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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/18464-8.txt b/18464-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bcce71 --- /dev/null +++ b/18464-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8164 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of +X.), by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) + +Author: Various + +Editor: Marshall P. Wilder + +Release Date: May 28, 2006 [EBook #18464] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR I. *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + +Library Edition + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +In Ten Volumes + +VOL. I + + + + +[Illustration: MARSHALL P. WILDER +Drawing from photo by Marceau] + + + + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER + +_Volume I_ + + +Funk & Wagnalls Company +New York and London + +Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + Anatole Dubois at de Horse Show Wallace Bruce Amsbary 152 + Billville Spirit Meeting, The Frank L. Stanton 188 + British Matron, The Nathaniel Hawthorne 192 + Champion Checker-Player of Ameriky, The James Whitcomb Riley 156 + Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt Alfred Henry Lewis 98 + Cry from the Consumer, A Wilbur D. Nesbit 190 + Curse of the Competent, The Henry J. Finn 14 + Darby and Joan St. John Honeywood 166 + Day We Do Not Celebrate, The Robert J. Burdette 134 + Deacon's Masterpiece, The; or, The + Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay" O.W. Holmes 9 + Deacon's Trout, The Henry Ward Beecher 212 + Disappointment, A John Boyle O'Reilly 191 + Distichs John Hay 65 + Down Around the River James Whitcomb Riley 29 + Enough Tom Masson 213 + Experiences of the A.C., The Bayard Taylor 116 + Feast of the Monkeys, The John Philip Sousa 183 + Fighting Race, The Joseph I.C. Clarke 214 + Grammatical Boy, The Bill Nye 16 + Grizzly-Gru Ironquill 174 + John Henry in a Street Car Hugh McHugh 177 + Laffing Josh Billings 171 + Letter from Mr. Biggs, A E.W. Howe 69 + Medieval Discoverer, A Bill Nye 31 + Melons Bret Harte 1 + Menagerie, The William Vaughn Moody 24 + Mrs. Johnson William Dean Howells 74 + Muskeeter, The Josh Billings 181 + My Grandmother's Turkey-Tail Fan Samuel Minturn Peck 219 + Myopia Wallace Rice 151 + Odyssey of K's, An Wilbur D. Nesbit 209 + Old Maid's House, The: In Plan Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 60 + Organ, The Henry Ward Beecher 217 + Partingtonian Patchwork B.P. Shillaber 20 + Pass Ironquill 91 + Pettibone Lineage, The James T. Fields 196 + Psalm of Life, A Phoebe Cary 207 + Purple Cow, The Gelett Burgess 13 + Quarrel, The S.E. Kiser 68 + Similar Cases Charlotte Perkins Gilman 56 + Simple English Ray Clarke Rose 19 + Spelling Down the Master Edward Eggleston 138 + Stage Whispers Carolyn Wells 195 + Teaching by Example John G. Saxe 91 + Tragedy of It, The Alden Charles Noble 194 + Turnings of a Bookworm, The Carolyn Wells 182 + Wanted--A Cook Alan Dale 35 + What Mr. Robinson Thinks James Russell Lowell 131 + When Albani Sang William Henry Drummond 92 + When the Frost is on the Punkin James Whitcomb Riley 169 + Why Moles Have Hands Anne Virginia Culbertson 202 + Wouter Van Twiller Washington Irving 109 + Yankee Dude'll Do, The S.E. Kiser 136 + +COMPLETE INDEX AT END OF VOLUME X. + + + + +FOREWORD + +EMBODYING A FEW REMARKS ON THE GENTLE ART OF LAUGH-MAKING. + +BY MARSHALL P. WILDER. + + +Happiness and laughter are two of the most beautiful things in the +world, for they are of the few that are purely unselfish. Laughter is +not for yourself, but for others. When people are happy they present a +cheerful spirit, which finds its reflection in every one they meet, for +happiness is as contagious as a yawn. Of all the emotions, laughter is +the most versatile, for it plays equally well the role of either parent +or child to happiness. + +Then can we say too much in praise of the men who make us laugh? God +never gave a man a greater gift than the power to make others laugh, +unless it is the privilege of laughing himself. We honor, revere, admire +our great soldiers, statesmen, and men of letters, but we love the man +who makes us laugh. + +No other man to-day enjoys to such an extent the close personal +affection, individual yet national, that is given to Mr. Samuel L. +Clemens. He is ours, he is one of us, we have a personal pride in +him--dear "Mark Twain," the beloved child of the American nation. And +it was through our laughter that he won our love. + +He is the exponent of the typically American style of fun-making, the +humorous story. I asked Mr. Clemens one day if he could remember the +first money he ever earned. With his inimitable drawl he said: + +"Yes, Marsh, it was at school. All boys had the habit of going to school +in those days, and they hadn't any more respect for the desks than they +had for the teachers. There was a rule in our school that any boy +marring his desk, either with pencil or knife, would be chastised +publicly before the whole school, or pay a fine of five dollars. Besides +the rule, there was a ruler; I knew it because I had felt it; it was a +darned hard one, too. One day I had to tell my father that I had broken +the rule, and had to pay a fine or take a public whipping; and he said: + +"'Sam, it would be too bad to have the name of Clemens disgraced before +the whole school, so I'll pay the fine. But I don't want you to lose +anything, so come upstairs.' + +"I went upstairs with father, and he was for-_giving_ me. I came +downstairs with the feeling in one hand and the five dollars in the +other, and decided that as I'd been punished once, and got used to it, I +wouldn't mind taking the other licking at school. So I did, and I kept +the five dollars. That was the first money I ever earned." + +The humorous story as expounded by Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, and Robert +J. Burdette, is purely American. Artemus Ward could get laughs out of +nothing, by mixing the absurd and the unexpected, and then backing the +combination with a solemn face and earnest manner. For instance, he was +fond of such incongruous statements as: "I once knew a man in New +Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head," here he would pause for some +time, look reminiscent, and continue: "and yet he could beat a base-drum +better than any man I ever knew." + +Robert J. Burdette, who wrote columns of capital humor for _The +Burlington Hawkeye_ and told stories superbly, on his first visit to New +York was spirited to a notable club, where he told stories leisurely +until half the hearers ached with laughter, and the other half were +threatened with apoplexy. Everyone present declared it the red-letter +night of the club, and members who had missed it came around and +demanded the stories at secondhand. Some efforts were made to oblige +them, but without avail, for the tellers had twisted their recollections +of the stories into jokes, and they didn't sound right, so a committee +hunted the town for Burdette to help them out of their difficulty. + +Humor is the kindliest method of laugh-making. Wit and satire are +ancient, but humor, it has been claimed, belongs to modern times. A +certain type of story, having a sudden and terse conclusion to a direct +statement, has been labeled purely American. For instance: "Willie Jones +loaded and fired a cannon yesterday. The funeral will be to-morrow." But +the truth is, it is older than America; it is very venerable. If you +will turn to the twelfth verse of the sixteenth chapter of II. +Chronicles, you will read: + +"And Asa in the thirty-ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, +until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not +the Lord, but turned to the physicians--and Asa slept with his fathers." + +Bill Nye was a sturdy and persistent humorist of so good a sort that he +never could help being humorous, yet there was never a sting in his +jokes. Gentle raillery was the severest thing he ever attempted, and +even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word +of his friendly chaffing was worth more than any amount of formal +praise. + +Few of the great world's great despatches contained so much wisdom in so +few words as Nye's historic wire from Washington: + +"My friends and money gave out at 3 A.M." + +Eugene Field, the lover of little children, and the self-confessed +bibliomaniac, gives us still another sort of laugh--the tender, +indulgent sort. Nothing could be finer than the gentle reminiscence of +"Long Ago," a picture of the lost kingdom of boyhood, which for all its +lightness holds a pathos that clutches one in the throat. + +And yet this writer of delicate and subtle humor, this master of tender +verse, had a keen and nimble wit. An ambitious poet once sent him a poem +to read entitled "Why do I live?" and Field immediately wrote back: +"Because you sent your poem by mail." + +Laughter is one of the best medicines in the world, and though some +people would make you force it down with a spoon, there is no doubt that +it is a splendid tonic and awakens the appetite for happiness. + +Colonel Ingersoll wrote on his photograph which adorns my home: "To the +man who knows that mirth is medicine and laughter lengthens life." + +Abraham Lincoln, that divinely tender man, believed that fun was an +intellectual impetus, for he read Artemus Ward to his Cabinet before +reading his famous emancipation proclamation, and laying down his book +marked the place to resume. + +Joel Chandler Harris, whose delightful stories of negro life hold such a +high place in American literature, told me a story of an old negro who +claimed that a sense of humor was necessary to happiness in married +life. He said: + +"I met a poor old darkey one day, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with +cooking utensils and household effects. Seeing me looking curiously at +him, he shook his head and said: + +"'I cain't stand her no longer, boss, I jes' nash'ully cain't stand her +no longer.' + +"'What's the matter, uncle?' I inquired. + +"'Well, you see, suh, she ain't got no idee o' fun--she won't take a +joke nohow. The other night I went home, an' I been takin' a little jes' +to waam ma heart--das all, jes to waam ma heart--an' I got to de fence, +an' tried to climb it. I got on de top, an' thar I stays; I couldn't git +one way or t'other. Then a gem'en comes along, an' I says, "Would you +min' givin' me a push?" He says, "Which way you want to go?" I says, +"Either way--don't make no dif'unce, jes' so I git off de fence, for +hit's pow'ful oncom'fable up yer." So he give me a push, an' sont me +over to'ard ma side, an' I went home. Then I want sum'in t' eat, an' my +ol' 'ooman she wouldn' git it fo' me, an' so, jes' fo' a joke, das +all--jes' a joke, I hit 'er awn de haid. But would you believe it, she +couldn't take a joke. She tu'n aroun', an' sir, she sail inter me +sum'in' scan'lous! I didn' do nothin', 'cause I feelin' kind o'weak jes' +then--an' so I made up ma min' I wasn' goin' to stay with her. Dis +mawnin' she gone out washin', an' I jes' move right out. Hit's no use +tryin' to live with a 'ooman who cain't take a joke!'" + +From the poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich to George Ade's Fables in Slang +is a far cry, but one is as typical a style of humor as the other. +Ade's is the more distinctly original, for he not only created the +style, but another language. The aptness of its turns, and the marvelous +way in which he hit the bull's-eye of human foibles and weaknesses +lifted him into instantaneous popularity. A famous _bon mot_ of George +Ade's which has been quoted threadbare, but which serves excellently to +illustrate his native wit, is his remark about a suit of clothes which +the tailor assured him he could _never_ wear out. He said when he put +them on he didn't _dare_ to. + +From the laughter-makers pure and simple, we come to those who, while +acknowledging the cloud, yet see the silver lining--the exponents of the +smile through tears. + +The best of these, Frank L. Stanton, has beautifully said: + + "This world that we're a-livin' in + Is mighty hard to beat; + With every rose you get a thorn, + But ain't the roses sweet?" + +He does not deny the thorns, but calls attention to the sweetness of the +roses--a gospel of compensation that speaks to the heart of all; kind +words of cheer to the weary traveler. + +Such a philosopher was the kind-hearted and sympathetic Irish boy who, +walking along with the parish priest, met a weary organ-grinder, who +asked how far it was to the next town. The boy answered, "Four miles." +The priest remonstrated: + +"Why, Mike, how can you deceive him so? You know it is eight." + +"Well, your riverence," said the good-natured fellow, "I saw how tired +he was, and I wanted to kape his courage up. If I'd told him the truth, +he'd have been down-hearted intirely!" + +This is really a jolly old world, and people are very apt to find just +what they are looking for. If they are looking for happiness, the best +way to find it is to try to give it to others. If a man goes around with +a face as long as a wet day, perfectly certain that he is going to be +kicked, he is seldom disappointed. + +A typical exponent of the tenderly human, the tearfully humorous, is +James Whitcomb Riley--a name to conjure with. Only mention it to anyone, +and note the spark of interest, the smiling sigh, the air of gentle +retrospection into which he will fall. There is a poem for each and +every one, that commends itself for some special reason, and holds such +power of memory or sentiment as sends it straight into the heart, to +remain there treasured and unforgotten. + +In these volumes are selections from the pen of all whom I have +mentioned, as well as many more, including a number by the clever women +humorists, of whom America is justly proud. + +It is with pride and pleasure that I acknowledge the honor done me in +being asked to introduce this company of fun-makers--such a goodly +number that space permits the mention of but a few. But we cannot have +too much or even enough of anything so good or so necessary as the +literature that makes us laugh. In that regard we are like a little +friend of Mr. Riley's. + +The Hoosier poet, as everyone knows, is the devoted friend, companion, +and singer of children. He has a habit of taking them on wild orgies +where they are turned loose in a candy store and told to do their worst. +This particular young lady had been allowed to choose all the sorts of +candy she liked until her mouth, both arms, and her pockets were full. +Just as they got to the door to go out, she hung back, and when Mr. +Riley stooped over asking her what was the matter, she whispered: + +"Don't you think it smells like ice cream?" + +Poems, stories, humorous articles, fables, and fairy tales are offered +for your choice, with subjects as diverse as the styles; but however the +laugh is gained, in whatever fashion the jest is delivered, the +laugh-maker is a public benefactor, for laughter is the salt of life, +and keeps the whole dish sweet. + +Merrily yours, +MARSHALL P. WILDER. + +ATLANTIC CITY, 1908. + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Acknowledgment is due to the following publishers, whose permission was +cordially granted to reprint selections which appear in this collection +of American humor. + +AINSLEE'S MAGAZINE for "Not According to Schedule," by Mary Stewart +Cutting. + +THE HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY for "The New Version," by William J. Lampton. + +THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY for "How We Bought a Sewin' Machine and +Organ," from _Josiah Allen's Wife as a P.A. and P.I._, by Marietta +Holley. + +D. APPLETON & COMPANY for "The Recruit," from _With the Band_, by Robert +W. Chambers. + +E.H. BACON & COMPANY for "The V-a-s-e" and "A Concord Love-Song," from +_The V-a-s-e and Other Bric-a-Brac_, by James Jeffrey Roche. + +THE H.M. CALDWELL COMPANY for "Yes" and "Disappointment," from _In +Bohemia_, by John Boyle O'Reilly. + +THE COLVER PUBLISHING HOUSE for "The Crimson Cord," by Ellis Parker +Butler, and "A Ballade of the 'How to' Books," by John James Davies, +from _The American Illustrated Magazine_. + +THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY for "Familiar Authors at Work," by Hayden +Carruth, from _The Woman's Home Companion_. + +THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY for "The Love Sonnets of a Husband," by +Maurice Smiley, and "Cheer for the Consumer," by Nixon Waterman, from +_The Saturday Evening Post_. + +DEWOLFE, FISKE & COMPANY for "Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready for +Sunday-School," from _Cape Cod Folks_, by Sarah P. McLean Greene. + +DICK & FITZGERALD for "The Thompson Street Poker Club," from _The +Thompson Street Poker Club_, by Henry Guy Carleton. + +G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY for "The Tower of London" and "Science and +Natural History," by Charles Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"); "The +Musketeer," from _Farmer's Alminax_, and "Laffing," from _Josh Billings: +His Works_, by Henry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings"); and for "John Henry in a +Street Car," from _John Henry_, by George V. Hobart ("Hugh McHugh"). + +DODD, MEAD & COMPANY for "The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark," "The +Forbearance of the Admiral," "The Dutiful Mariner," "The Meditations of +a Mariner" and "The Boat that Ain't," from _Nautical Lays of a +Landsman_, by Wallace Irwin. + +THE DUQUESNE DISTRIBUTING COMPANY for "The Grand Opera," from _Billy +Baxter's Letters_, by William J. Kountz, Jr. + +PAUL ELDER & COMPANY for Sonnets I, VIII, IX, XII, XIV, XXI, from _The +Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum_, by Wallace Irwin. + +EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE for "The Strike of One," by Elliott Flower; "The +Wolf's Holiday," by Caroline Duer; "A Mother of Four," by Juliet Wilbor +Tompkins; "The Weddin'," by Jennie Betts Hartswick, and "A Double-Dyed +Deceiver," by Sydney Porter ("O. Henry"). + +THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY for "Budge and Toddie," from _Helen's Babies_, +by John Habberton. + +FORDS, HOWARD & HURLBURT, for "The Deacon's Trout," from _Norwood_, by +Henry Ward Beecher. + +FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY for "The Paintermine," "The Octopussycat," "The +Welsh Rabbittern," "The Bumblebeaver," "The Wild Boarder," from _Mixed +Beasts_, by Kenyon Cox; "The Lost Inventor," "Niagara Be Dammed," "The +Ballad of Grizzly Gulch," "A Letter from Home," "Crankidoxology" and +"Fall Styles in Faces," from _At the Sign of the Dollar_, by Wallace +Irwin, and a selection from _The Golfer's Rubaiyat_, by Henry W. +Boynton. + +THE HARVARD LAMPOON for "A Lay of Ancient Rome," by Thomas Ybarra. + +HENRY HOLT & COMPANY for "Araminta and the Automobile," from _Cheerful +Americans_, by Charles Battell Loomis. + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY for "A Letter from Mr. Biggs," from _The +Story of a Country Town_, by E.W. Howe; "The Notary of Perigueux," from +_Outre-Mer_, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "A Nautical Ballad," from +_Davy and the Goblin_, by Charles E. Carryl; "The Spring Beauties," from +_The Ride to the Lady_, by Helen Avery Cone; "Praise-God Barebones," +from _Songs and Lyrics_, by Ellen M. Hutchinson-Cortissoz; "Fable," from +_Poems_, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; "The Owl Critic" and "Cæsar's Quiet +Lunch with Cicero," from _Ballads and Other Poems_, by James T. Fields; +"The Menagerie," from _Poems_, by William Vaughn Moody; "The Briefless +Barrister," "Comic Miseries," "A Reflective Retrospect," "How the Money +Goes," "The Coquette," "Icarus," "Teaching by Example," from _Poems_, by +John Godfrey Saxe; "My Honey, My Love," by Joel Chandler Harris; "Banty +Tim," "The Mystery of Gilgal" and "Distichs," from _Poems_, by John Hay; +"The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One Hoss Shay," "The Height +of the Ridiculous," "Evening, By a Tailor," "Latter Day Warnings," and +"Contentment," from _Poems_, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; two selections +from _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, +and "Dislikes," from _The Poet at the Breakfast Table_, by Oliver +Wendell Holmes; "Plain Language from Truthful James," and "The Society +Upon the Stanislaus," from _Poems_, by Bret Harte; "Melons," from _Mrs. +Skaggs' Husbands and Other Sketches_, by Bret Harte; "The Courtin'," "A +Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow" and "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," from +_Poems_, by James Russell Lowell; "The Chief Mate," from _Fireside +Travels_, by James Russell Lowell; "A Night in a Rocking Chair" and "A +Rival Entertainment," from _Haphazard_, by Kate Field; "Mrs. Johnson," +from _Suburban Sketches_, by William Dean Howells; "Garden Ethics," from +_My Summer in a Garden_, by Charles Dudley Warner; "Our Nearest +Neighbor," from _Marjorie Daw and Other Stories_, by Thomas Bailey +Aldrich; "Simon Starts in the World" (J.J. Hooper), "The Duluth Speech" +(J. Proctor Knott), "Bill Arp on Litigation" (C.H. Smith), "Assault and +Battery" (J.G. Baldwin), "How Ruby Played" (G.W. Bagby), from _Oddities +of Southern Life_, edited by Henry Watterson; "The Demon of the Study," +from _Poems_, by John Greenleaf Whittier; "The Old Maid's House: in +Plan," from _An Old Maid's Paradise_, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; "Dum +Vivimus Vigilamus," "What She Said About It," "Dictum Sapienti," "The +Lost Word" and "Abou Ben Butler," from _Poems_, by Charles Henry Webb +("John Paul"); "Chad's Story of the Goose" and "Colonel Carter's Story +of the Postmaster," from _Colonel Carter of Cartersville_, by F. +Hopkinson Smith; "The British Matron," from _Our Old Home_, by Nathaniel +Hawthorne; "As Good as a Play," from _Stories from My Attic_, by Horace +E. Scudder; "The Pettibone Lineage," by James T. Fields; "The +Experiences of the A.C.," by Bayard Taylor; "Eve's Daughter," by Edward +Rowland Sill, and "The Diamond Wedding," by Edmund Clarence Stedman. + +WILLIAM R. JENKINS for "It Is Time to Begin to Conclude," from _Soldier +Songs and Love Songs_, by Alexander H. Laidlaw. + +JOHN LANE COMPANY for "The Invisible Prince," from _Comedies and +Errors_, by Henry Harland. + +LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY for "Hard," "Enough" and "Desolation," from _In +Merry Measure_, by Tom Masson; "A Branch Library" and "Table Manners," +from _Tomfoolery_, by James Montgomery Flagg; "The Sonnet of the Lovable +Lass and the Plethoric Dad," by J.W. Foley; "Thoughts for an Easter +Morning," by Wallace Irwin; "Suppressed Chapters," by Carolyn Wells; +"The Conscientious Curate and the Beauteous Ballad Girl," by William +Russell Rose, and "A Poe-'em of Passion," by Charles F. Lummis. + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE for "The Modern Farmer," by Jack Appleton; "The +Wicked Zebra" and "The Happy Land," by Frank Roe Batchelder; "A Mothers' +Meeting," by Madeline Bridges; "The Final Choice" and "A Daniel Come to +Judgment," by Edmund Vance Cooke; "The Co-operative Housekeepers" and +"Her 'Angel' Father," by Elliott Flower; "Wasted Opportunities," by Roy +Farrell Greene; "The Auto Rubaiyat," by Reginald W. Kauffman; "It Pays +to be Happy" and "Victory," by Tom Masson; "Is It I?" by Warwick S. +Price; "Johnny's Lessons," by Carroll Watson Rankin; "Her Brother: +Enfant Terrible" and "Trouble-Proof," by E.L. Sabin; "A Bookworm's +Plaint," by Clinton Scollard; "Nothin' Done," by S.S. Stinson, and +"Uncle Bentley and the Roosters," by Hayden Carruth. + +LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY for "Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper," from _The +Peterkin Papers_, by Lucretia P. Hale; "The Skeleton in the Closet," by +Edward Everett Hale, and "The Wolf at Susan's Door," from _The Wolf at +Susan's Door and Mrs. Lathrop's Love Affair_, by Anne Warner. + +LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD for "A Letter," from _Swingin' Round the Circle_, +by David Ross Locke ("P. V. Nasby"); "A Cable Car Preacher" and "The +Prayer of Cyrus Brown," from _Dreams in Homespun_, by Sam Walter Foss; +"He Wanted to Know," "Hullo!" and "She Talked," from _Back Country +Poems_, by Sam Walter Foss; "Mr. Stiver's Horse" and "After the +Funeral," from the works of James M. Bailey (The Danbury News Man); +"Yawcob Strauss," "Der Oak und der Vine," "To Bary Jade" and "Shonny +Schwartz," from _Leetle Yawcob Strauss_, by Charles Follen Adams; "The +Coupon Bonds" and "Darius Greene," from the works of J.T. Trowbridge, +and Chapters VII, IX, XVI, XX, XXI, from "Partingtonian Patchwork," by +B.P. Shillaber. + +THE S.S. MCCLURE COMPANY and MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY for "Morris and +the Honorable Tim," from _Little Citizens_, by Myra Kelly. + +A.C. MCCLURG & COMPANY for "Simple English," from _At the Sign of the +Ginger Jar_, by Ray Clarke Rose, and "Ye Legende of Sir Yroncladde," by +Wilbur D. Nesbit, from _The Athlete's Garland_. + +DAVID MCKAY for "Hans Breitmann's Party," "Breitmann and the Turners," +"Ballad," "Breitmann in Politics" and "Love Song," from _Hans +Breitmann's Ballads_, by Charles Godfrey Leland, and "A Boston Ballad," +from _Leaves of Grass_, by Walt Whitman. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY for "In a State of Sin," from _The Virginian_, by +Owen Wister. + +THE MONARCH BOOK COMPANY for "The Apostasy of William Dodge," from _The +Seekers_, by Stanley Waterloo. + +THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY for "An Educational Project" and "The +Woman-Hater Reformed," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Trial That Job +Missed," by Kennett Harris; "The Education of Grandpa," by Wallace +Irwin; "An Improved Calendar," by Tudor Jenks. + +SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY for "Mr. Dooley on Gold Seeking," "Mr. Dooley +on Expert Testimony," "Mr. Dooley on Golf," "Mr. Dooley on Football," +"Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates," from _Mr. Dooley in Peace and War_, +by Finley Peter Dunne; "E.O.R.S.W." from _Alphabet of Celebrities_, by +Oliver Herford; "A Letter," from _The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to +His Son_, by George Horace Lorimer; "Vive La Bagatelle" and "Willy and +the Lady," from _A Gage of Youth_, by Gelett Burgess; "When the Allegash +Drive Goes Through," from _Pine Tree Ballads_, by Holman F. Day; "Had a +Set of Double Teeth," from _Up in Maine_, by Holman F. 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Ware, Anne Warner French and +Stanley Waterloo for permission to reprint selections from their works +and for many valuable suggestions. + + + + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + + + + +MELONS + +BY BRET HARTE + + +As I do not suppose the most gentle of readers will believe that +anybody's sponsors in baptism ever wilfully assumed the responsibility +of such a name, I may as well state that I have reason to infer that +Melons was simply the nickname of a small boy I once knew. If he had any +other, I never knew it. + +Various theories were often projected by me to account for this strange +cognomen. His head, which was covered with a transparent down, like that +which clothes very small chickens, plainly permitting the scalp to show +through, to an imaginative mind might have suggested that succulent +vegetable. That his parents, recognizing some poetical significance in +the fruits of the season, might have given this name to an August child, +was an oriental explanation. That from his infancy, he was fond of +indulging in melons, seemed on the whole the most likely, particularly +as Fancy was not bred in McGinnis's Court. He dawned upon me as Melons. +His proximity was indicated by shrill, youthful voices, as "Ah, Melons!" +or playfully, "Hi, Melons!" or authoritatively, "You Melons!" + +McGinnis's Court was a democratic expression of some obstinate and +radical property-holder. Occupying a limited space between two +fashionable thoroughfares, it refused to conform to circumstances, but +sturdily paraded its unkempt glories, and frequently asserted itself in +ungrammatical language. My window--a rear room on the ground floor--in +this way derived blended light and shadow from the court. So low was the +window-sill that, had I been the least disposed to somnambulism, it +would have broken out under such favorable auspices, and I should have +haunted McGinnis's Court. My speculations as to the origin of the court +were not altogether gratuitous, for by means of this window I once saw +the Past, as through a glass darkly. It was a Celtic shadow that early +one morning obstructed my ancient lights. It seemed to belong to an +individual with a pea-coat, a stubby pipe, and bristling beard. He was +gazing intently at the court, resting on a heavy cane, somewhat in the +way that heroes dramatically visit the scenes of their boyhood. As there +was little of architectural beauty in the court, I came to the +conclusion that it was McGinnis looking after his property. The fact +that he carefully kicked a broken bottle out of the road somewhat +strengthened me in the opinion. But he presently walked away, and the +court knew him no more. He probably collected his rents by proxy--if he +collected them at all. + +Beyond Melons, of whom all this is purely introductory, there was little +to interest the most sanguine and hopeful nature. In common with all +such localities, a great deal of washing was done, in comparison with +the visible results. There was always some thing whisking on the line, +and always some thing whisking through the court, that looked as if it +ought to be there. A fish-geranium--of all plants kept for the +recreation of mankind, certainly the greatest illusion--straggled under +the window. Through its dusty leaves I caught the first glance of +Melons. + +His age was about seven. He looked older from the venerable whiteness of +his head, and it was impossible to conjecture his size, as he always +wore clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth of nineteen. A +pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained by a single suspender, +completely equipped him, formed his every-day suit. How, with this +lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the surprising +gymnastic feats it has been my privilege to witness, I have never been +able to tell. His "turning the crab," and other minor dislocations, were +always attended with success. It was not an unusual sight at any hour of +the day to find Melons suspended on a line, or to see his venerable head +appearing above the roofs of the outhouses. Melons knew the exact height +of every fence in the vicinity, its facilities for scaling, and the +possibility of seizure on the other side. His more peaceful and quieter +amusements consisted in dragging a disused boiler by a large string, +with hideous outcries, to imaginary fires. + +Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few youth of his own age +sometimes called upon him, but they eventually became abusive, and their +visits were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles and junk +which formed the staple of McGinnis's Court. Overcome by loneliness one +day, Melons inveigled a blind harper into the court. For two hours did +that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed calling, unrecompensed, and +going round and round the court, apparently under the impression that it +was some other place, while Melons surveyed him from an adjoining fence +with calm satisfaction. It was this absence of conscientious motives +that brought Melons into disrepute with his aristocratic neighbors. +Orders were issued that no child of wealthy and pious parentage should +play with him. This mandate, as a matter of course, invested Melons +with a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances were cast at +Melons from nursery windows. Baby fingers beckoned to him. Invitations +to tea (on wood and pewter) were lisped to him from aristocratic +back-yards. It was evident he was looked upon as a pure and noble being, +untrammelled by the conventionalities of parentage, and physically as +well as mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual commotion +prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's Court. Looking from my window I +saw Melons perched on the roof of a stable, pulling up a rope by which +one "Tommy," an infant scion of an adjacent and wealthy house, was +suspended in mid-air. In vain the female relatives of Tommy, congregated +in the back-yard, expostulated with Melons; in vain the unhappy father +shook his fist at him. Secure in his position, Melons redoubled his +exertions and at last landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the +humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been acting in collusion +with Melons. He grinned delightedly back at his parents, as if "by merit +raised to that bad eminence." Long before the ladder arrived that was to +succor him, he became the sworn ally of Melons, and, I regret to say, +incited by the same audacious boy, "chaffed" his own flesh and blood +below him. He was eventually taken, though, of course, Melons escaped. +But Tommy was restricted to the window after that, and the companionship +was limited to "Hi Melons!" and "You Tommy!" and Melons to all practical +purposes, lost him forever. I looked afterward to see some signs of +sorrow on Melons's part, but in vain; he buried his grief, if he had +any, somewhere in his one voluminous garment. + +At about this time my opportunities of knowing Melons became more +extended. I was engaged in filling a void in the Literature of the +Pacific Coast. As this void was a pretty large one, and as I was +informed that the Pacific Coast languished under it, I set apart two +hours each day to this work of filling in. It was necessary that I +should adopt a methodical system, so I retired from the world and locked +myself in my room at a certain hour each day, after coming from my +office. I then carefully drew out my portfolio and read what I had +written the day before. This would suggest some alterations, and I would +carefully rewrite it. During this operation I would turn to consult a +book of reference, which invariably proved extremely interesting and +attractive. It would generally suggest another and better method of +"filling in." Turning this method over reflectively in my mind, I would +finally commence the new method which I eventually abandoned for the +original plan. At this time I would become convinced that my exhausted +faculties demanded a cigar. The operation of lighting a cigar usually +suggested that a little quiet reflection and meditation would be of +service to me, and I always allowed myself to be guided by prudential +instincts. Eventually, seated by my window, as before stated, Melons +asserted himself. Though our conversation rarely went further than +"Hello, Mister!" and "Ah, Melons!" a vagabond instinct we felt in common +implied a communion deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling the +time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the fence or line (always +with an eye to my window) until dinner was announced and I found a more +practical void required my attention. An unlooked-for incident drew us +in closer relation. + +A sea-faring friend just from a tropical voyage had presented me with a +bunch of bananas. They were not quite ripe, and I hung them before my +window to mature in the sun of McGinnis's Court, whose forcing +qualities were remarkable. In the mysteriously mingled odors of ship +and shore which they diffused throughout my room, there was lingering +reminiscence of low latitudes. But even that joy was fleeting and +evanescent: they never reached maturity. + +Coming home one day, as I turned the corner of that fashionable +thoroughfare before alluded to, I met a small boy eating a banana. There +was nothing remarkable in that, but as I neared McGinnis's Court I +presently met another small boy, also eating a banana. A third small boy +engaged in a like occupation obtruded a painful coincidence upon my +mind. I leave the psychological reader to determine the exact +co-relation between the circumstance and the sickening sense of loss +that overcame me on witnessing it. I reached my room--the bananas were +gone. + +There was but one that knew of their existence, but one who frequented +my window, but one capable of gymnastic effort to procure them, and that +was--I blush to say it--Melons. Melons the depredator--Melons, despoiled +by larger boys of his ill-gotten booty, or reckless and indiscreetly +liberal; Melons--now a fugitive on some neighborhood house-top. I lit a +cigar, and, drawing my chair to the window, sought surcease of sorrow in +the contemplation of the fish-geranium. In a few moments something white +passed my window at about the level of the edge. There was no mistaking +that hoary head, which now represented to me only aged iniquity. It was +Melons, that venerable, juvenile hypocrite. + +He affected not to observe me, and would have withdrawn quietly, but +that horrible fascination which causes the murderer to revisit the scene +of his crime, impelled him toward my window. I smoked calmly, and gazed +at him without speaking. He walked several times up and down the court +with a half-rigid, half-belligerent expression of eye and shoulder, +intended to represent the carelessness of innocence. + +Once or twice he stopped, and putting his arms their whole length into +his capacious trousers, gazed with some interest at the additional width +they thus acquired. Then he whistled. The singular conflicting +conditions of John Brown's body and soul were at that time beginning to +attract the attention of youth, and Melons's performance of that melody +was always remarkable. But to-day he whistled falsely and shrilly +between his teeth. At last he met my eye. He winced slightly, but +recovered himself, and going to the fence, stood for a few moments on +his hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned +toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary. + +"They is a cirkis"--said Melons gravely, hanging with his back to the +fence and his arms twisted around the palings--"a cirkis over +yonder!"--indicating the locality with his foot--"with hosses, and +hossback riders. They is a man wot rides six hosses to onct--six hosses +to onct--and nary saddle"--and he paused in expectation. + +Even this equestrian novelty did not affect me. I still kept a fixed +gaze on Melons's eye, and he began to tremble and visibly shrink in his +capacious garment. Some other desperate means--conversation with Melons +was always a desperate means--must be resorted to. He recommenced more +artfully. + +"Do you know Carrots?" + +I had a faint remembrance of a boy of that euphonious name, with scarlet +hair, who was a playmate and persecutor of Melons. But I said nothing. + +"Carrots is a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in +his boots, saw him to-day looking in your windy." + +I felt that this must end here. I rose sternly and addressed Melons. + +"Melons, this is all irrelevant and impertinent to the case. _You_ took +those bananas. Your proposition regarding Carrots, even if I were +inclined to accept it as credible information, does not alter the +material issue. You took those bananas. The offense under the Statutes +of California is felony. How far Carrots may have been accessory to the +fact either before or after, is not my intention at present to discuss. +The act is complete. Your present conduct shows the _animo furandi_ to +have been equally clear." + +By the time I had finished this exordium, Melons had disappeared, as I +fully expected. + +He never reappeared. The remorse that I have experienced for the part I +had taken in what I fear may have resulted in his utter and complete +extermination, alas, he may not know, except through these pages. For I +have never seen him since. Whether he ran away and went to sea to +reappear at some future day as the most ancient of mariners, or whether +he buried himself completely in his trousers, I never shall know. I have +read the papers anxiously for accounts of him. I have gone to the Police +Office in the vain attempt of identifying him as a lost child. But I +never saw him or heard of him since. Strange fears have sometimes +crossed my mind that his venerable appearance may have been actually the +result of senility, and that he may have been gathered peacefully to his +fathers in a green old age. I have even had doubts of his existence, and +have sometimes thought that he was providentially and mysteriously +offered to fill the void I have before alluded to. In that hope I have +written these pages. + + + + +THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE + +OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" + +_A Logical Story_ + +BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, + That was built in such a logical way + It ran a hundred years to a day, + And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay, + I'll tell you what happened without delay, + Scaring the parson into fits, + Frightening people out of their wits,-- + Have you ever heard of that, I say? + + Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. + _Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,-- + Snuffy old drone from the German hive. + That was the year when Lisbon-town + Saw the earth open and gulp her down, + And Braddock's army was done so brown, + Left without a scalp to its crown. + It was on the terrible Earthquake-day + That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. + + Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, + There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,-- + In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, + In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, + In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still, + Find it somewhere you must and will,-- + Above or below, or within or without,-- + And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, + That a chaise _breaks down_, but doesn't _wear out_. + + But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do, + With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell _yeou_,") + He would build one shay to beat the taown + 'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; + It should be so built that it _couldn'_ break daown: + --"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain + Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; + 'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, + Is only jest + T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." + + So the Deacon inquired of the village folk + Where he could find the strongest oak, + That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-- + That was for spokes and floor and sills; + He sent for lancewood to make the thills; + The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, + The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese, + But lasts like iron for things like these; + The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"-- + Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em, + Never an axe had seen their chips, + And the wedges flew from between their lips, + Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; + Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, + Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, + Steel of the finest, bright and blue; + Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; + Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide + Found in the pit when the tanner died. + That was the way he "put her through."-- + "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" + + Do! I tell you, I rather guess + She was a wonder, and nothing less! + Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, + Deacon and deaconess dropped away, + Children and grandchildren--where were they? + But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay + As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! + + EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--It came and found + The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. + Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-- + "Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. + Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-- + Running as usual; much the same. + Thirty and forty at last arrive, + And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. + + Little of all we value here + Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year + Without both feeling and looking queer. + In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, + So far as I know, but a tree and truth. + (This is a moral that runs at large; + Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.) + + FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--The Earthquake-day-- + There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, + A general flavor of mild decay, + But nothing local, as one may say. + There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art + Had made it so like in every part + That there wasn't a chance for one to start. + For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, + And the floor was just as strong as the sills, + And the panels just as strong as the floor, + And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, + And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, + And the spring and axle and hub _encore_. + And yet, as a _whole_, it is past a doubt + In another hour it will be _worn out_! + + First of November, 'Fifty-five! + This morning the parson takes a drive. + Now, small boys, get out of the way! + Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, + Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. + "Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they. + The parson was working his Sunday's text,-- + Had got to _fifthly_, and stopped perplexed + At what the--Moses--was coming next. + All at once the horse stood still, + Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. + --First a shiver, and then a thrill, + Then something decidedly like a spill,-- + And the parson was sitting upon a rock, + At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,-- + Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! + --What do you think the parson found, + When he got up and stared around? + The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, + As if it had been to the mill and ground! + You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, + How it went to pieces all at once,-- + All at once, and nothing first,-- + Just as bubbles do when they burst. + + End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. + Logic is logic. That's all I say. + + + + +THE PURPLE COW + +BY GELETT BURGESS + + + _Reflections on a Mythic Beast, + Who's Quite Remarkable, at Least._ + + I never Saw a Purple Cow; + I never Hope to See One; + But I can Tell you, Anyhow, + I'd rather See than Be One. + + _Cinq Ans Apres._ + + (_Confession: and a Portrait, Too, + Upon a Background that I Rue!_) + + Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow"-- + I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it! + But I can Tell you, Anyhow, + I'll Kill you if you Quote it! + + + + +THE CURSE OF THE COMPETENT + +BY HENRY J. FINN + + + My spirit hath been seared, as though the lightning's scathe had rent, + In the swiftness of its wrath, through the midnight firmament, + The darkly deepening clouds; and the shadows dim and murky + Of destiny are on me, for my dinner's naught but--_turkey_. + + The chords upon my silent lute no soft vibrations know, + Save where the meanings of despair--out-breathings of my woe-- + Tell of the cold and selfish world. In melancholy mood, + The soul of genius chills with only--_fourteen cords of wood_. + + The dreams of the deserted float around my curtained hours, + And young imaginings are as the thorns bereft of flowers; + A wretched outcast from mankind, my strength of heart has sank + Beneath the evils of--_ten thousand dollars in the bank_. + + This life to me a desert is, and kindness, as the stream + That singly drops upon the waste where burning breezes teem; + A banished, blasted plant, I droop, to which no freshness lends + Its healing balm, for Heaven knows, I've but--_a dozen friends_. + + And Sorrow round my brow has wreathed its coronal of thorns; + No dewy pearl of Pleasure my sad sunken eyes adorns; + Calamity has clothed my thoughts, I feel a bliss no more,-- + Alas! my wardrobe now would only--_stock a clothing store_. + + The joyousness of Memory from me for aye hath fled; + It dwells within the dreary habitation of the dead; + I breathe my midnight melodies in languor and by stealth, + For Fate inflicts upon my frame--_the luxury of health_. + + Envy, Neglect, and Scorn have been my hard inheritance; + And a baneful curse clings to me, like the stain on innocence; + My moments are as faded leaves, or roses in their blight-- + I'm asked but once a day to dine--_to parties every night_. + + Would that I were a silver ray upon the moonlit air, + Or but one gleam that's glorified by each Peruvian's prayer! + My tortured spirit turns from earth, to ease its bitter loathing; + My hatred is on all things here, because--_I want for nothing_. + + + + +THE GRAMMATICAL BOY + +BY BILL NYE + + +Sometimes a sad, homesick feeling comes over me, when I compare the +prevailing style of anecdote and school literature with the old McGuffey +brand, so well known thirty years ago. To-day our juvenile literature, +it seems to me, is so transparent, so easy to understand, that I am not +surprised to learn that the rising generation shows signs of +lawlessness. + +Boys to-day do not use the respectful language and large, luxuriant +words that they did when Mr. McGuffey used to stand around and report +their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is +disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I +think we should face the facts. + +I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following +selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged +with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with +the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of +to-day. + +One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing +through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite +direction along the highway. + +"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we +here?" + +"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do +you reside in this locality?" + +"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder +cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children +dwell with me." + +"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection. + +"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor +mother is a widow." + +"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on +the other foot a while. + +"Alas! sir," said George, as a large hot tear stole down his pale cheek +and fell with a loud report on the warty surface of his bare foot, "he +was lost at sea in a bitter gale. The good ship foundered two years ago +last Christmastide, and father was foundered at the same time. No one +knew of the loss of the ship and that the crew was drowned until the +next spring, and it was then too late." + +"And what is your age, my fine fellow?" quoth the stranger. + +"If I live till next October," said the boy, in a declamatory tone of +voice suitable for a Second Reader, "I will be seven years of age." + +"And who provides for your mother and her large family of children?" +queried the man. + +"Indeed, I do, sir," replied George, in a shrill tone. "I toil, oh, so +hard, sir, for we are very, very poor, and since my elder sister, Ann, +was married and brought her husband home to live with us, I have to toil +more assiduously than heretofore." + +"And by what means do you obtain a livelihood?" exclaimed the man, in +slowly measured and grammatical words. + +"By digging wells, kind sir," replied George, picking up a tired ant as +he spoke and stroking it on the back. "I have a good education, and so I +am able to dig wells as well as a man. I do this day-times and take in +washing at night. In this way I am enabled barely to maintain our family +in a precarious manner; but, oh, sir, should my other sisters marry, I +fear that some of my brothers-in-law would have to suffer." + +"And do you not fear the deadly fire-damp?" asked the stranger in an +earnest tone. + +"Not by a damp sight," answered George, with a low gurgling laugh, for +he was a great wag. + +"You are indeed a brave lad," exclaimed the stranger, as he repressed a +smile. "And do you not at times become very weary and wish for other +ways of passing your time?" + +"Indeed, I do, sir," said the lad. "I would fain run and romp and be gay +like other boys, but I must engage in constant manual exercise, or we +will have no bread to eat, and I have not seen a pie since papa perished +in the moist and moaning sea." + +"And what if I were to tell you that your papa did not perish at sea, +but was saved from a humid grave?" asked the stranger in pleasing tones. + +"Ah, sir," exclaimed George, in a genteel manner, again doffing his cap, +"I am too polite to tell you what I would say, and besides, sir, you are +much larger than I am." + +"But, my brave lad," said the man in low musical tones, "do you not know +me, Georgie? Oh, George!" + +"I must say," replied George, "that you have the advantage of me. Whilst +I may have met you before, I can not at this moment place you, sir." + +"My son! oh, my son!" murmured the man, at the same time taking a large +strawberry mark out of his valise and showing it to the lad. "Do you not +recognize your parent on your father's side? When our good ship went to +the bottom, all perished save me. I swam several miles through the +billows, and at last, utterly exhausted, gave up all hope of life. +Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It was the United States. + +"And now, my brave boy," exclaimed the man with great glee, "see what I +have brought for you." It was but the work of a moment to unclasp from a +shawl-strap which he held in his hand and present to George's astonished +gaze a large forty-cent watermelon, which until now had been concealed +by the shawl-strap. + + + + +SIMPLE ENGLISH + +BY RAY CLARKE ROSE + + + Ofttimes when I put on my gloves, + I wonder if I'm sane. + For when I put the right one on, + The right seems to remain + To be put on--that is, 'tis left; + Yet if the left I don, + The other one is left, and then + I have the right one on. + But still I have the left on right; + The right one, though, is left + To go right on the left right hand + All right, if I am deft. + + + + +PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK + +BY B.P. SHILLABER + + +VII + +"Are you in favor of the prohibitive law, or the license law?" asked her +opposite neighbor of the relict of P.P.; corporal of the "Bloody +'Leventh." + +She carefully weighed the question, as though she were selling snuff, +and answered,-- + +"Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not." + +Her neighbor was perplexed, and repeated the question, varying it a +little. + +"Have you seen the 'Mrs. Partington Twilight Soap'?" she asked. + +"Yes," was the reply; "everybody has seen that; but why?" + +"Because," said the dame, "it has two sides to it, and it is hard to +choose between them. Now here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on +both sides--one goes for probation, t'other for licentiousness; and I +think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance." + +She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired, and smiled, while +Ike lay on the floor, with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. +Partington's fancy waiter on his toe. + + +IX + +Christmas Ike was made the happy possessor of a fiddle, which he found +in the morning near his stocking. + +"Has he got a musical bent?" Banfield asked, of whom Mrs. Partington was +buying the instrument. + +"Bent, indeed!" said she; "no, he's as straight as an error." + +He explained by repeating the question regarding his musical +inclination. + +"Yes," she replied; "he's dreadfully inclined to music since he had a +drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another Pickaninny or +an Old Bull of him. Jews-harps is simple, though I can't see how King +David played on one of 'em, and sung his psalms at the same time; but +the fiddle is best, because genius can show itself plainer on it without +much noise. Some prefers a violeen; but I don't know." + +The fiddle was well improved, till the horsehair all pulled out of the +bow, and it was then twisted up into a fish-line. + + +XVI + +"How limpid you walk!" said a voice behind us, as we were making a +hundred and fifty horse-power effort to reach a table whereon reposed a +volume of Bacon. "What is the cause of your lameness?" It was Mrs. +Partington's voice that spoke, and Mrs. Partington's eyes that met the +glance we returned over our left shoulder. "Gout," said we, briefly, +almost surlily. "Dear me," said she; "you are highly flavored! It was +only rich people and epicacs in living that had the gout in olden +times." "Ah!" we growled, partly in response, and partly with an +infernal twinge, "Poor soul!" she continued, with commiseration, like an +anodyne, in the tones of her voice; "the best remedy I know for it is an +embarkation of Roman wormwood and lobelia for the part infected, though +some say a cranberry poultice is best; but I believe the cranberries is +for erisipilis, and whether either of 'em is a rostrum for the gout or +not, I really don't know. If it was a fraction of the arm, I could jest +know what to subscribe." We looked into her eye with a determination to +say something severely bitter, because we felt allopathic just then; but +the kind and sympathizing look that met our own disarmed severity, and +sinking into a seat with our coveted Bacon, we thanked her. It was very +evident, all the while, that she, or they, stayed, that Ike was seeing +how near he could come to our lame member, and not touch it. He did +touch it sometimes, but those didn't count. + + +XX + +"I've always noticed," said Mrs. Partington on New Year's Day, dropping +her voice to the key that people adopt when they are disposed to be +philosophical or moral; "I've always noticed that every year added to a +man's life is apt to make him older, just as a man who goes a journey +finds, as he jogs on, that every mile he goes brings him nearer where he +is going, and farther from where he started. I am not so young as I was +once, and I don't believe I shall ever be, if I live to the age of +Samson, which, Heaven knows as well as I do, I don't want to, for I +wouldn't be a centurion or an octagon, and survive my factories, and +become idiomatic, by any means. But then there is no knowing how a thing +will turn out till it takes place; and we shall come to an end some day, +though we may never live to see it." + +There was a smart tap on the looking-glass that hung upon the wall, +followed instantly by another. + +"Gracious!" said she; "what's that? I hope the glass isn't fractioned, +for it is a sure sign of calamity, and mercy knows they come along full +fast enough without helping 'em by breaking looking-glasses." + +There was another tap, and she caught sight of a white bean that fell on +the floor; and there, reflected in the glass, was the face of Ike, who +was blowing beans at the mirror through a crack in the door. + + +XXI + +"As for the Chinese question," said Mrs. Partington, reflectively, +holding her spoon at "present," while the vapor of her cup of tea curled +about her face, which shone through it like the moon through a mist, "it +is a great pity that somebody don't answer it, though who under the +canister of heaven can do it, with sich letters as they have on their +tea-chists, is more than I can tell. It is really too bad, though, that +some lingister doesn't try it, and not have this provoking question +asked all the time, as if we were ignoramuses, and did not know Toolong +from No Strong, and there never was sich a thing as the seventh +commandment, which, Heaven knows, suits this case to a T, and I hope the +breakers of it may escape, but I don't see how they can. The question +must be answered, unless it is like a cannondrum, to be given up, which +nobody of any spirit should do." + +She brought the spoon down into the cup, and looked out through the +windows of her soul into celestial fields, peopled with pig-tails, that +were all in her eye, while Ike took a double charge of sugar for his +tea, and gave an extra allowance of milk to the kitten. + + + + +THE MENAGERIE + +BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY + + + Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut + Such capers every day! I'm just about + Mellow, but then--There goes the tent flap shut. + Rain's in the wind. I thought so: every snout + Was twitching when the keeper turned me out. + + That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold. + Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant + Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold, + And jabber that it's rain-water they want. + (It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.) + + I'll foot it home, to try and make believe + I'm sober. After this I stick to beer, + And drop the circus when the sane folks leave. + A man's a fool to look at things too near: + They look back and begin to cut up queer. + + Beasts do, at any rate; especially + Wild devils caged. They have the coolest way + Of being something else than what you see: + You pass a sleek young zebra nosing hay, + A nylghau looking bored and distingué,-- + + And think you've seen a donkey and a bird. + Not on your life! Just glance back, if you dare. + The zebra chews, the nylghau hasn't stirred; + But something's happened, Heaven knows what or where, + To freeze your scalp and pompadour your hair. + + I'm not precisely an æolian lute + Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment, + But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute + Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent + Didn't just floor me with embarrassment! + + 'Twas like a thunder-clap from out the clear-- + One minute they were circus beasts, some grand, + Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer: + Rival attractions to the hobo band, + The flying jenny, and the peanut-stand. + + Next minute they were old hearth-mates of mine! + Lost people, eyeing me with such a stare! + Patient, satiric, devilish, divine; + A gaze of hopeless envy, squalid care, + Hatred, and thwarted love, and dim despair. + + Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke-- + Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar + Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke, + Or through fern forests roared the plesiosaur + Locked with the giant-bat in ghastly war. + + And suddenly, as in a flash of light, + I saw great Nature working out her plan; + Through all her shapes, from mastodon to mite, + Forever groping, testing, passing on + To find at last the shape and soul of Man. + + Till in the fullness of accomplished time, + Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent, + Tracks her through frozen and through torrid clime, + And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent, + The stages of her huge experiment; + + Babbling aloud her shy and reticent hours; + Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods; + Publishing fretful seasons when her powers + Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes, + Or when her mordant laughter shook the woods. + + Here, round about me, were her vagrant births; + Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she essayed; + Her qualms, her fiery prides, her craze mirths; + The troublings of her spirit as she strayed, + Cringed, gloated, mocked, was lordly, was afraid, + + On that long road she went to seek mankind; + Here were the darkling coverts that she beat + To find the Hider she was sent to find; + Here the distracted footprints of her feet + Whereby her soul's Desire she came to greet. + + But why should they, her botch-work, turn about + And stare disdain at me, her finished job? + Why was the place one vast suspended shout + Of laughter? Why did all the daylight throb + With soundless guffaw and dumb-stricken sob? + + Helpless I stood among those awful cages; + The beasts were walking loose, and I was bagged! + I, I, last product of the toiling ages, + Goal of heroic feet that never lagged-- + A little man in trousers, slightly jagged. + + Deliver me from such another jury! + The Judgment-day will be a picnic to't. + Their satire was more dreadful than their fury, + And worst of all was just a kind of brute + Disgust, and giving up, and sinking mute. + + Survival of the fittest adaptation, + And all their other evolution terms, + Seem to omit one small consideration, + To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms + Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms. + + And souls are restless, plagued, impatient things, + All dream and unaccountable desire; + Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings; + Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire, + Mystical hanker after something higher. + + Wishes _are_ horses, as I understand. + I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes + Of feeling faint to gallivant on land + Will come to be a scandal to his folk; + Legs he will sprout, in spite of threats and jokes. + + And at the core of every life that crawls + Or runs or flies or swims or vegetates-- + Churning the mammoth's heart-blood, in the galls + Of shark and tiger planting gorgeous hates, + Lighting the love of eagles for their mates; + + Yes, in the dim brain of the jellied fish + That is and is not living--moved and stirred + From the beginning a mysterious wish, + A vision, a command, a fatal Word: + The name of Man was uttered, and they heard. + + Upward along the æons of old war + They sought him: wing and shank-bone, claw and bill, + Were fashioned and rejected; wide and far + They roamed the twilight jungles of their will; + But still they sought him, and desired him still. + + Man they desired, but mind you, Perfect Man, + The radiant and the loving, yet to be! + I hardly wonder, when they come to scan + The upshot of their strenuosity, + They gazed with mixed emotions upon _me_. + + Well, my advice to you is, Face the creatures, + Or spot them sideways with your weather eye, + Just to keep tab on their expansive features; + It isn't pleasant when you're stepping high + To catch a giraffe smiling on the sly. + + If Nature made you graceful, don't get gay + Back-to before the hippopotamus; + If meek and godly, find some place to play + Besides right where three mad hyenas fuss; + You may hear language that we won't discuss. + + If you're a sweet thing in a flower-bed hat, + Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in, + Don't squander love's bright springtime girding at + An old chimpanzee with an Irish chin: + _There may be hidden meaning in his grin_. + + + + +DOWN AROUND THE RIVER + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + Noon-time and June-time, down around the river! + Have to furse with 'Lizey Ann--but lawzy! I fergive her! + Drives me off the place, and says 'at all 'at she's a-wishin', + Land o' gracious! time'll come I'll git enough o' fishin'! + Little Dave, a-choppin' wood, never 'pears to notice; + Don't know where she's hid his hat, er keerin' where his coat is,-- + Specalatin', more'n like, he haint a-goin' to mind me, + And guessin' where, say twelve o'clock, a feller'd likely find me. + + Noon-time and June-time, down around the river! + Clean out o' sight o' home, and skulkin' under kivver + Of the sycamores, jack-oaks, and swamp-ash and ellum-- + Idies all so jumbled up, you kin hardly tell'em!-- + _Tired_, you know, but _lovin'_ it, and smilin' jest to think 'at + Any sweeter tiredness you'd fairly want to _drink_ it. + Tired o' fishin'--tired o' fun--line out slack and slacker-- + All you want in all the world's a little more tobacker! + + Hungry, but _a-hidin'_ it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':-- + Kingfisher gittin' up and skootin' out o' hearin'; + Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is, + Wadin' up and down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches! + Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin' + Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen! + Worter, shade and all so mixed, don't know which you'd orter + Say, th' _worter_ in the shadder--_shadder_ in the _worter_! + + Somebody hollerin'--'way around the bend in + Upper Fork--where yer eye kin jes' ketch the endin' + Of the shiney wedge o' wake some muss-rat's a-makin' + With that pesky nose o' his! Then a sniff o' bacon, + Corn-bread and 'dock-greens--and little Dave a-shinnin' + 'Crost the rocks and mussel-shells, a-limpin' and a-grinnin', + With yer dinner fer ye, and a blessin' from the giver. + Noon-time and June-time down around the river! + + + + +A MEDIEVAL DISCOVERER + +BY BILL NYE + + +Galilei, commonly called Galileo, was born at Pisa on the 14th day of +February, 1564. He was the man who discovered some of the fundamental +principles governing the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities +of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he +was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its +infancy and astronomy was taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in +to make a few discoveries and advance some theories which he loved. + +He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments +himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great +musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections, and +then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for +several years in a band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that his +manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in his +eye after playing a selection, while he gently up-ended his alto horn +and worked the mud-valve as he poured out about a pint of moist melody +that had accumulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand. + +At the age of twenty Galileo began to discover. His first discoveries +were, of course, clumsy and poorly made, but very soon he commenced to +turn out neat and durable discoveries that would stand for years. + +It was at this time that he noticed the swinging of a lamp in a church, +and, observing that the oscillations were of equal duration, he inferred +that this principle might be utilized in the exact measurement of time. +From this little accident, years after, came the clock, one of the most +useful of man's dumb friends. And yet there are people who will read +this little incident and still hesitate about going to church. + +Galileo also invented the thermometer, the microscope and the +proportional compass. He seemed to invent things not for the money to be +obtained in that way, but solely for the joy of being first on the +ground. He was a man of infinite genius and perseverance. He was also +very fair in his treatment of other inventors. Though he did not +personally invent the rotary motion of the earth, he heartily indorsed +it and said it was a good thing. He also came out in a card in which he +said that he believed it to be a good thing, and that he hoped some day +to see it applied to the other planets. + +He was also the inventor of a telescope that had a magnifying power of +thirty times. He presented this to the Venetian senate, and it was used +in making appropriations for river and harbor improvements. + +By telescopic investigation Galileo discovered the presence of microbes +in the moon, but was unable to do anything for it. I have spoken of Mr. +Galileo, informally calling him by his first name, all the way through +this article, for I feel so thoroughly acquainted with him, though there +was such a striking difference in our ages, that I think I am justified +in using his given name while talking of him. + +Galileo also sat up nights and visited with Venus through a long +telescope which he had made himself from an old bamboo fishing-rod. + +But astronomy is a very enervating branch of science. Galileo frequently +came down to breakfast with red, heavy eyes, eyes that were swollen full +of unshed tears. Still he persevered. Day after day he worked and +toiled. Year after year he went on with his task till he had worked out +in his own mind the satellites of Jupiter and placed a small tin tag on +each one, so that he would know it readily when he saw it again. Then he +began to look up Saturn's rings and investigate the freckles on the sun. +He did not stop at trifles, but went bravely on till everybody came for +miles to look at him and get him to write something funny in their +autograph albums. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in +the morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful, new-born star, to +find his front yard full of albums. Some of them were little red albums +with floral decorations on them, while others were the large plush and +alligator albums of the affluent. Some were new and had the price-mark +still on them, while others were old, foundered albums, with a droop in +the back and little flecks of egg and gravy on the title-page. All came +with a request for Galileo "to write a little, witty, characteristic +sentiment in them." + +Galileo was the author of the hydrostatic paradox and other sketches. He +was a great reader and a fluent penman. One time he was absent from +home, lecturing in Venice for the benefit of the United Aggregation of +Mutual Admirers, and did not return for two weeks, so that when he got +back he found the front room full of autograph albums. It is said that +he then demonstrated his great fluency and readiness as a thinker and +writer. He waded through the entire lot in two days with only two men +from West Pisa to assist him. Galileo came out of it fresh and youthful, +and all of the following night he was closeted with another inventor, a +wicker-covered microscope, and a bologna sausage. The investigations +were carried on for two weeks, after which Galileo went out to the +inebriate asylum and discovered some new styles of reptiles. + +Galileo was the author of a little work called "I Discarsi e +Dimas-Trazioni Matematiche Intorus a Due Muove Scienze." It was a neat +little book, of about the medium height, and sold well on the trains, +for the Pisan newsboys on the cars were very affable, as they are now, +and when they came and leaned an armful of these books on a passenger's +leg and poured into his ear a long tale about the wonderful beauty of +the work, and then pulled in the name of the book from the rear of the +last car, where it had been hanging on behind, the passenger would most +always buy it and enough of the name to wrap it up in. + +He also discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. He saw that the +pendulum at certain seasons of the year looked yellow under the eyes, +and that it drooped and did not enter into its work with the old zest. +He began to study the case with the aid of his new bamboo telescope and +a wicker-covered microscope. As a result, in ten days he had the +pendulum on its feet again. + +Galileo was inclined to be liberal in his religious views, more +especially in the matter of the Scriptures, claiming that there were +passages in the Bible which did not literally mean what the translator +said they did. This was where Galileo missed it. So long as he +discovered stars and isochronisms and such things as that, he succeeded, +but when he began to fool with other people's religious beliefs he got +into trouble. He was forced to fly from Pisa, we are told by the +historian, and we are assured at the same time that Galileo, who had +always been far, far ahead of all competitors in other things, was +equally successful as a fleer. + +Galileo received but sixty scudi per year as his salary while at Pisa, +and a part of that he took in town orders, worth only sixty cents on the +scudi. + + + + +WANTED--A COOK + +BY ALAN DALE + + +There was a ring at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously +clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then, +alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and +expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could +not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized +that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin, +small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in and smiled at me. + +"_Talar ni svensk?_" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She +may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she +looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently, +reverently, to Letitia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a +wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed +her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that +any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed I heaved a +sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five +advertisements. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little +mouse, too! + +"_Talar ni svensk?_" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you +speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I +left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each +other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circumstances. I had +some misgivings on the subject of Letitia and _svensk_, but the +universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly +hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a +cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment, +delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the +drawing-room. Letitia was smiling and the hand-maiden sat grim and +uninspired. + +"I've engaged her, Archie," said Letitia. "She knows nothing, as she has +told me in the few words of English that she has picked up, but--you +remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate." + +I gazed at the maiden, and reflected that while the term "slate" might +be perfectly correct, the adjective seemed a bit over-enthusiastic. She +was decidely soiled, this quintessence of a quintette of advertisements. +I said nothing, anxious not to dampen Letitia's elation. + +"She has no references," continued my wife, "as she has never been out +before. She is just a simple little Stockholm girl. I like her face +immensely, Archie--immensely. She is willing to begin at once, which +shows that she is eager, and consequently likely to suit us. Wait for +me, Archie, while I take her to the kitchen. _Kom_, Gerda." + +Exactly why Letitia couldn't say "Come, Gerda," seemed strange. She +probably thought that _Kom_ must be Swedish, and that it sounded well. +She certainly invented _Kom_ on the spur of the Scandinavian moment, and +I learned afterward that it was correct. My inspired Letitia! Still, in +spite of all, my opinion is that "Come, Gerda," would have done just as +well. + +"Isn't it delightful?" cried Letitia, when she joined me later. "I am +really enthusiastic at the idea of a Swedish girl. I adore Scandinavia, +Archie. It always makes me think of Ibsen. Perhaps Gerda Lyberg--that's +her name--will be as interesting as Hedda Gabler, and Mrs. Alving, and +Nora, and all those lovely complex Ibsen creatures." + +"They were Norwegians, dear," I said gently, anxious not to shatter +illusions; "the Ibsen plays deal with Christiania, not with Stockholm." + +"But they are so near," declared Letitia, amiable and seraphic once +more. "Somehow or other, I invariably mix up Norway and Sweden and +Denmark. I know I shall always look upon Gerda as an Ibsen girl, who has +come here to 'live her life,' or 'work out her inheritance.' Perhaps, +dear, she has some interesting internal disease, or a maggoty brain. +Don't you think, Archie, that the Ibsen inheritances are always most +fascinating? A bit morbid, but surely fascinating." + +"I prefer a healthy cook, Letitia," I said meditatively, "somebody +willing to interest herself in our inheritance, rather than in her own." + +"I don't mind what you say now," she pouted, "I am not to be put down by +clamor. We really have a cook at last, and I feel more lenient toward +you, Archie. Of course I was only joking when I suggested the Ibsen +diseases. Gerda Lyberg may have inherited from her ancestors something +quite nice and attractive." + +"Then you mustn't look upon her as Ibsen, Letitia," I protested. "The +Ibsen people never inherit nice things. Their ancestors always bequeath +nasty ones. That is where their consistency comes in. They are +receptacles for horrors. Personally, if you'll excuse my flippancy, I +prefer Norwegian anchovies to Norwegian heroines. It is a mere matter of +opinion." + +"I'm ashamed of you," retorted Letitia defiantly. "You talk like some of +the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so called, that men like Acton +Davies and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never +amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies, +but he has never yet cursed them with the odious incubus known as 'a +sense of humor.' The people with a sense of humor have something in +their brains worse than maggots. We'll drop the subject, Archie. I'm +going to learn Swedish. Before Gerda Lyberg has been with us a month I +intend to be able to talk fluently. It will be most useful. Next time we +go to Europe we'll take in Sweden, and I'll do the piloting. I am going +to buy some Swedish books, and study. Won't it be jolly? And just think +how melancholy we were this morning, you and I, looking out of that +window, and trying to materialize cooks. Wasn't it funny, Archie? What +amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!" + +Letitia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle +parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to +leave my household gods for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could +not feel quite as sanguine as Letitia, who seemed to have forgotten the +dismal results of the advertisement--just one little puny Swedish +result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Letitia was as pleased +with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a +that-or-nothing. + +If somebody had dramatized Gerda Lyberg's initial dinner, it would +probably have been considered exceedingly droll. As a serious episode, +however, its humor, to my mind, lacked spontaneity. Letitia had asked +her to cook us a little Swedish meal, so that we could get some idea of +Stockholm life, in which, for some reason or other, we were supposed to +be deeply interested. Unfortunately I was extremely hungry, and had +carefully avoided luncheon in order to give my appetite a chance. We +sat down to a huge bowl of cold, greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of +meat swam, as though for their life, awaiting rescue at the prongs of a +fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of +water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Letitia said +that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was +that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Letitia was so engrossed +with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that +she forgot the mere material question of food--forgot everything but the +horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who +looked more unlike a clean slate than ever. + +"What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Letitia, turning over the pages +of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in +which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' '_Jag +är myckel hungrig_.' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: '_Kypare gif +mig matsedeln och vinlistan._' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of +fare, and the list of wines.'" + +"Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means. +Look out a chapter on feeding." + +Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. +She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at +her Swedish. + +"Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "_Gif mir apven senap +och nägra potäter_." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned +potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, +Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. _Jag +tackar_, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' _Jag tackar_. See if you can +say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. _Jag tackar._ Now, that's +a good boy, _jag tackar_." + +"I won't," I declared spitefully. "No _jag tackar_ing for a parody like +this, Letitia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I +prefer a delicatessen dinner to this." + +"'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Letitia, absolutely +disregarding my mood. "'_Var god och gif mig ett stycke vildt._' It is +almost intelligible, isn't it, dear? '_Ni äter icke_': you do not eat." + +"I can't," I asserted mournfully, anxious to gain Letitia's sympathy. + +It was not forthcoming. Letitia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I +could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt +certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible +freak, and I was vexed to think that Letitia should make such an +exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set +before us. + +"'I have really dined very well,'" she continued joyously. "_Jag har +verkligen atit mycket bra._'" + +"If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Letitia," I +said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't +appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our +things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never." + +Letitia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her +surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed, +"How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I +came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be +telepathy, dear. 