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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6313.txt b/6313.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2788930 --- /dev/null +++ b/6313.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5196 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor +Edited by Thomas L. Masson + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor + +Author: Thomas L. Masson (Editor) + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6313] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 25, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN WIT *** + + + + +Produced by Duncan Harrod, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Illustration: Mark Twain] + +MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN WIT AND HUMOR + +Edited by Thomas L. Masson + +Volume IV + +By + +Fitzhugh Ludlow +Harriet Beecher Stowe +Danforth Marble +William Dean Howells +Samuel Minturn Peck +William Cullen Bryant +and others + +1903 + + + + + +CONTENTS + +AGNES REPPLIER +A Plea for Humor + +MARIETTA HOLLEY +An Unmarried Female + +FITZHUGH LUDLOW +Selections from a Brace of Boys + +ROBERT JONES BURDETTE +Rheumatism Movement Cure + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES +An Aphorism and a Lecture + +JOSHUA S. MORRIS +The Harp of a Thousand Strings + +SEBA SMITH +My First Visit to Portland + +WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT +The Mosquito + +JOHN CARVER +Country Burial-places + +DANFORTH MARBLE +The Hoosier and the Salt-pile + +ANNE BACHE +The Quilting + +FITZ-GREENE HALLECK +A Fragment + +Domestic Happiness + +CHARLES F. BROWNE ("Artemus Ward") +One of Mr. Ward's Business Letters + +On "Forts" + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL +Without and Within + +LOUISA MAY ALCOTT +Street Scenes in Washington + +ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE +Mis' Smith + +JAMES JEFFREY ROOHE +A Boston Lullaby + +CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE +Irish Astronomy + +SAMUEL MINTURN PEOK +Bessie Brown, M. D. + +ROBERT C. SANDS +A Monody + +CAROLYN WELLS +The Poster Girl + +JAMES GARDNER SANDERSON +The Conundrum of the Golf Links + +HARRIET BEECHER STOWE +The Minister's Wooing + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS +Mrs. Johnson + +ANONYMOUS +The Trout, the Cat and the Fox The British Matron + + + + +Agnes Repplier + +A PLEA FOR HUMOR + + +More than half a dozen years have passed since Mr. Andrew Lang, +startled for once out of his customary light-heartedness, asked +himself, and his readers, and the ghost of Charles Dickens--all three +powerless to answer--whether the dismal seriousness of the present +day was going to last forever; or whether, when the great wave of +earnestness had rippled over our heads, we would pluck up heart to be +merry and, if needs be, foolish once again. Not that mirth and folly +are in any degree synonymous, as of old; for the merry fool, too +scarce, alas! even in the times when Jacke of Dover hunted for him in +the highways, has since then grown to be rarer than a phenix. He has +carried his cap and bells and jests and laughter elsewhere, and has +left us to the mercies of the serious fool, who is by no means so +seductive a companion. If the Cocquecigrues are in possession of the +land, and if they are tenants exceedingly hard to evict, it is +because of the encouragement they receive from those to whom we +innocently turn for help: from the poets, novelists and men of +letters whose duty it is to brighten and make glad our days. + +"It is obvious," sighs Mr. Birrell dejectedly, "that many people +appear to like a drab-colored world, hung around with dusky shreds of +philosophy"; but it is more obvious still that, whether they like it +or not, the drapings grow a trifle dingier every year, and that no +one seems to have the courage to tack up something gay. What is much +worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations +of weary eyes are being rapidly obscured by somber and intricate +scroll-work, warranted to oppress and fatigue. The great masterpieces +of humor, which have kept men young by laughter, are being tried in +the courts of an orthodox morality and found lamentably wanting; or +else, by way of giving them another chance, they are being subjected +to the _peine forte et dure_ of modern analysis, and are revealing +hideous and melancholy meanings in the process. I have always believed +that Hudibras owes its chilly treatment at the hands of critics--with +the single and most genial exception of Sainte-Beuve--to the absolute +impossibility of twisting it into something serious. Strive as we may, +we cannot put a new construction on those vigorous old jokes, and to +be simply and barefacedly amusing is no longer considered a sufficient +_raison d'etre_. It is the most significant token of our ever- +increasing "sense of moral responsibility in literature" that we +should be always trying to graft our own conscientious purposes upon +those authors who, happily for themselves, lived and died before +virtue, colliding desperately with cakes and ale, had imposed such +depressing obligations. + +"'Don Quixote,'" says Mr. Shorthouse with unctuous gravity, "will +come in time to be recognized as one of the saddest books ever +written"; and, if the critics keep on expounding it much longer, I +truly fear it will. It may be urged that Cervantes himself was low +enough to think it exceedingly funny; but then one advantage of our +new and keener insight into literature is to prove to us how +indifferently great authors understood their own masterpieces. +Shakespeare, we are told, knew comparatively little about "Hamlet," +and he is to be congratulated on his limitations. Defoe would hardly +recognize "Robinson Crusoe" as "a picture of civilization," having +innocently supposed it to be quite the reverse; and he would be as +amazed as we are to learn from Mr. Frederic Harrison that his book +contains "more psychology, more political economy, and more +anthropology than are to be found in many elaborate treatises on +these especial subjects"--blighting words which I would not even +venture to quote if I thought that any boy would chance to read them +and so have one of the pleasures of his young life destroyed. As for +"Don Quixote," which its author persisted in regarding with such +misplaced levity, it has passed through many bewildering +vicissitudes. It has figured bravely as a satire on the Duke of +Lerma, on Charles V., on Philip II., on Ignatius Loyola-Cervantes was +the most devout of Catholics--and on the Inquisition, which, +fortunately, did not think so. In fact, there is little or nothing +which it has not meant in its time; and now, having attained that +deep spiritual inwardness which we have been recently told is lacking +in poor Goldsmith, we are requested by Mr. Shorthouse to refrain from +all brutal laughter, but, with a shadowy smile and a profound +seriousness, to attune ourselves to the proper state of receptivity. +Old-fashioned, coarse-minded people may perhaps ask, "But if we are +not to laugh at 'Don Quixote,' at whom are we, please, to laugh?"--a +question which I, for one, would hardly dare to answer. Only, after r +eading the following curious sentence, extracted from a lately +published volume of criticism, I confess to finding myself in a state +of mental perplexity utterly alien to mirth. "How much happier," its +author sternly reminds us, "was poor Don Quixote in his energetic +career, in his earnest redress of wrong, and in his ultimate triumph +over self, than he could have been in the gnawing reproach and +spiritual stigma which a yielding to weakness never failingly +entails!" Beyond this point it would be hard to go. Were these things +really spoken of the "ingenious gentleman" of La Mancha or of John +Howard or George Peabody or perhaps Elizabeth Fry--or is there no +longer such a thing as recognized absurdity In the world? + +Another gloomy indication of the departure of humor from our midst is +the tendency of philosophical writers to prove by analysis that, if +they are not familiar with the thing itself, they at least know of +what it should consist. Mr. Shorthouse's depressing views about "Don +Quixote" are merely introduced as illustrating a very scholarly and +comfortless paper on the subtle qualities of mirth. No one could deal +more gracefully and less humorously with his topic than does Mr. +Shorthouse, and we are compelled to pause every now and then and +reassure ourselves as to the subject matter of his eloquence. +Professor Everett has more recently and more cheerfully defined for +us the Philosophy of the Comic, in a way which, if it does not add to +our gaiety, cannot be accused of plunging us deliberately into gloom. +He thinks, indeed--and small wonder--that there is "a genuine +difficulty in distinguishing between the comic and the tragic," and +that what we need is some formula which shall accurately interpret +the precise qualities of each, and he is disposed to illustrate his +theory by dwelling on the tragic side of Falstaff, which is, of all +injuries, the grimmest and hardest to forgive. Falstaff is now the +forlorn hope of those who love to laugh, and when he is taken away +from us, as soon, alas! he will be, and sleeps with Don Quixote in +the "dull cold marble" of an orthodox sobriety, how shall we make +merry our souls? Mr. George Radford, who enriched the first volume of +"Obiter dicta" with such a loving study of the fat-witted old knight, +tells us reassuringly that by laughter man is distinguished from the +beasts, though the cares and sorrows of life have all but deprived +him of this elevating grace and degraded him into a brutal solemnity. +Then comes along a rare genius like Falstaff, who restores the power +of laughter, and transforms the stolid brute once more into a man, +and who accordingly has the highest claim to our grateful and +affectionate regard. That there are those who persist in looking upon +him as a selfish and worthless fellow is, from Mr. Radford's point of +view, a sorrowful instance of human thanklessness and perversity. But +this I take to be the enamored and exaggerated language of a too +faithful partizan. Morally speaking, Falstaff has not a leg to stand +upon, and there is a tragic element lurking always amid the fun. But, +seen in the broad sunlight of his transcendent humor, this shadow is +as the halfpennyworth of bread to his own noble ocean of sack, and +why should we be forever trying to force it into prominence? When +Charlotte Bronte advised her friend Ellen Nussey to read none of +Shakespeare's comedies, she was not beguiled for a moment into +regarding them as serious and melancholy lessons of life; but with +uncompromising directness put them down as mere improper plays, the +amusing qualities of which were insufficient to excuse their +coarseness, and which were manifestly unfit for the "gentle Ellen's" +eyes. + +In fact, humor would at all times have been the poorest excuse to +offer to Miss Bronte for any form of moral dereliction, for it was +the one quality she lacked herself and failed to tolerate in others. +Sam Weller was apparently as obnoxious to her as was Falstaff, for +she would not even consent to meet Dickens when she was being +lionized in London society--a degree of abstemiousness on her part +which it is disheartening to contemplate. It does not seem too much +to say that every shortcoming in Charlotte Bronte's admirable work, +every limitation in her splendid genius, arose primarily from her +want of humor. Her severities of judgment--and who more severe than +she?--were due to the same melancholy cause; for humor is the +kindliest thing alive. Compare the harshness with which she handles +her hapless curates and the comparative crudity of her treatment, +with the surprising lightness of Miss Austen's touch as she rounds +and completes her immortal clerical portraits. Miss Bronte tells us, +in one of her letters, that she regarded _all_ curates as +"highly uninteresting, narrow, and unattractive specimens of the +coarser sex," just as she found _all_ the Belgian schoolgirls +"cold, selfish, animal and inferior." But to Miss Austen's keen and +friendly eye the narrowest of clergymen was not wholly uninteresting, +the most inferior of schoolgirls not without some claim to our +consideration; even the coarseness of the male sex was far from +vexing her maidenly serenity, probably because she was unacquainted +with the Rochester type. Mr. Elton is certainly narrow, Mary Bennet +extremely inferior; but their authoress only laughs at them softly, +with a quiet tolerance and a good-natured sense of amusement at their +follies. It was little wonder that Charlotte Bronte, who had at all +times the courage of her convictions, could not and would not read +Jane Austen's novels. "They have not got story enough for me," she +boldly affirmed. "I don't want my blood curdled, but I like to have +it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as milk-and-watery and, to say +truth, dull." Of course she did! How was a woman, whose ideas of +after-dinner conversation are embodied in the amazing language of +Baroness Ingram and her titled friends to appreciate the delicious, +sleepy small-talk in "Sense and Sensibility," about the respective +heights of the respective grandchildren? It is to Miss Bronte's +abiding lack of humor that we owe such stately caricatures as Blanche +Ingram and all the high-born, ill-bred company who gather in +Thornfield Hall, like a group fresh from Madame Tussaud's ingenious +workshop, and against whose waxen unreality Jane Eyre and Rochester, +alive to their very finger-tips, contrast like twin sparks of fire. +It was her lack of humor, too, which beguiled her into asserting that +the forty "wicked, sophistical and immoral French novels" which found +their way down to lonely Haworth gave her "a thorough idea of France +and Paris"--alas! poor, misjudged France!--and which made her think +Thackeray very nearly as wicked, sophistical and immoral as the +French novels. Even her dislike for children was probably due to the +same irremediable misfortune; for the humors of children are the only +redeeming points amid their general naughtiness and vexing +misbehavior. Mr. Swinburne, guiltless himself of any jocose +tendencies, has made the unique discovery that Charlotte Bronte +strongly resembles Cervantes, and that Paul Emanuel is a modern +counterpart of Don Quixote; and well it is for our poet that the +irascible little professor never heard him hint at such a similarity. +Surely, to use one of Mr. Swinburne's own incomparable expressions, +the parallel is no better than a "subsimious absurdity." + +On the other hand, we are told that Miss Austen owed her lively sense +of humor to her habit of dissociating the follies of mankind from any +rigid standard of right and wrong; which means, I suppose, that she +never dreamed she had a mission. Nowadays, indeed, no writer is +without one. We cannot even read a paper upon gypsies and not become +aware that its author is deeply imbued with a sense of his personal +responsibility for these agreeable rascals whom he insists upon our +taking seriously as if we wanted to have anything to do with them on +such terms! "Since the time of Carlyle," says Mr. Bagehot, +"earnestness has been a favorite virtue in literature"; but Oarlyle, +though sharing largely in that profound melancholy which he declared +to be the basis of every English soul, and though he was unfortunate +enough to think Pickwick sad trash, had nevertheless a grim and +eloquent humor of his own. With him, at least, earnestness never +degenerated into dulness; and while dulness may be, as he +unhesitatingly affirmed, the first requisite for a great and free +people, yet a too heavy percentage of this valuable quality is fatal +to the sprightly grace of literature. "In our times," said an old +Scotchwoman, "there's fully mony modern principles," and the first of +these seems to be the substitution of a serious and critical +discernment for the light-hearted sympathy of former days. Our +grandfathers cried a little and laughed a good deal over their books, +without the smallest sense of anxiety or responsibility in the +matter; but we are called on repeatedly to face problems which we +would rather let alone, to dive dismally into motives, to trace +subtle connections, to analyze uncomfortable sensations, and to +exercise in all cases a discreet and conscientious severity, when +what we really want and need is half an hour's amusement. There is no +stronger proof of the great change that has swept over mankind than +the sight of a nation which used to chuckle over "Tom Jones" +absorbing a few years ago countless editions of "Robert Elsmer +e." What is droller still is that the people who read "Robert +Elsmere" would think it wrong to enjoy "Tom Jones," and that the +people who enjoyed "Tom Jones" would have thought it wrong to read +"Robert Elsmere"; and that the people who, wishing to be on the safe +side of virtue, think it wrong to read either, are scorned greatly as +lacking true moral discrimination. + +Now he would be a brave man who would undertake to defend the utterly +indefensible literature of the past. Where it was most humorous it +was also most coarse, wanton and cruel; but, in banishing these +objectionable qualities, we have effectually contrived to rid +ourselves of the humor as well, and with it we have lost one of the +safest instincts of our souls. Any book which serves to lower the sum +of human gaiety is a moral delinquent; and instead of coddling it +into universal notice and growing owlish in its gloom, we should put +it briskly aside in favor of brighter and pleasanter things. When +Father Faber said that there was no greater help to a religious life +than a keen sense of the ridiculous, he startled a number of pious +people, yet what a luminous and cordial message it was to help us on +our way! Mr. Birrell has recorded the extraordinary delight with +which he came across some after-dinner sally of the Reverend Henry +Martyn's; for the very thought of that ardent and fiery spirit +relaxing into pleasantries over the nuts and wine made him appear +like an actual fellow-being of our own. It is with the same feeling +intensified, as I have already noted, that we read some of the +letters of the early fathers--those grave and hallowed figures seen +through a mist of centuries--and find them jesting at one another in +the gayest and least sacerdotal manner imaginable. "Who could tell a +story with more wit, who could joke so pleasantly?" sighs St. Gregory +of Nazienzen of his friend St. Basil, remembering doubtless with a +heavy heart the shafts of good-humored raillery that had brightened +their lifelong intercourse. With what kindly and loving zest does +Gregory, himself the most austere of men, mock at Basil's +asceticism--at those "sad and hungry banquets" of which he was +invited to partake, those "ungarden-like gardens, void of pot-herbs," +in which he was expected to dig! With what delightful alacrity does +Basil vindicate his reputation for humor by making a most excellent +joke in court, for the benefit of a brutal magistrate who fiercely +threatened to tear out his liver! "Your intention is a benevolent +one," said the saint, who had been for years a confirmed invalid. +"Where it is now located, it has given me nothing but trouble." +Surely, as we read such an anecdote as this, we share in the curious +sensation experienced by little Tom Tulliver, when, by dint of +Maggie's repeated questions, he began slowly to understand that the +Romance had once been real men, who were happy enough to speak their +own language without any previous introduction to the Eton grammar. +In like manner, when we come to realize that the fathers of the +primitive church enjoyed their quips and cranks and jests as much as +do Mr. Trollope's jolly deans or vicars, we feel we have at last +grasped the secret of their identity, and we appreciate the force of +Father Faber's appeal to the frank spirit of a wholesome mirth. + +Perhaps one reason for the scanty tolerance that humor receives at +the hands of the disaffected is because of the rather selfish way in +which the initiated enjoy their fun; for there is always a secret +irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join. Mr. George +Saintsbury is plainly of this way of thinking, and, being blessed +beyond his fellows with a love for all that is jovial, he speaks from +out of the richness of his experience. "Those who have a sense of +humor," he says, "instead of being quietly and humbly thankful, are +perhaps a little too apt to celebrate their joy in the face of the +afflicted ones who have it not; and the afflicted ones only follow a +general law in protesting that it is a very worthless thing, if not a +complete humbug." This spirit of exclusiveness on the one side and of +irascibility on the other may be greatly deplored, but who is there +among us, I wonder, wholly innocent of blame? Mr. Saintsbury himself +confesses to a silent chuckle of delight when he thinks of the dimly +veiled censoriousness with which Peacock's inimitable humor has been +received by one-half of the reading world. In other words, his +enjoyment of the Reverend Doctors Folliott and Opimian is sensibly +increased by the reflection that a great many worthy people, even +among his own acquaintances, are, by some mysterious law of their +being, debarred from any share in his pleasure. Yet surely we need +not be so niggardly in this matter. There is wit enough in those two +reverend gentlemen to go all around the living earth and leave plenty +for generations now unborn. Each might say with Juliet: + + "The more I give to thee, + The more I have;" + +for wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its +qualities. When Peacock describes a country gentleman's range of +ideas as "nearly commensurate with that of the great king +Nebuchadnezzar when he was turned out to grass," he affords us a +happy illustration of the eternal fitness of humor, for there can +hardly come a time when such an apt comparison will fail to point its +meaning. + +Mr. Birrell is quite as selfish in his felicity as Mr. Saintsbury, +and perfectly frank in acknowledging it. He dwells rapturously over +certain well-loved pages of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Mansfield +Park," and then deliberately adds, "When an admirer of Miss Austen +reads these familiar passages, the smile of satisfaction, betraying +the deep inward peace they never fail to beget, widens like 'a circle +in the water,' as he remembers (and he is always careful to remember) +how his dearest friend, who has been so successful in life, can no +more read Miss Austen than he can read the Moabitish stone." The same +peculiarity is noticeable in the more ardent lovers of Charles Lamb. +They seem to want him all to themselves, look askance upon any +fellow-being who ventures to assert a modest preference for their +idol, and brighten visibly when some ponderous critic declares the +Letters to be sad stuff and not worth half the exasperating nonsense +talked about them. Yet Lamb flung his good things to the wind with +characteristic prodigality, little recking by whom or in what spirit +they were received. How many witticisms, I wonder, were roared into +the deaf ears of old Thomas Westwood, who heard them not, alas! but +who laughed all the same, out of pure sociability, and with a +pleasant sense that something funny had been said! And what of that +ill-fated pun which Lamb, in a moment of deplorable abstraction, let +fall at a funeral, to the surprise and consternation of the mourners? +Surely a man who could joke at a funeral never meant his pleasantries +to be hoarded up for the benefit of an initiated few, but would +gladly see them the property of all living men; ay, and of all dead +men, too, were such a distribution possible. "Damn the age! I will +write for antiquity!" he exclaimed with not unnatural heat when the +"Gypsy's Malison" was rejected by the ingenious editors of the +_Gem_, on the ground that it would "shock all mothers"; and even +this expression, uttered with pardonable irritation, manifests no +solicitude for a narrow and esoteric audience. + +"Wit is useful for everything, but sufficient for nothing," says +Amiel, who probably felt he needed some excuse for burying so much of +his Gallic sprightliness in Teutonic gloom; and dulness, it must be +admitted, has the distinct advantage of being useful for everybody +and sufficient for nearly everybody as well. Nothing, we are told, is +more rational than ennui; and Mr. Bagehot, contemplating the "grave +files of speechless men" who have always represented the English +land, exults more openly and energetically even than Carlyle in the +saving dulness, the superb impenetrability, which stamps the +Englishman, as it stamped the Roman, with the sign-manual of patient +strength. Stupidity, he reminds us, is not folly, and moreover it +often insures a valuable consistency. "What I says is this here, as I +was a-saying yesterday, is the average Englishman's notion of +historical eloquence and habitual discretion." But Mr. Bagehot could +well afford to trifle thus coyly with dulness, because he knew it +only theoretically and as a dispassionate observer. His own roof-tree +is free from the blighting presence; his own pages are guiltless of +the leaden touch. It has been well said that an ordinary mortal might +live for a twelvemonth like a gentleman on Hazlitt's ideas; but he +might, if he were clever, shine all his life long with the reflected +splendor of Mr. Bagehot's wit, and be thought to give forth a very +respectable illumination. There is a telling quality in every stroke; +a pitiless dexterity that drives the weapon, like a fairy's arrow, +straight to some vital point. When we read that "of all pursuits ever +invented by man for separating the faculty of argument from the +capacity of belief, the art of debating is probably the most +effective," we feel that an unwelcome statement has been expressed +with Mephistophelian coolness; and remembering that these words were +uttered before Mr. Gladstone had attained his parliamentary +preeminence, we have but another proof of the imperishable accuracy +of wit. Only say a clever thing, and mankind will go on forever +furnishing living illustrations of its truth. It was Thurlow who +originally remarked that, "companies have neither bodies to kick nor +souls to lose," and the jest fits in so aptly with our everyday +humors and experiences that I have heard men attribute it casually to +their friends, thinking, perhaps, that it must have been born in +these times of giant corporations, of city railroads, and of trusts. +What a gap between Queen Victoria and Queen Bess; what a thorough and +far-reaching change in everything that goes to make up the life and +habits of men; and yet Shakespeare's fine strokes of humor have +become so fitted to our common speech that the very unconsciousness +with which we apply them proves how they tally with our modern +emotions and opportunities. Lesser lights burn quite as steadily. +Pope and Goldsmith reappear on the lips of people whose knowledge of +the "Essay on Man" is of the very haziest character, and whose +acquaintance with "She Stoops to Conquer" is confined exclusively to +Mr. Abbey's graceful illustrations. Not very long ago I heard a +bright schoolgirl, when reproached for wet feet or some such youthful +indiscretion, excuse herself gaily on the plea that she was "bullying +nature"; and, knowing that the child was but modestly addicted to her +books, I wondered how many of Doctor Holmes's trenchant sayings have +become a heritage in our households, detached often from their +original kinship, and seeming like the rightful property of every one +who utters them. It is an amusing, barefaced, witless sort of +robbery, yet surely not without its compensations; for it must be a +pleasant thing to reflect in old age that the general murkiness of +life has been lit up here and there by sparks struck from one's +youthful fire, and that these sparks, though they wander occasionally +masterless as will-o'-the-wisps, are destined never to go out. + +Are destined never to go out! In its vitality lies the supreme +excellence of humor. Whatever has "wit enough to keep it sweet" +defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that +outward and visible order which needs no introduction or +demonstration at our hands. It is an old trick with dull novelists to +describe their characters as being exceptionally brilliant people, +and to trust that we will take their word for it and ask no further +proof. Every one remembers how Lord Beaconsfield would tell us that a +cardinal could "sparkle with anecdote and blaze with repartee"; and +how utterly destitute of sparkle or blaze were the specimens of His +Eminence's conversation with which we were subsequently favored. +Those "lively dinners" in "Endymion" and "Lothair" at which we were +assured the brightest minds in England loved to gather became mere +Barmecide feasts when reported to us without a single amusing remark, +such waifs and strays of conversation as reached our ears being of +the dreariest and most fatuous description. It is not so with the +real masters of their craft. Mr. Peacock does