to the lunch party with a heavy heart. I had no opportunity of +telling my friend of the sad news I had received that morning, and I +suppose I may have been quiet; perhaps I even seemed indifferent, though +I tried not to be. I could not have been very successful, however, for I +was just going up-stairs to put on my "things" to go home, when I heard +this little conversation in the dressing-room: + +"It's too bad she wasn't more interesting to-day, but you never can tell +how it will be. She will do as she likes, and that's the end of it." + +"Yes," said another voice, "I think she is rather a moody person anyway; +she won't say a word if she doesn't feel like it." + +"'Sh--'sh--here she comes," said another, with the tone and look that +told me it was I of whom they were talking. + +And so I adjure all youthful and hopeful persons, who have a tendency to +be funny, to keep it a profound secret from the world. Indulge in your +propensities to any extent in your family circle; keep your immediate +relatives, if you like, in convulsions of inextinguishable laughter all +the time; but when you mingle in society guard your secret with your +life. Never make a joke, and, if necessary, never take one; and by so +doing you shall peradventure escape that wrath to come to which I have +fallen an innocent victim, and which I doubt not will bring me to an +untimely end.--_The Independent._ + + * * * * * + +And a few pages from Miss Murfree, who has shown such rare power in her +short character sketches. + + +A BLACKSMITH IN LOVE. + +BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK. + +The pine-knots flamed and glistened under the great wash-kettle. A +tree-toad was persistently calling for rain in the dry distance. The +girl, gravely impassive, beat the clothes with the heavy paddle. Her +mother shortly ceased to prod the white heaps in the boiling water, and +presently took up the thread of her discourse. + +"An' 'Vander hev got ter be a mighty suddint man. I hearn tell, when I +war down ter M'ria's house ter the quiltin', ez how in that sorter +fight an' scrimmage they hed at the mill las' month, he war powerful +ill-conducted. Nobody hed thought of hevin' much of a fight--thar hed +been jes' a few licks passed atwixt the men thar; but the fust finger ez +war laid on this boy, he jes' lit out, an' fit like a catamount. Right +an' lef' he lay about him with his fists, an' he drawed his +huntin'-knife on some of 'em. The men at the mill war in no wise pleased +with him." + +"'Pears like ter me ez 'Vander air a peaceable boy enough, ef he ain't +jawed at an' air lef' be," drawled Cynthia. + +Her mother was embarrassed for a moment. Then, with a look both sly and +wise, she made an admission--a qualified admission. "Waal, +wimmen--ef--ef--ef they air young an' toler'ble hard-headed _yit_, air +likely ter jaw _some_, ennyhow. An' a gal oughtn't ter marry a man ez +hev sot his heart on bein' lef' in peace. He is apt ter be a mighty sour +an' disapp'inted critter." + +This sudden turn to the conversation invested all that had been said +with new meaning, and revealed a subtle diplomatic intention. The girl +seemed deliberately to review it as she paused in her work. Then, with a +rising flush: "I ain't studyin' 'bout marryin' nobody," she asserted +staidly. "I hev laid off ter live single." + +Mrs. Ware had overshot the mark, but she retorted, gallantly reckless: +"That's what yer Aunt Malviny useter declar' fur gospel sure, when she +war a gal. An' she hev got ten chil'ren, an' hev buried two husbands; +an' ef all they say air true, she's tollin' in the third man now. She's +a mighty spry, good-featured woman, an' a fust-rate manager, yer Aunt +Malviny air, an' both her husbands lef' her suthin--cows, or wagons, or +land. An' they war quiet men when they war alive, an' stays whar they +air put now that they air dead; not like old Parson Hoodenpyle, what his +wife hears stumpin' round the house an' preachin' every night, though +she air ez deef ez a post, an' he hev been in glory twenty year--twenty +year an' better. Yer Aunt Malviny hed luck, so mebbe 'tain't no killin' +complaint fur a gal ter git ter talking like a fool about marryin' an' +sech. Leastwise I ain't minded ter sorrow." + +She looked at her daughter with a gay grin, which, distorted by her +toothless gums and the wreathing steam from the kettle, enhanced her +witch-like aspect and was spuriously malevolent. She did not notice the +stir of an approach through the brambly tangles of the heights above +until it was close at hand; as she turned, she thought only of the +mountain cattle and to see the red cow's picturesque head and crumpled +horns thrust over the sassafras bushes, or to hear the brindle's +clanking bell. It was certainly less unexpected to Cynthia when a young +mountaineer, clad in brown jean trousers and a checked homespun shirt, +emerged upon the rocky slope. He still wore his blacksmith's leather +apron, and his powerful corded hammer-arm was bare beneath his +tightly-rolled sleeve. He was tall and heavily built; his sunburned face +was square, with a strong lower jaw, and his features were accented by +fine lines of charcoal, as if the whole were a clever sketch. + +His black eyes held fierce intimations, but there was mobility of +expression about them that suggested changing impulses, strong but +fleeting. He was like his forge-fire; though the heat might be intense +for a time, it fluctuated with the breath of the bellows. Just now he +was meekly quailing before the old woman, whom he evidently had not +thought to find here. It was as apt an illustration as might be, +perhaps, of the inferiority of strength to finesse. She seemed an +inconsiderable adversary, as, haggard, lean, and prematurely aged, she +swayed on her prodding-stick about the huge kettle; but she was as a +veritable David to this big young Goliath, though she, too, flung hardly +more than a pebble at him. + +"Laws-a-me!" she cried, in shrill, toothless glee; "ef hyar ain't +'Vander Price! What brung ye down hyar along o' we-uns, 'Vander?" she +continued, with simulated anxiety. "Hev that thar red heifer o' ourn +lept over the fence agin, an' got inter Pete's corn? Waal, sir, ef she +ain't the headin'est heifer!" + +"I hain't seen none o' yer heifer, ez I knows on," replied the young +blacksmith, with gruff, drawling deprecation. Then he tried to regain +his natural manner. "I kem down hyar," he remarked, in an off-hand way, +"ter git a drink o' water." He glanced furtively at the girl, then +looked quickly away at the gallant red-bird, still gayly parading among +the leaves. + +The old woman grinned with delight. "Now, ef that ain't s'prisin'," she +declared. "Ef we hed knowed ez Lost Creek war a-goin' dry over yander +a-nigh the shop, so ye an' Pete would hev ter kem hyar thirstin' fur +water, we-uns would hev brung suthin' down hyar ter drink out'n. We-uns +hain't got no gourd hyar, hev we, Cynthy?" + +"'Thout it air the little gourd with the saft-soap in it," said Cynthia, +confused and blushing. Her mother broke into a high, loud laugh. + +"Ye ain't wantin' ter gin 'Vander the soap-gourd ter drink out'n, +Cynthy! Leastwise, I ain't goin' ter gin it ter Pete. Fur I s'pose ef ye +hev ter kem a haffen mile ter git a drink, 'Vander, ez surely Pete'll +hev ter kem, too. Waal, waal, who would hev b'lieved ez Lost Creek would +go dry nigh the shop, an' yit be a-scuttlin' along like that +hyarabouts!" and she pointed with her bony finger at the swift flow of +the water. + +He was forced to abandon his clumsy pretence of thirst. "Lost Creek +ain't gone dry nowhar, ez I knows on," he admitted, mechanically rolling +the sleeve of his hammer-arm up and down as he talked. + + * * * * * + +From Miss Woolson's story of "Anne," I give the pen-portrait of the +precise + +"MISS LOIS." + +"Codfish balls for breakfast on Sunday morning, of course," said Miss +Lois, "and fried hasty-pudding. On Wednesdays, a boiled dinner. Pies on +Tuesdays and Saturdays." + +The pins stood in straight rows on her pincushion; three times each week +every room in the house was swept, and the floors, as well as the +furniture, dusted. Beans were baked in an iron pot on Saturday night, +and sweet-cake was made on Thursday. Winter or summer, through scarcity +or plenty, Miss Lois never varied her established routine, thereby +setting an example, she said, to the idle and shiftless. And certainly +she was a faithful guide-post, continually pointing out an industrious +and systematic way, which, however, to the end of time, no +French-blooded, French-hearted person will ever travel, unless dragged +by force. The villagers preferred their lake trout to Miss Lois's salt +codfish, their tartines to her corn-meal puddings, and their +_eau-de-vie_ to her green tea; they loved their disorder and their +comfort; her bar soap and scrubbing-brush were a horror to their eyes. +They washed the household clothes two or three times a year. Was not +that enough? Of what use the endless labor of this sharp-nosed woman, +with glasses over her eyes, at the church-house? Were not, perhaps, the +glasses the consequence of such toil? And her figure of a long leanness +also? + +The element of real heroism, however, came into Miss Lois's life in her +persistent effort to employ Indian servants. Through long years had she +persisted, through long years would she continue to persist. A +succession of Chippewa squaws broke, stole, and skirmished their way +through her kitchen, with various degrees of success, generally in the +end departing suddenly at night with whatever booty they could lay their +hands on. It is but justice to add, however, that this was not much, a +rigid system of keys and excellent locks prevailing in the well-watched +household. Miss Lois's conscience would not allow her to employ +half-breeds, who were sometimes endurable servants; duty required, she +said, that she should have full-blooded natives. And she had them. She +always began to teach them the alphabet within three days after their +arrival, and the spectacle of a tearful, freshly-caught Indian girl, +very wretched in her calico dress and white apron, worn out with the +ways of the kettles and the brasses, dejected over the fish-balls, and +appalled by the pudding, standing confronted by a large alphabet on the +well-scoured table, and Miss Lois by her side with a pointer, was +frequent and even regular in its occurrence, the only change being in +the personality of the learners. No one of them had ever gone through +the letters, but Miss Lois was not discouraged. + + +THE CIRCUS AT DENBY. + +BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT. + +I cannot truthfully say that it was a good show; it was somewhat dreary, +now that I think of it quietly and without excitement. The creatures +looked tired, and as if they had been on the road for a great many +years. The animals were all old, and there was a shabby great elephant +whose look of general discouragement went to my heart, for it seemed as +if he were miserably conscious of a misspent life. He stood dejected and +motionless at one side of the tent, and it was hard to believe that +there was a spark of vitality left in him. A great number of the people +had never seen an elephant before, and we heard a thin, little old man, +who stood near us, say delightedly: "There's the old creatur', and no +mistake, Ann 'Liza. I wanted to see him most of anything. My sakes +alive, ain't he big!" + +And Ann 'Liza, who was stout and sleepy-looking, droned out: "Ye-es, +there's consider'ble of him; but he looks as if he ain't got no +animation." + +Kate and I turned away and laughed, while Mrs. Kew said, confidentially, +as the couple moved away: "_She_ needn't be a reflectin' on the poor +beast. That's Mis' Seth Tanner, and there isn't a woman in Deep Haven +nor East Parish to be named the same day with her for laziness. I'm glad +she didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a +fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I +was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, +when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless +task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The +snake's dead," he answered, good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an +awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned +they curled him up some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, that +looked as if they needed a tonic. Everybody lingered longest before the +monkeys, that seemed to be the only lively creatures in the whole +collection.... + +Coming out of the great tent was disagreeable enough, and we seemed to +have chosen the worst time, for the crowd pushed fiercely, though I +suppose nobody was in the least hurry, and we were all severely jammed, +while from somewhere underneath came the wails of a deserted dog. We had +not meant to see the side shows; but when we came in sight of the +picture of the Kentucky giantess, we noticed that Mrs. Kew looked at it +wistfully, and we immediately asked if she cared anything about going to +see the wonder, whereupon she confessed that she never heard of such a +thing as a woman's weighing six hundred and fifty pounds; so we all +three went in. There were only two or three persons inside the tent, +beside a little boy who played the hand-organ. + +The Kentucky giantess sat in two chairs on a platform, and there was a +large cage of monkeys just beyond, toward which Kate and I went at once. +"Why, she isn't more than two thirds as big as the picture," said Mrs. +Kew, in a regretful whisper; "but I guess she's big enough; doesn't she +look discouraged, poor creatur'?" Kate and I felt ashamed of ourselves +for being there. No matter if she had consented to be carried round for +a show, it must have been horrible to be stared at and joked about day +after day; and we gravely looked at the monkeys, and in a few minutes +turned to see if Mrs. Kew were not ready to come away, when, to our +surprise, we saw that she was talking to the giantess with great +interest, and we went nearer. + +"I thought your face looked natural the minute I set foot inside the +door," said Mrs. Kew; "but you've altered some since I saw you, and I +couldn't place you till I heard you speak. Why, you used to be spare. I +am amazed, Marilly! Where are your folks?" + +"I don't wonder you are surprised," said the giantess. "I was a good +ways from this when you knew me, wasn't I? But father, he ran through +with every cent he had before he died, and 'he' took to drink, and it +killed him after a while; and then I begun to grow worse and worse, till +I couldn't do nothing to earn a dollar, and everybody was a-coming to +see me, till at last I used to ask 'em ten cents apiece, and I scratched +along somehow till this man came round and heard of me; and he offered +me my keep and good pay to go along with him. He had another giantess +before me, but she had begun to fall away considerable, so he paid her +off and let her go. This other giantess was an awful expense to him, she +was such an eater; now, I don't have no great of an appetite"--this was +said plaintively--"and he's raised my pay since I've been with him +because we did so well."