'Better late than never,' '_Battre sent än aldrig_.' +What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do +try it in Swedish. Say '_Battre sent än aldrig_.'" + +"Letitia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor for this sort +of thing. I think this dinner and this woman are rotten. See if you can +find the word rotten in Swedish." + +"I am surprised at you," Letitia declared glacially, roused from her +book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are +neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a +servant, to say nothing of your own wife." + +"But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I +could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that +the sphinx-like attitude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a +strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to +understand." + +"In a week from now," said Letitia, "she will understand everything +perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be +agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a +greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you +wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important +it does seem to be to men. Gerda, _hur gammal är ni_?" + +The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Letitia had +Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "_Hur gammal är ni_," Letitia +explained, simply meant, "How old are you?" + +"She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we +went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like +the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to +persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a +language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the +question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August, +1852.' For the life of me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most +embarrassing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish +how old I was, I should _have_ to be fifty-two!" + +"When I think of my five advertisements," I said lugubriously, as I +threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover +dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant anticipations +of to-day, I feel very bitter, Letitia. Just to think that from it all +nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified +thing." + +"Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was +too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do +remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did +what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her +fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We +had better stick to the American régime. It is more satisfactory to you. +At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five +advertisements had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only +have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that +we _had_ five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg." + +"I can't, Letitia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh. + +"Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be +most useful for your _Lives of Great Men_. You can read up the Swedes in +the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all +about Mrs. Potz--I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't +remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very +subtile." + +"You, Letitia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on +so." + +Letitia looked offended. She always declared that Dickens "got on her +nerves." She was one of the new-fashioned readers who have learned to +despise Dickens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of +humor. Letitia placed a cushion behind my head, smoothed my forehead, +kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of +nourishment made me drowsy, and Letitia's babblings sounded vague and +muffled. + +"It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in +memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact, +dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the +wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours.' '_Om +vinden är god, sa äro vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg._' I think it is +sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a glass of brandy +and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.' +'Your passports, gentlemen.'" + +A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Letitia took a pencil and +paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a +town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town. +'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and +Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning I wish to see all the +public buildings and statues.' '_Statyerna_' is Swedish for statues, +Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy +Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Mälan and see the +fortress of Vaxholm.' It _is_ a charming little book. Don't you think +that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't +find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue, +but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'" + +I rose and stretched myself. Letitia was still plunged in the +irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on +earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice +between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the +former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splashing noise in the +kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently +too deeply engrossed. + +I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward +the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splashing noise +grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did +so a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in--in--my pen +declines to write it--a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an +ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and +dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her! + +The instant she saw me she modestly seized a dish-towel and shouted at +the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot +water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty +retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Letitia, who, +dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened. + +"She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen--among the plates--near the +soup--" + +"Never!" cried Letitia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pass. Stand +aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps--perhaps--you had better come +with me." + +"Letitia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a +dish-towel." + +Letitia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen +shut the door. The splashing noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices, +or rather of a voice--Letitia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish, +and such remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at +Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even +hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is +strange how the stress of circumstances alters the complexion of a +conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet +suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen, +dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How +disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in English! + +"You see," said Letitia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant +girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course." + +"And unappetizing!" I chimed in. + +"Of course--certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish +to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry +that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After +all, Archie, bathing is not a crime." + +"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do +you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning, +among the bacon and eggs, and things?" + +"That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as +an excuse for indelicacy." + +It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely +certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a +thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted +in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had +definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves +openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the +enigma in all its force and defiance. + +The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly +blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew. +Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical +fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg, +apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain +views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to +have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in +the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become +eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those +antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled +egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly +thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had +laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, +perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda. + +Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was +certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her +hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The +situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a +particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely +ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique. +Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, +laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our +daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess +some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it +was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the +slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that +water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a +salary. + +Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with +Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was +a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil +coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the +dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She +grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived +on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily. + +"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third +day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That +is why she is so ignorant." + +I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I +muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers +have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why +can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have +arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to +'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of +peasant food. The result has been _nil_." + +"It _is_ odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in +the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't +understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish." + +"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the +conversation book." + +"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green +peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and--" + +"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours,'" +I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end +your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they +do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always +pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind. Even with an American +cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison +steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty +hours." + +Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in +the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had +consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a +rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly +tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to +supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an +indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. +People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of +this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men +and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not +particular--so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of +these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest +gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best +isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a +score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, +canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look +askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" +liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor +whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment. + +Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not +to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return, +the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up. +We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American +institution, the boarding-house feeder and the restaurant diner. We +knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and +a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts +its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook--no lack of +cook--should drive us to these abysmal depths. + +Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath +of _The Lives of Great Men_. She read a sweet little classic called "The +Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by +Alessandro Filippini--a delightful _table-d'hôte_-y name. I lay back in +my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence. +As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned +that I should not have to wait long. I was right. + +"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the +civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers +as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his +able lieutenants." + +"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I +should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of +low-livers." + +"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory +of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at +one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the +hands of the metropolis of the New World.'" + +"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant +talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris +there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there they +have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New +York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any +more of your cook-book to me, my girl. It is written to catch the +American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery." + +"Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know +you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just +talking cussedly with your own wife." + +A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the +humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth _was_ most trying. We were +bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to +which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each +wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers, +forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me. + +"Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and +from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in +the face. + +For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could +say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure +that I wasn't that I was about to close the door. + +"She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth +the poppies. + +I came to myself with an effort. "She is the--the cook," I muttered +weakly. + +"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her +voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable." + +The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went +toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was +amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of +tongues, and then--I groped my way back to Letitia. + +"They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried. + +"Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent +of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she +said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were +festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant and +convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better a +happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia thought +the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges to a +cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark, however, +that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook. + +"Then let us call her a 'girl,'" said Letitia. + +"Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly. +"If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness +knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!" + +This time Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More +arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily +attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which, +in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were +Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra--as we soon learned. It was +wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at +home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and +humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia +stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. +Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our +house. + +"Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say +to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent--most uncalled for." + +"Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But +please don't think _I_ shall, for I assure you that I shan't. I suppose +that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want +to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks by +doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were +possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to +labor." + +I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite +unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again she took up the cook-book. The +sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we +could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of +her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My +nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that +there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings I should have +slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to +comfort me. + +Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs _à la reine_ seemed as +difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential +calculus--and much more expensive. Certainly the eight giggling cooks in +the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried +themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play +pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and +wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was +close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought +it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock +struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the +door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and +a mountain of cake--that in my famished condition made my mouth +water--and announced in a severe, yet subdued tone, that the revel must +cease. + +"You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house." + +Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of +tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard +noisily leaving the house. Two minutes later, there was a knock at our +door and Miss Lyberg appeared, her eyes blazing, her face flushed and +the expression of the hunted antelope defiantly asserting that it would +never be brought to bay, on her perspiring features. + +"You've insulted my guests!" she cried, in English as good as my own. +"I've had to turn them out of the house, and I've had about enough of +this place." + +Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation, +humiliation--all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse +Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the +language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! The +dense, dumb Scandinavian--the lady of the "me no understand" +rejoinder--apparently had the "gift of tongues." Letitia trembled. +Rarely have I seen her so thoroughly perturbed. Yet seemingly she was +unwilling to credit the testimony of her own ears, for with sudden +energy, she confronted Miss Lyberg, and exclaimed imperiously, in +Swedish that was either pure or impure: "_Tig. Ga din väg!_" + +"Ah, come off!" cried the handmaiden insolently. "I understand English. +I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. It's just on +account of folks like you that poor hard-working girls, who ain't +allowed to take no baths or entertain no lady friends, have to protect +themselves. Pretend not to understand them, says I. I've found it worked +before this. If they think you don't understand 'em, they'll let you +alone and stop worriting. It's like your impidence to turn my +lady-friends out of this flat. It's like your impidence. I'll--" + +Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely +upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another +minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled +there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be. + +"You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a +smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I +haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks +after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just +you push me out." + +She edged up to me defiantly. My blood boiled. I would have mortgaged +the prospects of my _Lives of Great Men_ (not that they were worth +mortgaging) for the exquisite satisfaction of confounding this +abominable woman. Then I saw the peril of the situation. I thought of +horrid headliners in the papers: "Author charged with abusing servant +girl," or, "Arrest of Archibald Fairfax on serious charge," and my mood +changed. + +"I understood you all the time," continued Miss Lyberg insultingly. "I +listened to you. I knew what you thought of me. Now I'm telling you what +I think of you. The idea of turning out my lady-friends, on a Thursday +night, too! And me a-slaving for them, and a-bathing for them, and +a-treating them to ice cream and cake, and in me own kitchen. You ain't +no lady. As for you"--I seemed to be her particular pet--"when I sees a +man around the house all the time, a-molly-coddling and a-fussing, I +says to myself, he ain't much good if he can't trust the women folk +alone." + +We stood there like dummies, listening to the tirade. What could we do? +To be sure, there were two of us, and we were in our own house. The +antagonist, however, was a servant, not in her own house. The situation, +for reasons that it is impossible to define, was hers. She knew it, too. +We allowed her full sway, because we couldn't help it. The sympathy of +the public, in case of violent measures, would not have been on our +side. The poor domestic, oppressed and enslaved, would have appealed to +any jury of married men, living luxuriously in cheap boarding-houses! + +When she left us, as she did when she was completely ready to do so, +Letitia began to cry. The sight of her tears unnerved me, and I checked +a most unfeeling remark that I intended to make to the effect that, "if +the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours." + +"It's not that I mind her insolence," she sobbed, "we were going to send +her off anyway, weren't we? But it's so humiliating to be 'done.' We've +been 'done.' Here have I been working hard at Swedish--writing exercises, +learning verbs, studying proverbs--just to talk to a woman who speaks +English as well as I do. It's--it's--so--so--mor--mortifying." + +"Never mind, dear," I said, drying her eyes for her; "the Swedish will +come in handy some day." + +"No," she declared vehemently, "don't say that you'll take me to Sweden. +I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway, +isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say +_Tig_ to her just now. _Tig_ means 'be silent.' Could anything sound +more repulsive? _Tig! Tig! Ugh!_" + +Letitia stamped her foot. She was exceeding wroth. + + + + +SIMILAR CASES + +BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN + + + There was once a little animal, + No bigger than a fox, + And on five toes he scampered + Over Tertiary rocks. + They called him Eohippus, + And they called him very small, + And they thought him of no value-- + When they thought of him at all; + For the lumpish old Dinoceras + And Coryphodon so slow + Were the heavy aristocracy + In days of long ago. + + Said the little Eohippus, + "I am going to be a horse! + And on my middle finger-nails + To run my earthly course! + I'm going to have a flowing tail! + I'm going to have a mane! + I'm going to stand fourteen hands high + On the psychozoic plain!" + + The Coryphodon was horrified, + The Dinoceras was shocked; + And they chased young Eohippus, + But he skipped away and mocked; + Then they laughed enormous laughter, + And they groaned enormous groans, + And they bade young Eohippus + Go view his father's bones: + Said they, "You always were as small + And mean as now we see, + And that's conclusive evidence + That you're always going to be: + What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast, + With hoofs to gallop on? + _Why, you'd have to change your nature!_" + Said the Loxolophodon: + They considered him disposed of, + And retired with gait serene; + That was the way they argued + In "the early Eocene." + + There was once an Anthropoidal Ape, + Far smarter than the rest, + And everything that they could do + He always did the best; + So they naturally disliked him, + And they gave him shoulders cool, + And when they had to mention him + They said he was a fool. + + Cried this pretentious Ape one day, + "I'm going to be a Man! + And stand upright, and hunt, and fight, + And conquer all I can! + I'm going to cut down forest trees, + To make my houses higher! + I'm going to kill the Mastodon! + I'm going to make a fire!" + + Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes, + With laughter wild and gay; + They tried to catch that boastful one, + But he always got away; + So they yelled at him in chorus, + Which he minded not a whit; + And they pelted him with cocoanuts, + Which didn't seem to hit; + And then they gave him reasons, + Which they thought of much avail, + To prove how his preposterous + Attempt was sure to fail. + + Said the sages, "In the first place, + The thing can not be done! + And, second, if it _could_ be, + It would not be any fun! + And, third, and most conclusive + And admitting no reply, + _You would have to change your nature!_ + We should like to see you try!" + They chuckled then triumphantly, + These lean and hairy shapes, + For these things passed as arguments + With the Anthropoidal Apes. + + There was once a Neolithic Man, + An enterprising wight, + Who made his chopping implements + Unusually bright; + Unusually clever he, + Unusually brave, + And he drew delightful Mammoths + On the borders of his cave. + + To his Neolithic neighbors, + Who were startled and surprised, + Said he, "My friends, in course of time, + We shall be civilized! + We are going to live in cities! + We are going to fight in wars! + We are going to eat three times a day + Without the natural cause! + We are going to turn life upside down + About a thing called gold! + We are going to want the earth, and take + As much as we can hold! + We are going to wear great piles of stuff + Outside our proper skins! + We are going to have Diseases! + And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!" + + Then they all rose up in fury + Against their boastful friend, + For prehistoric patience + Cometh quickly to an end: + Said one, "This is chimerical! + Utopian! Absurd!" + Said another, "What a stupid life! + Too dull, upon my word!" + Cried all, "Before such things can come, + You idiotic child, + _You must alter Human Nature_!" + And they all sat back and smiled: + Thought they, "An answer to that last + It will be hard to find!" + It was a clinching argument + To the Neolithic Mind! + + + + +THE OLD MAID'S HOUSE: IN PLAN + +BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS + + +Corona had five hundred dollars and some pluck for her enterprise. She +had also at her command a trifle for furnishing. But that seemed very +small capital. Her friends at large discouraged her generously. Even Tom +said he didn't know about that, and offered her three hundred more. + +This manly offer she declined in a womanly manner. + +"It is to be _my_ house, thank you, Tom, dear. I can live in yours at +home." ... + +Corona's architectural library was small. She found on the top shelf one +book on the construction of chicken-roosts, a pamphlet in explanation of +the kindergarten system, a cook-book that had belonged to her +grandmother, and a treatise on crochet. There her domestic literature +came to an end. She accordingly bought a book entitled "North American +Homes"; then, having, in addition, begged or borrowed everything within +two covers relating to architecture that was to be found in her +immediate circle of acquaintance, she plunged into that unfamiliar +science with hopeful zeal. + +The result of her studies was a mixed one. It was necessary, it seemed, +to construct the North American home in so many contradictory methods, +or else fail forever of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, +that Corona felt herself to be laboring under a chronic aberration of +mind.... Then the plans. Well, the plans, it must be confessed, Corona +_did_ find it difficult to understand. She always had found it difficult +to understand such things; but then she had hoped several weeks of close +architectural study would shed light upon the density of the subject. +She grew quite morbid about it. She counted the steps when she went +up-stairs to bed at night. She estimated the bedroom post when she +walked in the cold, gray dawn.... + +But the most perplexing thing about the plans was how one story ever got +upon another. Corona's imagination never fully grappled with this fact, +although her intellect accepted it. She took her books down-stairs one +night, and Susy came and looked them over. + +"Why, these houses are all one-story," said Susy. "Besides, they're +nothing but lines, anyway. I shouldn't draw a house so." + +Corona laughed with some embarrassment and no effort at enlightenment. +She was not used to finding herself and Susy so nearly on the same +intellectual level as in this instance. She merely asked: "How should +you draw it?" + +"Why, so," said Susy, after some severe thought. So she took her little +blunt lead pencil, that the baby had chewed, and drew her plan as +follows: + +[Illustration: SUSY'S PLAN] + +Corona made no comment upon this plan, except to ask Susy if that were +the way to spell L; and then to look in the dictionary, and find that it +was not spelled at all. Tom came in, and asked to see what they were +doing. + +"I'm helping Corona," said Susy, with much complacency. "These +architects' things don't look any more like houses than they do like the +first proposition in Euclid; and the poor girl is puzzled." + +"_I'll_ help you to-morrow, Co," said Tom, who was in too much of a +hurry to glance at his wife's plan. But to-morrow Tom went into town by +the early train, and when Corona emerged from her "North American +Homes," with wild eye and knotted brow, at 5 o'clock p.m., she found +Susy crying over a telegram which ran: + + Called to California immediately. Those lost cargoes A No. 1 hides + turned up. Can't get home to say good-by. Send overcoat and + flannels by Simpson on midnight express. Gone four weeks. Love to + all. + + TOM. + +This unexpected event threw Corona entirely upon her own resources; and, +after a few days more of patient research, she put on her hat, and stole +away at dusk to a builder she knew of down-town--a nice, fatherly man +who had once built a piazza for Tom and had just been elected +superintendent of the Sunday-school. These combined facts gave Corona +confidence to trust her case to his hands. She carried a neat little +plan of her own with her, the result of several days' hard labor. Susy's +plan she had taken the precaution to cut into paper dolls for the baby. +Corona found the good man at home, and in her most business-like manner +presented her points. + +"Got any plan in yer own head?" asked the builder, hearing her in +silence. In silence Corona laid before him the paper which had cost her +so much toil. + +It was headed in her clear black hand: + + PLAN + FOR A SMALL BUT HAPPY + HOME + +This was + +[Illustration: CORONA'S PLAN] + +"Well," said the builder, after a silence,--"well, I've seen worse." + +"Thank you," said Corona, faintly. + +"How does she set?" asked the builder. + +"Who set?" said Corona, a little wildly. She could think of nothing that +set but hens. + +"Why, the house. Where's the points o' compass?" + +"I hadn't thought of those," said Corona. + +"And the chimney," suggested the builder. "Where's your chimneys?" + +"I didn't put in any chimneys," said Corona. + +"Where did you count on your stairs?" pursued the builder. + +"Stairs? I--forgot the stairs." + +"That's natural," said Mr. Timbers. "Had a plan brought me once without +an entry or a window to it. It wasn't a woman did it, neither. It was a +widower, in the noospaper line. What's your scale?" + +"Scale?" asked Corona, without animation. + +"Scale of feet. Proportions." + +"Oh! I didn't have any scales, but I thought about forty feet front +would do. I have but five hundred dollars. A small house must answer." + +The builder smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book +from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, +not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger +house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what +is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn +with the beauty of science. + +"There," said Mr. Timbers, "I know a lady built one of those upon her +brother-in-law's land. He give her the land, and she just put up the +cottage, and they was all as pleasant as pease about it. That's about +what I'd recommend to you, if you don't object to the name of it." + +"What is the matter with the name?" asked Corona. + +"Why," said the builder, hesitating, "it is called the Old Maid's +House--in the _book_." + +"Mr. Timbers," said Corona, with decision, "why should we seek further +than the truth? I will have that house. Pray, draw me the plan at +once." + + + + +DISTICHS + +BY JOHN HAY + + + I + + Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her. + This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not. + + + II + + There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming + are going, + When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs. + + + III + + Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection, + As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea. + + + IV + + As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them, + Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king. + + + V + + What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second? + What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first. + + + VI + + Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle. + Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love. + + + VII + + Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it + the fouler, + But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom. + + + VIII + + Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient: + Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel. + + + IX + + When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures; + Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins. + + + X + + Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? + Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else. + + + XI + + Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him, + And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins. + + + XII + + Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor's approval: + Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain. + + + XIII + + Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of + his pronouns. + Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I. + + + XIV + + The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish + Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day. + + + XV + + True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table: + Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home. + + + XVI + + Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues; + But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud. + + XVII + + Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters; + Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few. + + + XVIII + + Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady + sifting, + Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life. + + + + +THE QUARREL + +BY S.E. KISER + + + "There are quite as good fish + In the sea + As any one ever has caught," + Said he. + "But few of the fish-- + In the sea + Will bite at such bait as you've got," + Said she. + To-day he is gray, and his line's put away, + But he often looks back with regret; + She's still "in the sea," and how happy she'd be + If he were a fisherman yet! + + + + +A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS + +BY E.W. HOWE + + +MY DEAR SIR--Occasionally a gem occurs to me which I am unable to favor +you with because of late we are not much together. Appreciating the keen +delight with which you have been kind enough to receive my philosophy, I +take the liberty of sending herewith a number of ideas which may please +and benefit you, and which I have divided into paragraphs with headings. + + +HAPPINESS + +I have observed that happiness and brains seldom go together. The +pin-headed woman who regards her thin-witted husband as the greatest man +in the world, is happy, and much good may it do her. In such cases +ignorance is a positive blessing, for good sense would cause the woman +to realize her distressed condition. A man who can think he is as "good +as anybody" is happy. The fact may be notorious that the man is not so +"good as anybody" until he is as industrious, as educated, and as +refined as anybody, but he has not brains enough to know this, and, +content with conceit, is happy. A man with a brain large enough to +understand mankind is always wretched and ashamed of himself. + + +REPUTATION + +Reputation is not always desirable. The only thing I have ever heard +said in Twin Mounds concerning Smoky Hill is that good hired girls may +be had there. + + +WOMEN + +1. Most women seem to love for no other reason than that it is expected +of them. + +2. I know too much about women to honor them more than they deserve; in +fact I know all about them. I visited a place once where doctors are +made, and saw them cut up one. + +3. A woman loses her power when she allows a man to find out all there +is to her; I mean by this that familiarity breeds contempt. I knew a +young man once who worked beside a woman in an office, and he never +married. + +4. If men would only tell what they actually know about women, instead +of what they believe or hear, they would receive more credit for +chastity than is now the case, for they deserve more. + + +LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE + +As a people we lack self-confidence. The country is full of men that +will readily talk you to death privately, who would run away in alarm if +asked to preside at a public meeting. In my Alliance movement I often +have trouble in getting out a crowd, every farmer in the neighborhood +feeling of so much importance as to fear that if he attends he will be +called upon to say something. + + +IN DISPUTE + +In some communities where I have lived the women were mean to their +husbands; in others, the husbands were mean to their wives. It is +usually the case that the friends of a wife believe her husband to be a +brute, and the friends of the husband believe the wife to possess no +other talent than to make him miserable. You can't tell how it is; the +evidence is divided. + + +MAN + +There is only one grade of men; they are all contemptible. The judge may +seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I +have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and +grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about +him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity, +induced by the servility of those who expect favors. + + +OPPORTUNITY + +You hear a great many persons regretting lack of opportunity. If every +man had opportunity for his desires, this would be a nation of murderers +and disgraced women. + + +EXPECTATION + +Always be ready for that which you do not expect. Nothing that you +expect ever happens. You have perhaps observed that when you are waiting +for a visitor at the front door, he comes in at the back, and surprises +you. + + +WOMAN'S WORK + +A woman's work is never done, as the almanacs state, for the reason that +she does not go about it in time to finish it. + + +THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY + +If you can not resist the low impulse to talk about people, say only +what you actually know, instead of what you have heard. And, while you +are about it, stop and consider whether you are not in need of charity +yourself. + + +NEIGHBORS + +Every man overestimates his neighbors, because he does not know them so +well as he knows himself. A sensible man despises himself because he +knows what a contemptible creature he is. I despise Lytle Biggs, but I +happen to know that his neighbors are just as bad. + + +VIRTUE + +Men are virtuous because the women are; women are virtuous from +necessity. + + +ASHAMED OF THE TRUTH + +I believe I never knew any one who was not ashamed of the truth. Did you +ever notice that a railroad company numbers its cars from 1,000, instead +of from 1? + + +KNOWING ONLY ONE OF THEM + +We are sometimes unable to understand why a pretty little woman marries +a fellow we know to be worthless; but the fellow, who knows the woman +better than we do, considers that he has thrown himself away. We know +the fellow, but we do not know the woman. + + +AN APOLOGY + +I detest an apology. The world is full of people who are always making +trouble and apologizing for it. If a man respects me, he will not give +himself occasion for apology. An offense can not be wiped out in that +way. If it could, we would substitute apologies for hangings. I hope you +will never apologize to me; I should regard it as evidence that you had +wronged me. + + +OLDEST INHABITANTS + +The people of Smoky Hill are only fit for oldest inhabitants. In thirty +or forty years from now there will be a great demand for reminiscences +of the pioneer days. I recommend that they preserve extensive data for +the only period in their lives when they can hope to attract attention. + +Be good enough, sir, to regard me, as of old, your friend. + +L. BIGGS. +_To_ NED WESTLOCK, _Twin Mounds_. + + + + +MRS. JOHNSON + +BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + + +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 side-walks +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 hoop-skirts 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 grape-vine 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 lots, 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 any one 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 evening 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? Any one 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 +midsummer-like 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 Charlesbridge 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 +gayly are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and +down the side-walks, and in and out through the pendent 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 +ungenteelly 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 from 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 +wickedness of a low American street. A gayety not born of the things +that bring its serious joy to the true New England heart--a ragged +gayety, 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 child-like 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 side-walks 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 out 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 wildness +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 child-like 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 life-time 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 life-time 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 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 +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 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 shame 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 her 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 +blonde 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 instruction 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 modified even this +form of service, and 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 supple 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 +or the Grand Custom in each grotesque development. We were conscious of +something warmer in this old soul than in ourselves, and something +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 +afterwards 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 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 comparison with the blonde 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 hangdog 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 there was no one so agreeable in +society, or so quick-witted 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 masterstroke 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 till 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." + + + + +PASS + +BY IRONQUILL + + + A father said unto his hopeful son, + "Who was Leonidas, my cherished one?" + The boy replied, with words of ardent nature, + "He was a member of the legislature." + "How?" asked the parent; then the youngster saith: + "He got a pass, and held her like grim death." + "Whose pass? what pass?" the anxious father cried; + "'Twas the'r monopoly," the boy replied. + + In deference to the public, we must state, + That boy has been an orphan since that date. + + + + +TEACHING BY EXAMPLE + +BY JOHN G. SAXE + + + "What is the 'Poet's License,' say?" + Asked rose-lipped Anna of a poet. + "Now give me an example, pray, + That when I see one I may know it." + Quick as a flash he plants a kiss + Where perfect kisses always fall. + "Nay, sir! what liberty is this?" + "The _Poet's License_,--that is all!" + + + + +WHEN ALBANI SANG[1] + +BY WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND + + + Was workin' away on de farm dere, wan morning not long ago, + Feexin' de fence for winter--'cos dat's w'ere we got de snow! + W'en Jeremie Plouffe, ma neighbor, come over an' spik wit' me, + "Antoine, you will come on de city, for hear Ma-dam All-ba-nee?" + + "W'at you mean?" I was sayin' right off, me, "Some woman was mak' + de speech, + Or girl on de Hooraw Circus, doin' high kick an' screech?" + "Non--non," he is spikin'--"Excuse me, dat's be Madam All-ba-nee + Was leevin' down here on de contree, two mile 'noder side Chambly. + + "She's jus' comin' over from Englan', on steamboat arrive Kebeck, + Singin' on Lunnon an' Paree, an' havin' beeg tam, I ex-pec', + But no matter de moche she enjoy it, for travel all roun' de worl', + Somet'ing on de heart bring her back here, for she was de Chambly girl. + + "She never do not'ing but singin' an' makin' de beeg grande tour + An' travel on summer an' winter, so mus' be de firs' class for sure! + Ev'ryboddy I'm t'inkin' was know her, an' I also hear 'noder t'ing, + She's frien' on La Reine Victoria an' show her de way to sing!" + + "Wall," I say, "you're sure she is Chambly, w'at you call Ma-dam + All-ba-nee? + Don't know me dat nam' on de Canton--I hope you're not fool wit' me?" + An he say, "Lajeunesse, dey was call her, before she is come mariée, + But she's takin' de nam' of her husban'--I s'pose dat's de only way." + + "C'est bon, mon ami," I was say me, "If I get t'roo de fence nex' day + An' she don't want too moche on de monee, den mebbe I see her play." + So I finish dat job on to-morrow, Jeremie he was helpin' me too, + An' I say, "Len' me t'ree dollar quickly for mak' de voyage wit' you." + + Correc'--so we're startin' nex' morning, an' arrive Montreal all right, + Buy dollar tiquette on de bureau, an' pass on de hall dat night. + Beeg crowd, wall! I bet you was dere too, all dress on some fancy + dress, + De lady, I don't say not'ing, but man's all w'ite shirt an' no ves'. + + Don't matter, w'en ban' dey be ready, de foreman strek out wit' hees + steek, + An' fiddle an' ev'ryt'ing else too, begin for play up de musique. + It's fonny t'ing too dey was playin' don't lak it mese'f at all, + I rader be lissen some jeeg, me, or w'at you call "Affer de ball." + + An' I'm not feelin' very surprise den, w'en de crowd holler out, + "Encore," + For mak' all dem feller commencin' an' try leetle piece some more, + 'Twas better wan' too, I be t'inkin', but slow lak you're goin' to die, + All de sam', noboddy say not'ing, dat mean dey was satisfy. + + Affer dat come de Grande piano, lak we got on Chambly Hotel, + She's nice lookin' girl was play dat, so of course she's go off purty + well, + Den feller he's ronne out an' sing some, it's all about very fine moon, + Dat shine on Canal, ev'ry night too, I'm sorry I don't know de tune. + + Nex' t'ing I commence get excite, me, for I don't see no great Ma-dam + yet, + Too bad I was los all dat monee, an' too late for de raffle tiquette! + W'en jus' as I feel very sorry, for come all de way from Chambly, + Jeremie he was w'isper, "Tiens, tiens, prenez garde, she's comin' Ma-dam + All-ba-nee!" + + Ev'ryboddy seem glad w'en dey see her, come walkin' right down de + platform, + An' way dey mak' noise on de han' den, w'y! it's jus' lak de beeg + tonder storm! + I'll never see not'ing lak dat, me, no matter I travel de worl', + An' Ma-dam, you t'ink it was scare her? Non, she laugh lak de Chambly + girl! + + Dere was young feller comin' behin' her, walk nice, comme un Cavalier, + An' before All-ba-nee she is ready an' piano get startin' for play, + De feller commence wit' hees singin', more stronger dan all de res', + I t'ink he's got very bad manner, know not'ing at all politesse. + + Ma-dam, I s'pose she get mad den, an' before anyboddy can spik, + She settle right down for mak' sing too, an' purty soon ketch heem up + quick, + Den she's kip it on gainin' an' gainin', till de song it is tout finis, + An' w'en she is beatin' dat feller, Bagosh! I am proud Chambly! + + I'm not very sorry at all, me, w'en de feller was ronnin' away, + An' man he's come out wit' de piccolo, an' start heem right off for + play, + For it's kin' de musique I be fancy, Jeremie he is lak it also, + An' wan de bes' t'ing on dat ev'ning is man wit' de piccolo! + + Den mebbe ten minute is passin', Ma-dam she is comin' encore, + Dis tam all alone on de platform, dat feller don't show up no more, + An' w'en she start off on de singin' Jeremie say, "Antoine, dat's + Français," + Dis give us more pleasure, I tole you, 'cos w'y? We're de pure Canayen! + + Dat song I will never forget me, 't was song of de leetle bird, + W'en he's fly from it's nes' on de tree top, 'fore res' of de worl' get + stirred, + Ma-dam she was tole us about it, den start off so quiet an' low, + An' sing lak de bird on de morning, de poor leetle small oiseau. + + I 'member wan tam I be sleepin' jus' onder some beeg pine tree + An song of de robin wak' me, but robin he don't see me, + Dere's not'ing for scarin' dat bird dere, he's feel all alone on de + worl', + Wall! Ma-dam she mus' lissen lak dat too, w'en she was de Chambly girl! + + Cos how could she sing dat nice chanson, de sam' as de bird I was hear, + Till I see it de maple an' pine tree an' Richelieu ronnin' near, + Again I'm de leetle feller, lak young colt upon de spring + Dat's jus' on de way I was feel, me, w'en Ma-dam All-ba-nee is sing! + + An' affer de song it is finish, an' crowd is mak' noise wit' its han', + I s'pose dey be t'inkin' I'm crazy, dat mebbe I don't onderstan', + Cos I'm set on de chair very quiet, mese'f an' poor Jeremie, + An' I see dat hees eye it was cry too, jus' sam' way it go wit' me. + + Dere's rosebush outside on our garden, ev'ry spring it has got new + nes', + But only wan bluebird is buil' dere, I know her from all de res', + An' no matter de far she be flyin' away on de winter tam, + Back to her own leetle rosebush she's comin' dere jus' de sam'. + + We're not de beeg place on our Canton, mebbe cole on de winter, too, + But de heart's "Canayen" on our body an' dat's warm enough for true! + An' w'en All-ba-nee was got lonesome for travel all roun' de worl' + I hope she'll come home, lak de bluebird, an' again be de Chambly girl! + +[Footnote 1: From "The Habitant and Other French Canadian Poems," by +William Henry Drummond. Copyright 1897 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.] + + + + +COLONEL STERETT'S PANTHER HUNT + +BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS + + +"Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old +Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped +of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to +skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' +about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still +ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to +be urged in favor of mountain lions that they never forces themse'fs on +no gent; they're shore considerate, that a-way, an' speshul of +themse'fs. If one's ever hurt, you can bet it won't be a accident. +However, it ain't for me to go 'round impugnin' the motives of no +mountain lion; partic'lar when the entire tribe is strangers to me +complete. But still a love of trooth compels me to concede that if +mountain lions ain't cowardly, they're shore cautious a lot. Cattle an' +calves they passes up as too bellicose, an' none of 'em ever faces any +anamile more warlike than a baby colt or mebby a half-grown deer. I'm +ridin' along the Caliente once when I hears a crashin' in the bushes on +the bluff above--two hundred foot high, she is, an' as sheer as the +walls of this yere tavern. As I lifts my eyes, a fear-frenzied mare an' +colt comes chargin' up an' projects themse'fs over the precipice an' +lands in the valley below. They're dead as Joolius Cæsar when I rides +onto 'em, while a brace of mountain lions is skirtin' up an' down the +aige of the bluff they leaps from, mewin' an' lashin' their long tails +in hot enthoosiasm. Shore, the cats has been chasin' the mare an' foal, +an' they locoes 'em to that extent they don't know where they're headin' +an' makes the death jump I relates. I bangs away with my six-shooter, +but beyond givin' the mountain lions a convulsive start I can't say I +does any execootion. They turns an' goes streakin' it through the pine +woods like a drunkard to a barn raisin'. + +"Timid? Shore! They're that timid, seminary girls compared to 'em is as +sternly courageous as a passel of buccaneers. Out in Mitchell's canyon a +couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her +two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely +deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers +takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains. +That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she +ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a +anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't +possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions. + +"It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got +through his day's toil on that _Coyote_ paper he's editor of, onfolds +concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth. + +"'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third +tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm +a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is. +An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the +dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a +child, an' I recalls how my aptitoode for learnin' promotes me to be +regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors to the +school, or if the selectman invades that academy to sort o' size us up, +the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit. +Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode--the +teacher's done wrote it himse'f--an' which is entitled _Napoleon's Mad +Career_. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' +selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with +the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said +recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty +clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse: + + I'd drink an' sw'ar an' r'ar an' t'ar + An' fall down in the mud, + While the y'earth for forty miles about + Is kivered with my blood. + +"'You-all can see from that speciment that our school-master ain't +simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no, sir, he +means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it +jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I +finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the +brim! + +"'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he +uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, +on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into +talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains +yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a +shore-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fashion I assoomes at a +tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes +throughout the entire summer in that neighborhood; an' many a time an' +oft does my yoothful but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the +insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes in +the Bloo Grass is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit. + +"'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky +_ton_ comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to +school one dewy mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a +onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the +misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no +means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me +thoroughly convinced. + +"'Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep +goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast +myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school +I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the +heroism of the Spartan boy who stands to be eat by a fox, an' keeps 'em +to myself. But the views of my late enemy is not to be smothered; they +appeals to my young companions; who tharupon puts up a most onneedful +riot of coughin's an' sneezin's. But nobody knows me as the party who's +so pungent. + +"'It's a tryin' moment. I can see that, once I'm located, I'm goin' to +be as onpop'lar as a b'ar in a hawg pen; I'll come tumblin' from my +pinnacle in that proud commoonity as the glass of fashion an' the mold +of form. You can go your bottom _peso_, the thought causes me to feel +plenty perturbed. + +"'At this peril I has a inspiration; as good, too, as I ever entertains +without the aid of rum. I determines to cast the opprobrium on some +other boy an' send the hunt of gen'ral indignation sweepin' along his +trail. + +"'Thar's a innocent infant who's a stoodent at this temple of childish +learnin' an' his name is Riley Bark. This Riley is one of them giant +children who's only twelve an' weighs three hundred pounds. An' in +proportions as Riley is a son of Anak, physical, he's dwarfed mental; he +ain't half as well upholstered with brains as a shepherd dog. That's +right; Riley's intellects, is like a fly in a saucer of syrup, they +struggles 'round plumb slow. I decides to uplift Riley to the public eye +as the felon who's disturbin' that seminary's sereenity. Comin' to this +decision, I p'ints at him where he's planted four seats ahead, all +tangled up in a spellin' book, an' says in a loud whisper to a child +who's sittin' next: + +"'"Throw him out!" + +"'That's enough. No gent will ever realize how easy it is to direct a +people's sentiment ontil he take a whirl at the game. In two minutes by +the teacher's bull's-eye copper watch, every soul knows it's pore Riley; +an' in three, the teacher's done drug Riley out doors by the ha'r of his +head an' chased him home. Gents, I look back on that yoothful feat as a +triumph of diplomacy; it shore saved my standin' as the Beau Brummel of +the Bloo Grass. + +"'Good old days, them!' observes the Colonel mournfully, 'an' ones never +to come ag'in! My sternest studies is romances, an' the peroosals of old +tales as I tells you-all prior fills me full of moss an' mockin' birds +in equal parts. I reads deep of _Walter Scott_ an' waxes to be a sharp +on Moslems speshul. I dreams of the Siege of Acre, an' Richard the Lion +Heart; an' I simply can't sleep nights for honin' to hold a tournament +an' joust a whole lot for some fair lady's love. + +"'Once I commits the error of my career by joustin' with my brother +Jeff. This yere Jeff is settin' on the bank of the Branch fishin' for +bullpouts at the time, an' Jeff don't know I'm hoverin' near at all. +Jeff's reedic'lous fond of fishin'; which he'd sooner fish than read +_Paradise Lost_. I'm romancin' along, sim'larly bent, when I notes Jeff +perched on the bank. To my boyish imagination Jeff at once turns to be a +Paynim. I drops my bait box, couches my fishpole, an' emittin' a +impromptoo warcry, charges him. It's the work of a moment; Jeff's +onhossed an' falls into the Branch. + +"'But thar's bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana from +the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin' a +crimp in folks! Gents, when Jeff's wrath is assuaged I'm all on one side +like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my +spinal column. + +"'A week later my folks takes me to a doctor. That practitioner puts on +his specs an' looks me over with jealous care. + +"'"Whatever's wrong with him, Doc?" says my father. + +"'"Nothin'," says the physician, "only your son Willyum's five inches +out o' plumb." + +"'Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an' stay-laths, an' I +has to wear it; an' mebby in three or four weeks or so he's got me +warped back into the perpendic'lar.' + +"'But how about this cat hunt?' asks Dan Boggs. 'Which I don't aim to be +introosive none, but I'm camped yere through the second drink waitin' +for it, an' these procrastinations is makn' me kind o' batty.' + +"'That panther hunt is like this,' says the Colonel, turnin' to Dan. 'At +the age of seventeen, me an' eight or nine of my intimate brave comrades +founds what we-all denom'nates as the "Chevy Chase Huntin' Club." Each +of us maintains a passel of odds an' ends of dogs, an' at stated +intervals we convenes on hosses, an' with these fourscore curs at our +tails goes yellin' an' skally-hootin' up an' down the countryside +allowin' we're shore a band of Nimrods. + +"'The Chevy Chasers ain't been in bein' as a institootion over long when +chance opens a gate to ser'ous work. The deep snows in the Eastern +mountains it looks like has done drove a panther into our neighborhood. +You could hear of him on all sides. Folks glimpses him now an' then. +They allows he's about the size of a yearlin' calf; an' the way he pulls +down sech feeble people as sheep or lays desolate some he'pless henroost +don't bother him a bit. This panther spreads a horror over the county. +Dances, pra'er meetin's, an' even poker parties is broken up, an' the +social life of that region begins to bog down. Even a weddin' suffers; +the bridesmaids stayin' away lest this ferocious monster should show up +in the road an' chaw one of 'em while she's _en route_ for the scene of +trouble. That's gospel trooth! the pore deserted bride has to heel an' +handle herse'f an' never a friend to yoonite her sobs with hers doorin' +that weddin' ordeal. The old ladies present shakes their heads a heap +solemn. + +"'"It's a worse augoory," says one, "than the hoots of a score of +squinch owls." + +"'When this reign of terror is at its height, the local eye is rolled +appealin'ly towards us Chevy Chasers. We rises to the opportoonity. Day +after day we're ridin' the hills an' vales, readin' the milk white snow +for tracks. An' we has success. One mornin' I comes up on two of the +Brackenridge boys an' five more of the Chevy Chasers settin' on their +hosses at the Skinner cross roads. Bob Crittenden's gone to turn me out, +they says. Then they p'ints down to a handful of close-wove bresh an' +stunted timber an' allows that this maraudin' cat-o-mount is hidin' +thar; they sees him go skulkin' in. + +"'Gents, I ain't above admittin' that the news puts my heart to a +canter. I'm brave; but conflicts with wild an' savage beasts is to me a +novelty an' while I faces my fate without a flutter, I'm yere to say I'd +sooner been in pursoot of minks or raccoons or some varmint whose +grievous cap'bilities I can more ackerately stack up an' in whose merry +ways I'm better versed. However, the dauntless blood of my grandsire +mounts in my cheek; an' as if the shade of that old Trojan is thar +personal to su'gest it, I searches forth a flask an' renoos my sperit; +thus qualified for perils, come in what form they may, I resolootely +stands my hand. + +"'Thar's forty dogs if thar's one in our company as we pauses at the +Skinner cross-roads. An' when the Crittenden yooth returns, he brings +with him the Rickett boys an' forty added dogs. Which it's worth a +ten-mile ride to get a glimpse of that outfit of canines! Thar's every +sort onder the canopy: thar's the stolid hound, the alert fice, the +sapient collie; that is thar's individyool beasts wherein the hound, or +fice, or collie seems to preedominate as a strain. The trooth is thar's +not that dog a-whinin' about our hosses' fetlocks who ain't proudly +descended from fifteen different tribes, an' they shorely makes a motley +mass meetin'. Still, they're good, zealous dogs; an' as they're going to +go for'ard an' take most of the resks of that panther, it seems +invidious to criticize 'em. + +"'One of the Twitty boys rides down an' puts the eighty or more dogs +into the bresh. The rest of us lays back an' strains our eyes. Thar he +is! A shout goes up as we descries the panther stealin' off by a far +corner. He's headin' along a hollow that's full of bresh an' baby timber +an' runs parallel with the pike. Big an' yaller he is; we can tell from +the slight flash we gets of him as he darts into a second clump of +bushes. With a cry--what young Crittenden calls a "view halloo,"--we +goes stampeedin' down the pike in pursoot. + +"'Our dogs is sta'nch; they shore does themse'fs proud. Singin' in +twenty keys, reachin' from growls to yelps an' from yelps to shrillest +screams, they pushes dauntlessly on the fresh trail of their terrified +quarry. Now an' then we gets a squint of the panther as he skulks from +one copse to another jest ahead. Which he's goin' like a arrow; no +mistake! As for us Chevy Chasers, we parallels the hunt, an' continyoos +poundin' the Skinner turnpike abreast of the pack, ever an' anon givin' +a encouragin' shout as we briefly sights our game. + +"'Gents,' says Colonel Sterett, as he ag'in refreshes hims'ef, 'it's +needless to go over that hunt in detail. We hustles the flyin' demon +full eighteen miles, our faithful dogs crowdin' close an' breathless at +his coward heels. Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it +like some saffron meteor. + +"'Only once does we approach within strikin' distance; that's when he +crosses at old Stafford's whisky still. As he glides into view, +Crittenden shouts: + +"'"Thar he goes!" + +"'For myse'f I'm prepared. I've got one of these misguided cap-an'-ball +six-shooters that's built doorin' the war; an' I cuts that hardware +loose! This weapon seems a born profligate of lead, for the six chambers +goes off together. Which you should have seen the Chevy Chasers dodge! +An' well they may; that broadside ain't in vain! My aim is so troo that +one of the r'armost dogs evolves a howl an' rolls over; then he sets up +gnawin' an' lickin' his off hind laig in frantic alternations. That hunt +is done for him. We leaves him doctorin' himse'f an' picks him up two +hours later on our triumphant return. + +"'As I states, we harries that foogitive panther for eighteen miles an' +in our hot ardor founders two hosses. Fatigue an' weariness begins to +overpower us; also our prey weakens along with the rest. In the half +glimpses we now an' ag'in gets of him it's plain that both pace an' +distance is tellin' fast. Still, he presses on; an' as thar's no spur +like fear, that panther holds his distance. + +"'But the end comes. We've done run him into a rough, wild stretch of +country where settlements is few an' cabins roode. Of a sudden, the +panther emerges onto the road an' goes rackin' along the trail. We +pushes our spent steeds to the utmost. + +"'Thar's a log house ahead; out in the stump-filled lot in front is a +frowsy woman an' five small children. The panther leaps the rickety +worm-fence an' heads straight as a bullet for the cl'arin! Horrors! the +sight freezes our marrows! Mad an' savage, he's doo to bite a hunk outen +that devoted household! Mutooally callin' to each other, we goads our +horses to the utmost. We gain on the panther! He may wound but he won't +have time to slay that fam'ly. + +"'Gents, it's a soopreme moment! The panther makes for the female +squatter an' her litter, we pantin' an' pressin' clost behind. The +panther is among 'em; the woman an' the children seems transfixed by the +awful spectacle an' stands rooted with open eyes an' mouths. Our +emotions shore beggars deescriptions. + +"'Now ensooes a scene to smite the hardiest of us with dismay. No sooner +does the panther find himse'f in the midst of that he'pless bevy of +little ones, than he stops, turns round abrupt, an' sets down on his +tail; an' then upliftin' his muzzle he busts into shrieks an' yells an' +howls an' cries, a complete case of dog hysterics! That's what he is, a +great yeller dog; his reason is now a wrack because we harasses him the +eighteen miles. + +"'Thar's a ugly outcast of a squatter, mattock in hand, comes tumblin' +down the hillside from some'ers out back of the shanty where he's been +grubbin': + +"'"What be you-all eediots chasin' my dog for?" demands this onkempt +party. Then he menaces us with the implement. + +"'We makes no retort but stands passive. The great orange brute whose +nerves has been torn to rags creeps to the squatter an' with mournful +howls explains what we've made him suffer. + +"'No, thar's nothin' further to do an' less to be said. That cavalcade, +erstwhile so gala an' buoyant, drags itself wearily homeward, the +exhausted dogs in the r'ar walkin' stiff an' sore like their laigs is +wood. For more'n a mile the complainin' howls of the hysterical yeller +dog is wafted to our years. Then they ceases; an' we figgers his +sympathizin' master has done took him into the shanty an' shet the door. + +"'No one comments on this adventure, not a word is heard. Each is silent +ontil we mounts the Big Murray hill. As we collects ourse'fs on this +eminence one of the Brackenridge boys holds up his hand for a halt. +"Gents," he says, as--hosses, hunters an' dogs--we-all gathers 'round, +"gents, I moves you the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club yereby stands adjourned +_sine die_." Thar's a moment's pause, an' then as by one impulse every +gent, hoss an' dog, says "Ay!" It's yoonanimous, an' from that hour till +now the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club ain't been nothin' save tradition. But +that panther shore disappears; it's the end of his vandalage; an' ag'in +does quadrilles, pra'rs, an poker resoom their wonted sway. That's the +end; an' now, gents, if Black Jack will caper to his dooties we'll +uplift our drooped energies with the usual forty drops.'" + + + + +WOUTER VAN TWILLER + +BY WASHINGTON IRVING + + +It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was +appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under the +commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords States +General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India +Company. + +This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month +of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo seems to +dance up the transparent firmament,--when the robin, the thrush, and a +thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to resound with amorous +ditties, and the luxurious little bob-lincoln revels among the +clover-blossoms of the meadows,--all which happy coincidence persuaded +the old dames of New Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of +foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous +administration. + +The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long +line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives +and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had +comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they +were never either heard or talked of--which, next to being universally +applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and +rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in +the world; one, by talking faster than they think, and the other, by +holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a +smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, +many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be +considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual +remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to +Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, +like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then it +was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his +gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the +whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered +in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was +observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would +deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the +joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his +pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, +"Well, I see nothing in all that to laugh about." + +With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. +His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his +ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not +room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain +it is, that if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary +mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, +mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound +silence, and at length observe, that "he had his doubts about the +matter"; which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not +easily imposed upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name; for to +this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of Twiller; which +is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain +English, _Doubter_. + +The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned +as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch +statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five +feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. +His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that +Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to +construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined +the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just +between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious +at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a +man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. +His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to +sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer +barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented +a vast expanse, unfurrowed by those lines and angles which disfigure the +human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes +twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a +hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll +of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and +streaked with dusty red, like a spitzenberg apple. + +His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated +meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted +eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. +Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true philosopher, for his +mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares +and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without +feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, +or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, +the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling +his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher +would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the +surrounding atmosphere. + +In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a +huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, +fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously +carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's +claws. Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with +jasmin and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland +at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In +this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he +smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye +for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a +black frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it +has even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length +and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his eyes +for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external +objects; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was +evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared +were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and +opinions. + +It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these +biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts +respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so +questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the +search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would +have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait. + +I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of +Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the +first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient +and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, +that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any +offender being brought to punishment,--a most indubitable sign of a +merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of +the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van +Twiller was a lineal descendant. + +The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was +distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering +presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had +been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his +breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian +pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a +very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of +one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement of +accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said +Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of +few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings--or +being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the +statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he +shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth,--either as a sign +that he relished the dish, or comprehended the story,--he called unto +him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge +jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied +by his tobacco-box as a warrant. + +This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the +seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. The +two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of +accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled +any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian +obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having +poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of +leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an +hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his +nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has +just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his +mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous +gravity and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over +the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as +thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final opinion of +the court that the accounts were equally balanced: therefore, Wandle +should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt, +and the constable should pay the costs. + +This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy +throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they +had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its +happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place throughout the +whole of his administration; and the office of constable fell into such +decay, that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the +province for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this +transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and +righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern +magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the +renowned Wouter--being the only time he was ever known to come to a +decision in the whole course of his life. + + + + +THE EXPERIENCES OF THE A.C. + +BY BAYARD TAYLOR + + +"Bridgeport! Change cars for the Naugatuck Railroad!" shouted the +conductor of the New York and Boston Express Train, on the evening of +May 27, 1858.... Mr. Johnson, carpet-bag in hand, jumped upon the +platform, entered the office, purchased a ticket for Waterbury, and was +soon whirling in the Naugatuck train towards his destination. + +On reaching Waterbury, in the soft spring twilight, Mr. Johnson walked +up and down in front of the station, curiously scanning the faces of the +assembled crowd. Presently he noticed a gentleman who was performing the +same operation upon the faces of the alighting passengers. Throwing +himself directly in the way of the latter, the two exchanged a steady +gaze. + +"Is your name Billings?" "Is your name Johnson?" were simultaneous +questions, followed by the simultaneous exclamations,--"Ned!" "Enos!" + +Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause, in +testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to +practical life, asked: + +"Is that all your baggage? Come, I have a buggy here: Eunice has heard +the whistle, and she'll be impatient to welcome you." + +The impatience of Eunice (Mrs. Billings, of course) was not of long +duration; for in five minutes thereafter she stood at the door of her +husband's chocolate-colored villa, receiving his friend.... + +J. Edward Johnson was a tall, thin gentleman of forty-five.... A year +before, some letters, signed "Foster, Kirkup & Co., per Enos Billings," +had accidently revealed to him the whereabouts of the old friend of his +youth, with whom we now find him domiciled.... + +"Enos," said he, as he stretched out his hand for the third cup of tea +(which he had taken only for the purpose of prolonging the pleasant +table-chat), "I wonder which of us is most changed." + +"You, of course," said Mr. Billings, "with your brown face and big +moustache. Your own brother wouldn't have known you, if he had seen you +last, as I did, with smooth cheeks and hair of unmerciful length. Why, +not even your voice is the same!" + +"That is easily accounted for," replied Mr. Johnson. "But in your case, +Enos, I am puzzled to find where the difference lies. Your features seem +to be but little changed, now that I can examine them at leisure; yet it +is not the same face. But really, I never looked at you for so long a +time, in those days. I beg pardon; you used to be so--so remarkably +shy." + +Mr. Billings blushed slightly, and seemed at a loss what to answer. His +wife, however, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming: + +"Oh, that was before the days of the A.C.!" + +He, catching the infection, laughed also; in fact, Mr. Johnson laughed, +but without knowing why. + +"The 'A.C.'!" said Mr. Billings. "Bless me, Eunice! how long it is since +we have talked of that summer! I had almost forgotten that there ever +was an A.C.... Well, the A.C. culminated in '45. You remember something +of the society of Norridgeport, the last winter you were there? Abel +Mallory, for instance?" + +"Let me think a moment," said Mr. Johnson, reflectively. "Really, it +seems like looking back a hundred years. Mallory,--wasn't that the +sentimental young man, with wispy hair, a tallowy skin, and big, sweaty +hands, who used to be spouting Carlyle on the 'reading evenings' at +Shelldrake's? Yes, to be sure; and there was Hollins, with his clerical +face and infidel talk,--and Pauline Ringtop, who used to say, 'The +Beautiful is the Good.' I can still hear her shrill voice singing, +'Would that _I_ were beautiful, would that _I_ were fair!'" + +There was a hearty chorus of laughter at poor Miss Ringtop's expense. It +harmed no one, however; for the tar-weed was already becoming thick over +her Californian grave. + +"Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities of +those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them then. But I +was younger, and far from being so clear-headed, and I looked upon those +evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at least, to the _symposia_ of +Plato. Something in Mallory always repelled me. I detested the sight of +his thick nose, with the flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed +lips, of the bluish color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these +feelings as unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing +the admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the +subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except Graham +bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he +considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of +health,--or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left +temple should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as the last +feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the meat he had +formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory was, that through +a body so purged and purified none but true and natural impulses could +find access to the soul. Such, indeed, was the theory we all held.... + +"Shelldrake was a man of more pretense than real cultivation, as I +afterwards discovered. He was in good circumstances, and always glad to +receive us at his house, as this made him virtually the chief of our +tribe, and the outlay for refreshments involved only the apples from his +own orchard, and water from his well.... + +"Well, 'twas in the early part of '45,--I think in April,--when we were +all gathered together, discussing, as usual, the possibility of leading +a life in accordance with Nature. Abel Mallory was there, and Hollins, +and Miss Ringtop, and Faith Levis, with her knitting,--and also Eunice +Hazleton, a lady whom you have never seen, but you may take my wife as +her representative.... + +"I wish I could recollect some of the speeches made on that occasion. +Abel had but one pimple on his temple (there was a purple spot where the +other had been), and was estimating that in two or three months more he +would be a true, unspoiled man. His complexion, nevertheless, was more +clammy and whey-like than ever. + +"'Yes,' said he, 'I also am an Arcadian! This false dual existence which +I have been leading will soon be merged in the unity of Nature. Our +lives must conform to her sacred law. Why can't we strip off these +hollow Shams' (he made great use of that word), 'and be our true selves, +pure, perfect, and divine?' ... + +"Shelldrake, however, turning to his wife, said,-- + +"'Elviry, how many up-stairs rooms is there in that house down on the +Sound?' + +"'Four,--besides three small ones under the roof. Why, what made you +think of that, Jesse?' said she. + +"'I've got an idea, while Abel's been talking,' he answered. 