not stop to explain to +us that Doctor Folliott is witty. The reverend gentleman opens his +mouth and acquaints us with the fact himself. There is no need for +George Eliot to expatiate on Mrs. Poyser's humor. Five minutes of +that lady's society is amply sufficient for the revelation. We do not +even hear Mr. Poyser and the rest of the family enlarging delightedly +on the subject, as do all of Lawyer Putney's friends, in Mr. +Howells's story, "Annie Kilburn"; and yet even the united testimony +of Hatboro' fails to clear up our lingering doubts concerning Mr. +Putney's wit. The dull people of that soporific town are really and +truly and realistically dull. There is no mistaking them. The stamp +of veracity is upon every brow. They pay morning calls, and we listen +to their conversation with a dreamy impression that we have heard it +all many times before, and that the ghosts of our own morning calls +are revisiting us, not in the glimpses of the moon, but in Mr. +Howells's decorous and quiet pages. That curious conviction that we +have formerly passed through a precisely similar experience is strong +upon us as we read, and it is the most emphatic testimony to the +novelist's peculiar skill. But there is none of this instantaneous +acquiescence in Mr. Putney's wit; for although he does make one very +nice little joke, it is hardly enough to flavor all his conversation, +which is for the most part rather unwholesome than humorous. The only +way to elucidate him is to suppose that Mr. Howells, in sardonic +mood, wishes to show us that if a man be discreet enough to take to +hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is +ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining +qualities which, we are given to understand he balked and frustrated +by his one unfortunate weakness. How many of us know these +exceptionally brilliant lawyers, doctors, politicians and journalists +who bear a charmed reputation based exclusively upon their inebriety, +and who take good care not to imperil it by too long a relapse into +the mortifying self-revelations of soberness! And what wrong has been +done to the honored name of humor by these pretentious rascals! We do +not love Falstaff because he is drunk; we do not admire Becky Sharp +because she is wicked. Drunkenness and wickedness are things easy of +imitation; yet all the sack in Christendom could not beget us another +Falstaff--though Seithenyn ap Seithyn comes very near to the +incomparable model--and all the wickedness in the world could not +fashion us a second Becky Sharp. There are too many dull topers and +stupid sinners among mankind to admit of any uncertainty on these +points. + +Bishop Burnet, in describing Lord Halifax, tells us, with thinly +veiled disapprobation, that he was "a man of fine and ready wit, full +of life, and very pleasant, but much turned to satire. His +imagination was too hard for his judgment, and a severe jest took +more with him than all arguments whatever." Yet this was the first +statesman of his age, and one whose clear and tranquil vision +penetrated so far beyond the turbulent, troubled times he lived in +that men looked askance upon a power they but dimly understood. The +sturdy "Trimmer," who would be bullied neither by king nor commons, +who would "speak his mind and not be hanged as long as there was law +in England," must have turned with infinite relief from the horrible +medley of plots and counterplots, from the ugly images of Oates and +Dangerfield, from the scaffolds of Stafford and Russell and Sidney, +from the Bloody Circuit and the massacre of Glencoe, from the false +smiles of princes and the howling arrogance of the mob, to any jest, +however "severe," which would restore to him his cold and fastidious +serenity and keep his judgment and his good temper unimpaired. +"Ridicule is the test of truth," said Hazlitt, and it is a test which +Halifax remorselessly applied, and which would not be without its +uses to the Trimmer of to-day, in whom this adjusting sense is +lamentably lacking. For humor distorts nothing, and only false gods +are laughed off their earthly pedestals. What monstrous absurdities +and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and +then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a +laugh! What healthy exultation, what genial mirth, what loyal +brotherhood of mirth attends the friendly sound! Yet in labeling our +life and literature, as the Danes labeled their Royal Theatre in +Copenhagen, "Not for amusement merely," we have pushed one step +further, and the legend too often stands, "Not for amusement at all." +Life is no laughing matter, we are told, which is true; and, what is +still more dismal to contemplate, books are no laughing matters, +either. Only now and then some gay, defiant rebel, like Mr. +Saintsbury, flaunts the old flag, hums a bar of "Blue Bonnets over +the Border," and ruffles the quiet waters of our souls by hinting +that this age of Apollinaris and of lectures is at fault, and that it +has produced nothing which can vie as literature with the products of +the ages of wine and song. + + + + +Marietta Holley + +AN UNMARRIED FEMALE + + +I suppose we are about as happy as the most of folks, but as I was +sayin' a few days ago to Betsey Bobbet, a neighborin' female of +ours--"Every station-house in life has its various skeletons. But we +ort to try to be contented with that spear of life we are called on +to handle." Betsey hain't married, and she don't seem to be +contented. She is awful opposed to wimmin's rights--she thinks it is +wimmin's only spear to marry, but as yet she can't find any man +willin' to lay holt of that spear with her. But you can read in her +daily life, and on her eager, willin' countenance, that she fully +realizes the sweet words of the poet, "While there is life there is +hope." + +Betsey hain't handsome. Her cheek-bones are high, and she bein' not +much more than skin and bone they show plainer than they would if she +was in good order. Her complexion (not that I blame her for it) +hain't good, and her eyes are little and sot way back in her head. +Time has seen fit to deprive her of her hair and teeth, but her large +nose he has kindly suffered her to keep, but she has got the best +white ivory teeth money will buy, and two long curls fastened behind +each ear, besides frizzles on the top of her head; and if she wasn't +naturally bald, and if the curls was the color of her hair, they +would look well. She is awful sentimental; I have seen a good many +that had it bad, but of all the sentimental creeters I ever did see, +Betsey Bobbet is the sentimentalest; you couldn't squeeze a laugh out +of her with a cheeze-press. + +As I said, she is awful opposed to wimmin's havin' any right, only +the right to get married. She holds on to that right as tight as any +single woman I ever see, which makes it hard and wearyin' on the +single men round here. + +For take the men that are the most opposed to wimmin's havin' a +right, and talk the most about its bein' her duty to cling to man +like a vine to a tree, they don't want Betsey to cling to them; they +won't let her cling to 'em. For when they would be a-goin' on about +how wicked it was for wimmin to vote--and it was her only spear to +marry, says I to 'em, "Which had you ruther do, let Betsey Bobbet +cling to you or let her vote?" and they would every one of 'em quail +before that question. They would drop their heads before my keen gray +eyes--and move off the subject. + +But Betsey don't get discouraged. Every time I see her she says in a +hopeful, wishful tone, "That the deepest men of minds in the country +agree with her in thinkin' that it is wimmin's duty to marry and not +to vote." And then she talks a sight about the retirin' modesty and +dignity of the fair sect, and how shameful and revoltin' it would be +to see wimmin throwin' 'em away and boldly and unblushin'ly talkin' +about law and justice. + +Why, to hear Betsey Bobbet talk about wimmin's throwin' their modesty +away, you would think if they ever went to the political pole they +would have to take their dignity and modesty and throw 'em against +the pole and go without any all the rest of their lives. + +Now I don't believe in no such stuff as that. I think a woman can be +bold and unwomanly in other things besides goin' with a thick veil +over her face, and a brass-mounted parasol, once a year, and gently +and quietly dropping a vote for a Christian President, or a religious +and noble-minded pathmaster. + +She thinks she talks dreadful polite and proper. She says "I was +cameing," instead of "I was coming"; and "I have saw," instead of "I +have seen"; and "papah" for paper, and "deah" for dear. I don't know +much about grammer, but common sense goes a good ways. She writes the +poetry for the _Jonesville Augur_, or "_Augah_," as she calls it. She +used to write for the opposition paper, the _Jonesville Gimlet_, but +the editor of the _Augur_, a longhaired chap, who moved into +Jonesville a few months ago, lost his wife soon after he come there, +and sense that she has turned Dimocrat, and writes for his paper +stidy. They say that he is a dreadful big feelin' man, and I have +heard--it came right straight to me--his cousin's wife's sister told +it to the mother-in-law of one of my neighbors' brother's wife, that +he didn't like Betsey's poetry at all, and all he printed it for was +to plague the editor of the _Gimlet_, because she used to write for +him. I myself wouldn't give a cent a bushel for all the poetry she can +write. And it seems to me, that if I was Betsey, I wouldn't try to +write so much. Howsumever, I don't know what turn I should take if I +was Betsey Bobbet; that is a solemn subject, and one I don't love to +think on. + +I never shall forget the first piece of her poetry I ever see. Josiah +Allen and I had both on us been married goin' on a year, and I had +occasion to go to his trunk one day, where he kept a lot of old +papers, and the first thing I laid my hand on was these verses. +Josiah went with her a few times after his wife died, on Fourth of +July or so, and two or three camp-meetin's and the poetry seemed to +be wrote about the time _we_ was married. It was directed over +the top of it, "Owed to Josiah," just as if she were in debt to him. +This was the way it read: + + "OWED TO JOSIAH + + "Josiah, I the tale have hurn, + With rigid ear, and streaming eye, + I saw from me that you did turn, + I never knew the reason why. + Oh, Josiah, + It seemed as if I must expiah. + + "Why did you--oh, why did you blow + Upon my life of snowy sleet, + The fiah of love to fiercest glow, + Then turn a damphar on the heat? + Oh, Josiah, + It seemed as if I must expiah. + + "I saw thee coming down the street, + _She_ by your side in bonnet bloo, + The stuns that grated 'neath thy feet, + Seemed crunching on my vitals, too. + Oh, Josiah, + It seemed as if I must expiah. + + "I saw thee washing sheep last night, + On the bridge I stood with marble brow. + The waters raged, thou clasped it tight, + I sighed, 'should both be drownded now'- + I thought, Josiah, + Oh, happy sheep to thus expiah." + +I showed the poetry to Josiah that night after he came home, and told +him I had read it. He looked awful ashamed to think I had seen it, +and, says he, with a dreadful sheepish look: "The persecution I +underwent from that female can never be told; she fairly hunted me +down. I hadn't no rest for the soles of my feet. I thought one spell +she would marry me in spite of all I could do, without givin' me the +benefit of law or gospel." He see I looked stern, and he added, with +a sick-lookin' smile, "I thought one spell, to use Betsey's language, +'I was a gonah.'" + +I didn't smile. Oh, no, for the deep principle of my sect was reared +up. I says to him in a tone cold enough to almost freeze his ears: +"Josiah Allen, shet up; of all the cowardly things a man ever done, +it is goin 'round braggin' about wimmin likin' 'em, and follern' 'em +up. Enny man that'll do that is little enough to crawl through a +knot-hole without rubbing his clothes." Says I: "I suppose you made +her think the moon rose in your head and set in your heels. I daresay +you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you +makes fun of her now to please me, I let you know you have got holt +of the wrong individual. + +"Now," says I, "go to bed"; and I added, in still more freezing +accents, "for I want to mend your pantaloons." He gathered up his +shoes and stockin's and started off to bed, and we hain't never +passed a word on the subject sence. I believe when you disagree with +your pardner, in freein' your _mind_ in the first on't, and then +not to be a-twittin' about it afterward. And as for bein' jealous, I +should jest as soon think of bein' jealous of a meetin'-house as I +should of Josiah. He is a well-principled man. And I guess he wasn't +fur out o' the way about Betsey Bobbet, though I wouldn't encourage +him by lettin' him say a word on the subject, for I always make it a +rule to stand up for my own sect; but when I hear her go on about the +editor of the _Augur_, I can believe anything about Betsey Bobbet. + +She came in here one day last week. It was about ten o'clock in the +morning. I had got my house slick as a pin, and my dinner under way +(I was goin' to have a b'iled dinner, and a cherry puddin' b'iled +with sweet sass to eat on it), and I sot down to finish sewin' up the +breadth of my new rag carpet. I thought I would get it done while I +hadn't so much to do, for it bein' the first of March I knew sugarin' +would be comin' on, and then cleanin'-house time, and I wanted it to +put down jest as soon as the stove was carried out in the summer +kitchen. The fire was sparklin' away, and the painted floor a-shinin' +and the dinner a-b'ilin', and I sot there sewin' jest as calm as a +clock, not dreamin' of no trouble, when in came Betsey Bobbet. + +I met her with outward calm, and asked her to set down and lay off +her things. She sot down but she said she couldn't lay off her +things. Says she: "I was comin' down past, and I thought I would call +and let you see the last numbah of the _Augah_. There is a piece +in it concernin' the tariff that stirs men's souls. I like it evah so +much." + +She handed me the paper folded, so I couldn't see nothin' but a piece +of poetry by Betsey Bobbet. I see what she wanted of me, and so I +dropped my breadths of carpetin' and took hold of it, and began to +read it. + +"Read it audible, if you please," says she. "Especially the precious +remahks ovah it; it is such a feast for me to be a-sittin' and heah +it rehearsed by a musical vorce." + +Says I, "I s'pose I can rehearse it if it will do you any good," so I +began as follows: + +"It is seldom that we present the readers of the _Augur_ (the best +paper for the fireside in Jonesville or the world) with a poem like +the following. It may be, by the assistance of the _Augur_ (only +twelve shillings a year in advance, wood and potatoes taken in +exchange), the name of Betsey Bobbet will yet be carved on the lofty +pinnacle of fame's towering pillow. We think, however, that she could +study such writers as Sylvanus Cobb and Tupper with profit both to +herself and to them. + +"Editor of the Augur." + +Here Betsey interrupted me. "The deah editah of the _Augah_ has no +need to advise me to read Tuppah, for he is indeed my most favorite +authar. You have devorhed him, haven't you, Josiah's Allen wife?" + +"Devoured who?" says I, in a tone pretty near as cold as a cold +icicle. + +"Mahten, Fahqueah, Tuppah, that sweet authar," says she. + +"No, mom," says I shortly; "I hain't devoured Martin Farquhar Tupper, +nor no other man. I hain't a cannibal." + +"Oh! you understand me not; I meant, devorhed his sweet, tender +lines." + +"I hain't devoured his tenderlines, nor nothin' relatin' to him," and +I made a motion to lay the paper down, but Betsey urged me to go on, +and so I read: + +"GUSHINGS OF A TENDAH SOUL + + "Oh let who will, + Oh let who can, + Be tied onto + A horrid male man. + + "Thus said I 'ere + My tendah heart was touched, + Thus said I 'ere + My tendah feelings gushed. + + "But oh a change + Hath swept ore me, + As billows sweep + The 'deep blue sea.' + + "A voice, a noble form + One day I saw; + An arrow flew, + My heart is nearly raw. + + "His first pardner lies + Beneath the turf, + He is wandering now, + In sorrow's briny surf. + + "Two twins, the little + Deah cherub creechahs + Now wipe the teahs + From off his classic feachahs. + + "Oh sweet lot, worthy + Angel arisen, + To wipe teahs + From eyes like hisen. + +"What think you of it?" says she, as I finished readin'. + +I looked right at her 'most a minute with a majestic look. In spite +of her false curls and her new white ivory teeth, she is a humbly +critter. I looked at her silently while she sot and twisted her long +yellow bunnet-strings, and then I spoke out. "Hain't the editor of +the _Augur_ a widower with a pair of twins?" + +"Yes," says she with a happy look. + +Then says I, "If the man hain't a fool, he'll think you are one." + +"Oh!" says she, and she dropped her bunnet-strings and clasped her +long bony hands together in her brown cotton gloves. "Oh, we ahdent +soles of genious have feelin's you cold, practical natures know +nuthing of, and if they did not gush out in poetry we should expiah. +You may as well try to tie up the gushing catarack of Niagarah with a +piece of welting-cord as to tie up the feelin's of an ahdent sole." + +"Ardent sole!" says I coldly. "Which makes the most noise, Betsey +Bobbet, a three-inch brook or a ten-footer? which is the tearer? +which is the roarer? Deep waters run stillest. I have no faith in +feelin's that stalk round in public in mournin' weeds. I have no +faith in such mourners," says I. + +"Oh, Josiah's wife, cold, practical female being, you know me not; we +are sundered as fah apart as if you was sitting on the North Pole and +I was sitting on the South Pole. Uncongenial being, you know me not." + +"I may not know you, Betsey Bobbet, but I do know decency, and I know +that no munny would tempt me to write such stuff as that poetry and +send it to a widower with twins." + +"Oh!" says she, "what appeals to the tendah feelin' heart of a single +female woman more than to see a lonely man who has lost his relict? +And pity never seems so much like pity as when it is given to the +deah little children of widowehs. And," says she, "I think moah than +as likely as not, this soaring sole of genious did not wed his +affinity, but was united to a mere woman of clay." + +"Mere woman of clay!" says I, fixin' my spektacles upon her in a most +searchin' manner. "Where will you find a woman, Betsey Bobbet, that +hain't more or less clay? And affinity, that is the meanest word I +ever heard; no married woman has any right to hear it. I'll excuse +you, bein' a female; but if a man had said it to me I'd holler to +Josiah. There is a time for everything, and the time to hunt affinity +is before you are married; married folks hain't no right to hunt it," +says I sternly. + +"We kindred soles soah above such petty feelin's--we soah far above +them." + +"I hain't much of a soarer," says I, "and I don't pretend to be; and +to tell you the truth," says I, "I am glad I ain't." + +"The editah of the _Augah_" says she, and she grasped the paper +offen the stand, and folded it up, and presented it at me like a +spear, "the editah of this paper is a kindred sole: he appreciates +me, he undahstands me, and will not our names in the pages of this +very papah go down to posterety togathah?" + +"Then," says I, drove out of all patience with her, "I wish you was +there now, both of you. I wish," says I, lookin' fixedly on her, "I +wish you was both of you in posterity now." + + + + +Fitzhugh Ludlow + +SELECTIONS FROM A BRACE OF BOYS + + +I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody; +but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially, +just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human +race; and if, through untoward circumstances--which heaven forbid--I +should lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw +me out in the _Herald_ under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks +to a marrying tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little +need to advertise, all the business being thrown into my way which a +single member of my profession can attend to. + +I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am, +through the flowery mead of several nurseries, but I am detained +longest among the children of my sister Lu. + +Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired with a fortune +amassed by the old-fashioned, slow processes of trade, and regards +the mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and +gambling Christianly baptized.... Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove +an unusually good article of brother-in-law; and I cannot say that +any of my nieces and nephews interest me more than their two +children, Daniel and Billy, who are more unlike than words can paint +them. They are far apart in point of years; Daniel is twenty-two, +Bill eleven. I was reminded of this fact the other day by Billy, as +he stood between my legs, scowling at his book of sums. + +"'A boy has eighty-five turnips and gives his sister thirty'--pretty +present for a girl, isn't it?" said Billy, with an air of supreme +contempt, "Could _you_ stand such stuff--say?" + +I put on my instructive face and answered: + +"Well, my dear Billy, you know that arithmetic is necessary to you if +you mean to be an industrious man and succeed in business. Suppose +your parents were to lose all their property, what would become of +them without a little son who could make money and keep accounts?" + +"Oh," said Billy, with surprise, "hasn't father got enough stamps to +see him through?" + +"He has now, I hope; but people don't always keep them. Suppose they +should go by some accident, when your father was too old to make any +more stamps for himself?" + +"You haven't thought of Brother Daniel--" + +True; for nobody ever had in connection with the active employments +of life. + +"No, Billy," I replied, "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is +more of a student than a business man, and--" + +"Oh, Uncle Teddy! you don't think I mean he'd support them? I meant +I'd have to take care of father and mother and him, too, when they'd +all got to be old people together. Just think! I'm eleven, and he's +twenty-two; so he is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?" + +"Forty, Billy, last August." + +"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you, +Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than +that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed, +and wheels him round in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, I +bet! Well, I tell you how I'll keep my accounts: I'll have a stick +like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a +piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll +gouge a piece out of the other." + +"Spend a _what?_" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister +Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room. + +"A toadskin, ma," replied Billy, shutting up Oolburn with a farewell +glance of contempt. + +"Dear, dear! Where does the boy learn such horrid words?" + +"Why, ma, don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one," said Billy, +drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I +had lots of 'em!" + +"Oh!" sighed his mother, "to think I should have a child so addicted +to slang! How I wish he were like Daniel!" + +"Well, mother," replied Billy, "if you wanted two boys just alike +you'd oughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like +Daniel now, when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a +dog fight; hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog--I know his bark!" + +With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the +table and bolted downstairs to see the fun. + +"What will become of him?" said Lu hopelessly; "he has no taste for +anything but rough play; and then such language as he uses! Why +_isn't_ he like Daniel?" "I suppose because his maker never repeats +himself. Even twins often possess strongly marked individualities. +Don't you think it would be a good plan to learn Billy better before +you try to teach him? If you do, you'll make something as good of him +as Daniel; though it will be rather different from that model." + +"Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you do +Billy. But we all know the proverb about old maid's daughters and old +bachelor's sons. I wish you had Billy for a month--then you'd see." + +"I'm not sure that I'd do any better than you. I might err as much in +other directions. But I'd try to start right by acknowledging that he +was a new problem, not to be worked without finding out the value of +X in his particular instance. The formula which solves one boy will +no more solve the next one than the rule of three will solve a +question in calculus--or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt +for one-two-three-fourcake will conduct you to a successful issue +through plum pudding." + +I excel in metaphysical discussion, and was about giving further +elaboration to my favorite idea, when the door burst open. Master +Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the traces +of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his +hands. + +"Oh my! my!! my!!!" exclaimed his mother. + +"Don't you get scared, ma!" cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of +triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He won't sass me again for +nothing _this_ while. Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dog +fight after all? There was that nasty, good-for-nothing Joe Casey, 'n +Patsy Grogan, and a lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd +caught this poor little ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail, and +were trying to set Joe's dog on him, though he's ten times littler." + +"You naughty, naughty boy! How did you suppose your mother'd feel to +see you playing with those ragamuffins?" + +"Yes, I _played_ 'em! I polished 'em--that's the play I did! Says I, +'Put down that poor little pup; ain't you ashamed of yourself, Patsy +Grogan? 'I guess you don't know who I am,' says he. That's the way +they always say, Uncle Teddy, to make a fellow think they're some +awful great fighters. So says I again, 'Well, you put down that dog, +or I'll show you who I am'; and when he held on, I let him have it. +Then he dropped the pup, and as I stooped to pick it up he gave me one +on the bugle." + +"_Bugle!