... + +"Have you been living in Kentucky long?" asked Mrs. Kew. "I saw it on +the picture outside." + +"No," said the giantess; "that was a picture the man bought cheap from +another show that broke up last year. It says six hundred and fifty +pounds, but I don't weigh more than four hundred. I haven't been weighed +for some time past. Between you and me, I don't weigh as much as that, +but you mustn't mention it, for it would spoil my reputation and might +hinder my getting another engagement." + +Then they shook hands in a way that meant a great deal, and when Kate +and I said good-afternoon, the giantess looked at us gratefully, and +said: "I'm very much obliged to you for coming in, young ladies." + +"Walk in! Walk in!" the man was shouting as we came away. "Walk in and +see the wonder of the world, ladies and gentlemen--the largest woman +ever seen in America--the great Kentucky giantess!" + + +NEW YORK TO NEWPORT. + +_A Trip of Trials_. + +BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. + +The Jane Moseley was a disappointment--most Janes are. If they had +called her Samuel, no doubt she would have behaved better; but they +called her Jane, and the natural consequences of our mistakes cannot be +averted from ourselves or others. A band was playing wild strains of +welcome as we approached. Come and sail with us, it said--it is summer, +and the days are long. Care is of the land--here the waves flow, and the +winds blow, and captain smiles, and stewardess beguiles, and all is +music, music, music. How the wild, exultant strains rose and fell--but +everything rose and fell on that boat, as we found out afterward. Just +here a spirit of justice falls on me, like the gentle dew from heaven, +and forces me to admit that it rained like a young deluge; that it had +been raining for two days, and the bosom of the deep was heaving with +responsive sympathy; as what bosom would not on which so many tears had +been shed? Perhaps responsive sympathy was the secret of the Jane +Moseley's behavior; but I would her heart had been less tender. Then, +too, the passengers were few; and of course as we had to divide the roll +and tumble between us, there was a great deal for each one. + +There was a Pretty Girl, and she had a sister who was not pretty. It +seemed to me that even the sad sea waves were kinder to the Pretty Girl, +such is the influence of youth and beauty. There were various men--heavy +swells I should call some of them, only that that would be slang; but +heavy swells were the order of the day. Then there was a benevolent old +lady who believed in everything--in the music, and the Jane Moseley, and +the long days, and the summer. There was another old lady of restless +mind, who evidently believed in nothing, hoped for nothing, expected +nothing. She tried all the lounges and all the corners, and found each +one a separate disappointment. There was a fat, fair one, of friendly +face, and beside her her grim guardian, a man so thin that you at once +cast him for the part of Starveling in this Midsummer Day's Dream of +Delusion. + +We put out from shore--quite out of sight of shore, in short--and then +the perfidious music ceased. To the people on land it had sung, "Come +and make merry with us," but from us, trying in vain to make merry, it +withheld its deceitful inspiration. For the exceeding weight of sorrow +that presently settled down upon us it had no balm. When you are on a +pleasure trip it is unpleasant to be miserable; so I tried hard to shake +off the mild melancholy that began to steal over me. I said to myself, I +will not affront the great deep with my personal woes. I am but a woman, +yet perhaps on this so great occasion magnanimity of soul will be +possible even to me. I will consider my neighbors and be wise. At one +end of the long saloon a banquet-board was spread. Its hospitality was, +like the other attractions of the Jane Moseley, a perfidious pageant. +Nobody sought its soup or claimed its clams. One or two sad-eyed young +men made their way in that direction from time to time--after their +sea-legs, perhaps. From their gait when they came back I inferred they +did not find them. The human nature in the saloon became a weariness to +me. Even the gentle gambols of the dog Thaddeus, a sportive and spotted +pointer in whom I had been interested, failed to soothe my perturbed +spirits. De Quincey speaks somewhere of "the awful solitariness of every +human soul." No wonder, then, that I should be solitary among the +festive few on board the Jane Moseley--no wonder I felt myself darkly, +deeply, desperately blue. I thought I would go on deck. I clung to my +companion with an ardor which would have been flattering had it been +voluntary. My faltering steps were guided to a seat just within the +guards. I sat there thinking that I had never nursed a dear gazelle, so +I could not be quite sure whether it would have died or not, but I +thought it would. I mused on the changing fortunes of this unsteady +world, and the ingratitude of man. I thought it would be easier going to +the Promised Land if Jordan did not roll between. Rolling had long +ceased to be a pleasant figure of speech with me. How frail are all +things here below, how false, and yet how fair! My mind is naturally +picturesque. In the midst of my sadness the force of nature compelled me +to grope after an illustration. I could only think that my own foothold +was frail, that the Jane Moseley was false, that the Pretty Girl was +fair. A dizziness of brain resulted from this rhetorical effort. I +silently confided my sorrows to the sympathizing bosom of the sea. I was +soothed by the kindred melancholy of the sad sea waves. If the size of +the waves were remarkable, other sighs abounded also, and other things +waved--many of them. + +True to my purpose of studying my fellow-beings, and learning wisdom by +observation, I surveyed the Pretty Girl and her sister, who had by that +time come on deck. They were surrounded by a group of audacious male +creatures, who surrounded most on the side where the Pretty Girl sat. +She did not look feeble. She was like the red, red rose. It was a +conundrum to me why so much greater anxiety should be bestowed upon her +health than upon her sister's. It needed some moral reflection to make +it out; but I concluded that pretty girls were, by some law of nature, +more subject to sea-sickness than plain ones; therefore, all these +careful cares were quite in order. I saw the two old ladies--the +benevolent one who had believed so implicitly in all things, but over +whose benign visage doubt had now begun to settle like a cloud; and the +other, who had hoped nothing from the first, and therefore over whom no +disappointment could prevail--and, seeing, I mildly wondered whether, +indeed, 'twere better to have loved and lost, or never to have loved at +all. + +My thoughts grew solemn. The green shores beyond the swelling flood +seemed farther off than ever. The Jane Moseley had promised to land us +at Newport pier at seven o'clock. It was already half-past seven; oh, +perfidious Jane! Darkness had settled upon the face of the deep. We went +inside. The sad-eyed young men had evidently been hunting for their +sea-legs again, in the neighborhood of the banqueting-table, where +nobody banqueted. Failing to find the secret of correct locomotion, they +had laid themselves down to sleep, but in that sleep at sea what dreams +did come, and how noisy they were! The dog Thaddeus walked by +dejectedly, sniffing at the ghost of some half-forgotten joy. At last +there rose a cry--Newport! The sleepers started to their feet. I started +to mine, but I discreetly and quietly sat down again. Was it Newport, at +last? Not at all. The harbor lights were gleaming from afar; and the cry +was of the bandmaster shouting to his emissaries, arousing fiddle and +flute and bassoon to their deceitful duty. They had played us out of +port--they would play us in again. They had promised us that all should +go merry as a marriage-bell, and--I would not be understood to complain, +but it had been a sad occasion. Now the deceitful strains rose and fell +again upon the salt sea wind. The many lights glowed and twinkled from +the near shore. We are all at play, come and play with us, screamed the +soft waltz music. It is summer, and the days are long, and trouble is +not, and care is banished. If the waves sigh, it is with bliss. Our +voyage is ended. It is sad that you did not sail with us, but we will +invite you again to-morrow, and the band shall play, and the crowd be +gay, and airs beguile, and blue skies smile, and all shall be music, +music, music. But I have sailed with you, on a summer day, bland master +of a faithless band; and I know how soon your pipes are dumb--I know the +tricks and manners of the clouds and the wind, and the swelling sea, and +Jane Moseley, the perfidious. + +I must, after all, have strong local attachments, for when at last the +time came to land I left the ship with lingering reluctance. My feet +seemed fastened to the deck where I had made my brief home on the much +rolling deep. I had grown used to pain and resigned to fate. I walked +the plank unsteadily. I stood on shore amid the rain and the mist. A +hackman preyed upon me. I was put into an ancient ark and trundled on +through the queer, irresolute, contradictory old streets, beside the +lovely bay, all aglow with the lighted yachts, as a Southern swamp is +with fire-flies. A torchlight procession met and escorted me. To this +hour I am at a loss to know whether this attention was a delicate +tribute on the part of the city of Newport to a distinguished guest, or +a parting attention from the company who sail the Jane Moseley, and +advertise in the _Tribune_--a final subterfuge to persuade a tortured +passenger, by means of this transitory glory, that the sail upon a +summer sea had been a pleasure trip.--_Letter to New York Tribune._ + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +HUMOROUS POEMS. + + +I will next group a score of poems and doggerel rhymes with their +various degrees of humor. + + +THE FIRST NEEDLE. + +BY LUCRETIA P. HALE. + + "Have you heard the new invention, my dears, + That a man has invented?" said she. + "It's a stick with an eye + Through which you can tie + A thread so long, it acts like a thong, + And the men have such fun, + To see the thing run! + A firm, strong thread, through that eye at the head, + Is pulled over the edges most craftily, + And makes a beautiful seam to see!" + + "What, instead of those wearisome thorns, my dear, + Those wearisome thorns?" cried they. + "The seam we pin + Driving them in, + But where are they by the end of the day, + With dancing, and jumping, and leaps by the sea? + For wintry weather + They won't hold together, + Seal-skins and bear-skins all dropping round + Off from our shoulders down to the ground. + The thorns, the tiresome thorns, will prick, + But none of them ever consented to stick! + Oh, won't the men let us this new thing use? + If we mend their clothes they can't refuse. + Ah, to sew up a seam for them to see-- + What a treat, a delightful treat, 'twill be!" + + "Yes, a nice thing, too, for the babies, my dears-- + But, alas, there is but one!" cried she. + "I saw them passing it round, and then + They said it was fit for only men! + What woman would know + How to make the thing go? + There was not a man so foolish to dream + That any woman could sew up a seam!" + Oh, then there was babbling and scrabbling, my dears! + "At least they might let us do that!" cried they. + "Let them shout and fight + And kill bears all night; + We'll leave them their spears and hatchets of stone + If they'll give us this thing for our very own. + It will be like a joy above all we could scheme, + To sit up all night and sew such a seam." + + "Beware! take care!" cried an aged old crone, + "Take care what you promise," said she. + "At first 'twill be fun, + But, in the long run, + You'll wish you had let the thing be. + Through this stick with an eye + I look and espy + That for ages and ages you'll sit and you'll sew, + And longer and longer the seams will grow, + And you'll wish you never had asked to sew. + But naught that I say + Can keep back the day, + For the men will return to their hunting and rowing, + And leave to the women forever the sewing." + + Ah, what are the words of an aged crone? + For all have left her muttering alone; + And the needle and thread that they got with such pains, + They forever must keep as dagger and chains. + + +THE FUNNY STORY. + +BY JOSEPHINE POLLARD. + + It was such a funny story! how I wish you could have heard it, + For it set us all a-laughing, from the little to the big; + I'd really like to tell it, but I don't know how to word it, + Though it travels to the music of a very lively jig. + + If Sally just began it, then Amelia Jane would giggle, + And Mehetable and Susan try their very broadest grin; + And the infant Zachariah on his mother's lap would wriggle, + And add a lusty chorus to the very merry din. + + It was such a funny story, with its cheery snap and crackle, + And Sally always told it with so much dramatic art, + That the chickens in the door-yard would begin to "cackle-cackle," + As if in such a frolic they were anxious to take part. + + It was all about a--ha! ha!--and a--ho! ho! ho!--well really, + It is--he! he! he!