'We've +taken a house for the summer, down the other side of Bridgeport, right +on the water, where there's good fishing and a fine view of the Sound. +Now there's room enough for all of us,--at least, all that can make it +suit to go. Abel, you and Enos, and Pauline and Eunice might fix matters +so that we could all take the place in partnership, and pass the summer +together, living a true and beautiful life in the bosom of Nature. There +we shall be perfectly free and untrammelled by the chains which still +hang around us in Norridgeport. You know how often we have wanted to be +set on some island in the Pacific Ocean, where we could build up a true +society, right from the start. Now, here's a chance to try the +experiment for a few months, anyhow.' + +"Eunice clapped her hands (yes, you did!) and cried out,-- + +"'Splendid! Arcadian! I'll give up my school for the summer.' ... + +"Abel Mallory, of course, did not need to have the proposal repeated. He +was ready for anything which promised indolence and the indulgence of +his sentimental tastes. I will do the fellow the justice to say that he +was not a hypocrite. He firmly believed both in himself and his +ideas,--especially the former. He pushed both hands through the long +wisps of his drab-colored hair, and threw his head back until his wide +nostrils resembled a double door to his brain. + +"'O Nature!' he said, 'you have found your lost children! We shall obey +your neglected laws! we shall hearken to your divine whispers! we shall +bring you back from your ignominious exile, and place you on your +ancestral throne!' ... + +"The company was finally arranged to consist of the Shelldrakes, +Hollins, Mallory, Eunice, Miss Ringtop, and myself. We did not give much +thought, either to the preparations in advance, or to our mode of life +when settled there. We were to live near to Nature: that was the main +thing. + +"'What shall we call the place?' asked Eunice. + +"'Arcadia!' said Abel Mallory, rolling up his large green eyes. + +"'Then,' said Hollins, 'let us constitute ourselves the Arcadian Club!'" + +--"Aha!" interrupted Mr. Johnson, "I see! The A.C.!" + +"Yes, you see the A.C. now, but to understand it fully you should have +had a share in those Arcadian experiences.... It was a lovely afternoon +in June when we first approached Arcadia.... Perkins Brown, Shelldrake's +boy-of-all-work, awaited us at the door. He had been sent on two or +three days in advance, to take charge of the house, and seemed to have +had enough of hermit-life, for he hailed us with a wild whoop, throwing +his straw hat half-way up one of the poplars. Perkins was a boy of +fifteen, the child of poor parents, who were satisfied to get him off +their hands, regardless as to what humanitarian theories might be tested +upon him. As the Arcadian Club recognized no such thing as caste, he was +always admitted to our meetings, and understood just enough of our +conversation to excite a silly ambition in his slow mind.... + +"Our board, that evening, was really tempting. The absence of meat was +compensated to us by the crisp and racy onions, and I craved only a +little salt, which had been interdicted, as a most pernicious substance. +I sat at one corner of the table, beside Perkins Brown, who took an +opportunity, while the others were engaged in conversation, to jog my +elbow gently. As I turned towards him, he said nothing, but dropped his +eyes significantly. The little rascal had the lid of a blacking-box, +filled with salt, upon his knee, and was privately seasoning his onions +and radishes. I blushed at the thought of my hypocrisy, but the onions +were so much better that I couldn't help dipping into the lid with him. + +"'Oh,' said Eunice, 'we must send for some oil and vinegar! This lettuce +is very nice.' + +"'Oil and vinegar?' exclaimed Abel. + +"'Why, yes,' said she, innocently: 'they are both vegetable substances.' + +"Abel at first looked rather foolish, but quickly recovering himself, +said,-- + +"'All vegetable substances are not proper for food: you would not taste +the poison-oak, or sit under the upas-tree of Java.' + +"'Well, Abel,' Eunice rejoined, 'how are we to distinguish what is best +for us? How are we to know _what_ vegetables to choose, or what animal +and mineral substances to avoid?' + +"I will tell you,' he answered, with a lofty air. 'See here!' pointing +to his temple, where the second pimple--either from the change of air, +or because, in the excitement of the last few days, he had forgotten +it--was actually healed. 'My blood is at last pure. The struggle between +the natural and the unnatural is over, and I am beyond the depraved +influences of my former taste. My instincts are now, therefore, entirely +pure also. What is good for man to eat, that I shall have a natural +desire to eat: what is bad will be naturally repelled. How does the cow +distinguish between the wholesome and the poisonous herbs of the meadow? +And is man less than a cow, that he can not cultivate his instincts to +an equal point? Let me walk through the woods and I can tell you every +berry and root which God designed for food, though I know not its name, +and have never seen it before. I shall make use of my time, during our +sojourn here, to test, by my purified instinct, every substance, animal, +mineral, and vegetable, upon which the human race subsists, and to +create a catalogue of the True Food of Man!' ... + +"Our lazy life during the hot weather had become a little monotonous. +The Arcadian plan had worked tolerably well, on the whole, for there was +very little for any one to do,--Mrs. Shelldrake and Perkins Brown +excepted. Our conversation, however, lacked spirit and variety. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, a little tired of hearing and assenting to the +same sentiments. But, one evening, about this time, Hollins struck upon +a variation, the consequences of which he little foresaw. We had been +reading one of Bulwer's works (the weather was too hot for Psychology), +and came upon this paragraph, or something like it: + +"'Ah, Behind the Veil! We see the summer smile of the Earth,--enamelled +meadow and limpid stream,--but what hides she in her sunless heart? +Caverns of serpents, or grottoes of priceless gems? Youth, whose soul +sits on thy countenance, thyself wearing no mask, strive not to lift the +masks of others! Be content with what thou seest; and wait until Time +and Experience shall teach thee to find jealousy behind the sweet smile, +and hatred under the honeyed word!' + +"This seemed to us a dark and bitter reflection; but one or another of +us recalled some illustration of human hypocrisy, and the evidences, by +the simple fact of repetition, gradually led to a division of +opinion,--Hollins, Shelldrake, and Miss Ringtop on the dark side, and +the rest of us on the bright. The last, however, contented herself with +quoting from her favorite poet Gamaliel J. Gawthrop: + + "'I look beyond thy brow's concealment! + I see thy spirit's dark revealment! + Thy inner self betrayed I see: + Thy coward, craven, shivering ME' + +"'We think we know one another,' exclaimed Hollins; 'but do we? We see +the faults of others, their weaknesses, their disagreeable qualities, +and we keep silent. How much we should gain, were candor as universal as +concealment! Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would +truly know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much +hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, +honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate +misfortune,--in short, how much brighter and happier the world would +become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at all times, his true and +entire feeling! Why, even Evil would lose half its power!' + +"There seemed to be so much practical wisdom in these views that we were +all dazzled and half-convinced at the start. So, when Hollins, turning +towards me, as he continued, exclaimed,--'Come, why should not this +candor be adopted in our Arcadia? Will any one--will you, Enos--commence +at once by telling me now--to my face--my principal faults?' I answered, +after a moment's reflection,--'You have a great deal of intellectual +arrogance, and you are, physically, very indolent.' + +"He did not flinch from the self-invited test, though he looked a little +surprised. + +"'Well put,' said he, 'though I do not say that you are entirely +correct. Now, what are my merits?' + +"'You are clear-sighted,' I answered, 'an earnest seeker after truth, +and courageous in the avowal of your thoughts.' + +"This restored the balance, and we soon began to confess our own +private faults and weaknesses. Though the confessions did not go very +deep,--no one betraying any thing we did not all know already,--yet they +were sufficient to strengthen Hollins in his new idea, and it was +unanimously resolved that Candor should thenceforth be the main charm of +our Arcadian life.... + +"The next day, Abel, who had resumed his researches after the True Food, +came home to supper with a healthier color than I had before seen on his +face. + +"'Do you know,' said he, looking shyly at Hollins, 'that I begin to +think Beer must be a natural beverage? There was an auction in the +village to-day, as I passed through, and I stopped at a cake-stand to +get a glass of water, as it was very hot. There was no water,--only +beer: so I thought I would try a glass, simply as an experiment. Really, +the flavor was very agreeable. And it occurred to me, on the way home, +that all the elements contained in beer are vegetable. Besides, +fermentation is a natural process. I think the question has never been +properly tested before.' + +"'But the alcohol!' exclaimed Hollins. + +"I could not distinguish any, either by taste or smell. I know that +chemical analysis is said to show it; but may not the alcohol be +created, somehow, during the analysis?' + +"'Abel,' said Hollins, in a fresh burst of candor, 'you will never be a +Reformer, until you possess some of the commonest elements of +knowledge.' + +"The rest of us were much diverted: it was a pleasant relief to our +monotonous amiability. + +"Abel, however, had a stubborn streak in his character. The next day he +sent Perkins Brown to Bridgeport for a dozen bottles of 'Beer.' Perkins, +either intentionally or by mistake, (I always suspected the former,) +brought pint-bottles of Scotch ale, which he placed in the coolest part +of the cellar. The evening happened to be exceedingly hot and sultry; +and, as we were all fanning ourselves and talking languidly, Abel +bethought him of his beer. In his thirst, he drank the contents of the +first bottle, almost at a single draught. + +"'The effect of beer,' said he, 'depends, I think, on the commixture of +the nourishing principle of the grain with the cooling properties of the +water. Perhaps, hereafter, a liquid food of the same character may be +invented, which shall save us from mastication and all the diseases of +the teeth.' + +"Hollins and Shelldrake, at his invitation, divided a bottle between +them, and he took a second. The potent beverage was not long in acting +on a brain so unaccustomed to its influence. He grew unusually talkative +and sentimental, in a few minutes. + +"'Oh, sing, somebody!' he sighed in hoarse rapture: 'the night was made +for Song.' + +"Miss Ringtop, nothing loath, immediately commenced, 'When stars are in +the quiet skies'; but scarcely had she finished the first verse before +Abel interrupted her. + +"'Candor's the order of the day, isn't it?' he asked. + +"'Yes!' 'Yes!' two or three answered. + +"'Well, then,' said he, 'candidly, Pauline, you've got the darn'dest +squeaky voice'-- + +"Miss Ringtop gave a faint little scream of horror. + +"'Oh, never mind!' he continued. 'We act according to impulse, don't we? +And I've the impulse to swear; and it's right. Let Nature have her way. +Listen! Damn, damn, damn, damn! I never knew it was so easy. Why, +there's a pleasure in it! Try it, Pauline! try it on me!' + +"'Oh-ooh!' was all Miss Ringtop could utter. + +"'Abel! Abel!' exclaimed Hollins, 'the beer has got into your head.' + +"'No, it isn't Beer,--it's Candor!' said Abel. "It's your own proposal, +Hollins. Suppose it's evil to swear: isn't it better I should express +it, and be done with it, than keep it bottled up, to ferment in my mind? +Oh, you're a precious, consistent old humbug, _you_ are!' + +"And therewith he jumped off the stoop, and went dancing awkwardly down +toward the water, singing in a most unmelodious voice, ''Tis home +where'er the heart is.' ... + +"We had an unusually silent breakfast the next morning. Abel scarcely +spoke, which the others attributed to a natural feeling of shame, after +his display of the previous evening. Hollins and Shelldrake discussed +Temperance, with a special view to his edification, and Miss Ringtop +favored us with several quotations about 'the maddening bowl,'--but he +paid no attention to them.... + +"The forenoon was overcast, with frequent showers. Each one occupied his +or her room until dinner-time, when we met again with something of the +old geniality. There was an evident effort to restore our former flow of +good feeling. Abel's experience with the beer was freely discussed. He +insisted strongly that he had not been laboring under its effects, and +proposed a mutual test. He, Shelldrake, and Hollins were to drink it in +equal measures, and compare observations as to their physical +sensations. The others agreed,--quite willingly, I thought,--but I +refused.... + +"There was a sound of loud voices, as we approached the stoop. Hollins, +Shelldrake and his wife, and Abel Mallory were sitting together near the +door. Perkins Brown, as usual, was crouched on the lowest step, with one +leg over the other, and rubbing the top of his boot with a vigor which +betrayed to me some secret mirth. He looked up at me from under his +straw hat with the grin of a malicious Puck, glanced toward the group, +and made a curious gesture with his thumb. There were several empty pint +bottles on the stoop. + +"'Now, are you sure you can bear the test?' we heard Hollins ask, as we +approached. + +"'Bear it? Why, to be sure!' replied Shelldrake; 'if I couldn't bear it, +or if _you_ couldn't, your theory's done for. Try! I can stand it as +long as you can.' + +"'Well, then,' said Hollins, 'I think you are a very ordinary man. I +derive no intellectual benefit from my intercourse with you, but your +house is convenient to me. I'm under no obligations for your +hospitality, however, because my company is an advantage to you. Indeed, +if I were treated according to my deserts, you couldn't do enough for +me.' + +"Mrs. Shelldrake was up in arms. + +"'Indeed,' she exclaimed, I think you get as good as you deserve, and +more, too.' + +"'Elvira,' said he, with a benevolent condescension, I have no doubt you +think so, for your mind belongs to the lowest and most material sphere. +You have your place in Nature, and you fill it; but it is not for you to +judge of intelligences which move only on the upper planes.' + +"'Hollins,' said Shelldrake, 'Elviry's a good wife and a sensible woman, +and I won't allow you to turn up your nose at her.' + +"'I am not surprised,' he answered, 'that you should fail to stand the +test. I didn't expect it.' + +"'Let me try it on _you_!' cried Shelldrake. 'You, now, have some +intellect,--I don't deny that,--but not so much, by a long shot, as you +think you have. Besides that, you're awfully selfish in your opinions. +You won't admit that anybody can be right who differs from you. You've +sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned something +from you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call +acting according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own +laziness.' + +"'Gosh! that's it!' interrupted Perkins, jumping up; then, recollecting +himself, he sank down on the steps again, and shook with a suppressed +'Ho! ho! ho!' + +"Hollins, however, drew himself up with an exasperated air. + +"'Shelldrake,' said he, 'I pity you. I always knew your ignorance, but I +thought you honest in your human character. I never suspected you of +envy and malice. However, the true Reformer must expect to be +misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds. That love which I bear +to all creatures teaches me to forgive you. Without such love, all plans +of progress must fail. Is it not so, Abel?'" + +"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, 'Pity!' 'Forgive!' in his +most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking violently in her +chair, gave utterance to the peculiar clucking '_ts, ts, ts, ts_,' +whereby certain women express emotions too deep for words. + +"Abel, roused by Hollins' question, answered, with a sudden energy: + +"'Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me, +and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were +like mine, we might have an Arcadia: but most men have no hearts. The +world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy. +No: let us give up. We were born before our time: this age is not worthy +of us.' + +"Hollins stared at the speaker in utter amazement. Shelldrake gave a +long whistle, and finally gasped out: + +"'Well, what next?' + +"None of us were prepared for such a sudden and complete wreck of our +Arcadian scheme. The foundations had been sapped before, it is true; but +we had not perceived it; and now, in two short days, the whole edifice +tumbled about our ears. Though it was inevitable, we felt a shock of +sorrow, and a silence fell upon us. Only that scamp of a Perkins Brown, +chuckling and rubbing his boot, really rejoiced. I could have kicked +him. + +"We all went to bed, feeling that the charm of our Arcadian life was +over.... In the first revulsion of feeling, I was perhaps unjust to my +associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries, which +originated in a genuine aspiration, and failed from an ignorance of the +true nature of Man, quite as much as from the egotism of the +individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society were made about the +same time by men of culture and experience, but in the A.C. we had +neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their +minds, were speedily warped into errors." ... + + + + +WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS + +BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + + + Guvener B. is a sensible man; + He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; + He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, + An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + + My! ain't it terrible? Wut shall we du? + We can't never choose him, o' course,--thet's flat; + Guess we shall hev to come round (don't you?) + An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; + Fer John P. + Robinson he + Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + + Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: + He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; + But consistency still was a part of his plan,-- + He's ben true to _one_ party,--an' thet is himself;-- + So John P. + Robinson he + Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. + + Gineral C. he goes in fer the war; + He don't vally principle more'n an old cud; + Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, + But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood? + So John P. + Robinson he + Sez he shall vote for Gineral C. + + We were gettin' on nicely up here to our village, + With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't, + We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, + An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. + + The side of our country must ollers be took, + An' Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country, + An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book + Puts the _debit_ to him, an' to us the _per contry_; + An' John P. + Robinson he + Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. + + Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies; + Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest _fee, faw, fum_; + An' thet all this big talk of our destinies + Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez it ain't no sech thing; an', of course, so must we. + + Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life + Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, + An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, + To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee. + + Wall, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us + The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,-- + God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, + To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; + Fer John P. + Robinson he + Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee! + + + + +THE DAY WE DO NOT CELEBRATE + +BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE + + + One famous day in great July + John Adams said, long years gone by, + + "This day that makes a people free + Shall be the people's jubilee, + + With games, guns, sports, and shows displayed, + With bells, pomp, bonfires, and parade, + + Throughout this land, from shore to shore, + From this time forth, forevermore." + + The years passed on, and by and by, + Men's hearts grew cold in hot July. + + And Mayor Hawarden Cholmondely said + "Hof rockets Hi ham sore hafraid; + + Hand hif you send one hup hablaze, + Hi'll send you hup for sixty days." + + Then said the Mayor O'Shay McQuade, + "Thayre uz no nade fur no perade." + + And Mayor Hans Von Schwartzenmeyer + Proclaimed, "I'll haf me no bonfier!" + + Said Mayor Baptiste Raphael + "No make-a ring-a dat-a bell!" + + "By gar!" cried Mayor Jean Crapaud, + "Zis July games vill has to go!" + + And Mayor Knud Christofferrssonn + Said, "Djeath to hjjim who fjjres a gjjunn!" + + At last, cried Mayor Wun Lung Lee-- + "Too muchee hoop-la boberee!" + + And so the Yankee holiday, + Of proclamations passed away. + + + + +THE YANKEE DUDE'LL DO + +BY S.E. KISER + + + When Cholly swung his golf-stick on the links, + Or knocked the tennis-ball across the net, + With his bangs done up in cunning little kinks-- + When he wore the tallest collar he could get, + Oh, it was the fashion then + To impale him on the pen-- + To regard him as a being made of putty through and through; + But his racquet's laid away, + He is roughing it to-day, + And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do. + + When Algy, as some knight of old arrayed, + Was the leading figure at the "fawncy ball," + We loathed him for the silly part he played, + He was set down as a monkey--that was all! + Oh, we looked upon him then + As unfit to class with men, + As one whose heart was putty, and whose brains were made of glue; + But he's thrown his cane away, + And he grasps a gun to-day, + While the world beholds him, knowing that the Yankee dude'll do. + + When Clarence cruised about upon his yacht, + Or drove out with his footman through the park, + His mamma, it was generally thought, + Ought to have him in her keeping after dark! + Oh, we ridiculed him then, + We impaled him on the pen, + We thought he was effeminate, we dubbed him "Sissy," too; + But he nobly marched away, + He is eating pork to-day, + And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do. + + How they hurled themselves against the angry foe, + In the jungle and the trenches on the hill! + When the word to charge was given, every dude was on the go-- + He was there to die, to capture, or to kill! + Oh, he struck his level when + Men were called upon again + To preserve the ancient glory of the old red, white, and blue! + He has thrown his spats away, + He is wearing spurs to-day, + And the world will please take notice that the Yankee dude'll do! + + + + +SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER + +BY EDWARD EGGLESTON + + +"I 'low," said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco into her cob pipe +after supper on that eventful Wednesday evening: "I 'low they'll app'int +the Squire to gin out the words to-night. They mos' always do, you see, +kase he's the peartest _ole_ man in this deestrick; and I 'low some of +the young fellers would have to git up and dust ef they would keep up to +him. And he uses sech remarkable smart words. He speaks so polite, too. +But laws! don't I remember when he was poarer nor Job's turkey? Twenty +year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggin's, that air Squire Hawkins +was a poar Yankee school-master, that said 'pail' instid of bucket, and +that called a cow a 'caow,' and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard +what we meant by _'low_ and by _right smart_. But he's larnt our ways +now, an' he's jest as civilized as the rest of us. You would-n know he'd +ever been a Yankee. He didn't stay poar long. Not he. He jest married a +right rich girl! He! he!" And the old woman grinned at Ralph, and then +at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until Ralph shuddered. Nothing was so +frightful to him as to be fawned on by this grinning ogre, whose few +lonesome, blackish teeth seemed ready to devour him. "He didn't stay +poar, you bet a hoss!" and with this the coal was deposited on the pipe, +and the lips began to crack like parchment as each puff of smoke +escaped. "He married rich, you see," and here another significant look +at the young master, and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed +away reflectively. "His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through +the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity' on it a second +time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married, and never +could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law +allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, besides, +book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never +knowed but one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and she +was so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a +apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the +tablecloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos' clean too. +Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But I was goin' fer to say +that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny Gray he got a heap o' money, +or, what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's +better'n book-larnin', says I. Ef a gal had gone clean through all +eddication, and got to the rule of three itself, that would-n buy a +feather-bed. Squire Hawkins jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and +traded even, an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd no +complaints." + +And here she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into +the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing, +all-imploring, and all-confiding look on the young master. + +"I say, ole woman," broke in old Jack, "I say, wot is all this 'ere +spoutin' about the Square fer?" and old Jack, having bit off an ounce of +"pigtail," returned the plug to his pocket. + +As for Ralph, he fell into a sort of terror. He had a guilty feeling +that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him beyond +recall to Mirandy. He did not see visions of breach-of-promise suits. +But he trembled at the thought of an avenging big brother. + +"Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the +dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and +latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front +of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an +eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed, +they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a +lumber room, and so, except a parlor which Mirandy had made an effort to +furnish a little (in hope of the blissful time when somebody should "set +up" with her of evenings), the new building was almost unoccupied, and +the family went in and out through the back door, which, indeed, was the +front door also, for, according to a curious custom, the "front" of the +house was placed toward the south, though the "big road" (Hoosier for +_highway_) ran along the northwest side, or, rather, past the northwest +corner of it. + +When the old woman had spoken thus to Hannah and had latched the door, +she muttered, "That gal don't never show no gratitude fer favors;" to +which Bud rejoined that he didn't think she had no great sight to be +pertickler thankful fer. To which Mrs. Means made no reply, thinking it +best, perhaps, not to wake up her dutiful son on so interesting a theme +as her treatment of Hannah. Ralph felt glad that he was this evening to +go to another boarding place. He should not hear the rest of the +controversy. + +Ralph walked to the school-house with Bill. They were friends again. For +when Hank Banta's ducking and his dogged obstinacy in sitting in his wet +clothes had brought on a serious fever, Ralph had called together the +big boys, and had said: "We must take care of one another, boys. Who +will volunteer to take turns sitting up with Henry?" He put his own name +down, and all the rest followed. + +"William Means and myself will sit up to-night," said Ralph. And poor +Bill had been from that moment the teacher's friend. He was chosen to be +Ralph's companion. He was Puppy Means no longer! Hank could not be +conquered by kindness, and the teacher was made to feel the bitterness +of his resentment long after. But Bill Means was for the time entirely +placated, and he and Ralph went to spelling-school together. + +Every family furnished a candle. There were yellow dips and white dips, +burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing, and talking, and +giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a +full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole +County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this +legend: "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole +County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society +who love dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were +those who loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the battle +from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping to +freshen the laurels they had won in their school days. + +"I 'low," said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal school trustee, "I +'low our friend the Square is jest the man to boss this 'ere consarn +to-night. Ef nobody objects, I'll app'int him. Come, Square, don't be +bashful. Walk up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the man said to +his donkey." + +There was a general giggle at this, and many of the young swains took +occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly for the purpose +of making them see the joke, but really for the pure pleasure of +nudging. The Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably because he wears +so many disguises that they could not select a costume for him. + +The Squire came to the front. Ralph made an inventory of the +agglomeration which bore the name of Squire Hawkins, as follows: + +1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state occasions, +when its owner was called to figure in his public capacity. Either the +Squire had grown too large or the coat too small. + +2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnormal and unexpected +apparition conceivable in Flat Creek district, where the preachers wore +no coats in the summer, and where a black glove was never seen except on +the hands of the Squire. + +3. A wig of that dirty, waxen color so common to wigs. This one showed a +continual inclination to slip off the owner's smooth, bald pate, and the +Squire had frequently to adjust it. As his hair had been red, the wig +did not accord with his face, and the hair ungrayed was doubly +discordant with a countenance shriveled by age. + +4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge of the jaw and chin. +These were dyed a frightful dead-black, such a color as belonged to no +natural hair or beard that ever existed. At the roots there was a +quarter of an inch of white, giving the whiskers the appearance of +having been stuck on. + +5. A pair of spectacles "with tortoise-shell rim." Wont to slip off. + +6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in color from its +natural mate, perpetually getting out of focus by turning in or out. + +7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing up and +down. + +8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were loosely attached. + +It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father begging him to +come West, because "mighty mean men get into office out here." But Ralph +concluded that some Yankees had taught school in Hoopole County who +would not have held a high place in the educational institutions of +Massachusetts. Hawkins had some New England idioms, but they were well +overlaid by a Western pronunciation. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, shoving up his spectacles, and sucking +his lips over his white teeth to keep them in place, "ladies and +gentlemen, young men and maidens, raley I'm obleeged to Mr. Means fer +this honor," and the Squire took both hands and turned the top of his +head round half an inch. Then he adjusted his spectacles. Whether he was +obliged to Mr. Means for the honor of being compared to a donkey was not +clear. "I feel in the inmost compartments of my animal spirits a most +happifying sense of the success and futility of all my endeavors to +sarve the people of Flat Creek deestrick, and the people of Tomkins +township, in my weak way and manner." This burst of eloquence was +delivered with a constrained air and an apparent sense of a danger that +he, Squire Hawkins, might fall to pieces in his weak way and manner, and +of the success and futility of all attempts at reconstruction. For by +this time the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was +looking away round to the left, while the little blue one on the right +twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The front teeth would drop down so +that the Squire's mouth was kept nearly closed, and his words whistled +through. + +"I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion," +twisting his scalp round, "but raley I must forego any such exertions. +It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand, +underlying subterfuge, of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-book +prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do, raley. I +think I may put it ahead of the Bible. Fer if it wurn't fer +spellin'-books and sich occasions as these, where would the Bible be? I +should like to know. The man who got up, who compounded this work of +inextricable valoo was a benufactor to the whole human race or any +other." Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire replaced them in some +confusion, gave the top of his head another twist, and felt of his glass +eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder, and Betsey Short rolled from +side to side in the effort to suppress her giggle. Mrs. Means and the +other old ladies looked the applause they could not speak. + +"I app'int Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fer captings," said the +Squire. And the two young men thus named took a stick and tossed it from +hand to hand to decide which should have the "first choice." One tossed +the stick to the other, who held it fast just where he happened to catch +it. Then the first placed his hand above the second, and so the hands +were alternately changed to the top. The one who held the stick last +without room for the other to take hold had gained the lot. This was +tried three times. As Larkin held the stick twice out of three times, he +had the choice. He hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim +Phillips. But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown seas, and so he +said, "I take the master," while a buzz of surprise ran round the room, +and the captain of the other side, as if afraid his opponent would +withdraw the choice, retorted quickly, and with a little smack of +exultation and defiance in his voice, "And _I_ take Jeems Phillips." + +And soon all present, except a few of the old folks, found themselves +ranged in opposing hosts, the poor spellers lagging in, with what grace +they could, at the foot of the two divisions. The Squire opened his +spelling-book and began to give out the words to the two captains, who +stood up and spelled against each other. It was not long until Larkin +spelled "really" with one _l_, and had to sit down in confusion, while a +murmur of satisfaction ran through the ranks of the opposing forces. His +own side bit their lips. The slender figure of the young teacher took +the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement made the house very +quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of prestige he would suffer if he should +be easily spelled down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the +darkest corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting in the +shadow. Why should his evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he +turned his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully to the +words which the Squire did not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them +with extreme deliberation. This gave him an air of hesitation which +disappointed those on his own side. They wanted him to spell with a +dashing assurance. But he did not begin a word until he had mentally +felt his way through it. After ten minutes of spelling hard words Jeems +Buchanan, the captain on the other side, spelled "atrocious" with an _s_ +instead of a _c_, and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming +up against the teacher. This brought the excitement to fever-heat. For +though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely on trust, and most of the +company were disappointed. The champion who now stood up against the +school-master was a famous speller. + +Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered fellow who had never +distinguished himself in any other pursuit than spelling. Except in +this one art of spelling he was of no account. He could not catch well +or bat well in ball. He could not throw well enough to make his mark in +that famous Western game of bull-pen. He did not succeed well in any +study but that of Webster's Elementary. But in that he was--to use the +usual Flat Creek locution--in that he was "a hoss." This genius for +spelling is in some people a sixth sense, a matter of intuition. Some +spellers are born, and not made, and their facility reminds one of the +mathematical prodigies that crop out every now and then to bewilder the +world. Bud Means, foreseeing that Ralph would be pitted against Jim +Phillips, had warned his friend that Jim could "spell like thunder and +lightning," and that it "took a powerful smart speller" to beat him, for +he knew "a heap of spelling-book." To have "spelled down the master" is +next thing to having whipped the biggest bully in Hoopole County, and +Jim had "spelled down" the last three masters. He divided the +hero-worship of the district with Bud Means. + +For half an hour the Squire gave out hard words. What a blessed thing +our crooked orthography is! Without it there could be no +spelling-schools. As Ralph discovered his opponent's metal he became +more and more cautious. He was now satisfied that Jim would eventually +beat him. The fellow evidently knew more about the spelling-book than +old Noah Webster himself. As he stood there, with his dull face and +long, sharp nose, his hands behind his back, and his voice spelling +infallibly, it seemed to Hartsook that his superiority must lie in his +nose. Ralph's cautiousness answered a double purpose; it enabled him to +tread surely, and it was mistaken by Jim for weakness. Phillips was now +confident that he should carry off the scalp of the fourth school-master +before the evening was over. He spelled eagerly, confidently, +brilliantly. Stoop-shouldered as he was, he began to straighten up. In +the minds of all the company the odds were in his favor. He saw this, +and became ambitious to distinguish himself by spelling without giving +the matter any thought. + +Ralph always believed that he would have been speedily defeated by +Phillips had it not been for two thoughts which braced him. The sinister +shadow of young Dr. Small sitting in the dark corner by the water-bucket +nerved him. A victory over Phillips was a defeat to one who wished only +ill to the young school-master. The other thought that kept his pluck +alive was the recollection of Bull. He approached a word as Bull +approached the raccoon. He did not take hold until he was sure of his +game. When he took hold, it was with a quiet assurance of success. As +Ralph spelled in this dogged way for half an hour the hardest words the +Squire could find, the excitement steadily rose in all parts of the +house, and Ralph's friends even ventured to whisper that "maybe Jim had +cotched his match, after all!" + +But Phillips never doubted of his success. + +"Theodolite," said the Squire. + +"T-h-e, the, o-d, od, theod, o, theodo, l-y-t-e, theodolite," spelled +the champion. + +"Next," said the Squire, nearly losing his teeth in his excitement. +Ralph spelled the word slowly and correctly, and the conquered champion +sat down in confusion. The excitement was so great for some minutes that +the spelling was suspended. Everybody in the house had shown sympathy +with one or the other of the combatants, except the silent shadow in the +corner. It had not moved during the contest, and did not show any +interest now in the result. + +"Gewhilliky crickets! Thunder and lightning! Licked him all to smash!" +said Bud, rubbing his hands on his knees. "That beats my time all +holler!" + +And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb fell out, though she was +not on the defeated side. + +Shocky got up and danced with pleasure. + +But one suffocating look from the aqueous eyes of Mirandy destroyed the +last spark of Ralph's pleasure in his triumph, and sent that awful +below-zero feeling all through him. + +"He's powerful smart, is the master," said old Jack to Mr. Pete Jones. +"He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of 'em afore he's through. I know'd +he was smart. That's the reason I tuck him," proceeded Mr. Means. + +"Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh," answered Pete Jones. "No +lickin', no larnin'," says I. + +It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite side went +down quickly under the hard words which the Squire gave out. The master +had mowed down all but a few, his opponents had given up the battle, and +all had lost their keen interest in a contest to which there could be +but one conclusion, for there were only the poor spellers left. But +Ralph Hartsook ran against a stump where he was least expecting it. It +was the Squire's custom, when one of the smaller scholars or poorer +spellers rose to spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy +words, that they might have some breathing-spell before being +slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He +let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but +one person left on the opposite side, and, as she rose in her blue +calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack +Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never +spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain +quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that +page of Webster, so well known to all who ever thumbed it, as "baker," +from the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these +words in an absent and uninterested manner. As everybody knew that she +would have to go down as soon as this preliminary skirmishing was over, +everybody began to get ready to go home, and already there was the buzz +of preparation. Young men were timidly asking girls if "they could see +them safe home," which was the approved formula, and were trembling in +mortal fear of "the mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to +close the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, +which had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the +leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers as +"incomprehensibility," and began to give out those "words of eight +syllables with the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now turned +round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in at the master's final +triumph. But to their surprise "ole Miss Meanses' white nigger," as some +of them called her in allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great +words with as perfect ease as the master. Still not doubting the result, +the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he +could find. The school became utterly quiet, the excitement was too +great for the ordinary buzz. Would "Meanses' Hanner" beat the master? +beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was +now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, +and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In +fact, Ralph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl +so long oppressed flush and shine with interest; as he looked at the +rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white +complexion and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under +the influence of applause and sympathy--he did not want to beat. If he +had not felt that a victory given would insult her, he would have missed +intentionally. The bulldog, the stern, relentless setting of the will, +had gone, he knew not whither. And there had come in its place, as he +looked in that face, a something which he did not understand. You did +not, gentle reader, the first time it came to you. + +The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard words in the book. +He again pulled the top of his head forward. Then he wiped his +spectacles and put them on. Then out of the depths of his pocket he +fished up a list of words just coming into use in those days--words not +in the spelling-book. He regarded the paper attentively with his blue +right eye. His black left eye meanwhile fixed itself in such a stare on +Mirandy Means that she shuddered and hid her eyes in her red silk +handkerchief. + +"Daguerreotype," sniffed the Squire. It was Ralph's turn. + +"D-a-u, dau--" + +"Next." + +And Hannah spelled it right. + +Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could not be heard, but +Shocky shouted: "Hanner beat! my Hanner spelled down the master!" And +Ralph went over and congratulated her. + +And Dr. Small sat perfectly still in the corner. + +And then the Squire called them to order, and said: "As our friend +Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her side, she will have to spell +against nearly all on t'other side. I shall therefore take the liberty +of procrastinating the completion of this interesting and exacting +contest until to-morrow evening. I hope our friend Hanner may again +carry off the cypress crown of glory. There is nothing better for us +than healthful and kindly simulation." + +Dr. Small, who knew the road to practice, escorted Mirandy, and Bud went +home with somebody else. The others of the Means family hurried on, +while Hannah, the champion, stayed behind a minute to speak to Shocky. +Perhaps it was because Ralph saw that Hannah must go alone that he +suddenly remembered having left something which was of no consequence, +and resolved to go round by Mr. Means's and get it. + + + + +MYOPIA + +BY WALLACE RICE + + + As down the street he took his stroll, + He cursed, for all he is a saint. + He saw a sign atop a pole, + As down the street he took a stroll, + And climbed it up (near-sighted soul), + So he could read--and read "FRESH PAINT," ... + As down the street he took a stroll, + He cursed, for all he is a saint. + + + + +ANATOLE DUBOIS AT DE HORSE SHOW + +BY WALLACE BRUCE AMSBARY + + + My vife an' me ve read so moch + In papier here of late, + About Chicago Horse Show, ve + Remember day an' date. + Ve mak' it op togedder dat + Ve go an' see dat show, + Dere's som't'ing dere ve fin' it out + Maybe ve vant to know. + + Ve leave de leddle farm avile, + Dat's near to Bourbonnais; + Ve're soon op to Chicago town + For spen' de night an' day; + I nevere lak' dat busy place, + It's mos' too swif for me,-- + Ve vaste no tam', but gat to place + Dat ve is com' for see. + + Ve pay de price for tak' us in, + Dey geeve me _deux_ ticquette; + Charlotte an' me ve com' for see + De Horse Show now, you bet. + Ve soon gat in it veree moch, + "De push," I t'ink you call, + To inside on de beeg building, + Ve're going to see it all. + + De Coliseum is de place, + Dey mak' de Horse Show dere, + Five tam's so beeg dan any barn + At Bourbonnais, by gar! + I'm look aroun' for place dey haf' + For dem to pitch de hay. + "I guess it's 'out of sight,' I t'ink," + Dey's von man to me say. + + An' den ve valk aroun' an' 'roun' + Som' horses for to see; + Dere's pretty vomans, lots of dem, + But, for de life of me, + I can not see de trotter nag, + Or vat's called t'oroughbred, + I vonder if ve mak' mistake, + Gat in wrong place instead. + + But Charlotte is not disappoint', + Her eyes dey shine so bright, + It's ven she sees dem vimmens folks, + Dey dance vit moch delight; + I den vos tak' a look myself + On ladies vit fin' drass, + Dere's nodding else in dat whol' place + Dat is so interes'. + + I say, "Charlotte," say I to her, + "Dat ladee in box seat-- + Across de vay vos von beeg swell, + Her beauty's hard to beat; + De von dat's gat fon_ee_ eyeglass + Opon a leddle stek, + I'm t'ink she is most' fin' loo_kin_' + Wen she bow an' spe'k. + + "It's pretty drass dat she's got on, + I lak' de polonaise, + Vere bodice it is all meex op + Vit jabot all de vays. + Dat's hang in front vit pleats all roun'-- + It is von fin' tableau." + An' den Charlotte she turn to me + An' ask me how I know + + So moch about de Beeg Horse Show, + W'ich we are com' for see; + An' den I op an' tol' her dere + Dat I had com' to be + Expert on informatione, + Read papier, I fin' out + Vat all is in de Horse's Show, + An' vat's it all about. + + I point to ladee in nex' box, + She's feex op mighty vell, + I vish I could haf' vords enough + Vat she had on to tell; + De firs' part it vas nodding moch, + From cloth it vas quite free, + Lak' fleur-de-lis at Easter tam', + Mos' beautiful to see. + + An' den dere is commence a line + Of fluffy cream soufflé, + My vife it mak' her very diz', + She's not a vord to say. + An' den com' yard of _crêpe de chine_, + Vit omelette stripe beneadt', + All fill it op vit fine guimpe jew'ls + An' concertina pleat. + + Mon Dieu! an' who vould evere t'ink + Dat Horse Show vas lak' dese! + A Horse Show dere vidout no horse, + I t'ink dat's strange beez_nesse_. + But I suppose affer de man + De dry-goods bill dey pay, + Dere's nodding lef' to spen' on horse + Ontil som' odder day. + + I tell you every hour you leeve, + You fin' out som't'ing new; + An' now I haf' som' vords to tell, + Som' good it might do you; + It's mighty fonny, de advise + I'm geeve to you, of course, + But never go to Horses Show + Expecting to see horse. + + + + +THE CHAMPION CHECKER-PLAYER OF AMERIKY + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + +Of course as fur as Checker-playin's concerned, you can't jest adzackly +claim 'at lots makes fortunes and lots gits bu'sted at it--but still, +it's on'y simple jestice to acknowledge 'at there're absolute p'ints in +the game 'at takes scientific principles to figger out, and a mighty +level-headed feller to _dim_onstrate, don't you understand! + +Checkers is a' _old_ enough game, ef age is any rickommendation; and +it's a' evident fact, too, 'at "the tooth of time," as the feller says, +which fer the last six thousand years has gained some reputation fer +a-eatin' up things in giner'l, don't 'pear to 'a' gnawed much of a hole +in Checkers--jedgin' from the checker-board of to-day and the ones 'at +they're uccasionally shovellin' out at _Pom_p'y-_i_, er whatever its +name is. Turned up a checker-board there not long ago, I wuz readin' +'bout, 'at still had the spots on--as plain and fresh as the modern +white-pine board o' our'n, squared off with pencil-marks and +pokeberry-juice. These is facts 'at history herself has dug out, and of +course it ain't fer me ner you to turn our nose up at Checkers, whuther +we ever tamper with the fool-game er not. Fur's that's concerned, I +don't p'tend to be no checker-player _myse'f_,--but I know'd a feller +onc't 'at _could_ play, and sorto' made a business of it; and _that_ +man, in my opinion, was a geenyus! Name wuz Wesley Cotterl--John Wesley +Cotterl--jest plain Wes, as us fellers round the Shoe-Shop ust to call +him; ust to allus make the Shoe-Shop his headquarters-like; and, rain +er shine, wet er dry, you'd allus find _Wes_ on hands, ready to banter +some feller fer a game, er jest a-settin' humped up there over the +checker-board all alone, a-cipher'n' out some new move er 'nuther, and +whistlin' low and solem' to hisse'f-like and a-payin' no attention to +nobody. + +And _I'll_ tell _you_, Wes Cotterl wuz no man's fool, as sly as you keep +it! He wuz a deep thinker, Wes wuz; and ef he'd 'a' jest turned that +mind o' his loose on _preachin'_, fer instunce, and the 'terpertation o' +the Bible, don't you know, Wes 'ud 'a' worked p'ints out o' there 'at no +livin' expounderers ever got in gunshot of! + +But Wes he didn't 'pear to be cut out fer nothin' much but jest +Checker-playin'. Oh, of course, he _could_ knock round his own woodpile +some, and garden a little, more er less; and the neighbers ust to find +Wes purty handy 'bout trimmin' fruit-trees, you understand, and workin' +in among the worms and cattapillers in the vines and shrubbery, and the +like. And handlin' bees!--They wuzn't no man under the heavens 'at +knowed more 'bout handlin' bees'n Wes Cotterl!--"Settlin'" the blame' +things when they wuz a-swarmin'; and a-robbin' hives, and all sich +fool-resks. W'y, I've saw Wes Cotterl, 'fore now, when a swarm of bees +'ud settle in a' orchard,--like they will sometimes, you know,--I've saw +Wes Cotterl jest roll up his shirt-sleeves and bend down a' apple tree +limb 'at wuz jest kivvered with the pesky things, and scrape 'em back +into the hive with his naked hands, by the quart and gallon, and never +git a scratch! You couldn't _hire_ a bee to sting Wes Cotterl! But +_lazy_?--I think that man had railly ort to 'a' been a' Injun! He wuz +the fust and on'y man 'at ever I laid eyes on 'at wuz too lazy to drap a +checker-man to p'int out the right road fer a feller 'at ast him onc't +the way to Burke's Mill; and Wes, 'ithout ever a-liftin' eye er finger, +jest sorto' crooked out that mouth o' his'n in the direction the feller +wanted, and says: "_H-yonder!_" and went on with his whistlin'. But all +this hain't Checkers, and that's what I started out to tell ye. + +Wes had a way o' jest natchurly a-cleanin' out anybody and ever'body 'at +'ud he'p hold up a checker-board! Wes wuzn't what you'd call a _lively_ +player at all, ner a competiter 'at talked much 'crost the board er made +much furse over a game whilse he _wuz_ a-playin'. He had his faults, o' +course, and _would_ take back moves 'casion'ly, er inch up on you ef you +didn't watch him, mebby. But, _as a rule_, Wes had the insight to grasp +the idy of whoever wuz a-playin' ag'in' him, and _his_ style o' game, +you understand, and wuz on the lookout continual'; and under sich +circumstances _could_ play as _honest_ a game o' Checkers as the babe +unborn. + +One thing in _Wes's_ favor allus wuz the feller's temper.--Nothin' +'peared to aggervate Wes, and nothin' on earth could break his slow and +lazy way o' takin' his own time fer ever'thing. You jest _couldn't crowd +Wes_ er git him rattled anyway.--Jest 'peared to have one fixed +principle, and that wuz to take plenty o' time, and never make no move +'ithout a-ciphern'n' ahead on the prob'ble consequences, don't you +understand! "Be shore you're right," Wes 'ud say, a-lettin' up fer a +second on that low and sorry-like little wind-through-the-keyhole +whistle o' his, and a-nosin' out a place whur he could swap one man fer +two.--"Be shore you're right"--and somep'n' after this style wuz Wes's +way: "Be shore you're right"--(whistling a long, lonesome bar of +"Barbara Allen")--"and then"--(another long, retarded bar)--"go +ahead!"--and by the time the feller 'ud git through with his whistlin', +and a-stoppin' and a-startin' in ag'in, he'd be about three men ahead +to your one. And then he'd jest go on with his whistlin' 'sef nothin' +had happened, and mebby you a-jest a-rearin' and a-callin' him all the +mean, outlandish, ornry names 'at you could lay tongue to. + +But Wes's good nature, I reckon, was the thing 'at he'ped him out as +much as any other p'ints the feller had. And _Wes 'ud allus win, in the +long run_!--I don't keer _who_ played ag'inst him! It was on'y a +question o' time with Wes o' waxin' it to the best of 'em. Lots o' +players has _tackled_ Wes, and right at the _start_ 'ud mebby give him +trouble,--but in the _long run_, now mind ye--_in the long run_, no +mortal man, I reckon, had any business o' rubbin' knees with Wes Cotterl +under no airthly checker-board in all this vale o' tears! + +I mind onc't th' come along a high-toned feller from in around +In'i'nop'lus somers.--Wuz a _lawyer_, er some _p'fessional_ kind o' man. +Had a big yaller, luther-kivvered book under his arm, and a bunch o' +these-'ere big en_vel_op's and a lot o' suppeenies stickin' out o' his +breastpocket. Mighty slick-lookin' feller he wuz; wore a stovepipe hat, +sorto' set 'way back on his head--so's to show off his Giner'l Jackson +forr'ed, don't you know! Well-sir, this feller struck the place, on some +business er other, and then missed the hack 'at _ort_ to 'a' tuk him out +o' here sooner'n it _did_ take him out!--And whilse he wuz a-loafin' +round, sorto' lonesome--like a feller allus _is_ in a strange place, you +know--he kindo' drapped in on our crowd at the Shoe-Shop, ostenchably to +git a boot-strop stitched on, but _I_ knowed, the minute he set foot in +the door, 'at _that_ feller wanted _comp'ny_ wuss'n _cobblin'_. + +Well, as good luck would have it, there set Wes, as usual, with the +checker-board in his lap, a-playin' all by hisse'f, and a-whistlin' so +low and solem'-like and sad it railly made the crowd seem like a +_religious_ getherun' o' some kind er other, we wuz all so quiet and +still-like, as the man come in. + +Well, the stranger stated his business, set down, tuk off his boot, and +set there nussin' his foot and talkin' weather fer ten minutes, I +reckon, 'fore he ever 'peared to notice Wes at all. We wuz all back'ard, +anyhow, 'bout talkin' much; besides, we knowed, long afore he come in, +all about how hot the weather wuz, and the pore chance there wuz o' +rain, and all that; and so the subject had purty well died out, when +jest then the feller's eyes struck Wes and the checker-board,--and I'll +never fergit the warm, salvation smile 'at flashed over him at the +promisin' discovery. "_What!_" says he, a-grinnin' like a' angel and +a-edgin' his cheer to'rds Wes, "have we a checker-board and checkers +here?" + +"We hev," says I, knowin' 'at Wes wouldn't let go o' that whistle long +enough to answer--more'n to mebby nod his head. + +"And who is your best player?" says the feller, kindo' pitiful-like, +with another inquirin' look at Wes. + +"Him," says I, a-pokin' Wes with a peg-float. But Wes on'y spit kindo' +absent-like, and went on with his whistlin'. + +"Much of a player, is he?" says the feller, with a sorto' doubtful smile +at Wes ag'in. + +"Plays a purty good hick'ry," says I, a-pokin' Wes ag'in. "Wes," says I, +"here's a gentleman 'at 'ud mebby like to take a hand with you there, +and give you a few idys," says I. + +"Yes," says the stranger, eager-like, a-settin' his plug-hat keerful' up +in the empty shelvin', and a-rubbin' his hands and smilin' as +confident-like as old Hoyle hisse'f,--"Yes, indeed, I'd be glad to give +the gentleman" (meanin' Wes) "a' idy er two about Checkers--ef _he'd_ +jest as lief,--'cause I reckon ef there're any one thing 'at I _do_ +know more about 'an another, it's Checkers," says he; "and there're no +game 'at delights me more--_pervidin'_, o' course, I find a competiter +'at kin make it anyways inte_rest_in'." + +"Got much of a rickord on Checkers?" says I. + +"Well," says the feller, "I don't like to brag, but I've never _ben_ +beat--in any _legitimut_ contest," says he, "and I've played more'n one +o' _them_," he says, "here and there round the country. Of course, _your +friend_ here," he went on, smilin' sociable at Wes, "_he'll_ take it all +in good part ef I should happen to lead him a little--jest as _I'd_ do," +he says, "ef it wuz possible fer him to lead _me_." + +"_Wes_," says I, "_has_ warmed the wax in the yeers of some mighty good +checker-players," says I, as he squared the board around, still +a-whistlin' to hisse'f-like, as the stranger tuk his place, +a-smilin'-like and roachin' back his hair. + +"Move," says Wes. + +"No," says the feller, with a polite flourish of his hand; "the first +move shall be your'n." And, by jucks! fer all he wouldn't take even the +advantage of a starter, he flaxed it to Wes the fust game in less'n +fifteen minutes. + +"Right shore you've give' me your best player?" he says, smilin' round +at the crowd, as Wes set squarin' the board fer another game and +whistlin' as onconcerned-like as ef nothin' had happened more'n +ordinary. + +"'S your move," says Wes, a-squintin' out into the game 'bout forty foot +from shore, and a-whistlin' purt' nigh in a whisper. + +Well-sir, it 'peared-like the feller railly didn't _try_ to play; and +you could see, too, 'at Wes knowed he'd about met his match, and played +accordin'. He didn't make no move at all 'at he didn't give keerful +thought to; whilse the feller--! well, as I wuz sayin', it jest +'peared-like _Checkers_ wuz _child's-play_ fer him! Putt in most o' the +time 'long through the game a-sayin' things calkilated to kindo' bore a' +ordinary man. But Wes helt hisse'f purty level, and didn't show no +signs, and kep' up his _whistlin'_, mighty well--considerin'. + +"Reckon you play the _fiddle_, too, as well as _Checkers_?" says the +feller, laughin', as Wes come a-whistlin' out of the little end of the +second game and went on a-fixin' fer the next round. + +"'S my move!" says Wes, 'thout seemin' to notice the feller's +tantalizin' words whatsomever. + +"'L! _this_ time," thinks I, "Mr. Smarty from the _me_trolopin +deestricts, _you're_ liable to git _waxed_--_shore_!" But the _feller_ +didn't 'pear to think so at all, and played right ahead as glib-like and +keerless as ever--'casion'ly a-throwin' in them sircastic remarks o' +his'n,--'bout bein' "slow and shore" 'bout things in gineral--"Liked to +_see_ that," he said:--"Liked to see fellers do things with plenty o' +_deliberation_, and even ef a feller _wuzn't_ much of a checker-player, +liked to see him _die_ slow _anyhow_!--and then 'tend his own funeral," +he says,--"and march in the p'session--to his own _music_," says +he.--And jest then his remarks wuz brung to a close by Wes a-jumpin' two +men, and a-lightin' square in the king-row.... "Crown that," says Wes, +a-droppin' back into his old tune. And fer the rest o' _that_ game Wes +helt the feller purty level, but had to finally knock under--but by jest +the clos'test kind o' shave o' winnin'. + +"They ain't much use," says the feller, "o' keepin' _this_ thing +up--'less I could manage, _some_ way er other, to git beat _onc't 'n a +while_!" + +"Move," says Wes, a-drappin' back into the same old whistle and +a-_settlin'_ there. + +"'Music has charms,' as the Good Book tells us," says the feller, kindo' +nervous-like, and a-roachin' his hair back as ef some sort o' p'tracted +headache wuz a-settin' in. + +"Never wuz '_skunked_,' wuz ye?" says Wes, kindo' suddent-like, with a +fur-off look in them big white eyes o' his--and then a-whistlin' right +on 'sef he hadn't said _nothin'_. + +"_Not much!_" says the feller, sorto' s'prised-like, as ef such a' idy +as that had never struck him afore.--"Never was 'skunked' _myse'f_: but +I've saw fellers in my time 'at _wuz_!" says he. + +But from that time on I noticed the feller 'peared to play more keerful, +and railly la'nched into the game with somepin' like inter'st. Wes he +seemed to be jest a-limber-in'-up-like; and-sir, blame me! ef he didn't +walk the feller's log fer him _that_ time, 'thout no 'pearent trouble at +all! + +"And, _now_," says Wes, all quiet-like, a-squarin' the board fer +another'n,--"we're kindo' gittin' at things _right_. Move." And away +went that little unconcerned whistle o' his ag'in, and _Mr. Cityman_ +jest gittin' white and sweaty too--he wuz so nervous. Ner he didn't +'pear to find much to laugh at in the _next_ game--ner the next _two_ +games nuther! Things wuz a-gettin' mighty inte_rest_in' 'bout them +times, and I guess the feller wuz ser'ous-like a-wakin' up to the solem' +fact 'at it tuk 'bout all _his_ spare time to keep up his end o' the +row, and even that state o' pore satisfaction wuz a-creepin' furder and +furder away from him ever' new turn he undertook. Whilse _Wes_ jest +peared to git more deliber't' and certain ever' game; and that unendin' +se'f-satisfied and comfortin' little whistle o' his never drapped a +stitch, but toed out ever' game alike,--to'rds the _last_, and, fer the +_most_ part, disasterss to the feller 'at had started in with sich +confi_dence_ and actchul promise, don't you know. + +Well-sir, the feller stuck the whole _forenoon_ out, and then the +_afternoon_; and then knuckled down to it 'way into the night--yes, and +plum _midnight_!--And he buckled into the thing bright and airly _next +morning_! And-sir, fer _two long days_ and nights, a-hardly a-stoppin' +long enough to _eat_, the feller stuck it out,--and Wes a-jest a-warpin' +it to him hand-over-fist, and leavin' him furder behind, ever' +game!--till finally, to'rds the last, the feller got so blamedon worked +up and excited-like, he jes' 'peared actchully purt' nigh plum crazy and +histurical as a woman! + +It was a-gittin' late into the shank of the second day, and the boys hed +jest lit a candle fer 'em to finish out one of the clost'est games the +feller'd played Wes fer some time. But Wes wuz jest as cool and ca'm as +ever, and still a-whistlin' consolin' to hisse'f-like, whilse the feller +jest 'peared wore out and ready to drap right in his tracks any minute. + +"_Durn you!_" he snarled out at Wes, "hain't you never goern to move?" +And there set Wes, a-balancin' a checker-man above the board, a-studyin' +whur to set it, and a-fillin' in the time with that-air whistle. + +"_Flames and flashes!_" says the feller ag'in, "will you _ever_ stop +that death-seducin' tune o' your'n long enough to move?"--And as Wes +deliber't'ly set his man down whur the feller see he'd haf to jump it +and lose two men and a king, Wes wuz a-singin', low and sad-like, as ef +all to hisse'f: + + "O we'll move that man, and leave him there.-- + Fer the love of B-a-r-b--bry Al-len!" + +Well-sir! the feller jest jumped to his feet, upset the board, and tore +out o' the shop stark-starin' crazy--blame ef he wuzn't!--'cause some of +us putt out after him and overtook him 'way beyent the 'pike-bridge, and +hollered to him;--and he shuk his fist at us and hollered back and +says, says he: "Ef you fellers over here," says he, "'ll agree to +_muzzle_ that durn checker-player o' your'n, I'll bet fifteen hunderd +dollars to fifteen cents 'at I kin beat him 'leven games out of ever' +dozent!--But there're _no money_," he says, "'at kin hire me to play him +ag'in, on this aboundin' airth, on'y on them conditions--'cause that +durn, eternal, infernal, dad-blasted whistle o' his 'ud beat the oldest +man in Ameriky!" + + + + +DARBY AND JOAN + +BY ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD + + +I + + When Darby saw the setting sun, + He swung his scythe, and home he run, + Sat down, drank off his quart, and said, + "My work is done, I'll go to bed." + "My work is done!" retorted Joan, + "My work is done! your constant tone; + But hapless woman ne'er can say, + 'My work is done,' till judgment day. + You men can sleep all night, but we + Must toil."--"Whose fault is that?" quoth he. + "I know your meaning," Joan replied, + "But, Sir, my tongue shall not be tied; + I will go on, and let you know + What work poor women have to do: + First, in the morning, though we feel + As sick as drunkards when they reel; + Yes, feel such pains in back and head + As would confine you men to bed, + We ply the brush, we wield the broom, + We air the beds, and right the room; + The cows must next be milked--and then + We get the breakfast for the men. + Ere this is done, with whimpering cries, + And bristly hair, the children rise; + These must be dressed, and dosed with rue, + And fed--and all because of you: + We next"--Here Darby scratched his head, + And stole off grumbling to his bed; + And only said, as on she run, + "Zounds! woman's clack is never done." + + +II + + At early dawn, ere Phoebus rose, + Old Joan resumed her tale of woes; + When Darby thus--"I'll end the strife, + Be you the man and I the wife: + Take you the scythe and mow, while I + Will all your boasted cares supply." + "Content," quoth Joan, "give me my stint." + This Darby did, and out she went. + Old Darby rose and seized the broom, + And whirled the dirt about the room: + Which having done, he scarce knew how, + He hied to milk the brindled cow. + The brindled cow whisked round her tail + In Darby's eyes, and kicked the pail. + The clown, perplexed with grief and pain, + Swore he'd ne'er try to milk again: + When turning round, in sad amaze, + He saw his cottage in a blaze: + For as he chanced to brush the room, + In careless haste, he fired the broom. + The fire at last subdued, he swore + The broom and he would meet no more. + Pressed by misfortune, and perplexed, + Darby prepared for breakfast next; + But what to get he scarcely knew-- + The bread was spent, the butter too. + His hands bedaubed with paste and flour, + Old Darby labored full an hour: + But, luckless wight! thou couldst not make + The bread take form of loaf or cake. + As every door wide open stood, + In pushed the sow in quest of food; + And, stumbling onward, with her snout + O'erset the churn--the cream ran out. + As Darby turned, the sow to beat, + The slippery cream betrayed his feet; + He caught the bread trough in his fall, + And down came Darby, trough, and all. + The children, wakened by the clatter, + Start up, and cry, "Oh! what's the matter?" + Old Jowler barked, and Tabby mewed, + And hapless Darby bawled aloud, + "Return, my Joan, as heretofore, + I'll play the housewife's part no more: + Since now, by sad experience taught, + Compared to thine my work is naught; + Henceforth, as business calls, I'll take, + Content, the plough, the scythe, the rake, + And never more transgress the line + Our fates have marked, while thou art mine. + Then, Joan, return, as heretofore, + I'll vex thy honest soul no more; + Let's each our proper task attend-- + Forgive the past, and strive to mend." + + + + +WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, + And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, + And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, + And the rooster's hallelooyer as he tiptoes on the fence, + Oh, it's then's the time a feller is a feelin' at his best, + With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of gracious rest, + As he leaves the house bareheaded and goes out to feed the stock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + There's sompin kind o' hearty-like about the atmosphere + When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here. + Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, + And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and the buzzin' of the bees; + But the air's so appetizin', and the landscape through the haze + Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days + Is a picture that no painter has the colorin' to mock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + The husky, rusty rustle of the tassels of the corn, + And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn; + The stubble in the furries--kind o' lonesome like, but still + A preachin' sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill; + The straw-stack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed, + The hosses in their stalls below, the clover overhead,-- + Oh, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + + + +LAFFING + +BY JOSH BILLINGS + + +Anatomikally konsidered, laffing iz the sensation ov pheeling good all +over, and showing it principally in one spot. + +Morally konsidered, it iz the next best thing tew the 10 +commandments.... + +Theoretikally konsidered, it kan out-argy all the logik in existence.... + +Pyroteknikally konsidered, it is the fire-works of the soul.... + +But i don't intend this essa for laffing in the lump, but for laffing on +the half-shell. + +Laffing iz just az natral tew cum tew the surface az a rat iz tew cum +out ov hiz hole when he wants tew. + +Yu kant keep it back by swallowing enny more than yu kan the heekups. + +If a man _kan't_ laff there iz sum mistake made in putting him together, +and if he _won't_ laff he wants az mutch keeping away from az a +bear-trap when it iz sot. + +I have seen people who laffed altogether too mutch for their own good or +for ennyboddy else's; they laft like a barrell ov nu sider with the tap +pulled out, a perfekt stream. + +This is a grate waste ov natral juice. + +I have seen other people who didn't laff enuff tew giv themselfs vent; +they waz like a barrell ov nu sider too, that waz bunged up tite, apt +tew start a hoop and leak all away on the sly. + +Thare ain't neither ov theze 2 ways right, and they never ought tew be +pattented.... + +Genuine laffing iz the vent ov the soul, the nostrils of the heart, and +iz just az necessary for health and happiness az spring water iz for a +trout. + +Thare iz one kind ov a laff that i always did rekommend; it looks out ov +the eye fust with a merry twinkle, then it kreeps down on its hands and +kneze and plays around the mouth like a pretty moth around the blaze ov +a kandle, then it steals over into the dimples ov the cheeks and rides +around into thoze little whirlpools for a while, then it lites up the +whole face like the mello bloom on a damask roze, then it swims oph on +the air with a peal az klear and az happy az a dinner-bell, then it goes +bak agin on golden tiptoze like an angel out for an airing, and laze +down on its little bed ov violets in the heart where it cum from. + +Thare iz another laff that nobody kan withstand; it iz just az honest +and noisy az a distrikt skool let out tew play, it shakes a man up from +hiz toze tew hiz temples, it dubbles and twists him like a whiskee phit, +it lifts him oph from his cheer, like feathers, and lets him bak agin +like melted led, it goes all thru him like a pikpocket, and finally +leaves him az weak and az krazy az tho he had bin soaking all day in a +Rushing bath and forgot to be took out. + +This kind ov a laff belongs tew jolly good phellows who are az healthy +az quakers, and who are az eazy tew pleaze az a gall who iz going tew be +married to-morrow. + +In konclushion i say laff every good chance yu kan git, but don't laff +unless yu feal like it, for there ain't nothing in this world more harty +than a good honest laff, nor nothing more hollow than a hartless one. + +When yu do laff open yure mouth wide enuff for the noize tew git out +without squealing, thro yure hed bak az tho yu waz going tew be shaved, +hold on tew yure false hair with both hands and then laff till yure soul +gets thoroly rested. + +But i shall tell yu more about theze things at sum fewter time. + + + + +GRIZZLY-GRU + +BY IRONQUILL + + + O Thoughts of the past and present, + O whither, and whence, and where, + Demanded my soul, as I scaled the height + Of the pine-clad peak in the somber night, + In the terebinthine air. + + While pondering on the frailty + Of happiness, hope, and mirth, + The ascending sun with derisive scoff + Hurled its golden lances and smote me off + From the bulge of the restless earth. + + Through the yellowish dawn of velvet + Where stars were so thickly strewn. + That quietly chuckled as I passed through, + I fell in the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, + On the mad, mysterious moon. + + I fell on the turquoise ether, + Low down in the wondrous west, + And thence to the moon in whose yielding blue + Were hidden the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, + In the Monarchy of Unrest. + + And there were the fairy gardens, + Where beautiful cherubs grew + In daintiest way and on separate stalks, + In the listed rows by the jasper walks, + Near the palace of Grizzly-Gru. + + While strolling around the garden + I noticed the rows were full + Of every conceivable size and type-- + Some that were buds, and some nearly ripe, + And some that were ready to pull. + + In gauzy and white corolla, + Was one who had eyes of blue, + A little excuse of a baby nose, + Little pink ears, and ten little toes, + And a mouth that kept saying ah-goo. + + Ah-gooing as I came near her, + She raised up her arms in glee-- + Her little fat arms--and she seemed to say, + "I'm ready to go with you right away; + Don't hunt any more--take me." + + I picked her off quick and kissed her, + And, hugging her to my breast, + I heard a loud yelling that pierced me through, + 'Twas His Terrible Eminence, Grizzly-Gru, + Of the Monarchy of Unrest. + + He had on a blood-red turban, + A picturesque lot of clothes, + With big moustaches both fierce and black, + And a ghastly saber to cut and hack, + And shoes that turned up at the toes. + + Out of the gate of the garden + The cherub and I took flight, + And closely behind us the saber flew, + And back of the saber came Grizzly-Gru, + And he chased us all day till night. + + I ran down the lunar crescent, + 'And out on the silver horn; + I kissed the baby and held her tight, + And jumped down into the starry night, + And--I lit on the earth at morn. + + He fitfully threw his saber, + It missed and went round the sun; + He followed no further, he was not rash, + But the baby held on to my coarse moustache, + And seemed to enjoy the fun. + + In saving that blue-eyed baby + From the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, + I suffered a terrible shock and fright; + But the doctor believes it will be all right, + And he thinks he can pull me through. + + + + +JOHN HENRY IN A STREET CAR + +BY HUGH McHUGH + + +Throw me in the cellar and batten down the hatches. + +I'm a wreck in the key of G flat. + +I side-stepped in among a bunch of language-heavers yesterday and ever +since I've been sitting on the ragged edge with my feet hanging over. + +I was on my way down to Wall Street to help J. Pierpont Morgan buy a +couple of railroads and all the world seemed as blithe and gay as a love +clinch from Laura Jean Libbey's latest. + +When I climbed into the cable-car I felt like a man who had mailed money +to himself the night before. + +I was aces. + +And then somebody blew out my gas. + +At the next corner two society flash-lights flopped in and sat next to +me. + +They had a lot of words they wanted to use and they started in. + +The car stopped and two more of the 400's leading ladies jumped the +hurdles and came down the aisle. + +They sat on the other side of me. + +In a minute they began to bite the dictionary. + +Their efforts aroused the energies of three women who sat opposite me, +and _they_ proceeded to beat the English language black and blue. + +In a minute the air was so full of talk that the grip germs had to pull +out on the platform and chew the conductor. + +The next one to me on my left started in: + +"Oh, yes; we discharged our cook day before yesterday, but there's +another coming this evening, and so--" + +Her friend broke away and was up and back to the center with this: + +"I was coming down Broadway this morning and I saw Julia Marlowe's +leading man. I'm sure it was him, because I saw the show once in Chicago +and he has the loveliest eyes I ever looked at!" + +I knew that that was my cue to walk out, kick the motorman in the +knuckles, upset the car and send in a fire call, but I passed it up. + +I just sat there and bit my nails like the heavy villain in one of Corse +Payton's ten, twen, thir dramas. + +That "loveliest eyes" speech had me groggy. + +Whenever I hear a woman turn on that "loveliest eyes" gag about an actor +I always feel that a swift slap from a wet dish-rag would look well on +her back hair. + +Then the bunch across the aisle got the flag. + +"Well, you know," says the broad lady who paid for one seat and was +compelled by Nature to use three, "you know there's only five in our +family, and so I take just five slices of stale bread and have a bowl of +water ready in which I've dropped a pinch of salt. Then I take a piece +of butter about the size of a walnut, and thoroughly grease the bottom +of a frying-pan; then beat five eggs to a froth, and--" + +I'm hoping the conductor will come in and give us all a tip to take to +the timber because the cops are going to pinch the room, but there's +nothing doing. + +One of the dames on my right finds her voice and passes it around:-- + +"Oh, I think it's a perfect fright! I always did detest electric blue, +anyway. It is so unbecoming, and then--" + +I've just decided that this lady ought to make up as a Swede servant +girl and play the part, when her friend hooks in: + +"Oh, yes; I think it will look perfectly sweet! It is a foulard in one +of those new heliotrope tints, made with a crêpe de chine chemisette, +with a second vest peeping out on either side of the front over an +embroidered satin vest and cut in scallops on the edge, finished with a +full ruche of white chiffon, and the sleeves are just too tight for any +use, and the skirt is too long for any good, and I declare the lining is +too sweet! and I just hate to wear it out on the street and get it +soiled, and I was going to have it made with a tunic, and Mrs. +Wigwag--that's my brother-in-law's first cousin--she had her's made to +wear with guimpes--and they are so economical! and--" + +Think of a guy having to ride four miles and get his forehead fanned all +the while with talk about foulard and crêpe de chine and guimpes! + +Wouldn't it lead you to a padded cell? + +Say! I was down and out--no kidding! + +I wanted to get up and fight the door-tender, but I couldn't. + +One of the conversationalists was sitting on my overcoat. + +I felt that if I got up and called my coat back to Papa she might lose +the thread of her story, and the jar would be something frightful. + +So I sat still and saved her life. + +The one on my right must have been the Lady President of The Hammer +Club. + +She was talking about some other girl and she didn't do a thing to the +absent one. + +She said she was svelte. + +I suppose that's Dago for a shine. + +That's the way with some women. They can't come right out and call +another woman a polish. They have to beat around the bush and chase +their friends to the swamps by throwing things like "svelte" at them. +Tush! + +I tried to duck the foreign tattle on my right and by so doing I'm next +to this on my left: + +"Oh, yes; I think politics is just too lovely! I don't know whether I'd +rather be a Democrat or a Republican, but I think--oh! just look at the +hat that woman has on! Isn't that a fright? Wonder if she trimmed it +herself. Of course she did; you can tell by--" + +I'm gasping for breath when the broad lady across the aisle gets the +floor: + +"No, indeed! I didn't have Eliza vaccinated. Why, she's too small yet, +and don't you know my sister's husband's brother's child was vaccinated, +and she is younger than our Eliza, but I don't just care, I don't +want--" + +Then the sweet girlish thing on my left gave me the corkscrew jab. + +It was the finish: + +"Isn't that lovely? Well, as I was telling you, Charlie came last night +and brought Mr. Storeclose with him. Mr. Storeclose is awfully nice. He +plays the mandolin just too sweet for anything, and--" + +Me!