_ Oh! Ooh! Ooh!" + +"The rest pitched in to help him; but I grabbed the pup, and while I +was trying to give as good as I got--only a fellow can't do it well +with only one hand, Uncle Teddy--up came a policeman, and the whole +crowd ran away. So I got the dog safe, and here he is!" + +With that Billy set down his "ki-oodle," bid farewell to every fear, +and wiped his bleeding nose. The unhappy beast slunk back between the +legs of his preserver and followed him out of the room, as Lu, with +an expression of maternal despair, bore him away for the correction +of his dilapidated raiment and depraved associations. I felt such +sincere pride in this young Mazzini of the dog nation that I was +vexed at Lu for bestowing on him reproof instead of congratulation; +but she was not the only conservative who fails to see a good cause +and a heroic heart under a bloody nose and torn jacket. I resolved +that if Billy was punished he should have his recompense before long +in an extra holiday at Barnum's or the Hippotheatron. + +You already have some idea of my other nephew, if you have noticed +that none of us, not even that habitual disrespecter of dignities, +Billy, ever called him Dan. It would have seemed as incongruous as to +call Billy William. He was one of those youths who never gave their +parents a moment's uneasiness; who never had to have their wills +broken, and never forgot to put on their rubbers or take an umbrella. +In boyhood he was intended for a missionary. Had it been possible for +him to go to Greenland's icy mountains without catching cold, or +India's coral strand without getting bilious, his parents would have +carried out their pleasing dream of contributing him to the world's +evangelization. Lu and Mr. Lovegrove had no doubt that he would have +been greatly blessed if he could have stood it.... + +Both she and his father always encouraged old manners in him. I think +they took such pride in raising a peculiarly pale boy as a gardener +does in getting a nice blanch on his celery, and so long as he was +not absolutely sick, the graver he was the better. He was a sensitive +plant, a violet by a mossy stone, and all that sort of thing.... + +At the time I introduce Billy, both Lu and her husband were much +changed. They had gained a great deal in width of view and liberality +of judgment. They read Dickens and Thackeray with avidity; went now +and then to the opera; proposed to let Billy take a quarter at +Dodworth's; had statues in their parlor without any thought of shame +at their lack of petticoats, and did multitudes of things which, in +their early married life, they would have considered shocking. . . . +They would greatly have liked to see Daniel shine in society. Of his +erudition they were proud even to worship. The young man never had +any business, and his father never seemed to think of giving him any, +knowing, as Billy would say, that he had stamps enough to "see him +through." If Daniel liked, his father would have endowed a +professorship in some college and given him the chair; but that would +have taken him away from his own room and the family physician. + +Daniel knew how much his parents wished him to make a figure in the +world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously +forgetting that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man +to mint the small change of every-day society in the exclusive +cultivation of such as fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. +With that merciful blindness which alone prevents all our lives from +becoming a horror of nerveless self-reproach, his parents were +equally unaware of their share in the harm done him when they +ascribed to a delicate organization the fact that, at an age when +love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see a Balmoral +without his cheeks rivaling the most vivid stripe in it. They +flattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness; but +Daniel had no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he +thought he should never marry at all. + +About two hours after Billy's disappearance under his mother's +convoy, the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the +dog under his arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy +Spitzenbergs, and other indignities had been offered him to the +extent of the brush and comb. He also had a whole jacket on.... + +Billy and I also obtained permission to go out together and be gone +the entire afternoon. We put Crab on a comfortable bed of rags in an +old shoebox, and then strolled hand-in-hand across that most +delightful of New York breathing places--Stuyvesant Square. + +"Uncle Teddy," exclaimed Billy with ardor, "I wish I could do +something to show you how much I think of you for being so good to +me. I don't know how. Would it make you happy if I was to learn a +hymn for you--a smashing big hymn--six verses, long metre, and no +grumbling?" + +"No, Billy, you make me happy enough just by being a good boy." + +"Oh, Uncle Teddy!" replied Billy decidedly. "I'm afraid I can't do +it. I've tried so often, and always make such a mess of it." ... + +We now got into a Broadway stage going down, and being unable, on +account of the noise, to converse further upon those spiritual +conflicts of Billy's which so much interested me, amused ourselves +with looking out until just as we reached the Astor House, when he +asked me where we were going. + +"Where do you guess?" said I. + +He cast a glance through the front window and his face became +irradiated. Oh, there's nothing like the simple, cheap luxury of +pleasing a child to create sunshine enough for the chasing away of +the blues of adult devils! + +"We're going to Barnum's!" said Billy, involuntarily clapping his +hands. + +So we were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down on the +place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class +largely represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make +believe that they only come to amuse the children, or because they've +country cousins visiting them, but never fail to refer to the vulgar +set one finds there, and the fact of the animals smelling like +anything but Jockey Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the +hall three minutes they're as much interested as any of the people +they come to pooh-pooh, and only put on the high-bred air when they +fancy some of their own class are looking at them. I boldly +acknowledge that I go because I like it. I am especially happy, to be +sure, if I have a child along to go into ecstasies, and give me a +chance, by asking questions, for the exhibition of that fund of +information which is said to be one of my chief charms in the social +circle, and on several occasions has led that portion of the public +immediately about the Happy Family into the erroneous impression that +I was Mr. Barnum glibly explaining his five hundred thousand +curiosities. + +On the present occasion we found several visitors of the better class +in the room devoted to the aquarium. Among these was a young lady, +apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque of black velvet, +which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirt of garnet +silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiest imaginable +pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over the medium; +her eyes, a soft, expressive brown, shaded by masses of hair which +exactly matched their color, and, at that rat-and-miceless day, fell +in such graceful abandon as to show at once that nature was the only +maid who crimped their waves into them. Her complexion was rosy with +health and sympathetic enjoyment; her mouth was faultless, her nose +sensitive, her manners full of refinement, and her voice as musical +as a wood-robin's when she spoke to the little boy of six at her +side, to whom she was revealing the palace of the great show-king. +Billy and I were flattening our noses against the abode of the +balloon fish and determining whether he looked most like a horse- +chestnut burr or a ripe cucumber, when his eyes and my own +simultaneously fell on the child and lady. In a moment, to Billy the +balloon fish was as though he had not been. + +"That's a pretty little boy," said I. And then I asked Billy one of +those senseless routine questions which must make children look at +us, regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at +Bushmen. + +"How would you like to play with him?" + +"Him!" replied Billy scornfully, "that's his first pair of boots; see +him pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to 'em! But, +crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher?" + +After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the +learned seal, and the glass-blowers. Whenever we passed from one room +into another Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the +pretty girl and child were coming too. + +Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in astonishment at the +Lightning Calculator--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigy for +him to do his sums by--finally thought he had discovered it, and +resolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his +arithmetic lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to +relate in full how he became so confused among the wax-works that he +pinched the solemnest showman's legs to see if he was real, and +perplexed the beautiful Circassian to the verge of idiocy by telling +her he had read in his geography all about the way they sold girls +like her. + +We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which the +Behemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of the +dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had +always languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I +stood ready to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the +signboard at the head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated +there, not seeming at all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty +girl and the child following after--a sudden intuition flashed across +me. Could it be possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which +whirled me down at ten years--a little boy's first love? + +We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional +glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous +compass, whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco +lining, when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising +monster, dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the +swash made by the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. +Either in play or as a mere coincidence the animal followed it. The +other children about the tank screamed and started back as he bumped +his nose against the side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed +the glove not an inch from one of his big tusks, then marched around +the tank and presented it to the lady with a chivalry of manner in +one of his years quite surprising. + +"That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie?--and I wish +he'd come and play with me," said the little fellow by the young +lady's side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back +to me with his cheeks roseate with blushes. + +As he heard this Billy idled along the edge of the tank for a moment, +then faced about and said: + +"P'raps I will some day. Where do you live?" + +"I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there, +too, now--she's my cousin. Where d'you live?" + +"Oh! I live close by--right on that big green square, where I guess +the nurse takes you once in awhile," said Billy patronizingly. Then, +looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you out +there." + +"No; Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and +I've just come to visit him." + +"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in the +inextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking-stove--for real fire--and +blocks, and a ball with a string." + +Billy, who belonged to a club for the practise of the great American +game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battist among +the I. G. B. B. 0., or "Infant Giants," smiled from an altitude upon +Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday +afternoon. + +Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my +room over "Pickwick" with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the +door told of Daniel. I called "Come in!" and, entering with a slow, +dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained +silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then +dropping his head again, to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down +Dickens and spoke myself: + +"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?" + +"I don't feel very well, uncle." + +"What's the matter, my boy?" + +"Oh-ah, I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you." + +I studied him for a few minutes with kindly curiosity, then answered: + +"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you. +Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not harassed +by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; +and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are +scholarly. This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms-- +listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes--dyspepsia, +religious conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?" + +"No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion, and--" + +"You don't tell me you're in love?" + +"Well,--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy." + +I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this +unimaginable revelation, then said: "Is your feeling returned?" + +"I really don't know, uncle; I don't believe it is. I don't see how +it can be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in +me to love? I've borne nothing for her--that is, nothing that could +do her any good--though I've endured on her account, I may say, +anguish. So, look at it any way you please, I neither am, do nor +suffer anything that can get a woman's love." + + "Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along +with you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive and +neuter!" + +Daniel smiled faintly. + +"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you +hit the truth there; indeed, you do. If she were a Greek or Latin +woman I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only +understood the philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the +poetry--" + +"Thank God they don't, Daniel!" sighed I devoutly. + +"Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking +about the grounds of differences between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women +like the star business, they say--and I could tell her where all the +constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment +about them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what +earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have +with the woman he loved if he depended for her favor on his ability +to analyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the +next occultation of Orion? I can't talk bread-and-butter talk. I +can't do anything that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!" + +"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread-and-butter talk is +tolerable to a woman!" + +"No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate, the ability is-- +in order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet +and strike women. And, oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water +in society!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing +gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows like little Jack +Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect +admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts +of men without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all +colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy, and abrupt, and +abstracted, and bad at repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it +seems so ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains +for me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange +all I've ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before +her!" + +"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A +woman is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose +name I don't ask you, because I know you'll tell me as soon as you +think best), you must seek her companionship until you're well enough +acquainted with her to have her regard you as something different +from the men whom she meets merely in society, and judge your +qualities by another standard than that she applies to them. If she's +a sensible girl (and God forbid you should marry her otherwise), she +knows that people can't always be dancing, or holding fans, or +running after orange-ice. If she's a girl capable of appreciating +your best points (and woe to you if you marry a girl who can't!), +she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and, once found, they'll a +hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in the show-case +of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes about, +you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adapt Milton, she'll +drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'" + +"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you +the sacredest of secrets--regularly every day of my life I send her a +little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at +Hanft's." + +"Does she know who sends them?" + +"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a +word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, +uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see, she may despise or +hate me some day when she knows who it is that has paid her these +attentions; and then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've +never hurt her by any absurd connection with myself." + +"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, +though a little counsel with your head will show you that your only +absurdity is self-depreciation." + +Daniel bid me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed my +mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the +afternoon with me and reversed his mother's wish, thinking: + +"Oh, if Daniel were more like Billy!" + +It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my +after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my +room until St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine. + +"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you +been under till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look +over our spelling together, and I know a boy who's going in for +promotion next week. Have you had your breakfast and taken care of +Orab?" + +"Yes, sir; but I didn't feel like getting up this morning." + +"Are you sick?" + +"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you." + +"Indeed I won't, Billy!" + +"Well"--his voice dropped to a whisper, and he stole close to my +side--"I had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing +before the bell rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer--so kinder +good and kinder bad--and I wanted to see her so much that, if I +hadn't been a big boy, I believe I should have blubbered. I tried +ever so much to go to sleep and see her again; but the more I tried +the more I couldn't. After all, I had to get up without it, though I +didn't want any breakfast, and only ate two buckwheat cakes, when I +always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. Can you keep a secret?" + +"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me +upside-down like a savings bank." + +"Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell +you the secret, though--that girl and I are going to get married. I +mean to ask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!" + +"My dear Billy, won't you wait a little while to see if you always +like her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older." + +"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly! I'm as old as +the kings of France used to be when they got married--I read it in +Abbott's histories. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run +or I shall get a tardy mark, and, perhaps, she'll want to see my +certificate sometimes." + +So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast +as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest +neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons +buttoning on his jacket--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and +teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a +good boy! + +With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored and myself the confidant +of both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and +distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to +overcome his bashfulness; was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant +only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news, +told in his slangy New York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim: +"Oh, I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as +I went by the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a +valentine to her--because it was too big to shove in a lamp-post, and +she might catch him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell and ran +away. Daniel wrote his own valentine; but, despite its originality, +that document gave him no such comfort as Billy got from his twenty- +five cents' worth of embossed paper, pink cupids and doggerel. +Finally Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy and +got introduced to his girl. + +Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company"--not a +party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family +were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate +neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there +was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played +by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did +not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise +with fashionable gaiety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of +introducing Daniel to the _beau monde_--a push given the timid +eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the +vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be +inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got +a note from one of her guests asking leave to bring along her niece, +who was making her a few weeks' visit. As a matter of course, +however, she returned answer to bring the young lady, and welcome. + +Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I +invited him to make his toilet in mine, and, indeed, wanting him to +create a favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_, tying +his cravat and teasing the divinity student look out of his side +hair. My little dandy Billy came in for another share of attention, +and when I managed to button his jacket for him so that it showed his +shirt-studs "like a man's," Count d'Orsey could not have felt a more +pleasing sense of his sufficiency for all the demands of the gay +world. + +When we reached the parlor we found Pa and and Ma Lovegrove already +receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old +married couples, which, after paying their _devoirs_, fell in +two like unriveted scissors--the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa +and the ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such +questions as severally concerned them, such as "the way gold closed" +and "how the children were." + +Besides the old married people, there were several old young men of +distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect who, having nothing in +common with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to +band themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the +arch pillars or appeared to be considering whether, on the whole, it +would not be feasible and best to sit down on the center table. These +subsisted upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional +chance to throw them by rapid sorties of conversation--became +galvanically active the moment they were punched up and fell flat the +moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, +having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the +Doldrums, lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be +taken preternaturally bashful, with his sails all aback, just as I +wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built +cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that +last plank of drowning conversationalists, the photograph album. All +the dejected young men made for it at once, some reaching it just as +they were about to sink for the last time, but all getting a grip on +it somehow, and staying there in company with other people's babies +whom they didn't know, and celebrities whom they knew to death, +until, one by one, they either stranded upon a motherly dowager by +the Fireplace Shoals, or were rescued from the Soda Reef by some +gallant wrecker of a strong-minded young lady, with a view to taking +salvage out of them in the German. + +Besides these were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and +girls, who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to +remind him of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison +with the queen of his affections, they were in danger of being +despised by him as small fry. + +The younger ladies and gentlemen--those who had fascinations to +disport or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, +were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that +oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth. + +Daniel was in conversation with a perfect godsend of a girl, who +understood Latin and had begun Greek. Billy was taking a moment's +vacation from his boys and girls, busy with "Old Maid" in the +extension room, and whispering with his hand in mine, "Oh, don't I +wish _she_ were here!" when a fresh invoice of ladies, just unpacked +from the dressing-room in all the airy elegance of evening costume, +floated through the door. I heard Lu say: + +"Ah, Mrs. Rumbullion! Happy to see your niece, too. How d'ye do, Miss +Pilgrim?" + +At this last word Billy jumped as if he had been shot, and the bevy +of ladies opening about sister Lu disclosed the charming face and +figure of the pretty girl we had met at Barnum's. + +Billy's countenance rapidly changed from astonishment to joy. + +"Isn't that splendid, Uncle Teddy? Just as I was wishing it! It's +just like the fairy books!" and, rushing up to the party of +newcomers, "My dear Lottie!" cried he, "if I'd only known you were +coming I'd have gone after you!" + +As he caught her by the hand I was pleased to see her soft eyes +brighten with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu +looked on naturally with astonishment in every feature. + +"Why, Billy!" said she, "you ought not to call a strange young lady +'_Lottie!_' Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy." + +"And you must excuse my mother, Lottie," said Billy, affectionately +patting Miss Pilgrim's rose kid, "for calling you a strange young +lady. You are not strange at all--you're just as nice a girl as there +is." + +"There are no excuses necessary," said Miss Pilgrim, with a +bewitching little laugh. "Billy and I know each other intimately +well, Mrs. Lovegrove; and I confess that when I heard the lady aunt +had been invited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing +to infringe etiquette this evening by coming where I had no previous +introduction." + +"Don't you care!" said Billy encouragingly--"I'll introduce you to +every one of our family; I know 'em, if you don't." + +At this moment I came up as Billy's reinforcement, and fearing lest +in his enthusiasm he might forget the canon of society which +introduces a gentleman to a lady, not the lady to him, I ventured to +suggest it delicately by saying: + +"Billy, will you grant me the favor of a presentation to Miss +Pilgrim?" + +"In a minute, Uncle Teddy," answered Billy, considerably lowering his +voice. "The older people first;" and after this reproof I was left to +wait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of +introducing to the young lady his father and his mother. + +Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with +an air of great dignity intrusted her to my care and left us +promenading while he went in search of Daniel. I myself looked in +vain for that youth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the +last comers. Miss Pilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in +Billy, whom she spoke of as one of the most delightfully original +boys she had ever met--in fact, altogether the most fascinating young +gentleman she had seen in New York society. You may be sure it wasn't +Billy's left ear which burned when I made my responses. + +In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of +disappointment, that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a +light through his keyhole, but the door was locked, and he could get +no admittance. Just then Lu came up to present a certain--no, an +uncertain--young man of the fleet stranded on parlor furniture +earlier in the evening. To Lu's great astonishment Miss Pilgrim asked +Billy's permission to leave. It was granted with all the courtesy of +a _preux chevalier_, on the condition readily assented to by the +lady that she should dance one lancers with him during the evening. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior +being to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries, +"would anybody ever suppose that was our Billy?" + +"I should, my dear sister," said I, with proud satisfaction; "but you +remember I always was just to Billy." + +Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel, I found his door locked +and a light shining through the keyhole, as Billy had stated. I made +no attempt to enter by knocking, but, going to my room and opening +the window next his, leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash +with my cane, and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method of +communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush. +When he saw me he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, +and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me +enter by the normal mode. + +"Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean? Are you +sick?" "Uncle Edward, I am not sick--and this means that I am a fool. +Even a little boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the +very dust. I wish I'd been a missionary and got massacred by savages. +Oh, that I'd been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or +that my mother hadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't +wrong to take my life into my own hands, I'd open that window, and-- +and--sit in a draft this very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter! +Oh, oh, oh!" + +And he paced the floor with strides of frenzy. + +"Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly a minute. What +brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough the first +ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight long +enough to speak to the Rumbullion party, who had just come in, and +when I turned around you were gone. Now you are in this fearful +condition. What is there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such +a bender of bashfulness as this which I here behold?" + +"Rumbullion indeed!" said Daniel. "A hundred Rumbullions could not +make me feel as I do. But _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her +little finger; and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!" + +"What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?" + +"Miss Pilgrim!" + +I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and +argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would +bring up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling +them that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, +unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied +me downstairs. The dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew +that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it +made him surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which +gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for +the purpose of a favorable impression. The stimulus of wrath was good +for him, and there was little tremor in his knees when he descended +the stairs. Well-a-day! So Daniel and Billy were rivals! + +The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase. + +"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" he said cheerily. "I was just going to +look after you and Uncle Teddy. We've wanted you for the dances. +We've had the lancers twice, and three round dances; and I danced the +second lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games--to +amuse the children, you know," he added loftily, with the adult +gesture of pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension +room. "Lottie's going to play, too; so will you and Daniel, won't +you, uncle? Oh, here comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss +Pilgrim--let me introduce him to you. I'm sure you'll like him. +There's nothing he don't know." + +Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel-post of the staircase and, +when she looked into Daniel's face, blushed like the red, red rose, +losing her self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel. + +The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the +opposite party's falls, and Daniel made out to say in a firm tone +that it was long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss +Pilgrim. + +"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss +Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale. + +"Oho! so you don't want any introduction!" exclaimed Master Billy. "I +didn't know you knew each other, Lottie?" + +"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join the +plays?" + +"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind--all the grown +people are going, too." + +On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being +almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of +jolly little Miss Bloomingal, sister Lu had consented to make a +pleasant Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was +permitted to be young again and romp with the rompiest. We played +blindman's buff till we were tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's delight, +coming out splendidly as blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the +style he hunted down and caught the ladies as satisfied me that +nothing but his eyesight stood in the way of his making an audacious +figure in the world. Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who +seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed "doorkeeper"--a suggestion +accepted with great _eclat_ by all the children, several grown +people assenting. + +To Billy--quite as much on account of his shining prominence in the +executive faculties as of his character as host--was committed the +duty of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There +were so many of us that "Aina maina mona mike" would not go quite +round; but, with that promptness of expedient which belongs to +genius, Billy instantly added on, "Intery-mintery-cutery-corn," and +the last word of the cabalistic formula fell upon me--Edward Balbus. +I disappeared into the entry amidst peals of happy laughter from both +old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me whom I +wanted, for the pretty lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After +giving me a coquettish little chirrup of a kiss and telling me my +beard scratched, she bade me on my return, send out to her "Mithter +Billy Lovegrove." I obeyed her; my youngest nephew retired; and after +a couple of seconds, during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she +proposed the game for, Billy being a great favorite with the little +girls, she came back, pouting and blushing, to announce that he +wanted Miss Pilgrim. That young lady showed no mock-modesty, but +arose at once and laughingly went out to her youthful admirer, who, +as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and told her he loved +her better than any girl in the world. As he turned to go back she +told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile cousins, +Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthful +Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most +terrible passion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing +practical jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy +marched into the room, and, having shut the door behind him, +paralyzed the crowded parlor by an announcement that Mr. Daniel +Lovegrove was wanted. + +I was standing at his side and could feel him tremble--see him turn +pale. + +"Dear me!" he whispered in a choking voice, "can she mean me?" + +"Of course she does," said I. "Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely you +can't refuse such an invitation from a lady?" + +"No, I suppose not," said he mechanically. And amidst much laughter +from the disinterested while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his +mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from +the room. Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument +described by Mr. Samuel Weller--a pair of patent double-million- +magnifying microscopes of hextry power, to see through a deal door. +Instead of this, I had to learn what happened only by report. + +Lottie Pilgrim was standing under the hall burners with her elbow on +the newel-post, looking more vividly charming than he had ever seen +her before at Mrs. Cramcroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled +by the apparition of Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of the little Rum- +bullion whom she was expecting, she had no time to exclaim or hide +her mounting color, none at all to explain to her own mind the +mistake that had occurred, before his arm was clasped around her +waist, and his lips so closely pressed to hers, that through her soft +thick hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for +Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss +Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter though not incensed +stupefaction--to stammer: + +"Forgive me! Do forgive me! I thought you were in earnest." + +"So I was," she said tremulously, as soon as she could catch her +voice, "in sending for my cousin Reginald." + +"Oh, dear, what shall I do! Believe me, I was told you wanted me. Let +me go and explain it to mother--she'll tell the rest. I couldn't do +it--I'd die of mortification. Oh, that wretched boy Billy!" + +On the principle already mentioned, his agitation reassured her. + +"Don't try to explain it now--it may get Billy a scolding. Are there +any but intimate family friends here this evening?" + +"No--I believe--no--I'm sure," replied Daniel, collecting his +faculties. + +"Then I don't mind what they think. Perhaps they'll suppose we've +known each other long; but we'll arrange it by-and-by. They'll think +the more of it the longer we stay out here--hear them laugh! I must +run back now. I'll send you somebody." + +A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the +parlor, and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her +quick woman wit showed her how to retaliate and divide the +embarrassment of the occasion. As she passed me she said in an +undersone: + +"Answer quick! Who's that fat lady on the sofa, that laughs so loud?" + +"Mrs. Cromwell Crags," said I as quietly. + +Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtsey and spoke in a modest +but distinct voice: + +"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger, you know; but +is there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs--Mrs. _Cromwell_ Craggs? For +if so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. Cromwell Craggs." + +Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had +to go and get kissed like the rest of us. + +Before the close of the evening Billy was made as jealous as his +parents and I was surprised to see Daniel in close conversation with +Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and fuchsias of the conservatory. "A +regular flirtation!" said Billy somewhat indignantly. The conclusion +they arrived at was, that after all no great harm had been done, and +that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun. +If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have +suspected that the offense Billy had led Daniel into committing was +not unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so +much as I could see showed me that the ice was broken. + +--From "Little Brother, and Other Genre Pictures." + + + + +Robert Jones Burdette + +RHEUMATISM MOVEMENT CURE + + +One day, not a great while ago, Mr. Middlerib read in his favorite +paper a paragraph stating that the sting of a bee was a sure cure for +rheumatism, and citing several remarkable instances in which people +had been perfectly cured by this abrupt remedy. Mr. Middlerib thought +of the rheumatic twinges that grappled his knees once in awhile and +made his life a burden. + +He read the article several times and pondered over it. He understood +that the stinging must be done scientifically and thoroughly. The +bee, as he understood the article, was to be griped by the ears and +set down upon the rheumatic joint and held there until it stung +itself stingless. He had some misgivings about the matter. He knew it +would hurt. He hardly thought it could hurt any worse than the +rheumatism, and it had been so many years since he was stung by a bee +that he had almost forgotten what it felt like. He had, however, a +general feeling that it would hurt some. But desperate diseases +require desperate remedies, and Mr. Middlerib was willing to undergo +any amount of suffering if it would cure his rheumatism. + +He contracted with Master Middlerib for a limited supply of bees; +humming and buzzing about in the summer air, Mr. Middlerib did not +know how to get them. He felt, however, that he could safely depend +upon the instincts and methods of boyhood. He knew that if there was +any way in heaven whereby the shyest bee that ever lifted a two +hundred pound man off the clover could be induced to enter a wide- +mouthed glass bottle, his son knew that way. + +For the small sum of one dime Master Middlerib agreed to procure +several, to wit: six bees, sex and age not specified; but, as Mr. +Middlerib was left in uncertainty as to the race, it was made +obligatory upon the contractor to have three of them honey and three +humble, or, in the generally accepted vernacular, bumblebees. Mr. M. +did not tell his son what he wanted those bees for, and the boy went +off on his mission with his head so full of astonishment that it +fairly whirled. Evening brings all home, and the last rays of the +declining sun fell upon Master Middlerib with a short, wide-mouthed +bottle comfortably populated with hot, ill-natured bees, and Mr. +Middlerib and a dime. The dime and the bottle changed hands. Mr. +Middlerib put the bottle in his coat pocket and went into the house +eyeing everybody he met very suspiciously, as though he had made up +his mind to sting to death the first person who said "bee" to him. He +confided his guilty secret to none of his family. He hid his bees in +his bedroom, and as he looked at them just before putting them away +he half wished the experiment was safely over. He wished the +imprisoned bees did not look so hot and cross. With exquisite care he +submerged the bottle in a basin of water and let a few drops in on +the heated inmates to cool them off. + +At the tea table he had a great fright. Miss Middlerib, in the +artless simplicity of her romantic nature, said: + +"I smell bees. How the odor brings up---" + +But her father glared at her and said, with superfluous harshness and +execrable grammar: "Hush up! You don't smell nothing." + +Whereupon Mrs. Middlerib asked him if he had eaten anything that +disagreed with him, and Miss Middlerib said: + +"Why, pa!" and Master Middlerib smiled as he wondered. + +Bedtime at last, and the night was warm and sultry. Under various +false pretenses, Mr. Middlerib strolled about the house until +everybody else was in bed, and then he sought his room. He turned the +lamp down until its feeble ray shone dimly as a death-light. + +Mr. Middlerib disrobed slowly--very slowly. When at last he was ready +to go lumbering into his peaceful couch, he heaved a profound sigh, +so full of apprehension and grief that Mrs. Middlerib, who was +awakened by it, said if it gave him so much pain to come to bed +perhaps he had better sit up all night. Mr. Middlerib choked another +sigh, but said nothing and crept into bed. After lying still a few +moments he reached out and got his bottle of bees. + +It was not an easy thing to do to pick one bee out of the bottle with +his fingers and not get into trouble. The first bee Mr. Middlerib got +was a little brown honey-bee, that wouldn't weigh half an ounce if +you picked him up by the ears, but if you lifted him by the hind leg +would weigh as much as the last end of a bay mule. Mr. Middlerib +could not repress a groan. + +"What's the matter with you?" sleepily asked his wife. + +It was very hard for Mr. Middlerib to say he only felt hot, but he +did it. He didn't have to lie about it, either. He did feel very hot +indeed--about eighty-six all over, and one hundred and ninety-seven +on the end of his thumb. He reversed the bee and pressed the warlike +terminus of it firmly against the rheumatic knee. + +It didn't hurt so badly as he thought it would. + +It didn't hurt at all. + +Then Mr. Middlerib remembered that when the honey-bee stabs a human +foe it generally leaves its harpoon in the wound, and the invalid +knew that the only thing this bee had to sting with was doing its +work at the end of his thumb. + +He reached his arm out from under the sheets and dropped this +disabled atom of rheumatism liniment on the carpet. Then, after a +second of blank wonder, he began to feel round for the bottle, and +wished he knew what he did with it. + +In the meantime strange things had been going on. When he caught hold +of the first bee, Mr. Middlerib, for reasons, drew it out in such +haste that for a time he forgot all about the bottle and its remedial +contents, and left it lying uncorked in the bed, between himself and +his innocent wife. In the darkness there had been a quiet but general +emigration from that bottle. The bees, their wings clogged with the +water Mr. Middlerib had poured upon them to cool and tranquillize +them, were crawling aimlessly over the sheet. While Mr. Middlerib was +feeling around for it, his ears were suddenly thrilled and his heart +frozen by a wild, piercing scream from his wife. + +"Murder!" she screamed. "Murder! Oh Help me! Help! Help!" + +Mr. Middlerib sat bolt upright in bed. His hair stood on end. The +night was warm, but he turned to ice in a minute. + +"Where in thunder," he said, with pallid lips, as he felt all over +the bed in frenzied haste, "where in thunder are them infernal bees?" + +And a large "bumble," with a sting as pitiless as the finger of +scorn, just then climbed up the inside of Mr. Middlerib's nightshirt, +until it got squarely between his shoulders, and then it felt for his +marrow, and he said calmly: + +"Here is one of them." + +And Mrs. Middlerib felt ashamed of her feeble screams when Mr. +Middlerib threw up both arms and, with a howl that made the windows +rattle, roared: + +"Take him off! Oh, land of Scott, somebody take him off!" + +And when the little honey-bee began tickling the sole of Mrs. +Middlerib's foot, she shrieked that the house was bewitched, and +immediately went into spasms. + +The household was aroused by this time. Miss Middlerib and Master +Middlerib and the servants were pouring into the room, adding to the +general confusion by howling at random and asking irrelevant +questions, while they gazed at the figure of a man a little on in +years arrayed in a long night-shirt, pawing fiercely at the +unattainable spot in the middle of his back, while he danced an +unnatural, weird, wicked-looking jig by the dim, religious light of +the night-lamp. And while he danced and howled, and while they gazed +and shouted, a navy-blue wasp, that Master Middlerib had put in the +bottle for good measure and variety, and to keep the menagerie +stirred up, had dried his legs and wings with a corner of the sheet, +and after a preliminary circle or two around the bed to get up his +motion and settle down to a working gait, he fired himself across the +room, and to his dying day Mr. Middlerib will always believe that one +of the servants mistook him for a burglar and shot him. + +No one, not even Mr. Middlerib himself, could doubt that he was, at +least for the time, most thoroughly cured of rheumatism. His own boy +could not have carried himself more lightly or with greater agility. +But the cure was not permanent, and Mr. Middlerib does not like to +talk about it.--_New York Weekly_. + + + + +Oliver Wendell Holmes + +AN APHORISM AND A LECTURE + + +One of the boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a very +pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons table- +boarders, which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard +of. Young fellows being always hungry----Allow me to stop dead short, +in order to utter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of +the blank interior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the +cavity of a geode. + +Aphorism by the Professor + +In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food +of different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything +at any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, +and you might as well attempt to regulate the time of high-water to +suit a fishing-party as to change these periods. + +The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the +suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is +eagerly accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established. If +the subject of the question starts back and expresses surprise and +incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in earnest, the fact of +maturity is no less clear. + +--Excuse me--I return to my story of the Commons table. Young fellows +being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the meager fare of +the evening meal, it was a trick of some of the boys to impale a +slice of meat upon a fork at dinner time and stick the fork holding +it beneath the table, so that they could get it at tea time. The +dragons that guarded this table of the Hesperides found out the trick +at last and kept a sharp lookout for missing forks--they knew where +to find one if it was not in its place. Now the odd thing was that, +after waiting so many years to hear of this college trick, I should +hear it mentioned a _second time_ within the same twenty-four +hours by a college youth of the present generation. Strange, but +true. And so it has happened to me and to every person, often and +often, to be hit in rapid succession by these twinned facts or +thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot. + +I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking it +as an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow +of subsoil in it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great many +thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest +our attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the +enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness, +until in some future life we see the photographic record of our +thoughts and the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more +pieces to make up a conscious life or a living body than you think +for. Why, some of you were surprised when a friend of mine told you +there were fifty-eight separate pieces in a fiddle. How many +"swimming glands"--solid, organized, regularly formed, rounded disks, +taking an active part in all your vital processes, part and parcel, +each one of them, of your corporal being--do you suppose are whirled +along like pebbles in a stream with the blood which warms your frame +and colors your cheeks? A noted German physiologist spread out a +minute drop of blood under the microscope, in narrow streaks, and +counted the globules, and then made a calculation. The counting by +the micrometer took him a _week_. You have, my full-grown friend, of +these little couriers in crimson or scarlet livery, running on your +vital errands day and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions +five hundred and seventy thousand millions, errors excepted. Did I +hear some gentleman say "Doubted"? I am the Professor; I sit in my +chair with a petard under it that will blow me through the skylight of +my lecture-room if I do not know what I am talking about and whom I am +quoting. + +Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads +and saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you +had been waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is +it possible that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of +all that I have been saying and its bearing on what is now to come? +Listen, then. The number of these living elements in our body +illustrates the incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of +our thoughts accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; +these coincidences in the world of thought illustrate those which we +constantly observe in the world of outward events, of which the +presence of the young girl now at our table, and proving to be the +daughter of an old acquaintance some of us may remember, is the +special example which led me through this labyrinth of reflections, +and finally lands me at the commencement of this young girl's story, +which, as I said, I have found the time and felt the interest to +learn something of, and which I think I can tell without wronging the +unconscious subject of my brief delineation. + +A Short Lecture on Phrenology + +_Read to the Boarders at Our Breakfast Table _ + +I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a _pseudoscience_. A +pseudoscience consists of a _nomenclature_, with a self-adjusting +arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favors its +doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells +against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some +lucrative practical application. Its professors and practitioners are +usually shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink +and laugh a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude +consists of women of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical +optimists, people who always get cheated in buying horses, +philanthropists who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others +of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less frequently a +lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a +member of the detective police. I did not say that Phrenology was one +of the pseudosciences. + +A pseudoscience does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may +contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank +starts with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay +on the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a +good one. The practitioners of the pseudosciences know that common +minds after they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump +at the merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have +one fact found us, we are very apt to supply the next out of our own +imagination. (How many persons can read Judges XV. 16 correctly the +first time?) The pseudosciences take advantage of this. I did not say +that it was so with Phrenology. + +I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was +_something_ in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly +agreed, promises intellect; one that is "villainous low," and has a +huge hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as +rarely met an unbiased and sensible man who really believed in the +bumps. It is observed, however, that persons with what the +phrenologists call "good heads" are more prone than others +toward plenary belief in the doctrine. + +It is so hard to prove a negative that, if a man should assert that +the moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable +substance of the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I +might be puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar +cheese, I call on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our +satellite before I purchase. + +It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological +statement. It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, +and cannot be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the +head are double, with a great air-chamber between them, over the +smallest and most closely crowded "organs." Can you tell how much +money there is in a safe, which also has thick double walls, by +kneading its knobs with your fingers? So when a man fumbles about my +forehead, and talks about the organs of _Individuality_, _Size_, etc., +I trust him as much as I should if he felt of the outside of my +strongbox and told me that there was a five-dollar or a ten-dollar +bill under this or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; _only he +doesn't know anything about it_. But this is a point that I, the +Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to, certainly, better than +you do. The next argument you will all appreciate. + +I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of +Phrenology, which is _very similar_ to that of the pseudosciences. An +example will show it most conveniently. + +A-- is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and +find a good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for +Phrenology. Casts and drawings of A-- are multiplied, and the bump +_does not lose_ in the act of copying--I did not say it gained. +--What do you look for so? (to the boarders). + +Presently B-- turns up, a bigger thief than A--. But B-- has no bump +at all over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology. +Not a bit of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? +_That's_ the reason B-- stole. + +And then comes C--, ten times as much a thief as either A-- or B--; +used to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own +pockets and put its contents in another, if he could find no other +way of committing petty larceny. Unfortunately C-- has a _hollow_, +instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah! but just look and see +what a bump of Alimentiveness! Did not O-- buy nuts and gingerbread, +when a boy, with the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a +thief, and how his example confirms our noble science. + +At last comes along a case which is apparently a _settler_, for +there is a little brain with vast and varied powers--a case like that +of Byron, for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve--reason +which covers everything and renders it simply impossible ever to +corner a phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the _quality_ of +an organ, which determines its degree of power." + +Oh! oh! I see. The argument may be briefly stated thus by the +phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose." Well, that's convenient. +It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the +pseudosciences. I did not say it was a pseudoscience. + +I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and +amazed at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of +Phrenology had read their characters written upon their skulls. Of +course, the Professor acquires his information solely through his +cranial inspections and manipulations. What are you laughing at? (to +the boarders). But let us just _suppose_, for a moment, that a +tolerably cunning fellow, who did not know or care anything about +Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake to read off people's +characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. Let us see how well he +could get along without the "organs." + +I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one +hundred dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, +and other matters that would make the most show for the money. That +would do to begin with. I would then advertise myself as the +celebrated Professor Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and +wait for my first customer--a middle-aged man. I look at him, ask him +a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang +of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, +dictating as follows: + +SCALE FROM 1 TO 10 + +LIST OF FACULTIES FOR CUSTOMER--PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL: +_Each to be accompanied with a wink._ + +Amativeness, 7 Most men love the conflicting sex, and all men + love to be told they do. + +Alimentiveness, 8 Don't you see that he has burst off his + lowest waistcoat button with feeding--hey? + +Acquisitiveness, 8 Of course. A middle-aged Yankee. + +Approbativeness, 7+ Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the effect of + that plus sign. + +Self-esteem, 6 His face shows that. + +Benevolence, 9 That'll please him. + +Conscientiousness, 8 1/2 That fraction looks first rate. + +Mirthfulness, 7 Has laughed twice since he came in. That sounds + well. + +Ideality, 9 + +Form, Size, Weight, +Color, Locality, +Eventuality, etc., Average everything that can't be guessed. +etc. (4 to 6) + +And so of other faculties + +Of course, you know, that isn't the way the phrenologists do. They go +only by the bumps. What do you keep laughing so for (to the +boarders)? I only said that is the way I should practise "Phrenology" +for a living. + + + + +Joshua S. Morris + +THE HARP OF A THOUSAND STRINGS + + +A Hard-Shell Baptist Sermon + +(This characteristic effusion first appeared in a New Orleans paper. +The locality is supposed to be a village on the bank of the +Mississippi River, whither the volunteer parson had brought his +flatboat for the purpose of trade.) + +I may say to you, my brethring, that I am not an edicated man, an' I +am not one of them as believes that edication is necessary for a +Gospel minister, for I believe the Lord edicates his preachers jest +as he wants 'em to be edicated; an' although I say it that oughtn't +to say it, yet in the State of Indianny, whar I live, thar's no man +as gets bigger congregations nor what I gits. + +Thar may be some here to-day, my brethring, as don't know what +persuasion I am uv. Well, I must say to you, my brethring, that I'm a +Hard-shell Baptist. Thar's some folks as don't like the Hard-shell +Baptists, but I'd rather have a hard shell as no shell at all. You +see me here to-day, my brethring, dressed up in fine clothes; you +mout think I was proud, but I am not proud, my brethring, and +although I've been a preacher of the Gospel for twenty years, an' +although I'm capting of the flatboat that lies at your landing, I'm +not proud, my brethring. + +I am not gwine to tell edzactly whar my tex may be found; suffice to +say, it's in the leds of the Bible, and you'll find it somewhar +between the first chapter of the book of Generations and the last +chapter of the book of Revolutions, and ef you'll go and search the +Scriptures, you'll not only find my tex thar, but a great many other +texes as will do you good to read, and my tex, when you shall find +it, you shall find it to read thus: + +"And he played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men +made perfeck." + +My text, my brethring, leads me to speak of sperits. Now, thar's a +great many kinds of sperits in the world--in the fuss place, thar's +the sperits as some folks call ghosts, and thar's the sperits of +turpentine, and thar's the sperits as some folks call liquor, an' +I've got as good an artikel of them kind of sperits on my flatboat as +ever was fotch down the Mississippi River; but thar's a great many +other kinds of sperits, for the tex says, "He played on a harp uv a +_t-h-o-u-s-_and strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck." + +But I tell you the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex is FIRE. +That's the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex, my brethring. Now, +thar's a great many kinds of fire in the world. In the fuss place, +there's the common sort of fire you light your cigar or pipe with, +and then thar's foxfire and camphire, fire before you're ready, and +fire and fall back, and many other kinds uv fire, for the tex says, +"He played _on_ the harp uv a _thous_and strings, sperits of jest men +made perfeck." + +But I'll tell you the kind of fire as is meant in the tex, my +brethring--it's HELL FIRE! an' that's the kind uv fire as a great +many uv you'll come to, ef you don't do better nor what you have been +doin'--for "He played on a harp uv a _thous_and strings, sperits +uv jest men made perfeck." + +Now, the different sorts of fire in the world may be likened unto the +different persuasions of Christians in the world. In the first place, +we have the Piscapalions, an' they are a high-sailin' and highfalutin' +set, and they may be likened unto a turkey buzzard that flies up into +the air, and he goes up, and up, and up, till he looks no bigger than +your finger nail, and the fust thing you know, he cums down, and down, +and down, and is a-fillin' himself on the carkiss of a dead hoss by +the side of the road, and "He played on a harp uv a _thous_and +strings, sperits uv _jest_ men made perfeck." + +And then thar's the Methodis, and they may be likened unto the +squirril runnin' up into a tree, for the Methodis beleeves in gwine +on from one degree of grace to another, and finally on to perfection, +and the squirril goes up and up, and up and up, and he jumps from +limb to limb, and branch to branch, and the fust thing you know he +falls, and down he cums kerflumix, and that's like the Methodis, for +they is allers fallen from grace, ah! and "He played on a harp uv a +_thous_and strings, sperits of jest men made perfeck." + +And then, my brethring, that's the Baptist, ah! and they have been +likened unto a 'possum on a 'simmon tree, and thunders may roll and +the earth may quake, but that 'possum clings thar still, ah! and you +may shake one foot loose, an the other's thar, and you may shake all +feet loose, and he laps his tail around the limb, and clings, and he +clings furever, for "He played on the harp uv a _thous_and strings, +sperits uv jest men made perfeck." + + + + +Seba Smith + +MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND + + +In the fall of the year 1829 I took it into my head I'd go to +Portland. I had heard a good deal about Portland, what a fine place +it was, and how the folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall +there was a couple of new papers come up to our place from there, +called the _Portland Courier_ and _Family Reader_, and they told a +good many queer kind of things about Portland, and one thing and +another; and all at once it popped into my head, and I up and told +father, and says: + +"I'm going to Portland, whether or no; and I'll see what this world +is made of yet." + +Father stared a little at first and said he was afraid I would get +lost; but when he see I was bent upon it, he give it up, and he +stepped to his chist, and opened the till, and took out a dollar and +gave it to me; and says he: + +"Jack, this is all I can do for you; but go and lead an honest life, +and I believe I shall hear good of you yet." + +He turned and walked across the room, but I could see the tears start +into his eyes. And mother sat down and had a hearty crying spell. + +This made me feel rather bad for a minit or two, and I almost had a +mind to give it up; and then again father's dream came into my mind, +and I mustered up courage and declared I'd go. So I tackled up the +old horse, and packed in a load of ax-handles and a few notions; and +mother fried me some doughnuts and put 'em into a box, along with +some cheese and sausages and ropped me up another shirt, for I told +her I didn't know how long I should be gone. After I got rigged out, +I went round and bid all the neighbors good-by and jumped in and +drove off for Portland. + +Aunt Sally had been married two or three years before and moved to +Portland; and I inquired round till I found out where she lived and +went there and put the old horse up, and ate some supper and went to +bed. + +And the next morning I got up and straightened right off to see the +editor of the _Portland Courier_, for I knew by what I had seen +in his paper that he was just the man to tell me which way to steer. +And when I come to see him, I knew I was right; for soon as I told +him my name and what I wanted, he took me by the hand as kind as if +he had been a brother, and says he: + +"Mister," says he, "I'll do anything I can to assist you. You have +come to a good town. Portland is a healthy, thriving place, and any +man with a proper degree of enterprise may do well here. But," says +he, "stranger," and he looked mighty kind of knowing, says he, "if +you want to make out to your mind, you must do as the steamboats do." + +"Well," says I, "how do they do?" for I didn't know what a steamboat +was any more than the man in the moon. + +"Why," says he, "they go ahead. And you must drive about among the +folks here just as tho' you were at home on the farm among the +cattle. Don't be afraid of any of them, but figure away, and I dare +say you'll get into good business in a very little while. But," says +he, "there's one thing you must be careful of, and that is, not to +get into the hands of those are folks that trades up round Hucklers' +Row, for there's some sharpers up there, if they get hold of you, +would twist your eye-teeth out in five minits." + +Well, arter he had giv me all the good advice he could, I went back +to Aunt Sally's agin and got some breakfast; and then I walked all +over the town, to see what chance I could find to sell my ax-handles +and things and to git into business. + +After I had walked about three or four hours, I come along toward the +upper end of the town, where I found there were stores and shops of +all sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I: + +"What place is this?" + +"Why, this," says he, "is Hucklers' Row." + +"What," says I, "are these the stores where the traders in Hucklers' +Row keep?" + +And says he, "Yes." + +Well, then, says I to myself, I have a pesky good mind to go in and +have a try with one of these chaps and see if they can twist my eye- +teeth out. If they can get the best end of the bargain out of me they +can do what there ain't a man in our place can do; and I should just +like to know what sort of stuff these ere Portland chaps are made of. +So in I goes into the best-looking store among 'em. And I see some +biscuit lying on the shelf, and says I: + +"Mister, how much do you ax apiece for them ere biscuits?" + +"A cent apiece," says he. + +"Well," says I, "I shan't give you that, but if you've a mind to, +I'll give you two cents for three of them, for I begin to feel a +little as tho' I would like to take a bite." + +"Well," says he, "I wouldn't sell 'em to anybody else so, but seeing +it's you I don't care if you take 'em." + +I knew he lied, for he never seen me before in his life. Well, he +handed down the biscuits, and I took 'em, and walked round the store +awhile, to see what else he had to sell. At last says I: + +"Mister, have you got any good cider?" + +Says he, "Yes, as good as ever you see." + +"Well," says I, "what do you ax a glass for it?" + +"Two cents," says he. + +"Well," says I, "seems to me I feel more dry than I do hungry now. +Ain't you a mind to take these ere biscuits again and give me a glass +of cider?" and says he: + +"I don't care if I do." + +So he took and laid 'em on the shelf again and poured out a glass of +cider. I took the glass of cider and drinkt it down, and, to tell you +the truth about it, it was capital good cider. Then says I: + +"I guess it's about time for me to be a-going," and so I stept along +toward the door; but he ups and says, says he: + +"Stop, mister, I believe you haven't paid me for the cider." + +"Not paid you for the cider!" says I; "what do you mean by that? +Didn't the biscuits that I give you just come to the cider?" + +"Oh, ah, right!" says he. + +So I started to go again, but before I had reached the door he says, +says he: + +"But stop, mister, you didn't pay me for the biscuits." + +"What!" says I, "do you mean to impose upon me? Do you think I am +going to pay you for the biscuits, and let you keep them, too? Ain't +they there now on your shelf? What more do you want? I guess, sir, +you don't whittle me in that way." + +So I turned about and marched off and left the feller staring and +scratching his head as tho' he was struck with a dunderment. + +Howsomever, I didn't want to cheat him, only jest to show 'em it +wasn't so easy a matter to pull my eye-teeth out; so I called in next +day and paid him two cents. + + + + +William Cullen Bryant + +THE MOSQUITO + + +Fair insect! that with threadlike legs spread out + And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing, +Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about, + In pitiless ears, full many a plaintive thing, +And tell how little our large veins should bleed, +Would we but yield them to thy bitter need? + +Unwillingly I own, and, what is worse, + Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint; +Thou gettest many a brush and many a curse, + For saying thou art gaunt and starved and faint. +Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, +Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. + +I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween, + Has not the honor of so proud a birth- +Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green, + The offspring of the gods, though born on earth; +For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she, +The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy. + +Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, + And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong, +Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, + Rose in the sky, and bore thee soft along; +The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way, +And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay. + +Calm rose afar the city spires, and thence + Came the deep murmur of its throng of men, +And as its grateful odors met thy sense, + They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen. +Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight +Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight. + +At length thy pinion fluttered in Broadway-- + Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissed +By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray + Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist; +And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin, +Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin. + +Sure these were sights to tempt an anchorite! + What! do I hear thy slender voice complain? +Thou wailest when I talk of beauty's light, + As if it brought the memory of pain. +Thou art a wayward being--well--come near, +And pour thy tale of sorrow in mine ear. + +What say'st thou, slanderer! rouge makes thee sick? + And China Bloom at best is sorry food? +And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick, + Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood. +Go! 'Twas a just reward that met thy crime- +But shun the sacrilege another time. + +That bloom was made to look at--not to touch; + To worship--not approach--that radiant white; +And well might sudden vengeance light on such + As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite. +Thou shouldst have gazed at distance and admired- +Murmur'd thy admiration and retired. + +Thou'rt welcome to the town--but why come here + To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee? +Alas! the little blood I have is dear, + And thin will be the banquet drawn from me. +Look round--the pale-eyed sisters in my cell, +Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, dwell. + +Try some plump alderman, and suck the blood + Enrich'd by gen'rous wine and costly meat; +On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud, + Fix thy light pump, and press thy freckled feet. +Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls, +The oyster breeds and the green turtle sprawls. + +There corks are drawn, and the red vintage flows. + To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now +The ruddy cheek, and now the ruddier nose + Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the brow; +And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings, +No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings. + + + + +John Carver + +COUNTRY BURIAL-PLACES + + +In passing through New England, a stranger will be struck with the +variety, in taste and feeling, respecting burial-places. Here and +there may be seen a solitary grave, in a desolate and dreary pasture +lot, and anon under the shade of some lone tree, the simple stone +reared by affection to the memory of one known and loved by the +humble fireside only. There, on that gentle elevation, sloping green +and beautiful toward the south, is a family enclosure adorned with +trees and filled with the graves of the household. How many breaking +hearts have there left the loved till that bright morning! Here in +this garden, beside the vine-covered arbor and amidst the shrubbery +which her own hand planted, is the monument to the faithful wife and +loving mother. How appropriate! How beautiful! And to the old +landholders of New England, what motive to hold sacred from the hand +of lucre so strong as the ground loved by the living as the burial- +place of _their_ dead! + +Apropos to burying in gardens, I heard a story of an old man who was +bent on interring his wife in his garden, despite of the opposition +of all his neighbors to his doing so. Indeed, the old fellow avowed +this as his chief reason and to all their entreaties and deprecations +and earnest requests he still declared he would do it. Finding +everything they could do to be of no avail, the people bethought +themselves of a certain physician, who was said to have great +influence over the old man, and who owned an orchard adjoining the +very garden; so, going to him in a body, they besought him to attempt +to change the determination of his obstinate friend. The doctor +consented to do so and went. After offering his condolence on the +loss of his wife, and proffering any aid he might be able to render +at the funeral, the doctor said, "I understand you intend to bury +your deceased wife in your garden." + +"Yes," answered the old man, "I do. And the more people object the +more I'm determined to do it!" + +"Right!" replied the doctor, with an emphatic shake of the head, +"Right! I applaud the deed. I'd bury her there, if I was you. The +boys are always stealing the pears from my favorite tree that +overhangs your garden, and by and by you'll die, Uncle Diddie, and +they'll bury you there, too, and then I'm sure that the boys will +never dare steal another pear." + +"No! I'll be hanged if I bury her there," said the old man in great +wrath. "I'll bury her in the graveyard." + +New England can boast her beautiful places of sculpture, but as a +common thing they are too much neglected, and attractive only to the +lover of oddities and curious old epitaphs. Occasionally you may see +a strangely shaped tomb, or as in a well-known village, a knocker +placed on the door of his family vault by some odd specimen of +humanity. When asked the reason for doing so singular a thing, he +gravely replied that "when the old gentleman should come to claim his +own, the tenants might have the pleasure of saying, 'not at home,' or +of fleeing out of the back door." + +In passing through these neglected grounds you will often find some +touchingly beautiful scriptural allusion--some apt quotation or some +emblem so lovely and instructive that the memory of it will go with +you for days. Here in a neglected spot and amid a cluster of raised +stones is the grave of the stranger clergyman's child, who died on +its journey. The inscription is sweet when taken in connection with +the portion of sacred history from which the quotation is made: "Is +it well with the child? And she answered, It is well." Again, the +only inscription is an emblem--a butterfly rising from the chrysalis. +Glorious thought, embodied in emblem so singular! "Sown in +corruption, raised in incorruption!" + +Then come you to some strangely odd, as for instance: + + "Here lies John Auricular, + Who in the ways of the Lord walked perpendicular" + +Again: + + "Many a cold wind o'er my body shall roll + While in Abraham's bosom I'm feasting my soul" + +appropriate certainly, as the grave was on a cold northeast slope of +one of our bleak hills. Again, a Dutchman's epitaph for his twin +babes: + + "Here lies two babes, dead as two nits, + Who shook to death mit ague fits. + They was too good to live mit me. + So God He took 'em to live mit He." + +There is the grave of a young man who, dying suddenly, was eulogized +with this strange aim at the sublime: + + "He lived, + He died!" + +Not a hundred miles from Boston is a gravestone the epitaph upon +which, to all who knew the parties, borders strongly upon the +burlesque. A widower who within a few months buried his wife and +adopted daughter, the former of whom was all her life long a thorn in +his flesh, and whose death could not but have been a relief, wrote +thus: "They were lovely and beloved in their lives, and in death were +not divided." Poor man! Well _he_ knew how full of strife and +sorrow an evil woman can make life! He was worn to a shadow before +her death, and his hair was all gone. Many of the neighbors thought +surely that _he_ well knew what had become of it, especially as +it disappeared by the handful. But the grave covers all faults; and +those who knew her could only hope that she might rest from her +labors and her works follow her! + +On a low, sandy mound far down on the Cape rises a tall slate stone, +with fitting emblems and epitaphs as follows: + + "Here lies Judy and John + That lovely pair, + John was killed by a whale, + And Judy sleeps here." + +--Sketches of New England. + + + + +Danforth Marble + +THE HOOSIER AND THE SALT-PILE + + +"I'm sorry," says Dan, as he knocked the ashes from his regalia, as +he sat in a small crowd over a glass of sherry at Florence's, New +York, one evening. "I'm sorry that the stages are disappearing so +rapidly; I never enjoyed traveling so well as in the slow coaches. +I've made a good many passages over the Alleghanies, and across Ohio, +from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati, all over the South, down +East, and up North, in stages, and I generally had a good time. + +"When I passed over from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the last time, in a +stage, I met a queer crowd--such a _corps_, such a time you never did +see; I never was better amused in my life. We had a good team-- +spanking horses, fine coaches, and one of them _drivers_ you read of. +Well, there was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a +stageful of Christians ever started before so chuck full of music. + +"There was a beautiful young lady going to one of the Cincinnati +academies; next to her sat a Jew peddler--for Cowes and a market; +wedging him in was a dandy blackleg, with jewelry and chains around +his breast and neck--enough to hang him. There was myself and an old +gentleman with large spectacles, gold-headed cane, and a jolly, +soldiering-iron-looking nose; by him was a circus rider whose breath +was enough to breed yaller fever and could be felt just as easy as +cotton velvet! A cross old woman came next, and whose _look_ would +have given any reasonable man the double-breasted blues before +breakfast; alongside of her was a rale backwoods preacher, with the +biggest and ugliest mouth ever got up since the flood. He was flanked +by the low comedian of the party, an Indiana Hoosier, 'gwine down to +Orleans to get an army contract' to supply the forces then in Mexico +with beef. + +"We rolled along for some time; nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The +old aunty sot bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the +Hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of +her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat, to nod +and dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalettes and poetry; the old +gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph 'nose,' looked out at the +'corduroy' and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the +circus covey followed suit, leaving the preacher and me _vis-a-vis_ +and saying nothing to nobody. 'Indiany,' he stuck his mug out at the +window and criticized the cattle we now and then passed. I was +wishing somebody would give the conversation a start, when 'Indiany' +made a break: + +"'This ain't no great stock country,' says he to the old gentleman +with the cane. + +"'No, sir,' was the reply. 'There's very little grazing here; the +range is nearly wore out.' + +"Then there was nothing said again for some time. Bimeby the Hoosier +opened again: + +"'It's the d----est place for 'simmon trees and turkey buzzards I +ever did see!' + +"The old gentleman with the cane didn't say nothing, and the preacher +gave a long groan. The young lady smiled through her veil, and the +old lady snapped her eyes and looked sideways at the speaker. + +"'Don't make much beef here, I reckon,' says the Hoosier. + +"'No,' says the gentleman. + +"'Well, I don't see how in h-ll they all manage to get along in a +country whar thar ain't no ranges and they don't make no beef. A man +ain't considered worth a cuss in Indiany what hasn't got his brand on +a hundred head.' + +"'Yours is a great beef country, I believe,' says the old gentleman. + +"'Well, sir, it ain't anything else. A man that's got sense enuff to +foller his own cow-bell with us ain't in no danger of starvin'. I'm +gwine down to Orleans to see if I can't git a contract out of Uncle +Sam to feed the boys what's been lickin' them infernal Mexicans so +bad. I s'pose you've seed them cussed lies what's been in the papers +about the Indiany boys at Bony Visty.' + +"'I've read some accounts of the battle,' says the old gentleman, +`that didn't give a very flattering account of the conduct of some of +our troops.' + +"With that the Indiany man went into a full explanation of the +affair, and, gittin' warmed up as he went along, begun to cuss and +swear like he'd been through a dozen campaigns himself. The old +preacher listened to him with evident signs of displeasure, twistin' +and groanin' till he couldn't stand it no longer. + +"'My friend,' says he, 'you must excuse me, but your conversation +would be a great deal more interesting to me--and I'm sure would +please the company much better--if you wouldn't swear so terribly. +It's very wrong to swear and I hope you'll have respect for our +feelings if you hain't no respect for your Maker.' + +"If the Hoosier had been struck with thunder and lightnin' he +couldn't have been more completely tuck a-back. He shut his mouth +right in the middle of what he was sayin' and looked at the preacher, +while his face got as red as fire. + +"'Swearin',' says the preacher, 'is a terrible bad practice, and +there ain't no use in it nohow. The Bible says, "swear not at all," +and I s'pose you know the Commandments about swearin'?' + +"The old lady sort of brightened up--the preacher was her `duck of a +man'; the old fellow with the `nose' and cane let off a few `umph, +ah! umphs.' But 'Indiany' kept shady; he appeared to be _cowed_ down. + +"'I know,' says the preacher, 'that a great many people swear without +thinkin', and some people don't believe the Bible.' + +"And then he went on to preach a regular sermon agin swearing, and to +quote Scripture like he had the whole Bible by heart. In the course +of his argument he undertook to prove the Scriptures to be true, and +told us all about the miracles and prophecies, and their fulfilment. +The old gentleman with the cane took a part in the conversation, and +the Hoosier listened without ever opening his head. + +"'I've just heard of a gentleman,' says the preacher, 'that's been to +the Holy Land and went over the Bible country. It's astonishin' to +hear what wonderful things he has seen. He was at Sodom and Gomorrow, +and seen the place whar Lot's wife fell!' + +"'Ah,' says the old gentleman with the cane. + +"'Yes,' says the preacher, 'he went to the very spot; and what's the +remarkablest thing of all, he seen the pillar of salt what she was +turned into!' + +"'Is it possible!' says the old gentleman. + +"'Yes, sir; he seen the salt, standin' thar to this day.' + +"'What!' says the Hoosier,'real genewine, good salt?' + +"'Yes, sir; a pillar of salt, jest as it was when that wicked woman +was punished for her disobedience.' + +"All but the gambler, who was snoozing in the corner of the coach, +looked at the preacher--the Hoosier with an expression of countenance +that plainly told that his mind was powerfully convicted of an +important fact. + +"'Right out in the open air?' he asked. + +"'Yes, standin' right in the open field, whar she fell.' + +"'Well, sir,' says 'Indiany,' 'all I've got to say is, _if she'd +dropped in our parts, the cattle would have licked her up afore +sundown!