--I never could begin to tell you half + Of the nonsense there was in it, for I just remember clearly + It began with--ha! ha! ha! ha! and it ended with a laugh. + + But Sally--she could tell it, looking at us so demurely, + With a woe-begone expression that no actress would despise; + And if you'd never heard it, why you would imagine surely + That you'd need your pocket-handkerchief to wipe your weeping eyes. + + When age my hair has silvered, and my step has grown unsteady, + And the nearest to my vision are the scenes of long ago, + I shall see the pretty picture, and the tears may come as ready + As the laugh did, when I used to--ha! ha! ha! and--ho! ho! ho! + + +A SONNET. + +BY JOSEPHINE POLLARD. + + Once a poet wrote a sonnet + All about a pretty bonnet, + And a critic sat upon it + (On the sonnet, + Not the bonnet), + Nothing loath. + + And as if it were high treason, + He said: "Neither rhyme nor reason + Has it; and it's out of season," + Which? the sonnet + Or the bonnet? + Maybe both. + + "'Tis a feeble imitation + Of a worthier creation; + An aesthetic innovation!" + Of a sonnet + Or a bonnet? + This was hard. + + Both were put together neatly, + Harmonizing very sweetly, + But the critic crushed completely + Not the bonnet, + Or the sonnet, + But the bard. + + +WANTED, A MINISTER. + +BY MRS. M.E.W. SKEELS. + + We've a church, tho' the belfry is leaning, + They are talking I think of repair, + And the _bell_, oh, pray but excuse us, + 'Twas _talked of_, but never's been there. + Now, "Wanted, a _real live minister_," + And to settle the same for _life_, + We've an organ and some one to play it, + So we don't care a fig for his wife. + + We once had a pastor (don't tell it), + But we chanced on a time to discover + That his sermons were writ long ago, + And he had preached them twice over. + How sad this mistake, tho' unmeaning, + Oh, it made such a desperate muss! + Both deacon and laymen were vexed, + And decided, "He's no man for us." + + And then the "old nick" was to pay, + "Truth indeed is stranger than fiction," + His _prayers_ were so tedious and long, + People slept, till the benediction. + And then came another, on trial, + Who _actually preached in his gloves_, + His manner so _awkward_ and _queer_, + That we _settled him off_ and he moved. + + And then came another so meek, + That his name really ought to 've been _Moses_; + We almost considered him _settled_, + When lo! the secret discloses, + He'd attacks of nervous disease, + That unfit him for every-day duty; + His sermons, oh, never can please, + They lack both in force and beauty. + + Now, "wanted, a minister," really, + That won't preach his _old sermons over_, + That will make _short prayers_ while in church, + With no fault that the ear can discover, + That is very forbearing, yes very, + That blesses wherever he moves-- + Not too zealous, nor lacking for zeal, + That _preaches without any gloves!_ + + Now, "wanted, a minister," really, + "That was born ere nerves came in fashion," + That never complains of the "headache," + That never is roused to a passion. + He must add to the wisdom of Solomon + The unwearied patience of Job, + Must be _mute in political matters_, + Or doff his clerical robe. + + If he pray for the present Congress, + He must speak in an undertone; + If he pray for President Johnson, + _He_ NEEDS _'em_, why let him go on. + He must touch upon doctrines so lightly, + That no one can take an offence, + Mustn't meddle with _predestination_-- + In short, must preach "common sense." + + Now really wanted a minister, + With religion enough to sustain him, + For the _salary's exceedingly_ small, + And _faith alone_ must _maintain him_. + He must visit the sick and afflicted, + Must mourn with those that mourn, + Must preach the "funeral sermons" + With a very _peculiar_ turn. + + He must preach at the north-west school-house + On every Thursday eve, + And things too numerous to mention + He must do, and must believe. + He must be of careful demeanor, + Both graceful and eloquent too, + Must adjust his cravat "a la mode," + Wear his beaver, decidedly, so. + + Now if _some one_ will deign to be shepherd + To this "our _peculiar people_," + Will be first to subscribe for a bell, + And help us to right up the steeple, + If _correct_ in doctrinal points + (We've _a committee of investigation_), + If possessed of these requisite graces, + We'll accept him perhaps on probation. + + Then if two-thirds of the church can agree, + We'll settle him here for life; + Now, we advertise, "_Wanted, a Minister_," + And not a minister's wife. + + +THE MIDDY OF 1881. + +BY MAY CROLY ROPER. + + I'm the dearest, I'm the sweetest little mid + To be found in journeying from here to Hades, + I am also, nat-u-rally, _a prodid-_ + Gious favorite with all the pretty ladies. + I _know_ nothing, but say a mighty deal; + My elevated nose, likewise, comes handy; + I stalk around, my great importance feel-- + In short, I'm a brainless little dandy. + + My hair is light, and waves above my brow, + My mustache can just be seen through opera-glasses; + I originate but flee from every row, + And no one knows as well as I what "sass" is! + The officers look down on me with scorn, + The sailors jeer at me--behind my jacket, + But still my heart is not "with anguish torn," + And life with me is one continued racket. + + Whene'er the captain sends me with a boat, + The seamen know an idiot has got 'em; + They make their wills and are prepared to die, + Quite certain they are going to the bottom. + But what care I! For when I go ashore, + In uniform with buttons bright and shining, + The girls all cluster 'round me to adore, + And lots of 'em for love of me are pining. + + I strut and dance, and fool my life away; + I'm nautical in past and future tenses! + Long as I know an ocean from a bay, + I'll shy the rest, and take the consequences. + I'm the dearest, I'm the sweetest little mid + That ever graced the tail-end of his classes, + And through a four years' course of study slid, + First am I in the list of Nature's--donkeys! + + --_Scribner's Magazine Bric-a-Brac, 1881._ + + +INDIGNANT POLLY WOG. + +BY MARGARET EYTINGE. + + A tree-toad dressed in apple-green + Sat on a mossy log + Beside a pond, and shrilly sang, + "Come forth, my Polly Wog-- + My Pol, my Ly,--my Wog, + My pretty Polly Wog, + I've something very sweet to say, + My slender Polly Wog! + + "The air is moist, the moon is hid + Behind a heavy fog; + No stars are out to wink and blink + At you, my Polly Wog-- + My Pol, my Ly--my Wog, + My graceful Polly Wog; + Oh, tarry not, beloved one! + My precious Polly Wog!" + + Just then away went clouds, and there + A sitting on the log-- + The other end I mean--the moon + Showed angry Polly Wog. + + Her small eyes flashed, she swelled until + She looked almost a frog; + "How _dare_ you, sir, call _me_," she asked, + "Your _precious_ Polly Wog? + + "Why, one would think you'd spent your life + In some low, muddy bog. + I'd have you know--to _strange_ young men + My name's Miss Mary Wog." + + One wild, wild laugh that tree-toad gave, + And tumbled off the log, + And on the ground he kicked and screamed, + "Oh, Mary, Mary Wog. + Oh, May! oh, Ry--oh, Wog! + Oh, proud Miss Mary Wog! + Oh, goodness gracious! what a joke! + Hurrah for Mary Wog!" + + +"KISS PRETTY POLL!" + +BY MARY D. BRINE. + + "Kiss Pretty Poll!" the parrot screamed, + And "Pretty Poll," repeated I, + The while I stole a merry glance + Across the room all on the sly, + Where some one plied her needle fast, + Demurely by the window sitting; + But I beheld upon her cheek + A multitude of blushes flitting. + + "Kiss Pretty Poll," the parrot coaxed: + "I would, but dare not try," I said, + And stole another glance to see + How some one drooped her golden head, + And sought for something on the floor + (The loss was only feigned, I knew)-- + And still, "Kiss Poll," the parrot screamed, + The very thing I longed to do. + + But some one turned to me at last, + "Please, won't you keep that parrot still?" + "Why, yes," said I, "at least--you see + If you will let me, dear, I will." + And so--well, never mind the rest; + But some one said it was a shame + To take advantage just because + A foolish parrot bore her name. + + --_Harper's Weekly._ + + +THANKSGIVING-DAY (THEN AND NOW). + +BY MARY D. BRINE. + + Thanksgiving-day, a year ago, + A bachelor was I, + Free as the winds that whirl and blow, + Or clouds that sail on high: + I smoked my meerschaum blissfully, + And tilted back my chair, + And on the mantel placed my feet, + For who would heed or care? + + The fellows gathered in my room + For many an hour of fun, + Or I would meet them at the club + For cards, till night was done. + I came or went as pleased me best, + Myself the first and last. + One year ago! Ah, can it be + That freedom's age is past? + + Now, here's a note just come from Fred: + "Old fellow, will you dine + With me to-day? and meet the boys, + A jolly number--nine?" + Ah, Fred is quite as free to-day + As just a year ago, + And ignorant, happily, I may say, + Of things _I've_ learned to know. + + I'd like, yes, if the truth were known, + I'd like to join the boys, + But then a Benedick must learn + To cleave to other joys. + So, here's my answer: "Fred, old chum, + I much regret--oh, pshaw! + To tell the truth, I've got to dine + With--_my dear mother-in-law!_" + + --_Harper's Weekly._ + + +CONCERNING MOSQUITOES. + +_Feelingly Dedicated to their Discounted Bills._ + +BY MISS ANNA A. GORDON. + + Skeeters have the reputation + Of continuous application + To their poisonous profession; + Never missing nightly session, + Wearing out your life's existence + By their practical persistence. + + Would I had the power to veto + Bills of every mosquito; + Then I'd pass a peaceful summer, + With no small nocturnal hummer + Feasting on my circulation, + For his regular potation. + + Oh, that rascally mosquito! + He's a fellow you must see to; + Which you can't do if you're napping, + But must evermore be slapping + Quite promiscuous on your features; + For you'll seldom hit the creatures. + + But the thing most aggravating + Is the cool and calculating + Way in which he tunes his harpstring + To the melody of sharp sting; + Then proceeds to serenade you, + And successfully evade you. + + When a skeeter gets through stealing, + He sails upward to the ceiling, + Where he sits in deep reflection + How he perched on your complexion, + Filled with solid satisfaction + At results of his extraction. + + Would you know, in this connection, + How you may secure protection + For yourself and city cousins + From these bites and from these buzzin's? + Show your sense by quickly getting + For each window--skeeter netting. + + +THE STILTS OF GOLD. + +BY METTA VICTORIA VICTOR. + + Mrs. Mackerel sat in her little room, + Back of her husband's grocery store, + Trying to see through the evening gloom, + To finish the baby's pinafore. + She stitched away with a steady hand, + Though her heart was sore, to the very core, + To think of the troublesome little band, + (There were seven, or more), + And the trousers, frocks, and aprons they wore, + Made and mended by her alone. + "Slave, slave!" she said, in a mournful tone; + "And let us slave, and contrive, and fret, + I don't suppose we shall ever get + A little home which is all our own, + With my own front door + Apart from the store, + And the smell of fish and tallow no more." + + These words to herself she sadly spoke, + Breaking the thread from the last-set stitch, + When Mackerel into her presence broke-- + "Wife, we're--we're--we're, wife, we're--we're _rich_!" + "_We_ rich! ha, ha! I'd like to see; + I'll pull your hair if you're fooling me." + "Oh, don't, love, don't! the letter is here-- + You can read the news for yourself, my dear. + The one who sent you that white crape shawl-- + There'll be no end to our gold--he's dead; + You know you always would call him stingy, + Because he didn't invite us to Injy; + And I am his only heir, 'tis said. + A million of pounds, at the very least, + And pearls and diamonds, likely, beside!" + Mrs. Mackerel's spirits rose like yeast-- + "How lucky I married you, Mac," she cried. + Then the two broke forth into frantic glee. + A customer hearing the strange commotion, + Peeped into the little back-room, and he + Was seized with the very natural notion + That the Mackerel family had gone insane; + So he ran away with might and main. + + Mac shook his partner by both her hands; + They dance, they giggle, they laugh, they stare; + And now on his head the grocer stands, + Dancing a jig with his feet in air-- + Remarkable feat for a man of his age, + Who never had danced upon any stage + But the High-Bridge stage, when he set on top, + And whose green-room had been a green-grocer's shop. + But that Mrs. Mac should perform so well + Is not very strange, if the tales they tell + Of her youthful days have any foundation. + But let that pass with her former life-- + An opera-girl may make a good wife, + If she happens to get such a nice situation. + + A million pounds of solid gold + One would have thought would have crushed them dead; + But dear they bobbed, and courtesied, and rolled + Like a couple of corks to a plummet of lead. + 'Twas enough the soberest fancy to tickle + To see the two Mackerels in such a pickle! + It was three o'clock when they got to bed; + Even then through Mrs. Mackerel's head + Such gorgeous dreams went whirling away, + "Like a Catherine-wheel," she declared next day, + "That her brain seemed made of sparkles of fire + Shot off in spokes, with a ruby tire." + + Mrs. Mackerel had ever been + One of the upward-tending kind, + Regarded by husband and by kin + As a female of very ambitious mind. + It had fretted her long and fretted her sore + To live in the rear of the grocery-store. + And several times she was heard to say + She would sell her soul for a year and a day + To the King of Brimstone, Fire, and Pitch, + For the power and pleasure of being rich. + + Now her ambition had scope to work-- + Riches, they say, are a burden at best; + Her onerous burden she did not shirk, + But carried it all with commendable zest; + Leaving her husband with nothing in life + But to smoke, eat, drink, and obey his wife. + She built a house with a double front-door, + A marble house in the modern style, + With silver planks in the entry floor, + And carpets of extra-magnificent pile. + And in the hall, in the usual manner, + "A statue," she said, "of the chased Diana; + Though who it was chased her, or whether they + Caught her or not, she could, really, not say." + A carriage with curtains of yellow satin-- + A coat-of-arms with these rare devices: + "A mackerel sky and the starry Pisces--" + And underneath, in the purest fish-latin, + _If fishibus flyabus + They may reach the skyabus!