--to the oyster beds! No male impersonators garroting a mandolin--not +any in mine! + +When I want to take a course in music I'll climb into a public library +and read how Baldy Sloane wrote the Tiger Lily with one hand tied behind +him and his feet on the piano. + +So I fell off the car and crawled home to mother. + + + + +THE MUSKEETER + +BY JOSH BILLINGS + + +Muskeeters are a game bug, but they won't bite at a hook. Thare iz +millyuns ov them kaught every year, but not with a hook, this makes the +market for them unstiddy, the supply allways exceeding the demand. The +muskeeto iz born on the sly, and cums to maturity quicker than enny +other ov the domestik animiles. A muskeeter at 3 hours old iz just az +reddy and anxious to go into bizzness for himself, az ever he iz, and +bites the fust time az sharp, and natral, as red pepper duz. The +muskeeter haz a good ear for musik, and sings without notes. The song ov +the muskeeto iz monotonous to sum folks, but in me it stirs up the +memorys ov other days. I hav lade awake, all nite long, menny a time and +listened to the sweet anthems ov the muskeeter. I am satisfied that +thare want nothing made in vain, but i kant help thinking how mighty +kluss the musketoze kum to it. The muskeeter haz inhabited this world +since its kreashun, and will probably hang around here until bizzness +closes. Whare the muskeeter goes to in the winter iz a standing +konumdrum, which all the naturalists hav giv up, but we kno he dont go +far, for he iz on hand early each year with hiz probe fresh ground, and +polished. Muskeeters must be one ov the luxurys ov life, they certainly +aint one ov the necessarys, not if we kno ourselfs. + + + + +THE TURNINGS OF A BOOKWORM + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + + Love levels all plots. + Dead men sell no tales. + A new boom sweeps clean. + Circumstances alter bookcases. + The more haste the less read. + Too many books spoil the trade. + Many hands make light literature. + Epigrams cover a multitude of sins. + Ye can not serve Art and Mammon. + A little sequel is a dangerous thing. + It's a long page that has no turning. + Don't look a gift-book in the binding. + A gilt-edged volume needs no accuser. + In a multitude of characters there is safety. + Incidents will happen even in the best regulated novels. + One touch of Nature makes the whole book sell. + Where there's a will there's a detective story. + A book in the hand is worth two in the library. + An ounce of invention is worth a pound of style. + A good name is rather to be chosen than great characters. + Where there's so much puff, there must be some buyer. + + + + +THE FEAST OF THE MONKEYS + +BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA + + + In days of old, + So I've been told, + The monkeys gave a feast. + They sent out cards, + With kind regards, + To every bird and beast. + The guests came dressed, + In fashion's best, + Unmindful of expense; + Except the whale, + Whose swallowtail, + Was "soaked" for fifty cents. + + The guests checked wraps, + Canes, hats and caps; + And when that task was done, + The footman he + With dignitee, + Announced them one by one. + In Monkey Hall, + The host met all, + And hoped they'd feel at ease, + "I scarcely can," + Said the Black and Tan, + "I'm busy hunting fleas." + + "While waiting for + A score or more + Of guests," the hostess said, + "We'll have the Poodle + Sing _Yankee Doodle_, + A-standing on his head. + And when this through, + Good Parrot, you, + Please show them how you swear." + "Oh, dear; don't cuss," + Cried the Octopus, + And he walked off on his ear. + + The Orang-Outang + A sea-song sang, + About a Chimpanzee + Who went abroad, + In a drinking gourd, + To the coast of Barberee. + Where he heard one night, + When the moon shone bright, + A school of mermaids pick + Chromatic scales + From off their tails, + And did it mighty slick. + + "All guests are here, + To eat the cheer, + And dinner's served, my Lord." + The butler bowed; + And then the crowd + Rushed in with one accord. + The fiddler-crab + Came in a cab, + And played a piece in C; + While on his horn, + The Unicorn + Blew, _You'll Remember Me_. + + "To give a touch + Of early Dutch + To this great feast of feasts, + I'll drink ten drops + Of Holland's schnapps," + Spoke out the King of Beasts. + "That must taste fine," + Said the Porcupine, + "Did you see him smack his lip?" + "I'd smack mine, too," + Cried the Kangaroo, + "If I didn't have the pip." + + The Lion stood, + And said: "Be good + Enough to look this way; + Court Etiquette + Do not forget, + And mark well what I say: + My royal wish + Is ev'ry dish + Be tasted first by me." + "Here's where I smile," + Said the Crocodile, + And he climbed an axle-tree. + + The soup was brought, + And quick as thought, + The Lion ate it all. + "You can't beat that," + Exclaimed the Cat, + "For monumental gall." + "The soup," all cried. + "Gone," Leo replied, + "'Twas just a bit too thick." + "When we get through," + Remarked the Gnu, + "I'll hit him with a brick." + + The Tiger stepped, + Or, rather, crept, + Up where the Lion sat. + "O, mighty boss + I'm at a loss + To know where I am at. + I came to-night + With appetite + To drink and also eat; + As a Tiger grand, + I now demand, + I get there with both feet." + + The Lion got + All-fired hot + And in a passion flew. + "Get out," he cried, + "And save your hide, + You most offensive _You_." + "I'm not afraid," + The Tiger said, + "I know what I'm about." + But the Lion's paw + Reached the Tiger's jaw, + And he was good and out. + + The salt-sea smell + Of Mackerel, + Upon the air arose; + Each hungry guest + Great joy expressed, + And "sniff!" went every nose. + With glutton look + The Lion took + The spiced and sav'ry dish. + Without a pause + He worked his jaws, + And gobbled all the fish. + + Then ate the roast, + The quail on toast, + The pork, both fat and lean; + The jam and lamb, + The potted ham, + And drank the kerosene. + He raised his voice: + "Come, all rejoice, + You've seen your monarch dine." + "Never again," + Clucked the Hen, + And all sang _Old Lang Syne_. + + + + +THE BILLVILLE SPIRIT MEETING + +BY FRANK L. STANTON + + + We had a sperrit meetin' (we'll never have no more!) + To call up all the sperrits of them that's "gone before." + A feller called a "medium" (he wuz of medium size), + Took the contract fer the fetchin' o' them sperrits from the skies. + + The mayor--the town council--the parson an' his wife, + Come to shake han's with them sperrits what had left the other life; + The Colonel an' the Major--the coroner, an' all + Wuz waitin' an' debatin' in the darkness o' the hall. + + The medium roared, "Silence! Amanda Jones appears! + Is her husband present?" ("No, sir--he's been restin' twenty years!") + "Here's the ghost of Sally Spilkins, from the lan' whar' glories glow: + Would her husband like to see her?" (An' a feeble voice said, "_No_!") + + "Here's the wife of Colonel Buster; she wears a heavenly smile: + She wants to see the Colonel, an' she's comin' down the aisle!" + Then all wuz wild confusion--it warn't a bit o' fun!-- + With "Lord, have mercy on me," the Colonel broke an' run! + + Then the coroner got skeery an' scampered fer his life! + "Stop--stop him!" said the medium; "here comes his second wife!" + But thar' warn't a man could stop him in that whole blame settlement.-- + He turned a double summersault an' out the winder went! + + Then, the whole town council follered an' hollered all the way; + The parson said he had a call 'bout ten miles off, to pray! + He didn't preach nex' Sunday, an' they tell it roun' a bit, + Accordin' to the best reports the parson's runnin' yit! + + + + +A CRY FROM THE CONSUMER + +BY WILBUR D. NESBIT + + + Grasshoppers roam the Kansas fields and eat the tender grass-- + A trivial affair, indeed, but what then comes to pass? + You go to buy a panama, or any other hat; + You learn the price has been advanced a lot because of that. + A glacier up in Canada has slipped a mile or two-- + A little thing like this can boost the selling price of glue. + Occurrences so tragic always thrill me to the core; + I hope and pray that nothing ever happens any more. + + Last week the peaceful Indians went a-searching after scalps, + And then there was an avalanche 'way over in the Alps; + These diametric happenings seem nothing much, but look-- + We had to add a dollar to the wages of the cook. + The bean-crop down at Boston has grown measurably less, + And so the dealer charges more for goods to make a dress. + Each day there is some incident to make a man feel sore, + I'm on my knees to ask that nothing happens any more. + + It didn't rain in Utah and it did in old Vermont-- + Result: it costs you fifty more to take a summer's jaunt; + Upon the plains of Tibet some tornadoes took a roll-- + Therefore the barons have to charge a higher price for coal. + A street-car strike in Omaha has cumulative shocks-- + It boosted huckleberries up to twenty cents a box. + No matter what is happening it always finds your door-- + Give us a rest! Let nothing ever happen any more. + + Mosquitoes in New Jersey bite a magnate on the wing-- + Result: the poor consumer feels that fierce mosquito's sting: + The skeeter's song is silenced, but in something like an hour + The grocers understand that it requires a raise in flour. + A house burns down in Texas and a stove blows up in Maine, + Ten minutes later breakfast foods in prices show a gain. + Effects must follow causes--which is what I most deplore; + I hope and pray that nothing ever happens any more. + + + + +A DISAPPOINTMENT + +BY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY + + + Her hair was a waving bronze, and her eyes + Deep wells that might cover a brooding soul; + And who, till he weighed it, could ever surmise + That her heart was a cinder instead of a coal! + + + + +THE BRITISH MATRON + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +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 idea) 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 can not 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 the 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 ball-room, 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 over-blown 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 can not be held to include the three-fourths of the +wife that had no existence when the ceremony was performed? And as a +matter of conscience and good morals, ought not an English married pair +to insist upon the celebration of a silver wedding at the end of +twenty-five years in order to legalize and mutually appropriate that +corporeal growth of which both parties have individually come into +possession since they were pronounced one flesh? + + + + +THE TRAGEDY OF IT + +BY ALDEN CHARLES NOBLE + + + Alas for him, alas for it, + Alas for you and I! + When this I think I raise my mitt + To dry my weeping eye. + + + + +STAGE WHISPERS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + + Deadheads tell no tales. + Stars are stubborn things. + All's not bold that titters. + Contracts make cowards of us all. + One good turn deserves an encore. + A little actress is a dangerous thing. + It's a long skirt that has no turning. + Stars rush in where angels fear to tread. + Managers never hear any good of themselves. + A manager is known by the company he keeps. + A plot is not without honor save in comic opera. + Take care of the dance and the songs will take care of themselves. + + + + +THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE + +BY JAMES T. FIELDS + + +My name is Esek Pettibone, and I wish to affirm in the outset that it is +a good thing to be well-born. In thus connecting the mention of my name +with a positive statement, I am not aware that a catastrophe lies coiled +up in the juxtaposition. But I can not help writing plainly that I am +still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. ESTO PERPETUA! To have +had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To +be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but +respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, +I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done _him_ in +the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of +Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, +I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is +pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to do so. + +Left an orphan at the tender age of four years, having no brothers or +sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell +into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. +Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's +side. All my mother's relations kept shady when the lonely orphan looked +about for protection; but Patience Pettibone, in her stately way, +said,--"The boy belongs to a good family, and he shall never want while +his three aunts can support him." So I went to live with my plain, but +benignant protectors, in the state of New Hampshire. + +During my boyhood the best-drilled lesson that fell to my keeping was +this: "Respect yourself. We come of more than ordinary parentage. +Superior blood was probably concerned in getting up the Pettibones. Hold +your head erect, and some day you shall have proof of your high +lineage." + +I remember once, on being told that I must not share my juvenile sports +with the butcher's three little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt +Eunice looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew what she meant. + +"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family, no doubt, +came of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our +ancestors, it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were +embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in +the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not +regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with the +butcher's offspring." + +I felt mortified that I ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any but +kings' sons, or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals in +the urchin line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters. + +Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the +sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belonged to +ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim +eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of +some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House +of Pettibone. + +It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts were never tired +of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the +members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in +so many words, "There is no original sin in _our_ composition, whatever +of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of +Snowborough." + +Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her +through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshiped while she gazed. +The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had +constant zoölogical visions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and +quartered in every possible style known to the Heralds' College. The +Reverend Hebrew Bullet, who used to drop in quite often and drink +several compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encouraged his three +parishoners in their aristocratic notions, and extolled them for what he +called their "stooping-down to every-day life." He differed with the +ladies of our house only on one point. He contended that the unicorn of +the Bible and the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same animal. My +aunts held a different opinion. + +In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience reposed a trunk. Often during +my childish years I longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents +the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I +dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had +often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial +box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt +Mary used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in vain. +I must have the virtue of _years_ before I could view the treasures of +past magnificence so long entombed in that wooden sarcophagus. Once I +saw the faded sisters bending over the trunk together, and, as I +thought, embalming something in camphor. Curiosity impelled me to +linger, but, under some pretext, I was nodded out of the room. + +Although my kinswomen's means were far from ample, they determined that +Swiftmouth College should have the distinction of calling me one of her +sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent for preparation to a +neighboring academy. Years of study and hard fare in country +boarding-houses told upon my self-importance as the descendant of a +great Englishman, notwithstanding all my letters from the honored three +came with counsel to "respect myself and keep up the dignity of the +family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of +respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other +low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens +readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the +school-boy no envious pangs. + +I was nineteen when I entered the hoary halls of Swiftmouth. I call them +hoary, because they had been built more than fifty years. To me they +seemed uncommonly hoary, and I snuffed antiquity in the dusty purlieus. +I now began to study, in good earnest, the wisdom of the past. I saw +clearly the value of dead men and mouldy precepts, especially if the +former had been entombed a thousand years, and if the latter were well +done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began to reverence royal lines of +deceased monarchs, and longed to connect my own name, now growing into +college popularity, with some far-off mighty one who had ruled in pomp +and luxury his obsequious people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled my +dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof of our family +distinction. "I will go," quoth I, "to the home of my aunts next +vacation and there learn _how_ we became mighty, and discover precisely +why we don't practice to-day our inherited claims to glory." + +I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was now anxious to lay before her +impatient nephew the proof he burned to behold. But first she must +explain. All the old family documents and letters were, no doubt, +destroyed in the great fire of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment +or paper implying nobility had ever been discovered in Snowborough, or +elsewhere. _But_ there had been preserved, for many years, a suit of +imperial clothes that had been worn, by their great-grandfather in +England, and, no doubt, in the New World also. These garments had been +carefully watched and guarded, for were they not the proof that their +owner belonged to a station in life second, if second at all, to the +royal court of King George itself? Precious casket, into which I was +soon to have the privilege of gazing! Through how many long years these +fond, foolish virgins had lighted their unflickering lamps of +expectation and hope at this cherished old shrine! + +I was now on my way to the family repository of all our greatness. I +went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the +well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent +manner, turned the key. My heart,--I am not ashamed to confess it now, +although it is forty years since the quartet, in search of family +honors, were on their knees that summer afternoon in Snowborough,--my +heart beat high. I was about to look on that which might be a duke's or +an earl's regalia. And I was descended from the owner in a direct line! +I had lately been reading Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_; and I +remembered, there before the trunk, the lines: + + "O sacred receptacle of my joys, + Sweet cell of virtue and nobility!" + +The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll the precious garments, +which seemed all enshrined in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that +interior lives with me to this day; and I grow faint with the memory of +that hour. With pious precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last +the whole suit was laid before my expectant eyes. + +Reader! I am an old man now, and have not long to walk this planet. But +whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for my declining years, I am +certain I can bear it; for I went through that scene at Snowborough, and +still live! + +When the garments were fully displayed, all the aunts looked at me. I +had been to college; I had studied Burke's _Peerage_; I had been once to +New York. Perhaps I could immediately name the exact station in noble +British life to which that suit of clothes belonged. I could; I saw it +all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I dared not look my poor +deluded female relatives in the face. + +"What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced garments and big buttons +betoken?" cried all three. + +"_It is a suit of servant's livery!_" gasped I, and fell back with a +shudder. + +That evening, after the sun had gone down, we buried those hateful +garments in a ditch at the bottom of the garden. Rest there perturbed +body-coat, yellow trousers, brown gaiters, and all! + + "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!" + + + + +WHY MOLES HAVE HANDS + +BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON + + +One day the children came running to Aunt Nancy with a mole which one of +the dogs had just killed. They had never seen one before and were very +curious as to what it might be. + +"Well, befo' de king!" said Nancy, "whar y'all bin livin' dat you nuver +seed a mole befo'? Whar you come f'um mus' be a mighty cur'ous spot ef +dey ain' have no moleses dar; mus' be sump'n wrong wid dat place. I bin +mos' all over dish yer Sussex kyounty endurin' er my time, an' I ain' +nuver come 'cross no place yit whar dey ain' have moleses. + +"Moleses is sut'n'y cur'ous li'l creeturs," she continued. "I bin +teckin' tickler notuss un 'em dis long time, an' dey knows mo'n you'd +think fer, jes' ter look at 'em. Dough dey lives down un'need de groun', +yit dey is fus'class swimmers; I done seed one, wid my own eyes, +crossin' de branch, an' dey kin root 'long un'need de yearf mos' ez fas' +ez a hoss kin trot on top uv hit. Y'all neenter look dat-a-way, 'kase +hit's de trufe; dey's jes' built fer gittin' 'long fas' unner groun'. +Der han's is bofe pickaxes an' shovels fer 'em; dey digs an' scoops wid +der front ones an' kicks de dirt out de way wid der behime ones. Der +strong snouts he'ps 'em, too, ter push der way thu de dirt." + +"Their fur is just as soft and shiny as silk," said Janey. + +"Yas," said Aunt Nancy, "hit's dat sof an' shiny dat, dough dey live +all time in de dirt, not a speck er dirt sticks to 'em. You ses 'sof an' +shiny ez silk,' but I tell you hit _is_ silk; silk clo'es, dat 'zackly +w'at 'tis." + +Ned laughed. "Who ever heard of an animal dressed in silk clothes?" he +said. + +"Nemmine," she answered, "you talks mighty peart, but I knows w'at I +knows, an' dish yer I bin tellin' you is de sho'-'nuff trufe." + +"Just see its paws," Janey went on, "why, they look exactly like hands." + +"Look lak _han's_! _look_ lak han's! umph! dey _is_ han's, all thumbered +an' fingered jes lak yo'n; an', w'at's mo', dey wuz onct human ban's; +_human_, dey wuz so!" + +"How could they ever have been human hands and then been put on a mole's +body?" asked Ned. "I believe most things you say, Aunt Nancy, but I +can't swallow that." + +"Dar's a li'l boy roun' dese diggin's whar talkin' mighty sassy an' +rambunkshus, seem ter me. I am' ax you ter swoller nuttin' 't all, but +'pears ter me y'all bin swollerin' dem 'ar ol' tales right an' lef, +faster'n' I kin call 'em ter min', an' I am' seed none er you choke on +'em yit, ner cry, 'nuff said. I'se 'tickler saw'y 'bout dis, 'kase I +done had hit in min' ter tell you a tale 'bout huccome moleses have +han'ses, whar I larn f'um a ooman dat come f'um Fauquier kyounty, but +now dat Mars' Ned 'pear ter be so jubous 'bout hit, I ain' gwine was'e +my time on folks whar ain' gwine b'lieve me, nohows. Nemmine, de chillen +over on de Thompson place gwine baig me fer dat tale w'en I goes dar +ag'in, an', w'at's mo', dey gwine git hit; fer dey b'lieves ev'y wu'd +dat draps f'um my mouf, lak 'twuz de law an' de gospil." + +Of course, the children protested that they were as ready to hang upon +her words as the Thompson children could possibly be, and presented +their prior claim to the tale in such moving fashion that Aunt Nancy was +finally prevailed upon to come down from her high horse and tell the +story. + +"I done tol' you," she said, "dat dem 'ar han's is human, an' I mean +jes' w'at I ses, 'kase de moleses useter be folks, sho'-'nuff folks, +dough dey is all swunk up ter dis size an' der han's is all dat's lef +ter tell de tale. Yas, suh, in de ol' days, so fur back dat you kain't +kyount hit, de moleses wuz folks, an' mighty proud an' biggitty folks at +dat. Dey wan't gwine be ketched wearin' any er dish yer kaliker, er +linsey-woolsey, er homespun er sech ez dat, ner even broadclawf, ner +bombazine, naw suh! Dey jes' tricked derse'fs out in de fines' an' +shinies' er silk, nuttin' mo' ner less, an' den dey went a-traipsin' up +an' down an' hether an' yon, fer tu'rr folks ter look at an' mek +'miration over. Mo'n dat, dey 'uz so fine an' fiddlin' dey oon set foot +ter de groun' lessen dar wuz a kyarpet spread down fer 'em ter walk on. +Dey tells me hit sut'n'y wuz a sight in de worl' ter see dem 'ar folks +walkin' up an' down on de kyarpets, trailin' an' rus'lin' der silk +clo'es, an' curchyin' an' bobbin' ter one nu'rr w'en dey met up, but +nuver speakin' ter de common folks whar walkin' on de groun', ner even +so much ez lookin' at 'em. W'ats mo', dey wuz so uppish dey thought de +yearf wuz too low down fer 'em even ter run der eyes over, so dey went +'long wid der haids r'ared an' der eyes all time lookin' up, stidder +down. You kin be sho' dem gwines-on ain' mek 'em pop'lous wid tu'rr +folks, 'kase people jes' natchelly kain't stan' hit ter have you +th'owin' up to 'em dat you is better'n w'at dey is, w'en all de time dey +knows you're nuttin' but folks, same 'z dem. + +"Dey kep' gwine on so-fashion, an' gittin' mo' an' mo' pompered an' +uppish, 'twel las' dey 'tracted de 'tention er de Lawd, an' He say ter +Hisse'f, He do, 'Who is dese yer folks, anyhows, whar gittin' so airish, +walkin' up an' down an' back an' fo'th on my yearf an' spurnin' hit +so's't dey spread kyarpets 'twix' hit an' der footses, treatin' my +yearf, w'at I done mek, lak 'twuz de dirt un'need der footses, an' +'spisin' der feller creeturs an' excusin' 'em er bein' common, an' +keepin' der eyes turnt up all de time, ez ef dey wuz too good ter look +at de things I done mek an' putt on my yearf? I mus' see 'bout dis; I +mus' punish dese 'sumptious people an' show 'em dat one'r my creeturs is +jez' ez low down ez tu'rr, in my sight.' + +"So de Lawd He pass jedgment on de moleses. Fus' He tuck an' made 'em +lose der human shape an' den He swunk 'em up ontwel dey 'z no bigger'n +dey is now, dat 'uz ter show 'em how no-kyount dey wuz in His sight. Den +bekase dey thought derse'fs too good ter walk 'pun de bare groun' He +sont 'em ter live un'need hit, whar dey hatter dig an' scratch der way +'long. Las' uv all He tuck an' tuck 'way der eyes an' made 'em blin', +dat's 'kase dey done 'spise ter look at der feller creeturs. But He feel +kind er saw'y fer 'em w'en He git dat fur, an' He ain' wanter punish 'em +too haivy, so He lef 'em dese silk clo'es whar I done tol' you 'bout, +an' dese han's whar you kin see fer yo'se'fs is human, an' I reckon bofe +dem things putt 'em in min' er w'at dey useter be an' rack 'em 'umble. +Uver sence den de moleses bin gwine 'long un'need de groun', 'cordin ter +de jedgmen' er de Lawd, an' diggin' an' scratchin' der way thu de worl', +in trial an' tribilashun, wid dem po' li'l human han'ses. An' dat orter +l'arn you w'at comes er folks 'spisin' der feller creeturs, an' I want +y'all ter 'member dat nex' time I year you call dem Thompson chillen +'trash.'" + +"I'd like to know what use moles are," said Ned, who was of rather an +investigating turn of mind; "they just go round rooting through the +ground spoiling people's gardens, and I don't see what they're good for; +you can't eat them or use them any way." + +"Sho', chil'!" said Aunt Nancy, "you dunno w'at you talkin' 'bout; de +Lawd have some use fer ev'y creetur He done mek. Dey tells me dat de +moleses eats up lots er bugs an' wu'ms an' sech ez dat, dat mought hurt +de craps ef dey wuz let ter live. Sidesen dat, jes' gimme one'r de claws +er dat mole, an' lemme hang hit roun' de neck uv a baby whar cuttin' his +toofs, an' I boun' you, ev'y toof in his jaws gwine come bustin' thu his +goms widout nair' a ache er a pain ter let him know dey's dar. Don't +talk ter me 'bout de moleses bein' wufless! I done walk de flo' too much +wid cryin' babies not ter know de use er moleses." + +"You don't really believe that, do you?" asked Ned. + +"B'lieve hit!" she answered indignantly; "I don' _b'lieve_ hit, I +_knows_ hit. I done tol' you all de things a hyar's foot kin do; w'ats +de reason a mole's foot ain' good fer sump'n, too? Ef folks on'y knowed +mo' about sech kyores ez dat dar neenter be so much sickness an' mis'ry +in de worl'. I done kyored myse'f er de rheumatiz in my right arm jes' +by tyin' a eel-skin roun' hit, an' ev'yb'dy on dis plantation knows dat +ef you'll wrop a chil's hya'r wid eel-skin strings hit's boun' ter mek +hit grow. Ef you want de chil' hisse'f ter grow an' ter walk soon you +mus' bresh his feet wid de broom. I oon tell you dis ef I hadn't tried +'em myse'f. You mus'n' talk so biggitty 'bout w'at you dunno nuttin' 't +all about. You come f'um up Norf yonner, an' mebbe dese things don' wu'k +de same dar ez w'at dey does down yer whar we bin 'pendin' on 'em so +long." + + + + +A PSALM OF LIFE + +BY PHOEBE CARY + + + Tell me not, in idle jingle, + Marriage is an empty dream, + For the girl is dead that's single, + And things are not what they seem. + + Married life is real, earnest, + Single blessedness a fib, + Taken from man, to man returnest, + Has been spoken of the rib. + + Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, + Is our destined end or way; + But to act, that each to-morrow + Nearer brings the wedding-day. + + Life is long, and youth is fleeting, + And our hearts, if there we search, + Still like steady drums are beating + Anxious marches to the Church. + + In the world's broad field of battle, + In the bivouac of life, + Be not like dumb, driven cattle; + Be a woman, be a wife! + + Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! + Let the dead Past bury its dead! + Act--act in the living Present. + Heart within, and Man ahead! + + Lives of married folks remind us + We can live our lives as well, + And, departing, leave behind us;-- + Such examples as will tell;-- + + Such examples, that another, + Sailing far from Hymen's port, + A forlorn, unmarried brother, + Seeing, shall take heart, and court. + + Let us then be up and doing, + With the heart and head begin; + Still achieving, still pursuing, + Learn to labor, and to win! + + + + +AN ODYSSEY OF K'S + +BY WILBUR D. NESBIT + + + I've traveled up and down this land + And crossed it in a hundred ways, + But somehow can not understand + These towns with names chock-full of K's. + For instance, once it fell to me + To pack my grip and quickly go-- + I thought at first to Kankakee + But then remembered Kokomo. + "Oh, Kankakee or Kokomo," + I sighed, "just which I do not know." + + Then to the ticket man I went-- + He was a snappy man, and bald, + Behind an iron railing pent-- + And I confessed that I was stalled. + "A much K'd town is booked for me," + I said. "I'm due to-morrow, so + I wonder if it's Kankakee + Or if it can be Kokomo." + "There's quite a difference," growled he, + "'Twixt Kokomo and Kankakee." + + He spun a yard of tickets out-- + The folded kind that makes a strip + And leaves the passenger in doubt + When the conductor takes a clip. + He flipped the tickets out, I say, + And asked: "Now, which one shall it be? + I'll sell you tickets either way-- + To Kokomo or Kankakee." + And still I really did not know-- + I thought it might be Kokomo. + + At any rate, I took a chance; + He struck his stamp-machine a blow + And I, a toy of circumstance, + Was ticketed for Kokomo. + Upon the train I wondered still + If all was right as it should be. + Some mystic warning seemed to fill + My mind with thoughts of Kankakee, + The car-wheels clicked it out: "Now, he + Had better be for Kankakee!" + + Until at last it grew so loud, + At some big town I clambered out + And elbowed madly through the crowd, + Determined on the other route. + The ticket-agent saw my haste; + "Where do you wish to go?" cried he. + I yelled: "I have no time to waste-- + Please fix me up for Kankakee!" + Again the wheels, now fast, now slow, + Clicked: "Ought to go to Kokomo!" + + Well, anyhow, I did not heed + The message that they sent to me. + I went, and landed wrong indeed-- + Went all the way to Kankakee. + Then, in a rush, I doubled back-- + Went wrong again, I'd have you know. + There was no call for me, alack! + Within the town of Kokomo. + + And then I learned, confound the luck, + I should have gone to _Keokuk_! + + + + +THE DEACON'S TROUT + +BY HENRY WARD BEECHER + + +He was a curious trout. I believe he knew Sunday just as well as Deacon +Marble did. At any rate, the deacon thought the trout meant to aggravate +him. The deacon, you know, is a little waggish. He often tells about +that trout. Sez he, "One Sunday morning, just as I got along by the +willows, I heard an awful splash, and not ten feet from shore I saw the +trout, as long as my arm, just curving over like a bow, and going down +with something for breakfast. Gracious! says I, and I almost jumped out +of the wagon. But my wife Polly, says she, 'What on airth are you +thinkin' of, Deacon? It's Sabbath day, and you're goin' to meetin'! It's +a pretty business for a deacon!' That sort o' cooled me off. But I do +say that, for about a minute, I wished I wasn't a deacon. But 't +wouldn't made any difference, for I came down next day to mill on +purpose, and I came down once or twice more, and nothin' was to be seen, +tho' I tried him with the most temptin' things. Wal, next Sunday I came +along ag'in, and, to save my life I couldn't keep off worldly and +wanderin' thoughts. I tried to be sayin' my catechism, but I couldn't +keep my eyes off the pond as we came up to the willows. I'd got along in +the catechism, as smooth as the road, to the Fourth Commandment, and was +sayin' it out loud for Polly, and jist as I was sayin: '_What is +required in the Fourth Commandment?_' I heard a splash, and there was +the trout, and, afore I could think, I said: 'Gracious, Polly, I must +have that trout.' She almost riz right up, 'I knew you wa'n't sayin' +your catechism hearty. Is this the way you answer the question about +keepin' the Lord's day? I'm ashamed, Deacon Marble,' says she. 'You'd +better change your road, and go to meetin' on the road over the hill. If +I was a deacon, I wouldn't let a fish's tail whisk the whole catechism +out of my head'; and I had to go to meetin' on the hill road all the +rest of the summer." + + + + +ENOUGH[2] + +BY TOM MASSON + + + I shot a rocket in the air, + It fell to earth, I knew not where + Until next day, with rage profound, + The man it fell on came around. + In less time than it takes to tell, + He showed me where that rocket fell; + And now I do not greatly care + To shoot more rockets in the air. + +[Footnote 2: By permission of Life Publishing Company.] + + + + +THE FIGHTING RACE + +BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE + + + "Read out the names!" and Burke sat back, + And Kelly drooped his head, + While Shea--they call him Scholar Jack-- + Went down the list of the dead. + Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, + The crews of the gig and yawl, + The bearded man and the lad in his teens, + Carpenters, coal-passers--all. + Then knocking the ashes from out his pipe, + Said Burke, in an off-hand way, + "We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe! + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + "Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke. + "Wherever fighting's the game, + Or a spice of danger in grown man's work," + Said Kelly, "you'll find my name." + "And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad, + "When it's touch and go for life?" + Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, be dad, + Since I charged to drum and fife + Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen + Stopped a Rebel ball on its way. + There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green-- + Kelly and Burke and Shea-- + And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + "I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place," + Said Burke, "that we'd die by right, + In the cradle of our soldier race, + After one good stand-up fight. + My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, + And fighting was not his trade; + But his rusty pike's in the cabin still, + With Hessian blood on the blade." + "Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great + When the word was 'Clear the way!' + We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight-- + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy, + Said "We were at Ramillies. + We left our bones at Fontenoy, + And up in the Pyrenees, + Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain, + Cremona, Lille, and Ghent, + We're all over Austria, France, and Spain, + Wherever they pitched a tent. + We've died for England from Waterloo + To Egypt and Dargai; + And still there's enough for a corps or crew, + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + "Oh, the fighting races don't die out, + If they seldom die in bed, + For love is first in their hearts, no doubt," + Said Burke. Then Kelly said: + "When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands, + The angel with the sword, + And the battle-dead from a hundred lands + Are ranged in one big horde, + Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits, + Will stretch tree deep that day, + From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates-- + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + + + +THE ORGAN + +BY HENRY WARD BEECHER + + +At one of his week night lectures, Beecher was speaking about the +building and equipping of new churches. After a few satirical touches +about church architects and their work, he went on to ridicule the usual +style of pulpit--the "sacred mahogany tub"--"plastered up against some +pillar like a barn-swallow's nest." Then he passed on to the erection of +the organ, and to the opening recital. + +"The organ long expected has arrived, been unpacked, set up, and gloried +over. The great players of the region round about, or of distant +celebrity, have had the grand organ exhibition; and this magnificent +instrument has been put through all its paces in a manner which has +surprised every one, and, if it had had a conscious existence, must have +surprised the organ itself most of all. It has piped, fluted, trumpeted, +brayed, thundered. It has played so loud that everybody was deafened, +and so soft that nobody could hear. The pedals played for thunder, the +flutes languished and coquetted, and the swell died away in delicious +suffocation, like one singing a sweet song under the bed-clothes. Now it +leads down a stupendous waltz with full brass, sounding very much as if, +in summer, a thunderstorm should play, 'Come, Haste to the Wedding,' or +'Moneymusk.' Then come marches, galops, and hornpipes. An organ playing +hornpipes ought to have elephants as dancers. + +"At length a fugue is rendered to show the whole scope and power of the +instrument. The theme, like a cautious rat, peeps out to see if the +coast is clear; and, after a few hesitations, comes forth and begins to +frisk a little, and run up and down to see what it can find. It finds +just what it did not want, a purring tenor lying in ambush and waiting +for a spring; and as the theme comes incautiously near, the savage cat +of a tenor springs at it, misses its hold, and then takes after it with +terrible earnestness. But the tenor has miscalculated the agility of the +theme. All that it could do, with the most desperate effort, was to keep +the theme from running back into its hole again; and so they ran up and +down, around and around, dodging, eluding, whipping in and out of every +corner and nook, till the whole organ was aroused, and the bass began to +take part, but unluckily slipped and rolled down-stairs, and lay at the +bottom raving and growling in the most awful manner, and nothing could +appease it. Sometimes the theme was caught by one part, and dangled for +a moment, then with a snatch, another part took it and ran off exultant, +until, unawares, the same trick was played on it; and, finally, all the +parts, being greatly exercised in mind, began to chase each other +promiscuously in and out, up and down, now separating and now rushing in +full tilt together, until everything in the organ loses patience and all +the 'stops' are drawn, and, in spite of all that the brave organist +could do--who bobbed up and down, feet, hands, head and all--the tune +broke up into a real row, and every part was clubbing every other one, +until at length, patience being no longer a virtue, the organist, with +two or three terrible crashes, put an end to the riot, and brought the +great organ back to silence." + + + + +MY GRANDMOTHER'S TURKEY-TAIL FAN + +BY SAMUEL MINTURN PECK + + + It owned not the color that vanity dons + Or slender wits choose for display; + Its beautiful tint was a delicate bronze, + A brown softly blended with gray. + From her waist to her chin, spreading out without break, + 'Twas built on a generous plan: + The pride of the forest was slaughtered to make + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + For common occasions it never was meant: + In a chest between two silken cloths + 'Twas kept safely hidden with careful intent + In camphor to keep out the moths. + 'Twas famed far and wide through the whole countryside, + From Beersheba e'en unto Dan; + And often at meeting with envy 'twas eyed, + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + Camp-meetings, indeed, were its chiefest delight. + Like a crook unto sheep gone astray + It beckoned backsliders to re-seek the right, + And exhorted the sinners to pray. + It always beat time when the choir went wrong, + In psalmody leading the van. + Old Hundred, I know, was its favorite song-- + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + A fig for the fans that are made nowadays, + Suited only to frivolous mirth! + A different thing was the fan that I praise, + Yet it scorned not the good things of earth. + At bees and at quiltings 'twas aye to be seen; + The best of the gossip began + When in at the doorway had entered serene + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + Tradition relates of it wonderful tales. + Its handle of leather was buff. + Though shorn of its glory, e'en now it exhales + An odor of hymn-books and snuff. + Its primeval grace, if you like, you can trace: + 'Twas limned for the future to scan, + Just under a smiling gold-spectacled face, + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + + + +_HOW TO ENJOY THE ECSTASY THAT ACCOMPANIES SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING_ + + +Before An Audience + +OR + +The Use of the Will in Public Speaking + +By NATHAN SHEPPARD + +_Talks to the Students of the University of St. Andrew and the +University of Aberdeen_ + +This is not a book on elocution, but it deals in a practical +common-sense way with the requirements and constituents of effective +public speaking. + +CAPITAL, FAMILIAR, AND RACY + + "I shall recommend it to our three schools of elocution. It is + capital, familiar, racy, and profoundly philosophical."--_Joseph T. + Duryea, D.D._ + +REPLETE WITH PRACTICAL SENSE + + "It is replete with practical sense and sound suggestions, and I + should like to have it talked into the students by the + author."--_Prof. J.H. Gilmore_, Rochester University. + +"KNOCKS TO FLINDERS" OLD THEORIES + + "The author knocks to flinders the theories of elocutionist, and + opposes all their rules with one simple counsel--'Wake up your + will.'"--_The New York Evangelist._ + +TO REACH, MOVE, AND INFLUENCE MEN + + "He does not teach elocution, but the art of public speaking.... + Gives suggestions that will enable one to reach and move and + influence men."--_The Pittsburg Chronicle._ + + +_12mo, Cloth, 152 Pages. Price, 75 cents_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +_FORCEFUL SPEAKING BY NEW METHODS_ + +THE ESSENTIALS OF ELOCUTION + +_Revised, Enlarged, New Matter_ + +By ALFRED AYRES + +_Author of "The Orthoepist," "The Verbalist," etc., etc._ + +A unique and valuable guide on the art of speaking the language so as to +make the thought it expresses clear and impressive. It is a departure +from the old and conventional methods which have tended so often to make +mere automatons on the platform or stage instead of animated souls. + +_HIGHLY PRAISED BY AUTHORITIES_ + + "It is worth more than all the ponderous philosophies on the + subject."--_The Lutheran Observer._ + + "It is a case where brevity is the soul of value."--_The Rochester + Herald._ + + "His suggestions are simple and sensible."--_The + Congregationalist._ + + "An unpretentious but really meritorious volume."--_Dramatic + Review._ + + "Mr. Ayres has made this subject a study for many years, and what + he has written is worth reading"--_The Dramatic News._ + + "It is brightly written and original."--_Richard Henry Stoddard._ + + +_16mo, Cloth, 174 Pages, Tasteful Binding Deckle Edges. With +Frontispiece. 75 cts._ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC + +_A Most Suggestive and Practical Self-Instructor_ + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +Author of "Power and Personality in Speaking," etc. + +This new book is a complete elocutionary manual comprizing numerous +exercises for developing the speaking voice, deep breathing, +pronunciation, vocal expression, and gesture; also selections for +practise from masterpieces of ancient and modern eloquence. It is +intended for students, teachers, business men, lawyers, clergymen, +politicians, clubs, debating societies, and, in fact, every one +interested in the art of public speaking. + +_OUTLINE OF CONTENTS_ + +Mechanics of Elocution Previous Preparation +Mental Aspects Physical Preparation +Public Speaking Mental Preparation +Selections for Practise Moral Preparation + Preparation of Speech + + "Many useful suggestions in it."--_Hon. Joseph H. Choate_, New + York. + + "It is admirable and practical instruction in the technic of + speaking, and I congratulate you upon your thorough work."--_Hon. + Albert J. Beveridge._ + + "The work has been very carefully and well compiled from a large + number of our best works on the subject of elocution. It contains + many admirable suggestions for those who are interested in becoming + better speakers. As a general text for use in teaching public + speaking, it may be used with great success." + + _John W. Wetzel_, Instructor in Public Speaking, Yale University, + New Haven, Conn. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, Net; Post-paid, $1.40_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +HOW TO DEVELOP + +Power and Personality + +IN SPEAKING + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +Author of "How to Speak in Public." Introduction by Lewis O. Brastow, +D.D., _Professor Emeritus, Yale Divinity School_ + +This new book gives practical suggestions and exercises for Developing +Power and Personality in Speaking. It has many selections for practise. + +POWER.--Power of Voice--Power of Gesture--Power of Vocabulary--Power of +Imagination--Power of English Style--Power of Illustration--Power of +Memory--Power of Extempore Speech--Power of Conversation--Power of +Silence--Power of a Whisper--Power of the Eye. + +PERSONALITY.--More Personality for the Lawyer--The Salesman--The +Preacher--The Politician--The Physician--The Congressman--The Alert +Citizen. + + "I give it my hearty commendation. It should take its place upon + the library shelves of every public speaker; be read carefully, + consulted frequently, and held as worthy of faithful obedience. For + lack of the useful hints that here abound, many men murder the + truth by their method of presenting it."--S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D., + Brooklyn, N.Y. + + "It is a book of value. The selections are fine. It is an excellent + book for college students."--WM. P. FRYE, _President pro tem. of + the United States Senate._ + + +_12mo, Cloth, 422 pages. Price, $1.25, net; by mail, $1.40_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +How to Develop + +Self-Confidence + +in Speech and Manner + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Author of "How to Speak in Public"; "How to Develop Power and +Personality in Speaking," etc._ + +The purpose of this book is to inspire in men lofty ideals. It is +particularly for those who daily defraud themselves because of doubt, +fearthought, and foolish timidity. + +Thousands of persons are held in physical and mental bondage, owing to +lack of self-confidence. Distrusting themselves, they live a life of +limited effort, and at last pass on without having realized more than a +small part of their rich possessions. It is believed that this book will +be of substantial service to those who wish to rise above mediocrity, +and who feel within them something of their divine inheritance. It is +commended with confidence to every ambitious man. + +_CONTENTS_ + + Preliminary Steps--Building the Will--The Cure of + Self-Consciousness--The Power of Right Thinking--Sources of + Inspiration--Concentration--Physical Basis--Finding + Yourself--General Habits--The Man and the Manner--The Discouraged + Man--Daily Steps in Self-Culture--Imagination and + Initiative--Positive and Negative Thought--The Speaking + Voice--Confidence in Business--Confidence in Society--Confidence in + Public Speaking--Toward the Heights--Memory Passages that Build + Confidence. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.35_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +How to + +ARGUE AND WIN + +IN CONVERSATION, IN SALESMANSHIP, IN COMMITTEE-MEETINGS, IN JURY CASES, +IN THE PULPIT, ON THE ROSTRUM, IN DEBATING SOCIETIES. + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Author of "How to Speak in Public," etc._ + +In this book will be found definite suggestions for training the mind in +accurate thinking and in the power of clear and effective statement. It +is the outcome of many years of experience in teaching men "to think on +their feet." The aim throughout is practical, and the ultimate end is a +knowledge of successful argumentation. + +CONTENTS + + Introductory--Truth and Facts--Clearness and Conciseness--The Use + of Words--The Syllogism--Faults--Personality--The Lawyer--The + Business Man--The Preacher--The Salesman--The Public + Speaker--Brief-Drawing--The Discipline of Debate--Tact--Cause and + Effect--Reading Habits--Questions for Solution--Specimens of + Argumentation--Golden Rules in Argumentation. + +Note for Law Lecture _Abraham Lincoln_ +Of Truth _Francis Bacon_ +Of Practise and Habits _John Locke_ +Improving the Memory _Isaac Watts_ + + "Mr. Kleiser offers no panacea (as the title might seem to imply). + Logic will not make a dunce a philosopher, neither will it insure + success where success is not deserved. But what he does offer the + honest debater in this practical book, is to put him in possession + of those laws of argumentation which lie at the bottom of sound + reasoning, based on fact."--_Times-Dispatch_, Richmond, Va. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.35_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +How to Read and Declaim + +A COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN READING AND DECLAMATION HAVING AS ITS PRIME +OBJECT THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE AND REFINEMENT + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Formerly Instructor in Public Speaking at Yale Divinity School; Author +of "How to Speak in Public," etc._ + +This eminently practical book is divided into five parts: + +PART ONE--Preparatory Course: Twenty Lessons on Naturalness, +Distinctness, Vivacity, Confidence, Simplicity, Deliberateness, and +kindred topics. + +PART TWO--Advance Course: Twenty Lessons on Thought Values, Thought +Directions, Persuasion, Power, Climax, etc., etc. + +PART THREE--Articulation and Pronunciation. + +PART FOUR--Gesture and Facial Expression. + +PART FIVE--The most up-to-date and popular prose and poetic selections +anywhere to be found. + +It is a book to beget intelligent reading, so as to develop in the +student mental alertness, poise, and self-confidence. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.40_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +"_The Laugh Trust--Their Book_" + +HUMOROUS HITS AND HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Author of "How to Speak in Public," etc._ + +A new collection of successful recitations, sketches, stories, poems, +monologues. The favorite numbers of favorite authors and entertainers. +The book also contains practical advice on the delivery of the +selections. The latest and best book for family reading, for teachers, +elocutionists, orators, after-dinner speakers, and actors. + +Mr. Kleiser gives also some practical suggestions as to the most +successful methods of delivering humorous or other selections, so that +they may make the strongest impression upon an audience. The book will +not only be found to be just what teachers, elocutionists, actors, +orators, and after-dinner speakers have been waiting for, but it will +also furnish entertaining material to read aloud to the family. + +FAVORITE SELECTIONS BY FAVORITE AUTHORS INCLUDING + +James Whitcomb Riley +Henry Drummond +Paul Laurence Dunbar +Edward Everett Hale +Tom Masson +Fred. Emerson Brooks +S.E. Kiser +S.W. Foss +Eugene Field +Robert J. Burdette +Bill Nye +W.J. Lampton +W.D. Nesbit +Thos. Bailey Aldrich +Nixon Waterman +Ben King +Walt Whitman +Mark Twain +Finley Peter Dunne +Richard Mansfield +Charles Follen Adams +Charles Batell Loomis +Joe Kerr +Wallace Irwin +AND MANY OTHERS + + +_Cloth, 12mo, 316 pages Price, $1, Net; Post-paid, $1.10_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +SPEECHES OF + +William Jennings Bryan + +_Revised and Arranged by Himself_ + + +In Five Uniform Volumes, Thin 12mo, Ornamented Boards--Dainty Style + + +_Following Are the Titles:_ + + THE PEOPLE'S LAW--A discussion of State Constitutions and what they + should contain. + THE PRICE OF A SOUL + THE VALUE OF AN IDEAL + THE PRINCE OF PEACE + MAN + +Reprinted in this form from Volume II of Mr. Bryan's Speeches. Each of +these four addresses has been delivered before many large audiences. + +These five volumes make a most attractive series. + +_Price of Each, 30 cents, net. Postage 5 cents_ + + * * * * * + +_Two Other Notable Speeches_ + +THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES; to which is added FAITH. The most important +address by Mr. Bryan since his two volumes of "Selected Speeches" were +compiled, with one of the best of those added. + + +_One 16mo Volume, in Flexible Leather, with Gilt-Top. 75 cents, net. +Postage 5 cents_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +_THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE LANGUAGE AND ITS LITERATURE_ + +Essentials of English Speech and Literature + +By FRANK H. VIZETELLY, Litt.D., LL.D. + +_Managing Editor of the Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary; Author +of "A Desk-Book of Errors in English," etc._ + +A record, in concise and interesting style, of the Origin, Growth, +Development, and Mutations of the English language. 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(of +X.), by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) + +Author: Various + +Editor: Marshall P. Wilder + +Release Date: May 28, 2006 [EBook #18464] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR I. *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h4>Library Edition</h4> + +<h2>THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA</h2> + +<h4>In Ten Volumes</h4> + +<h4>VOL. I</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/wilder.jpg" +alt="MARSHALL P. WILDER" +title="MARSHALL P. WILDER" /></p> + +<p class="figcenter caption">MARSHALL P. WILDER<br /> +Drawing from photo by Marceau +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA</h1> + +<h2>EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER</h2> + +<h2><i>Volume I</i></h2> + + +<h4> +Funk & Wagnalls Company<br /> +New York and London<br /> +<br /> +Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br /> +Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY<br /> +</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='right' colspan='3'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Anatole Dubois at de Horse Show</td><td align='left'>Wallace Bruce Amsbary</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Billville Spirit Meeting, The</td><td align='left'>Frank L. Stanton</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>British Matron, The</td><td align='left'>Nathaniel Hawthorne</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Champion Checker-Player of Ameriky, The</td><td align='left'>James Whitcomb Riley</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt</td><td align='left'>Alfred Henry Lewis</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cry from the Consumer, A</td><td align='left'>Wilbur D. Nesbit</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Curse of the Competent, The</td><td align='left'>Henry J. Finn</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Darby and Joan</td><td align='left'>St. John Honeywood</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Day We Do Not Celebrate, The</td><td align='left'>Robert J. Burdette</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Deacon's Masterpiece, The; or, The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay"</td><td align='left'>O.W. Holmes</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Deacon's Trout, The</td><td align='left'>Henry Ward Beecher</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Disappointment, A</td><td align='left'>John Boyle O'Reilly</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Distichs</td><td align='left'>John Hay</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Down Around the River</td><td align='left'>James Whitcomb Riley</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Enough</td><td align='left'>Tom Masson</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Experiences of the A.C., The</td><td align='left'>Bayard Taylor</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Feast of the Monkeys, The</td><td align='left'>John Philip Sousa</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Fighting Race, The</td><td align='left'>Joseph I.C. Clarke</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Grammatical Boy, The</td><td align='left'>Bill Nye</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Grizzly-Gru</td><td align='left'>Ironquill</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>John Henry in a Street Car</td><td align='left'>Hugh McHugh</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Laffing</td><td align='left'>Josh Billings</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letter from Mr. Biggs, A</td><td align='left'>E.W. Howe</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Medieval Discoverer, A</td><td align='left'>Bill Nye</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Melons</td><td align='left'>Bret Harte</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Menagerie, The</td><td align='left'>William Vaughn Moody</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mrs. Johnson</td><td align='left'>William Dean Howells</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Muskeeter, The</td><td align='left'>Josh Billings</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Grandmother's Turkey-Tail Fan</td><td align='left'>Samuel Minturn Peck</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Myopia</td><td align='left'>Wallace Rice</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Odyssey of K's, An</td><td align='left'>Wilbur D. Nesbit</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Old Maid's House, The: In Plan</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth Stuart Phelps</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Organ, The</td><td align='left'>Henry Ward Beecher</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Partingtonian Patchwork</td><td align='left'>B.P. Shillaber</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pass</td><td align='left'>Ironquill</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Pettibone Lineage, The</td><td align='left'>James T. Fields</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Psalm of Life, A</td><td align='left'>Phœbe Cary</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Purple Cow, The</td><td align='left'>Gelett Burgess</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Quarrel, The</td><td align='left'>S.E. Kiser</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Similar Cases</td><td align='left'>Charlotte Perkins Gilman</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Simple English</td><td align='left'>Ray Clarke Rose</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Spelling Down the Master</td><td align='left'>Edward Eggleston</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Stage Whispers</td><td align='left'>Carolyn Wells</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Teaching by Example</td><td align='left'>John G. Saxe</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Tragedy of It, The</td><td align='left'>Alden Charles Noble</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Turnings of a Bookworm, The</td><td align='left'>Carolyn Wells</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wanted—A Cook</td><td align='left'>Alan Dale</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>What Mr. Robinson Thinks</td><td align='left'>James Russell Lowell</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>When Albani Sang</td><td align='left'>William Henry Drummond</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>When the Frost is on the Punkin</td><td align='left'>James Whitcomb Riley</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Why Moles Have Hands</td><td align='left'>Anne Virginia Culbertsonn</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wouter Van Twiller</td><td align='left'>Washington Irving</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Yankee Dude'll Do, The</td><td align='left'>S.E. Kiser</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<h3>COMPLETE INDEX AT END OF VOLUME X.</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Embodying a Few Remarks on the Gentle Art of Laugh-Making.</span></h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">by</span></h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Marshall P. Wilder.</span></h3> + + +<p>Happiness and laughter are two of the most beautiful things in the +world, for they are of the few that are purely unselfish. Laughter is +not for yourself, but for others. When people are happy they present a +cheerful spirit, which finds its reflection in every one they meet, for +happiness is as contagious as a yawn. Of all the emotions, laughter is +the most versatile, for it plays equally well the role of either parent +or child to happiness.</p> + +<p>Then can we say too much in praise of the men who make us laugh? God +never gave a man a greater gift than the power to make others laugh, +unless it is the privilege of laughing himself. We honor, revere, admire +our great soldiers, statesmen, and men of letters, but we love the man +who makes us laugh.</p> + +<p>No other man to-day enjoys to such an extent the close personal +affection, individual yet national, that is given to Mr. Samuel L. +Clemens. He is ours, he is one of us, we have a personal pride in +him—dear "Mark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span> Twain," the beloved child of the American nation. And +it was through our laughter that he won our love.</p> + +<p>He is the exponent of the typically American style of fun-making, the +humorous story. I asked Mr. Clemens one day if he could remember the +first money he ever earned. With his inimitable drawl he said:</p> + +<p>"Yes, Marsh, it was at school. All boys had the habit of going to school +in those days, and they hadn't any more respect for the desks than they +had for the teachers. There was a rule in our school that any boy +marring his desk, either with pencil or knife, would be chastised +publicly before the whole school, or pay a fine of five dollars. Besides +the rule, there was a ruler; I knew it because I had felt it; it was a +darned hard one, too. One day I had to tell my father that I had broken +the rule, and had to pay a fine or take a public whipping; and he said:</p> + +<p>"'Sam, it would be too bad to have the name of Clemens disgraced before +the whole school, so I'll pay the fine. But I don't want you to lose +anything, so come upstairs.'</p> + +<p>"I went upstairs with father, and he was for-<i>giving</i> me. I came +downstairs with the feeling in one hand and the five dollars in the +other, and decided that as I'd been punished once, and got used to it, I +wouldn't mind taking the other licking at school. So I did, and I kept +the five dollars. That was the first money I ever earned."</p> + +<p>The humorous story as expounded by Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, and Robert +J. Burdette, is purely American. Artemus Ward could get laughs out of +nothing, by mixing the absurd and the unexpected, and then backing the +combination with a solemn face and earnest manner. For instance, he was +fond of such incongruous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span> statements as: "I once knew a man in New +Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head," here he would pause for some +time, look reminiscent, and continue: "and yet he could beat a base-drum +better than any man I ever knew."</p> + +<p>Robert J. Burdette, who wrote columns of capital humor for <i>The +Burlington Hawkeye</i> and told stories superbly, on his first visit to New +York was spirited to a notable club, where he told stories leisurely +until half the hearers ached with laughter, and the other half were +threatened with apoplexy. Everyone present declared it the red-letter +night of the club, and members who had missed it came around and +demanded the stories at secondhand. Some efforts were made to oblige +them, but without avail, for the tellers had twisted their recollections +of the stories into jokes, and they didn't sound right, so a committee +hunted the town for Burdette to help them out of their difficulty.</p> + +<p>Humor is the kindliest method of laugh-making. Wit and satire are +ancient, but humor, it has been claimed, belongs to modern times. A +certain type of story, having a sudden and terse conclusion to a direct +statement, has been labeled purely American. For instance: "Willie Jones +loaded and fired a cannon yesterday. The funeral will be to-morrow." But +the truth is, it is older than America; it is very venerable. If you +will turn to the twelfth verse of the sixteenth chapter of II. +Chronicles, you will read:</p> + +<p>"And Asa in the thirty-ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, +until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not +the Lord, but turned to the physicians—and Asa slept with his fathers."</p> + +<p>Bill Nye was a sturdy and persistent humorist of so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> good a sort that he +never could help being humorous, yet there was never a sting in his +jokes. Gentle raillery was the severest thing he ever attempted, and +even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word +of his friendly chaffing was worth more than any amount of formal +praise.</p> + +<p>Few of the great world's great despatches contained so much wisdom in so +few words as Nye's historic wire from Washington:</p> + +<p>"My friends and money gave out at 3 A.M."</p> + +<p>Eugene Field, the lover of little children, and the self-confessed +bibliomaniac, gives us still another sort of laugh—the tender, +indulgent sort. Nothing could be finer than the gentle reminiscence of +"Long Ago," a picture of the lost kingdom of boyhood, which for all its +lightness holds a pathos that clutches one in the throat.</p> + +<p>And yet this writer of delicate and subtle humor, this master of tender +verse, had a keen and nimble wit. An ambitious poet once sent him a poem +to read entitled "Why do I live?" and Field immediately wrote back: +"Because you sent your poem by mail."</p> + +<p>Laughter is one of the best medicines in the world, and though some +people would make you force it down with a spoon, there is no doubt that +it is a splendid tonic and awakens the appetite for happiness.</p> + +<p>Colonel Ingersoll wrote on his photograph which adorns my home: "To the +man who knows that mirth is medicine and laughter lengthens life."</p> + +<p>Abraham Lincoln, that divinely tender man, believed that fun was an +intellectual impetus, for he read Artemus Ward to his Cabinet before +reading his famous emancipation proclamation, and laying down his book +marked the place to resume.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<p>Joel Chandler Harris, whose delightful stories of negro life hold such a +high place in American literature, told me a story of an old negro who +claimed that a sense of humor was necessary to happiness in married +life. He said:</p> + +<p>"I met a poor old darkey one day, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with +cooking utensils and household effects. Seeing me looking curiously at +him, he shook his head and said:</p> + +<p>"'I cain't stand her no longer, boss, I jes' nash'ully cain't stand her +no longer.'</p> + +<p>"'What's the matter, uncle?' I inquired.</p> + +<p>"'Well, you see, suh, she ain't got no idee o' fun—she won't take a +joke nohow. The other night I went home, an' I been takin' a little jes' +to waam ma heart—das all, jes to waam ma heart—an' I got to de fence, +an' tried to climb it. I got on de top, an' thar I stays; I couldn't git +one way or t'other. Then a gem'en comes along, an' I says, "Would you +min' givin' me a push?" He says, "Which way you want to go?" I says, +"Either way—don't make no dif'unce, jes' so I git off de fence, for +hit's pow'ful oncom'fable up yer." So he give me a push, an' sont me +over to'ard ma side, an' I went home. Then I want sum'in t' eat, an' my +ol' 'ooman she wouldn' git it fo' me, an' so, jes' fo' a joke, das +all—jes' a joke, I hit 'er awn de haid. But would you believe it, she +couldn't take a joke. She tu'n aroun', an' sir, she sail inter me +sum'in' scan'lous! I didn' do nothin', 'cause I feelin' kind o'weak jes' +then—an' so I made up ma min' I wasn' goin' to stay with her. Dis +mawnin' she gone out washin', an' I jes' move right out. Hit's no use +tryin' to live with a 'ooman who cain't take a joke!'"</p> + +<p>From the poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich to George Ade's Fables in Slang +is a far cry, but one is as typical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> a style of humor as the other. +Ade's is the more distinctly original, for he not only created the +style, but another language. The aptness of its turns, and the marvelous +way in which he hit the bull's-eye of human foibles and weaknesses +lifted him into instantaneous popularity. A famous <i>bon mot</i> of George +Ade's which has been quoted threadbare, but which serves excellently to +illustrate his native wit, is his remark about a suit of clothes which +the tailor assured him he could <i>never</i> wear out. He said when he put +them on he didn't <i>dare</i> to.</p> + +<p>From the laughter-makers pure and simple, we come to those who, while +acknowledging the cloud, yet see the silver lining—the exponents of the +smile through tears.</p> + +<p>The best of these, Frank L. Stanton, has beautifully said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"This world that we're a-livin' in<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is mighty hard to beat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With every rose you get a thorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But ain't the roses sweet?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He does not deny the thorns, but calls attention to the sweetness of the +roses—a gospel of compensation that speaks to the heart of all; kind +words of cheer to the weary traveler.</p> + +<p>Such a philosopher was the kind-hearted and sympathetic Irish boy who, +walking along with the parish priest, met a weary organ-grinder, who +asked how far it was to the next town. The boy answered, "Four miles." +The priest remonstrated:</p> + +<p>"Why, Mike, how can you deceive him so? You know it is eight."</p> + +<p>"Well, your riverence," said the good-natured fellow, "I saw how tired +he was, and I wanted to kape his courage up. If I'd told him the truth, +he'd have been down-hearted intirely!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<p>This is really a jolly old world, and people are very apt to find just +what they are looking for. If they are looking for happiness, the best +way to find it is to try to give it to others. If a man goes around with +a face as long as a wet day, perfectly certain that he is going to be +kicked, he is seldom disappointed.</p> + +<p>A typical exponent of the tenderly human, the tearfully humorous, is +James Whitcomb Riley—a name to conjure with. Only mention it to anyone, +and note the spark of interest, the smiling sigh, the air of gentle +retrospection into which he will fall. There is a poem for each and +every one, that commends itself for some special reason, and holds such +power of memory or sentiment as sends it straight into the heart, to +remain there treasured and unforgotten.</p> + +<p>In these volumes are selections from the pen of all whom I have +mentioned, as well as many more, including a number by the clever women +humorists, of whom America is justly proud.</p> + +<p>It is with pride and pleasure that I acknowledge the honor done me in +being asked to introduce this company of fun-makers—such a goodly +number that space permits the mention of but a few. But we cannot have +too much or even enough of anything so good or so necessary as the +literature that makes us laugh. In that regard we are like a little +friend of Mr. Riley's.</p> + +<p>The Hoosier poet, as everyone knows, is the devoted friend, companion, +and singer of children. He has a habit of taking them on wild orgies +where they are turned loose in a candy store and told to do their worst. +This particular young lady had been allowed to choose all the sorts of +candy she liked until her mouth, both arms, and her pockets were full. +Just as they got to the door to go out, she hung back, and when Mr. +Riley stooped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> over asking her what was the matter, she whispered:</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it smells like ice cream?"</p> + +<p>Poems, stories, humorous articles, fables, and fairy tales are offered +for your choice, with subjects as diverse as the styles; but however the +laugh is gained, in whatever fashion the jest is delivered, the +laugh-maker is a public benefactor, for laughter is the salt of life, +and keeps the whole dish sweet.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"> +Merrily yours,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Marshall P. Wilder</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Atlantic City</span>, 1908.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h2> + + +<p>Acknowledgment is due to the following publishers, whose permission was +cordially granted to reprint selections which appear in this collection +of American humor.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ainslee's Magazine</span> for "Not According to Schedule," by Mary Stewart +Cutting.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Henry Altemus Company</span> for "The New Version," by William J. Lampton.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The American Publishing Company</span> for "How We Bought a Sewin' Machine and +Organ," from <i>Josiah Allen's Wife as a P.A. and P.I.</i>, by Marietta +Holley.</p> + +<p>D. <span class="smcap">Appleton & Company</span> for "The Recruit," from <i>With the Band</i>, by Robert +W. Chambers.</p> + +<p>E.H. <span class="smcap">Bacon & Company</span> for "The V-a-s-e" and "A Concord Love-Song," from +<i>The V-a-s-e and Other Bric-a-Brac,</i> by James Jeffrey Roche.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The H.M. Caldwell Company</span> for "Yes" and "Disappointment," from <i>In +Bohemia</i>, by John Boyle O'Reilly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Colver Publishing House</span> for "The Crimson Cord," by Ellis Parker +Butler, and "A Ballade of the 'How to' Books," by John James Davies, +from <i>The American Illustrated Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Crowell Publishing Company</span> for "Familiar Authors at Work," by Hayden +Carruth, from <i>The Woman's Home Companion</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Curtis Publishing Company</span> for "The Love Sonnets of a Husband," by +Maurice Smiley, and "Cheer for the Consumer," by Nixon Waterman, from +<i>The Saturday Evening Post</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">DeWolfe, Fiske & Company</span> for "Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready for +Sunday-School," from <i>Cape Cod Folks</i>, by Sarah P. McLean Greene.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dick & Fitzgerald</span> for "The Thompson Street Poker Club," from <i>The +Thompson Street Poker Club</i>, by Henry Guy Carleton.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">G.W. Dillingham Company</span> for "The Tower of London" and "Science and +Natural History," by Charles Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"); "The +Musketeer," from <i>Farmer's Alminax</i>, and "Laffing," from <i>Josh Billings: +His Works</i>, by Henry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings"); and for "John Henry in a +Street Car," from <i>John Henry</i>, by George V. Hobart ("Hugh McHugh").</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dodd, Mead & Company</span> for "The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark," "The +Forbearance of the Admiral," "The Dutiful Mariner," "The Meditations of +a Mariner" and "The Boat that Ain't," from <i>Nautical Lays of a +Landsman,</i> by Wallace Irwin.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Duquesne Distributing Company</span> for "The Grand Opera," from <i>Billy +Baxter's Letters</i>, by William J. Kountz, Jr.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paul Elder & Company</span> for Sonnets I, VIII, IX, XII, XIV, XXI, from <i>The +Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum</i>, by Wallace Irwin.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Everybody's Magazine</span> for "The Strike of One," by Elliott Flower; "The +Wolf's Holiday," by Caroline Duer; "A Mother of Four," by Juliet Wilbor +Tompkins; "The Weddin'," by Jennie Betts Hartswick, and "A Double-Dyed +Deceiver," by Sydney Porter ("O. Henry").</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Federal Book Company</span> for "Budge and Toddie," from <i>Helen's Babies</i>, +by John Habberton.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Fords, Howard & Hurlburt</span>, for "The Deacon's Trout," from <i>Norwood</i>, by +Henry Ward Beecher.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Fox, Duffield & Company</span> for "The Paintermine," "The Octopussycat," "The +Welsh Rabbittern," "The Bumblebeaver," "The Wild Boarder," from <i>Mixed +Beasts</i>, by Kenyon Cox; "The Lost Inventor," "Niagara Be Dammed," "The +Ballad of Grizzly Gulch," "A Letter from Home," "Crankidoxology" and +"Fall Styles in Faces," from <i>At the Sign of the Dollar</i>, by Wallace +Irwin, and a selection from <i>The Golfer's Rubaiyat</i>, by Henry W. +Boynton.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Harvard Lampoon</span> for "A Lay of Ancient Rome," by Thomas Ybarra.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Henry Holt & Company</span> for "Araminta and the Automobile," from <i>Cheerful +Americans</i>, by Charles Battell Loomis.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Houghton, Mifflin & Company</span> for "A Letter from Mr. Biggs," from <i>The +Story of a Country Town</i>, by E.W. Howe; "The Notary of Perigueux," from +<i>Outre-Mer</i>, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "A Nautical Ballad," from +<i>Davy and the Goblin</i>, by Charles E. Carryl; "The Spring Beauties," from +<i>The Ride to the Lady</i>, by Helen Avery Cone; "Praise-God Barebones," +from <i>Songs and Lyrics</i>, by Ellen M. Hutchinson-Cortissoz; "Fable," from +<i>Poems</i>, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; "The Owl Critic" and "Cæsar's Quiet +Lunch with Cicero," from <i>Ballads and Other Poems</i>, by James T. Fields; +"The Menagerie," from <i>Poems</i>, by William Vaughn Moody; "The Briefless +Barrister," "Comic Miseries," "A Reflective Retrospect," "How the Money +Goes," "The Coquette," "Icarus," "Teaching by Example," from <i>Poems</i>, by +John Godfrey Saxe; "My Honey, My Love," by Joel Chandler Harris; "Banty +Tim," "The Mystery of Gilgal" and "Distichs," from <i>Poems</i>, by John Hay; +"The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One Hoss Shay," "The Height +of the Ridiculous," "Evening, By a Tailor," "Lat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>ter Day Warnings," and +"Contentment," from <i>Poems</i>, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; two selections +from <i>The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table</i>, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, +and "Dislikes," from <i>The Poet at the Breakfast Table</i>, by Oliver +Wendell Holmes; "Plain Language from Truthful James," and "The Society +Upon the Stanislaus," from <i>Poems</i>, by Bret Harte; "Melons," from <i>Mrs. +Skaggs' Husbands and Other Sketches</i>, by Bret Harte; "The Courtin'," "A +Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow" and "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," from +<i>Poems</i>, by James Russell Lowell; "The Chief Mate," from <i>Fireside +Travels</i>, by James Russell Lowell; "A Night in a Rocking Chair" and "A +Rival Entertainment," from <i>Haphazard</i>, by Kate Field; "Mrs. Johnson," +from <i>Suburban Sketches</i>, by William Dean Howells; "Garden Ethics," from +<i>My Summer in a Garden</i>, by Charles Dudley Warner; "Our Nearest +Neighbor," from <i>Marjorie Daw and Other Stories</i>, by Thomas Bailey +Aldrich; "Simon Starts in the World" (J.J. Hooper), "The Duluth Speech" +(J. Proctor Knott), "Bill Arp on Litigation" (C.H. Smith), "Assault and +Battery" (J.G. Baldwin), "How Ruby Played" (G.W. Bagby), from <i>Oddities +of Southern Life</i>, edited by Henry Watterson; "The Demon of the Study," +from <i>Poems</i>, by John Greenleaf Whittier; "The Old Maid's House: in +Plan," from <i>An Old Maid's Paradise</i>, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; "Dum +Vivimus Vigilamus," "What She Said About It," "Dictum Sapienti," "The +Lost Word" and "Abou Ben Butler," from <i>Poems</i>, by Charles Henry Webb +("John Paul"); "Chad's Story of the Goose" and "Colonel Carter's Story +of the Postmaster," from <i>Colonel Carter of Cartersville</i>, by F. +Hopkinson Smith; "The British Matron," from <i>Our Old Home</i>, by Nathaniel +Hawthorne; "As Good as a Play," from <i>Stories from My Attic</i>, by Horace +E. Scudder; "The Pettibone Lineage,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> by James T. Fields; "The +Experiences of the A.C.," by Bayard Taylor; "Eve's Daughter," by Edward +Rowland Sill, and "The Diamond Wedding," by Edmund Clarence Stedman.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">William R. Jenkins</span> for "It Is Time to Begin to Conclude," from <i>Soldier +Songs and Love Songs</i>, by Alexander H. Laidlaw.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">John Lane Company</span> for "The Invisible Prince," from <i>Comedies and +Errors</i>, by Henry Harland.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Life Publishing Company</span> for "Hard," "Enough" and "Desolation," from <i>In +Merry Measure</i>, by Tom Masson; "A Branch Library" and "Table Manners," +from <i>Tomfoolery</i>, by James Montgomery Flagg; "The Sonnet of the Lovable +Lass and the Plethoric Dad," by J.W. Foley; "Thoughts for an Easter +Morning," by Wallace Irwin; "Suppressed Chapters," by Carolyn Wells; +"The Conscientious Curate and the Beauteous Ballad Girl," by William +Russell Rose, and "A Poe-'em of Passion," by Charles F. Lummis.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lippincott's Magazine</span> for "The Modern Farmer," by Jack Appleton; "The +Wicked Zebra" and "The Happy Land," by Frank Roe Batchelder; "A Mothers' +Meeting," by Madeline Bridges; "The Final Choice" and "A Daniel Come to +Judgment," by Edmund Vance Cooke; "The Co-operative Housekeepers" and +"Her 'Angel' Father," by Elliott Flower; "Wasted Opportunities," by Roy +Farrell Greene; "The Auto Rubaiyat," by Reginald W. Kauffman; "It Pays +to be Happy" and "Victory," by Tom Masson; "Is It I?" by Warwick S. +Price; "Johnny's Lessons," by Carroll Watson Rankin; "Her Brother: +Enfant Terrible" and "Trouble-Proof," by E.L. Sabin; "A Bookworm's +Plaint," by Clinton Scollard; "Nothin' Done," by S.S. Stinson, and +"Uncle Bentley and the Roosters," by Hayden Carruth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Little, Brown & Company</span> for "Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper," from <i>The +Peterkin Papers</i>, by Lucretia P. Hale; "The Skeleton in the Closet," by +Edward Everett Hale, and "The Wolf at Susan's Door," from <i>The Wolf at +Susan's Door and Mrs. Lathrop's Love Affair</i>, by Anne Warner.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lothrop, Lee & Shepard</span> for "A Letter," from <i>Swingin' Round the Circle</i>, +by David Ross Locke ("P. V. Nasby"); "A Cable Car Preacher" and "The +Prayer of Cyrus Brown," from <i>Dreams in Homespun</i>, by Sam Walter Foss; +"He Wanted to Know," "Hullo!" and "She Talked," from <i>Back Country +Poems</i>, by Sam Walter Foss; "Mr. Stiver's Horse" and "After the +Funeral," from the works of James M. Bailey (The Danbury News Man); +"Yawcob Strauss," "Der Oak und der Vine," "To Bary Jade" and "Shonny +Schwartz," from <i>Leetle Yawcob Strauss</i>, by Charles Follen Adams; "The +Coupon Bonds" and "Darius Greene," from the works of J.T. Trowbridge, +and Chapters VII, IX, XVI, XX, XXI, from "Partingtonian Patchwork," by +B.P. Shillaber.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The S.S. McClure Company</span> and <span class="smcap">McClure, Phillips & Company</span> for "Morris and +the Honorable Tim," from <i>Little Citizens</i>, by Myra Kelly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A.C. McClurg & Company</span> for "Simple English," from <i>At the Sign of the +Ginger Jar</i>, by Ray Clarke Rose, and "Ye Legende of Sir Yroncladde," by +Wilbur D. Nesbit, from <i>The Athlete's Garland</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">David McKay</span> for "Hans Breitmann's Party," "Breitmann and the Turners," +"Ballad," "Breitmann in Politics" and "Love Song," from <i>Hans +Breitmann's Ballads,</i> by Charles Godfrey Leland, and "A Boston Ballad," +from <i>Leaves of Grass</i>, by Walt Whitman.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Macmillan Company</span> for "In a State of Sin," from <i>The Virginian</i>, by +Owen Wister.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Monarch Book Company</span> for "The Apostasy of William Dodge," from <i>The +Seekers</i>, by Stanley Waterloo.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Frank A. Munsey Company</span> for "An Educational Project" and "The +Woman-Hater Reformed," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Trial That Job +Missed," by Kennett Harris; "The Education of Grandpa," by Wallace +Irwin; "An Improved Calendar," by Tudor Jenks.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Small, Maynard & Company</span> for "Mr. Dooley on Gold Seeking," "Mr. Dooley +on Expert Testimony," "Mr. Dooley on Golf," "Mr. Dooley on Football," +"Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates," from <i>Mr. Dooley in Peace and War</i>, +by Finley Peter Dunne; "E.O.R.S.W." from <i>Alphabet of Celebrities</i>, by +Oliver Herford; "A Letter," from <i>The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to +His Son</i>, by George Horace Lorimer; "Vive La Bagatelle" and "Willy and +the Lady," from <i>A Gage of Youth</i>, by Gelett Burgess; "When the Allegash +Drive Goes Through," from <i>Pine Tree Ballads</i>, by Holman F. Day; "Had a +Set of Double Teeth," from <i>Up in Maine</i>, by Holman F. Day; "Similar +Cases," from <i>In This Our World</i>, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; "Barney +McGee," by Richard Hovey, from <i>More Songs from Vagabondia;</i> "A Modern +Eclogue," "The Sceptics," "A Staccato to O le Lupe," "A Spring Feeling," +"Her Valentine" and "In Philistia," by Bliss Carman, from <i>Last Songs +from Vagabondia</i>, and "Vive la Bagatelle," "A Cavalier's Valentine" and +"Holly Song," from <i>Hills of Song</i>, by Clinton Scollard.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Mutual Book Company</span> for "James and Reginald" and "The Story of the +Two Friars," from <i>The Tribune Primer</i>, by Eugene Field.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Orange Judd Company</span> for "Spelling Down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> the Master," from <i>The +Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, by Edward Eggleston.