_' + +"The preacher raised both his hands at such an irreverent remark, and +the old gentleman laughed himself into a fit of asthmatics; what he +didn't get over till he came to the next change of horses. The +Hoosier had played the mischief with the gravity of the whole party; +even the old maid had to put her handkerchief to her face, and the +young lady's eyes were filled with tears for half an hour afterward. +The old preacher hadn't another word to say on the subject; but +whenever we came to any place or met anybody on the road, the circus +man cursed the thing along by asking what was the price of salt." + + + + +Anne Bache + +THE QUILTING + + +The day is set, the ladies met, + And at the frame are seated; +In order plac'd, they work in haste, + To get the quilt completed. +While fingers fly, their tongues they ply, + And animate their labors, +By counting beaux, discussing clothes, + Or talking of their neighbors. + +"Dear, what a pretty frock you've on--" + "I'm very glad you like it." +"I'm told that Miss Micomicon + Don't speak to Mr. Micat." +"I saw Miss Bell the other day, + Young Green's new gig adorning--" +"What keeps your sister Ann away?" + "She went to town this morning." + +"'Tis time to roll"--"my needle's broke--" + "So Martin's stock is selling;"- +"Louisa's wedding-gown's bespoke--" + "Lend me your scissors, Ellen." +"_That_ match will never come about--" + "Now don't fly in a passion;" +"Hair-puffs, they say, are going out--" + "Yes, curls are all in fashion." + +The quilt is done, the tea begun- + The beaux are all collecting; +The table's cleared, the music heard- + His partner each selecting. +The merry band in order stand, + The dance begins with vigor; +And rapid feet the measure beat, + And trip the mazy figure. + +Unheeded fly the moments by, + Old Time himself seems dancing, +Till night's dull eye is op'd to spy + The steps of morn advancing. +Then closely stowed, to each abode, + The carriages go tilting; +And many a dream has for its theme + The pleasures of the Quilting. + + + + +Fitz-Greene Halleck + +A FRAGMENT + + +His shop is a grocer's--a snug, genteel place, + Near the corner of Oak Street and Pearl; +He can dress, dance, and bow to the ladies with grace, + And ties his cravat with a curl. + +He's asked to all parties--north, south, east and west, + That take place between Chatham and Cherry, +And when he's been absent full oft has the "best + Society" ceased to be merry. + +And nothing has darkened a sky so serene, + Nor disordered his beauship's Elysium, +Till this season among our _elite_ there has been + What is called by the clergy "a schism." + +'Tis all about eating and drinking--one set + Gives sponge-cake, a few kisses or so, +And is cooled after dancing with classic sherbet + "Sublimed" [see Lord Byron] "with snow." + +Another insists upon punch and _perdrix_, + Lobster salad, champagne, and, by way +Of a novelty only, those pearls of our sea, + Stewed oysters from Lynn-Haven Bay. + +Miss Flounce, the young milliner, blue-eyed and bright, + In the front parlor over her shop, +"Entertains," as the phrase is, a party to-night + Upon peanuts and ginger pop. + +And Miss Fleece, who's a hosier and not quite as young, + But is wealthier far than Miss Flounce, +She "entertains" also to-night, with cold tongue, + Smoked herring and cherry bounce. + +In praise of cold water the Theban bard spoke, + He of Teos sang sweetly of wine; +Miss Flounce is a Pindar in cashmere and cloak, + Miss Fleece an Anacreon divine. + +The Montagues carry the day in Swamp Place, + In Pike Street the Capulets reign; +A _limonadiere_ is the badge of one race, + Of the other a flask of champagne. + +Now as each the same evening her _soiree_ announces, + What better, he asks, can be done, +Than drink water from eight until ten with the Flounces, + And then wine with the Fleeces till one! + + + + +DOMESTIC HAPPINESS + + +"Beside the nuptial curtain bright," + The Bard of Eden sings; +"Young Love his constant lamp will light + And wave his purple wings." +But raindrops from the clouds of care + May bid that lamp be dim, +And the boy Love will pout and swear, + 'Tis then no place for him. + +So mused the lovely Mrs. Dash; + 'Tis wrong to mention names; +When for her surly husband's cash + She urged in vain her claims. +"I want a little money, dear, + For Vandervoort and Flandin, +Their bill, which now has run a year, + To-morrow mean to hand in." + +"More?" cried the husband, half asleep, + "You'll drive me to despair"; +The lady was too proud to weep, + And too polite to swear. +She bit her lip for very spite, + He felt a storm was brewing, +And dream'd of nothing else all night, + But brokers, banks, and ruin. + +He thought her pretty once, but dreams + Have sure a wondrous power, +For to his eye the lady seems + Quite alter'd since that hour; +And Love, who on their bridal eve, + Had promised long to stay; +Forgot his promise, took French leave, + And bore his lamp away. + + + + +Charles F. Browne ("Artemus Ward") + +ONE OF MR. WARD'S BUSINESS LETTERS + + +To the Editor of the-- + +_Sir:_ I'm movin along--slowly along--down tords your place. I +want you should rite me a letter, saying how is the show bizness in +your place. My show at present consists of three moral Bares, a +Kangaroo (a amoozin little Raskal--'twould make you larf yourself to +deth to see the little cuss jump up and squeal), wax figgers of G. +Washington, Gen. Tayler, John Bunyan, Capt. Kidd, and Dr. Webster in +the act of killin Dr. Parkman, besides several miscellanyus moral wax +statoots of celebrated piruts & murderers, &c., ekalled by few & +exceld by none. Now, Mr. Editor, scratch orf a few lines sayin how is +the show bizniss down to your place. I shall hav my hanbills dun at +your offiss. Depend upon it. I want you should git my hanbills up in +flamin stile. Also git up a tremenjus excitemunt in yr. paper 'bowt +my onparaleled Show. We must fetch the public sumhow. We must wurk on +their feelins. Cum the moral on em strong. If it's a temperance +community, tell em I sined the pledge fifteen minits arter Ise born, +but on the contery, ef your peple take their tods, say Mister Ward is +as Jenial a feller as ever we met. full of conwiviality, & the life +an sole of the Soshul Bored. Take, don't you? If you say anythin +abowt my show, say my snaiks is as harmliss as the new born Babe. +What a interistin study it is to see a zewological animil like a +snake under perfect subjecshun! My kangaroo is the most larfable +little cuss I ever saw. All for 15 cents. I am anxyus to skewer your +inflooence. I repeet in regard to them hanbills that I shall git 'em +struck orf up to your printin office. My perlitical sentiments agree +with yourn exactly. I know they do, becaws I never saw a man whoos +didn't. + +Respectively yures, A. WARD. + +P.S.--You scratch my back & Ile scratch your back. + + + + +ON "FORTS" + + +Every man has got a Fort. It's sum men's fort to do one thing, and +some other men's fort to do another, while there is numeris shiftliss +critters goin' round loose whose fort is not to do nothin'. + +Shakspeer rote good plase, but he wouldn't hav succeeded as a +Washington correspondent of a New York daily paper. He lackt the +rekesit fancy and immagginashun. + +That's so! + +Old George Washington's Fort was not to hev eny public man of the +present day resemble him to eny alarmin extent. Whare bowts can +George's ekal be found? I ask, & boldly answer no whares, or any +whare else. + +Old man Townsin's Fort was to maik Sassy-periller. "Goy to the world! +anuther life saived!" (Cotashun from Townsin's advertisement.) + +Cyrus Field's Fort is to lay a sub-machine tellegraf under the +boundin billers of the Oshun and then have it Bust. + +Spaldin's Fort is to maik Prepared Gloo, which mends everything. +Wonder ef it will mend a sinner's wickid waze. (Impromptoo goak.) + +Zoary's Fort is to be a femaile circus feller. + +My Fort is the grate moral show bizniss & ritin choice famerly +literatoor for the noospapers. That's what's the matter with _me_. + +&., &., &. So I mite go on to a indefnit extent. + +Twict I've endevered to do things which thay wasn't my Fort. The fust +time was when I undertuk to lick a owdashus cuss who cut a hole in my +tent & krawld threw. Sez I, "My jentle Sir, go out or I shall fall on +to you putty hevy." Sez he, "Wade in, Old wax figgers," whereupon I +went for him, but he cawt me powerful on the hed & knockt me threw +the tent into a cow pastur. He pursood the attack & flung me into a +mud puddle. As I arose & rung out my drencht garmints I koncluded +fitin wasn't my Fort. He now rize the kurtin upon Seen 2nd: It is +rarely seldum that I seek consolation in the Flowin Bole. But in a +certain town in Injianny in the Faul of 18--, my orgin grinder got +sick with the fever & died. I never felt so ashamed in my life, & I +thowt I'd hist in a few swallers of suthin strengthnin. Konsequents +was I histid in so much I didn't zackly know whare bowts I was. I +turned my livin wild beasts of Pray loose into the streets and spilt +all my wax wurks. I then bet I cood play hoss. So I hitched myself to +a Kanawl bote, there bein two other hosses hicht on also, one behind +and another ahead of me. The driver hollerd for us to git up, and we +did. But the hosses bein onused to sich a arrangemunt begun to kick & +squeal and rair up. Konsequents was I was kickt vilently in the +stummuck & back, and presuntly I fownd myself in the Kanawl with the +other hosses, kickin & yellin like a tribe of Cusscaroorus savvijis. +I was rescood & as I was bein carrid to the tavern on a hemlock Bored +I sed in a feeble voise, "Boys, playin hoss isn't my Fort." + +_Morul_.--Never don't do nothin which isn't your Fort, for ef you do +you'll find yourself splashin round in the Kanawl, figgeratively +speakin. + + + + +James Russell Lowell + +WITHOUT AND WITHIN + + +My coachman, in the moonlight there, + Looks through the sidelight of the door; +I hear him with his brethren swear, + As I could do--but only more. + +Flattening his nose against the pane, + He envies me my brilliant lot, +Breathes on his aching fist in vain, + And dooms me to a place more hot. + +He sees me into supper go, + A silken wonder at my side, +Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row + Of flounces, for the door too wide. + +He thinks how happy is my arm, + 'Neath its white-gloved and jeweled load; +And wishes me some dreadful harm, + Hearing the merry corks explode. + +Meanwhile I inly curse the bore + Of hunting still the same old coon, +And envy him, outside the door, + The golden quiet of the moon. + +The winter wind is not so cold + As the bright smile he sees me win, +Nor the host's oldest wine so old + As our poor gabble, sour and thin. + +I envy him the rugged prance + By which his freezing feet he warms, +And drag my lady's chains and dance, + The galley-slave of dreary forms. + +Oh, could he have my share of din, + And I his quiet--past a doubt +'Twould still be one man bored within, + And just another bored without. + + + + +Louisa May Alcott + +STREET SCENES IN WASHINGTON + + +The mules were my especial delight; and an hour's study of a constant +succession of them introduced me to many of their characteristics: +for six of these odd little beasts drew each army wagon and went +hopping like frogs through the stream of mud that gently rolled along +the street. The coquettish mule had small feet, a nicely trimmed +tassel of a tail, perked-up ears, and seemed much given to little +tosses of the head, affected skips and prances; and, if he wore the +bells or were bedizened with a bit of finery, put on as many airs as +any belle. The moral mule was a stout, hard-working creature, always +tugging with all his might, often pulling away after the rest had +stopped, laboring under the conscientious delusion that food for the +entire army depended upon his private exertions. I respected this +style of mule; and, had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have +pressed it upon him with thanks for his excellent example. The +histrionic mule was a melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling +humanity by erratic leaps and wild plunges, much shaking of his +stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then +falling flat and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp--a squirm--a +flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all +swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation +decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk and haul. +When the last breath seemed to have left his body, and "doctors were +in vain," a sudden resurrection took place; and if ever a mule +laughed with scornful triumph, that was the beast, as he leisurely +rose, gave a comfortable shake, and, calmly regarding the excited +crowd, seemed to say--"A hit! a decided hit! for the stupidest of +animals has bamboozled a dozen men. Now, then! what are _you_ +stopping the way for?" The pathetic mule was, perhaps, the most +interesting of all; for, though he always seemed to be the smallest, +thinnest, weakest of the six, the postillion with big boots, long- +tailed coat and heavy whip was sure to bestride this one, who +struggled feebly along, head down, coat muddy and rough, eye +spiritless and sad, his very tail a mortified stump, and the whole +beast a picture of meek misery, fit to touch a heart of stone. The +jovial mule was a roly-poly, happy-go-lucky little piece of +horseflesh, taking everything easily, from cudgeling to caressing; +strolling along with a roguish twinkle of the eye, and, if the thing +were possible, would have had his hands in his pockets and whistled +as he went. If there ever chanced to be an apple core, a stray turnip +or wisp of hay in the gutter, this Mark Tapley was sure to find it, +and none of his mates seemed to begrudge him his bite. I suspected +this fellow was the peacemaker, confidant and friend of all the +others, for he had a sort of "Cheer-up-old-boy-I'll-pull-you-through" +look which was exceedingly engaging. + +Pigs also possessed attractions for me, never having had an +opportunity of observing their graces of mind and manner till I came +to Washington, whose porcine citizens appeared to enjoy a larger +liberty than many of its human ones. Stout, sedate-looking pigs +hurried by each morning to their places of business, with a +preoccupied air, and sonorous greetings to their friends. Genteel +pigs, with an extra curl to their tails, promenaded in pairs, +lunching here and there, like gentlemen of leisure. Rowdy pigs pushed +the passersby off the sidewalk; tipsy pigs hiccoughed their version +of "We won't go home till morning" from the gutter; and delicate +young pigs tripped daintily through the mud as if they plumed +themselves upon their ankles, and kept themselves particularly neat +in point of stockings. Maternal pigs, with their interesting +families, strolled by in the sun; and often the pink, baby-like +squealers lay down for a nap, with a trust in Providence worthy of +human imitation.--_Hospital Sketches._ + + + + +MIS' SMITH + + +All day she hurried to get through, The same as lots of wimmin do; +Sometimes at night her husban' said, "Ma, ain't you goin' to come to +bed?" And then she'd kinder give a hitch, And pause half way between a +stitch, And sorter sigh, and say that she Was ready as she'd ever be, +She reckoned. + +And so the years went one by one, An' somehow she was never done; An' +when the angel said, as how "Miss Smith, it's time you rested now," +She sorter raised her eyes to look A second, as a stitch she took; +"All right, I'm comin' now," says she, "I'm ready as I'll ever be, I +reckon." + +Albert Bigelow Paine. + + + + +A BOSTON LULLABY + + +Baby's brain is tired of thinking + On the Wherefore and the Whence; +Baby's precious eyes are blinking + With incipient somnolence. + +Little hands are weary turning + Heavy leaves of lexicon; +Little nose is fretted learning + How to keep its glasses on. + +Baby knows the laws of nature + Are beneficent and wise; +His medulla oblongata + Bids my darling close his eyes + +And his pneumogastrics tell him + Quietude is always best +When his little cerebellum + Needs recuperative rest. + +Baby must have relaxation, + Let the world go wrong or right- +Sleep, my darling, leave Creation + To its chances for the night. + +James Jeffrey Roche. + + + + +IRISH ASTRONOMY + + +O'Ryan was a man of might + Whin Ireland was a nation, +But poachin' was his heart's delight + And constant occupation. +He had an ould militia gun, + And sartin sure his aim was; +He gave the keepers many a run, + And wouldn't mind the game laws + +St. Pathrick wanst was passin' by + O'Ryan's little houldin', +And, as the saint felt wake and dhry + He thought he'd enther bould in. +"O'Ryan," says the saint, "avick! + To praich at Thurles I'm goin'; +So let me have a rasher quick, + And a dhrop of Innishowen." + +"No rasher will I cook for you + While betther is to spare, sir, +But here's a jug of mountain dew, + And there's a rattlin' hare, sir." +St. Pathrick he looked mighty sweet, + And says he, "Good luck attind you, +And whin you're in your windin' sheet, + It's up to heaven I'll sind you." + +O'Ryan gave his pipe a whiff- + "Them tidin's is thransportin', +But may I ax your saintship if + There's any kind of sportin'?" +St. Pathrick said, "A Lion's there, + Two Bears, a Bull, and Cancer"- +"Bedad," says Mick, "the huntin's rare; + St. Pathrick, I'm your man, sir." + +So, to conclude my song aright, + For fear I'd tire your patience +You'll see O'Ryan any night, + Amid the constellations. +And Venus follows in his track + Till Mars grows jealous raally, +But, faith, he fears the Irish knack + Of handling the shillaly. + +Charles Graham Halpine. + + + + +BESSIE BROWN, M.D. + + +'Twas April when she came to town; + The birds had come, the bees were swarming. +Her name, she said, was Doctor Brown: + I saw at once that she was charming. +She took a cottage tinted green, + Where dewy roses loved to mingle; +And on the door, next day, was seen + A dainty little shingle. + +Her hair was like an amber wreath; + Her hat was darker, to enhance it. +The violet eyes that glowed beneath + Were brighter than her keenest lancet. +The beauties of her glove and gown + The sweetest rhyme would fail to utter. +Ere she had been a day in town + The town was in a flutter. + +The gallants viewed her feet and hands, + And swore they never saw such wee things; +The gossips met in purring bands + And tore her piecemeal o'er the tea things. +The former drank the Doctor's health + With clinking cups, the gay carousers; +The latter watched her door by stealth, + Just like so many mousers. + +But Doctor Bessie went her way + Unmindful of the spiteful cronies, +And drove her buggy every day + Behind a dashing pair of ponies. +Her flower-like face so bright she bore + I hoped that time might never wilt her. +The way she tripped across the floor + Was better than a philter. + +Her patients thronged the village street; + Her snowy slate was always quite full. +Some said her bitters tasted sweet, + And some pronounced her pills delightful. +'Twas strange--I knew not what it meant- + She seemed a nymph from Eldorado; +Where'er she came, where'er she went, + Grief lost its gloomy shadow. + +Like all the rest, I, too, grew ill; + My aching heart there was no quelling. +I tremble at my Doctor's bill- + And lo! the items still are swelling. +The drugs I've drunk you'd weep to hear! + They've quite enriched the fair concocter, +And I'm a ruined man, I fear, + Unless--I wed the Doctor! + +Samuel Minturn Peck. + + + + +THE TROUT, THE CAT AND THE FOX + +A Fable + +(Anonymous) + + +A fine full-grown Trout for had some time kept his station in a clear +stream, when, one morning, a Cat, extravagantly fond, as cats are +wont to be, of fish, caught a glimpse of him, as he glided from +beneath an overhanging part of the bank, toward the middle of the +river; and with this glimpse, she resolved to spare no pains to +capture him. As she sat on the bank waiting for the return of the +fish, and laying a plan for her enterprise, a Fox came up, and +saluting her, said: + +"Your servant, Mrs. Puss. A pleasant place this for taking the +morning air; and a notable place for fish, eh!" + +"Good morning, Mr. Reynard," replied the Cat. "The place is, as you +say, pleasant enough. As for fish, you can judge for yourself whether +there are any in this part of the river. I do not deny that near the +falls, about four miles from here, some very fine salmon and other +fish are to be found." + +At this very moment, very inappositely for the Cat's hint, the Trout +made his appearance; and the Fox looking significantly at her, said: + +"The falls, madam! Perhaps this fine Trout is on his way thither. It +may be that you would like the walk; allow me the pleasure of +accompanying you?" + +"I thank you, sir," replied the Cat, "but I am not disposed to walk +so far at present. Indeed, I hardly know whether I am quite well. I +think I will rest myself a little, and then return home." + +"Whatever you may determine," rejoined the Fox, "I hope to be +permitted to enjoy your society and conversation; and possibly I may +have the great gratification of preventing the tedium which, were you +left alone, your indisposition might produce." + +In speaking thus, the crafty Fox had no doubt that the only +indisposition from which the Cat was suffering was an unwillingness +to allow him a share of her booty; and he was determined that, so far +as management could go, she should catch no fish that day without his +being a party to the transaction. As the trout still continued in +sight, be began to commend his shape and color; and the Cat, seeing +no way of getting rid of him, finally agreed that they should jointly +try their skill and divide the spoil. Upon this compact, they both +went actively to work. + +They agreed first to try the following device: A small knob of earth +covered with rushes stood in the water close to the bank. Both the +fishers were to crouch behind these rushes; the Fox was to move the +water very gently with the end of his long brush, and withdraw it so +soon as the Trout's attention should have been drawn to that point; +and the Cat was to hold her right paw underneath, and be ready, so +soon as the fish should come over it, to throw him out on the bank. +No sooner was the execution of this device commenced than it seemed +likely to succeed. The Trout soon noticed the movement on the water, +and glided quickly toward the point where it was made; but when he +had arrived within about twice his own length of it, he stopped and +then backed toward the middle of the river. Several times this +maneuver was repeated, and always with the same result, until the +tricky pair were convinced that they must try some other scheme. + +It so happened that whilst they were considering what they should do +next, the Fox espied a small piece of meat, when it was agreed that +he should tear this into little bits and throw them into the stream +above where they then were; that the Cat should wait, crouched behind +a tuft of grass, to dash into the river and seize the Trout, if he +should come to take any piece of meat floating near the bank; and +that the Fox should, on the first movement of the Cat, return and +give his help. This scheme was put into practice, but with no better +success than the other. The Trout came and took the pieces of meat +which had floated farthest off from the bank, but to those which +floated near he seemed to pay no attention. As he rose to take the +last, he put his mouth out of the water and said, "To other travelers +with these petty tricks: here we are 'wide awake as a black fish' and +are not to be caught with bits and scraps, like so many silly +gudgeons!" + +As the Trout went down, the Fox said, in an undertone: "Say you so, +my fine fellow; we may, perhaps, make a _gudgeon_ of you yet!" + +Then, turning to the Cat, he proposed to her a new scheme in the +following terms: + +"I have a scheme to propose which cannot, I am persuaded, fail of +succeeding, if you will lend your talent and skill for the execution +of it. As I crossed the bridge, a little way above, I saw the dead +body of a small dog, and near it a flat piece of wood rather longer +than your person. Now, let us throw the dead dog into the river and +give the Trout time to examine it; then, let us put the piece of wood +into the water, and do you set yourself upon it so that it shall be +lengthwise under you, and your mouth may lean over one edge and your +tail hang in the water as if you were dead. The Trout, no doubt, will +come up to you, when you may seize him and paddle to the bank with +him, where I will be in waiting to help you land the prey." + +The scheme pleased the Cat so much that, in spite of her repugnance +to the wetting, which it promised her, she resolved to act the part +which the cunning Fox had assigned to her. They first threw the dead +dog into the river and, going down the stream, they soon had the +satisfaction of seeing the Trout glide up close to it and examine it. +They then returned to the bridge and put the piece of wood into the +water, and the Cat, having placed herself upon it and taken a posture +as if she were dead, was soon carried down by the current to where +the Trout was. Apparently without the least suspicion, he came up +close to the Cat's head, and she, seizing him by one of his gills, +held him in spite of all his struggles. The task of regaining the +bank still had to be performed, and this was no small difficulty, for +the Trout struggled so hard, and the business of navigation was so +new to the Cat, that not without great labor and fatigue did she +reach the place where the Fox was waiting for her. As one end of the +board struck the bank, the Fox put his right forepaw upon it, then +seizing the fish near the tail, as the Cat let it go, he gave the +board a violent push which sent it toward the middle of the stream, +and instantly ran off with the Trout in his mouth toward the bridge. + +It had so happened that after the Fox had quitted the bridge the last +time, an Otter had come there to watch for fish, and he, seeing the +Trout in the Fox's mouth, rushed toward him, and compelled him to +drop the fish and put himself on the defensive. It had also happened +that this Otter had been seen in an earlier part of the day, and that +notice of him had been given to the farmer to whom the Cat belonged, +and who had more than once declared that if ever he found her fishing +again she should be thrown into the river with a stone tied to her +neck. The moment the farmer heard of the Otter, he took his gun, and +followed by a laborer and two strong dogs, went toward the river, +where he arrived just as the Cat, exhausted by the fatigue of her +second voyage, was crawling up the bank. Immediately he ordered the +laborer to put the sentence of drowning in execution; then, followed +by his dogs, he arrived near the bridge just as the Fox and the Otter +were about to join battle. Instantly the dogs set on the Fox and tore +him to pieces; and the farmer, shooting the Otter dead on the spot, +possessed himself of the Trout, which had thus served to detain first +one, then the other of his destroyers, till a severe punishment had +overtaken each of them. Moral.--The inexperienced are never so much +in danger of being deceived and hurt as when they think themselves a +match for the crafty, and suppose that they have penetrated their +designs and seen through all their stratagems. As to the crafty, they +are ever in danger, either by being overreached one by another or of +falling in a hurry into some snare of their own, where, as commonly +happens, should they be caught, they are treated with a full measure +of severity.--Aesop, Jr., in America. + + + + +Robert C. Sands + +A MONODY + + +Made on the Late Mr. Samuel Patch, by an Aadmirer of the Bathos + +By water he shall die and take his end.