_ + + Yet it was not in common affairs like these + She showed her original powers of mind; + Her soul was fired, her ardor inspired, + To stand apart from the rest of mankind; + "To be A No. one," her husband said; + At which she turned very angrily red, + For she couldn't endure the remotest hint + Of the grocery-store, and the mackerels in't. + Weeks and months she plotted and planned + To raise herself from the common level; + Apart from even the few to stand + Who'd hundreds of thousands on which to revel. + Her genius, at last, spread forth its wings-- + Stilts, golden stilts, are the very things-- + "I'll walk on stilts," Mrs. Mackerel cried, + In the height of her overtowering pride. + Her husband timidly shook his head; + But she did not care--"For why," as she said, + "Should the owner of more than a million pounds + Be going the rounds + On the very same grounds + As those low people, she couldn't tell who, + They might keep a shop, for all she knew." + + She had a pair of the articles made, + Of solid gold, gorgeously overlaid + With every color of precious stone + Which ever flashed in the Indian zone. + She privately practised many a day + Before she ventured from home at all; + She had lost her girlish skill, and they say + That she suffered many a fearful fall; + But pride is stubborn, and she was bound + On her golden stilts to go around, + Three feet, at least, from the plebeian ground. + 'Twas an exquisite day, + In the month of May, + That the stilts came out for a promenade; + Their first _entree_ + Was made on the shilling side of Broadway; + The carmen whistled, the boys went mad, + The omnibus-drivers their horses stopped. + The chestnut-roaster his chestnuts dropped, + The popper of corn no longer popped; + The daintiest dandies deigned to stare, + And even the heads of women fair + Were turned by the vision meeting them there. + The stilts they sparkled and flashed and shone + Like the tremulous lights of the frigid zone, + Crimson and yellow and sapphire and green, + Bright as the rainbows in summer seen; + While the lady she strode along between + With a majesty too supremely serene + For anything _but_ an American queen. + A lady with jewels superb as those, + And wearing such very expensive clothes, + Might certainly do whatever she chose! + And thus, in despite of the jeering noise, + And the frantic delight of the little boys, + The stilts were a very decided success. + The _creme de la creme_ paid profoundest attention, + The merchants' clerks bowed in such wild excess, + When she entered their shops, that they strained their spines, + And afterward went into rapid declines. + The papers, next day, gave her flattering mention; + "The wife of our highly-esteemed fellow-citizen, + A Mackerel, of Codfish Square, in this city, + Scorning French fashions, herself has hit on one + So very piquant and stylish and pretty, + We trust our fair friends will consider it treason + _Not_ to walk upon stilts, by the close of the season." + + Mrs. Mackerel, now, was never seen + Out of her chamber, day or night, + Unless her stilts were along--her mien + Was very imposing from such a height, + It imposed upon many a dazzled wight, + Who snuffed the perfume floating down + From the rustling folds of her gorgeous gown, + But never could smell through these bouquets + The fishy odor of former days. + She went on her golden stilts to pray, + Which never became her better than then, + When her murmuring lips were heard to say, + "Thank God, I am not as my fellow-men!" + Her pastor loved as a pastor might-- + His house that was built on a golden rock; + He pointed it out as a shining light + To the lesser lambs of his fleecy flock. + The stilts were a help to the church, no doubt, + They kindled its self-expiring embers, + So that before the season was out + It gained a dozen excellent members. + + Mrs. Mackerel gave a superb soiree, + Standing on stilts to receive her guests; + The gas-lights mimicked the glowing day + So well, that the birds, in their flowery nests, + Almost burst their beautiful breasts, + Trilling away their musical stories + In Mrs. Mackerel's conservatories. + She received on stilts; a distant bow + Was all the loftiest could attain-- + Though some of her friends she did allow + To kiss the hem of her jewelled train. + One gentleman screamed himself quite hoarse + Requesting her to dance; which, of course, + Couldn't be done on stilts, as she + Halloed down to him rather scornfully. + + The fact is, when Mackerel kept a shop, + His wife was very fond of a hop, + And now, as the music swelled and rose, + She felt a tingling in her toes, + A restless, tickling, funny sensation + Which didn't agree with her exaltation. + + When the maddened music was at its height, + And the waltz was wildest--behold, a sight! + The stilts began to hop and twirl + Like the saucy feet of a ballet-girl. + And their haughty owner, through the air, + Was spin, spin, spinning everywhere. + Everybody got out of the way + To give the dangerous stilts fair play. + In every corner, at every door, + With faces looking like unfilled blanks, + They watched the stilts at their airy pranks, + Giving them, unrequested, the floor. + They never had glittered so bright before; + The light it flew in flashing splinters + Away from those burning, revolving centres; + While the gems on the lady's flying skirts + Gave out their light in jets and spirts. + Poor Mackerel gazed in mute dismay + At this unprecedented display. + "Oh, stop, love, stop!" he cried at last; + But she only flew more wild and fast, + While the flutes and fiddles, bugle and drum, + Followed as if their time had come. + + She went at such a bewildering pace + Nobody saw the lady's face, + But only a ring of emerald light + From the crown she wore on that fatal night. + Whether the stilts were propelling her, + Or she the stilts, none could aver. + Around and around the magnificent hall + Mrs. Mackerel danced at her own grand ball. + + "As the twig is bent the tree's inclined;" + This must have been a case in kind. + "What's in the blood will sometimes show--" + 'Round and around the wild stilts go. + + It had been whispered many a time + That when poor Mack was in his prime + Keeping that little retail store, + He had fallen in love with a ballet-girl, + Who gave up fame's entrancing whirl + To be his own, and the world's no more. + She made him a faithful, prudent wife-- + Ambitious, however, all her life. + Could it be that the soft, alluring waltz + Had carried her back to a former age, + Making her memory play her false, + Till she dreamed herself on the gaudy stage? + Her crown a tinsel crown--her guests + The pit that gazes with praise and jests? + + "Pride," they say, "must have a fall--" + Mrs. Mackerel was very proud-- + And now she danced at her own grand ball, + While the music swelled more fast and loud. + + The gazers shuddered with mute affright, + For the stilts burned now with a bluish light, + While a glimmering, phosphorescent glow + Did out of the lady's garments flow. + And what was that very peculiar smell? + Fish, or brimstone? no one could tell. + Stronger and stronger the odor grew, + And the stilts and the lady burned more blue; + 'Round and around the long saloon, + While Mackerel gazed in a partial swoon, + She approached the throng, or circled from it, + With a flaming train like the last great comet; + Till at length the crowd + All groaned aloud. + For her exit she made from her own grand ball + Out of the window, stilts and all. + + None of the guests can really say + How she looked when she vanished away. + Some declare that she carried sail + On a flying fish with a lambent tail; + And some are sure she went out of the room + Riding her stilts like a witch a broom, + While a phosphorent odor followed her track: + Be this as it may, she never came back. + Since then, her friends of the gold-fish fry + Are in a state of unpleasant suspense, + Afraid, that unless they unselfishly try + To make better use of their dollars and sense + To chasten their pride, and their manners mend, + They may meet a similar shocking end. + + --_Cosmopolitan Art Journal._ + + +JUST SO. + +BY METTA VICTORIA VICTOR. + + A youth and maid, one winter night, + Were sitting in the corner; + His name, we're told, was Joshua White, + And hers was Patience Warner. + + Not much the pretty maiden said, + Beside the young man sitting; + Her cheeks were flushed a rosy red, + Her eyes bent on her knitting. + + Nor could he guess what thoughts of him + Were to her bosom flocking, + As her fair fingers, swift and slim, + Flew round and round the stocking. + + While, as for Joshua, bashful youth, + His words grew few and fewer; + Though all the time, to tell the truth, + His chair edged nearer to her. + + Meantime her ball of yarn gave out, + She knit so fast and steady; + And he must give his aid, no doubt, + To get another ready. + + He held the skein; of course the thread + Got tangled, snarled and twisted; + "Have Patience!" cried the artless maid, + To him who her assisted. + + Good chance was this for tongue-tied churl + To shorten all palaver; + "Have Patience!" cried he, "dearest girl! + And may I really have her?" + + The deed was done; no more, that night, + Clicked needles in the corner:-- + And she is Mrs. Joshua White + That once was Patience Warner. + + +THE INVENTOR'S WIFE. + +BY E.T. CORBETT. + + It's easy to talk of the patience of Job. Humph! Job had nothin' + to try him; + Ef he'd been married to 'Bijah Brown, folks wouldn't have dared + come nigh him. + Trials, indeed! Now I'll tell you what--ef you want to be sick + of your life, + Jest come and change places with me a spell, for I'm an + inventor's wife. + And sech inventions! I'm never sure when I take up my coffee-pot, + That 'Bijah hain't been "improvin'" it, and it mayn't go off + like a shot. + Why, didn't he make me a cradle once that would keep itself + a-rockin', + And didn't it pitch the baby out, and wasn't his head bruised + shockin'? + And there was his "patent peeler," too, a wonderful thing I'll say; + But it hed one fault--it never stopped till the apple was peeled away. + As for locks and clocks, and mowin' machines, and reapers, and all + such trash, + Why, 'Bijah's invented heaps of them, but they don't bring in no cash! + Law! that don't worry him--not at all; he's the aggravatinest man-- + He'll set in his little workshop there, and whistle and think and plan, + Inventin' a Jews harp to go by steam, or a new-fangled powder-horn, + While the children's goin' barefoot to school, and the weeds is + chokin' our corn. + When 'Bijah and me kep' company, he wasn't like this, you know; + Our folks all thought he was dreadful smart--but that was years ago. + He was handsome as any pictur' then, and he had such a glib, + bright way-- + I never thought that a time would come when I'd rue my weddin'-day; + But when I've been forced to chop the wood, and tend to the + farm beside, + And look at 'Bijah a-settin' there, I've jest dropped down and cried. + We lost the hull of our turnip crop while he was inventin' a gun, + But I counted it one of my marcies when it bust before 'twas done. + So he turned it into a "burglar alarm." It ought to give + thieves a fright-- + 'Twould scare an honest man out of his wits, ef he sot it + off at night. + Sometimes I wonder ef 'Bijah's crazy, he does such curious things. + Have I told you about his bedstead yit? 'Twas full of wheels + and springs; + It hed a key to wind it up, and a clock-face at the head; + All you did was to turn them hands, and at any hour you said + That bed got up and shook itself, and bounced you on the floor, + And then shet up, jest like a box, so you couldn't sleep any more. + Wa'al, 'Bijah he fixed it all complete, and he sot it at + half-past five, + But he hadn't more 'n got into it, when--dear me! sakes alive! + Them wheels began to whizz and whirr! I heard a fearful snap, + And there was that bedstead with 'Bijah inside shet up jest + like a trap! + I screamed, of course, but 'twant no use. Then I worked that + hull long night + A-tryin' to open the pesky thing. At last I got in a fright: + I couldn't hear his voice inside, and I thought he might be dyin', + So I took a crowbar and smashed it in. There was 'Bijah + peacefully lyin', + Inventin' a way to git out agin. That was all very well to say, + But I don't believe he'd have found it out if I'd left him in all day. + Now, since I've told you my story, do you wonder I'm tired of life, + Or think it strange I often wish I warn't an inventor's wife? + + +AN UNRUFFLED BOSOM. + +(_Story of an old Woman who knew Washington._) + +BY LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY. + + An aged negress at her door + Is sitting in the sun; + Her day of work is almost o'er, + Her day of rest begun. + Her face is black as darkest night, + Her form is bent and thin, + And o'er her bony visage tight + Is stretched her wrinkled skin. + Her dress is scant and mean; yet still + About her ebon face + There flows a soft and creamy frill + Of costly Mechlin lace. + What means the contrast strange and wide? + Its like is seldom seen-- + A pauper's aged face beside + The laces of a queen. + Her mien is stately, proud, and high, + And yet her look is kind, + And the calm light within her eye + Speaks an unruffled mind. + "Dar comes anodder ob dem tramps," + She mumbles low in wrath, + "I know dose sleek Centennial chaps + Quick as dey mounts de path." + A-axing ob a lady's age + I tink is impolite, + And when dey gins to interview + I disremembers quite. + Dar was dat spruce photometer + Dat tried to take my head, + And Mr. Squibbs, de porterer, + Wrote down each word I said. + Six hundred years I t'ought it was, + Or else it was sixteen-- + Yes; I'd shook hands wid Washington + And likewise General Greene. + I tole him all de generals' names + Dar ebber was, I guess, + From General Lee and La Fayette + To General Distress. + Den dar's dem high-flown ladies + My _old_ tings came to see; + Wanted to buy dem some heirlooms + Of real Aunt Tiquity. + Says I, "Dat isn't dis chile's name, + Dey calls me Auntie Scraggs," + And den I axed dem, by de pound + How much dey gabe for rags? + De missionary had de mose + Insurance of dem all; + He tole me I was ole, and said, + Leabes had dar time to fall. + He simply wished to ax, he said, + As pastor and as friend, + If wid unruffled bosom I + Approached my latter end. + Now how he knew dat story I + Should mightily like to know. + + I 'clar to goodness, Massa Guy, + If dat ain't really you! + You say dat in your wash I sent + You only one white vest; + And as you'se passin' by you t'ought + You'd call and get de rest. + Now, Massa Guy, about your shirts, + At least, it seems to me + Dat you is more particular + Dan what you used to be. + Your family pride is stiff as starch, + Your blood is mighty blue-- + I