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">James Pott & Company</span> for "The Gusher," from <i>I've Been Thinking</i>, by +Charles Battell Loomis.</p> + +<p>G.P. <span class="smcap">Putnam's Sons</span> for "When Albani Sang" and "The Stove Pipe Hole," +from <i>The Habitant</i>, by William Henry Drummond; "National Philosophy," +from <i>The Voyageur</i>, by William Henry Drummond; "The Siege of +Djklxprwbz," "Grizzly-gru," "He and She," "The Jackpot," "A Shining +Mark," "The Reason," "Pass" and "The Whisperer," from <i>The Rhymes of +Ironquill</i>, by Eugene F. Ware, and "A Family Horse," from <i>The +Sparrowgrass Papers</i>, by Frederick S. Cozzens.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rand, McNally & Company</span> for "An Arkansas Planter," from <i>An Arkansas +Planter</i>, by Opie Read.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A.M. Robertson</span> for "The Drayman," from <i>Songs of Bohemia</i>, by Daniel +O'Connell.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">R.H. Russell</span> for "Mr. Carteret and His Fellow-Americans Abroad," by +David Gray, from <i>The Metropolitan Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Smart Set Publishing Company</span> for "An Evening Musicale," by May +Isabel Fisk, from <i>The Smart Set</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Frederick A. Stokes Company</span> for "Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt," +from <i>Wolfville Nights</i>, by Alfred Henry Lewis; "The Bohemians of +Boston," "The Purple Cow" and "Nonsense Verses," from <i>The Burgess +Nonsense Book</i>, by Gelett Burgess, and "My Grandmother's Turkey-tail +Fan," "Little Bopeep and Little Boy Blue" and "My Sweetheart," by Samuel +Minturn Peck.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Tandy-Wheeler Publishing Company</span> for "Utah," "A New Year Idyl," "The +Warrior," "Lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> Chords" and "The Advertiser," from <i>A Little Book of +Tribune Verse</i>, by Eugene Field.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Thompson & Thomas</span> for "The Grammatical Boy," by Edgar Wilson Nye ("Bill +Nye").</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The A. Wessels Company</span> for "The Dying Gag," by James L. Ford.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">M. Witmark & Sons</span> for "Walk," from <i>Jim Marshall's New Pianner</i>, by +William Devere.</p> + +<p>Special thanks are due to George Ade, Wallace Bruce Amsbary, John +Kendrick Bangs, H.W. Boynton, Gelett Burgess, Ellis Parker Butler, +Hayden Carruth, Robert W. Chambers, Charles Heber Clarke, Joseph I.C. +Clarke, Mary Stewart Cutting, John James Davies, Caroline Duer, Mrs. +Edward Eggleston, May Isabel Fisk, Elliott Flower, James L. Ford, David +Gray, Sarah P. McLean Greene, Jennie Betts Hartswick, William Dean +Howells, Wallace Irwin, Charles F. Johnson, S.E. Kiser, A.H. Laidlaw, +Alfred Henry Lewis, Charles B. Lewis, Charles Battell Loomis, Charles F. +Lummis, T.L. Masson, William Vaughn Moody, R.K. Munkittrick, W.D. +Nesbit, Meredith Nicholson, Alden Charles Noble, Samuel Minturn Peck, +Sydney Porter, Wallace Rice, James Whitcomb Riley, Doane Robinson, Henry +A. Shute, F. Hopkinson Smith, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Howard V. +Sutherland, John B. Tabb, Bert Leston Taylor, Juliet Wilbor Tompkins, +Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Eugene F. Ware, Anne Warner French and +Stanley Waterloo for permission to reprint selections from their works +and for many valuable suggestions.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h1>THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MELONS</h2> + +<h3>BY BRET HARTE</h3> + + +<p>As I do not suppose the most gentle of readers will believe that +anybody's sponsors in baptism ever wilfully assumed the responsibility +of such a name, I may as well state that I have reason to infer that +Melons was simply the nickname of a small boy I once knew. If he had any +other, I never knew it.</p> + +<p>Various theories were often projected by me to account for this strange +cognomen. His head, which was covered with a transparent down, like that +which clothes very small chickens, plainly permitting the scalp to show +through, to an imaginative mind might have suggested that succulent +vegetable. That his parents, recognizing some poetical significance in +the fruits of the season, might have given this name to an August child, +was an oriental explanation. That from his infancy, he was fond of +indulging in melons, seemed on the whole the most likely, particularly +as Fancy was not bred in McGinnis's Court. He dawned upon me as Melons. +His proximity was indicated by shrill, youthful voices, as "Ah, Melons!" +or playfully, "Hi, Melons!" or authoritatively, "You Melons!"</p> + +<p>McGinnis's Court was a democratic expression of some obstinate and +radical property-holder. Occupying a limited space between two +fashionable thoroughfares, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> refused to conform to circumstances, but +sturdily paraded its unkempt glories, and frequently asserted itself in +ungrammatical language. My window—a rear room on the ground floor—in +this way derived blended light and shadow from the court. So low was the +window-sill that, had I been the least disposed to somnambulism, it +would have broken out under such favorable auspices, and I should have +haunted McGinnis's Court. My speculations as to the origin of the court +were not altogether gratuitous, for by means of this window I once saw +the Past, as through a glass darkly. It was a Celtic shadow that early +one morning obstructed my ancient lights. It seemed to belong to an +individual with a pea-coat, a stubby pipe, and bristling beard. He was +gazing intently at the court, resting on a heavy cane, somewhat in the +way that heroes dramatically visit the scenes of their boyhood. As there +was little of architectural beauty in the court, I came to the +conclusion that it was McGinnis looking after his property. The fact +that he carefully kicked a broken bottle out of the road somewhat +strengthened me in the opinion. But he presently walked away, and the +court knew him no more. He probably collected his rents by proxy—if he +collected them at all.</p> + +<p>Beyond Melons, of whom all this is purely introductory, there was little +to interest the most sanguine and hopeful nature. In common with all +such localities, a great deal of washing was done, in comparison with +the visible results. There was always some thing whisking on the line, +and always some thing whisking through the court, that looked as if it +ought to be there. A fish-geranium—of all plants kept for the +recreation of mankind, certainly the greatest illusion—straggled under +the window. Through its dusty leaves I caught the first glance of +Melons.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p>His age was about seven. He looked older from the venerable whiteness of +his head, and it was impossible to conjecture his size, as he always +wore clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth of nineteen. A +pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained by a single suspender, +completely equipped him, formed his every-day suit. How, with this +lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the surprising +gymnastic feats it has been my privilege to witness, I have never been +able to tell. His "turning the crab," and other minor dislocations, were +always attended with success. It was not an unusual sight at any hour of +the day to find Melons suspended on a line, or to see his venerable head +appearing above the roofs of the outhouses. Melons knew the exact height +of every fence in the vicinity, its facilities for scaling, and the +possibility of seizure on the other side. His more peaceful and quieter +amusements consisted in dragging a disused boiler by a large string, +with hideous outcries, to imaginary fires.</p> + +<p>Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few youth of his own age +sometimes called upon him, but they eventually became abusive, and their +visits were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles and junk +which formed the staple of McGinnis's Court. Overcome by loneliness one +day, Melons inveigled a blind harper into the court. For two hours did +that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed calling, unrecompensed, and +going round and round the court, apparently under the impression that it +was some other place, while Melons surveyed him from an adjoining fence +with calm satisfaction. It was this absence of conscientious motives +that brought Melons into disrepute with his aristocratic neighbors. +Orders were issued that no child of wealthy and pious parentage should +play with him. This man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>date, as a matter of course, invested Melons +with a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances were cast at +Melons from nursery windows. Baby fingers beckoned to him. Invitations +to tea (on wood and pewter) were lisped to him from aristocratic +back-yards. It was evident he was looked upon as a pure and noble being, +untrammelled by the conventionalities of parentage, and physically as +well as mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual commotion +prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's Court. Looking from my window I +saw Melons perched on the roof of a stable, pulling up a rope by which +one "Tommy," an infant scion of an adjacent and wealthy house, was +suspended in mid-air. In vain the female relatives of Tommy, congregated +in the back-yard, expostulated with Melons; in vain the unhappy father +shook his fist at him. Secure in his position, Melons redoubled his +exertions and at last landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the +humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been acting in collusion +with Melons. He grinned delightedly back at his parents, as if "by merit +raised to that bad eminence." Long before the ladder arrived that was to +succor him, he became the sworn ally of Melons, and, I regret to say, +incited by the same audacious boy, "chaffed" his own flesh and blood +below him. He was eventually taken, though, of course, Melons escaped. +But Tommy was restricted to the window after that, and the companionship +was limited to "Hi Melons!" and "You Tommy!" and Melons to all practical +purposes, lost him forever. I looked afterward to see some signs of +sorrow on Melons's part, but in vain; he buried his grief, if he had +any, somewhere in his one voluminous garment.</p> + +<p>At about this time my opportunities of knowing Melons became more +extended. I was engaged in filling a void in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> the Literature of the +Pacific Coast. As this void was a pretty large one, and as I was +informed that the Pacific Coast languished under it, I set apart two +hours each day to this work of filling in. It was necessary that I +should adopt a methodical system, so I retired from the world and locked +myself in my room at a certain hour each day, after coming from my +office. I then carefully drew out my portfolio and read what I had +written the day before. This would suggest some alterations, and I would +carefully rewrite it. During this operation I would turn to consult a +book of reference, which invariably proved extremely interesting and +attractive. It would generally suggest another and better method of +"filling in." Turning this method over reflectively in my mind, I would +finally commence the new method which I eventually abandoned for the +original plan. At this time I would become convinced that my exhausted +faculties demanded a cigar. The operation of lighting a cigar usually +suggested that a little quiet reflection and meditation would be of +service to me, and I always allowed myself to be guided by prudential +instincts. Eventually, seated by my window, as before stated, Melons +asserted himself. Though our conversation rarely went further than +"Hello, Mister!" and "Ah, Melons!" a vagabond instinct we felt in common +implied a communion deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling the +time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the fence or line (always +with an eye to my window) until dinner was announced and I found a more +practical void required my attention. An unlooked-for incident drew us +in closer relation.</p> + +<p>A sea-faring friend just from a tropical voyage had presented me with a +bunch of bananas. They were not quite ripe, and I hung them before my +window to mature in the sun of McGinnis's Court, whose forcing +qualities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> were remarkable. In the mysteriously mingled odors of ship +and shore which they diffused throughout my room, there was lingering +reminiscence of low latitudes. But even that joy was fleeting and +evanescent: they never reached maturity.</p> + +<p>Coming home one day, as I turned the corner of that fashionable +thoroughfare before alluded to, I met a small boy eating a banana. There +was nothing remarkable in that, but as I neared McGinnis's Court I +presently met another small boy, also eating a banana. A third small boy +engaged in a like occupation obtruded a painful coincidence upon my +mind. I leave the psychological reader to determine the exact +co-relation between the circumstance and the sickening sense of loss +that overcame me on witnessing it. I reached my room—the bananas were +gone.</p> + +<p>There was but one that knew of their existence, but one who frequented +my window, but one capable of gymnastic effort to procure them, and that +was—I blush to say it—Melons. Melons the depredator—Melons, despoiled +by larger boys of his ill-gotten booty, or reckless and indiscreetly +liberal; Melons—now a fugitive on some neighborhood house-top. I lit a +cigar, and, drawing my chair to the window, sought surcease of sorrow in +the contemplation of the fish-geranium. In a few moments something white +passed my window at about the level of the edge. There was no mistaking +that hoary head, which now represented to me only aged iniquity. It was +Melons, that venerable, juvenile hypocrite.</p> + +<p>He affected not to observe me, and would have withdrawn quietly, but +that horrible fascination which causes the murderer to revisit the scene +of his crime, impelled him toward my window. I smoked calmly, and gazed +at him without speaking. He walked several times up and down the court +with a half-rigid, half-belligerent ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>pression of eye and shoulder, +intended to represent the carelessness of innocence.</p> + +<p>Once or twice he stopped, and putting his arms their whole length into +his capacious trousers, gazed with some interest at the additional width +they thus acquired. Then he whistled. The singular conflicting +conditions of John Brown's body and soul were at that time beginning to +attract the attention of youth, and Melons's performance of that melody +was always remarkable. But to-day he whistled falsely and shrilly +between his teeth. At last he met my eye. He winced slightly, but +recovered himself, and going to the fence, stood for a few moments on +his hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned +toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary.</p> + +<p>"They is a cirkis"—said Melons gravely, hanging with his back to the +fence and his arms twisted around the palings—"a cirkis over +yonder!"—indicating the locality with his foot—"with hosses, and +hossback riders. They is a man wot rides six hosses to onct—six hosses +to onct—and nary saddle"—and he paused in expectation.</p> + +<p>Even this equestrian novelty did not affect me. I still kept a fixed +gaze on Melons's eye, and he began to tremble and visibly shrink in his +capacious garment. Some other desperate means—conversation with Melons +was always a desperate means—must be resorted to. He recommenced more +artfully.</p> + +<p>"Do you know Carrots?"</p> + +<p>I had a faint remembrance of a boy of that euphonious name, with scarlet +hair, who was a playmate and persecutor of Melons. But I said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Carrots is a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in +his boots, saw him to-day looking in your windy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p>I felt that this must end here. I rose sternly and addressed Melons.</p> + +<p>"Melons, this is all irrelevant and impertinent to the case. <i>You</i> took +those bananas. Your proposition regarding Carrots, even if I were +inclined to accept it as credible information, does not alter the +material issue. You took those bananas. The offense under the Statutes +of California is felony. How far Carrots may have been accessory to the +fact either before or after, is not my intention at present to discuss. +The act is complete. Your present conduct shows the <i>animo furandi</i> to +have been equally clear."</p> + +<p>By the time I had finished this exordium, Melons had disappeared, as I +fully expected.</p> + +<p>He never reappeared. The remorse that I have experienced for the part I +had taken in what I fear may have resulted in his utter and complete +extermination, alas, he may not know, except through these pages. For I +have never seen him since. Whether he ran away and went to sea to +reappear at some future day as the most ancient of mariners, or whether +he buried himself completely in his trousers, I never shall know. I have +read the papers anxiously for accounts of him. I have gone to the Police +Office in the vain attempt of identifying him as a lost child. But I +never saw him or heard of him since. Strange fears have sometimes +crossed my mind that his venerable appearance may have been actually the +result of senility, and that he may have been gathered peacefully to his +fathers in a green old age. I have even had doubts of his existence, and +have sometimes thought that he was providentially and mysteriously +offered to fill the void I have before alluded to. In that hope I have +written these pages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE</h2> + +<h3>OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY"</h3> + +<h3><i>A Logical Story</i></h3> + +<h3>BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was built in such a logical way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It ran a hundred years to a day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll tell you what happened without delay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scaring the parson into fits,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frightening people out of their wits,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have you ever heard of that, I say?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Georgius Secundus</i> was then alive,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snuffy old drone from the German hive.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was the year when Lisbon-town<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saw the earth open and gulp her down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Braddock's army was done so brown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Left without a scalp to its crown.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was on the terrible Earthquake-day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is always <i>somewhere</i> a weakest spot,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurking still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Find it somewhere you must and will,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above or below, or within or without,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That a chaise <i>breaks down</i>, but doesn't <i>wear out</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell <i>yeou</i>,")<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He would build one shay to beat the taown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It should be so built that it <i>couldn'</i> break daown:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,<br /></span> +<span class="i14">Is only jest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So the Deacon inquired of the village folk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where he could find the strongest oak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was for spokes and floor and sills;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sent for lancewood to make the thills;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But lasts like iron for things like these;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Last of its timber,—they couldn't sell 'em,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never an axe had seen their chips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wedges flew from between their lips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steel of the finest, bright and blue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Found in the pit when the tanner died.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was the way he "put her through."—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Do! I tell you, I rather guess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She was a wonder, and nothing less!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deacon and deaconess dropped away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Children and grandchildren—where were they?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Eighteen Hundred</span>;—It came and found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eighteen hundred increased by ten;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eighteen hundred and twenty came;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Running as usual; much the same.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thirty and forty at last arrive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then come fifty, and <span class="smcap">fifty-five</span>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Little of all we value here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without both feeling and looking queer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So far as I know, but a tree and truth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(This is a moral that runs at large;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take it.—You're welcome.—No extra charge.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">First of November</span>,—The Earthquake-day—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A general flavor of mild decay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But nothing local, as one may say.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">There couldn't be,—for the Deacon's art<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had made it so like in every part<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That there wasn't a chance for one to start.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the floor was just as strong as the sills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the panels just as strong as the floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the spring and axle and hub <i>encore</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, as a <i>whole</i>, it is past a doubt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In another hour it will be <i>worn out</i>!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">First of November, 'Fifty-five!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This morning the parson takes a drive.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, small boys, get out of the way!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Huddup!" said the parson.—Off went they.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The parson was working his Sunday's text,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had got to <i>fifthly</i>, and stopped perplexed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At what the—Moses—was coming next.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All at once the horse stood still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—First a shiver, and then a thrill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then something decidedly like a spill,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the parson was sitting upon a rock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—What do you think the parson found,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he got up and stared around?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if it had been to the mill and ground!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How it went to pieces all at once,—</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">All at once, and nothing first,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just as bubbles do when they burst.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Logic is logic. That's all I say.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE PURPLE COW</h2> + +<h3>BY GELETT BURGESS</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Reflections on a Mythic Beast,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Who's Quite Remarkable, at Least.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I never Saw a Purple Cow;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I never Hope to See One;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I can Tell you, Anyhow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'd rather See than Be One.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><i>Cinq Ans Apres.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(<i>Confession: and a Portrait, Too,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Upon a Background that I Rue!</i>)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow"—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I can Tell you, Anyhow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'll Kill you if you Quote it!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CURSE OF THE COMPETENT</h2> + +<h3>BY HENRY J. FINN</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My spirit hath been seared, as though the lightning's scathe had rent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the swiftness of its wrath, through the midnight firmament,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The darkly deepening clouds; and the shadows dim and murky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of destiny are on me, for my dinner's naught but—<i>turkey</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The chords upon my silent lute no soft vibrations know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save where the meanings of despair—out-breathings of my woe—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell of the cold and selfish world. In melancholy mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul of genius chills with only—<i>fourteen cords of wood</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The dreams of the deserted float around my curtained hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And young imaginings are as the thorns bereft of flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wretched outcast from mankind, my strength of heart has sank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the evils of—<i>ten thousand dollars in the bank</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This life to me a desert is, and kindness, as the stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That singly drops upon the waste where burning breezes teem;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">A banished, blasted plant, I droop, to which no freshness lends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its healing balm, for Heaven knows, I've but—<i>a dozen friends</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Sorrow round my brow has wreathed its coronal of thorns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No dewy pearl of Pleasure my sad sunken eyes adorns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Calamity has clothed my thoughts, I feel a bliss no more,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alas! my wardrobe now would only—<i>stock a clothing store</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The joyousness of Memory from me for aye hath fled;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It dwells within the dreary habitation of the dead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I breathe my midnight melodies in languor and by stealth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Fate inflicts upon my frame—<i>the luxury of health</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Envy, Neglect, and Scorn have been my hard inheritance;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a baneful curse clings to me, like the stain on innocence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My moments are as faded leaves, or roses in their blight—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm asked but once a day to dine—<i>to parties every night</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Would that I were a silver ray upon the moonlit air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or but one gleam that's glorified by each Peruvian's prayer!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My tortured spirit turns from earth, to ease its bitter loathing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My hatred is on all things here, because—<i>I want for nothing</i>.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE GRAMMATICAL BOY</h2> + +<h3>BY BILL NYE</h3> + + +<p>Sometimes a sad, homesick feeling comes over me, when I compare the +prevailing style of anecdote and school literature with the old McGuffey +brand, so well known thirty years ago. To-day our juvenile literature, +it seems to me, is so transparent, so easy to understand, that I am not +surprised to learn that the rising generation shows signs of +lawlessness.</p> + +<p>Boys to-day do not use the respectful language and large, luxuriant +words that they did when Mr. McGuffey used to stand around and report +their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is +disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I +think we should face the facts.</p> + +<p>I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following +selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged +with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with +the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of +to-day.</p> + +<p>One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing +through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite +direction along the highway.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we +here?"</p> + +<p>"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do +you reside in this locality?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder +cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children +dwell with me."</p> + +<p>"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection.</p> + +<p>"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor +mother is a widow."</p> + +<p>"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on +the other foot a while.</p> + +<p>"Alas! sir," said George, as a large hot tear stole down his pale cheek +and fell with a loud report on the warty surface of his bare foot, "he +was lost at sea in a bitter gale. The good ship foundered two years ago +last Christmastide, and father was foundered at the same time. No one +knew of the loss of the ship and that the crew was drowned until the +next spring, and it was then too late."</p> + +<p>"And what is your age, my fine fellow?" quoth the stranger.</p> + +<p>"If I live till next October," said the boy, in a declamatory tone of +voice suitable for a Second Reader, "I will be seven years of age."</p> + +<p>"And who provides for your mother and her large family of children?" +queried the man.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I do, sir," replied George, in a shrill tone. "I toil, oh, so +hard, sir, for we are very, very poor, and since my elder sister, Ann, +was married and brought her husband home to live with us, I have to toil +more assiduously than heretofore."</p> + +<p>"And by what means do you obtain a livelihood?" exclaimed the man, in +slowly measured and grammatical words.</p> + +<p>"By digging wells, kind sir," replied George, picking up a tired ant as +he spoke and stroking it on the back. "I have a good education, and so I +am able to dig wells as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> well as a man. I do this day-times and take in +washing at night. In this way I am enabled barely to maintain our family +in a precarious manner; but, oh, sir, should my other sisters marry, I +fear that some of my brothers-in-law would have to suffer."</p> + +<p>"And do you not fear the deadly fire-damp?" asked the stranger in an +earnest tone.</p> + +<p>"Not by a damp sight," answered George, with a low gurgling laugh, for +he was a great wag.</p> + +<p>"You are indeed a brave lad," exclaimed the stranger, as he repressed a +smile. "And do you not at times become very weary and wish for other +ways of passing your time?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I do, sir," said the lad. "I would fain run and romp and be gay +like other boys, but I must engage in constant manual exercise, or we +will have no bread to eat, and I have not seen a pie since papa perished +in the moist and moaning sea."</p> + +<p>"And what if I were to tell you that your papa did not perish at sea, +but was saved from a humid grave?" asked the stranger in pleasing tones.</p> + +<p>"Ah, sir," exclaimed George, in a genteel manner, again doffing his cap, +"I am too polite to tell you what I would say, and besides, sir, you are +much larger than I am."</p> + +<p>"But, my brave lad," said the man in low musical tones, "do you not know +me, Georgie? Oh, George!"</p> + +<p>"I must say," replied George, "that you have the advantage of me. Whilst +I may have met you before, I can not at this moment place you, sir."</p> + +<p>"My son! oh, my son!" murmured the man, at the same time taking a large +strawberry mark out of his valise and showing it to the lad. "Do you not +recognize your parent on your father's side? When our good ship went to +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> bottom, all perished save me. I swam several miles through the +billows, and at last, utterly exhausted, gave up all hope of life. +Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It was the United States.</p> + +<p>"And now, my brave boy," exclaimed the man with great glee, "see what I +have brought for you." It was but the work of a moment to unclasp from a +shawl-strap which he held in his hand and present to George's astonished +gaze a large forty-cent watermelon, which until now had been concealed +by the shawl-strap.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>SIMPLE ENGLISH</h2> + +<h3>BY RAY CLARKE ROSE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ofttimes when I put on my gloves,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I wonder if I'm sane.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For when I put the right one on,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The right seems to remain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be put on—that is, 'tis left;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet if the left I don,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The other one is left, and then<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I have the right one on.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still I have the left on right;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The right one, though, is left<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To go right on the left right hand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All right, if I am deft.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK</h2> + +<h3>BY B.P. SHILLABER</h3> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>"Are you in favor of the prohibitive law, or the license law?" asked her +opposite neighbor of the relict of P.P.; corporal of the "Bloody +'Leventh."</p> + +<p>She carefully weighed the question, as though she were selling snuff, +and answered,—</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not."</p> + +<p>Her neighbor was perplexed, and repeated the question, varying it a +little.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen the 'Mrs. Partington Twilight Soap'?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," was the reply; "everybody has seen that; but why?"</p> + +<p>"Because," said the dame, "it has two sides to it, and it is hard to +choose between them. Now here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on +both sides—one goes for probation, t'other for licentiousness; and I +think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance."</p> + +<p>She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired, and smiled, while +Ike lay on the floor, with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. +Partington's fancy waiter on his toe.</p> + + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>Christmas Ike was made the happy possessor of a fiddle, which he found +in the morning near his stocking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Has he got a musical bent?" Banfield asked, of whom Mrs. Partington was +buying the instrument.</p> + +<p>"Bent, indeed!" said she; "no, he's as straight as an error."</p> + +<p>He explained by repeating the question regarding his musical +inclination.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied; "he's dreadfully inclined to music since he had a +drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another Pickaninny or +an Old Bull of him. Jews-harps is simple, though I can't see how King +David played on one of 'em, and sung his psalms at the same time; but +the fiddle is best, because genius can show itself plainer on it without +much noise. Some prefers a violeen; but I don't know."</p> + +<p>The fiddle was well improved, till the horsehair all pulled out of the +bow, and it was then twisted up into a fish-line.</p> + + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<p>"How limpid you walk!" said a voice behind us, as we were making a +hundred and fifty horse-power effort to reach a table whereon reposed a +volume of Bacon. "What is the cause of your lameness?" It was Mrs. +Partington's voice that spoke, and Mrs. Partington's eyes that met the +glance we returned over our left shoulder. "Gout," said we, briefly, +almost surlily. "Dear me," said she; "you are highly flavored! It was +only rich people and epicacs in living that had the gout in olden +times." "Ah!" we growled, partly in response, and partly with an +infernal twinge, "Poor soul!" she continued, with commiseration, like an +anodyne, in the tones of her voice; "the best remedy I know for it is an +embarkation of Roman wormwood and lobelia for the part infected, though +some say a cranberry poultice is best; but I believe the cranberries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> is +for erisipilis, and whether either of 'em is a rostrum for the gout or +not, I really don't know. If it was a fraction of the arm, I could jest +know what to subscribe." We looked into her eye with a determination to +say something severely bitter, because we felt allopathic just then; but +the kind and sympathizing look that met our own disarmed severity, and +sinking into a seat with our coveted Bacon, we thanked her. It was very +evident, all the while, that she, or they, stayed, that Ike was seeing +how near he could come to our lame member, and not touch it. He did +touch it sometimes, but those didn't count.</p> + + +<h3>XX</h3> + +<p>"I've always noticed," said Mrs. Partington on New Year's Day, dropping +her voice to the key that people adopt when they are disposed to be +philosophical or moral; "I've always noticed that every year added to a +man's life is apt to make him older, just as a man who goes a journey +finds, as he jogs on, that every mile he goes brings him nearer where he +is going, and farther from where he started. I am not so young as I was +once, and I don't believe I shall ever be, if I live to the age of +Samson, which, Heaven knows as well as I do, I don't want to, for I +wouldn't be a centurion or an octagon, and survive my factories, and +become idiomatic, by any means. But then there is no knowing how a thing +will turn out till it takes place; and we shall come to an end some day, +though we may never live to see it."</p> + +<p>There was a smart tap on the looking-glass that hung upon the wall, +followed instantly by another.</p> + +<p>"Gracious!" said she; "what's that? I hope the glass isn't fractioned, +for it is a sure sign of calamity, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> mercy knows they come along full +fast enough without helping 'em by breaking looking-glasses."</p> + +<p>There was another tap, and she caught sight of a white bean that fell on +the floor; and there, reflected in the glass, was the face of Ike, who +was blowing beans at the mirror through a crack in the door.</p> + + +<h3>XXI</h3> + +<p>"As for the Chinese question," said Mrs. Partington, reflectively, +holding her spoon at "present," while the vapor of her cup of tea curled +about her face, which shone through it like the moon through a mist, "it +is a great pity that somebody don't answer it, though who under the +canister of heaven can do it, with sich letters as they have on their +tea-chists, is more than I can tell. It is really too bad, though, that +some lingister doesn't try it, and not have this provoking question +asked all the time, as if we were ignoramuses, and did not know Toolong +from No Strong, and there never was sich a thing as the seventh +commandment, which, Heaven knows, suits this case to a T, and I hope the +breakers of it may escape, but I don't see how they can. The question +must be answered, unless it is like a cannondrum, to be given up, which +nobody of any spirit should do."</p> + +<p>She brought the spoon down into the cup, and looked out through the +windows of her soul into celestial fields, peopled with pig-tails, that +were all in her eye, while Ike took a double charge of sugar for his +tea, and gave an extra allowance of milk to the kitten.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE MENAGERIE</h2> + +<h3>BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Such capers every day! I'm just about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mellow, but then—There goes the tent flap shut.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rain's in the wind. I thought so: every snout<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was twitching when the keeper turned me out.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And jabber that it's rain-water they want.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.)<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'll foot it home, to try and make believe<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm sober. After this I stick to beer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drop the circus when the sane folks leave.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A man's a fool to look at things too near:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They look back and begin to cut up queer.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beasts do, at any rate; especially<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wild devils caged. They have the coolest way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of being something else than what you see:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You pass a sleek young zebra nosing hay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A nylghau looking bored and distingué,—</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And think you've seen a donkey and a bird.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not on your life! Just glance back, if you dare.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The zebra chews, the nylghau hasn't stirred;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But something's happened, Heaven knows what or where,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To freeze your scalp and pompadour your hair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'm not precisely an æolian lute<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Didn't just floor me with embarrassment!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twas like a thunder-clap from out the clear—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One minute they were circus beasts, some grand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rival attractions to the hobo band,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The flying jenny, and the peanut-stand.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Next minute they were old hearth-mates of mine!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lost people, eyeing me with such a stare!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patient, satiric, devilish, divine;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A gaze of hopeless envy, squalid care,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hatred, and thwarted love, and dim despair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or through fern forests roared the plesiosaur<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Locked with the giant-bat in ghastly war.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And suddenly, as in a flash of light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I saw great Nature working out her plan;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through all her shapes, from mastodon to mite,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Forever groping, testing, passing on<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To find at last the shape and soul of Man.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till in the fullness of accomplished time,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tracks her through frozen and through torrid clime,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The stages of her huge experiment;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Babbling aloud her shy and reticent hours;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Publishing fretful seasons when her powers<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or when her mordant laughter shook the woods.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here, round about me, were her vagrant births;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she essayed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her qualms, her fiery prides, her craze mirths;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The troublings of her spirit as she strayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cringed, gloated, mocked, was lordly, was afraid,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On that long road she went to seek mankind;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here were the darkling coverts that she beat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To find the Hider she was sent to find;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here the distracted footprints of her feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whereby her soul's Desire she came to greet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But why should they, her botch-work, turn about<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And stare disdain at me, her finished job?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why was the place one vast suspended shout<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of laughter? Why did all the daylight throb<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With soundless guffaw and dumb-stricken sob?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Helpless I stood among those awful cages;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The beasts were walking loose, and I was bagged!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, I, last product of the toiling ages,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Goal of heroic feet that never lagged—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A little man in trousers, slightly jagged.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Deliver me from such another jury!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Judgment-day will be a picnic to't.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their satire was more dreadful than their fury,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And worst of all was just a kind of brute<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Disgust, and giving up, and sinking mute.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Survival of the fittest adaptation,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all their other evolution terms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seem to omit one small consideration,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And souls are restless, plagued, impatient things,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All dream and unaccountable desire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mystical hanker after something higher.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wishes <i>are</i> horses, as I understand.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of feeling faint to gallivant on land<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Will come to be a scandal to his folk;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Legs he will sprout, in spite of threats and jokes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And at the core of every life that crawls<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or runs or flies or swims or vegetates—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Churning the mammoth's heart-blood, in the galls<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of shark and tiger planting gorgeous hates,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lighting the love of eagles for their mates;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yes, in the dim brain of the jellied fish<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That is and is not living—moved and stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the beginning a mysterious wish,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A vision, a command, a fatal Word:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The name of Man was uttered, and they heard.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Upward along the æons of old war<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They sought him: wing and shank-bone, claw and bill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were fashioned and rejected; wide and far<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They roamed the twilight jungles of their will;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But still they sought him, and desired him still.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man they desired, but mind you, Perfect Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The radiant and the loving, yet to be!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hardly wonder, when they come to scan<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The upshot of their strenuosity,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They gazed with mixed emotions upon <i>me</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well, my advice to you is, Face the creatures,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or spot them sideways with your weather eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just to keep tab on their expansive features;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It isn't pleasant when you're stepping high<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To catch a giraffe smiling on the sly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If Nature made you graceful, don't get gay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Back-to before the hippopotamus;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If meek and godly, find some place to play<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Besides right where three mad hyenas fuss;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You may hear language that we won't discuss.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If you're a sweet thing in a flower-bed hat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't squander love's bright springtime girding at<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An old chimpanzee with an Irish chin:<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>There may be hidden meaning in his grin</i>.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DOWN AROUND THE RIVER</h2> + +<h3>BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Noon-time and June-time, down around the river!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have to furse with 'Lizey Ann—but lawzy! I fergive her!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drives me off the place, and says 'at all 'at she's a-wishin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Land o' gracious! time'll come I'll git enough o' fishin'!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little Dave, a-choppin' wood, never 'pears to notice;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't know where she's hid his hat, er keerin' where his coat is,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Specalatin', more'n like, he haint a-goin' to mind me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And guessin' where, say twelve o'clock, a feller'd likely find me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Noon-time and June-time, down around the river!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clean out o' sight o' home, and skulkin' under kivver<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the sycamores, jack-oaks, and swamp-ash and ellum—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Idies all so jumbled up, you kin hardly tell'em!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Tired</i>, you know, but <i>lovin'</i> it, and smilin' jest to think 'at<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Any sweeter tiredness you'd fairly want to <i>drink</i> it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tired o' fishin'—tired o' fun—line out slack and slacker—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All you want in all the world's a little more tobacker!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hungry, but <i>a-hidin'</i> it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kingfisher gittin' up and skootin' out o' hearin';<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wadin' up and down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches!</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worter, shade and all so mixed, don't know which you'd orter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say, th' <i>worter</i> in the shadder—<i>shadder</i> in the <i>worter</i>!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Somebody hollerin'—'way around the bend in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upper Fork—where yer eye kin jes' ketch the endin'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the shiney wedge o' wake some muss-rat's a-makin'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With that pesky nose o' his! Then a sniff o' bacon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Corn-bread and 'dock-greens—and little Dave a-shinnin'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Crost the rocks and mussel-shells, a-limpin' and a-grinnin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With yer dinner fer ye, and a blessin' from the giver.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Noon-time and June-time down around the river!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A MEDIEVAL DISCOVERER</h2> + +<h3>BY BILL NYE</h3> + + +<p>Galilei, commonly called Galileo, was born at Pisa on the 14th day of +February, 1564. He was the man who discovered some of the fundamental +principles governing the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities +of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he +was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its +infancy and astronomy was taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in +to make a few discoveries and advance some theories which he loved.</p> + +<p>He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments +himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great +musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections, and +then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for +several years in a band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that his +manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in his +eye after playing a selection, while he gently up-ended his alto horn +and worked the mud-valve as he poured out about a pint of moist melody +that had accumulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand.</p> + +<p>At the age of twenty Galileo began to discover. His first discoveries +were, of course, clumsy and poorly made, but very soon he commenced to +turn out neat and durable discoveries that would stand for years.</p> + +<p>It was at this time that he noticed the swinging of a lamp in a church, +and, observing that the oscillations were of equal duration, he inferred +that this principle might be utilized in the exact measurement of time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +From this little accident, years after, came the clock, one of the most +useful of man's dumb friends. And yet there are people who will read +this little incident and still hesitate about going to church.</p> + +<p>Galileo also invented the thermometer, the microscope and the +proportional compass. He seemed to invent things not for the money to be +obtained in that way, but solely for the joy of being first on the +ground. He was a man of infinite genius and perseverance. He was also +very fair in his treatment of other inventors. Though he did not +personally invent the rotary motion of the earth, he heartily indorsed +it and said it was a good thing. He also came out in a card in which he +said that he believed it to be a good thing, and that he hoped some day +to see it applied to the other planets.</p> + +<p>He was also the inventor of a telescope that had a magnifying power of +thirty times. He presented this to the Venetian senate, and it was used +in making appropriations for river and harbor improvements.</p> + +<p>By telescopic investigation Galileo discovered the presence of microbes +in the moon, but was unable to do anything for it. I have spoken of Mr. +Galileo, informally calling him by his first name, all the way through +this article, for I feel so thoroughly acquainted with him, though there +was such a striking difference in our ages, that I think I am justified +in using his given name while talking of him.</p> + +<p>Galileo also sat up nights and visited with Venus through a long +telescope which he had made himself from an old bamboo fishing-rod.</p> + +<p>But astronomy is a very enervating branch of science. Galileo frequently +came down to breakfast with red, heavy eyes, eyes that were swollen full +of unshed tears. Still he persevered. Day after day he worked and +toiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> Year after year he went on with his task till he had worked out +in his own mind the satellites of Jupiter and placed a small tin tag on +each one, so that he would know it readily when he saw it again. Then he +began to look up Saturn's rings and investigate the freckles on the sun. +He did not stop at trifles, but went bravely on till everybody came for +miles to look at him and get him to write something funny in their +autograph albums. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in +the morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful, new-born star, to +find his front yard full of albums. Some of them were little red albums +with floral decorations on them, while others were the large plush and +alligator albums of the affluent. Some were new and had the price-mark +still on them, while others were old, foundered albums, with a droop in +the back and little flecks of egg and gravy on the title-page. All came +with a request for Galileo "to write a little, witty, characteristic +sentiment in them."</p> + +<p>Galileo was the author of the hydrostatic paradox and other sketches. He +was a great reader and a fluent penman. One time he was absent from +home, lecturing in Venice for the benefit of the United Aggregation of +Mutual Admirers, and did not return for two weeks, so that when he got +back he found the front room full of autograph albums. It is said that +he then demonstrated his great fluency and readiness as a thinker and +writer. He waded through the entire lot in two days with only two men +from West Pisa to assist him. Galileo came out of it fresh and youthful, +and all of the following night he was closeted with another inventor, a +wicker-covered microscope, and a bologna sausage. The investigations +were carried on for two weeks, after which Galileo went out to the +inebriate asylum and discovered some new styles of reptiles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>Galileo was the author of a little work called "I Discarsi e +Dimas-Trazioni Matematiche Intorus a Due Muove Scienze." It was a neat +little book, of about the medium height, and sold well on the trains, +for the Pisan newsboys on the cars were very affable, as they are now, +and when they came and leaned an armful of these books on a passenger's +leg and poured into his ear a long tale about the wonderful beauty of +the work, and then pulled in the name of the book from the rear of the +last car, where it had been hanging on behind, the passenger would most +always buy it and enough of the name to wrap it up in.</p> + +<p>He also discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. He saw that the +pendulum at certain seasons of the year looked yellow under the eyes, +and that it drooped and did not enter into its work with the old zest. +He began to study the case with the aid of his new bamboo telescope and +a wicker-covered microscope. As a result, in ten days he had the +pendulum on its feet again.</p> + +<p>Galileo was inclined to be liberal in his religious views, more +especially in the matter of the Scriptures, claiming that there were +passages in the Bible which did not literally mean what the translator +said they did. This was where Galileo missed it. So long as he +discovered stars and isochronisms and such things as that, he succeeded, +but when he began to fool with other people's religious beliefs he got +into trouble. He was forced to fly from Pisa, we are told by the +historian, and we are assured at the same time that Galileo, who had +always been far, far ahead of all competitors in other things, was +equally successful as a fleer.</p> + +<p>Galileo received but sixty scudi per year as his salary while at Pisa, +and a part of that he took in town orders, worth only sixty cents on the +scudi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WANTED—A COOK</h2> + +<h3>BY ALAN DALE</h3> + + +<p>There was a ring at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously +clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then, +alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and +expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could +not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized +that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin, +small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in and smiled at me.</p> + +<p>"<i>Talar ni svensk?</i>" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She +may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she +looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently, +reverently, to Letitia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a +wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed +her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that +any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed I heaved a +sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five +advertisements. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little +mouse, too!</p> + +<p>"<i>Talar ni svensk?</i>" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you +speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I +left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each +other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>stances. I had +some misgivings on the subject of Letitia and <i>svensk</i>, but the +universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly +hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a +cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment, +delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the +drawing-room. Letitia was smiling and the hand-maiden sat grim and +uninspired.</p> + +<p>"I've engaged her, Archie," said Letitia. "She knows nothing, as she has +told me in the few words of English that she has picked up, but—you +remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate."</p> + +<p>I gazed at the maiden, and reflected that while the term "slate" might +be perfectly correct, the adjective seemed a bit over-enthusiastic. She +was decidely soiled, this quintessence of a quintette of advertisements. +I said nothing, anxious not to dampen Letitia's elation.</p> + +<p>"She has no references," continued my wife, "as she has never been out +before. She is just a simple little Stockholm girl. I like her face +immensely, Archie—immensely. She is willing to begin at once, which +shows that she is eager, and consequently likely to suit us. Wait for +me, Archie, while I take her to the kitchen. <i>Kom</i>, Gerda."</p> + +<p>Exactly why Letitia couldn't say "Come, Gerda," seemed strange. She +probably thought that <i>Kom</i> must be Swedish, and that it sounded well. +She certainly invented <i>Kom</i> on the spur of the Scandinavian moment, and +I learned afterward that it was correct. My inspired Letitia! Still, in +spite of all, my opinion is that "Come, Gerda," would have done just as +well.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it delightful?" cried Letitia, when she joined me later. "I am +really enthusiastic at the idea of a Swedish girl. I adore Scandinavia, +Archie. It always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> makes me think of Ibsen. Perhaps Gerda Lyberg—that's +her name—will be as interesting as Hedda Gabler, and Mrs. Alving, and +Nora, and all those lovely complex Ibsen creatures."</p> + +<p>"They were Norwegians, dear," I said gently, anxious not to shatter +illusions; "the Ibsen plays deal with Christiania, not with Stockholm."</p> + +<p>"But they are so near," declared Letitia, amiable and seraphic once +more. "Somehow or other, I invariably mix up Norway and Sweden and +Denmark. I know I shall always look upon Gerda as an Ibsen girl, who has +come here to 'live her life,' or 'work out her inheritance.' Perhaps, +dear, she has some interesting internal disease, or a maggoty brain. +Don't you think, Archie, that the Ibsen inheritances are always most +fascinating? A bit morbid, but surely fascinating."</p> + +<p>"I prefer a healthy cook, Letitia," I said meditatively, "somebody +willing to interest herself in our inheritance, rather than in her own."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind what you say now," she pouted, "I am not to be put down by +clamor. We really have a cook at last, and I feel more lenient toward +you, Archie. Of course I was only joking when I suggested the Ibsen +diseases. Gerda Lyberg may have inherited from her ancestors something +quite nice and attractive."</p> + +<p>"Then you mustn't look upon her as Ibsen, Letitia," I protested. "The +Ibsen people never inherit nice things. Their ancestors always bequeath +nasty ones. That is where their consistency comes in. They are +receptacles for horrors. Personally, if you'll excuse my flippancy, I +prefer Norwegian anchovies to Norwegian heroines. It is a mere matter of +opinion."</p> + +<p>"I'm ashamed of you," retorted Letitia defiantly. "You talk like some of +the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> called, that men like Acton +Davies and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never +amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies, +but he has never yet cursed them with the odious incubus known as 'a +sense of humor.' The people with a sense of humor have something in +their brains worse than maggots. We'll drop the subject, Archie. I'm +going to learn Swedish. Before Gerda Lyberg has been with us a month I +intend to be able to talk fluently. It will be most useful. Next time we +go to Europe we'll take in Sweden, and I'll do the piloting. I am going +to buy some Swedish books, and study. Won't it be jolly? And just think +how melancholy we were this morning, you and I, looking out of that +window, and trying to materialize cooks. Wasn't it funny, Archie? What +amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!"</p> + +<p>Letitia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle +parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to +leave my household gods for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could +not feel quite as sanguine as Letitia, who seemed to have forgotten the +dismal results of the advertisement—just one little puny Swedish +result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Letitia was as pleased +with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a +that-or-nothing.</p> + +<p>If somebody had dramatized Gerda Lyberg's initial dinner, it would +probably have been considered exceedingly droll. As a serious episode, +however, its humor, to my mind, lacked spontaneity. Letitia had asked +her to cook us a little Swedish meal, so that we could get some idea of +Stockholm life, in which, for some reason or other, we were supposed to +be deeply interested. Unfortunately I was extremely hungry, and had +carefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> avoided luncheon in order to give my appetite a chance. We +sat down to a huge bowl of cold, greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of +meat swam, as though for their life, awaiting rescue at the prongs of a +fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of +water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Letitia said +that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was +that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Letitia was so engrossed +with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that +she forgot the mere material question of food—forgot everything but the +horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who +looked more unlike a clean slate than ever.</p> + +<p>"What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Letitia, turning over the pages +of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in +which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' '<i>Jag +är myckel hungrig</i>.' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: '<i>Kypare gif +mig matsedeln och vinlistan.</i>' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of +fare, and the list of wines.'"</p> + +<p>"Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means. +Look out a chapter on feeding."</p> + +<p>Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. +She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at +her Swedish.</p> + +<p>"Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "<i>Gif mir apven senap +och nägra potäter.</i>" And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned +potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, +Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. <i>Jag +tackar</i>, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' <i>Jag tackar</i>. See if you can +say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. <i>Jag tackar.</i> Now, that's +a good boy, <i>jag tackar</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I won't," I declared spitefully. "No <i>jag tackar</i>ing for a parody like +this, Letitia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I +prefer a delicatessen dinner to this."</p> + +<p>"'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Letitia, absolutely +disregarding my mood. "'<i>Var god och gif mig ett stycke vildt.</i>' It is +almost intelligible, isn't it, dear? '<i>Ni äter icke</i>': you do not eat."</p> + +<p>"I can't," I asserted mournfully, anxious to gain Letitia's sympathy.</p> + +<p>It was not forthcoming. Letitia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I +could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt +certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible +freak, and I was vexed to think that Letitia should make such an +exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set +before us.</p> + +<p>"'I have really dined very well,'" she continued joyously. "<i>Jag har +verkligen atit mycket bra.</i>'"</p> + +<p>"If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Letitia," I +said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't +appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our +things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never."</p> + +<p>Letitia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her +surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed, +"How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I +came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be +telepathy, dear. 'Better late than never,' '<i>Battre sent än aldrig</i>.' +What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do +try it in Swedish. Say '<i>Battre sent än aldrig</i>.'"</p> + +<p>"Letitia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> for this sort +of thing. I think this dinner and this woman are rotten. See if you can +find the word rotten in Swedish."</p> + +<p>"I am surprised at you," Letitia declared glacially, roused from her +book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are +neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a +servant, to say nothing of your own wife."</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I +could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that +the sphinx-like attitude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a +strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to +understand."</p> + +<p>"In a week from now," said Letitia, "she will understand everything +perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be +agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a +greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you +wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important +it does seem to be to men. Gerda, <i>hur gammal är ni</i>?"</p> + +<p>The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Letitia had +Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "<i>Hur gammal är ni</i>," Letitia +explained, simply meant, "How old are you?"</p> + +<p>"She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we +went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like +the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to +persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a +language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the +question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August, +1852.' For the life of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most +embarrassing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish +how old I was, I should <i>have</i> to be fifty-two!"</p> + +<p>"When I think of my five advertisements," I said lugubriously, as I +threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover +dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant anticipations +of to-day, I feel very bitter, Letitia. Just to think that from it all +nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified +thing."</p> + +<p>"Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was +too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do +remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did +what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her +fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We +had better stick to the American régime. It is more satisfactory to you. +At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five +advertisements had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only +have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that +we <i>had</i> five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg."</p> + +<p>"I can't, Letitia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh.</p> + +<p>"Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be +most useful for your <i>Lives of Great Men</i>. You can read up the Swedes in +the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all +about Mrs. Potz—I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't +remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very +subtile."</p> + +<p>"You, Letitia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on +so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>Letitia looked offended. She always declared that Dickens "got on her +nerves." She was one of the new-fashioned readers who have learned to +despise Dickens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of +humor. Letitia placed a cushion behind my head, smoothed my forehead, +kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of +nourishment made me drowsy, and Letitia's babblings sounded vague and +muffled.</p> + +<p>"It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in +memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact, +dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the +wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours.' '<i>Om +vinden är god, sa äro vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg.</i>' I think it is +sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a glass of brandy +and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.' +'Your passports, gentlemen.'"</p> + +<p>A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Letitia took a pencil and +paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a +town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town. +'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and +Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning I wish to see all the +public buildings and statues.' '<i>Statyerna</i>' is Swedish for statues, +Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy +Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Mälan and see the +fortress of Vaxholm.' It <i>is</i> a charming little book. Don't you think +that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't +find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue, +but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'"</p> + +<p>I rose and stretched myself. Letitia was still plunged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> in the +irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on +earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice +between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the +former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splashing noise in the +kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently +too deeply engrossed.</p> + +<p>I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward +the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splashing noise +grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did +so a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in—in—my pen +declines to write it—a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an +ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and +dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her!</p> + +<p>The instant she saw me she modestly seized a dish-towel and shouted at +the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot +water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty +retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Letitia, who, +dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened.</p> + +<p>"She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen—among the plates—near the +soup—"</p> + +<p>"Never!" cried Letitia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pass. Stand +aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps—perhaps—you had better come +with me."</p> + +<p>"Letitia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a +dish-towel."</p> + +<p>Letitia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen +shut the door. The splashing noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices, +or rather of a voice—Letitia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish, +and such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at +Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even +hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is +strange how the stress of circumstances alters the complexion of a +conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet +suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen, +dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How +disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in English!</p> + +<p>"You see," said Letitia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant +girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course."</p> + +<p>"And unappetizing!" I chimed in.</p> + +<p>"Of course—certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish +to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry +that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After +all, Archie, bathing is not a crime."</p> + +<p>"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do +you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning, +among the bacon and eggs, and things?"</p> + +<p>"That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as +an excuse for indelicacy."</p> + +<p>It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely +certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a +thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted +in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had +definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves +openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the +enigma in all its force and defiance.</p> + +<p>The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> the singularly +blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew. +Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical +fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg, +apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain +views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to +have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in +the course of time—any time, and generally less than a week—become +eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her—one of those +antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled +egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly +thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had +laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, +perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.</p> + +<p>Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was +certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her +hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The +situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a +particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely +ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique. +Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, +laundresses—all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our +daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess +some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it +was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the +slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that +water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a +salary.</p> + +<p>Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with +Miss Lyberg. Compared with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was +a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil +coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the +dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She +grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived +on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.</p> + +<p>"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third +day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That +is why she is so ignorant."</p> + +<p>I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I +muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers +have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why +can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have +arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to +'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of +peasant food. The result has been <i>nil</i>."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in +the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't +understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the +conversation book."</p> + +<p>"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green +peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and—"</p> + +<p>"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours,'" +I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end +your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they +do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always +pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Even with an American +cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison +steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty +hours."</p> + +<p>Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in +the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had +consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a +rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly +tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to +supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an +indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. +People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of +this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men +and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not +particular—so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of +these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest +gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best +isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a +score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, +canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look +askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" +liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor +whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment.</p> + +<p>Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not +to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return, +the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up. +We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American +institution, the boarding-house feeder and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> restaurant diner. We +knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and +a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts +its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook—no lack of +cook—should drive us to these abysmal depths.</p> + +<p>Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath +of <i>The Lives of Great Men</i>. She read a sweet little classic called "The +Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by +Alessandro Filippini—a delightful <i>table-d'hôte</i>-y name. I lay back in +my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence. +As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned +that I should not have to wait long. I was right.</p> + +<p>"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the +civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers +as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his +able lieutenants."</p> + +<p>"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I +should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of +low-livers."</p> + +<p>"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory +of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at +one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the +hands of the metropolis of the New World.'"</p> + +<p>"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant +talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris +there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there they +have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New +York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any +more of your cook-book to me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> my girl. It is written to catch the +American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery."</p> + +<p>"Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know +you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just +talking cussedly with your own wife."</p> + +<p>A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the +humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth <i>was</i> most trying. We were +bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to +which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each +wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers, +forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me.</p> + +<p>"Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and +from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in +the face.</p> + +<p>For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could +say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure +that I wasn't that I was about to close the door.</p> + +<p>"She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth +the poppies.</p> + +<p>I came to myself with an effort. "She is the—the cook," I muttered +weakly.</p> + +<p>"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her +voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable."</p> + +<p>The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went +toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was +amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of +tongues, and then—I groped my way back to Letitia.</p> + +<p>"They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent +of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she +said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were +festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant and +convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better a +happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia thought +the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges to a +cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark, however, +that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook.</p> + +<p>"Then let us call her a 'girl,'" said Letitia.</p> + +<p>"Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly. +"If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness +knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!"</p> + +<p>This time Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More +arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily +attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which, +in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were +Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra—as we soon learned. It was +wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at +home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and +humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia +stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. +Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our +house.</p> + +<p>"Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say +to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent—most uncalled for."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But +please don't think <i>I</i> shall, for I assure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> you that I shan't. I suppose +that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want +to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks by +doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were +possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to +labor."</p> + +<p>I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite +unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again she took up the cook-book. The +sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we +could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of +her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My +nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that +there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings I should have +slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to +comfort me.</p> + +<p>Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs <i>à la reine</i> seemed as +difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential +calculus—and much more expensive. Certainly the eight giggling cooks in +the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried +themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play +pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and +wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was +close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought +it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock +struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the +door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and +a mountain of cake—that in my famished condition made my mouth +water—and announced in a severe, yet subdued tone, that the revel must +cease.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house."</p> + +<p>Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of +tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard +noisily leaving the house. Two minutes later, there was a knock at our +door and Miss Lyberg appeared, her eyes blazing, her face flushed and +the expression of the hunted antelope defiantly asserting that it would +never be brought to bay, on her perspiring features.</p> + +<p>"You've insulted my guests!" she cried, in English as good as my own. +"I've had to turn them out of the house, and I've had about enough of +this place."</p> + +<p>Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation, +humiliation—all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse +Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the +language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! The +dense, dumb Scandinavian—the lady of the "me no understand" +rejoinder—apparently had the "gift of tongues." Letitia trembled. +Rarely have I seen her so thoroughly perturbed. Yet seemingly she was +unwilling to credit the testimony of her own ears, for with sudden +energy, she confronted Miss Lyberg, and exclaimed imperiously, in +Swedish that was either pure or impure: "<i>Tig. Ga din väg!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Ah, come off!" cried the handmaiden insolently. "I understand English. +I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. It's just on +account of folks like you that poor hard-working girls, who ain't +allowed to take no baths or entertain no lady friends, have to protect +themselves. Pretend not to understand them, says I. I've found it worked +before this. If they think you don't understand 'em, they'll let you +alone and stop worriting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> It's like your impidence to turn my +lady-friends out of this flat. It's like your impidence. I'll—"</p> + +<p>Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely +upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another +minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled +there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be.</p> + +<p>"You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a +smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I +haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks +after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just +you push me out."</p> + +<p>She edged up to me defiantly. My blood boiled. I would have mortgaged +the prospects of my <i>Lives of Great Men</i> (not that they were worth +mortgaging) for the exquisite satisfaction of confounding this +abominable woman. Then I saw the peril of the situation. I thought of +horrid headliners in the papers: "Author charged with abusing servant +girl," or, "Arrest of Archibald Fairfax on serious charge," and my mood +changed.</p> + +<p>"I understood you all the time," continued Miss Lyberg insultingly. "I +listened to you. I knew what you thought of me. Now I'm telling you what +I think of you. The idea of turning out my lady-friends, on a Thursday +night, too! And me a-slaving for them, and a-bathing for them, and +a-treating them to ice cream and cake, and in me own kitchen. You ain't +no lady. As for you"—I seemed to be her particular pet—"when I sees a +man around the house all the time, a-molly-coddling and a-fussing, I +says to myself, he ain't much good if he can't trust the women folk +alone."</p> + +<p>We stood there like dummies, listening to the tirade.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> What could we do? +To be sure, there were two of us, and we were in our own house. The +antagonist, however, was a servant, not in her own house. The situation, +for reasons that it is impossible to define, was hers. She knew it, too. +We allowed her full sway, because we couldn't help it. The sympathy of +the public, in case of violent measures, would not have been on our +side. The poor domestic, oppressed and enslaved, would have appealed to +any jury of married men, living luxuriously in cheap boarding-houses!</p> + +<p>When she left us, as she did when she was completely ready to do so, +Letitia began to cry. The sight of her tears unnerved me, and I checked +a most unfeeling remark that I intended to make to the effect that, "if +the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours."</p> + +<p>"It's not that I mind her insolence," she sobbed, "we were going to send +her off anyway, weren't we? But it's so humiliating to be 'done.' We've +been 'done.' Here have I been working hard at Swedish—writing +exercises, learning verbs, studying proverbs—just to talk to a woman +who speaks English as well as I do. +It's—it's—so—so—mor—mortifying."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, dear," I said, drying her eyes for her; "the Swedish will +come in handy some day."</p> + +<p>"No," she declared vehemently, "don't say that you'll take me to Sweden. +I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway, +isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say +<i>Tig</i> to her just now. <i>Tig</i> means 'be silent.' Could anything sound +more repulsive? <i>Tig! Tig! Ugh!</i>"</p> + +<p>Letitia stamped her foot. She was exceeding wroth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>SIMILAR CASES</h2> + +<h3>BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was once a little animal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No bigger than a fox,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on five toes he scampered<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Over Tertiary rocks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They called him Eohippus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And they called him very small,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they thought him of no value—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When they thought of him at all;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the lumpish old Dinoceras<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And Coryphodon so slow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were the heavy aristocracy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In days of long ago.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Said the little Eohippus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"I am going to be a horse!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on my middle finger-nails<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To run my earthly course!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm going to have a flowing tail!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm going to have a mane!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm going to stand fourteen hands high<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On the psychozoic plain!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Coryphodon was horrified,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Dinoceras was shocked;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they chased young Eohippus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But he skipped away and mocked;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then they laughed enormous laughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And they groaned enormous groans,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they bade young Eohippus<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Go view his father's bones:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said they, "You always were as small<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And mean as now we see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that's conclusive evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That you're always going to be:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With hoofs to gallop on?<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Why, you'd have to change your nature!</i>"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said the Loxolophodon:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They considered him disposed of,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And retired with gait serene;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was the way they argued<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In "the early Eocene."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was once an Anthropoidal Ape,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Far smarter than the rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And everything that they could do<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He always did the best;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So they naturally disliked him,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And they gave him shoulders cool,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when they had to mention him<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They said he was a fool.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Cried this pretentious Ape one day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"I'm going to be a Man!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stand upright, and hunt, and fight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And conquer all I can!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm going to cut down forest trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To make my houses higher!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm going to kill the Mastodon!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm going to make a fire!"</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With laughter wild and gay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They tried to catch that boastful one,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But he always got away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So they yelled at him in chorus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which he minded not a whit;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they pelted him with cocoanuts,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which didn't seem to hit;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then they gave him reasons,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which they thought of much avail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To prove how his preposterous<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Attempt was sure to fail.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Said the sages, "In the first place,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The thing can not be done!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, second, if it <i>could</i> be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It would not be any fun!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, third, and most conclusive<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And admitting no reply,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>You would have to change your nature!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2">We should like to see you try!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They chuckled then triumphantly,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These lean and hairy shapes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For these things passed as arguments<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the Anthropoidal Apes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was once a Neolithic Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An enterprising wight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who made his chopping implements<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unusually bright;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unusually clever he,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unusually brave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he drew delightful Mammoths<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On the borders of his cave.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To his Neolithic neighbors,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who were startled and surprised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said he, "My friends, in course of time,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We shall be civilized!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to live in cities!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We are going to fight in wars!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to eat three times a day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Without the natural cause!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to turn life upside down<br /></span> +<span class="i2">About a thing called gold!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to want the earth, and take<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As much as we can hold!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to wear great piles of stuff<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Outside our proper skins!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to have Diseases!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then they all rose up in fury<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Against their boastful friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For prehistoric patience<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cometh quickly to an end:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said one, "This is chimerical!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Utopian! Absurd!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said another, "What a stupid life!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Too dull, upon my word!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cried all, "Before such things can come,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You idiotic child,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>You must alter Human Nature</i>!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And they all sat back and smiled:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thought they, "An answer to that last<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It will be hard to find!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was a clinching argument<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the Neolithic Mind!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE OLD MAID'S HOUSE: IN PLAN</h2> + +<h3>BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS</h3> + + +<p>Corona had five hundred dollars and some pluck for her enterprise. She +had also at her command a trifle for furnishing. But that seemed very +small capital. Her friends at large discouraged her generously. Even Tom +said he didn't know about that, and offered her three hundred more.</p> + +<p>This manly offer she declined in a womanly manner.</p> + +<p>"It is to be <i>my</i> house, thank you, Tom, dear. I can live in yours at +home." ...</p> + +<p>Corona's architectural library was small. She found on the top shelf one +book on the construction of chicken-roosts, a pamphlet in explanation of +the kindergarten system, a cook-book that had belonged to her +grandmother, and a treatise on crochet. There her domestic literature +came to an end. She accordingly bought a book entitled "North American +Homes"; then, having, in addition, begged or borrowed everything within +two covers relating to architecture that was to be found in her +immediate circle of acquaintance, she plunged into that unfamiliar +science with hopeful zeal.</p> + +<p>The result of her studies was a mixed one. It was necessary, it seemed, +to construct the North American home in so many contradictory methods, +or else fail forever of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, +that Corona felt herself to be laboring under a chronic aberra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>tion of +mind.... Then the plans. Well, the plans, it must be confessed, Corona +<i>did</i> find it difficult to understand. She always had found it difficult +to understand such things; but then she had hoped several weeks of close +architectural study would shed light upon the density of the subject. +She grew quite morbid about it. She counted the steps when she went +up-stairs to bed at night. She estimated the bedroom post when she +walked in the cold, gray dawn....</p> + +<p>But the most perplexing thing about the plans was how one story ever got +upon another. Corona's imagination never fully grappled with this fact, +although her intellect accepted it. She took her books down-stairs one +night, and Susy came and looked them over.</p> + +<p>"Why, these houses are all one-story," said Susy. "Besides, they're +nothing but lines, anyway. I shouldn't draw a house so."</p> + +<p>Corona laughed with some embarrassment and no effort at enlightenment. +She was not used to finding herself and Susy so nearly on the same +intellectual level as in this instance. She merely asked: "How should +you draw it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, so," said Susy, after some severe thought. So she took her little +blunt lead pencil, that the baby had chewed, and drew her plan as +follows:</p> + +<p class="figcenter caption">SUSY'S PLAN</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus01.png" +alt="SUSY'S PLAN" +title="SUSY'S PLAN" /></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>Corona made no comment upon this plan, except to ask Susy if that were +the way to spell L; and then to look in the dictionary, and find that it +was not spelled at all. Tom came in, and asked to see what they were +doing.</p> + +<p>"I'm helping Corona," said Susy, with much complacency. "These +architects' things don't look any more like houses than they do like the +first proposition in Euclid; and the poor girl is puzzled."</p> + +<p>"<i>I'll</i> help you to-morrow, Co," said Tom, who was in too much of a +hurry to glance at his wife's plan. But to-morrow Tom went into town by +the early train, and when Corona emerged from her "North American +Homes," with wild eye and knotted brow, at 5 o'clock p.m., she found +Susy crying over a telegram which ran:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Called to California immediately. Those lost cargoes A No. 1 hides +turned up. Can't get home to say good-by. Send overcoat and +flannels by Simpson on midnight express. Gone four weeks. Love to +all.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tom.</span></p></div> + +<p>This unexpected event threw Corona entirely upon her own resources; and, +after a few days more of patient research, she put on her hat, and stole +away at dusk to a builder she knew of down-town—a nice, fatherly man +who had once built a piazza for Tom and had just been elected +superintendent of the Sunday-school. These combined facts gave Corona +confidence to trust her case to his hands. She carried a neat little +plan of her own with her, the result of several days' hard labor. Susy's +plan she had taken the precaution to cut into paper dolls for the baby. +Corona found the good man at home, and in her most business-like manner +presented her points.</p> + +<p>"Got any plan in yer own head?" asked the builder, hearing her in +silence. In silence Corona laid before him the paper which had cost her +so much toil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was headed in her clear black hand:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +PLAN<br /> +FOR A SMALL BUT HAPPY<br /> +HOME<br /> +</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">This was</p> + +<p class="figcenter caption">CORONA'S PLAN</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus02.png" +alt="CORONA'S PLAN" +title="CORONA'S PLAN" /></p> + +<p>"Well," said the builder, after a silence,—"well, I've seen worse."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Corona, faintly.</p> + +<p>"How does she set?" asked the builder.</p> + +<p>"Who set?" said Corona, a little wildly. She could think of nothing that +set but hens.</p> + +<p>"Why, the house. Where's the points o' compass?"</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought of those," said Corona.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And the chimney," suggested the builder. "Where's your chimneys?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't put in any chimneys," said Corona.</p> + +<p>"Where did you count on your stairs?" pursued the builder.</p> + +<p>"Stairs? I—forgot the stairs."</p> + +<p>"That's natural," said Mr. Timbers. "Had a plan brought me once without +an entry or a window to it. It wasn't a woman did it, neither. It was a +widower, in the noospaper line. What's your scale?"</p> + +<p>"Scale?" asked Corona, without animation.</p> + +<p>"Scale of feet. Proportions."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I didn't have any scales, but I thought about forty feet front +would do. I have but five hundred dollars. A small house must answer."</p> + +<p>The builder smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book +from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, +not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger +house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what +is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn +with the beauty of science.</p> + +<p>"There," said Mr. Timbers, "I know a lady built one of those upon her +brother-in-law's land. He give her the land, and she just put up the +cottage, and they was all as pleasant as pease about it. That's about +what I'd recommend to you, if you don't object to the name of it."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with the name?" asked Corona.</p> + +<p>"Why," said the builder, hesitating, "it is called the Old Maid's +House—in the <i>book</i>."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Timbers," said Corona, with decision, "why should we seek further +than the truth? I will have that house. Pray, draw me the plan at +once."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DISTICHS</h2> + +<h3>BY JOHN HAY</h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span><br /> +</div> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it the fouler,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span><br /> +</div> + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor's approval:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span><br /> +</div> + +<h3>XVII</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.<br /></span> +</div> + +<h3>XVIII</h3> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE QUARREL</h2> + +<h3>BY S.E. KISER</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There are quite as good fish<br /></span> +<span class="i10">In the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As any one ever has caught,"<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Said he.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"But few of the fish—<br /></span> +<span class="i10">In the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Will bite at such bait as you've got,"<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Said she.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day he is gray, and his line's put away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But he often looks back with regret;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She's still "in the sea," and how happy she'd be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If he were a fisherman yet!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS</h2> + +<h3>BY E.W. HOWE</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>—Occasionally a gem occurs to me which I am unable to favor +you with because of late we are not much together. Appreciating the keen +delight with which you have been kind enough to receive my philosophy, I +take the liberty of sending herewith a number of ideas which may please +and benefit you, and which I have divided into paragraphs with headings.</p> + + +<h3>HAPPINESS</h3> + +<p>I have observed that happiness and brains seldom go together. The +pin-headed woman who regards her thin-witted husband as the greatest man +in the world, is happy, and much good may it do her. In such cases +ignorance is a positive blessing, for good sense would cause the woman +to realize her distressed condition. A man who can think he is as "good +as anybody" is happy. The fact may be notorious that the man is not so +"good as anybody" until he is as industrious, as educated, and as +refined as anybody, but he has not brains enough to know this, and, +content with conceit, is happy. A man with a brain large enough to +understand mankind is always wretched and ashamed of himself.</p> + + +<h3>REPUTATION</h3> + +<p>Reputation is not always desirable. The only thing I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> have ever heard +said in Twin Mounds concerning Smoky Hill is that good hired girls may +be had there.</p> + + +<h3>WOMEN</h3> + +<p>1. Most women seem to love for no other reason than that it is expected +of them.</p> + +<p>2. I know too much about women to honor them more than they deserve; in +fact I know all about them. I visited a place once where doctors are +made, and saw them cut up one.</p> + +<p>3. A woman loses her power when she allows a man to find out all there +is to her; I mean by this that familiarity breeds contempt. I knew a +young man once who worked beside a woman in an office, and he never +married.</p> + +<p>4. If men would only tell what they actually know about women, instead +of what they believe or hear, they would receive more credit for +chastity than is now the case, for they deserve more.</p> + + +<h3>LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE</h3> + +<p>As a people we lack self-confidence. The country is full of men that +will readily talk you to death privately, who would run away in alarm if +asked to preside at a public meeting. In my Alliance movement I often +have trouble in getting out a crowd, every farmer in the neighborhood +feeling of so much importance as to fear that if he attends he will be +called upon to say something.</p> + + +<h3>IN DISPUTE</h3> + +<p>In some communities where I have lived the women were mean to their +husbands; in others, the husbands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> were mean to their wives. It is +usually the case that the friends of a wife believe her husband to be a +brute, and the friends of the husband believe the wife to possess no +other talent than to make him miserable. You can't tell how it is; the +evidence is divided.</p> + + +<h3>MAN</h3> + +<p>There is only one grade of men; they are all contemptible. The judge may +seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I +have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and +grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about +him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity, +induced by the servility of those who expect favors.</p> + + +<h3>OPPORTUNITY</h3> + +<p>You hear a great many persons regretting lack of opportunity. If every +man had opportunity for his desires, this would be a nation of murderers +and disgraced women.</p> + + +<h3>EXPECTATION</h3> + +<p>Always be ready for that which you do not expect. Nothing that you +expect ever happens. You have perhaps observed that when you are waiting +for a visitor at the front door, he comes in at the back, and surprises +you.</p> + + +<h3>WOMAN'S WORK</h3> + +<p>A woman's work is never done, as the almanacs state, for the reason that +she does not go about it in time to finish it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY</h3> + +<p>If you can not resist the low impulse to talk about people, say only +what you actually know, instead of what you have heard. And, while you +are about it, stop and consider whether you are not in need of charity +yourself.</p> + + +<h3>NEIGHBORS</h3> + +<p>Every man overestimates his neighbors, because he does not know them so +well as he knows himself. A sensible man despises himself because he +knows what a contemptible creature he is. I despise Lytle Biggs, but I +happen to know that his neighbors are just as bad.</p> + + +<h3>VIRTUE</h3> + +<p>Men are virtuous because the women are; women are virtuous from +necessity.</p> + + +<h3>ASHAMED OF THE TRUTH</h3> + +<p>I believe I never knew any one who was not ashamed of the truth. Did you +ever notice that a railroad company numbers its cars from 1,000, instead +of from 1?</p> + + +<h3>KNOWING ONLY ONE OF THEM</h3> + +<p>We are sometimes unable to understand why a pretty little woman marries +a fellow we know to be worthless; but the fellow, who knows the woman +better than we do, considers that he has thrown himself away. We know +the fellow, but we do not know the woman.</p> + + +<h3>AN APOLOGY</h3> + +<p>I detest an apology. The world is full of people who are always making +trouble and apologizing for it. If a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> man respects me, he will not give +himself occasion for apology. An offense can not be wiped out in that +way. If it could, we would substitute apologies for hangings. I hope you +will never apologize to me; I should regard it as evidence that you had +wronged me.</p> + + +<h3>OLDEST INHABITANTS</h3> + +<p>The people of Smoky Hill are only fit for oldest inhabitants. In thirty +or forty years from now there will be a great demand for reminiscences +of the pioneer days. I recommend that they preserve extensive data for +the only period in their lives when they can hope to attract attention.</p> + +<p>Be good enough, sir, to regard me, as of old, your friend.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"> +<span class="smcap">L. Biggs.</span></p> +<p><i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Ned Westlock</span>, <i>Twin Mounds</i>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MRS. JOHNSON</h2> + +<h3>BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS</h3> + + +<p>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 side-walks +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 hoop-skirts 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....</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> shot forth the buds and blossoms upon the +pear-trees, called out the sour Puritan courage of the currant-bushes, +taught a reckless native grape-vine 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>main. 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 lots, and, +like engine-drivers of the iron age, to distinguish the different +whistles of the locomotives passing on the neighboring railroad....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> 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 any one 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 evening 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> 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." ...</p> + +<p>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? Any one 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....</p> + +<p>I say, our last Irish girl went with the last snow, and on one of those +midsummer-like 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> 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 Charlesbridge 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 +gayly are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and +down the side-walks, and in and out through the pendent 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 +ungenteelly 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 from 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +wickedness of a low American street. A gayety not born of the things +that bring its serious joy to the true New England heart—a ragged +gayety, 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 child-like 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 side-walks came from fruit grown in the soft +atmosphere of those back courts.</p> + +<p>It was in this quarter, then, that we heard of Mrs. Johnson; and it was +from a colored boarding-house there that she came out 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> 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 wildness +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.</p> + +<p>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 child-like simplicity of taste, and the +inherited appetites of her savage forefathers, a dominant passion for +sweets. So far as we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 life-time of Mr. Johnson, that, if ever +she wore glasses, they should be gold-bowed; and I hope the manes of the +dead were half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> as happy in these votive spectacles as the simple soul +that offered them.</p> + +<p>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 life-time 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.</p> + +<p>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 rea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>sons 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 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 +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."</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 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 shame 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 her 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 +blonde 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> 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 instruction 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.</p> + +<p>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 modified even this +form of service, and spent her time in the fields, appearing at the +house only when nature importunately craved molasses....</p> + +<p>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 supple 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +or the Grand Custom in each grotesque development. We were conscious of +something warmer in this old soul than in ourselves, and something +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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> envied; and she +might have been a saint far more easily than far more civilized people.</p> + +<p>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 +afterwards 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 part.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> 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 comparison with the blonde and straight-haired +members of Mrs. Johnson's family.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 hangdog 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> 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 there was no one so agreeable in +society, or so quick-witted in affairs, as Hippolyto, when he chose....</p> + +<p>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 masterstroke 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But she did not appear till midnight, and then responded with but a sad +"Well, sah!" to the cheerful "Well, Mrs. Johnson!" that greeted her.</p> + +<p>"All right, Mrs. Johnson?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Then you can't go with us in the morning?"</p> + +<p>"How <i>can</i> I, sah?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson went sadly out of the room. Then she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> 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 <i>wanted</i> to +go with you, but I ought to <i>knowed</i> I couldn't. All is, I loved you too +much."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PASS</h2> + +<h3>BY IRONQUILL</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A father said unto his hopeful son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Who was Leonidas, my cherished one?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The boy replied, with words of ardent nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"He was a member of the legislature."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"How?" asked the parent; then the youngster saith:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"He got a pass, and held her like grim death."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Whose pass? what pass?" the anxious father cried;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"'Twas the'r monopoly," the boy replied.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In deference to the public, we must state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That boy has been an orphan since that date.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>TEACHING BY EXAMPLE</h2> + +<h3>BY JOHN G. SAXE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What is the 'Poet's License,' say?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Asked rose-lipped Anna of a poet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Now give me an example, pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That when I see one I may know it."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quick as a flash he plants a kiss<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where perfect kisses always fall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Nay, sir! what liberty is this?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"The <i>Poet's License</i>,—that is all!"<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHEN ALBANI SANG<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<h3>BY WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Was workin' away on de farm dere, wan morning not long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feexin' de fence for winter—'cos dat's w'ere we got de snow!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">W'en Jeremie Plouffe, ma neighbor, come over an' spik wit' me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Antoine, you will come on de city, for hear Ma-dam All-ba-nee?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"W'at you mean?" I was sayin' right off, me, "Some woman was mak' de speech,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or girl on de Hooraw Circus, doin' high kick an' screech?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Non—non," he is spikin'—"Excuse me, dat's be Madam All-ba-nee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was leevin' down here on de contree, two mile 'noder side Chambly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"She's jus' comin' over from Englan', on steamboat arrive Kebeck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singin' on Lunnon an' Paree, an' havin' beeg tam, I ex-pec',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But no matter de moche she enjoy it, for travel all roun' de worl',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somet'ing on de heart bring her back here, for she was de Chambly girl.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"She never do not'ing but singin' an' makin' de beeg grande tour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' travel on summer an' winter, so mus' be de firs' class for sure!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ev'ryboddy I'm t'inkin' was know her, an' I also hear 'noder t'ing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She's frien' on La Reine Victoria an' show her de way to sing!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Wall," I say, "you're sure she is Chambly, w'at you call Ma-dam All-ba-nee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't know me dat nam' on de Canton—I hope you're not fool wit' me?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An he say, "Lajeunesse, dey was call her, before she is come mariée,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But she's takin' de nam' of her husban'—I s'pose dat's de only way."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"C'est bon, mon ami," I was say me, "If I get t'roo de fence nex' day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' she don't want too moche on de monee, den mebbe I see her play."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I finish dat job on to-morrow, Jeremie he was helpin' me too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' I say, "Len' me t'ree dollar quickly for mak' de voyage wit' you."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Correc'—so we're startin' nex' morning, an' arrive Montreal all right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Buy dollar tiquette on de bureau, an' pass on de hall dat night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beeg crowd, wall! I bet you was dere too, all dress on some fancy dress,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De lady, I don't say not'ing, but man's all w'ite shirt an' no ves'.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Don't matter, w'en ban' dey be ready, de foreman strek out wit' hees steek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' fiddle an' ev'ryt'ing else too, begin for play up de musique.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's fonny t'ing too dey was playin' don't lak it mese'f at all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I rader be lissen some jeeg, me, or w'at you call "Affer de ball."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' I'm not feelin' very surprise den, w'en de crowd holler out, "Encore,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For mak' all dem feller commencin' an' try leetle piece some more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas better wan' too, I be t'inkin', but slow lak you're goin' to die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All de sam', noboddy say not'ing, dat mean dey was satisfy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Affer dat come de Grande piano, lak we got on Chambly Hotel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She's nice lookin' girl was play dat, so of course she's go off purty well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Den feller he's ronne out an' sing some, it's all about very fine moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dat shine on Canal, ev'ry night too, I'm sorry I don't know de tune.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nex' t'ing I commence get excite, me, for I don't see no great Ma-dam yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too bad I was los all dat monee, an' too late for de raffle tiquette!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">W'en jus' as I feel very sorry, for come all de way from Chambly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jeremie he was w'isper, "Tiens, tiens, prenez garde, she's comin' Ma-dam All-ba-nee!"</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ev'ryboddy seem glad w'en dey see her, come walkin' right down de platform,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' way dey mak' noise on de han' den, w'y! it's jus' lak de beeg tonder storm!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll never see not'ing lak dat, me, no matter I travel de worl',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' Ma-dam, you t'ink it was scare her? Non, she laugh lak de Chambly girl!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dere was young feller comin' behin' her, walk nice, comme un Cavalier,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' before All-ba-nee she is ready an' piano get startin' for play,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De feller commence wit' hees singin', more stronger dan all de res',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I t'ink he's got very bad manner, know not'ing at all politesse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ma-dam, I s'pose she get mad den, an' before anyboddy can spik,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She settle right down for mak' sing too, an' purty soon ketch heem up quick,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Den she's kip it on gainin' an' gainin', till de song it is tout finis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' w'en she is beatin' dat feller, Bagosh! I am proud Chambly!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'm not very sorry at all, me, w'en de feller was ronnin' away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' man he's come out wit' de piccolo, an' start heem right off for play,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For it's kin' de musique I be fancy, Jeremie he is lak it also,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' wan de bes' t'ing on dat ev'ning is man wit' de piccolo!</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Den mebbe ten minute is passin', Ma-dam she is comin' encore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dis tam all alone on de platform, dat feller don't show up no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' w'en she start off on de singin' Jeremie say, "Antoine, dat's Français,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dis give us more pleasure, I tole you, 'cos w'y? We're de pure Canayen!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dat song I will never forget me, 't was song of de leetle bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">W'en he's fly from it's nes' on de tree top, 'fore res' of de worl' get stirred,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ma-dam she was tole us about it, den start off so quiet an' low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' sing lak de bird on de morning, de poor leetle small oiseau.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I 'member wan tam I be sleepin' jus' onder some beeg pine tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An song of de robin wak' me, but robin he don't see me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dere's not'ing for scarin' dat bird dere, he's feel all alone on de worl',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wall! Ma-dam she mus' lissen lak dat too, w'en she was de Chambly girl!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Cos how could she sing dat nice chanson, de sam' as de bird I was hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till I see it de maple an' pine tree an' Richelieu ronnin' near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again I'm de leetle feller, lak young colt upon de spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dat's jus' on de way I was feel, me, w'en Ma-dam All-ba-nee is sing!</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' affer de song it is finish, an' crowd is mak' noise wit' its han',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I s'pose dey be t'inkin' I'm crazy, dat mebbe I don't onderstan',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cos I'm set on de chair very quiet, mese'f an' poor Jeremie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' I see dat hees eye it was cry too, jus' sam' way it go wit' me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dere's rosebush outside on our garden, ev'ry spring it has got new nes',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But only wan bluebird is buil' dere, I know her from all de res',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' no matter de far she be flyin' away on de winter tam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back to her own leetle rosebush she's comin' dere jus' de sam'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We're not de beeg place on our Canton, mebbe cole on de winter, too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But de heart's "Canayen" on our body an' dat's warm enough for true!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' w'en All-ba-nee was got lonesome for travel all roun' de worl'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hope she'll come home, lak de bluebird, an' again be de Chambly girl!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>COLONEL STERETT'S PANTHER HUNT</h2> + +<h3>BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS</h3> + + +<p>"Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old +Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped +of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to +skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' +about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still +ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to +be urged in favor of mountain lions that they never forces themse'fs on +no gent; they're shore considerate, that a-way, an' speshul of +themse'fs. If one's ever hurt, you can bet it won't be a accident. +However, it ain't for me to go 'round impugnin' the motives of no +mountain lion; partic'lar when the entire tribe is strangers to me +complete. But still a love of trooth compels me to concede that if +mountain lions ain't cowardly, they're shore cautious a lot. Cattle an' +calves they passes up as too bellicose, an' none of 'em ever faces any +anamile more warlike than a baby colt or mebby a half-grown deer. I'm +ridin' along the Caliente once when I hears a crashin' in the bushes on +the bluff above—two hundred foot high, she is, an' as sheer as the +walls of this yere tavern. As I lifts my eyes, a fear-frenzied mare an' +colt comes chargin' up an' projects themse'fs over the precipice an' +lands in the valley below. They're dead as Joolius Cæsar when I rides +onto 'em,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> while a brace of mountain lions is skirtin' up an' down the +aige of the bluff they leaps from, mewin' an' lashin' their long tails +in hot enthoosiasm. Shore, the cats has been chasin' the mare an' foal, +an' they locoes 'em to that extent they don't know where they're headin' +an' makes the death jump I relates. I bangs away with my six-shooter, +but beyond givin' the mountain lions a convulsive start I can't say I +does any execootion. They turns an' goes streakin' it through the pine +woods like a drunkard to a barn raisin'.</p> + +<p>"Timid? Shore! They're that timid, seminary girls compared to 'em is as +sternly courageous as a passel of buccaneers. Out in Mitchell's canyon a +couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her +two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely +deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers +takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains. +That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she +ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a +anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't +possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions.</p> + +<p>"It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got +through his day's toil on that <i>Coyote</i> paper he's editor of, onfolds +concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth.</p> + +<p>"'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third +tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm +a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is. +An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the +dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a +child, an' I recalls how my aptitoode for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> learnin' promotes me to be +regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors to the +school, or if the selectman invades that academy to sort o' size us up, +the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit. +Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode—the +teacher's done wrote it himse'f—an' which is entitled <i>Napoleon's Mad +Career</i>. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' +selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with +the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said +recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty +clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'd drink an' sw'ar an' r'ar an' t'ar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' fall down in the mud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the y'earth for forty miles about<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is kivered with my blood.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"'You-all can see from that speciment that our school-master ain't +simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no, sir, he +means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it +jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I +finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the +brim!</p> + +<p>"'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he +uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, +on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into +talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains +yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a +shore-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fashion I assoomes at a +tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes +throughout the entire summer in that neighborhood; an' many a time an' +oft does my yoothful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the +insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes in +the Bloo Grass is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit.</p> + +<p>"'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky +<i>ton</i> comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to +school one dewy mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a +onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the +misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no +means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me +thoroughly convinced.</p> + +<p>"'Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep +goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast +myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school +I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the +heroism of the Spartan boy who stands to be eat by a fox, an' keeps 'em +to myself. But the views of my late enemy is not to be smothered; they +appeals to my young companions; who tharupon puts up a most onneedful +riot of coughin's an' sneezin's. But nobody knows me as the party who's +so pungent.</p> + +<p>"'It's a tryin' moment. I can see that, once I'm located, I'm goin' to +be as onpop'lar as a b'ar in a hawg pen; I'll come tumblin' from my +pinnacle in that proud commoonity as the glass of fashion an' the mold +of form. You can go your bottom <i>peso</i>, the thought causes me to feel +plenty perturbed.</p> + +<p>"'At this peril I has a inspiration; as good, too, as I ever entertains +without the aid of rum. I determines to cast the opprobrium on some +other boy an' send the hunt of gen'ral indignation sweepin' along his +trail.</p> + +<p>"'Thar's a innocent infant who's a stoodent at this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> temple of childish +learnin' an' his name is Riley Bark. This Riley is one of them giant +children who's only twelve an' weighs three hundred pounds. An' in +proportions as Riley is a son of Anak, physical, he's dwarfed mental; he +ain't half as well upholstered with brains as a shepherd dog. That's +right; Riley's intellects, is like a fly in a saucer of syrup, they +struggles 'round plumb slow. I decides to uplift Riley to the public eye +as the felon who's disturbin' that seminary's sereenity. Comin' to this +decision, I p'ints at him where he's planted four seats ahead, all +tangled up in a spellin' book, an' says in a loud whisper to a child +who's sittin' next:</p> + +<p>"'"Throw him out!"</p> + +<p>"'That's enough. No gent will ever realize how easy it is to direct a +people's sentiment ontil he take a whirl at the game. In two minutes by +the teacher's bull's-eye copper watch, every soul knows it's pore Riley; +an' in three, the teacher's done drug Riley out doors by the ha'r of his +head an' chased him home. Gents, I look back on that yoothful feat as a +triumph of diplomacy; it shore saved my standin' as the Beau Brummel of +the Bloo Grass.</p> + +<p>"'Good old days, them!' observes the Colonel mournfully, 'an' ones never +to come ag'in! My sternest studies is romances, an' the peroosals of old +tales as I tells you-all prior fills me full of moss an' mockin' birds +in equal parts. I reads deep of <i>Walter Scott</i> an' waxes to be a sharp +on Moslems speshul. I dreams of the Siege of Acre, an' Richard the Lion +Heart; an' I simply can't sleep nights for honin' to hold a tournament +an' joust a whole lot for some fair lady's love.</p> + +<p>"'Once I commits the error of my career by joustin' with my brother +Jeff. This yere Jeff is settin' on the bank of the Branch fishin' for +bullpouts at the time, an' Jeff don't know I'm hoverin' near at all. +Jeff's reedic'lous fond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> of fishin'; which he'd sooner fish than read +<i>Paradise Lost</i>. I'm romancin' along, sim'larly bent, when I notes Jeff +perched on the bank. To my boyish imagination Jeff at once turns to be a +Paynim. I drops my bait box, couches my fishpole, an' emittin' a +impromptoo warcry, charges him. It's the work of a moment; Jeff's +onhossed an' falls into the Branch.</p> + +<p>"'But thar's bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana from +the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin' a +crimp in folks! Gents, when Jeff's wrath is assuaged I'm all on one side +like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my +spinal column.</p> + +<p>"'A week later my folks takes me to a doctor. That practitioner puts on +his specs an' looks me over with jealous care.</p> + +<p>"'"Whatever's wrong with him, Doc?" says my father.</p> + +<p>"'"Nothin'," says the physician, "only your son Willyum's five inches +out o' plumb."</p> + +<p>"'Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an' stay-laths, an' I +has to wear it; an' mebby in three or four weeks or so he's got me +warped back into the perpendic'lar.'</p> + +<p>"'But how about this cat hunt?' asks Dan Boggs. 'Which I don't aim to be +introosive none, but I'm camped yere through the second drink waitin' +for it, an' these procrastinations is makn' me kind o' batty.'</p> + +<p>"'That panther hunt is like this,' says the Colonel, turnin' to Dan. 'At +the age of seventeen, me an' eight or nine of my intimate brave comrades +founds what we-all denom'nates as the "Chevy Chase Huntin' Club." Each +of us maintains a passel of odds an' ends of dogs, an' at stated +intervals we convenes on hosses, an' with these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> fourscore curs at our +tails goes yellin' an' skally-hootin' up an' down the countryside +allowin' we're shore a band of Nimrods.</p> + +<p>"'The Chevy Chasers ain't been in bein' as a institootion over long when +chance opens a gate to ser'ous work. The deep snows in the Eastern +mountains it looks like has done drove a panther into our neighborhood. +You could hear of him on all sides. Folks glimpses him now an' then. +They allows he's about the size of a yearlin' calf; an' the way he pulls +down sech feeble people as sheep or lays desolate some he'pless henroost +don't bother him a bit. This panther spreads a horror over the county. +Dances, pra'er meetin's, an' even poker parties is broken up, an' the +social life of that region begins to bog down. Even a weddin' suffers; +the bridesmaids stayin' away lest this ferocious monster should show up +in the road an' chaw one of 'em while she's <i>en route</i> for the scene of +trouble. That's gospel trooth! the pore deserted bride has to heel an' +handle herse'f an' never a friend to yoonite her sobs with hers doorin' +that weddin' ordeal. The old ladies present shakes their heads a heap +solemn.</p> + +<p>"'"It's a worse augoory," says one, "than the hoots of a score of +squinch owls."</p> + +<p>"'When this reign of terror is at its height, the local eye is rolled +appealin'ly towards us Chevy Chasers. We rises to the opportoonity. Day +after day we're ridin' the hills an' vales, readin' the milk white snow +for tracks. An' we has success. One mornin' I comes up on two of the +Brackenridge boys an' five more of the Chevy Chasers settin' on their +hosses at the Skinner cross roads. Bob Crittenden's gone to turn me out, +they says. Then they p'ints down to a handful of close-wove bresh an' +stunted timber an' allows that this maraudin' cat-o-mount is hidin' +thar; they sees him go skulkin' in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Gents, I ain't above admittin' that the news puts my heart to a +canter. I'm brave; but conflicts with wild an' savage beasts is to me a +novelty an' while I faces my fate without a flutter, I'm yere to say I'd +sooner been in pursoot of minks or raccoons or some varmint whose +grievous cap'bilities I can more ackerately stack up an' in whose merry +ways I'm better versed. However, the dauntless blood of my grandsire +mounts in my cheek; an' as if the shade of that old Trojan is thar +personal to su'gest it, I searches forth a flask an' renoos my sperit; +thus qualified for perils, come in what form they may, I resolootely +stands my hand.</p> + +<p>"'Thar's forty dogs if thar's one in our company as we pauses at the +Skinner cross-roads. An' when the Crittenden yooth returns, he brings +with him the Rickett boys an' forty added dogs. Which it's worth a +ten-mile ride to get a glimpse of that outfit of canines! Thar's every +sort onder the canopy: thar's the stolid hound, the alert fice, the +sapient collie; that is thar's individyool beasts wherein the hound, or +fice, or collie seems to preedominate as a strain. The trooth is thar's +not that dog a-whinin' about our hosses' fetlocks who ain't proudly +descended from fifteen different tribes, an' they shorely makes a motley +mass meetin'. Still, they're good, zealous dogs; an' as they're going to +go for'ard an' take most of the resks of that panther, it seems +invidious to criticize 'em.</p> + +<p>"'One of the Twitty boys rides down an' puts the eighty or more dogs +into the bresh. The rest of us lays back an' strains our eyes. Thar he +is! A shout goes up as we descries the panther stealin' off by a far +corner. He's headin' along a hollow that's full of bresh an' baby timber +an' runs parallel with the pike. Big an' yaller he is; we can tell from +the slight flash we gets of him as he darts into a second clump of +bushes. With a cry—what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> young Crittenden calls a "view halloo,"—we +goes stampeedin' down the pike in pursoot.</p> + +<p>"'Our dogs is sta'nch; they shore does themse'fs proud. Singin' in +twenty keys, reachin' from growls to yelps an' from yelps to shrillest +screams, they pushes dauntlessly on the fresh trail of their terrified +quarry. Now an' then we gets a squint of the panther as he skulks from +one copse to another jest ahead. Which he's goin' like a arrow; no +mistake! As for us Chevy Chasers, we parallels the hunt, an' continyoos +poundin' the Skinner turnpike abreast of the pack, ever an' anon givin' +a encouragin' shout as we briefly sights our game.</p> + +<p>"'Gents,' says Colonel Sterett, as he ag'in refreshes hims'ef, 'it's +needless to go over that hunt in detail. We hustles the flyin' demon +full eighteen miles, our faithful dogs crowdin' close an' breathless at +his coward heels. Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it +like some saffron meteor.</p> + +<p>"'Only once does we approach within strikin' distance; that's when he +crosses at old Stafford's whisky still. As he glides into view, +Crittenden shouts:</p> + +<p>"'"Thar he goes!"</p> + +<p>"'For myse'f I'm prepared. I've got one of these misguided cap-an'-ball +six-shooters that's built doorin' the war; an' I cuts that hardware +loose! This weapon seems a born profligate of lead, for the six chambers +goes off together. Which you should have seen the Chevy Chasers dodge! +An' well they may; that broadside ain't in vain! My aim is so troo that +one of the r'armost dogs evolves a howl an' rolls over; then he sets up +gnawin' an' lickin' his off hind laig in frantic alternations. That hunt +is done for him. We leaves him doctorin' himse'f an' picks him up two +hours later on our triumphant return.</p> + +<p>"'As I states, we harries that foogitive panther for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> eighteen miles an' +in our hot ardor founders two hosses. Fatigue an' weariness begins to +overpower us; also our prey weakens along with the rest. In the half +glimpses we now an' ag'in gets of him it's plain that both pace an' +distance is tellin' fast. Still, he presses on; an' as thar's no spur +like fear, that panther holds his distance.</p> + +<p>"'But the end comes. We've done run him into a rough, wild stretch of +country where settlements is few an' cabins roode. Of a sudden, the +panther emerges onto the road an' goes rackin' along the trail. We +pushes our spent steeds to the utmost.</p> + +<p>"'Thar's a log house ahead; out in the stump-filled lot in front is a +frowsy woman an' five small children. The panther leaps the rickety +worm-fence an' heads straight as a bullet for the cl'arin! Horrors! the +sight freezes our marrows! Mad an' savage, he's doo to bite a hunk outen +that devoted household! Mutooally callin' to each other, we goads our +horses to the utmost. We gain on the panther! He may wound but he won't +have time to slay that fam'ly.</p> + +<p>"'Gents, it's a soopreme moment! The panther makes for the female +squatter an' her litter, we pantin' an' pressin' clost behind. The +panther is among 'em; the woman an' the children seems transfixed by the +awful spectacle an' stands rooted with open eyes an' mouths. Our +emotions shore beggars deescriptions.</p> + +<p>"'Now ensooes a scene to smite the hardiest of us with dismay. No sooner +does the panther find himse'f in the midst of that he'pless bevy of +little ones, than he stops, turns round abrupt, an' sets down on his +tail; an' then upliftin' his muzzle he busts into shrieks an' yells an' +howls an' cries, a complete case of dog hysterics! That's what he is, a +great yeller dog; his reason is now a wrack because we harasses him the +eighteen miles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Thar's a ugly outcast of a squatter, mattock in hand, comes tumblin' +down the hillside from some'ers out back of the shanty where he's been +grubbin':</p> + +<p>"'"What be you-all eediots chasin' my dog for?" demands this onkempt +party. Then he menaces us with the implement.</p> + +<p>"'We makes no retort but stands passive. The great orange brute whose +nerves has been torn to rags creeps to the squatter an' with mournful +howls explains what we've made him suffer.</p> + +<p>"'No, thar's nothin' further to do an' less to be said. That cavalcade, +erstwhile so gala an' buoyant, drags itself wearily homeward, the +exhausted dogs in the r'ar walkin' stiff an' sore like their laigs is +wood. For more'n a mile the complainin' howls of the hysterical yeller +dog is wafted to our years. Then they ceases; an' we figgers his +sympathizin' master has done took him into the shanty an' shet the door.</p> + +<p>"'No one comments on this adventure, not a word is heard. Each is silent +ontil we mounts the Big Murray hill. As we collects ourse'fs on this +eminence one of the Brackenridge boys holds up his hand for a halt. +"Gents," he says, as—hosses, hunters an' dogs—we-all gathers 'round, +"gents, I moves you the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club yereby stands adjourned +<i>sine die</i>." Thar's a moment's pause, an' then as by one impulse every +gent, hoss an' dog, says "Ay!" It's yoonanimous, an' from that hour till +now the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club ain't been nothin' save tradition. But +that panther shore disappears; it's the end of his vandalage; an' ag'in +does quadrilles, pra'rs, an poker resoom their wonted sway. That's the +end; an' now, gents, if Black Jack will caper to his dooties we'll +uplift our drooped energies with the usual forty drops.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WOUTER VAN TWILLER</h2> + +<h3>BY WASHINGTON IRVING</h3> + + +<p>It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was +appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under the +commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords States +General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India +Company.</p> + +<p>This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month +of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo seems to +dance up the transparent firmament,—when the robin, the thrush, and a +thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to resound with amorous +ditties, and the luxurious little bob-lincoln revels among the +clover-blossoms of the meadows,—all which happy coincidence persuaded +the old dames of New Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of +foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous +administration.</p> + +<p>The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long +line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives +and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had +comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they +were never either heard or talked of—which, next to being universally +applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and +rulers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in +the world; one, by talking faster than they think, and the other, by +holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a +smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, +many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be +considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual +remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to +Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, +like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then it +was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his +gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the +whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered +in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was +observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would +deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the +joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his +pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, +"Well, I see nothing in all that to laugh about."</p> + +<p>With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. +His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his +ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not +room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain +it is, that if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary +mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, +mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound +silence, and at length observe, that "he had his doubts about the +matter"; which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not +easily imposed upon. What is more, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> gained him a lasting name; for to +this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of Twiller; which +is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain +English, <i>Doubter</i>.</p> + +<p>The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned +as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch +statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five +feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. +His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that +Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to +construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined +the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just +between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious +at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a +man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. +His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to +sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer +barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented +a vast expanse, unfurrowed by those lines and angles which disfigure the +human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes +twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a +hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll +of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and +streaked with dusty red, like a spitzenberg apple.</p> + +<p>His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated +meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted +eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. +Such was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,—a true philosopher, for his +mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares +and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without +feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, +or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, +the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling +his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher +would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the +surrounding atmosphere.</p> + +<p>In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a +huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, +fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously +carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's +claws. Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with +jasmin and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland +at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In +this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he +smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye +for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a +black frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it +has even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length +and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his eyes +for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external +objects; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was +evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared +were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and +opinions.</p> + +<p>It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to col<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>lect these +biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts +respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so +questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the +search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would +have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait.</p> + +<p>I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of +Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the +first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient +and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, +that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any +offender being brought to punishment,—a most indubitable sign of a +merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of +the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van +Twiller was a lineal descendant.</p> + +<p>The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was +distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering +presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had +been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his +breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian +pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a +very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of +one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement of +accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said +Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of +few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings—or +being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the +statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>sional grunt, as he +shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth,—either as a sign +that he relished the dish, or comprehended the story,—he called unto +him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge +jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied +by his tobacco-box as a warrant.</p> + +<p>This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the +seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. The +two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of +accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled +any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian +obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having +poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of +leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an +hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his +nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has +just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his +mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous +gravity and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over +the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as +thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final opinion of +the court that the accounts were equally balanced: therefore, Wandle +should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt, +and the constable should pay the costs.</p> + +<p>This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy +throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they +had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its +happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place throughout the +whole of his administration; and the office of constable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> fell into such +decay, that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the +province for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this +transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and +righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern +magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the +renowned Wouter—being the only time he was ever known to come to a +decision in the whole course of his life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE EXPERIENCES OF THE A.C.</h2> + +<h3>BY BAYARD TAYLOR</h3> + + +<p>"Bridgeport! Change cars for the Naugatuck Railroad!" shouted the +conductor of the New York and Boston Express Train, on the evening of +May 27, 1858.... Mr. Johnson, carpet-bag in hand, jumped upon the +platform, entered the office, purchased a ticket for Waterbury, and was +soon whirling in the Naugatuck train towards his destination.</p> + +<p>On reaching Waterbury, in the soft spring twilight, Mr. Johnson walked +up and down in front of the station, curiously scanning the faces of the +assembled crowd. Presently he noticed a gentleman who was performing the +same operation upon the faces of the alighting passengers. Throwing +himself directly in the way of the latter, the two exchanged a steady +gaze.</p> + +<p>"Is your name Billings?" "Is your name Johnson?" were simultaneous +questions, followed by the simultaneous exclamations,—"Ned!" "Enos!"</p> + +<p>Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause, in +testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to +practical life, asked:</p> + +<p>"Is that all your baggage? Come, I have a buggy here: Eunice has heard +the whistle, and she'll be impatient to welcome you."</p> + +<p>The impatience of Eunice (Mrs. Billings, of course) was not of long +duration; for in five minutes thereafter she stood at the door of her +husband's chocolate-colored villa, receiving his friend....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>J. Edward Johnson was a tall, thin gentleman of forty-five.... A year +before, some letters, signed "Foster, Kirkup & Co., per Enos Billings," +had accidently revealed to him the whereabouts of the old friend of his +youth, with whom we now find him domiciled....</p> + +<p>"Enos," said he, as he stretched out his hand for the third cup of tea +(which he had taken only for the purpose of prolonging the pleasant +table-chat), "I wonder which of us is most changed."</p> + +<p>"You, of course," said Mr. Billings, "with your brown face and big +moustache. Your own brother wouldn't have known you, if he had seen you +last, as I did, with smooth cheeks and hair of unmerciful length. Why, +not even your voice is the same!"