--Shakespeare + +Toll for Sam Patch! Sam Patch, who jumps no more, + This or the world to come. Sam Patch is dead! +The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore + Of dark futurity, he would not tread. + No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed; +Nor with decorous woe, sedately stepp'd + Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed-- +The mighty river, as it onward swept, +In one great wholesale sob, his body drowned and kept. + +Toll for Sam Patch! he scorned the common way + That leads to fame, up heights of rough ascent, +And having heard Pope and Longinus say + That some great men had risen by falls, he went + And jumped, where wild Passaic's waves had rent +The antique rocks--the air free passage gave-- + And graciously the liquid element +Upbore him, like some sea-god on its wave; +And all the people said that Sam was very brave. + +Fame, the clear spirit that doth to heaven upraise, + Let Sam to dive into what Byron calls +The hell of waters. For the sake of praise, + He wooed the bathos down great waterfalls; + The dizzy precipice, which the eye appals +Of travelers for pleasure, Samuel found + Pleasant as are to women lighted halls, +Crammed full of fools and fiddles; to the sound +Of the eternal roar, he timed his desperate bound. + +Sam was a fool. But the large world of such + Has thousands--better taught, alike absurd, +And less sublime. Of fame he soon got much, + Where distant cataracts spout, of him men heard. + Alas for Sam! Had he aright preferred +The kindly element, to which he gave + Himself so fearlessly, we had not heard +That it was now his winding sheet and grave, +Nor sung, 'twixt tears and smiles, our requiem for the brave. + +He soon got drunk with rum and with renown, + As many others in high places do-- +Whose fall is like Sam's last--for down and down, + By one mad impulse driven, they flounder through + The gulf that keeps the future from our view, +And then are found not. May they rest in peace! + We heave the sigh to human frailty due-- +And shall not Sam have his? The muse shall cease +To keep the heroic roll, which she began in Greece-- + +With demigods who went to the Black Sea + For wool (and if the best accounts be straight, +Came back, in Negro phraseology, + With the same wool each upon his pate), + In which she chronicled the deathless fate +Of him who jumped into the perilous ditch + Left by Rome's street commissioners, in a state +Which made it dangerous, and by jumping which +He made himself renowned and the contractors rich-- + +I say the muse shall quite forget to sound + The chord whose music is undying, if +She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drowned. + Leander dived for love. Leucadia's cliff + The Lesbian Sappho leapt from in a miff, +To punish Phaon; Icarus went dead + Because the wax did not continue stiff; +And, had he minded what his father said, +He had not given a name unto his watery bed. + +And Helle's case was all an accident, + As everybody knows. Why sing of these? +Nor would I rank with Sam that man who went + Down into Aetna's womb--Empedocles, + I think he called himself. Themselves to please, +Or else unwillingly, they made their springs; + For glory in the abstract, Sam made his, +To prove to all men, commons, lords, and kings, +That "some things may be done, as well as other things." + +I will not be fatigued, by citing more + Who jump'd of old, by hazard or design, +Nor plague the weary ghosts of boyish lore, + Vulcan, Apollo, Phaeton--in fine + All Tooke's Pantheon. Yet they grew divine +By their long tumbles; and if we can match + Their hierarchy, shall we not entwine +One wreath? Who ever came "up to the scratch," +And for so little, jumped so bravely as Sam Patch? + +To long conclusions many men have jumped + In logic, and the safer course they took; +By any other they would have been stumped, + Unable to argue, or to quote a book, + And quite dumbfounded, which they cannot brook; +They break no bones, and suffer no contusion, + Hiding their woful fall, by hook and crook, +In slang and gibberish, sputtering and confusion; +But that was not the way Sam came to _his_ conclusion. + +He jumped in person. Death or victory + Was his device, "and there was no mistake," +Except his last; and then he did but die, + A blunder which the wisest men will make. + Aloft, where mighty floods the mountains break, +To stand, the target of the thousand eyes, + And down into the coil and water-quake, +To leap, like Maia's offspring, from the skies-- +For this all vulgar flights he ventured to despise. + +And while Niagara prolongs its thunder, + Though still the rock primeval disappears +And nations change their bounds--the theme of wonder + Shall Sam go down the cataract of long years: + And if there be sublimity in tears, +Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed + When his frail star gave way, and waked his fears, +Lest, by the ungenerous crowd it might be said, +That he was all a hoax, or that his pluck had fled. + +Who would compare the maudlin Alexander, + Blubbering because he had no job in hand, +Acting the hypocrite, or else the gander, + With Sam, whose grief we all can understand? + His crying was not womanish, nor plann'd +For exhibition; but his heart o'erswelled + With its own agony, when he the grand, +Natural arrangements for a jump beheld. +And measuring the cascade, found not his courage quelled. + +His last great failure set the final seal + Unto the record Time shall never tear, +While bravery has its honor--while men feel + The holy natural sympathies which are + First, last and mightiest in the bosom. Where +The tortured tides of Genesee descend, + He came--his only intimate a bear-- +(We know now that he had another friend), +The martyr of renown, his wayward course to end. + +The fiend that from the infernal rivers stole + Hell-drafts for man, too much tormented him; +With nerves unstrung, but steadfast of his soul, + He stood upon the salient current's brim; + His head was giddy, and his sight was dim; +And then he knew this leap would be his last-- + Saw air, and earth, and water, wildly swim, +With eyes of many multitudes, dense and vast, +That stared in mockery; none a look of kindness cast. + +Beat down, in the huge amphitheatre, + "I see before me the gladiator lie," +And tier on tier, the myriads waiting there + The bow of grace without one pitying eye-- + He was a slave--a captive hired to die-- +_Sam_ was born free as Caesar; and he might + The hopeless issue have refused to try; +No! with true leap, but soon with faltering flight-- +"Deep in the roaring gulf, he plunged to endless night." + +But, ere he leapt, he begged of those who made + Money by this dread venture, that if he +Should perish, such collection should be paid + As might be picked up from the "company" + _To his Mother._ This, his last request, shall be-- +Tho' she who bore him ne'er his fate should know-- + An iris, glittering o'er his memory-- +When all the streams have worn their barriers low, +And, by the sea drunk up, forever cease to flow. + +On him who chooses to jump down cataracts, + Why should the sternest moralist be severe? +Judge not the dead by prejudice--but facts, + Such as in strictest evidence appear. + Else were the laurels of all ages sere. +Give to the brave, who have passed the final goal-- + The gates that ope not back--the generous tear; +And let the muse's clerk upon her scroll +In coarse, but honest verse, make up the judgment roll. + +_Therefore it is considered_ that Sam Patch + Shall never be forgot in prose or rhyme; +His name shall be a portion in the batch + Of the heroic dough, which baking Time + Kneads for consuming ages--and the chime +Of Fame's old bells, long as they truly ring, + Shall tell of him; he dived for the sublime, +And found it. Thou, who, with the eagle's wing, +Being a goose, would'st fly--dream not of such a thing! + + + + +THE BRITISH MATRON + +(Anonymous) + + +I have heard a good deal of the tenacity with which English ladies +retain their personal beauty to a late period of life; but (not to +suggest that an American eye needs use and cultivation before it can +quite appreciate the charm of English beauty at any age) it strikes +me that an English lady of fifty is apt to become a creature less +refined and delicate, so far as her physique goes, than anything that +we Western people class under the name of woman. She has an awful +ponderosity of frame--not pulpy, like the looser development of our +few fat women, but massive, with solid beef and streaky tallow; so +that (though struggling manfully against the ideal) you inevitably +think of her as made up of steaks and sirloins. When she walks her +advance is elephantine. When she sits down it is on a great round +space of her Maker's footstool, where she looks as if nothing could +ever move her. She imposes awe and respect by the muchness of her +personality, to such a degree that you probably credit her with far +greater moral and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. Her +visage is usually grim and stern, seldom positively forbidding, yet +calmly terrible, not merely by its breadth and weight of feature, but +because it seems to express so much well-defined self-reliance, such +acquaintance with the world, its toils, troubles and dangers, and +such sturdy capacity for trampling down a foe. Without anything +positively salient, or actively offensive, or, indeed, unjustly +formidable to her neighbors, she has the effect of a seventy-four-gun +ship in time of peace; for, while you assure yourself that there is +no real danger, you cannot help thinking how tremendous would be her +onset if pugnaciously inclined, and how futile the effort to inflict +any counter-injury. She certainly looks tenfold--nay, a hundredfold-- +better able to take care of herself than our slender-framed and +haggard womankind; but I have not found reason to suppose that the +English dowager of fifty has actually greater courage, fortitude and +strength of character than our women of similar age, or even a +tougher physical endurance than they. Morally, she is strong, I +suspect, only in society and in common routine of social affairs, and +would be found powerless and timid in any exceptional strait that +might call for energy outside of the conventionalities amid which she +has grown up. + +You can meet this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at +the recollection. But conceive of her in a ballroom, with the bare, +brawny arms that she invariably displays there, and all the other +corresponding development, such as is beautiful in the maiden +blossom, but a spectacle to howl at in such an overblown cabbage-rose +as this. + +Yet, somewhere in this enormous bulk there must be hidden the modest, +slender, violet-nature of a girl, whom an alien mass of earthliness +has unkindly overgrown; for an English maiden in her teens, though +very seldom so pretty as our own damsels, possesses, to say the +truth, a certain charm of half-blossom, and delicately folded leaves, +and tender womanhood, shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, +somehow or other, our American girls often fail to adorn themselves +during an appreciable moment. It is a pity that the English violet +should grow into such an outrageously developed peony as I have +attempted to describe. I wonder whether a middle-aged husband ought +to be considered as legally married to all the accretions that have +overgrown the slenderness of his bride, since he led her to the +altar, and which make her so much more than he ever bargained for! Is +it not a sounder view of the case that the matrimonial bond cannot be +held to include the three-fourths of the wife that had no existence +when the ceremony was performed? And ought not an English married +pair to insist upon the celebration of a silver wedding at the end of +twenty-five years to legalize all that corporeal growth of which both +parties have individually come into possession since pronounced one +flesh?--_Our Old Home_. + + + + +THE POSTER GIRL + + +The blessed Poster Girl leaned out + From a pinky-purple heaven; +One eye was red and one was green; + Her bang was cut uneven; +She had three fingers on her hand, + And the hairs on her head were seven, + +Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, + No sunflowers did adorn; +But a heavy Turkish portiere + Was very neatly worn; +And the hat that lay along her back + Was yellow like canned corn. + +It was a kind of wobbly wave + That she was standing on, +And high aloft she flung a scarf + That must have weighed a ton; +And she was rather tall--at least + She reached up to the sun. + +She curved and writhed, and then she said + Less green of speech than blue: +"Perhaps I _am_ absurd--perhaps + I _don't_ appeal to you; +But my artistic worth depends + Upon the point of view." + +I saw her smile, although her eyes + Were only smudgy smears; +And then she swished her swirling arms, + And wagged her gorgeous ears, +She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob, + And wept some purple tears. + +Carolyn Wells. + + + + +James Gardner Sanderson + +THE CONUNDRUM OF THE GOLF LINKS + + +(_With thanks to Kipling_) + +When the flush of the new-born sun fell first on + Eden's gold and green, +Our Father Adam sat under the Tree and shaved + his driver clean, +And joyously whirled it round his head and + knocked the apples off, +Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: + "Well done--but is it golf?" + +Wherefore he called his wife and fled to practise + again his swing-- +The first of the world who foozled his stroke (yet + the grandpapa of Tyng); +And he left his clubs to the use of his sons--and + that was a glorious gain, +When the Devil chuckled "Beastly Golf" in the + ear of the horrored Cain. + +They putted and drove in the North and South; + they talked and laid links in the West; +Till the waters rose o'er Ararat's tees, and the + aching wrists could rest-- +Could rest till that blank, blank canvasback, + heard the Devil jeer and scoff, +As he flew with the flood-fed olive branch, "Dry + weather. Let's play golf." + +They pulled and sliced and pounded the earth, + and the balls went sailing off +Into bunkers and trees while the Devil grinned, + "Keep your eye on it! _That's_ not golf." +Then the Devil took his sulphured cleik and + mightily he swung, +While each man marveled and cursed his form + and each in an alien tongue. + +The tale is as old as the Eden Tree--and new as + the newest green, +For each man knows ere his lip thatch grows the + caddy's mocking mien. +And each man hears, though the ball falls fair, + the Devil's cursed cough +Of joy as the man holes out in ten, "You did + it--but what poor golf!" + +We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to + the shape of a niblick's shaft, +We have learned to make a mashie with a + wondrous handicraft, +We know that a hazard is often played best by + re-driving off, +But the Devil whoops as he whooped of old, "It's + easy, but is it golf?" + +When the flicker of summer falls faint on the + Clubroom's gold and green, +The sons of Adam sit them down and boast of + strokes unseen; +They talk of stymies and brassie lies to the tune + of the steward's cough, +But the Devil whispers in their ears, "Gadzooks! + But that's not golf!" + +Now if we could win to the Eden Tree where + the Nine-Mile Links are laid, +And seat ourselves where Man first swore as he + drove from the grateful shade, +And if we could play where our Fathers played + and follow our swings well through, +By the favor of God we might know of Golf + what our Father Adam knew. + + + + +Harriet Beecher Stowe + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING + + + "Wal, the upshot on't was, they fussed and fuzzled and wuzzled till +they'd drinked up all the tea in the teapot; and then they went down +and called on the Parson, and wuzzled him all up talkin' about this, +that, and t'other that wanted lookin' to, and that it was no way to +leave everything to a young chit like Huldy, and that he ought to be +lookin' about for an experienced woman. + +"The Parson, he thanked 'em kindly, and said he believed their +motives was good, but he didn't go no further. + +"He didn't ask Mis' Pipperidge to come and stay there and help him, +nor nothin' o' that kind; but he said he'd attend to matters himself. +The fact was, the Parson had got such a likin' for havin' Huldy +'round that he couldn't think o' such a thing as swappin' her off for +the Widder Pipperidge. + +"'But,' he thought to himself, 'Huldy is a good girl; but I oughtn't +to be a-leavin' everything to her--it's too hard on her. I ought to +be instructin' and guidin' and helpin' of her; 'cause 'tain't +everybody could be expected to know and do what Mis' Carryl did'; and +so at it he went; and Lordy massy! didn't Huldy hev a time on't when +the minister began to come out of his study and wanted to ten' 'round +an' see to things? Huldy, you see, thought all the world of the +minister, and she was 'most afraid to laugh; but she told me she +couldn't, for the life of her, help it when his back was turned, for +he wuzzled things up in the most singular way. But Huldy, she'd just +say, 'Yes, sir,' and get him off into his study, and go on her own +way. + +"'Huldy,' says the minister one day, 'you ain't experienced outdoors; +and when you want to know anything you must come to me.' + +"'Yes, sir,' said Huldy. + +"'Now, Huldy,' says the Parson, 'you must be sure to save the turkey +eggs, so that we can have a lot of turkeys for Thanksgiving.' + +"'Yes, sir,' says Huldy; and she opened the pantry door and showed +him a nice dishful she'd been a-savin' up. Wal, the very next day the +parson's hen-turkey was found killed up to old Jim Scrogg's barn. +Folks say Scroggs killed it, though Scroggs, he stood to it he +didn't; at any rate, the Scroggses they made a meal on't, and Huldy, +she felt bad about it 'cause she'd set her heart on raisin' the +turkeys; and says she, 'Oh, dear! I don't know what I shall do. I was +just ready to set her.' + +"'Do, Huldy?' says the Parson; 'why, there's the other turkey, out +there by the door, and a fine bird, too, he is.' + +"Sure enough, there was the old tom-turkey a-struttin' and a-sidlin' +and a-quitterin', and a-floutin' his tail feathers in the sun, like a +lively young widower all ready to begin life over again. + +"'But,' says Huldy, 'you know _he_ can't set on eggs.' + +"'He can't? I'd like to know why" says the Parson. 'He _shall_ set on +eggs, and hatch 'em, too.' + +'"Oh, Doctor!' says Huldy, all in a tremble; 'cause, you know, she +didn't want to contradict the minister, and she was afraid she should +laugh--' I never heard that a tom-turkey would set on eggs.' + +"'Why, they ought to,' said the Parson getting quite 'arnest. 'What +else be they good for? You just bring out the eggs, now, and put 'em +in the nest, and I'll make him set on 'em.' + +"So Huldy, she thought there weren't no way to convince him but to +let him try; so she took the eggs out and fixed 'em all nice in the +nest; and then she come back and found old Tom a-skirmishin' with the +Parson pretty lively, I tell ye. Ye see, old Tom, he didn't take the +idea at all; and he flopped and gobbled, and fit the Parson; and the +Parson's wig got 'round so that his cue stuck straight out over his +ear, but he'd got his blood up. Ye see, the old Doctor was used to +carryin' his p'ints o' doctrine; and he hadn't fit the Arminians and +Socinians to be beat by a tom-turkey; and finally he made a dive and +ketched him by the neck in spite o' his floppin', and stroked him +down, and put Huldy's apron 'round him. + +"'There, Huldy,' he says, quite red in the face, 'we've got him now'; +and he traveled off to the barn with him as lively as a cricket. + +"Huldy came behind, just chokin' with laugh, and afraid the minister +would look 'round and see her. + +"'Now, Huldy, we'll crook his legs and set him down,' says the +Parson, when they got him to the nest; 'you see, he is getting quiet, +and he'll set there all right.' + +"And the Parson, he sot him down; and old Tom, he sot there solemn +enough and held his head down all droopin', lookin' like a rail pious +old cock as long as the Parson sot by him. + +"'There; you see how still he sets,' says the Parson to Huldy. + +"Huldy was 'most dyin' for fear she should laugh. 'I'm afraid he'll +get up,' says she, 'when you do.' + +"'Oh, no, he won't!' says the Parson, quite confident. 'There, +there,' says he, layin' his hands on him as if pronouncin' a +blessin'. + +"But when the Parson riz up, old Tom he riz up, too, and began to +march over the eggs. + +"'Stop, now!' says the Parson. 'I'll make him get down agin; hand me +that corn-basket; we'll put that over him.' + +"So he crooked old Tom's legs and got him down agin; and they put the +corn-basket over him, and then they both stood and waited. + +"'That'll do the thing, Huldy,' said the Parson. + +"'I don't know about it,' says Huldy. + +"'Oh, yes, it will, child; I understand,' says he. + +"Just as he spoke, the basket riz up and stood, and they could see +old Tom's long legs. + +"'I'll make him stay down, confound him,' says the Parson, for you +see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the Doctor had got his +spunk up. + +"'You jist hold him a minute, and I'll get something that'll make him +stay, I guess; and out he went to the fence and brought in a long, +thin, flat stone, and laid it on old Tom's back. + +"'Oh, my eggs!' says Huldy. 'I'm afraid he's smashed 'em!' + +"And sure enough, there they was, smashed flat enough under the +stone. + +"'I'll have him killed,' said the Parson. 'We won't have such a +critter 'round.' + +"Wall next week, Huldy, she jist borrowed the minister's horse and +side-saddle and rode over to South Parish to her Aunt Bascome's-- +Widder Bascome's, you know, that lives there by the trout-brook--and +got a lot o' turkey eggs o' her, and come back and set a hen on 'em, +and said nothin'; and in good time there was as nice a lot o' turkey- +chicks as ever ye see. + +"Huldy never said a word to the minister about his experiment, and he +never said a word to her; but he sort o' kep more to his books and +didn't take it on him to advise so much. + +"But not long arter he took it into his head that Huldy ought to have +a pig to be a-fattin' with the buttermilk. + +"Mis' Pipperidge set him up to it; and jist then old Tom Bigelow, out +to Juniper Hill, told him if he'd call over he'd give him a little +pig. + +"So he sent for a man, and told him to build a pig-pen right out by +the well, and have it all ready when he came home with his pig. + +"Huldy said she wished he might put a curb round the well out there, +because in the dark sometimes a body might stumble into it; and the +Parson said he might do that. + +"Wal, old Aikin, the carpenter, he didn't come till 'most the middle +of the afternoon; and then he sort o' idled, so that he didn't get up +the well-curb till sundown; and then he went off, and said he'd come +and do the pig-pen next day. + +"Wal, arter dark, Parson Carryl, he driv into the yard, full chizel, +with his pig. + +"'There, Huldy. I've got you a nice little pig.' + +"'Dear me!' says Huldy; 'where have you put him?' + +"'Why, out there in the pig-pen, to be sure.' + +"'Oh, dear me!' says Huldy,'that's the well-curb--there ain't no pig- +pen built,' says she. + +"'Lordy massy!' says the Parson; 'then I've thrown the pig in the +well!' + +"Wal, Huldy she worked and worked, and finally she fished piggy out +in the bucket, but he was as dead as a doornail; and she got him out +o' the way quietly, and didn't say much; and the Parson he took to a +great Hebrew book in his study. + +"After that the Parson set sich store by Huldy that he come to her +and asked her about everything, and it was amazin' how everything she +put her hand to prospered. Huldy planted marigolds and larkspurs, +pinks and carnations, all up and down the path to the front door; and +trained up mornin'-glories and scarlet runners round the windows. And +she was always gettin' a root here, and a sprig there, and a seed +from somebody else; for Huldy was one o' them that has the gift, so +that ef you jist give 'em the leastest of anything they make a great +bush out of it right away; so that in six months Huldy had roses and +geraniums and lilies sich as it would take a gardener to raise. + +"Huldy was so sort o' chipper and fair spoken that she got the hired +men all under her thumb: they come to her and took her orders jist as +meek as so many calves, and she traded at the store, and kep' the +accounts, and she had her eyes everywhere, and tied up all the ends +so tight that there wa'n't no gettin' 'round her. She wouldn't let +nobody put nothin' off on Parson Carryl 'cause he was a minister. +Huldy was allers up to anybody that wanted to make a hard bargain, +and afore he knew jist what he was about she'd got the best end of +it, and everybody said that Huldy was the most capable girl they ever +traded with. + +"Wal, come to the meetin' of the Association, Mis' Deakin Blodgett +and Mis' Pipperidge come callin' up to the Parson's all in a stew and +offerin' their services to get the house ready, but the Doctor he +jist thanked 'em quite quiet, and turned 'em over to Huldy; and Huldy +she told 'em that she'd got everything ready, and showed 'em her +pantries, and her cakes, and her pies, and her puddin's, and took 'em +all over the house; and they went peekin' and pokin', openin' +cupboard doors, and lookin' into drawers; and they couldn't find so +much as a thread out o' the way, from garret to cellar, and so they +went off quite discontented. Arter that the women sat a new trouble +a-brewin'. They began to talk that it was a year now since Mis' +Carryl died; and it railly wasn't proper such a young gal to be +stayin' there, who everybody could see was a-settin' her cap for the +minister. + +"Mis' Pipperidge said, that so long as she looked on Huldy as the +hired gal she hadn't thought much about it; but Huldy was railly +takin' on airs as an equal, and appearin' as mistress o' the house in +a way that would make talk if it went on. And Mis' Pipperidge she +driv 'round up to Deakin Abner Snow's, and down to Mis 'Lijah +Perry's, and asked them if they wasn't afraid that the way the Parson +and Huldy was a-goin on might make talk. And they said they hadn't +thought on't before, but now, come to think on't it, they was sure it +would and they all went and talked with somebody else and asked them +if they didn't think it would make talk. So come Sunday, between +meetin's there warn't nothin' else talked about; and Huldy saw folks +a-noddin' and a-winkin', and a-lookin' arter her, and she begun to +feel drefful sort o' disagreeable. Finally Mis' Sawin, she says to +her, 'My dear, didn't you never think folk would talk about you and +the minister?' + +"'No; why should they?' says Huldy, quite innocent. + +"'Wal, dear,' says she, 'I think it's a shame; but they say you're +tryin' to catch him, and that it's so bold and improper for you to be +courtin' of him right in his own house--you know folks will talk--I +thought I'd tell you, 'cause I think so much of you,' says she. + +"Huldy was a gal of spirit, and she despised the talk, but it made +her drefful uncomfortable; and when she got home at night she sat +down in the mornin'-glory porch, quite quiet, and didn't sing a word. + +"The minister he had heard the same thing from one of his deakins +that day; and when he saw Huldy so kind o' silent, he says to her, +'Why don't you sing, my child?' + +"He had a pleasant sort o' way with him, the minister had, and Huldy +had got to likin' to be with him; and it all come over her that +perhaps she ought to go away; and her throat kind o' filled up so she +couldn't hardly speak; and, says she, 'I can't sing to-night' + +"Says he, 'You don't know how much good your singin' has done me, nor +how much good you have done me in all ways, Huldy. I wish I knew how +to show my gratitude.' + +"'Oh, sir!' says Huldy, '_is_ it improper for me to be here?' + +"'No, dear,' says the minister, 'but ill-natured folks will talk; but +there is one way we can stop it, Huldy--if you'll marry me. You'll +make me very happy, and I'll do all I can to make you happy. Will +you?' + +"Wal, Huldy never told me just what she said to the minister; gals +never does give you the particulars of them things jist as you'd like +'em--only I know the upshot and the hull on't was, that Huldy she did +a considerable lot o' clear starchin' and ironin' the next two days, +and the Friday o' next week the minister and she rode over together +to Doctor Lothrop's, in Oldtown, and the Doctor he jist made 'em man +and wife." + + + + +William Dean Howells + +MRS. JOHNSON + + +It was on a morning of the lovely New England May that we left the +horse-car and, spreading our umbrellas, walked down the street to our +new home in Charlesbridge, through a storm of snow and rain so finely +blent by the influences of this fortunate climate that no flake knew +itself from its sister drop, or could be better identified by the +people against whom they beat in unison. A vernal gale from the east +fanned our cheeks and pierced our marrow and chilled our blood, while +the raw, cold green of the adventurous grass on the borders of the +sopping sidewalks gave, as it peered through its veil of melting snow +and freezing rain, a peculiar cheerfulness to the landscape. Here and +there in the vacant lots abandoned hoopskirts defied decay; and near +the half-finished wooden houses empty mortar-beds and bits of lath +and slate, strewn over the scarred and mutilated ground, added their +interest to the scene.... + +This heavenly weather, which the Pilgrim Fathers, with the idea of +turning their thoughts effectually from earthly pleasures, came so +far to discover, continued with slight amelioration throughout the +month of May and far into June; and it was a matter of constant +amazement with one who had known less austere climates, to behold how +vegetable life struggled with the hostile skies, and, in an +atmosphere as chill and damp as that of a cellar, shot forth the buds +and blossoms upon the pear trees, called out the sour Puritan courage +of the currant-bushes, taught a reckless native grapevine to wander +and wanton over the southern side of the fence, and decked the banks +with violets as fearless and as fragile as New England girls, so that +about the end of June, when the heavens relented and the sun blazed +out at last, there was little for him to do but to redden and darken +the daring fruits that had attained almost their full growth without +his countenance. + +Then, indeed, Charlesbridge appeared to us a kind of paradise. The +wind blew all day from the southwest, and all day in the grove across +the way the orioles sang to their nestlings.... The house was almost +new and in perfect repair; and, better than all, the kitchen had as +yet given no signs of unrest in those volcanic agencies which are +constantly at work there, and which, with sudden explosions, make +Herculaneums and Pompeiis