nebber spares de indigo + To make your shirts so, too. + I uses candle ends, and wax, + And satin-gloss and paints, + Until your wristbands shine like to + De pathway ob de saints. + But when a gemman sends to me + Eight white vests eberry week, + A stain ob har-oil on each one, + I tinks it's time to speak. + + When snarled around a button dar's + A golden har or so, + Dat young man's going to be wed, + Or someting's wrong, I know. + You needn't laugh, and turn it off + By axing 'bout my cap; + You didn't use to know nice lace, + And never cared a snap + What 'twas a lady wore. But folks + Wid teaching learn a lot, + And dey do say Miss Bella buys + De best dat's to be got. + But if you really want to know, + I don't mind telling you + Jus' how I come by dis yere lace-- + It's cur'us, but it's true. + My mother washed for Washington + When I warn't more'n dat tall; + I cut one of his shirt-frills off + To dress my corn-cob doll; + And when de General saw de shirt, + He jus' was mad enough + To tink he got to hold review + Widout his best Dutch ruff. + Ma'am said she 'lowed it was de calf + Dat had done chawed it off; + But when de General heard dat ar, + He answered with a scoff; + He said de marks warn't don' of teef, + But plainly dose ob shears; + An' den he showed her to de do' + And cuffed me on ye years. + And when my ma'am arribed at home + She stretched me 'cross her lap, + Den took de lace away from me + An' sewed it on her cap. + And when I dies I hope dat dey + Wid it my shroud will trim. + + Den when we meets on Judgment Day, + I'll gib it back to him. + So dat's my story, Massa Guy, + Maybe I's little wit; + But I has larned to, when I'm wrong, + Make a clean breast ob it. + Den keep a conscience smooth and white + (You can't if much you flirt), + And an unruffled bosom, like + De General's Sunday shirt. + + +HAT, ULSTER AND ALL. + +BY CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES. + +_John Verity's Experience._ + + I saw the congregation rise, + And in it, to my great surprise, + A Kossuth-covered head. + I looked and looked, and looked again, + To make quite sure my sight was plain, + Then to myself I said: + + That fellow surely is a Jew, + To whom the Christian faith is new, + Nor is it strange, indeed, + If used to wear his hat in church, + His manners leave him in the lurch + Upon a change of creed. + + Joining my friend on going out, + Conjecture soon was put to rout + By smothered laugh of his: + Ha! ha! too good, too good, no Jew, + Dear fellow, but Miss Moll Carew, + Good Christian that she is! + + Bad blunder all I have to say, + It is a most unchristian way + To rig Miss Moll Carew-- + She has my hat, my cut of hair, + Just such an ulster as I wear, + And heaven knows what else, too. + + +AUCTION EXTRAORDINARY. + +BY LUCRETIA DAVIDSON. + + I dreamed a dream in the midst of my slumbers, + And as fast as I dreamed it, it came into numbers; + My thoughts ran along in such beautiful meter, + I'm sure I ne'er saw any poetry sweeter: + It seemed that a law had been recently made + That a tax on old bachelors' pates should be laid; + And in order to make them all willing to marry, + The tax was as large as a man could well carry. + The bachelors grumbled and said 'twas no use-- + 'Twas horrid injustice and horrid abuse, + And declared that to save their own hearts' blood from spilling, + Of such a vile tax they would not pay a shilling. + But the rulers determined them still to pursue, + So they set all the old bachelors up at vendue: + A crier was sent through the town to and fro, + To rattle his bell and a trumpet to blow, + And to call out to all he might meet in his way, + "Ho! forty old bachelors sold here to-day!" + And presently all the old maids in the town, + Each in her very best bonnet and gown, + From thirty to sixty, fair, plain, red and pale, + Of every description, all flocked to the sale. + The auctioneer then in his labor began, + And called out aloud, as he held up a man, + "How much for a bachelor? Who wants to buy?" + In a twink, every maiden responsed, "I--I!" + In short, at a highly extravagant price, + The bachelors all were sold off in a trice: + And forty old maidens, some younger, some older, + Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder. + + +A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT. + +BY ARABELLA WILSON. + + O Sextant of the meetinouse which sweeps + And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fiers, + And lites the gas, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose, + In which case it smells orful--wus than lampile; + And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dies + To the grief of survivin' pardners, and sweeps paths, + And for these servaces gits $100 per annum; + Wich them that thinks deer let 'em try it; + Gittin up before starlite in all wethers, and + Kindlin' fiers when the wether is as cold + As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlins + (I wouldn't be hierd to do it for no sum); + But o Sextant there are one kermodity + Wuth more than gold which don't cost nuthin; + Wuth more than anything except the Sole of man! + I mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are! + O it is plenty out o' dores, so plenty it doant no + What on airth to do with itself, but flize about + Scatterin leaves and bloin off men's hats; + In short its jest as free as Are out dores; + But O Sextant! in our church its scarce as piety, + Scarce as bankbills when ajunts beg for mishuns, + Which sum say is purty often, taint nuthin to me, + What I give aint nuthing to nobody; but O Sextant! + You shet 500 men women and children + Speshily the latter, up in a tite place, + Sum has bad breths, none of em aint too sweet, + Sum is fevery, sum is scroflus, sum has bad teeth + And sum haint none, and sum aint over clean; + But evry one of em brethes in and out and in + Say 50 times a minnet, or 1 million and a half breths an hour; + Now how long will a church full of are last at that rate? + I ask you; say fifteen minnets, and then what's to be did? + Why then they must breth it all over agin, + And then agin and so on, till each has took it down + At least ten times and let it up agin, and what's more, + The same individible doant have the privilege + Of breathin his own are and no one else, + Each one must take wotever comes to him, + O Sextant! doant you know our lungs is belluses + To blo the fier of life and keep it from + Going out: und how can bellusses blo without wind? + And aint wind are? I put it to your konshens, + Are is the same to us as milk to babies, + Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox, + Or roots and airbs unto an Injun doctor, + Or little pills unto an omepath, + Or Boze to girls. Are is for us to brethe. + What signifize who preaches ef I cant brethe? + What's Pol? What's Pollus to sinners who are ded? + Ded for want of breth! Why Sextant when we dye + Its only coz we cant brethe no more--that's all. + And now O Sextant? let me beg of you + To let a little are into our cherch + (Pewer are is sertin proper for the pews); + And dew it week days and on Sundays tew-- + It aint much trobble--only make a hoal, + And then the are will come in of itself + (It love to come in where it can git warm). + And O how it will rouze the people up + And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps + And yorns and fijits as effectool + As wind on the dry boans the Profit tels of. + + --_Christian Weekly._ + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +GOOD-NATURED SATIRE. + + +Women show their sense of humor in ridiculing the foibles of their own +sex, as Miss Carlotta Perry seeing the danger of "higher education," and +Helen Gray Cone laughing over the exaggerated ravings and moanings of a +stage-struck girl, or the very one-sided sermon of a sentimental goose. + + +A MODERN MINERVA. + +BY CARLOTTA PERRY. + + 'Twas the height of the gay season, and I cannot tell the reason, + But at a dinner party given by Mrs. Major Thwing + It became my pleasant duty to take out a famous beauty-- + The prettiest woman present. I was happy as a king. + + Her dress beyond a question was an artist's best creation; + A miracle of loveliness was she from crown to toe. + Her smile was sweet as could be, her voice just as it should be-- + Not high, and sharp, and wiry, but musical and low. + + Her hair was soft and flossy, golden, plentiful and glossy; + Her eyes, so blue and sunny, shone with every inward grace; + I could see that every fellow in the room was really yellow + With jealousy, and wished himself that moment in my place. + + As the turtle soup we tasted, like a gallant man I hasted + To pay some pretty tribute to this muslin, silk, and gauze; + But she turned and softly asked me--and I own the question tasked me-- + What were my fixed opinions on the present Suffrage laws. + + I admired a lovely blossom resting on her gentle bosom; + The remark I thought a safe one--I could hardly made a worse; + With a smile like any Venus, she gave me its name and genus, + And opened very calmly a botanical discourse. + + But I speedily recovered. As her taper fingers hovered, + Like a tender benediction, in a little bit of fish, + Further to impair digestion, she brought up the Eastern Question. + By that time I fully echoed that other fellow's wish. + + And, as sure as I'm a sinner, right on through that endless dinner + Did she talk of moral science, of politics and law, + Of natural selection, of Free Trade and Protection, + Till I came to look upon her with a sort of solemn awe. + + Just to hear the lovely woman, looking more divine than human, + Talk with such discrimination of Ingersoll and Cook, + With such a childish, sweet smile, quoting Huxley, Mill, and Carlyle-- + It was quite a revelation--it was better than a book. + + Chemistry and mathematics, agriculture and chromatics, + Music, painting, sculpture--she knew all the tricks of speech; + Bas-relief and chiaroscuro, and at last the Indian Bureau-- + She discussed it quite serenely, as she trifled with a peach. + + I have seen some dreadful creatures, with vinegary features, + With their fearful store of learning set me sadly in eclipse; + But I'm ready quite to swear if I have ever heard the Tariff + Or the Eastern Question settled by such a pair of lips. + + Never saw I a dainty maiden so remarkably o'erladen + From lip to tip of finger with the love of books and men; + Quite in confidence I say it, and I trust you'll not betray it, + But I pray to gracious heaven that I never may again. + + --_Chicago Tribune._ + + +THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA BROWN. + +BY HELEN GRAY CONE. + + Though I met her in the summer, when one's heart lies 'round at ease, + As it were in tennis costume, and a man's not hard to please; + Yet I think at any season to have met her was to love, + While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness of the dove. + + At request she read us poems, in a nook among the pines, + And her artless voice lent music to the least melodious lines; + Though she lowered her shadowing lashes, in an earnest reader's wise, + Yet we caught blue gracious glimpses of the heavens that were her eyes. + + As in Paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand + That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand, + Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall, + When she said that she should study elocution in the fall. + + I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein: + She began with "Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against the paayne, + And the beacon-light a-trrremble--" which, although it made me wince, + Is a thing of cheerful nature to the things she's rendered since. + + Having learned the Soulful Quiver, she acquired the Melting Mo-o-an, + And the way she gave "Young Grayhead" would have liquefied a stone; + Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ, + And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew "The Polish Boy." + + It's not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul + Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll: + What was I that I should murmur? Yet it gave me grievous pain + When she rose in social gatherings and searched among the slain. + + I was forced to look upon her, in my desperation dumb-- + Knowing well that when her awful opportunity was come + She would give us battle, murder, sudden death at very least-- + As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast. + + Once, ah! once I fell a-dreaming; some one played a polonaise + I associated strongly with those happier August days; + And I mused, "I'll speak this evening," recent pangs forgotten quite. + Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: "Curfew SHALL not ring to-night!" + + Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy warm romance! + Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in France? + Oh, as she "cull-imbed!" that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down. + I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown! + + +THE TENDER HEART. + +BY HELEN GRAY CONE. + + She gazed upon the burnished brace + Of plump, ruffed grouse he showed with pride, + Angelic grief was in her face: + "How _could_ you do it, dear?" she sighed. + "The poor, pathetic moveless wings!" + The songs all hushed--"Oh, cruel shame!" + Said he, "The partridge never sings," + Said she, "The sin is quite the same." + + "You men are savage, through and through, + A boy is always bringing in + Some string of birds' eggs, white and blue, + Or butterfly upon a pin. + The angle-worm in anguish dies, + Impaled, the pretty trout to tease--" + "My own, we fish for trout with flies--" + "Don't wander from the question, please." + + She quoted Burns's "Wounded Hare," + And certain burning lines of Blake's, + And Ruskin on the fowls of air, + And Coleridge on the water-snakes. + At Emerson's "Forbearance" he + Began to feel his will benumbed; + At Browning's "Donald" utterly + His soul surrendered and succumbed. + + "Oh, gentlest of all gentle girls! + He thought, beneath the blessed sun!" + He saw her lashes hang with pearls, + And swore to give away his gun. + She smiled to find her point was gained + And went, with happy parting words + (He subsequently ascertained), + To trim her hat with humming birds. + + --_From the Century._ + + +A dozen others equally good must be reserved for that encyclopaedia! This +specimen, of _vers de societe_ rivals Locker or Baker: + + +PLIGHTED: A.D. 1874. + +BY ALICE WILLIAMS. + + "Two souls with but a single