</p> + +<p>"That is easily accounted for," replied Mr. Johnson. "But in your case, +Enos, I am puzzled to find where the difference lies. Your features seem +to be but little changed, now that I can examine them at leisure; yet it +is not the same face. But really, I never looked at you for so long a +time, in those days. I beg pardon; you used to be so—so remarkably +shy."</p> + +<p>Mr. Billings blushed slightly, and seemed at a loss what to answer. His +wife, however, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming:</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was before the days of the A.C.!"</p> + +<p>He, catching the infection, laughed also; in fact, Mr. Johnson laughed, +but without knowing why.</p> + +<p>"The 'A.C.'!" said Mr. Billings. "Bless me, Eunice! how long it is since +we have talked of that summer! I had almost forgotten that there ever +was an A.C.... Well, the A.C. culminated in '45. You remember something +of the society of Norridgeport, the last winter you were there? Abel +Mallory, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Let me think a moment," said Mr. Johnson, reflec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>tively. "Really, it +seems like looking back a hundred years. Mallory,—wasn't that the +sentimental young man, with wispy hair, a tallowy skin, and big, sweaty +hands, who used to be spouting Carlyle on the 'reading evenings' at +Shelldrake's? Yes, to be sure; and there was Hollins, with his clerical +face and infidel talk,—and Pauline Ringtop, who used to say, 'The +Beautiful is the Good.' I can still hear her shrill voice singing, +'Would that <i>I</i> were beautiful, would that <i>I</i> were fair!'"</p> + +<p>There was a hearty chorus of laughter at poor Miss Ringtop's expense. It +harmed no one, however; for the tar-weed was already becoming thick over +her Californian grave.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities of +those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them then. But I +was younger, and far from being so clear-headed, and I looked upon those +evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at least, to the <i>symposia</i> of +Plato. Something in Mallory always repelled me. I detested the sight of +his thick nose, with the flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed +lips, of the bluish color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these +feelings as unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing +the admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the +subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except Graham +bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he +considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of +health,—or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left +temple should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as the last +feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the meat he had +formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory was, that through +a body so purged and purified none but true and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> natural impulses could +find access to the soul. Such, indeed, was the theory we all held....</p> + +<p>"Shelldrake was a man of more pretense than real cultivation, as I +afterwards discovered. He was in good circumstances, and always glad to +receive us at his house, as this made him virtually the chief of our +tribe, and the outlay for refreshments involved only the apples from his +own orchard, and water from his well....</p> + +<p>"Well, 'twas in the early part of '45,—I think in April,—when we were +all gathered together, discussing, as usual, the possibility of leading +a life in accordance with Nature. Abel Mallory was there, and Hollins, +and Miss Ringtop, and Faith Levis, with her knitting,—and also Eunice +Hazleton, a lady whom you have never seen, but you may take my wife as +her representative....</p> + +<p>"I wish I could recollect some of the speeches made on that occasion. +Abel had but one pimple on his temple (there was a purple spot where the +other had been), and was estimating that in two or three months more he +would be a true, unspoiled man. His complexion, nevertheless, was more +clammy and whey-like than ever.</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' said he, 'I also am an Arcadian! This false dual existence which +I have been leading will soon be merged in the unity of Nature. Our +lives must conform to her sacred law. Why can't we strip off these +hollow Shams' (he made great use of that word), 'and be our true selves, +pure, perfect, and divine?' ...</p> + +<p>"Shelldrake, however, turning to his wife, said,—</p> + +<p>"'Elviry, how many up-stairs rooms is there in that house down on the +Sound?'</p> + +<p>"'Four,—besides three small ones under the roof. Why, what made you +think of that, Jesse?' said she.</p> + +<p>"'I've got an idea, while Abel's been talking,' he answered. 'We've +taken a house for the summer, down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> the other side of Bridgeport, right +on the water, where there's good fishing and a fine view of the Sound. +Now there's room enough for all of us,—at least, all that can make it +suit to go. Abel, you and Enos, and Pauline and Eunice might fix matters +so that we could all take the place in partnership, and pass the summer +together, living a true and beautiful life in the bosom of Nature. There +we shall be perfectly free and untrammelled by the chains which still +hang around us in Norridgeport. You know how often we have wanted to be +set on some island in the Pacific Ocean, where we could build up a true +society, right from the start. Now, here's a chance to try the +experiment for a few months, anyhow.'</p> + +<p>"Eunice clapped her hands (yes, you did!) and cried out,—</p> + +<p>"'Splendid! Arcadian! I'll give up my school for the summer.' ...</p> + +<p>"Abel Mallory, of course, did not need to have the proposal repeated. He +was ready for anything which promised indolence and the indulgence of +his sentimental tastes. I will do the fellow the justice to say that he +was not a hypocrite. He firmly believed both in himself and his +ideas,—especially the former. He pushed both hands through the long +wisps of his drab-colored hair, and threw his head back until his wide +nostrils resembled a double door to his brain.</p> + +<p>"'O Nature!' he said, 'you have found your lost children! We shall obey +your neglected laws! we shall hearken to your divine whispers! we shall +bring you back from your ignominious exile, and place you on your +ancestral throne!' ...</p> + +<p>"The company was finally arranged to consist of the Shelldrakes, +Hollins, Mallory, Eunice, Miss Ringtop, and myself. We did not give much +thought, either to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> preparations in advance, or to our mode of life +when settled there. We were to live near to Nature: that was the main +thing.</p> + +<p>"'What shall we call the place?' asked Eunice.</p> + +<p>"'Arcadia!' said Abel Mallory, rolling up his large green eyes.</p> + +<p>"'Then,' said Hollins, 'let us constitute ourselves the Arcadian Club!'"</p> + +<p>—"Aha!" interrupted Mr. Johnson, "I see! The A.C.!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you see the A.C. now, but to understand it fully you should have +had a share in those Arcadian experiences.... It was a lovely afternoon +in June when we first approached Arcadia.... Perkins Brown, Shelldrake's +boy-of-all-work, awaited us at the door. He had been sent on two or +three days in advance, to take charge of the house, and seemed to have +had enough of hermit-life, for he hailed us with a wild whoop, throwing +his straw hat half-way up one of the poplars. Perkins was a boy of +fifteen, the child of poor parents, who were satisfied to get him off +their hands, regardless as to what humanitarian theories might be tested +upon him. As the Arcadian Club recognized no such thing as caste, he was +always admitted to our meetings, and understood just enough of our +conversation to excite a silly ambition in his slow mind....</p> + +<p>"Our board, that evening, was really tempting. The absence of meat was +compensated to us by the crisp and racy onions, and I craved only a +little salt, which had been interdicted, as a most pernicious substance. +I sat at one corner of the table, beside Perkins Brown, who took an +opportunity, while the others were engaged in conversation, to jog my +elbow gently. As I turned towards him, he said nothing, but dropped his +eyes significantly. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> little rascal had the lid of a blacking-box, +filled with salt, upon his knee, and was privately seasoning his onions +and radishes. I blushed at the thought of my hypocrisy, but the onions +were so much better that I couldn't help dipping into the lid with him.</p> + +<p>"'Oh,' said Eunice, 'we must send for some oil and vinegar! This lettuce +is very nice.'</p> + +<p>"'Oil and vinegar?' exclaimed Abel.</p> + +<p>"'Why, yes,' said she, innocently: 'they are both vegetable substances.'</p> + +<p>"Abel at first looked rather foolish, but quickly recovering himself, +said,—</p> + +<p>"'All vegetable substances are not proper for food: you would not taste +the poison-oak, or sit under the upas-tree of Java.'</p> + +<p>"'Well, Abel,' Eunice rejoined, 'how are we to distinguish what is best +for us? How are we to know <i>what</i> vegetables to choose, or what animal +and mineral substances to avoid?'</p> + +<p>"I will tell you,' he answered, with a lofty air. 'See here!' pointing +to his temple, where the second pimple—either from the change of air, +or because, in the excitement of the last few days, he had forgotten +it—was actually healed. 'My blood is at last pure. The struggle between +the natural and the unnatural is over, and I am beyond the depraved +influences of my former taste. My instincts are now, therefore, entirely +pure also. What is good for man to eat, that I shall have a natural +desire to eat: what is bad will be naturally repelled. How does the cow +distinguish between the wholesome and the poisonous herbs of the meadow? +And is man less than a cow, that he can not cultivate his instincts to +an equal point? Let me walk through the woods and I can tell you every +berry and root which God designed for food, though I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> know not its name, +and have never seen it before. I shall make use of my time, during our +sojourn here, to test, by my purified instinct, every substance, animal, +mineral, and vegetable, upon which the human race subsists, and to +create a catalogue of the True Food of Man!' ...</p> + +<p>"Our lazy life during the hot weather had become a little monotonous. +The Arcadian plan had worked tolerably well, on the whole, for there was +very little for any one to do,—Mrs. Shelldrake and Perkins Brown +excepted. Our conversation, however, lacked spirit and variety. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, a little tired of hearing and assenting to the +same sentiments. But, one evening, about this time, Hollins struck upon +a variation, the consequences of which he little foresaw. We had been +reading one of Bulwer's works (the weather was too hot for Psychology), +and came upon this paragraph, or something like it:</p> + +<p>"'Ah, Behind the Veil! We see the summer smile of the Earth,—enamelled +meadow and limpid stream,—but what hides she in her sunless heart? +Caverns of serpents, or grottoes of priceless gems? Youth, whose soul +sits on thy countenance, thyself wearing no mask, strive not to lift the +masks of others! Be content with what thou seest; and wait until Time +and Experience shall teach thee to find jealousy behind the sweet smile, +and hatred under the honeyed word!'</p> + +<p>"This seemed to us a dark and bitter reflection; but one or another of +us recalled some illustration of human hypocrisy, and the evidences, by +the simple fact of repetition, gradually led to a division of +opinion,—Hollins, Shelldrake, and Miss Ringtop on the dark side, and +the rest of us on the bright. The last, however, contented herself with +quoting from her favorite poet Gamaliel J. Gawthrop:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'I look beyond thy brow's concealment!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see thy spirit's dark revealment!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy inner self betrayed I see:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy coward, craven, shivering <span class="smcap">Me</span>'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"'We think we know one another,' exclaimed Hollins; 'but do we? We see +the faults of others, their weaknesses, their disagreeable qualities, +and we keep silent. How much we should gain, were candor as universal as +concealment! Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would +truly know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much +hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, +honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate +misfortune,—in short, how much brighter and happier the world would +become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at all times, his true and +entire feeling! Why, even Evil would lose half its power!'</p> + +<p>"There seemed to be so much practical wisdom in these views that we were +all dazzled and half-convinced at the start. So, when Hollins, turning +towards me, as he continued, exclaimed,—'Come, why should not this +candor be adopted in our Arcadia? Will any one—will you, Enos—commence +at once by telling me now—to my face—my principal faults?' I answered, +after a moment's reflection,—'You have a great deal of intellectual +arrogance, and you are, physically, very indolent.'</p> + +<p>"He did not flinch from the self-invited test, though he looked a little +surprised.</p> + +<p>"'Well put,' said he, 'though I do not say that you are entirely +correct. Now, what are my merits?'</p> + +<p>"'You are clear-sighted,' I answered, 'an earnest seeker after truth, +and courageous in the avowal of your thoughts.'</p> + +<p>"This restored the balance, and we soon began to con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>fess our own +private faults and weaknesses. Though the confessions did not go very +deep,—no one betraying any thing we did not all know already,—yet they +were sufficient to strengthen Hollins in his new idea, and it was +unanimously resolved that Candor should thenceforth be the main charm of +our Arcadian life....</p> + +<p>"The next day, Abel, who had resumed his researches after the True Food, +came home to supper with a healthier color than I had before seen on his +face.</p> + +<p>"'Do you know,' said he, looking shyly at Hollins, 'that I begin to +think Beer must be a natural beverage? There was an auction in the +village to-day, as I passed through, and I stopped at a cake-stand to +get a glass of water, as it was very hot. There was no water,—only +beer: so I thought I would try a glass, simply as an experiment. Really, +the flavor was very agreeable. And it occurred to me, on the way home, +that all the elements contained in beer are vegetable. Besides, +fermentation is a natural process. I think the question has never been +properly tested before.'</p> + +<p>"'But the alcohol!' exclaimed Hollins.</p> + +<p>"I could not distinguish any, either by taste or smell. I know that +chemical analysis is said to show it; but may not the alcohol be +created, somehow, during the analysis?'</p> + +<p>"'Abel,' said Hollins, in a fresh burst of candor, 'you will never be a +Reformer, until you possess some of the commonest elements of +knowledge.'</p> + +<p>"The rest of us were much diverted: it was a pleasant relief to our +monotonous amiability.</p> + +<p>"Abel, however, had a stubborn streak in his character. The next day he +sent Perkins Brown to Bridgeport for a dozen bottles of 'Beer.' Perkins, +either intentionally or by mistake, (I always suspected the former,) +brought pint-bottles of Scotch ale, which he placed in the coolest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> part +of the cellar. The evening happened to be exceedingly hot and sultry; +and, as we were all fanning ourselves and talking languidly, Abel +bethought him of his beer. In his thirst, he drank the contents of the +first bottle, almost at a single draught.</p> + +<p>"'The effect of beer,' said he, 'depends, I think, on the commixture of +the nourishing principle of the grain with the cooling properties of the +water. Perhaps, hereafter, a liquid food of the same character may be +invented, which shall save us from mastication and all the diseases of +the teeth.'</p> + +<p>"Hollins and Shelldrake, at his invitation, divided a bottle between +them, and he took a second. The potent beverage was not long in acting +on a brain so unaccustomed to its influence. He grew unusually talkative +and sentimental, in a few minutes.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, sing, somebody!' he sighed in hoarse rapture: 'the night was made +for Song.'</p> + +<p>"Miss Ringtop, nothing loath, immediately commenced, 'When stars are in +the quiet skies'; but scarcely had she finished the first verse before +Abel interrupted her.</p> + +<p>"'Candor's the order of the day, isn't it?' he asked.</p> + +<p>"'Yes!' 'Yes!' two or three answered.</p> + +<p>"'Well, then,' said he, 'candidly, Pauline, you've got the darn'dest +squeaky voice'—</p> + +<p>"Miss Ringtop gave a faint little scream of horror.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, never mind!' he continued. 'We act according to impulse, don't we? +And I've the impulse to swear; and it's right. Let Nature have her way. +Listen! Damn, damn, damn, damn! I never knew it was so easy. Why, +there's a pleasure in it! Try it, Pauline! try it on me!'</p> + +<p>"'Oh-ooh!' was all Miss Ringtop could utter.</p> + +<p>"'Abel! Abel!' exclaimed Hollins, 'the beer has got into your head.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'No, it isn't Beer,—it's Candor!' said Abel. "It's your own proposal, +Hollins. Suppose it's evil to swear: isn't it better I should express +it, and be done with it, than keep it bottled up, to ferment in my mind? +Oh, you're a precious, consistent old humbug, <i>you</i> are!'</p> + +<p>"And therewith he jumped off the stoop, and went dancing awkwardly down +toward the water, singing in a most unmelodious voice, ''Tis home +where'er the heart is.' ...</p> + +<p>"We had an unusually silent breakfast the next morning. Abel scarcely +spoke, which the others attributed to a natural feeling of shame, after +his display of the previous evening. Hollins and Shelldrake discussed +Temperance, with a special view to his edification, and Miss Ringtop +favored us with several quotations about 'the maddening bowl,'—but he +paid no attention to them....</p> + +<p>"The forenoon was overcast, with frequent showers. Each one occupied his +or her room until dinner-time, when we met again with something of the +old geniality. There was an evident effort to restore our former flow of +good feeling. Abel's experience with the beer was freely discussed. He +insisted strongly that he had not been laboring under its effects, and +proposed a mutual test. He, Shelldrake, and Hollins were to drink it in +equal measures, and compare observations as to their physical +sensations. The others agreed,—quite willingly, I thought,—but I +refused....</p> + +<p>"There was a sound of loud voices, as we approached the stoop. Hollins, +Shelldrake and his wife, and Abel Mallory were sitting together near the +door. Perkins Brown, as usual, was crouched on the lowest step, with one +leg over the other, and rubbing the top of his boot with a vigor which +betrayed to me some secret mirth. He looked up at me from under his +straw hat with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> grin of a malicious Puck, glanced toward the group, +and made a curious gesture with his thumb. There were several empty pint +bottles on the stoop.</p> + +<p>"'Now, are you sure you can bear the test?' we heard Hollins ask, as we +approached.</p> + +<p>"'Bear it? Why, to be sure!' replied Shelldrake; 'if I couldn't bear it, +or if <i>you</i> couldn't, your theory's done for. Try! I can stand it as +long as you can.'</p> + +<p>"'Well, then,' said Hollins, 'I think you are a very ordinary man. I +derive no intellectual benefit from my intercourse with you, but your +house is convenient to me. I'm under no obligations for your +hospitality, however, because my company is an advantage to you. Indeed, +if I were treated according to my deserts, you couldn't do enough for +me.'</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Shelldrake was up in arms.</p> + +<p>"'Indeed,' she exclaimed, I think you get as good as you deserve, and +more, too.'</p> + +<p>"'Elvira,' said he, with a benevolent condescension, I have no doubt you +think so, for your mind belongs to the lowest and most material sphere. +You have your place in Nature, and you fill it; but it is not for you to +judge of intelligences which move only on the upper planes.'</p> + +<p>"'Hollins,' said Shelldrake, 'Elviry's a good wife and a sensible woman, +and I won't allow you to turn up your nose at her.'</p> + +<p>"'I am not surprised,' he answered, 'that you should fail to stand the +test. I didn't expect it.'</p> + +<p>"'Let me try it on <i>you</i>!' cried Shelldrake. 'You, now, have some +intellect,—I don't deny that,—but not so much, by a long shot, as you +think you have. Besides that, you're awfully selfish in your opinions. +You won't admit that anybody can be right who differs from you. You've +sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> something +from you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call +acting according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own +laziness.'</p> + +<p>"'Gosh! that's it!' interrupted Perkins, jumping up; then, recollecting +himself, he sank down on the steps again, and shook with a suppressed +'Ho! ho! ho!'</p> + +<p>"Hollins, however, drew himself up with an exasperated air.</p> + +<p>"'Shelldrake,' said he, 'I pity you. I always knew your ignorance, but I +thought you honest in your human character. I never suspected you of +envy and malice. However, the true Reformer must expect to be +misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds. That love which I bear +to all creatures teaches me to forgive you. Without such love, all plans +of progress must fail. Is it not so, Abel?'"</p> + +<p>"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, 'Pity!' 'Forgive!' in his +most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking violently in her +chair, gave utterance to the peculiar clucking '<i>ts, ts, ts, ts</i>,' +whereby certain women express emotions too deep for words.</p> + +<p>"Abel, roused by Hollins' question, answered, with a sudden energy:</p> + +<p>"'Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me, +and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were +like mine, we might have an Arcadia: but most men have no hearts. The +world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy. +No: let us give up. We were born before our time: this age is not worthy +of us.'</p> + +<p>"Hollins stared at the speaker in utter amazement. Shelldrake gave a +long whistle, and finally gasped out:</p> + +<p>"'Well, what next?'</p> + +<p>"None of us were prepared for such a sudden and com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>plete wreck of our +Arcadian scheme. The foundations had been sapped before, it is true; but +we had not perceived it; and now, in two short days, the whole edifice +tumbled about our ears. Though it was inevitable, we felt a shock of +sorrow, and a silence fell upon us. Only that scamp of a Perkins Brown, +chuckling and rubbing his boot, really rejoiced. I could have kicked +him.</p> + +<p>"We all went to bed, feeling that the charm of our Arcadian life was +over.... In the first revulsion of feeling, I was perhaps unjust to my +associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries, which +originated in a genuine aspiration, and failed from an ignorance of the +true nature of Man, quite as much as from the egotism of the +individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society were made about the +same time by men of culture and experience, but in the A.C. we had +neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>minds, were speedily warped into errors." ...</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS</h2> + +<h3>BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Guvener B. is a sensible man;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My! ain't it terrible? Wut shall we du?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We can't never choose him, o' course,—thet's flat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Guess we shall hev to come round (don't you?)<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Fer John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But consistency still was a part of his plan,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He's ben true to <i>one</i> party,—an' thet is himself;—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">So John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He don't vally principle more'n an old cud;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?<br /></span> +<span class="i8">So John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez he shall vote for Gineral C.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We were gettin' on nicely up here to our village,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The side of our country must ollers be took,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' Presidunt Polk, you know, <i>he</i> is our country,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Puts the <i>debit</i> to him, an' to us the <i>per contry</i>;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">An' John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest <i>fee, faw, fum</i>;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' thet all this big talk of our destinies<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez it ain't no sech thing; an', of course, so must we.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Parson Wilbur sez <i>he</i> never heerd in his life<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">But John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wall, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Fer John P.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Robinson he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE DAY WE DO NOT CELEBRATE</h2> + +<h3>BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One famous day in great July<br /></span> +<span class="i0">John Adams said, long years gone by,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"This day that makes a people free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall be the people's jubilee,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With games, guns, sports, and shows displayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bells, pomp, bonfires, and parade,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Throughout this land, from shore to shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From this time forth, forevermore."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The years passed on, and by and by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men's hearts grew cold in hot July.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Mayor Hawarden Cholmondely said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Hof rockets Hi ham sore hafraid;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hand hif you send one hup hablaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hi'll send you hup for sixty days."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said the Mayor O'Shay McQuade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Thayre uz no nade fur no perade."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Mayor Hans Von Schwartzenmeyer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proclaimed, "I'll haf me no bonfier!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Said Mayor Baptiste Raphael<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"No make-a ring-a dat-a bell!"</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"By gar!" cried Mayor Jean Crapaud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Zis July games vill has to go!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Mayor Knud Christofferrssonn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said, "Djeath to hjjim who fjjres a gjjunn!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At last, cried Mayor Wun Lung Lee—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Too muchee hoop-la boberee!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so the Yankee holiday,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of proclamations passed away.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE YANKEE DUDE'LL DO</h2> + +<h3>BY S.E. KISER</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Cholly swung his golf-stick on the links,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or knocked the tennis-ball across the net,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his bangs done up in cunning little kinks—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When he wore the tallest collar he could get,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Oh, it was the fashion then<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To impale him on the pen—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To regard him as a being made of putty through and through;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But his racquet's laid away,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He is roughing it to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Algy, as some knight of old arrayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was the leading figure at the "fawncy ball,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We loathed him for the silly part he played,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He was set down as a monkey—that was all!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Oh, we looked upon him then<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As unfit to class with men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As one whose heart was putty, and whose brains were made of glue;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But he's thrown his cane away,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And he grasps a gun to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the world beholds him, knowing that the Yankee dude'll do.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Clarence cruised about upon his yacht,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or drove out with his footman through the park,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His mamma, it was generally thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ought to have him in her keeping after dark!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Oh, we ridiculed him then,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We impaled him on the pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We thought he was effeminate, we dubbed him "Sissy," too;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But he nobly marched away,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He is eating pork to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How they hurled themselves against the angry foe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the jungle and the trenches on the hill!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the word to charge was given, every dude was on the go—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He was there to die, to capture, or to kill!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Oh, he struck his level when<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Men were called upon again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To preserve the ancient glory of the old red, white, and blue!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He has thrown his spats away,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">He is wearing spurs to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the world will please take notice that the Yankee dude'll do!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER</h2> + +<h3>BY EDWARD EGGLESTON</h3> + + +<p>"I 'low," said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco into her cob pipe +after supper on that eventful Wednesday evening: "I 'low they'll app'int +the Squire to gin out the words to-night. They mos' always do, you see, +kase he's the peartest <i>ole</i> man in this deestrick; and I 'low some of +the young fellers would have to git up and dust ef they would keep up to +him. And he uses sech remarkable smart words. He speaks so polite, too. +But laws! don't I remember when he was poarer nor Job's turkey? Twenty +year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggin's, that air Squire Hawkins +was a poar Yankee school-master, that said 'pail' instid of bucket, and +that called a cow a 'caow,' and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard +what we meant by <i>'low</i> and by <i>right smart</i>. But he's larnt our ways +now, an' he's jest as civilized as the rest of us. You would-n know he'd +ever been a Yankee. He didn't stay poar long. Not he. He jest married a +right rich girl! He! he!" And the old woman grinned at Ralph, and then +at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until Ralph shuddered. Nothing was so +frightful to him as to be fawned on by this grinning ogre, whose few +lonesome, blackish teeth seemed ready to devour him. "He didn't stay +poar, you bet a hoss!" and with this the coal was deposited on the pipe, +and the lips began to crack like parchment as each puff of smoke +escaped. "He married rich, you see," and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> here another significant look +at the young master, and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed +away reflectively. "His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through +the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity' on it a second +time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married, and never +could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law +allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, besides, +book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never +knowed but one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and she +was so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a +apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the +tablecloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos' clean too. +Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But I was goin' fer to say +that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny Gray he got a heap o' money, +or, what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's +better'n book-larnin', says I. Ef a gal had gone clean through all +eddication, and got to the rule of three itself, that would-n buy a +feather-bed. Squire Hawkins jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and +traded even, an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd no +complaints."</p> + +<p>And here she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into +the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing, +all-imploring, and all-confiding look on the young master.</p> + +<p>"I say, ole woman," broke in old Jack, "I say, wot is all this 'ere +spoutin' about the Square fer?" and old Jack, having bit off an ounce of +"pigtail," returned the plug to his pocket.</p> + +<p>As for Ralph, he fell into a sort of terror. He had a guilty feeling +that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him beyond +recall to Mirandy. He did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> not see visions of breach-of-promise suits. +But he trembled at the thought of an avenging big brother.</p> + +<p>"Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the +dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and +latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front +of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an +eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed, +they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a +lumber room, and so, except a parlor which Mirandy had made an effort to +furnish a little (in hope of the blissful time when somebody should "set +up" with her of evenings), the new building was almost unoccupied, and +the family went in and out through the back door, which, indeed, was the +front door also, for, according to a curious custom, the "front" of the +house was placed toward the south, though the "big road" (Hoosier for +<i>highway</i>) ran along the northwest side, or, rather, past the northwest +corner of it.</p> + +<p>When the old woman had spoken thus to Hannah and had latched the door, +she muttered, "That gal don't never show no gratitude fer favors;" to +which Bud rejoined that he didn't think she had no great sight to be +pertickler thankful fer. To which Mrs. Means made no reply, thinking it +best, perhaps, not to wake up her dutiful son on so interesting a theme +as her treatment of Hannah. Ralph felt glad that he was this evening to +go to another boarding place. He should not hear the rest of the +controversy.</p> + +<p>Ralph walked to the school-house with Bill. They were friends again. For +when Hank Banta's ducking and his dogged obstinacy in sitting in his wet +clothes had brought on a serious fever, Ralph had called together the +big boys, and had said: "We must take care of one another, boys.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Who +will volunteer to take turns sitting up with Henry?" He put his own name +down, and all the rest followed.</p> + +<p>"William Means and myself will sit up to-night," said Ralph. And poor +Bill had been from that moment the teacher's friend. He was chosen to be +Ralph's companion. He was Puppy Means no longer! Hank could not be +conquered by kindness, and the teacher was made to feel the bitterness +of his resentment long after. But Bill Means was for the time entirely +placated, and he and Ralph went to spelling-school together.</p> + +<p>Every family furnished a candle. There were yellow dips and white dips, +burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing, and talking, and +giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a +full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole +County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this +legend: "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole +County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society +who love dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were +those who loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the battle +from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping to +freshen the laurels they had won in their school days.</p> + +<p>"I 'low," said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal school trustee, "I +'low our friend the Square is jest the man to boss this 'ere consarn +to-night. Ef nobody objects, I'll app'int him. Come, Square, don't be +bashful. Walk up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the man said to +his donkey."</p> + +<p>There was a general giggle at this, and many of the young swains took +occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly for the purpose +of making them see the joke, but really for the pure pleasure of +nudging. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably because he wears +so many disguises that they could not select a costume for him.</p> + +<p>The Squire came to the front. Ralph made an inventory of the +agglomeration which bore the name of Squire Hawkins, as follows:</p> + +<p>1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state occasions, +when its owner was called to figure in his public capacity. Either the +Squire had grown too large or the coat too small.</p> + +<p>2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnormal and unexpected +apparition conceivable in Flat Creek district, where the preachers wore +no coats in the summer, and where a black glove was never seen except on +the hands of the Squire.</p> + +<p>3. A wig of that dirty, waxen color so common to wigs. This one showed a +continual inclination to slip off the owner's smooth, bald pate, and the +Squire had frequently to adjust it. As his hair had been red, the wig +did not accord with his face, and the hair ungrayed was doubly +discordant with a countenance shriveled by age.</p> + +<p>4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge of the jaw and chin. +These were dyed a frightful dead-black, such a color as belonged to no +natural hair or beard that ever existed. At the roots there was a +quarter of an inch of white, giving the whiskers the appearance of +having been stuck on.</p> + +<p>5. A pair of spectacles "with tortoise-shell rim." Wont to slip off.</p> + +<p>6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in color from its +natural mate, perpetually getting out of focus by turning in or out.</p> + +<p>7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing up and +down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were loosely attached.</p> + +<p>It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father begging him to +come West, because "mighty mean men get into office out here." But Ralph +concluded that some Yankees had taught school in Hoopole County who +would not have held a high place in the educational institutions of +Massachusetts. Hawkins had some New England idioms, but they were well +overlaid by a Western pronunciation.</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, shoving up his spectacles, and sucking +his lips over his white teeth to keep them in place, "ladies and +gentlemen, young men and maidens, raley I'm obleeged to Mr. Means fer +this honor," and the Squire took both hands and turned the top of his +head round half an inch. Then he adjusted his spectacles. Whether he was +obliged to Mr. Means for the honor of being compared to a donkey was not +clear. "I feel in the inmost compartments of my animal spirits a most +happifying sense of the success and futility of all my endeavors to +sarve the people of Flat Creek deestrick, and the people of Tomkins +township, in my weak way and manner." This burst of eloquence was +delivered with a constrained air and an apparent sense of a danger that +he, Squire Hawkins, might fall to pieces in his weak way and manner, and +of the success and futility of all attempts at reconstruction. For by +this time the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was +looking away round to the left, while the little blue one on the right +twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The front teeth would drop down so +that the Squire's mouth was kept nearly closed, and his words whistled +through.</p> + +<p>"I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion," +twisting his scalp round, "but raley I must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> forego any such exertions. +It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand, +underlying subterfuge, of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-book +prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do, raley. I +think I may put it ahead of the Bible. Fer if it wurn't fer +spellin'-books and sich occasions as these, where would the Bible be? I +should like to know. The man who got up, who compounded this work of +inextricable valoo was a benufactor to the whole human race or any +other." Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire replaced them in some +confusion, gave the top of his head another twist, and felt of his glass +eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder, and Betsey Short rolled from +side to side in the effort to suppress her giggle. Mrs. Means and the +other old ladies looked the applause they could not speak.</p> + +<p>"I app'int Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fer captings," said the +Squire. And the two young men thus named took a stick and tossed it from +hand to hand to decide which should have the "first choice." One tossed +the stick to the other, who held it fast just where he happened to catch +it. Then the first placed his hand above the second, and so the hands +were alternately changed to the top. The one who held the stick last +without room for the other to take hold had gained the lot. This was +tried three times. As Larkin held the stick twice out of three times, he +had the choice. He hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim +Phillips. But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown seas, and so he +said, "I take the master," while a buzz of surprise ran round the room, +and the captain of the other side, as if afraid his opponent would +withdraw the choice, retorted quickly, and with a little smack of +exultation and defiance in his voice, "And <i>I</i> take Jeems Phillips."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>And soon all present, except a few of the old folks, found themselves +ranged in opposing hosts, the poor spellers lagging in, with what grace +they could, at the foot of the two divisions. The Squire opened his +spelling-book and began to give out the words to the two captains, who +stood up and spelled against each other. It was not long until Larkin +spelled "really" with one <i>l</i>, and had to sit down in confusion, while a +murmur of satisfaction ran through the ranks of the opposing forces. His +own side bit their lips. The slender figure of the young teacher took +the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement made the house very +quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of prestige he would suffer if he should +be easily spelled down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the +darkest corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting in the +shadow. Why should his evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he +turned his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully to the +words which the Squire did not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them +with extreme deliberation. This gave him an air of hesitation which +disappointed those on his own side. They wanted him to spell with a +dashing assurance. But he did not begin a word until he had mentally +felt his way through it. After ten minutes of spelling hard words Jeems +Buchanan, the captain on the other side, spelled "atrocious" with an <i>s</i> +instead of a <i>c</i>, and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming +up against the teacher. This brought the excitement to fever-heat. For +though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely on trust, and most of the +company were disappointed. The champion who now stood up against the +school-master was a famous speller.</p> + +<p>Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered fellow who had never +distinguished himself in any other pursuit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> than spelling. Except in +this one art of spelling he was of no account. He could not catch well +or bat well in ball. He could not throw well enough to make his mark in +that famous Western game of bull-pen. He did not succeed well in any +study but that of Webster's Elementary. But in that he was—to use the +usual Flat Creek locution—in that he was "a hoss." This genius for +spelling is in some people a sixth sense, a matter of intuition. Some +spellers are born, and not made, and their facility reminds one of the +mathematical prodigies that crop out every now and then to bewilder the +world. Bud Means, foreseeing that Ralph would be pitted against Jim +Phillips, had warned his friend that Jim could "spell like thunder and +lightning," and that it "took a powerful smart speller" to beat him, for +he knew "a heap of spelling-book." To have "spelled down the master" is +next thing to having whipped the biggest bully in Hoopole County, and +Jim had "spelled down" the last three masters. He divided the +hero-worship of the district with Bud Means.</p> + +<p>For half an hour the Squire gave out hard words. What a blessed thing +our crooked orthography is! Without it there could be no +spelling-schools. As Ralph discovered his opponent's metal he became +more and more cautious. He was now satisfied that Jim would eventually +beat him. The fellow evidently knew more about the spelling-book than +old Noah Webster himself. As he stood there, with his dull face and +long, sharp nose, his hands behind his back, and his voice spelling +infallibly, it seemed to Hartsook that his superiority must lie in his +nose. Ralph's cautiousness answered a double purpose; it enabled him to +tread surely, and it was mistaken by Jim for weakness. Phillips was now +confident that he should carry off the scalp of the fourth school-master +before the evening was over. He spelled eagerly, confi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>dently, +brilliantly. Stoop-shouldered as he was, he began to straighten up. In +the minds of all the company the odds were in his favor. He saw this, +and became ambitious to distinguish himself by spelling without giving +the matter any thought.</p> + +<p>Ralph always believed that he would have been speedily defeated by +Phillips had it not been for two thoughts which braced him. The sinister +shadow of young Dr. Small sitting in the dark corner by the water-bucket +nerved him. A victory over Phillips was a defeat to one who wished only +ill to the young school-master. The other thought that kept his pluck +alive was the recollection of Bull. He approached a word as Bull +approached the raccoon. He did not take hold until he was sure of his +game. When he took hold, it was with a quiet assurance of success. As +Ralph spelled in this dogged way for half an hour the hardest words the +Squire could find, the excitement steadily rose in all parts of the +house, and Ralph's friends even ventured to whisper that "maybe Jim had +cotched his match, after all!"</p> + +<p>But Phillips never doubted of his success.</p> + +<p>"Theodolite," said the Squire.</p> + +<p>"T-h-e, the, o-d, od, theod, o, theodo, l-y-t-e, theodolite," spelled +the champion.</p> + +<p>"Next," said the Squire, nearly losing his teeth in his excitement. +Ralph spelled the word slowly and correctly, and the conquered champion +sat down in confusion. The excitement was so great for some minutes that +the spelling was suspended. Everybody in the house had shown sympathy +with one or the other of the combatants, except the silent shadow in the +corner. It had not moved during the contest, and did not show any +interest now in the result.</p> + +<p>"Gewhilliky crickets! Thunder and lightning! Licked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> him all to smash!" +said Bud, rubbing his hands on his knees. "That beats my time all +holler!"</p> + +<p>And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb fell out, though she was +not on the defeated side.</p> + +<p>Shocky got up and danced with pleasure.</p> + +<p>But one suffocating look from the aqueous eyes of Mirandy destroyed the +last spark of Ralph's pleasure in his triumph, and sent that awful +below-zero feeling all through him.</p> + +<p>"He's powerful smart, is the master," said old Jack to Mr. Pete Jones. +"He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of 'em afore he's through. I know'd +he was smart. That's the reason I tuck him," proceeded Mr. Means.</p> + +<p>"Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh," answered Pete Jones. "No +lickin', no larnin'," says I.</p> + +<p>It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite side went +down quickly under the hard words which the Squire gave out. The master +had mowed down all but a few, his opponents had given up the battle, and +all had lost their keen interest in a contest to which there could be +but one conclusion, for there were only the poor spellers left. But +Ralph Hartsook ran against a stump where he was least expecting it. It +was the Squire's custom, when one of the smaller scholars or poorer +spellers rose to spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy +words, that they might have some breathing-spell before being +slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He +let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but +one person left on the opposite side, and, as she rose in her blue +calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack +Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never +spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain +quantity. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that +page of Webster, so well known to all who ever thumbed it, as "baker," +from the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these +words in an absent and uninterested manner. As everybody knew that she +would have to go down as soon as this preliminary skirmishing was over, +everybody began to get ready to go home, and already there was the buzz +of preparation. Young men were timidly asking girls if "they could see +them safe home," which was the approved formula, and were trembling in +mortal fear of "the mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to +close the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, +which had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the +leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers as +"incomprehensibility," and began to give out those "words of eight +syllables with the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now turned +round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in at the master's final +triumph. But to their surprise "ole Miss Meanses' white nigger," as some +of them called her in allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great +words with as perfect ease as the master. Still not doubting the result, +the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he +could find. The school became utterly quiet, the excitement was too +great for the ordinary buzz. Would "Meanses' Hanner" beat the master? +beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was +now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, +and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In +fact, Ralph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl +so long oppressed flush and shine with interest; as he looked at the +rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +complexion and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under +the influence of applause and sympathy—he did not want to beat. If he +had not felt that a victory given would insult her, he would have missed +intentionally. The bulldog, the stern, relentless setting of the will, +had gone, he knew not whither. And there had come in its place, as he +looked in that face, a something which he did not understand. You did +not, gentle reader, the first time it came to you.</p> + +<p>The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard words in the book. +He again pulled the top of his head forward. Then he wiped his +spectacles and put them on. Then out of the depths of his pocket he +fished up a list of words just coming into use in those days—words not +in the spelling-book. He regarded the paper attentively with his blue +right eye. His black left eye meanwhile fixed itself in such a stare on +Mirandy Means that she shuddered and hid her eyes in her red silk +handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Daguerreotype," sniffed the Squire. It was Ralph's turn.</p> + +<p>"D-a-u, dau—"</p> + +<p>"Next."</p> + +<p>And Hannah spelled it right.</p> + +<p>Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could not be heard, but +Shocky shouted: "Hanner beat! my Hanner spelled down the master!" And +Ralph went over and congratulated her.</p> + +<p>And Dr. Small sat perfectly still in the corner.</p> + +<p>And then the Squire called them to order, and said: "As our friend +Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her side, she will have to spell +against nearly all on t'other side. I shall therefore take the liberty +of procrastinating the completion of this interesting and exacting +contest until to-morrow evening. I hope our friend Hanner may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> again +carry off the cypress crown of glory. There is nothing better for us +than healthful and kindly simulation."</p> + +<p>Dr. Small, who knew the road to practice, escorted Mirandy, and Bud went +home with somebody else. The others of the Means family hurried on, +while Hannah, the champion, stayed behind a minute to speak to Shocky. +Perhaps it was because Ralph saw that Hannah must go alone that he +suddenly remembered having left something which was of no consequence, +and resolved to go round by Mr. Means's and get it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MYOPIA</h2> + +<h3>BY WALLACE RICE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As down the street he took his stroll,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He cursed, for all he is a saint.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He saw a sign atop a pole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As down the street he took a stroll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And climbed it up (near-sighted soul),<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So he could read—and read "FRESH PAINT," ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As down the street he took a stroll,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He cursed, for all he is a saint.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ANATOLE DUBOIS AT DE HORSE SHOW</h2> + +<h3>BY WALLACE BRUCE AMSBARY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My vife an' me ve read so moch<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In papier here of late,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About Chicago Horse Show, ve<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Remember day an' date.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ve mak' it op togedder dat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ve go an' see dat show,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dere's som't'ing dere ve fin' it out<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Maybe ve vant to know.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ve leave de leddle farm avile,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dat's near to Bourbonnais;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ve're soon op to Chicago town<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For spen' de night an' day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I nevere lak' dat busy place,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It's mos' too swif for me,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ve vaste no tam', but gat to place<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dat ve is com' for see.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ve pay de price for tak' us in,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dey geeve me <i>deux</i> ticquette;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Charlotte an' me ve com' for see<br /></span> +<span class="i2">De Horse Show now, you bet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ve soon gat in it veree moch,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"De push," I t'ink you call,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To inside on de beeg building,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ve're going to see it all.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">De Coliseum is de place,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dey mak' de Horse Show dere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Five tam's so beeg dan any barn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At Bourbonnais, by gar!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm look aroun' for place dey haf'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For dem to pitch de hay.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I guess it's 'out of sight,' I t'ink,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dey's von man to me say.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' den ve valk aroun' an' 'roun'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Som' horses for to see;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dere's pretty vomans, lots of dem,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But, for de life of me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can not see de trotter nag,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or vat's called t'oroughbred,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I vonder if ve mak' mistake,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gat in wrong place instead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But Charlotte is not disappoint',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her eyes dey shine so bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's ven she sees dem vimmens folks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dey dance vit moch delight;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I den vos tak' a look myself<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On ladies vit fin' drass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dere's nodding else in dat whol' place<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dat is so interes'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I say, "Charlotte," say I to her,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Dat ladee in box seat—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across de vay vos von beeg swell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her beauty's hard to beat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De von dat's gat fon<i>ee</i> eyeglass<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Opon a leddle stek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm t'ink she is most' fin' loo<i>kin</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wen she bow an' spe'k.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"It's pretty drass dat she's got on,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I lak' de polonaise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vere bodice it is all meex op<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Vit jabot all de vays.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dat's hang in front vit pleats all roun'—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It is von fin' tableau."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' den Charlotte she turn to me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' ask me how I know<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So moch about de Beeg Horse Show,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">W'ich we are com' for see;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' den I op an' tol' her dere<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dat I had com' to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Expert on informatione,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Read papier, I fin' out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vat all is in de Horse's Show,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' vat's it all about.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I point to ladee in nex' box,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She's feex op mighty vell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I vish I could haf' vords enough<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Vat she had on to tell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De firs' part it vas nodding moch,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From cloth it vas quite free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lak' fleur-de-lis at Easter tam',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mos' beautiful to see.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' den dere is commence a line<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of fluffy cream soufflé,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My vife it mak' her very diz',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She's not a vord to say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' den com' yard of <i>crêpe de chine</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Vit omelette stripe beneadt',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All fill it op vit fine guimpe jew'ls<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' concertina pleat.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mon Dieu! an' who vould evere t'ink<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dat Horse Show vas lak' dese!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Horse Show dere vidout no horse,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I t'ink dat's strange beez<i>nesse</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I suppose affer de man<br /></span> +<span class="i2">De dry-goods bill dey pay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dere's nodding lef' to spen' on horse<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ontil som' odder day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I tell you every hour you leeve,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You fin' out som't'ing new;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' now I haf' som' vords to tell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Som' good it might do you;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's mighty fonny, de advise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm geeve to you, of course,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But never go to Horses Show<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Expecting to see horse.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CHAMPION CHECKER-PLAYER OF AMERIKY</h2> + +<h3>BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY</h3> + + +<p>Of course as fur as Checker-playin's concerned, you can't jest adzackly +claim 'at lots makes fortunes and lots gits bu'sted at it—but still, +it's on'y simple jestice to acknowledge 'at there're absolute p'ints in +the game 'at takes scientific principles to figger out, and a mighty +level-headed feller to <i>dim</i>onstrate, don't you understand!</p> + +<p>Checkers is a' <i>old</i> enough game, ef age is any rickommendation; and +it's a' evident fact, too, 'at "the tooth of time," as the feller says, +which fer the last six thousand years has gained some reputation fer +a-eatin' up things in giner'l, don't 'pear to 'a' gnawed much of a hole +in Checkers—jedgin' from the checker-board of to-day and the ones 'at +they're uccasionally shovellin' out at <i>Pom</i>p'y-<i>i</i>, er whatever its +name is. Turned up a checker-board there not long ago, I wuz readin' +'bout, 'at still had the spots on—as plain and fresh as the modern +white-pine board o' our'n, squared off with pencil-marks and +pokeberry-juice. These is facts 'at history herself has dug out, and of +course it ain't fer me ner you to turn our nose up at Checkers, whuther +we ever tamper with the fool-game er not. Fur's that's concerned, I +don't p'tend to be no checker-player <i>myse'f</i>,—but I know'd a feller +onc't 'at <i>could</i> play, and sorto' made a business of it; and <i>that</i> +man, in my opinion, was a geenyus! Name wuz Wesley Cotterl—John Wesley +Cotterl—jest plain Wes, as us fellers round the Shoe-Shop ust to call +him; ust to allus make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the Shoe-Shop his headquarters-like; and, rain +er shine, wet er dry, you'd allus find <i>Wes</i> on hands, ready to banter +some feller fer a game, er jest a-settin' humped up there over the +checker-board all alone, a-cipher'n' out some new move er 'nuther, and +whistlin' low and solem' to hisse'f-like and a-payin' no attention to +nobody.</p> + +<p>And <i>I'll</i> tell <i>you</i>, Wes Cotterl wuz no man's fool, as sly as you keep +it! He wuz a deep thinker, Wes wuz; and ef he'd 'a' jest turned that +mind o' his loose on <i>preachin</i>', fer instunce, and the 'terpertation o' +the Bible, don't you know, Wes 'ud 'a' worked p'ints out o' there 'at no +livin' expounderers ever got in gunshot of!</p> + +<p>But Wes he didn't 'pear to be cut out fer nothin' much but jest +Checker-playin'. Oh, of course, he <i>could</i> knock round his own woodpile +some, and garden a little, more er less; and the neighbers ust to find +Wes purty handy 'bout trimmin' fruit-trees, you understand, and workin' +in among the worms and cattapillers in the vines and shrubbery, and the +like. And handlin' bees!—They wuzn't no man under the heavens 'at +knowed more 'bout handlin' bees'n Wes Cotterl!—"Settlin'" the blame' +things when they wuz a-swarmin'; and a-robbin' hives, and all sich +fool-resks. W'y, I've saw Wes Cotterl, 'fore now, when a swarm of bees +'ud settle in a' orchard,—like they will sometimes, you know,—I've saw +Wes Cotterl jest roll up his shirt-sleeves and bend down a' apple tree +limb 'at wuz jest kivvered with the pesky things, and scrape 'em back +into the hive with his naked hands, by the quart and gallon, and never +git a scratch! You couldn't <i>hire</i> a bee to sting Wes Cotterl! But +<i>lazy</i>?—I think that man had railly ort to 'a' been a' Injun! He wuz +the fust and on'y man 'at ever I laid eyes on 'at wuz too lazy to drap a +checker-man to p'int out the right road fer a feller 'at ast him onc't +the way to Burke's Mill; and Wes, 'ithout<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> ever a-liftin' eye er finger, +jest sorto' crooked out that mouth o' his'n in the direction the feller +wanted, and says: "<i>H-yonder!</i>" and went on with his whistlin'. But all +this hain't Checkers, and that's what I started out to tell ye.</p> + +<p>Wes had a way o' jest natchurly a-cleanin' out anybody and ever'body 'at +'ud he'p hold up a checker-board! Wes wuzn't what you'd call a <i>lively</i> +player at all, ner a competiter 'at talked much 'crost the board er made +much furse over a game whilse he <i>wuz</i> a-playin'. He had his faults, o' +course, and <i>would</i> take back moves 'casion'ly, er inch up on you ef you +didn't watch him, mebby. But, <i>as a rule</i>, Wes had the insight to grasp +the idy of whoever wuz a-playin' ag'in' him, and <i>his</i> style o' game, +you understand, and wuz on the lookout continual'; and under sich +circumstances <i>could</i> play as <i>honest</i> a game o' Checkers as the babe +unborn.</p> + +<p>One thing in <i>Wes's</i> favor allus wuz the feller's temper.—Nothin' +'peared to aggervate Wes, and nothin' on earth could break his slow and +lazy way o' takin' his own time fer ever'thing. You jest <i>couldn't crowd +Wes</i> er git him rattled anyway.—Jest 'peared to have one fixed +principle, and that wuz to take plenty o' time, and never make no move +'ithout a-ciphern'n' ahead on the prob'ble consequences, don't you +understand! "Be shore you're right," Wes 'ud say, a-lettin' up fer a +second on that low and sorry-like little wind-through-the-keyhole +whistle o' his, and a-nosin' out a place whur he could swap one man fer +two.—"Be shore you're right"—and somep'n' after this style wuz Wes's +way: "Be shore you're right"—(whistling a long, lonesome bar of +"Barbara Allen")—"and then"—(another long, retarded bar)—"go +ahead!"—and by the time the feller 'ud git through with his whistlin', +and a-stoppin' and a-startin' in ag'in, he'd be about three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> men ahead +to your one. And then he'd jest go on with his whistlin' 'sef nothin' +had happened, and mebby you a-jest a-rearin' and a-callin' him all the +mean, outlandish, ornry names 'at you could lay tongue to.</p> + +<p>But Wes's good nature, I reckon, was the thing 'at he'ped him out as +much as any other p'ints the feller had. And <i>Wes 'ud allus win, in the +long run</i>!—I don't keer <i>who</i> played ag'inst him! It was on'y a +question o' time with Wes o' waxin' it to the best of 'em. Lots o' +players has <i>tackled</i> Wes, and right at the <i>start</i> 'ud mebby give him +trouble,—but in the <i>long run</i>, now mind ye—<i>in the long run</i>, no +mortal man, I reckon, had any business o' rubbin' knees with Wes Cotterl +under no airthly checker-board in all this vale o' tears!</p> + +<p>I mind onc't th' come along a high-toned feller from in around +In'i'nop'lus somers.—Wuz a <i>lawyer</i>, er some <i>p'fessional</i> kind o' man. +Had a big yaller, luther-kivvered book under his arm, and a bunch o' +these-'ere big en<i>vel</i>op's and a lot o' suppeenies stickin' out o' his +breastpocket. Mighty slick-lookin' feller he wuz; wore a stovepipe hat, +sorto' set 'way back on his head—so's to show off his Giner'l Jackson +forr'ed, don't you know! Well-sir, this feller struck the place, on some +business er other, and then missed the hack 'at <i>ort</i> to 'a' tuk him out +o' here sooner'n it <i>did</i> take him out!—And whilse he wuz a-loafin' +round, sorto' lonesome—like a feller allus <i>is</i> in a strange place, you +know—he kindo' drapped in on our crowd at the Shoe-Shop, ostenchably to +git a boot-strop stitched on, but <i>I</i> knowed, the minute he set foot in +the door, 'at <i>that</i> feller wanted <i>comp'ny</i> wuss'n <i>cobblin'</i>.</p> + +<p>Well, as good luck would have it, there set Wes, as usual, with the +checker-board in his lap, a-playin' all by hisse'f, and a-whistlin' so +low and solem'-like and sad it railly made the crowd seem like a +<i>religious</i> getherun' o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> some kind er other, we wuz all so quiet and +still-like, as the man come in.</p> + +<p>Well, the stranger stated his business, set down, tuk off his boot, and +set there nussin' his foot and talkin' weather fer ten minutes, I +reckon, 'fore he ever 'peared to notice Wes at all. We wuz all back'ard, +anyhow, 'bout talkin' much; besides, we knowed, long afore he come in, +all about how hot the weather wuz, and the pore chance there wuz o' +rain, and all that; and so the subject had purty well died out, when +jest then the feller's eyes struck Wes and the checker-board,—and I'll +never fergit the warm, salvation smile 'at flashed over him at the +promisin' discovery. "<i>What!</i>" says he, a-grinnin' like a' angel and +a-edgin' his cheer to'rds Wes, "have we a checker-board and checkers +here?"</p> + +<p>"We hev," says I, knowin' 'at Wes wouldn't let go o' that whistle long +enough to answer—more'n to mebby nod his head.</p> + +<p>"And who is your best player?" says the feller, kindo' pitiful-like, +with another inquirin' look at Wes.</p> + +<p>"Him," says I, a-pokin' Wes with a peg-float. But Wes on'y spit kindo' +absent-like, and went on with his whistlin'.</p> + +<p>"Much of a player, is he?" says the feller, with a sorto' doubtful smile +at Wes ag'in.</p> + +<p>"Plays a purty good hick'ry," says I, a-pokin' Wes ag'in. "Wes," says I, +"here's a gentleman 'at 'ud mebby like to take a hand with you there, +and give you a few idys," says I.</p> + +<p>"Yes," says the stranger, eager-like, a-settin' his plug-hat keerful' up +in the empty shelvin', and a-rubbin' his hands and smilin' as +confident-like as old Hoyle hisse'f,—"Yes, indeed, I'd be glad to give +the gentleman" (meanin' Wes) "a' idy er two about Checkers—ef <i>he'd</i> +jest as lief,—'cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> I reckon ef there're any one thing 'at I <i>do</i> +know more about 'an another, it's Checkers," says he; "and there're no +game 'at delights me more—<i>pervidin'</i>, o' course, I find a competiter +'at kin make it anyways inte<i>rest</i>in'."</p> + +<p>"Got much of a rickord on Checkers?" says I.</p> + +<p>"Well," says the feller, "I don't like to brag, but I've never <i>ben</i> +beat—in any <i>legitimut</i> contest," says he, "and I've played more'n one +o' <i>them</i>," he says, "here and there round the country. Of course, <i>your +friend</i> here," he went on, smilin' sociable at Wes, "<i>he'll</i> take it all +in good part ef I should happen to lead him a little—jest as <i>I'd</i> do," +he says, "ef it wuz possible fer him to lead <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Wes</i>," says I, "<i>has</i> warmed the wax in the yeers of some mighty good +checker-players," says I, as he squared the board around, still +a-whistlin' to hisse'f-like, as the stranger tuk his place, +a-smilin'-like and roachin' back his hair.</p> + +<p>"Move," says Wes.</p> + +<p>"No," says the feller, with a polite flourish of his hand; "the first +move shall be your'n." And, by jucks! fer all he wouldn't take even the +advantage of a starter, he flaxed it to Wes the fust game in less'n +fifteen minutes.</p> + +<p>"Right shore you've give' me your best player?" he says, smilin' round +at the crowd, as Wes set squarin' the board fer another game and +whistlin' as onconcerned-like as ef nothin' had happened more'n +ordinary.</p> + +<p>"'S your move," says Wes, a-squintin' out into the game 'bout forty foot +from shore, and a-whistlin' purt' nigh in a whisper.</p> + +<p>Well-sir, it 'peared-like the feller railly didn't <i>try</i> to play; and +you could see, too, 'at Wes knowed he'd about met his match, and played +accordin'. He didn't make no move at all 'at he didn't give keerful +thought to; whilse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the feller—! well, as I wuz sayin', it jest +'peared-like <i>Checkers</i> wuz <i>child's-play</i> fer him! Putt in most o' the +time 'long through the game a-sayin' things calkilated to kindo' bore a' +ordinary man. But Wes helt hisse'f purty level, and didn't show no +signs, and kep' up his <i>whistlin'</i>, mighty well—considerin'.</p> + +<p>"Reckon you play the <i>fiddle</i>, too, as well as <i>Checkers</i>?" says the +feller, laughin', as Wes come a-whistlin' out of the little end of the +second game and went on a-fixin' fer the next round.</p> + +<p>"'S my move!" says Wes, 'thout seemin' to notice the feller's +tantalizin' words whatsomever.</p> + +<p>"'L! <i>this</i> time," thinks I, "Mr. Smarty from the <i>me</i>trolopin +deestricts, <i>you're</i> liable to git <i>waxed—shore</i>!" But the <i>feller</i> +didn't 'pear to think so at all, and played right ahead as glib-like and +keerless as ever—'casion'ly a-throwin' in them sircastic remarks o' +his'n,—'bout bein' "slow and shore" 'bout things in gineral—"Liked to +<i>see</i> that," he said:—"Liked to see fellers do things with plenty o' +<i>deliberation</i>, and even ef a feller <i>wuzn't</i> much of a checker-player, +liked to see him <i>die</i> slow <i>anyhow</i>!—and then 'tend his own funeral," +he says,—"and march in the p'session—to his own <i>music</i>," says +he.—And jest then his remarks wuz brung to a close by Wes a-jumpin' two +men, and a-lightin' square in the king-row.... "Crown that," says Wes, +a-droppin' back into his old tune. And fer the rest o' <i>that</i> game Wes +helt the feller purty level, but had to finally knock under—but by jest +the clos'test kind o' shave o' winnin'.</p> + +<p>"They ain't much use," says the feller, "o' keepin' <i>this</i> thing +up—'less I could manage, <i>some</i> way er other, to git beat <i>onc't 'n a +while</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Move," says Wes, a-drappin' back into the same old whistle and +a-<i>settlin'</i> there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Music has charms,' as the Good Book tells us," says the feller, kindo' +nervous-like, and a-roachin' his hair back as ef some sort o' p'tracted +headache wuz a-settin' in.</p> + +<p>"Never wuz '<i>skunked</i>,' wuz ye?" says Wes, kindo' suddent-like, with a +fur-off look in them big white eyes o' his—and then a-whistlin' right +on 'sef he hadn't said <i>nothin'</i>.</p> + +<p>"<i>Not much!</i>" says the feller, sorto' s'prised-like, as ef such a' idy +as that had never struck him afore.—"Never was 'skunked' <i>myse'f</i>: but +I've saw fellers in my time 'at <i>wuz</i>!" says he.</p> + +<p>But from that time on I noticed the feller 'peared to play more keerful, +and railly la'nched into the game with somepin' like inter'st. Wes he +seemed to be jest a-limber-in'-up-like; and-sir, blame me! ef he didn't +walk the feller's log fer him <i>that</i> time, 'thout no 'pearent trouble at +all!</p> + +<p>"And, <i>now</i>," says Wes, all quiet-like, a-squarin' the board fer +another'n,—"we're kindo' gittin' at things <i>right</i>. Move." And away +went that little unconcerned whistle o' his ag'in, and <i>Mr. Cityman</i> +jest gittin' white and sweaty too—he wuz so nervous. Ner he didn't +'pear to find much to laugh at in the <i>next</i> game—ner the next <i>two</i> +games nuther! Things wuz a-gettin' mighty inte<i>rest</i>in' 'bout them +times, and I guess the feller wuz ser'ous-like a-wakin' up to the solem' +fact 'at it tuk 'bout all <i>his</i> spare time to keep up his end o' the +row, and even that state o' pore satisfaction wuz a-creepin' furder and +furder away from him ever' new turn he undertook. Whilse <i>Wes</i> jest +peared to git more deliber't' and certain ever' game; and that unendin' +se'f-satisfied and comfortin' little whistle o' his never drapped a +stitch, but toed out ever' game alike,—to'rds the <i>last</i>, and, fer the +<i>most</i> part, disasterss to the feller 'at had started in with sich +confi<i>dence</i> and actchul promise, don't you know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>Well-sir, the feller stuck the whole <i>forenoon</i> out, and then the +<i>afternoon</i>; and then knuckled down to it 'way into the night—yes, and +plum <i>midnight!</i>—And he buckled into the thing bright and airly <i>next +morning!</i> And-sir, fer <i>two long days</i> and nights, a-hardly a-stoppin' +long enough to <i>eat</i>, the feller stuck it out,—and Wes a-jest a-warpin' +it to him hand-over-fist, and leavin' him furder behind, ever' +game!—till finally, to'rds the last, the feller got so blamedon worked +up and excited-like, he jes' 'peared actchully purt' nigh plum crazy and +histurical as a woman!</p> + +<p>It was a-gittin' late into the shank of the second day, and the boys hed +jest lit a candle fer 'em to finish out one of the clost'est games the +feller'd played Wes fer some time. But Wes wuz jest as cool and ca'm as +ever, and still a-whistlin' consolin' to hisse'f-like, whilse the feller +jest 'peared wore out and ready to drap right in his tracks any minute.</p> + +<p>"<i>Durn you!</i>" he snarled out at Wes, "hain't you never goern to move?" +And there set Wes, a-balancin' a checker-man above the board, a-studyin' +whur to set it, and a-fillin' in the time with that-air whistle.</p> + +<p>"<i>Flames and flashes!</i>" says the feller ag'in, "will you <i>ever</i> stop +that death-seducin' tune o' your'n long enough to move?"—And as Wes +deliber't'ly set his man down whur the feller see he'd haf to jump it +and lose two men and a king, Wes wuz a-singin', low and sad-like, as ef +all to hisse'f:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O we'll move that man, and leave him there.—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fer the love of B-a-r-b—bry Al-len!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Well-sir! the feller jest jumped to his feet, upset the board, and tore +out o' the shop stark-starin' crazy—blame ef he wuzn't!—'cause some of +us putt out after him and overtook him 'way beyent the 'pike-bridge, and +hollered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> to him;—and he shuk his fist at us and hollered back and +says, says he: "Ef you fellers over here," says he, "'ll agree to +<i>muzzle</i> that durn checker-player o' your'n, I'll bet fifteen hunderd +dollars to fifteen cents 'at I kin beat him 'leven games out of ever' +dozent!—But there're <i>no money</i>," he says, "'at kin hire me to play him +ag'in, on this aboundin' airth, on'y on them conditions—'cause that +durn, eternal, infernal, dad-blasted whistle o' his 'ud beat the oldest +man in Ameriky!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DARBY AND JOAN</h2> + +<h3>BY ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD</h3> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Darby saw the setting sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He swung his scythe, and home he run,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sat down, drank off his quart, and said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"My work is done, I'll go to bed."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"My work is done!" retorted Joan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"My work is done! your constant tone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But hapless woman ne'er can say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'My work is done,' till judgment day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You men can sleep all night, but we<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must toil."—"Whose fault is that?" quoth he.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I know your meaning," Joan replied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"But, Sir, my tongue shall not be tied;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will go on, and let you know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What work poor women have to do:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First, in the morning, though we feel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As sick as drunkards when they reel;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yes, feel such pains in back and head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As would confine you men to bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We ply the brush, we wield the broom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We air the beds, and right the room;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cows must next be milked—and then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We get the breakfast for the men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere this is done, with whimpering cries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bristly hair, the children rise;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">These must be dressed, and dosed with rue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fed—and all because of you:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We next"—Here Darby scratched his head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stole off grumbling to his bed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And only said, as on she run,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Zounds! woman's clack is never done."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At early dawn, ere Phœbus rose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Joan resumed her tale of woes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Darby thus—"I'll end the strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be you the man and I the wife:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take you the scythe and mow, while I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will all your boasted cares supply."