of so many smiling households. Breakfast, +dinner and tea came up with illusive regularity, and were all the +most perfect of their kind; and we laughed and feasted in our vain +security. We had out from the city to banquet with us the friends we +loved, and we were inexpressibly proud before them of the help who +first wrought miracles of cookery in our honor, and then appeared in +a clean white apron and the glossiest black hair to wait upon the +table. She was young and certainly very pretty; she was as gay as a +lark, and was courted by a young man whose clothes would have been a +credit, if they had not been a reproach, to our lowly basement. She +joyfully assented to the idea of staying with us till she married. + +In fact, there was much that was extremely pleasant about the little +place when the warm weather came, and it was not wonderful to us that +Jenny was willing to remain. It was very quiet; we called one another +to the window if a large dog went by our door; and whole days passed +without the movement of any wheels but the butcher's upon our street, +which flourished in ragweed and buttercups and daisies, and in the +autumn burned, like the borders of nearly all the streets in +Charlesbridge, with the pallid azure flame of the succory. The +neighborhood was in all things a frontier between city and country. +The horse-cars, the type of such civilization--full of imposture, +discomfort, and sublime possibility--as we yet possess, went by the +head of our street, and might, perhaps, be available to one skilled +in calculating the movements of comets; while two minutes' walk would +take us into a wood so wild and thick that no roof was visible +through the trees. We learned, like innocent pastoral people of the +golden age, to know the several voices of the cows pastured in the +vacant lot, and, like engine-drivers of the iron-age, to distinguish +the different whistles of the locomotives passing on the neighboring +railroad. . . . + +We played a little at gardening, of course, and planted tomatoes, +which the chickens seemed to like, for they ate them up as fast as +they ripened; and we watched with pride the growth of our Lawton +blackberries, which, after attaining the most stalwart proportions, +were still as bitter as the scrubbiest of their savage brethren, and +which, when by advice left on the vines for a week after they turned +black, were silently gorged by secret and gluttonous flocks of robins +and orioles. As for our grapes, the frost cut them off in the hour of +their triumph. + +So, as I have hinted, we were not surprised that Jenny should be +willing to remain with us, and were as little prepared for her +desertion as for any other change of our mortal state. But one day in +September she came to her nominal mistress with tears in her +beautiful eyes and protestations of unexampled devotion upon her +tongue, and said that she was afraid she must leave us. She liked the +place, and she never had worked for anyone that was more of a lady, +but she had made up her mind to go into the city. All this, so far, +was quite in the manner of domestics who, in ghost stories, give +warning to the occupants of haunted houses; and Jenny's mistress +listened in suspense for the motive of her desertion, expecting to +hear no less than that it was something which walked up and down the +stairs and dragged iron links after it, or something that came and +groaned at the front door, like populace dissatisfied with a +political candidate. But it was in fact nothing of this kind; simply, +there were no lamps upon our street, and Jenny, after spending Sunday +evenings with friends in East Charlesbridge, was always alarmed on +her return in walking from the horse-car to our door. The case was +hopeless, and Jenny and our household parted with respect and regret. + +We had not before this thought it a grave disadvantage that our +street was unlighted. Our street was not drained nor graded; no +municipal cart ever came to carry away our ashes; there was not a +water-butt within half a mile to save us from fire, nor more than the +one-thousandth part of a policeman to protect us from theft. Yet, as +I paid a heavy tax, I somehow felt that we enjoyed the benefits of +city government, and never looked upon Charlesbridge as in any way +undesirable for residence. But when it became necessary to find help +in Jenny's place, the frosty welcome given to application at the +intelligence offices renewed a painful doubt awakened by her +departure. To be sure, the heads of the offices were polite enough; +but when the young housekeeper had stated her case at the first to +which she applied, and the Intelligencer had called out to the +invisible expectants in the adjoining room, "Anny wan wants to do +giner'l housewark in Charlsbrudge?" there came from the maids invoked +so loud, so fierce, so full a "No!" as shook the lady's heart with an +indescribable shame and dread. The name that, with an innocent pride +in its literary and historical associations, she had written at the +heads of her letters, was suddenly become a matter of reproach to +her; and she was almost tempted to conceal thereafter that she lived +in Charlesbridge, and to pretend that she dwelt upon some wretched +little street in Boston. "You see," said the head of the office, "the +gairls doesn't like to live so far away from the city. Now, if it was +on'y in the Port." ... + +This pen is not graphic enough to give the remote reader an idea of +the affront offered to an inhabitant of Old Charlesbridge in these +closing words. Neither am I of sufficiently tragic mood to report +here all the sufferings undergone by an unhappy family in finding +servants, or to tell how the winter was passed with miserable +makeshifts. Alas! is it not the history of a thousand experiences? +Anyone who looks upon this page could match it with a tale as full of +heartbreak and disaster, while I conceive that, in hastening to speak +of Mrs. Johnson, I approach a subject of unique interest. ... + +I say our last Irish girl went with the last snow, and on one of +those midsummerlike days that sometimes fall in early April to our +yet bleak and desolate zone, our hearts sang of Africa and golden +joys. A Libyan longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we +could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen +gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, +uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make +to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful +purchase. But we knew that this was impossible, and that if we +desired colored help we must seek it at the intelligence office, +which is in one of those streets chiefly inhabited by the orphaned +children and grandchildren of slavery. To tell the truth, these +orphans do not seem to grieve much for their bereavement, but lead a +life of joyous and rather indolent oblivion in their quarter of the +city. They are often to be seen sauntering up and down the street by +which the Oharlesbridge cars arrive--the young with a harmless +swagger and the old with the generic limp which our Autocrat has +already noted as attending advanced years in their race.... How gaily +are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and down +the sidewalks, and in and out through the pendant garments at the +shop doors! They are the black pansies and marigolds, and dark- +blooded dahlias among womankind. They try to assume something of our +colder race's demeanor, but even the passer on the horse-car can see +that it is not native with them, and is better pleased when they +forget us, and ungenteely laugh in encountering friends, letting +their white teeth glitter through the generous lips that open to +their ears. In the streets branching upward from this avenue, very +little colored men and maids play with broken or enfeebled toys, or +sport on the wooden pavements of the entrances to the inner courts. +Now and then a colored soldier or sailor--looking strange in his +uniform even after the custom of several years--emerges f +rom those passages; or, more rarely, a black gentleman, stricken in +years, and cased in shining broadcloth, walks solidly down the brick +sidewalk, cane in hand--a vision of serene self-complacency and so +plainly the expression of virtuous public sentiment that the great +colored louts, innocent enough till then in their idleness, are taken +with a sudden sense of depravity, and loaf guiltily up against the +house-walls. At the same moment, perhaps, a young damsel, amorously +scuffling with an admirer through one of the low open windows, +suspends the strife, and bids him--"Go along, now, do!" More rarely +yet than the gentleman described, one may see a white girl among the +dark neighbors, whose frowsy head is uncovered, and whose sleeves are +rolled up to her elbows, and who, though no doubt quite at home, +looks as strange there as that pale anomaly which may sometimes be +seen among a crew of blackbirds. + +An air not so much of decay as of unthrift, and yet hardly of +unthrift, seems to prevail in the neighborhood, which has none of the +aggressive and impudent squalor of an Irish quarter and none of the +surly wickedenss of a low American street. A gaiety not born of the +things that bring its serious joy to the true New England heart--a +ragged gaiety, which comes of summer in the blood, and not in the +pocket or the conscience, and which affects the countenance and the +whole demeanor, setting the feet to some inward music, and at times +bursting into a line of song or a childlike and irresponsible laugh-- +gives tone to the visible life and wakens a very friendly spirit in +the passer, who somehow thinks there of a milder climate, and is half +persuaded that the orange-peel on the sidewalks came from fruit grown +in the soft atmosphere of those back courts. + +It was in this quarter, then, that we heard of Mrs. Johnson; and it +was from a colored boarding-house there that she came to +Charlesbridge to look at us, bringing her daughter of twelve years +with her. She was a matron of mature age and portly figure, with a +complexion like coffee soothed with the richest cream; and her +manners were so full of a certain tranquillity and grace that she +charmed away all our will to ask for references. It was only her +barbaric laughter and lawless eye that betrayed how slightly her New +England birth and breeding covered her ancestral traits, and bridged +the gulf of a thousand years of civilization that lay between her +race and ours. But in fact, she was doubly estranged by descent; for, +as we learned later, a sylvan wilderness mixed with that of the +desert in her veins; her grandfather was an Indian, and her ancestors +on this side had probably sold their lands for the same value in +trinkets that bought the original African pair on the other side. + +The first day that Mrs. Johnson descended into our kitchen she +conjured from the malicious disorder in which it had been left by the +flitting Irish kobold a dinner that revealed the inspirations of +genius, and was quite different from a dinner of mere routine and +laborious talent. Something original and authentic mingled with the +accustomed flavors; and, though vague reminiscences of canal-boat +travel and woodland camps arose from the relish of certain of the +dishes, there was yet the assurance of such power in the preparation +of the whole that we knew her to be merely running over the chords of +our appetite with preliminary savors, as a musician acquaints his +touch with the keys of an unfamiliar piano before breaking into +brilliant and triumphant execution. Within a week she had mastered +her instrument, and thereafter there was no faltering in her +performances, which she varied constantly, through inspiration or +from suggestion.... But, after all, it was in puddings that Mrs. +Johnson chiefly excelled. She was one of those cooks--rare as men of +genius in literature--who love their own dishes; and she had, in her +personally childlike simplicity of taste and the inherited appetites +of her savage forefathers, a dominant passion for sweets. So far as +we could learn, she subsisted principally upon puddings and tea. +Through the same primitive instincts, no doubt, she loved praise. She +openly exulted in our artless flatteries of her skill; she waited +jealously at the head of the kitchen stairs to hear what was said of +her work, especially if there were guests; and she was never too +weary to attempt emprises of cookery. + +While engaged in these, she wore a species of sightly handkerchief +like a turban upon her head, and about her person those mystical +swathings in which old ladies of the African race delight. But she +most pleasured our sense of beauty and moral fitness when, after the +last pan was washed and the last pot was scraped, she lighted a +potent pipe, and, taking her stand at the kitchen door, laded the +soft evening air with its pungent odors. If we surprised her at these +supreme moments, she took the pipe from her lips and put it behind +her, with a low, mellow chuckle and a look of half-defiant +consciousness, never guessing that none of her merits took us half so +much as the cheerful vice which she only feigned to conceal. + +Some things she could not do so perfectly as cooking because of her +failing eyesight, and we persuaded her that spectacles would both +become and befriend a lady of her years, and so bought her a pair of +steel-bowed glasses. She wore them in some great emergencies at +first, but had clearly no pride in them. Before long she laid them +aside altogether, and they had passed from our thoughts, when one day +we heard her mellow note of laughter and her daughter's harsher +cackle outside our door, and, opening it, beheld Mrs. Johnson in +gold-bowed spectacles of massive frame. We then learned that their +purchase was in fulfilment of a vow made long ago, in the lifetime of +Mr. Johnson, that if ever she wore glasses, they should be gold- +bowed; and I hope the manes of the dead were half as happy in these +votive spectacles as the simple soul that offered them. + +She and her late partner were the parents of eleven children, some of +whom were dead and some of whom were wanderers in unknown parts. +During his lifetime she had kept a little shop in her native town, +and it was only within a few years that she had gone into service. +She cherished a natural haughtiness of spirit, and resented control, +although disposed to do all she could of her own notion. Being told +to say when she wanted an afternoon, she explained that when she +wanted an afternoon she always took it without asking, but always +planned so as not to discommode the ladies with whom she lived. +These, she said, had numbered twenty-seven within three years, which +made us doubt the success of her system in all cases, though she +merely held out the fact as an assurance of her faith in the future, +and a proof of the ease with which places are to be found. She +contended, moreover, that a lady who had for thirty years had a house +of her own was in nowise bound to ask permission to receive visits +from friends where she might be living, but that they ought freely to +come and go like other guests. In this spirit she once invited her +son-in-law, Professor Jones, of Providence, to dine with her; and her +defied mistress, on entering the dining-room found the Professor at +pudding and tea there--an impressively respectable figure in black +clothes, with a black face rendered yet more effective by a pair of +green goggles. It appeared that this dark professor was a light of +phrenology in Rhode Island, and that he was believed to have uncommon +virtue in his science by reason of being blind as well as black. + +I am loath to confess that Mrs. Johnson had not a flattering opinion +of the Caucasian race in all respects. In fact, she had very good +philosophical and scriptural reasons for looking upon us as an +upstart people of new blood, who had come into their whiteness by no +creditable or pleasant process. The late Mr. Johnson, who had died in +the West Indies, whither he voyaged for his health in quality of a +cook upon a Down East schooner, was a man of letters, and had written +a book to show the superiority of the black over the white branches +of the human family. In this he held that, as all islands have been +at their first discovery found peopled by blacks, we must needs +believe that humanity was first created of that color. Mrs. Johnson +could not show us her husband's work (a sole copy in the library of +an English gentleman at Port au Prince is not to be bought for +money), but she often developed its arguments to the lady of the +house; and one day, with a great show of reluctance and many protests +that no personal slight was meant, let fall the fact that Mr. Johnson +believed the white race descended from Gehaz the leper, upon whom the +leprosy of Naaman fell when the latter returned by divine favor to +his original blackness. "And he went out from his presence a leper as +white as snow," said Mrs. Johnson, quoting irrefutable Scripture. +"Leprosy, leprosy," she added thoughtfully--"nothing but leprosy +bleached you out." + +It seems to me much in her praise that she did not exult in our taint +and degradation, as some white philosophers used to do in the +opposite idea that a part of the human family were cursed to lasting +blackness and slavery in Ham and his children, but even told us of a +remarkable approach to whiteness in many of her own offspring. In a +kindred spirit of charity, no doubt, she refused ever to attend +church with people of her elder and wholesomer blood. When she went +to church, she said, she always went to a white church, though while +with us I am bound to say she never went to any. She professed to +read her Bible in her bedroom on Sundays; but we suspected from +certain sounds and odors which used to steal out of this sanctuary, +that her piety more commonly found expression in dozing and smoking. + +I would not make a wanton jest here of Mrs. Johnson's anxiety to +claim honor for the African color, while denying this color in many +of her own family. It afforded a glimpse of the pain with which all +her people must endure, however proudly they hide it or light- +heartedly forget it, from the despite and contumely to which they are +guiltlessly born; and when I thought how irreparable was this +disgrace and calamity of a black skin, and how irreparable it must be +for ages yet, in this world where every other chance and all manner +of wilful guilt and wickedness may hope for covert and pardon, I had +little heart to laugh. Indeed, it was so pathetic to hear this poor +old soul talk of her dead and lost ones, and try, in spite of all Mr. +Johnson's theories and her own arrogant generalizations to establish +their whiteness, that we must have been very cruel and silly people +to turn their sacred fables even into matter of question. I have no +doubt that her Antoinette Anastasia and her Thomas Jefferson +Wilberforce--it is impossible to give a full idea of the splendor and +scope of the baptismal names in Mrs. Johnson's family--have as light +skins and as golden hair in heaven as her reverend maternal fancy +painted for them in our world. There, certainly, they would not be +subject to tanning, which had ruined the delicate complexion, and had +knotted into black woolly tangles the once wavy blond locks of our +little maid-servant Naomi; and I would fain believe that Toussaint +Washington Johnson, who ran away to sea so many years ago, has found +some fortunate zone where his hair and skin keep the same sunny and +rosy tints they wore to his mother's eyes in infancy. But I have no +means of knowing this, or of telling whether he was the prodigy of +intellect that he was declared to be. Naomi could no more be taken in +proof of the one assertion than of the other. When she came to us, it +was agreed that she should go to school; but she overruled her mother +in this as in everything else, and never went. Except Sunday-school +lessons, she had no other instructions than that her mistress gave +her in the evenings, when a heavy day's play and the natural +influences of the hour conspired with original causes to render her +powerless before words of one syllable. + +The first week of her services she was obedient and faithful to her +duties; but, relaxing in the atmosphere of a house which seems to +demoralize all menials, she shortly fell into disorderly ways of +lying in wait for callers out of doors, and, when people rang, of +running up the front steps and letting them in from the outside. As +the season expanded, and the fine weather became confirmed, she spent +her time in the fields, appearing at the house only when nature +importunately craved molasses. + +In her untamable disobedience, Naomi alone betrayed her sylvan blood, +for she was in all other respects Negro and not Indian. But it was of +her aboriginal ancestry that Mrs. Johnson chiefly boasted--when not +engaged in argument to maintain the superiority of the African race. +She loved to descant upon it as the cause and explanation of her own +arrogant habit of feeling; and she seemed, indeed, to have inherited +something of the Indian's _hauteur_ along with the Ethiop's +subtle cunning and abundant amiability. She gave many instances in +which her pride had met and overcome the insolence of employers, and +the kindly old creature was by no means singular in her pride of +being reputed proud. + +She could never have been a woman of strong logical faculties, but +she had in some things a very surprising and awful astuteness. She +seldom introduced any purpose directly, but bore all about it, and +then suddenly sprung it upon her unprepared antagonist. At other +times she obscurely hinted a reason, and left a conclusion to be +inferred; as when she warded off reproach for some delinquency by +saying in a general way that she had lived with ladies who used to +come scolding into the kitchen after they had taken their bitters. +"Quality ladies took their bitters regular," she added, to remove any +sting of personality from her remark; for, from many things she had +let fall, we knew that she did not regard us as quality. On the +contrary, she often tried to overbear us with the gentility of her +former places; and would tell the lady over whom she reigned that she +had lived with folks worth their three and four hundred thousand +dollars, who never complained as she did of the ironing. Yet she had +a sufficient regard for the literary occupations of the family, Mr. +Johnson having been an author. She even professed to have herself +written a book, which was still in manuscript and preserved somewhere +among her best clothes. + +It was well, on many accounts, to be in contact with a mind so +original and suggestive as Mrs. Johnson's. We loved to trace its +intricate yet often transparent operations, and were perhaps too fond +of explaining its peculiarities by facts of ancestry--of finding +hints of the Pow-wow of the Grand Custom in each grotesque +development. We were conscious of something warmer in this old soul +than in ourselves, and sometimes wilder, and we chose to think it the +tropic and the untracked forest. She had scarcely any being apart +from her affection; she had no morality, but was good because she +neither hated nor envied; and she might have been a saint far more +easily than far more civilized people. + +There was that also in her sinuous yet malleable nature, so full of +guile and so full of goodness, that reminded us pleasantly of lowly +folks in elder lands, where relaxing oppressions have lifted the +restraints of fear between master and servant without disturbing the +familiarity of their relation. She advised freely with us upon all +household matters, and took a motherly interest in whatever concerned +us. She could be flattered or caressed into almost any service, but +no threat or command could move her. When she erred, she never +acknowledged her wrong in words, but handsomely expressed her regrets +in a pudding or sent up her apologies in a favorite dish secretly +prepared. We grew so well used to this form of exculpation that, +whenever Mrs. Johnson took an afternoon at an inconvenient season, we +knew that for a week afterward we should be feasted like princes. She +owned frankly that she loved us, that she never had done half so much +for people before, and that she never had been nearly so well suited +in any other place; and for a brief and happy time we thought that we +never should be obliged to part. + +One day, however, our dividing destiny appeared in the basement, and +was presented to us as Hippolyto Thucydides, the son of Mrs. Johnson, +who had just arrived on a visit to his mother from the State of New +Hampshire. He was a heavy and loutish youth, standing upon the +borders of boyhood, and looking forward to the future with a vacant +and listless eye. I mean this was his figurative attitude; his actual +manner, as he lolled upon a chair beside the kitchen window, was so +eccentric that we felt a little uncertain how to regard him, and Mrs. +Johnson openly described him as peculiar. He was so deeply tanned by +the fervid suns of the New Hampshire winter, and his hair had so far +suffered from the example of the sheep lately under his charge, that +he could not be classed by any stretch of compassion with the blond +and straight-haired members of Mrs. Johnson's family. + +He remained with us all the first day until late in the afternoon, +when his mother took him out to get him a boarding-house. Then he +departed in the van of her and Naomi, pausing at the gate to collect +his spirits, and, after he had sufficiently animated himself by +clapping his palms together, starting off down the street at a hand- +gallop, to the manifest terror of the cows in the pasture and the +confusion of the less demonstrative people of our household. Other +characteristic traits appeared in Hippolyto Thucydides within no very +long period of time, and he ran away from his lodgings so often +during the summer that he might be said to board round among the +outlying cornfields and turnip patches of Charlesbridge. As a check +upon this habit, Mrs. Johnson seemed to have invited him to spend his +whole time in our basement; for whenever we went below we found him +there, balanced--perhaps in homage to us, and perhaps as a token of +extreme sensibility in himself--upon the low window-sill, the bottoms +of his boots touching the floor inside, and his face buried in the +grass without. + +We could formulate no very tenable objection to all this, and yet the +presence of Thucydides in our kitchen unaccountably oppressed our +imaginations. We beheld him all over the house, a monstrous eidolon, +balanced upon every window-sill; and he certainly attracted +unpleasant notice to our place, no less by his furtive and hang-dog +manner of arrival than by the bold displays with which he celebrated +his departures. We hinted this to Mrs. Johnson, but she could not +enter into our feeling. Indeed, all the wild poetry of her maternal +and primitive nature seemed to cast itself about this hapless boy; +and if we had listened to her we should have believed that there was +no one so agreeable in society, or so quickwitted in affairs, as +Hippolyto, when he chose. ... + +At last, when we said positively that Thucydides should come to us no +more, and then qualified the prohibition by allowing him to come +every Sunday, she answered that she never would hurt the child's +feelings by telling him not to come where his mother was; that people +who did not love her children did not love her; and that, if Hippy +went, she went. We thought it a masterpiece of firmness to rejoin +that Hippolyto must go in any event, but I am bound to own that he +did not go, and that his mother stayed, and so fed us with every +cunning, propitiatory dainty, that we must have been Pagans to renew +our threat. In fact, we begged Mrs. Johnson to go into the country +with us, and she, after long reluctation on Hippy's account, +consented, agreeing to send him away to friends during her absence. + +We made every preparation, and on the eve of our departure Mrs. +Johnson went into the city to engage her son's passage to Bangor, +while we awaited her return in untroubled security. + +But she did not appear until midnight, and then responded with but a +sad "Well, sah!" to the cheerful "Well, Mrs. Johnson!" that greeted +her. + +"All right, Mrs. Johnson?" + +Mrs. Johnson made a strange noise, half chuckle and half death-rattle +in her throat. "All wrong, sah. Hippy's off again; and I've been all +over the city after him." + +"Then you can't go with us in the morning?" + +"How _can_ I, sah?" + +Mrs. Johnson went sadly out of the room. Then she came back to the +door again, and opening it, uttered, for the first time in our +service, words of apology and regret: "I hope I ha'n't put you out +any. I _wanted_ to go with you, but I ought to _knowed_ I +couldn't. All is, I loved you too much."--_Suburban Sketches._ + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor +Edited by Thomas L. Masson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN WIT *** + +This file should be named 6313.txt or 6313.zip + +Produced by Duncan Harrod, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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