thought, + Two hearts that beat as one." + + + NELLIE, _loquitur_. + + Bless my heart! You've come at last, + Awful glad to see you, dear! + Thought you'd died or something, Belle-- + _Such_ an age since you've been here! + My engagement? Gracious! Yes. + Rumor's hit the mark this time. + And the victim? Charley Gray. + Know him, don't you? Well, he's _prime_. + Such mustachios! splendid style! + Then he's not so horrid fast-- + Waltzes like a seraph, too; + Has some fortune--best and last. + Love him? Nonsense. Don't be "soft;" + Pretty much as love now goes; + He's devoted, and in time + I'll get used to him, I 'spose. + First love? Humbug. Don't talk stuff! + Bella Brown, don't be a fool! + Next you'd rave of flames and darts, + Like a chit at boarding-school; + Don't be "miffed." I talked just so + Some two years back. Fact, my dear! + But two seasons kill romance, + Leave one's views of life quite clear. + Why, if Will Latrobe had asked + When he left two years ago, + I'd have thrown up all and gone + Out to Kansas, do you know? + Fancy me a settler's wife! + Blest escape, dear, was it not? + Yes; it's hardly in my line + To enact "Love in a Cot." + Well, you see, I'd had my swing, + Been engaged to eight or ten, + Got to stop some time, of course, + So it don't much matter when. + Auntie hates old maids, and thinks + Every girl should marry young-- + On that theme my whole life long + I have heard the changes sung. + So, _ma belle_, what could I do? + Charley wants a stylish wife. + We'll suit well enough, no fear, + When we settle down for life. + But for love-stuff! See my ring! + Lovely, isn't it? Solitaire. + Nearly made Maud Hinton turn + Green with envy and despair. + Her's ain't half so nice, you see. + _Did_ I write you, Belle, about + How she tried for Charley, till + I sailed in and cut her out? + Now, she's taken Jack McBride, + I believe it's all from pique-- + Threw him over once, you know-- + Hates me so she'll scarcely speak. + Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that-- + Pa won't mind expense at last + I'll be off his hands for good; + Cost a fortune two years past. + My trousseau shall outdo Maud's, + I've _carte blanche_ from Pa, you know-- + Mean to have my dress from Worth! + Won't she be just RAVING though! + + --_Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 1874._ + + * * * * * + +Women are often extremely humorous in their newspaper letters, excelling +in that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read +them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle's review of "St. Elmo," or +Gail Hamilton's criticism of "The Story of Avis," while Mrs. Rollins, in +the _Critic_, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile +always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the +public that his "solemn song" is + + "Attempt ambitious, with a ray of hope + To pierce the dark abysms of thought, to guide + Its dim ghosts o'er the towering crags of Doubt + Unto the land where Peace and Love abide, + Of flowers and streams, and sun and stars." + +"His 'solemn song' is certainly very solemn for a song with so cheerful +a purpose. We have rarely read, indeed, a book with so large a +proportion of unhappy words in it. Frozen shrouds, souls a-chill with +agony, things wan and gray, icy demons, scourging willow-branches, +snow-heaped mounds, black and freezing nights, cups of sorrow drained to +the lees, etc., are presented in such profusion that to struggle through +the 'dark abyss' in search of the 'ray of hope' is much like taking a +cup of poison to learn the sweetness of its antidote. Mr. ---- in one of +his stanzas invites his soul to 'come and walk abroad' with him. If he +ever found it possible to walk abroad without his soul, the fact would +have been worth chronicling; but if it is true that he only desires to +have his soul with him occasionally, we should advise him to walk abroad +alone, and invite his soul to sit beside him in the hours he devotes to +composition." + +Then humor is displayed in the excellent parodies by women--as Grace +Greenwood's imitations of various authors, written in her young days, +but quite equal to the "Echo Club" of Bayard Taylor. How perfect her +mimicry of Mrs. Sigourney! + + +A FRAGMENT. + +BY L.H.S. + + How hardly doth the cold and careless world + Requite the toil divine of genius-souls, + Their wasting cares and agonizing throes! + I had a friend, a sweet and precious friend, + One passing rich in all the strange and rare, + And fearful gifts of song. + On one great work, + A poem in twelve cantos, she had toiled + From early girlhood, e'en till she became + An olden maid. + Worn with intensest thought, + She sunk at last, just at the "finis" sunk! + And closed her eyes forever! The soul-gem + Had fretted through its casket! + As I stood + Beside her tomb, I made a solemn vow + To take in charge that poor, lone orphan work, + And edit it! + My publisher I sought, + A learned man and good. He took the work, + Read here and there a line, then laid it down, + And said, "It would not pay." I slowly turned, + And went my way with troubled brow, "but more + In sorrow than in anger." + + * * * * * + +Phoebe Cary's parody on "Maud Muller" I never fancied; it seems almost +wicked to burlesque anything so perfect. But so many parodies have been +made on Kingsley's "Three Fishers" that now I can enjoy a really good +one, like this from Miss Lilian Whiting, of the Boston _Daily +Traveller_, the well-known correspondent of various Western papers: + + +THE THREE POETS. + +_After Kingsley._ + +BY LILIAN WHITING. + + Three poets went sailing down Boston streets, + All into the East as the sun went down, + Each felt that the editor loved him best + And would welcome spring poetry in Boston town. + For poets must write tho' the editors frown, + Their aesthetic natures will not be put down, + While the harbor bar is moaning! + + Three editors climbed to the highest tower + That they could find in all Boston town, + And they planned to conceal themselves, hour after hour, + Till the sun or the poets had both gone down. + For Spring poets must write, though the editors rage, + The artistic spirit must thus be engaged-- + Though the editors all were groaning. + + Three corpses lay out on the Back Bay sand, + Just after the first spring sun went down, + And the Press sat down to a banquet grand, + In honor of poets no more in the town. + For poets will write while editors sleep, + Though they've nothing to earn and no one to keep; + And the harbor bar keeps moaning. + + * * * * * + +The humor of women is constantly seen in their poems for children, such +as "The Dead Doll," by Margaret Vandergrift, and the "Motherless +Turkeys," by Marian Douglas. Here are some less known: + + +BEDTIME. + +BY NELLIE K. KELLOGG. + + 'Twas sunset-time, when grandma called + To lively little Fred: + "Come, dearie, put your toys away, + It's time to go to bed." + + But Fred demurred. "He wasn't tired, + He didn't think 'twas right + That he should go so early, when + Some folks sat up all night." + + Then grandma said, in pleading tone, + "The little chickens go + To bed at sunset ev'ry night, + All summer long, you know." + + Then Freddie laughed, and turned to her + His eyes of roguish blue, + "Oh, yes, I know," he said; "but then, + Old hen goes with them, too." + + --_Good Cheer_. + + +THE ROBIN AND THE CHICKEN. + +BY GRACE F. COOLIDGE. + + A plump little robin flew down from a tree, + To hunt for a worm, which he happened to see; + A frisky young chicken came scampering by, + And gazed at the robin with wondering eye. + + Said the chick, "What a queer-looking chicken is that! + Its wings are so long and its body so fat!" + While the robin remarked, loud enough to be heard: + "Dear me! an exceedingly strange-looking bird!" + + "Can you sing?" robin asked, and the chicken said "No;" + But asked in its turn if the robin could crow. + So the bird sought a tree and the chicken a wall, + And each thought the other knew nothing at all. + + --_St. Nicholas._ + + * * * * * + +Harriette W. Lothrop, wife of the popular publisher--better known by her +pen name of "Margaret Sidney"--has done much in a humorous way to amuse +and instruct little folks. She has much quiet humor. + + +WHY POLLY DOESN'T LOVE CAKE! + +BY MARGARET SIDNEY. + + They all said "No!" + As they stood in a row, + The poodle, and the parrot, and the little yellow cat, + And they looked very solemn, + This straight, indignant column, + And rolled their eyes, and shook their heads, a-standing on the mat. + + Then I took a goodly stick, + Very short and very thick, + And I said, "Dear friends, you really now shall rue it, + For one of you did take + That bit of wedding-cake, + And so I'm going to whip you all. I honestly will do it." + + Then Polly raised her claw! + "I never, never saw + That stuff. _I'd_ rather have a cracker, + And so it would be folly," + Said this naughty, naughty Polly, + "To punish me; but Pussy, you can whack her." + + The cat rolled up her eyes + In innocent surprise, + And waved each trembling whisker end. + "A crumb I have not taken, + But Bose ought to be shaken. + And then, perhaps, his thieving, awful ways he'll mend." + + "I'll begin right here + With you, Polly, dear," + And my stick I raised with righteous good intent. + "Oh, dear!" and "Oh, dear!" + The groans that filled my ear. + As over head and heels the frightened column went! + + The cat flew out of window, + The dog flew under bed, + And Polly flapped and beat the air, + Then settled on my head; + When underneath her wing, + From feathered corner deep, + A bit of wedding-cake fell down, + That made poor Polly weep. + + The cat raced off to cat-land, and was never seen again, + And the dog sneaked out beneath the bed to scud with might and main; + While Polly sits upon her roost, and rolls her eyes in fear, + And when she sees a bit of cake, she always says, "Oh, dear!" + + +KITTEN TACTICS. + +BY ADELAIDE CILLEY WALDRON. + + Four little kittens in a heap, + One wide awake and three asleep. + Open-eyes crowded, pushed the rest over, + While the gray mother-cat went playing rover. + + Three little kittens stretched and mewed; + Cried out, "Open-eyes, you're too rude!" + Open-eyes, winking, purred so demurely, + All the rest stared at him, thinking "surely + + _We_ were the ones that were so rude, + _We_ were the ones that cried and mewed; + Let us lie here like good little kittens; + We cannot sleep, so we'll wash our mittens." + + Four little kittens, very sleek, + Purred so demurely, looked so meek, + When the gray mother came home from roving-- + "What good kittens!" said she; "and how loving!" + + +BOTH SIDES. + +BY GAIL HAMILTON. + + "Kitty, Kitty, you mischievous elf, + What have you, pray, to say for yourself?" + + But Kitty was now + Asleep on the mow, + And only drawled dreamily, "Ma-e-ow!" + + "Kitty, Kitty, come here to me,-- + The naughtiest Kitty I ever did see! + I know very well what you've been about; + Don't try to conceal it, murder will out. + Why do you lie so lazily there?" + + "Oh, I have had a breakfast rare!" + "Why don't you go and hunt for a mouse?" + "Oh, there's nothing fit to eat in the house." + + "Dear me! Miss Kitty, + This is a pity; + But I guess the cause of your change of ditty. + What has become of the beautiful thrush + That built her nest in the heap of brush? + A brace of young robins as good as the best; + A round little, brown little, snug little nest; + Four little eggs all green and gay, + Four little birds all bare and gray, + And Papa Robin went foraging round, + Aloft on the trees, and alight on the ground. + North wind or south wind, he cared not a groat, + So he popped a fat worm down each wide-open throat; + And Mamma Robin through sun and storm + Hugged them up close, and kept them all warm; + And me, I watched the dear little things + Till the feathers pricked out on their pretty wings, + And their eyes peeped up o'er the rim of the nest. + Kitty, Kitty, you know the rest. + The nest is empty, and silent and lone; + Where are the four little robins gone? + Oh, puss, you have done a cruel deed! + Your eyes, do they weep? your heart, does it bleed? + Do you not feel your bold cheeks turning pale? + Not you! you are chasing your wicked tail. + Or you just cuddle down in the hay and purr, + Curl up in a ball, and refuse to stir, + But you need not try to look good and wise: + I see little robins, old puss, in your eyes. + And this morning, just as the clock struck four, + There was some one opening the kitchen door, + And caught you creeping the wood-pile over,-- + Make a clean breast of it, Kitty Clover!" + + Then Kitty arose, + Rubbed up her nose, + And looked very much as if coming to blows; + Rounded her back, + Leaped from the stack, + On _her_ feet, at _my_ feet, came down with a whack, + Then, fairly awake, she stretched out her paws, + Smoothed down her whiskers, and unsheathed her claws, + Winked her green eyes + With an air of surprise, + And spoke rather plainly for one of her size. + + "Killed a few robins; well, what of that? + What's virtue in man can't be vice in a cat. + There's a thing or two I should like to know,-- + Who killed the chicken a week ago, + For nothing at all that I could spy, + But to make an overgrown chicken-pie? + 'Twixt you and me, + 'Tis plain to see, + The odds is, you like fricassee, + While my brave maw + Owns no such law, + Content with viands _a la_ raw. + + "Who killed the robins? Oh, yes! oh, yes! + I _would_ get the cat now into a mess! + Who was it put + An old stocking-foot, + Tied up with strings + And such shabby things, + On to the end of a sharp, slender pole, + Dipped it in oil and set fire to the whole, + And burnt all the way from here to the miller's + The nests of the sweet young caterpillars? + Grilled fowl, indeed! + Why, as I read, + You had not even the plea of need; + For all you boast + Such wholesome roast, + I saw no sign at tea or roast, + Of even a caterpillar's ghost. + + "Who killed the robins? Well, I _should_ think! + Hadn't somebody better wink + At my peccadillos, if houses of glass + Won't do to throw stones from at those who pass? + I had four little kittens a month ago-- + Black, and Malta, and white as snow; + And not a very long while before + I could have shown you three kittens more. + And so in batches of fours and threes, + Looking back as long as you please, + You would find, if you read my story all, + There were kittens from time immemorial. + + "But what am I now? A cat bereft, + Of all my kittens, but one is left. + I make no charges, but this I ask,-- + What made such a splurge in the waste-water cask? + You are quite tender-hearted. Oh, not a doubt! + But only suppose old Black Pond could speak out. + Oh, bother! don't mutter excuses to me: + _Qui facit per alium facit per se_." + + "Well, Kitty, I think full enough has been said, + And the best thing for you is go straight back to bed. + A very fine pass + Things have come to, my lass, + If men must be meek + While pussy-cats speak + Great moral reflections in Latin and Greek!" + + --_Our Young Folks._ + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +PARODIES--REVIEWS--CHILDREN'S POEMS--COMEDIES BY WOMEN--A DRAMATIC +TRIFLE--A STRING OF FIRECRACKERS. + + +It is surprising that we have so few comedies from women. Dr. Doran +mentions five Englishwomen who wrote successful comedies. Of these, +three are now forgotten; one, Aphra Behn, is remembered only to be +despised for her vulgarity. She was an undoubted wit, and was never +dull, but so wicked and coarse that she forfeited all right to fame. + +Susanna Centlivre left nineteen plays full of vivacity and fun and +lively incident. The _Bold Stroke for a Wife_ is now considered her +best. The _Basset Table_ is also a superior comedy, especially +interesting because it anticipates the modern blue-stocking in Valeria, +a philosophical girl who supports vivisection, and has also a prophecy +of exclusive colleges for women. + +There is nothing worthy of quotation in any of these comedies. Some +sentences from Mrs. Centlivre's plays are given in magazine articles to +prove her wit, but we say so much brighter things in these days that +they must be considered stale platitudes, as: + +"You may cheat widows, orphans, and tradesmen without a blush, but a +debt of honor, sir, must be paid." + +"Quarrels, like mushrooms, spring up in a moment." + +"Woman is the greatest sovereign power in the world." + +Hans Andersen in his Autobiography mentions a Madame von Weissenthurn, +who was a successful actress and dramatist. Her comedies are published +in fourteen volumes. In our country several comedies written by women, +but published anonymously, have been decided hits. Mrs. Verplanck's +_Sealed Instructions_ was a marked success, and years ago _Fashion_, by +Anna Cora Mowatt, had a remarkable run. By the way, those roaring +farces, _Belles of the Kitchen_ and _Fun in a Fog_, were written for the +Vokes family by an aunt of theirs. And I must not forget to state that +Gilbert's _Palace of Truth_ was cribbed almost bodily from Madame de +Genlis's "Tales of an Old Castle." Mrs. Julia Schayer, of Washington, +has given us a domestic drama in one act, entitled _Struggling Genius_. + + +STRUGGLING GENIUS. + +_Dramatis Personae._ + + MRS. ANASTASIUS. + GIRL OF TEN YEARS. + GIRL OF TWO YEARS. + MR. ANASTASIUS. + GIRL OF EIGHT YEARS. + INFANT OF THREE MONTHS. + + +ACT I. + + +SCENE I. NURSERY. + +[_Time, eight o'clock A.M. In the background nurse making bed, etc.; +Girl of Two amusing herself surreptitiously with pins, buttons, +scissors, etc.; Girl of Eight practising piano in adjoining room; Mrs. +A. in foreground performing toilet of infant. Having lain awake half the +preceding night wrestling with the plot of a new novel for which rival +publishers are waiting with outstretched hands (full of checks), Mrs. A. +believes she has hit upon an effective scene, and burns to commit it to +paper. Washes infant with feverish haste._] + +_Mrs. A._ (_soliloquizing_). Let me see! How was it? Oh! "Olga raised +her eyes with a sweetly serious expression. Harold gazed moodily at her +calm face. It was not the expression that he longed to see there. He +would have preferred to see--" Good gracious, Maria! That child's mouth +is full of buttons! "He would have preferred--preferred--" (_Loudly._) +Leonora! That F's to be sharped! There, there, mother's sonny boy! Did +mamma drop the soap into his mouth instead of the wash-bowl? There, +there! (_Sings._) "There's a land that is fairer than this," etc. + + [_Infant quiet._ + +_Mrs. A._ (_resuming_). "He would have preferred--preferred--" Maria, +don't you see that child has got the scissors? "He would have--" There +now, let mamma put on its little socks. Now it's all dressed so nice and +clean. Don'ty ky! No, don'ty! Leonora! Put more accent on the first +beat. "Harold gazed moodily into--" His bottle, Maria! Quick! He'll +scream himself into fits! + + [_Exit nurse. Baby having got both fists into his mouth beguiles + himself into quiet._ + +_Mrs. A._ Let me see! How was it? Oh! "Harold gazed moodily into her +calm, sweet face. It was not the expression he would have liked to find +there. He would have preferred--" (_Shriek from girl of two._) Oh, dear +me! She has shut her darling fingers in the drawer! Come to mamma, +precious love, and sit on mamma's lap, and we'll sing about little +pussy. + + _Enter nurse with bottle. Curtain falls._ + + +SCENE II. STUDY. + +[_Three hours later; infant and Girl of Two asleep; house in order; +lunch and dinner arranged; buttons sewed on Girl of Eight's boots, +string on Girl of Ten's hood, and both dispatched to school, etc. Enter +Mrs. A. Draws a long sigh of relief and seats herself at desk. Reads a +page of Dickens and a poem or two to attune herself for work. Seizes +pen, scribbles erratically a few seconds and begins to write._] + +_Mrs. A._ (_after some moments_). I think that is good. Let us hear how +it reads. (_Reads aloud._) "He would have preferred to find more passion +in those deep, dark eyes. Had he then no part in the maiden meditations +of this fair, innocent girl--he whom proud beauties of society vied with +each other to win? He could not guess. A stray breeze laden with violet +and hyacinth perfume stole in at the open window, ruffling the soft +waves of auburn hair which shaded her alabaster forehead." It seems to +me I have read something similar before, but it is good, anyhow. "Harold +could not endure this placid, unruffled calm. His own veins were full of +molten lava. With a wild and passionate cry he--" + + _Enter cook bearing a large, dripping piece of corned beef._ + +_Cook._ Please, Miss Anastasy, is dis de kin' of a piece ye done +wanted? I thought I'd save ye de trouble o' comin' down. + +_Mrs. A._ (_desperately_). It is! + + [_Exit cook, staring wildly._ + +_Mrs. A._ (_resuming_). "With a wild, passionate cry, he--" + + _Re-enter cook._ + +_Cook._ Ten cents for de boy what put in de wood, please, ma'am! + +[_Mrs. A. gives money; exit cook. Mrs. A., sighing, takes up MS. Clock +strikes twelve; soon after the lunch-bell rings._] + +Voice of Girl of Ten, calling: Mamma, why _don't_ you come to lunch? + + +SCENE III. DINING-ROOM. + + _Enter Mrs. A._ + +_Girl of Ten._ Oh, what a mean lunch! Nothing but bread and ham. I hate +bread and ham! All the girls have jelly-cake. Why don't _we_ have +jelly-cake? We _used_ to have jelly-cake. + +_Mrs. A._ You can have some pennies to buy ginger-snaps. + +_Girl of Ten._ I hate ginger-snaps! When are you going to make +jelly-cake? + +_Mrs. A._ (_sternly_). When my book is done. + +_Girl of Ten_ (_with inexpressible meaning_): Hm! + + _Curtain falls._ + + +SCENE IV. STUDY. + + _Enter Mrs. A. Children, still asleep; girls at school; deck again + cleared for action._ + +_Mrs. A._ It is one o'clock. If I can be let alone until three I can +finish that last chapter. + +[_Takes up pen; lays it down; reads a poem of Mrs. Browning to take the +taste of ham-sandwiches out of her mouth, then resumes pen, and writes +with increasing interest for fifteen minutes. Everything is steeped in +quiet. Suddenly a faint murmur of voices is heard; it increases, it +approaches, mingled with the tread of many feet, and a rumbling as of +mighty chariot-wheels. It is only Barnum's steam orchestrion, Barnum's +steam chimes, and Barnum's steam calliope, followed by an array of +ruff-scruff. They stop exactly opposite the house. The orchestrion +blares, the chimes ring a knell to peace and harmony, the calliope +shrieks to heaven. The infants wake and shriek likewise. Exit Mrs. A. +Curtain falls._] + + +SCENE V. STUDY. + + _Enter Mrs. A. Peace restored; children happy with nurse. Seizes + pen and writes rapidly. Doorbell rings, cook announces caller; + nobody Mrs. A. wants to see, but somebody she MUST see. Exit + Mrs. A. in a state of rigid despair._ + + +SCENE VI. HALL. + +[_Visitor gone; Mrs. A. starts for study. Enter Girl of Eight followed +by Girl of Ten._] + + _Duettino._ + +_Girl of Ten._ Mamma, _please_ give me my music lesson now, so I can go +and skate; and then won't you _please_ make some jelly-cake? And see, my +dress is torn, and my slate-frame needs covering. + +_Girl of Eight._ Where are my roller-skates? Where is the strap? Can I +have a pickle? Please give me a cent. A girl said _her_ mother wouldn't +let her wear darned stockings to school. I'm _ashamed_ of my stockings. +You might let me wear my new ones. + +[_Mrs. A. gives music lesson; mends dress; covers slate-frame; makes +jelly-cake and a pudding; goes to nursery and sends nurse down to finish +ironing._] + + +SCENE VII. NURSERY. + +[_Mrs. A. with babies on her lap. Enter husband and father with hands +full of papers and general air of having finished his day's work._] + +_Mr. A._ Well, how is everything? Children all right, I see. You must +have had a nice, quiet day. Written much? + +_Mrs. A._ (_faintly_). Not very much. + +_Mr. A._ (_complacently_). Oh, well, you can't force these things. It +will be all right in time. + +_Mrs. A._ (_in a burst of repressed feeling_). We need the money so +much, Charles! + +_Mr. A._ (_with an air of offended dignity_). Oh, bother! You are not +expected to support the family. + +[_Mrs. A., thinking of that dentist's bill, that shoe bill, and the +summer outfit for a family of six, says nothing. Exit Mr. A., who +re-enters a moment later._] + +_Mr. A._ You--a--haven't fixed my coat, I see. + +_Mrs. A._ (_with a guilty start_). I--I forgot it! + +_Gibbering Fiend Conscience._ Ha, ha! Ho, ho! + + _Curtain falls amid chorus of exulting demons._ + + * * * * * + +I have reserved for the close numerous instances of woman's facility at +badinage and repartee. It is there, after all, that she shines perennial +and pre-eminent. You will excuse me if I give them to you one after +another without comment, like a closing display of fireworks. + +And first let me quote from Mrs. Rollins, as an instance of the way in +which women often react upon each other in repartee, a little +conversation which it was once her privilege to overhear: + +"_Margaret._ I wonder you never have been married, Kate. Of course +you've had lots of chances. Won't you tell us how many? + +"_Kate._ No, indeed! I could not so cruelly betray my rejected lovers. + +"_Helen._ Of course you wouldn't tell us _exactly_; but would you mind +giving it to us in round numbers? + +"_Kate._ Certainly not; the roundest number of all exactly expresses the +chances I have had. + +"_Charlotte_ (_with a sigh_). Now I know what people mean by Kate's +_circle of admirers_!" + + * * * * * + +A lady was discussing the relative merits and demerits of the two sexes +with a gentleman of her acquaintance. After much badinage on one side +and the other, he said: "Well, you never yet heard of casting seven +devils out of a man." "No," was the quick retort, "_they've got 'em +yet_!" + + * * * * * + +"What would you do in time of war if you had the suffrage?" said Horace +Greeley to Mrs. Stanton. + +"Just what you have done, Mr. Greeley," replied the ready lady; "stay at +home and urge others to go and fight!" + + * * * * * + +It was Margaret Fuller who worsted Mrs. Greeley in a verbal encounter. +The latter had a decided aversion to kid gloves, and on meeting Margaret +shrank from her extended hand with a shudder, saying: "Ugh! Skin of a +beast! skin of a beast!" + +"Why," said Miss Fuller, in surprise, "what do you wear?" + +"_Silk_," said Mrs. Greeley, stretching out her palm with satisfaction. + +Miss Fuller just touched it, saying, with a disgusted expression, "Ugh! +entrails of a worm! entrails of a worm!" + + * * * * * + +Mademoiselle de Mars, the former favorite of the Theatre de Francais, +had in some way offended the Gardes du Corps. So one night they came in +full force to the theatre and tried to hiss her down. + +The actress, unabashed, came to the front of the stage, and alluding to +the fact that the Gardes du Corps never went to war, said: "What has +Mars to do with the Gardes du Corps?" + + * * * * * + +Madame Louis de Segur is daughter of the late Casimir Perier, who was +Minister of the Interior during Thiers's administration. When once out +of office, but still an influential member of the House, he once tried +to form a new Moderate Republican party, meeting with but little +success. + +Once his daughter, who was sitting in the gallery, saw him entering the +House _all alone_. + +"Here comes my father with his party," she said. + + * * * * * + +I was greatly amused at the quiet reprimand given by a literary lady of +New York to a stranger at her receptions, who, with hands crossed +complacently under his coat-tails, was critically examining the various +treasures in her room, humming obtrusively as he passed along. + +The hostess paused near him, surveyed him critically, and then inquired, +in a gentle tone: "Do you play also?" + + * * * * * + +A young girl being asked why she had not been more frequently to Lenten +services, excused herself in this fashion, severe, but truthful: "Oh, +Dr. ---- is on such intimate terms with the Almighty that I felt _de +trop_." + + * * * * * + +At a reception in Washington this spring an admirable answer was given +by a level-headed woman--we are all proud of Miss Cleveland--to a +fine-looking army officer, who has been doing guard duty in that +magnificent city for the past seventeen years. "Pray," said he, "what do +ladies find to think about besides dress and parties?" + +"They can think of the heroic deeds of our modern army officers," was +her smiling reply. + + * * * * * + +Do you remember Lydia Maria Child's reply to her husband when he wished +he was as rich as Croesus: "At any rate, you are King of Lydia;" and +Lucretia Mott's humorous comment when she entered a room where her +husband and his brother Richard were sitting, both of them remarkable +for their taciturnity and reticence: "I thought you must both be +here--it was so still!" + + * * * * * + +In my own home I recall a sensible old maid of Scotch descent with her +cosey cottage and the dear old-fashioned garden where she loved to work. +Our physician, a man of infinite humor, who honestly admired her +sterling worth, and was attracted by her individuality, leaned over her +fence one bright spring morning, with the direct question: "Miss Sharp, +why did you never get married?" + +She looked up from her weeding, rested on her hoe-handle, and looking +steadily at his hair, which was of a sandy hue, answered: "I'll tell you +all about it, Doctor. I made up my mind, when I was a girl, that, come +what would, I would never marry a red-headed man, and none but men with +red hair have ever offered themselves." + + * * * * * + +We all know women whose capacity for monologue exhausts all around them. +So that the remark will be appreciated of a lady to whom I said, +alluding to such a talker: "Have you seen Mrs. ---- lately?" + +"No, I really had to give up her acquaintance in despair, for I had been +trying two years to tell her something in particular." + +A lady once told me she could always know when she had taken too much +wine at dinner--her husband's jokes began to seem funny! + + * * * * * + +Lastly and--_finally_, there is a reason for our apparent lack of humor, +which it may seem ungracious to mention. Women do not find it politic to +cultivate or express their wit. No man likes to have his story capped +by a better and fresher from a lady's lips. What woman does not risk +being called sarcastic and hateful if she throws back the merry dart, or +indulges in a little sharp-shooting? No, no, it's dangerous--if not +fatal. + + "Though you're bright, and though you're pretty, + They'll not love you if you're witty." + +Madame de Stael and Madame Recamier are good illustrations of this +point. The former, by her fearless expressions of wit, exposed herself +to the detestation of the majority of mankind. "She has shafts," said +Napoleon, "which would hit a man if he were seated on a rainbow." + +But the sweetly fawning, almost servile adulation of the _listening_ +beauty brought her a corresponding throng of admirers. It sometimes +seems that what is pronounced wit, if uttered by a distinguished man, +would be considered commonplace if expressed by a woman. + +Parker's illustration of Choate's _rare humor_ never struck me as +felicitous. "Thus, a friend meeting him one ten-degrees-below-zero +morning in the winter, said: 'How cold it is, Mr. Choate.' 'Well, it is +not absolutely tropical,' he replied, with a most mirthful emphasis." + +And do you recollect the only time that Wordsworth was _really_ witty? +He told the story himself at a dinner. "Gentlemen, I never was really +witty but once in my life." Of course there was a general call for the +bright but solitary instance. And the contemplative bard continued: +"Well, gentlemen, I was standing at the door of my cottage on Rydal +Mount, one fine summer morning, and a laborer said to me: 'Sir, have you +seen my wife go by this way?' And I replied: 'My good man, I did not +know until this moment that you _had_ a wife!'" + +He paused; the company waited for the promised witticism, but +discovering that he had finished, burst into a long and hearty roar, +which the old gentleman accepted complacently as a tribute to his +brilliancy. + +The wit of women is like the airy froth of champagne, or the witching +iridescence of the soap-bubble, blown for a moment's sport. The sparkle, +the life, the fascinating foam, the gay tints vanish with the occasion, +because there is no listening Boswell with unfailing memory and +capacious note-book to preserve them. + +Then, unlike men, women do not write out their impromptus beforehand and +carefully hoard them for the publisher--and posterity! + + * * * * * + +And now, dear friends, a cordial _au revoir_. + +My heartiest thanks to the women who have so generously allowed me to +ransack their treasuries, filching here and there as I chose, always +modestly declaiming against the existence of wit in what they had +written. + +To various publishers in New York and Boston, who have been most +courteous and liberal, credit is given elsewhere. + +Touched by the occasion, I "drop into" doggerel: + + If you pronounce this book not funny, + And wish you hadn't spent your money, + There soon will be a general rumor + That you're no judge of Wit or Humor. + + + + + INDEX. + + PAGE. + + INTRODUCTION iii. + + CONTENTS v. + + DEDICATION vii. + + ARGUMENT ix. + + PROEM xi. + + CHAP. PAGE. + + Alcott, Louisa: "Transcendental Wild Oats" IV. 68 + + American Early Writers: Some of them who were thought + Witty--Anne Bradstreet; Mercy Warren; Tabitha Tenney III. 47 + Satirical Poem, by Mercy Warren III. 47 + Mrs. Sigourney's Johnsonese Humor; Extracts from her + Note-Book III. 48 + Miss Sedgwick's Witty Imagination, III. 49 + Mrs. Caroline Gilman's humorous Poem, "Joshua's + Courtship" III. 49 + + Andersen, Hans, Reference to Woman Dramatist in his + Autobiography X. 196 + + Aphorisms by the Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva) I. 24 + + "Auction Extraordinary" VIII. 176 + + "Aunty Doleful's Visit," by M.K.D.--"If I can't do + anything else, I can cheer you up a little" VI. 118 + + + Barnum and Phoebe Cary V. 102 + + Bates, Charlotte Fiske: "Hat, Ulster and All," Satirical + Poem, Quatrain and Epigram VIII. 175 + + "Beechers," Old Family Epigram applied to the I. 22 + + Behn, Aphra: Wrote Comedies; her unsavory Wit X. 195 + + Bellows, Isabel Frances: "A Fatal Reputation" (for + wit)--"A picnic, that most ghastly device of the human + mind" VII. 129 + + Bremer, Frederika, her genuine Humor; First Quarrel with + her "Bear" II. 41 + + Brine, Mary D.: Poems, "Kiss Pretty Poll" VIII. 158 + + " " "Thanksgiving Day--Then and Now" VIII. 159 + + Burleigh, Pun on, by Queen Elizabeth I. 16 + + Butter, Punning Poem on, by Caroline B. Le Row I. 18 + + + Cary, Phoebe, "The wittiest woman in America": Her + quick retorts and merry repartees; her parodies and + humorous poems V. 101 + + Champney, Lizzie W.: "An Unruffled Bosom"--a Tragical + Tale of a Negress who "knew Washington" VIII. 171 + + Clarke, Lady, and her Irish Songs II. 44 + + Cleveland's, Elizabeth Rose, Pun I. 21 + + Cleaveland's, Mrs., "No Sects in Heaven" IV. 69 + + Clemmer, Mary: Her Life of Phoebe Cary V. 102 + + Comedies--Few written by Women; Five Englishwomen + produced successful; Susanna Centlivre wrote nearly + a score--contain some wit, but old-fashioned; Aphra + Behn wrote several comedies, witty but coarse X. 195 + + Cooke's, Rose Terry, "Knoware" IV. 68 + " " " "Miss Lucinda's Pig" IV. 69 + " " " Story of "A Gift Horse" IV. 71 + + Coolidge, Grace F.: "The Robin and Chicken" IX. 188 + + Conclusion. _See_ "Fireworks." + + Cone, Helen Gray: Satirical Poems--"Cassandra Brown" IX. 180 + " " " "The Tender Heart" IX. 182 + + Corbett, E.T.: "The Inventor's Wife," a Poetical Lament VIII. 170 + + _Critic_, article in, on "Woman's Sense of Humor" I. 13 + + Cynicism of Frenchwomen I. 23 + + + Davidson, Lucretia: "Auction Extraordinary" (Sale of + Old Bachelors) VIII. 176 + + Deffand, Madame du I. 23 + + Diaz, Mrs. Abby M., writer of the famous "William + Henry Letters" IV. 69 + + Dodge, Mary Mapes--"inimitable satirist": "The Insanity + of Cain" IV. 68 + " " " "Miss Molony on the Chinese Question" + (read before the Prince of Wales) IV. 69 + + "Dromy," Satirical Notes on Derivation of II. 35 + + + "Eliot's, George," Humor; Examples from "Adam Bede" + and "Silas Marner" II. 45 + + Epigrams, Makers of I. 21 + " by Jane Austen: on the Name of "Wake" I. 21 + " " Lady Townsend: on the Herveys--applied to + the Beechers; on Walpole I. 22 + " " Miss Evans: on a Musical Woman I. 22 + " " Hannah More I. 22 + " " "Ouida" I. 22 + " " Miss Phelps I. 29 + " " Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke I. 30 + " " Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney I. 31 + " " Marguerite de Valois; by Madame de Lambert; + by Sophie Arnould; by Madame de Sevigne I. 24 + " " Lady Harriet Ashburton I. 25 + " " Mrs. Carlyle, "herself an epigram;" by Hannah + F. Gould, on Caleb Cushing I. 26 + " " "Gail Hamilton" I. 27 + " " Kate Field I. 27 + " Mrs. Whicher's "Widow Bedott" I. 31 + " Marietta Holley's "Josiah Allen's Wife" I. 31 + + Eytinge, Margaret: "Indignant Polly Wog" VIII. 157 + + + "Fanny, Aunt": _Jeu d'esprit_ on Minerva I. 29 + + "Fanny Fern's" Arithmetical Mania III. 54 + + "Fanny Forrester's" Letter to N.P. Willis III. 52 + + Ferrier's, Mary, Genial Wit; Scott's Description of her; + her "Sensible Woman," Satirical II. 39 + + "Fireworks": Miscellaneous Closing Display of Wit: + Mrs. Rollins' illustration of woman's quickness + at repartee X. 202 + Mrs. Stanton's Reply to Horace Greeley; Miss Margaret + Fuller; Mademoiselle Mars X. 203 + Madame Louisa Segur; Miss Cleveland; Lydia Maria Child X. 204 + Madame de Stael; Madame Recamier X. 206 + + French Women's Cynicism I. 23 + + + "Gail Hamilton" IV. 68 + + Gaskell's, Mrs., Humor II. 36 + + "Gell and Gill" I. 21 + + Genlis, Madame de X. 196 + + Genuine Fun--Sketches from C.M. Kirkland IV. 67 + + Gilman, Mrs. Caroline: A New England Ballad, "Joshua's + Courtship" III. 49 + + Gordon, Anna A.: "'Skeeters have the Reputation" VIII. 160 + + "Grace Greenwood's" many Puns I. 17 + + " " "Mistress O'Rafferty on the Woman + Question" VI. 108 + + Greek Lady's Wit I. 15 + + + Hale, Lucretia P.: "Peterkin Letters" IV. 69 + + " " " "The First Needle," a poetical Bit + of History VIII. 150 + + Hall, Louisa: "The Indian Agent"--"With affectionate + interest he looked into the very depths of their + pockets" VI. 103 + + "Hamilton, Gail": "Both Sides," an amusing poetical + Satire IX. 191 + + Holley's, Miss, "Samantha" IV. 69 + + Hudson's, Mary Clemmer, Opinions on Wit; her Anecdotes + of Phoebe Cary V. 100 + + Humor, Miss Jewett's I. 27 + + + Irish Fun VI. 107 + + + Jewett, Sarah Orne: "The Circus at Denby" VII. 141 + + Jones', Amanda T., Poem, "Dochther O'Flannigan and his + Wondherful Cures" VI. 109 + + + Kirkland, Caroline M.: "Borrowing Out West" IV. 67 + + + Le Row, Caroline B.: Poetic Pun on the "Butter Woman" I. 18 + + Lothrop, Harriette W. (_nom de plume_ "Margaret Sidney"): + "Why Polly Doesn't Love Cake" IX. 189 + + "Lover and Lever," Epigram on, by C.F. Bates I. 28 + + + McDowell, Mrs., "Sherwood Bonner:" "Aunt Anniky's Teeth" V. 85 + "My soul and body is a-yearnin' fur a han'sum chaney set + o' teef" V. 86 + Pen-Portrait of Dr. Alonzo Babb V. 87 + His first Tooth V. 89 + How Anniky Lost her "Teef" V. 91 + Ned Cuddy's Letter V. 94 + Specimens of her Wit: The Radical Club--a Satirical Poem V. 97 + + McLean, Miss Sallie: "Cape Cod Folks" IV. 69 + + Mitford's, Mary Russell, "Talking Lady" II. 36 + + Mohl, Madame I. 25 + + Montagu's, Lady, Famous Speech I. 14 + + More's, Hannah, Contest of Wit with Johnson II. 34 + + Morgan's, Lady, A "Fast Horse" I. 16 + + " " Receptions II. 44 + + Mott, Lucretia X. 204 + + Moulton, Louisa Chandler: "The Jane Moseley was a + Disappointment" VII. 144 + + Mowatt, Anna Cora: Her Popular Play of "Fashion" X. 196 + + Murfree, Miss (_nom de plume_ "Charles Egbert Craddock"): + "A Blacksmith in Love" VII. 135 + + + "New York to Newport"--a Trip of Trials VII. 144 + + + Old-fashioned Wit--Examples: Bon-mots of "Stella"; Jane + Taylor; Miss Burney; Mrs. Barbauld II. 32 + Hannah More II. 33 + + "Ouida's" Epigrams I. 22 + + + Parodies: Phoebe Cary's on "Maud Muller" not justifiable; + Grace Greenwood on Mrs. Sigourney IX. 186 + Lilian Whiting's on Kingsley's "Three Fishers" IX. 187 + + Perry, Carlotta: "A Modern Minerva" IX. 179 + + Pickering, Julia: "The Old-Time Religion"--"I allus did + dispise dem stuck-up 'Piscopalians" VI. 114 + + Poems, Laughable and Satirical: + "The First Needle," L.P. Hale VIII. 150 + "The Funny Story," J. Pollard VIII. 152 + "Wanted, a Minister," M.E.W. Skeels VIII. 153 + "The Middy of 1881," May Croly Roper VIII. 156 + "Indignant Polly Wog," M. Eytinge VIII. 157 + "Kiss Pretty Poll," M.D. Brine VIII. 158 + "Thanksgiving Day--Then and Now," M.D. Brine VIII. 159 + "Concerning Mosquitoes," A.A. Gordon VIII. 160 + "The Stilts of Gold;" "Just So," M.V. Victor VIII. 161 + "The Inventor's Wife," E.T. Corbett VIII. 170 + "An Unruffled Bosom," L.W. Champney VIII. 171 + "Hat, Ulster and All," C.F. Bates VIII. 175 + "Auction Extraordinary," L. Davidson VIII. 176 + "A Sonnet," J. Pollard VIII. 152 + + Puns: + Miss Mary Wadsworth's; Louisa Alcott's; Grace + Greenwood prolific in; a Mushroom Pun; + a Pillar-sham Pun I. 17 + Horseshoe Pun I. 18 + Miss Cleveland's I. 21 + Queen Elizabeth's I. 16 + + + "Radical Club," Satirical Poem V. 97 + + Rollins, Mrs. Alice Wellington, article in _Critic_ I. 13 + + " " " " VII. 122 + + Rollins, Mrs. Ellen H. (_nom de plume_ "E.H. Arr"), + pre-eminently gifted as a humorist--Extracts from her + "Old-Time Child Life" VII. 124 + "Effect of the Comet" VII. 126 + "Doctrines are pizen things" VII. 128 + + Roper, May Croly: Poem VIII. 156 + + + Schayer, Mrs. Julia, Author of "Struggling Genius," an + amusing Domestic Drama; Extracts from the Play, + "Nursery," "Study," and "Dining-Room" Scenes X. 196 + + "Sherwood Bonner." _See_ McDowell, Mrs. + + Sigourney, Mrs., her melancholy Style IX. 186 + + Skeels, Mrs. M.E.W.: Satirical Poem VIII. 153 + + + Thanksgiving Growl, A (poetical) VI. 120 + + + Verplanck's, Mrs., Comedy, "Sealed Instructions" X. 196 + + Victor, Metta Victoria: "Miss Slimmins Surprised" IV. 81 + + " " " "The Stilts of Gold" (a + reminiscence of Hood's "Miss + Kilmansegg and her Precious + Leg") VIII. 161 + + "Vokes Family" Farces (written by an aunt of the + performers), "Belles of the Kitchen" and "Fun in a Fog" X. 196 + + + Waldron, Adelaide Cilley, "Kitten Tactics" IX. 190 + + Walker's, Mrs., famous Epigram I. 28 + + Weissenthurn, Madame von: her Comedies fill fourteen + volumes X. 196 + + Whicher, Mrs., "Widow Bedott" IV. 68 + + White's, Richard Grant. Opinion of Woman's Wit I. 13 + + Whiting, Miss Lilian: "The Three Poets" IX. 187 + + Williams, Alice: "Plighted," IX. 183 + + Wilson, Arabella: "O Sextant of the Meetinouse" VIII. 177 + + Woman's Wit, Search for, Neglected by Men I. 13 + + Women Poets generally Despondent I. 14 + + " Humorous Newspaper Correspondents: Mrs. Runkle; + Mrs. Rollins; Gail Hamilton IX. 185 + + Women Inclined to Ridicule Foibles of their Sex IX. 186 + + Woolson, Constance Fenimore: Her "Miss Lois" + (housekeeping, with Chippewa squaws for servants) VII. 139 + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIT OF WOMEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 28503.txt or 28503.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/5/0/28503 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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