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Content," quoth Joan, "give me my stint."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This Darby did, and out she went.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Darby rose and seized the broom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whirled the dirt about the room:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which having done, he scarce knew how,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hied to milk the brindled cow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The brindled cow whisked round her tail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Darby's eyes, and kicked the pail.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clown, perplexed with grief and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swore he'd ne'er try to milk again:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When turning round, in sad amaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He saw his cottage in a blaze:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For as he chanced to brush the room,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In careless haste, he fired the broom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fire at last subdued, he swore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The broom and he would meet no more.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pressed by misfortune, and perplexed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darby prepared for breakfast next;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">But what to get he scarcely knew—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bread was spent, the butter too.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His hands bedaubed with paste and flour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Darby labored full an hour:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, luckless wight! thou couldst not make<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bread take form of loaf or cake.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As every door wide open stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In pushed the sow in quest of food;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, stumbling onward, with her snout<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'erset the churn—the cream ran out.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As Darby turned, the sow to beat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The slippery cream betrayed his feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He caught the bread trough in his fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And down came Darby, trough, and all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The children, wakened by the clatter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Start up, and cry, "Oh! what's the matter?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Jowler barked, and Tabby mewed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hapless Darby bawled aloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Return, my Joan, as heretofore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll play the housewife's part no more:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since now, by sad experience taught,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compared to thine my work is naught;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Henceforth, as business calls, I'll take,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Content, the plough, the scythe, the rake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never more transgress the line<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our fates have marked, while thou art mine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, Joan, return, as heretofore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll vex thy honest soul no more;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let's each our proper task attend—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgive the past, and strive to mend."<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN</h2> + +<h3>BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the rooster's hallelooyer as he tiptoes on the fence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, it's then's the time a feller is a feelin' at his best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of gracious rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he leaves the house bareheaded and goes out to feed the stock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's sompin kind o' hearty-like about the atmosphere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and the buzzin' of the bees;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the air's so appetizin', and the landscape through the haze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a picture that no painter has the colorin' to mock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The husky, rusty rustle of the tassels of the corn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stubble in the furries—kind o' lonesome like, but still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A preachin' sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The straw-stack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hosses in their stalls below, the clover overhead,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LAFFING</h2> + +<h3>BY JOSH BILLINGS</h3> + + +<p>Anatomikally konsidered, laffing iz the sensation ov pheeling good all +over, and showing it principally in one spot.</p> + +<p>Morally konsidered, it iz the next best thing tew the 10 +commandments....</p> + +<p>Theoretikally konsidered, it kan out-argy all the logik in existence....</p> + +<p>Pyroteknikally konsidered, it is the fire-works of the soul....</p> + +<p>But i don't intend this essa for laffing in the lump, but for laffing on +the half-shell.</p> + +<p>Laffing iz just az natral tew cum tew the surface az a rat iz tew cum +out ov hiz hole when he wants tew.</p> + +<p>Yu kant keep it back by swallowing enny more than yu kan the heekups.</p> + +<p>If a man <i>kan't</i> laff there iz sum mistake made in putting him together, +and if he <i>won't</i> laff he wants az mutch keeping away from az a +bear-trap when it iz sot.</p> + +<p>I have seen people who laffed altogether too mutch for their own good or +for ennyboddy else's; they laft like a barrell ov nu sider with the tap +pulled out, a perfekt stream.</p> + +<p>This is a grate waste ov natral juice.</p> + +<p>I have seen other people who didn't laff enuff tew giv themselfs vent; +they waz like a barrell ov nu sider too, that waz bunged up tite, apt +tew start a hoop and leak all away on the sly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thare ain't neither ov theze 2 ways right, and they never ought tew be +pattented....</p> + +<p>Genuine laffing iz the vent ov the soul, the nostrils of the heart, and +iz just az necessary for health and happiness az spring water iz for a +trout.</p> + +<p>Thare iz one kind ov a laff that i always did rekommend; it looks out ov +the eye fust with a merry twinkle, then it kreeps down on its hands and +kneze and plays around the mouth like a pretty moth around the blaze ov +a kandle, then it steals over into the dimples ov the cheeks and rides +around into thoze little whirlpools for a while, then it lites up the +whole face like the mello bloom on a damask roze, then it swims oph on +the air with a peal az klear and az happy az a dinner-bell, then it goes +bak agin on golden tiptoze like an angel out for an airing, and laze +down on its little bed ov violets in the heart where it cum from.</p> + +<p>Thare iz another laff that nobody kan withstand; it iz just az honest +and noisy az a distrikt skool let out tew play, it shakes a man up from +hiz toze tew hiz temples, it dubbles and twists him like a whiskee phit, +it lifts him oph from his cheer, like feathers, and lets him bak agin +like melted led, it goes all thru him like a pikpocket, and finally +leaves him az weak and az krazy az tho he had bin soaking all day in a +Rushing bath and forgot to be took out.</p> + +<p>This kind ov a laff belongs tew jolly good phellows who are az healthy +az quakers, and who are az eazy tew pleaze az a gall who iz going tew be +married to-morrow.</p> + +<p>In konclushion i say laff every good chance yu kan git, but don't laff +unless yu feal like it, for there ain't nothing in this world more harty +than a good honest laff, nor nothing more hollow than a hartless one.</p> + +<p>When yu do laff open yure mouth wide enuff for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> noize tew git out +without squealing, thro yure hed bak az tho yu waz going tew be shaved, +hold on tew yure false hair with both hands and then laff till yure soul +gets thoroly rested.</p> + +<p>But i shall tell yu more about theze things at sum fewter time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>GRIZZLY-GRU</h2> + +<h3>BY IRONQUILL</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">O Thoughts of the past and present,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O whither, and whence, and where,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Demanded my soul, as I scaled the height<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the pine-clad peak in the somber night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the terebinthine air.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">While pondering on the frailty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of happiness, hope, and mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The ascending sun with derisive scoff<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hurled its golden lances and smote me off<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the bulge of the restless earth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Through the yellowish dawn of velvet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where stars were so thickly strewn.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That quietly chuckled as I passed through,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I fell in the gardens of Grizzly-Gru,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the mad, mysterious moon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I fell on the turquoise ether,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Low down in the wondrous west,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And thence to the moon in whose yielding blue<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were hidden the gardens of Grizzly-Gru,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the Monarchy of Unrest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">And there were the fairy gardens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where beautiful cherubs grew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In daintiest way and on separate stalks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the listed rows by the jasper walks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Near the palace of Grizzly-Gru.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">While strolling around the garden<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I noticed the rows were full<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of every conceivable size and type—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some that were buds, and some nearly ripe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some that were ready to pull.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">In gauzy and white corolla,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was one who had eyes of blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A little excuse of a baby nose,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Little pink ears, and ten little toes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a mouth that kept saying ah-goo.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Ah-gooing as I came near her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She raised up her arms in glee—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her little fat arms—and she seemed to say,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"I'm ready to go with you right away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't hunt any more—take me."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I picked her off quick and kissed her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, hugging her to my breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I heard a loud yelling that pierced me through,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Twas His Terrible Eminence, Grizzly-Gru,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the Monarchy of Unrest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">He had on a blood-red turban,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A picturesque lot of clothes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With big moustaches both fierce and black,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a ghastly saber to cut and hack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shoes that turned up at the toes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Out of the gate of the garden<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cherub and I took flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And closely behind us the saber flew,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And back of the saber came Grizzly-Gru,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he chased us all day till night.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I ran down the lunar crescent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'And out on the silver horn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I kissed the baby and held her tight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And jumped down into the starry night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And—I lit on the earth at morn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">He fitfully threw his saber,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It missed and went round the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He followed no further, he was not rash,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But the baby held on to my coarse moustache,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And seemed to enjoy the fun.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">In saving that blue-eyed baby<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the gardens of Grizzly-Gru,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I suffered a terrible shock and fright;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But the doctor believes it will be all right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he thinks he can pull me through.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>JOHN HENRY IN A STREET CAR</h2> + +<h3>BY HUGH McHUGH</h3> + + +<p>Throw me in the cellar and batten down the hatches.</p> + +<p>I'm a wreck in the key of G flat.</p> + +<p>I side-stepped in among a bunch of language-heavers yesterday and ever +since I've been sitting on the ragged edge with my feet hanging over.</p> + +<p>I was on my way down to Wall Street to help J. Pierpont Morgan buy a +couple of railroads and all the world seemed as blithe and gay as a love +clinch from Laura Jean Libbey's latest.</p> + +<p>When I climbed into the cable-car I felt like a man who had mailed money +to himself the night before.</p> + +<p>I was aces.</p> + +<p>And then somebody blew out my gas.</p> + +<p>At the next corner two society flash-lights flopped in and sat next to +me.</p> + +<p>They had a lot of words they wanted to use and they started in.</p> + +<p>The car stopped and two more of the 400's leading ladies jumped the +hurdles and came down the aisle.</p> + +<p>They sat on the other side of me.</p> + +<p>In a minute they began to bite the dictionary.</p> + +<p>Their efforts aroused the energies of three women who sat opposite me, +and <i>they</i> proceeded to beat the English language black and blue.</p> + +<p>In a minute the air was so full of talk that the grip germs had to pull +out on the platform and chew the conductor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next one to me on my left started in:</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; we discharged our cook day before yesterday, but there's +another coming this evening, and so—"</p> + +<p>Her friend broke away and was up and back to the center with this:</p> + +<p>"I was coming down Broadway this morning and I saw Julia Marlowe's +leading man. I'm sure it was him, because I saw the show once in Chicago +and he has the loveliest eyes I ever looked at!"</p> + +<p>I knew that that was my cue to walk out, kick the motorman in the +knuckles, upset the car and send in a fire call, but I passed it up.</p> + +<p>I just sat there and bit my nails like the heavy villain in one of Corse +Payton's ten, twen, thir dramas.</p> + +<p>That "loveliest eyes" speech had me groggy.</p> + +<p>Whenever I hear a woman turn on that "loveliest eyes" gag about an actor +I always feel that a swift slap from a wet dish-rag would look well on +her back hair.</p> + +<p>Then the bunch across the aisle got the flag.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know," says the broad lady who paid for one seat and was +compelled by Nature to use three, "you know there's only five in our +family, and so I take just five slices of stale bread and have a bowl of +water ready in which I've dropped a pinch of salt. Then I take a piece +of butter about the size of a walnut, and thoroughly grease the bottom +of a frying-pan; then beat five eggs to a froth, and—"</p> + +<p>I'm hoping the conductor will come in and give us all a tip to take to +the timber because the cops are going to pinch the room, but there's +nothing doing.</p> + +<p>One of the dames on my right finds her voice and passes it around:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think it's a perfect fright! I always did detest electric blue, +anyway. It is so unbecoming, and then—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p>I've just decided that this lady ought to make up as a Swede servant +girl and play the part, when her friend hooks in:</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; I think it will look perfectly sweet! It is a foulard in one +of those new heliotrope tints, made with a crêpe de chine chemisette, +with a second vest peeping out on either side of the front over an +embroidered satin vest and cut in scallops on the edge, finished with a +full ruche of white chiffon, and the sleeves are just too tight for any +use, and the skirt is too long for any good, and I declare the lining is +too sweet! and I just hate to wear it out on the street and get it +soiled, and I was going to have it made with a tunic, and Mrs. +Wigwag—that's my brother-in-law's first cousin—she had her's made to +wear with guimpes—and they are so economical! and—"</p> + +<p>Think of a guy having to ride four miles and get his forehead fanned all +the while with talk about foulard and crêpe de chine and guimpes!</p> + +<p>Wouldn't it lead you to a padded cell?</p> + +<p>Say! I was down and out—no kidding!</p> + +<p>I wanted to get up and fight the door-tender, but I couldn't.</p> + +<p>One of the conversationalists was sitting on my overcoat.</p> + +<p>I felt that if I got up and called my coat back to Papa she might lose +the thread of her story, and the jar would be something frightful.</p> + +<p>So I sat still and saved her life.</p> + +<p>The one on my right must have been the Lady President of The Hammer +Club.</p> + +<p>She was talking about some other girl and she didn't do a thing to the +absent one.</p> + +<p>She said she was svelte.</p> + +<p>I suppose that's Dago for a shine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>That's the way with some women. They can't come right out and call +another woman a polish. They have to beat around the bush and chase +their friends to the swamps by throwing things like "svelte" at them. +Tush!</p> + +<p>I tried to duck the foreign tattle on my right and by so doing I'm next +to this on my left:</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; I think politics is just too lovely! I don't know whether I'd +rather be a Democrat or a Republican, but I think—oh! just look at the +hat that woman has on! Isn't that a fright? Wonder if she trimmed it +herself. Of course she did; you can tell by—"</p> + +<p>I'm gasping for breath when the broad lady across the aisle gets the +floor:</p> + +<p>"No, indeed! I didn't have Eliza vaccinated. Why, she's too small yet, +and don't you know my sister's husband's brother's child was vaccinated, +and she is younger than our Eliza, but I don't just care, I don't +want—"</p> + +<p>Then the sweet girlish thing on my left gave me the corkscrew jab.</p> + +<p>It was the finish:</p> + +<p>"Isn't that lovely? Well, as I was telling you, Charlie came last night +and brought Mr. Storeclose with him. Mr. Storeclose is awfully nice. He +plays the mandolin just too sweet for anything, and—"</p> + +<p>Me!—to the oyster beds! No male impersonators garroting a mandolin—not +any in mine!</p> + +<p>When I want to take a course in music I'll climb into a public library +and read how Baldy Sloane wrote the Tiger Lily with one hand tied behind +him and his feet on the piano.</p> + +<p>So I fell off the car and crawled home to mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE MUSKEETER</h2> + +<h3>BY JOSH BILLINGS</h3> + + +<p>Muskeeters are a game bug, but they won't bite at a hook. Thare iz +millyuns ov them kaught every year, but not with a hook, this makes the +market for them unstiddy, the supply allways exceeding the demand. The +muskeeto iz born on the sly, and cums to maturity quicker than enny +other ov the domestik animiles. A muskeeter at 3 hours old iz just az +reddy and anxious to go into bizzness for himself, az ever he iz, and +bites the fust time az sharp, and natral, as red pepper duz. The +muskeeter haz a good ear for musik, and sings without notes. The song ov +the muskeeto iz monotonous to sum folks, but in me it stirs up the +memorys ov other days. I hav lade awake, all nite long, menny a time and +listened to the sweet anthems ov the muskeeter. I am satisfied that +thare want nothing made in vain, but i kant help thinking how mighty +kluss the musketoze kum to it. The muskeeter haz inhabited this world +since its kreashun, and will probably hang around here until bizzness +closes. Whare the muskeeter goes to in the winter iz a standing +konumdrum, which all the naturalists hav giv up, but we kno he dont go +far, for he iz on hand early each year with hiz probe fresh ground, and +polished. Muskeeters must be one ov the luxurys ov life, they certainly +aint one ov the necessarys, not if we kno ourselfs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE TURNINGS OF A BOOKWORM</h2> + +<h3>BY CAROLYN WELLS</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love levels all plots.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead men sell no tales.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A new boom sweeps clean.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Circumstances alter bookcases.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The more haste the less read.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too many books spoil the trade.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Many hands make light literature.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Epigrams cover a multitude of sins.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye can not serve Art and Mammon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little sequel is a dangerous thing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's a long page that has no turning.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't look a gift-book in the binding.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gilt-edged volume needs no accuser.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a multitude of characters there is safety.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Incidents will happen even in the best regulated novels.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One touch of Nature makes the whole book sell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where there's a will there's a detective story.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A book in the hand is worth two in the library.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An ounce of invention is worth a pound of style.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A good name is rather to be chosen than great characters.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where there's so much puff, there must be some buyer.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE FEAST OF THE MONKEYS</h2> + +<h3>BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In days of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I've been told,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The monkeys gave a feast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They sent out cards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With kind regards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To every bird and beast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The guests came dressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fashion's best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unmindful of expense;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Except the whale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose swallowtail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was "soaked" for fifty cents.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The guests checked wraps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Canes, hats and caps;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when that task was done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The footman he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With dignitee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Announced them one by one.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Monkey Hall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The host met all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hoped they'd feel at ease,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I scarcely can,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said the Black and Tan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'm busy hunting fleas."</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"While waiting for<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A score or more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of guests," the hostess said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"We'll have the Poodle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sing <i>Yankee Doodle</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A-standing on his head.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when this through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good Parrot, you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Please show them how you swear."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, dear; don't cuss,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cried the Octopus,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he walked off on his ear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Orang-Outang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sea-song sang,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About a Chimpanzee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who went abroad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a drinking gourd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the coast of Barberee.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where he heard one night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the moon shone bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A school of mermaids pick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chromatic scales<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From off their tails,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And did it mighty slick.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All guests are here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To eat the cheer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dinner's served, my Lord."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The butler bowed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then the crowd<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rushed in with one accord.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fiddler-crab<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came in a cab,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And played a piece in C;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While on his horn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Unicorn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blew, <i>You'll Remember Me</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"To give a touch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of early Dutch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To this great feast of feasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll drink ten drops<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Holland's schnapps,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spoke out the King of Beasts.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"That must taste fine,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said the Porcupine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Did you see him smack his lip?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'd smack mine, too,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cried the Kangaroo,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"If I didn't have the pip."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Lion stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And said: "Be good<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enough to look this way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Court Etiquette<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not forget,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mark well what I say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My royal wish<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is ev'ry dish<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be tasted first by me."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Here's where I smile,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said the Crocodile,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he climbed an axle-tree.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The soup was brought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And quick as thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Lion ate it all.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">"You can't beat that,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exclaimed the Cat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"For monumental gall."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"The soup," all cried.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Gone," Leo replied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"'Twas just a bit too thick."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"When we get through,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remarked the Gnu,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'll hit him with a brick."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Tiger stepped,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, rather, crept,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up where the Lion sat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"O, mighty boss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm at a loss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To know where I am at.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I came to-night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With appetite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To drink and also eat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a Tiger grand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I now demand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I get there with both feet."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Lion got<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All-fired hot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in a passion flew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Get out," he cried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"And save your hide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You most offensive <i>You</i>."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'm not afraid,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Tiger said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I know what I'm about."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the Lion's paw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reached the Tiger's jaw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he was good and out.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The salt-sea smell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Mackerel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the air arose;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each hungry guest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great joy expressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And "sniff!" went every nose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With glutton look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Lion took<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spiced and sav'ry dish.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without a pause<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He worked his jaws,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gobbled all the fish.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then ate the roast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The quail on toast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pork, both fat and lean;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The jam and lamb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The potted ham,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drank the kerosene.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He raised his voice:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Come, all rejoice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You've seen your monarch dine."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Never again,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clucked the Hen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all sang <i>Old Lang Syne</i>.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE BILLVILLE SPIRIT MEETING</h2> + +<h3>BY FRANK L. STANTON</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We had a sperrit meetin' (we'll never have no more!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To call up all the sperrits of them that's "gone before."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A feller called a "medium" (he wuz of medium size),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Took the contract fer the fetchin' o' them sperrits from the skies.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The mayor—the town council—the parson an' his wife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come to shake han's with them sperrits what had left the other life;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Colonel an' the Major—the coroner, an' all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wuz waitin' an' debatin' in the darkness o' the hall.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The medium roared, "Silence! Amanda Jones appears!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is her husband present?" ("No, sir—he's been restin' twenty years!")<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Here's the ghost of Sally Spilkins, from the lan' whar' glories glow:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would her husband like to see her?" (An' a feeble voice said, "<i>No</i>!")<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Here's the wife of Colonel Buster; she wears a heavenly smile:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She wants to see the Colonel, an' she's comin' down the aisle!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then all wuz wild confusion—it warn't a bit o' fun!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With "Lord, have mercy on me," the Colonel broke an' run!</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then the coroner got skeery an' scampered fer his life!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Stop—stop him!" said the medium; "here comes his second wife!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thar' warn't a man could stop him in that whole blame settlement.—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He turned a double summersault an' out the winder went!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, the whole town council follered an' hollered all the way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The parson said he had a call 'bout ten miles off, to pray!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He didn't preach nex' Sunday, an' they tell it roun' a bit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Accordin' to the best reports the parson's runnin' yit!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A CRY FROM THE CONSUMER</h2> + +<h3>BY WILBUR D. NESBIT</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Grasshoppers roam the Kansas fields and eat the tender grass—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A trivial affair, indeed, but what then comes to pass?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You go to buy a panama, or any other hat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You learn the price has been advanced a lot because of that.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A glacier up in Canada has slipped a mile or two—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little thing like this can boost the selling price of glue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Occurrences so tragic always thrill me to the core;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hope and pray that nothing ever happens any more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Last week the peaceful Indians went a-searching after scalps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then there was an avalanche 'way over in the Alps;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These diametric happenings seem nothing much, but look—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We had to add a dollar to the wages of the cook.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bean-crop down at Boston has grown measurably less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so the dealer charges more for goods to make a dress.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each day there is some incident to make a man feel sore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm on my knees to ask that nothing happens any more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It didn't rain in Utah and it did in old Vermont—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Result: it costs you fifty more to take a summer's jaunt;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the plains of Tibet some tornadoes took a roll—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore the barons have to charge a higher price for coal.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">A street-car strike in Omaha has cumulative shocks—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It boosted huckleberries up to twenty cents a box.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter what is happening it always finds your door—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give us a rest! Let nothing ever happen any more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mosquitoes in New Jersey bite a magnate on the wing—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Result: the poor consumer feels that fierce mosquito's sting:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The skeeter's song is silenced, but in something like an hour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The grocers understand that it requires a raise in flour.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A house burns down in Texas and a stove blows up in Maine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ten minutes later breakfast foods in prices show a gain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Effects must follow causes—which is what I most deplore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hope and pray that nothing ever happens any more.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A DISAPPOINTMENT</h2> + +<h3>BY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Her hair was a waving bronze, and her eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Deep wells that might cover a brooding soul;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And who, till he weighed it, could ever surmise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That her heart was a cinder instead of a coal!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE BRITISH MATRON</h2> + +<h3>BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE</h3> + + +<p>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 idea) 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> 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 can not 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 the 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.</p> + +<p>You can meet this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at the +recollection. But conceive of her in a ball-room, 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 over-blown cabbage-rose as this.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> 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 can not be held to include the three-fourths of the +wife that had no existence when the ceremony was performed? And as a +matter of conscience and good morals, ought not an English married pair +to insist upon the celebration of a silver wedding at the end of +twenty-five years in order to legalize and mutually appropriate that +corporeal growth of which both parties have individually come into +possession since they were pronounced one flesh?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE TRAGEDY OF IT</h2> + +<h3>BY ALDEN CHARLES NOBLE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Alas for him, alas for it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Alas for you and I!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When this I think I raise my mitt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To dry my weeping eye.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>STAGE WHISPERS</h2> + +<h3>BY CAROLYN WELLS</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Deadheads tell no tales.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stars are stubborn things.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All's not bold that titters.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Contracts make cowards of us all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One good turn deserves an encore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little actress is a dangerous thing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's a long skirt that has no turning.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stars rush in where angels fear to tread.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Managers never hear any good of themselves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A manager is known by the company he keeps.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A plot is not without honor save in comic opera.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take care of the dance and the songs will take care of themselves.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE</h2> + +<h3>BY JAMES T. FIELDS</h3> + + +<p>My name is Esek Pettibone, and I wish to affirm in the outset that it is +a good thing to be well-born. In thus connecting the mention of my name +with a positive statement, I am not aware that a catastrophe lies coiled +up in the juxtaposition. But I can not help writing plainly that I am +still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. <span class="smcap">Esto perpetua</span>! To have +had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To +be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but +respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, +I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done <i>him</i> in +the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of +Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, +I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is +pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to do so.</p> + +<p>Left an orphan at the tender age of four years, having no brothers or +sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell +into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. +Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's +side. All my mother's relations kept shady when the lonely orphan looked +about for protection; but Patience Pettibone, in her stately way, +said,—"The boy belongs to a good family, and he shall never want while +his three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> aunts can support him." So I went to live with my plain, but +benignant protectors, in the state of New Hampshire.</p> + +<p>During my boyhood the best-drilled lesson that fell to my keeping was +this: "Respect yourself. We come of more than ordinary parentage. +Superior blood was probably concerned in getting up the Pettibones. Hold +your head erect, and some day you shall have proof of your high +lineage."</p> + +<p>I remember once, on being told that I must not share my juvenile sports +with the butcher's three little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt +Eunice looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew what she meant.</p> + +<p>"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family, no doubt, +came of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our +ancestors, it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were +embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in +the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not +regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with the +butcher's offspring."</p> + +<p>I felt mortified that I ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any but +kings' sons, or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals in +the urchin line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters.</p> + +<p>Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the +sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belonged to +ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim +eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of +some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House +of Pettibone.</p> + +<p>It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> were never tired +of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the +members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in +so many words, "There is no original sin in <i>our</i> composition, whatever +of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of +Snowborough."</p> + +<p>Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her +through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshiped while she gazed. +The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had +constant zoölogical visions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and +quartered in every possible style known to the Heralds' College. The +Reverend Hebrew Bullet, who used to drop in quite often and drink +several compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encouraged his three +parishoners in their aristocratic notions, and extolled them for what he +called their "stooping-down to every-day life." He differed with the +ladies of our house only on one point. He contended that the unicorn of +the Bible and the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same animal. My +aunts held a different opinion.</p> + +<p>In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience reposed a trunk. Often during +my childish years I longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents +the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I +dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had +often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial +box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt +Mary used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in vain. +I must have the virtue of <i>years</i> before I could view the treasures of +past magnificence so long entombed in that wooden sarcophagus. Once I +saw the faded sisters bending over the trunk together, and, as I +thought, embalm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>ing something in camphor. Curiosity impelled me to +linger, but, under some pretext, I was nodded out of the room.</p> + +<p>Although my kinswomen's means were far from ample, they determined that +Swiftmouth College should have the distinction of calling me one of her +sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent for preparation to a +neighboring academy. Years of study and hard fare in country +boarding-houses told upon my self-importance as the descendant of a +great Englishman, notwithstanding all my letters from the honored three +came with counsel to "respect myself and keep up the dignity of the +family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of +respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other +low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens +readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the +school-boy no envious pangs.</p> + +<p>I was nineteen when I entered the hoary halls of Swiftmouth. I call them +hoary, because they had been built more than fifty years. To me they +seemed uncommonly hoary, and I snuffed antiquity in the dusty purlieus. +I now began to study, in good earnest, the wisdom of the past. I saw +clearly the value of dead men and mouldy precepts, especially if the +former had been entombed a thousand years, and if the latter were well +done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began to reverence royal lines of +deceased monarchs, and longed to connect my own name, now growing into +college popularity, with some far-off mighty one who had ruled in pomp +and luxury his obsequious people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled my +dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof of our family +distinction. "I will go," quoth I, "to the home of my aunts next +vacation and there learn <i>how</i> we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> became mighty, and discover precisely +why we don't practice to-day our inherited claims to glory."</p> + +<p>I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was now anxious to lay before her +impatient nephew the proof he burned to behold. But first she must +explain. All the old family documents and letters were, no doubt, +destroyed in the great fire of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment +or paper implying nobility had ever been discovered in Snowborough, or +elsewhere. <i>But</i> there had been preserved, for many years, a suit of +imperial clothes that had been worn, by their great-grandfather in +England, and, no doubt, in the New World also. These garments had been +carefully watched and guarded, for were they not the proof that their +owner belonged to a station in life second, if second at all, to the +royal court of King George itself? Precious casket, into which I was +soon to have the privilege of gazing! Through how many long years these +fond, foolish virgins had lighted their unflickering lamps of +expectation and hope at this cherished old shrine!</p> + +<p>I was now on my way to the family repository of all our greatness. I +went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the +well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent +manner, turned the key. My heart,—I am not ashamed to confess it now, +although it is forty years since the quartet, in search of family +honors, were on their knees that summer afternoon in Snowborough,—my +heart beat high. I was about to look on that which might be a duke's or +an earl's regalia. And I was descended from the owner in a direct line! +I had lately been reading Shakespeare's <i>Titus Andronicus</i>; and I +remembered, there before the trunk, the lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O sacred receptacle of my joys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet cell of virtue and nobility!"<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll the precious garments, +which seemed all enshrined in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that +interior lives with me to this day; and I grow faint with the memory of +that hour. With pious precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last +the whole suit was laid before my expectant eyes.</p> + +<p>Reader! I am an old man now, and have not long to walk this planet. But +whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for my declining years, I am +certain I can bear it; for I went through that scene at Snowborough, and +still live!</p> + +<p>When the garments were fully displayed, all the aunts looked at me. I +had been to college; I had studied Burke's <i>Peerage</i>; I had been once to +New York. Perhaps I could immediately name the exact station in noble +British life to which that suit of clothes belonged. I could; I saw it +all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I dared not look my poor +deluded female relatives in the face.</p> + +<p>"What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced garments and big buttons +betoken?" cried all three.</p> + +<p>"<i>It is a suit of servant's livery!</i>" gasped I, and fell back with a +shudder.</p> + +<p>That evening, after the sun had gone down, we buried those hateful +garments in a ditch at the bottom of the garden. Rest there perturbed +body-coat, yellow trousers, brown gaiters, and all!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!"<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WHY MOLES HAVE HANDS</h2> + +<h3>BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON</h3> + + +<p>One day the children came running to Aunt Nancy with a mole which one of +the dogs had just killed. They had never seen one before and were very +curious as to what it might be.</p> + +<p>"Well, befo' de king!" said Nancy, "whar y'all bin livin' dat you nuver +seed a mole befo'? Whar you come f'um mus' be a mighty cur'ous spot ef +dey ain' have no moleses dar; mus' be sump'n wrong wid dat place. I bin +mos' all over dish yer Sussex kyounty endurin' er my time, an' I ain' +nuver come 'cross no place yit whar dey ain' have moleses.</p> + +<p>"Moleses is sut'n'y cur'ous li'l creeturs," she continued. "I bin +teckin' tickler notuss un 'em dis long time, an' dey knows mo'n you'd +think fer, jes' ter look at 'em. Dough dey lives down un'need de groun', +yit dey is fus'class swimmers; I done seed one, wid my own eyes, +crossin' de branch, an' dey kin root 'long un'need de yearf mos' ez fas' +ez a hoss kin trot on top uv hit. Y'all neenter look dat-a-way, 'kase +hit's de trufe; dey's jes' built fer gittin' 'long fas' unner groun'. +Der han's is bofe pickaxes an' shovels fer 'em; dey digs an' scoops wid +der front ones an' kicks de dirt out de way wid der behime ones. Der +strong snouts he'ps 'em, too, ter push der way thu de dirt."</p> + +<p>"Their fur is just as soft and shiny as silk," said Janey.</p> + +<p>"Yas," said Aunt Nancy, "hit's dat sof an' shiny dat,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> dough dey live +all time in de dirt, not a speck er dirt sticks to 'em. You ses 'sof an' +shiny ez silk,' but I tell you hit <i>is</i> silk; silk clo'es, dat 'zackly +w'at 'tis."</p> + +<p>Ned laughed. "Who ever heard of an animal dressed in silk clothes?" he +said.</p> + +<p>"Nemmine," she answered, "you talks mighty peart, but I knows w'at I +knows, an' dish yer I bin tellin' you is de sho'-'nuff trufe."</p> + +<p>"Just see its paws," Janey went on, "why, they look exactly like hands."</p> + +<p>"Look lak <i>han's!</i> <i>look</i> lak han's! umph! dey <i>is</i> han's, all thumbered +an' fingered jes lak yo'n; an', w'at's mo', dey wuz onct human ban's; +<i>human</i>, dey wuz so!"</p> + +<p>"How could they ever have been human hands and then been put on a mole's +body?" asked Ned. "I believe most things you say, Aunt Nancy, but I +can't swallow that."</p> + +<p>"Dar's a li'l boy roun' dese diggin's whar talkin' mighty sassy an' +rambunkshus, seem ter me. I am' ax you ter swoller nuttin' 't all, but +'pears ter me y'all bin swollerin' dem 'ar ol' tales right an' lef, +faster'n' I kin call 'em ter min', an' I am' seed none er you choke on +'em yit, ner cry, 'nuff said. I'se 'tickler saw'y 'bout dis, 'kase I +done had hit in min' ter tell you a tale 'bout huccome moleses have +han'ses, whar I larn f'um a ooman dat come f'um Fauquier kyounty, but +now dat Mars' Ned 'pear ter be so jubous 'bout hit, I ain' gwine was'e +my time on folks whar ain' gwine b'lieve me, nohows. Nemmine, de chillen +over on de Thompson place gwine baig me fer dat tale w'en I goes dar +ag'in, an', w'at's mo', dey gwine git hit; fer dey b'lieves ev'y wu'd +dat draps f'um my mouf, lak 'twuz de law an' de gospil."</p> + +<p>Of course, the children protested that they were as ready to hang upon +her words as the Thompson children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> could possibly be, and presented +their prior claim to the tale in such moving fashion that Aunt Nancy was +finally prevailed upon to come down from her high horse and tell the +story.</p> + +<p>"I done tol' you," she said, "dat dem 'ar han's is human, an' I mean +jes' w'at I ses, 'kase de moleses useter be folks, sho'-'nuff folks, +dough dey is all swunk up ter dis size an' der han's is all dat's lef +ter tell de tale. Yas, suh, in de ol' days, so fur back dat you kain't +kyount hit, de moleses wuz folks, an' mighty proud an' biggitty folks at +dat. Dey wan't gwine be ketched wearin' any er dish yer kaliker, er +linsey-woolsey, er homespun er sech ez dat, ner even broadclawf, ner +bombazine, naw suh! Dey jes' tricked derse'fs out in de fines' an' +shinies' er silk, nuttin' mo' ner less, an' den dey went a-traipsin' up +an' down an' hether an' yon, fer tu'rr folks ter look at an' mek +'miration over. Mo'n dat, dey 'uz so fine an' fiddlin' dey oon set foot +ter de groun' lessen dar wuz a kyarpet spread down fer 'em ter walk on. +Dey tells me hit sut'n'y wuz a sight in de worl' ter see dem 'ar folks +walkin' up an' down on de kyarpets, trailin' an' rus'lin' der silk +clo'es, an' curchyin' an' bobbin' ter one nu'rr w'en dey met up, but +nuver speakin' ter de common folks whar walkin' on de groun', ner even +so much ez lookin' at 'em. W'ats mo', dey wuz so uppish dey thought de +yearf wuz too low down fer 'em even ter run der eyes over, so dey went +'long wid der haids r'ared an' der eyes all time lookin' up, stidder +down. You kin be sho' dem gwines-on ain' mek 'em pop'lous wid tu'rr +folks, 'kase people jes' natchelly kain't stan' hit ter have you +th'owin' up to 'em dat you is better'n w'at dey is, w'en all de time dey +knows you're nuttin' but folks, same 'z dem.</p> + +<p>"Dey kep' gwine on so-fashion, an' gittin' mo' an' mo'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> pompered an' +uppish, 'twel las' dey 'tracted de 'tention er de Lawd, an' He say ter +Hisse'f, He do, 'Who is dese yer folks, anyhows, whar gittin' so airish, +walkin' up an' down an' back an' fo'th on my yearf an' spurnin' hit +so's't dey spread kyarpets 'twix' hit an' der footses, treatin' my +yearf, w'at I done mek, lak 'twuz de dirt un'need der footses, an' +'spisin' der feller creeturs an' excusin' 'em er bein' common, an' +keepin' der eyes turnt up all de time, ez ef dey wuz too good ter look +at de things I done mek an' putt on my yearf? I mus' see 'bout dis; I +mus' punish dese 'sumptious people an' show 'em dat one'r my creeturs is +jez' ez low down ez tu'rr, in my sight.'</p> + +<p>"So de Lawd He pass jedgment on de moleses. Fus' He tuck an' made 'em +lose der human shape an' den He swunk 'em up ontwel dey 'z no bigger'n +dey is now, dat 'uz ter show 'em how no-kyount dey wuz in His sight. Den +bekase dey thought derse'fs too good ter walk 'pun de bare groun' He +sont 'em ter live un'need hit, whar dey hatter dig an' scratch der way +'long. Las' uv all He tuck an' tuck 'way der eyes an' made 'em blin', +dat's 'kase dey done 'spise ter look at der feller creeturs. But He feel +kind er saw'y fer 'em w'en He git dat fur, an' He ain' wanter punish 'em +too haivy, so He lef 'em dese silk clo'es whar I done tol' you 'bout, +an' dese han's whar you kin see fer yo'se'fs is human, an' I reckon bofe +dem things putt 'em in min' er w'at dey useter be an' rack 'em 'umble. +Uver sence den de moleses bin gwine 'long un'need de groun', 'cordin ter +de jedgmen' er de Lawd, an' diggin' an' scratchin' der way thu de worl', +in trial an' tribilashun, wid dem po' li'l human han'ses. An' dat orter +l'arn you w'at comes er folks 'spisin' der feller creeturs, an' I want +y'all ter 'member dat nex' time I year you call dem Thompson chillen +'trash.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'd like to know what use moles are," said Ned, who was of rather an +investigating turn of mind; "they just go round rooting through the +ground spoiling people's gardens, and I don't see what they're good for; +you can't eat them or use them any way."</p> + +<p>"Sho', chil'!" said Aunt Nancy, "you dunno w'at you talkin' 'bout; de +Lawd have some use fer ev'y creetur He done mek. Dey tells me dat de +moleses eats up lots er bugs an' wu'ms an' sech ez dat, dat mought hurt +de craps ef dey wuz let ter live. Sidesen dat, jes' gimme one'r de claws +er dat mole, an' lemme hang hit roun' de neck uv a baby whar cuttin' his +toofs, an' I boun' you, ev'y toof in his jaws gwine come bustin' thu his +goms widout nair' a ache er a pain ter let him know dey's dar. Don't +talk ter me 'bout de moleses bein' wufless! I done walk de flo' too much +wid cryin' babies not ter know de use er moleses."</p> + +<p>"You don't really believe that, do you?" asked Ned.</p> + +<p>"B'lieve hit!" she answered indignantly; "I don' <i>b'lieve</i> hit, I +<i>knows</i> hit. I done tol' you all de things a hyar's foot kin do; w'ats +de reason a mole's foot ain' good fer sump'n, too? Ef folks on'y knowed +mo' about sech kyores ez dat dar neenter be so much sickness an' mis'ry +in de worl'. I done kyored myse'f er de rheumatiz in my right arm jes' +by tyin' a eel-skin roun' hit, an' ev'yb'dy on dis plantation knows dat +ef you'll wrop a chil's hya'r wid eel-skin strings hit's boun' ter mek +hit grow. Ef you want de chil' hisse'f ter grow an' ter walk soon you +mus' bresh his feet wid de broom. I oon tell you dis ef I hadn't tried +'em myse'f. You mus'n' talk so biggitty 'bout w'at you dunno nuttin' 't +all about. You come f'um up Norf yonner, an' mebbe dese things don' wu'k +de same dar ez w'at dey does down yer whar we bin 'pendin' on 'em so +long.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A PSALM OF LIFE</h2> + +<h3>BY PHŒBE CARY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tell me not, in idle jingle,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Marriage is an empty dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the girl is dead that's single,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And things are not what they seem.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Married life is real, earnest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Single blessedness a fib,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taken from man, to man returnest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Has been spoken of the rib.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is our destined end or way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to act, that each to-morrow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nearer brings the wedding-day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Life is long, and youth is fleeting,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And our hearts, if there we search,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still like steady drums are beating<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Anxious marches to the Church.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the world's broad field of battle,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the bivouac of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be not like dumb, driven cattle;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be a woman, be a wife!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Let the dead Past bury its dead!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Act—act in the living Present.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Heart within, and Man ahead!</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lives of married folks remind us<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We can live our lives as well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, departing, leave behind us;—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Such examples as will tell;—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such examples, that another,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sailing far from Hymen's port,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A forlorn, unmarried brother,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seeing, shall take heart, and court.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Let us then be up and doing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the heart and head begin;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still achieving, still pursuing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Learn to labor, and to win!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>AN ODYSSEY OF K'S</h2> + +<h3>BY WILBUR D. NESBIT</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I've traveled up and down this land<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And crossed it in a hundred ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But somehow can not understand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These towns with names chock-full of K's.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For instance, once it fell to me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To pack my grip and quickly go—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought at first to Kankakee<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But then remembered Kokomo.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, Kankakee or Kokomo,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sighed, "just which I do not know."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then to the ticket man I went—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He was a snappy man, and bald,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behind an iron railing pent—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I confessed that I was stalled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"A much K'd town is booked for me,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I said. "I'm due to-morrow, so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wonder if it's Kankakee<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or if it can be Kokomo."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"There's quite a difference," growled he,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"'Twixt Kokomo and Kankakee."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He spun a yard of tickets out—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The folded kind that makes a strip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And leaves the passenger in doubt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the conductor takes a clip.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">He flipped the tickets out, I say,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And asked: "Now, which one shall it be?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll sell you tickets either way—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To Kokomo or Kankakee."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still I really did not know—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought it might be Kokomo.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At any rate, I took a chance;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He struck his stamp-machine a blow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I, a toy of circumstance,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was ticketed for Kokomo.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the train I wondered still<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If all was right as it should be.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some mystic warning seemed to fill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My mind with thoughts of Kankakee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The car-wheels clicked it out: "Now, he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had better be for Kankakee!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Until at last it grew so loud,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At some big town I clambered out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And elbowed madly through the crowd,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Determined on the other route.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ticket-agent saw my haste;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Where do you wish to go?" cried he.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I yelled: "I have no time to waste—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Please fix me up for Kankakee!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again the wheels, now fast, now slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clicked: "Ought to go to Kokomo!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well, anyhow, I did not heed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The message that they sent to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I went, and landed wrong indeed—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Went all the way to Kankakee.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then, in a rush, I doubled back—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Went wrong again, I'd have you know.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There was no call for me, alack!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Within the town of Kokomo.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then I learned, confound the luck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I should have gone to <i>Keokuk</i>!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE DEACON'S TROUT</h2> + +<h3>BY HENRY WARD BEECHER</h3> + + +<p>He was a curious trout. I believe he knew Sunday just as well as Deacon +Marble did. At any rate, the deacon thought the trout meant to aggravate +him. The deacon, you know, is a little waggish. He often tells about +that trout. Sez he, "One Sunday morning, just as I got along by the +willows, I heard an awful splash, and not ten feet from shore I saw the +trout, as long as my arm, just curving over like a bow, and going down +with something for breakfast. Gracious! says I, and I almost jumped out +of the wagon. But my wife Polly, says she, 'What on airth are you +thinkin' of, Deacon? It's Sabbath day, and you're goin' to meetin'! It's +a pretty business for a deacon!' That sort o' cooled me off. But I do +say that, for about a minute, I wished I wasn't a deacon. But 't +wouldn't made any difference, for I came down next day to mill on +purpose, and I came down once or twice more, and nothin' was to be seen, +tho' I tried him with the most temptin' things. Wal, next Sunday I came +along ag'in, and, to save my life I couldn't keep off worldly and +wanderin' thoughts. I tried to be sayin' my catechism, but I couldn't +keep my eyes off the pond as we came up to the willows. I'd got along in +the catechism, as smooth as the road, to the Fourth Commandment, and was +sayin' it out loud for Polly, and jist as I was sayin: '<i>What is +required in the Fourth Commandment?</i>' I heard a splash, and there was +the trout, and, afore I could think, I said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> 'Gracious, Polly, I must +have that trout.' She almost riz right up, 'I knew you wa'n't sayin' +your catechism hearty. Is this the way you answer the question about +keepin' the Lord's day? I'm ashamed, Deacon Marble,' says she. 'You'd +better change your road, and go to meetin' on the road over the hill. If +I was a deacon, I wouldn't let a fish's tail whisk the whole catechism +out of my head'; and I had to go to meetin' on the hill road all the +rest of the summer."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ENOUGH<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> + +<h3>BY TOM MASSON</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shot a rocket in the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It fell to earth, I knew not where<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until next day, with rage profound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The man it fell on came around.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In less time than it takes to tell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He showed me where that rocket fell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now I do not greatly care<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To shoot more rockets in the air.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE FIGHTING RACE</h2> + +<h3>BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And Kelly drooped his head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Went down the list of the dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The crews of the gig and yawl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bearded man and the lad in his teens,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Carpenters, coal-passers—all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then knocking the ashes from out his pipe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Burke, in an off-hand way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kelly and Burke and Shea."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Wherever fighting's the game,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a spice of danger in grown man's work,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Kelly, "you'll find my name."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"When it's touch and go for life?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, be dad,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Since I charged to drum and fife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stopped a Rebel ball on its way.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kelly and Burke and Shea—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Burke, "that we'd die by right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the cradle of our soldier race,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">After one good stand-up fight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And fighting was not his trade;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But his rusty pike's in the cabin still,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With Hessian blood on the blade."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the word was 'Clear the way!'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kelly and Burke and Shea."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said "We were at Ramillies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We left our bones at Fontenoy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And up in the Pyrenees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cremona, Lille, and Ghent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We're all over Austria, France, and Spain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wherever they pitched a tent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We've died for England from Waterloo<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To Egypt and Dargai;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And still there's enough for a corps or crew,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kelly and Burke and Shea."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, the fighting races don't die out,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If they seldom die in bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For love is first in their hearts, no doubt,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Burke. Then Kelly said:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The angel with the sword,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the battle-dead from a hundred lands<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are ranged in one big horde,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Will stretch tree deep that day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kelly and Burke and Shea."<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ORGAN</h2> + +<h3>BY HENRY WARD BEECHER</h3> + + +<p>At one of his week night lectures, Beecher was speaking about the +building and equipping of new churches. After a few satirical touches +about church architects and their work, he went on to ridicule the usual +style of pulpit—the "sacred mahogany tub"—"plastered up against some +pillar like a barn-swallow's nest." Then he passed on to the erection of +the organ, and to the opening recital.</p> + +<p>"The organ long expected has arrived, been unpacked, set up, and gloried +over. The great players of the region round about, or of distant +celebrity, have had the grand organ exhibition; and this magnificent +instrument has been put through all its paces in a manner which has +surprised every one, and, if it had had a conscious existence, must have +surprised the organ itself most of all. It has piped, fluted, trumpeted, +brayed, thundered. It has played so loud that everybody was deafened, +and so soft that nobody could hear. The pedals played for thunder, the +flutes languished and coquetted, and the swell died away in delicious +suffocation, like one singing a sweet song under the bed-clothes. Now it +leads down a stupendous waltz with full brass, sounding very much as if, +in summer, a thunderstorm should play, 'Come, Haste to the Wedding,' or +'Moneymusk.' Then come marches, galops, and hornpipes. An organ playing +hornpipes ought to have elephants as dancers.</p> + +<p>"At length a fugue is rendered to show the whole scope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> and power of the +instrument. The theme, like a cautious rat, peeps out to see if the +coast is clear; and, after a few hesitations, comes forth and begins to +frisk a little, and run up and down to see what it can find. It finds +just what it did not want, a purring tenor lying in ambush and waiting +for a spring; and as the theme comes incautiously near, the savage cat +of a tenor springs at it, misses its hold, and then takes after it with +terrible earnestness. But the tenor has miscalculated the agility of the +theme. All that it could do, with the most desperate effort, was to keep +the theme from running back into its hole again; and so they ran up and +down, around and around, dodging, eluding, whipping in and out of every +corner and nook, till the whole organ was aroused, and the bass began to +take part, but unluckily slipped and rolled down-stairs, and lay at the +bottom raving and growling in the most awful manner, and nothing could +appease it. Sometimes the theme was caught by one part, and dangled for +a moment, then with a snatch, another part took it and ran off exultant, +until, unawares, the same trick was played on it; and, finally, all the +parts, being greatly exercised in mind, began to chase each other +promiscuously in and out, up and down, now separating and now rushing in +full tilt together, until everything in the organ loses patience and all +the 'stops' are drawn, and, in spite of all that the brave organist +could do—who bobbed up and down, feet, hands, head and all—the tune +broke up into a real row, and every part was clubbing every other one, +until at length, patience being no longer a virtue, the organist, with +two or three terrible crashes, put an end to the riot, and brought the +great organ back to silence."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MY GRANDMOTHER'S TURKEY-TAIL FAN</h2> + +<h3>BY SAMUEL MINTURN PECK</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It owned not the color that vanity dons<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or slender wits choose for display;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its beautiful tint was a delicate bronze,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A brown softly blended with gray.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From her waist to her chin, spreading out without break,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Twas built on a generous plan:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pride of the forest was slaughtered to make<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My grandmother's turkey-tail fan.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For common occasions it never was meant:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In a chest between two silken cloths<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas kept safely hidden with careful intent<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In camphor to keep out the moths.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas famed far and wide through the whole countryside,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From Beersheba e'en unto Dan;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And often at meeting with envy 'twas eyed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My grandmother's turkey-tail fan.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Camp-meetings, indeed, were its chiefest delight.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like a crook unto sheep gone astray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It beckoned backsliders to re-seek the right,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And exhorted the sinners to pray.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It always beat time when the choir went wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In psalmody leading the van.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Hundred, I know, was its favorite song—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My grandmother's turkey-tail fan.<br /></span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A fig for the fans that are made nowadays,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Suited only to frivolous mirth!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A different thing was the fan that I praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet it scorned not the good things of earth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At bees and at quiltings 'twas aye to be seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The best of the gossip began<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When in at the doorway had entered serene<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My grandmother's turkey-tail fan.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tradition relates of it wonderful tales.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its handle of leather was buff.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though shorn of its glory, e'en now it exhales<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An odor of hymn-books and snuff.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its primeval grace, if you like, you can trace:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Twas limned for the future to scan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just under a smiling gold-spectacled face,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My grandmother's turkey-tail fan.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> From "The Habitant and Other French Canadian Poems," by +William Henry Drummond. Copyright 1897 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> By permission of Life Publishing Company.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h4><i>HOW TO ENJOY THE ECSTASY THAT ACCOMPANIES SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING</i></h4> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<h2>Before An Audience</h2> + +<h4>OR</h4> + +<h3>The Use of the Will in Public Speaking</h3> + +<h3>By NATHAN SHEPPARD</h3> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Talks to the Students of the University of St. Andrew and the +University of Aberdeen</i></p> + +<p>This is not a book on elocution, but it deals in a practical +common-sense way with the requirements and constituents of effective +public speaking.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">CAPITAL, FAMILIAR, AND RACY</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I shall recommend it to our three schools of elocution. It is +capital, familiar, racy, and profoundly philosophical."—<i>Joseph T. +Duryea, D.D.</i></p></div> + +<p style="text-align: center;">REPLETE WITH PRACTICAL SENSE</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is replete with practical sense and sound suggestions, and I +should like to have it talked into the students by the +author."—<i>Prof. J.H. Gilmore</i>, Rochester University.</p></div> + +<p style="text-align: center;">"KNOCKS TO FLINDERS" OLD THEORIES</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The author knocks to flinders the theories of elocutionist, and +opposes all their rules with one simple counsel—'Wake up your +will.'"—<i>The New York Evangelist.</i></p></div> + +<p style="text-align: center;">TO REACH, MOVE, AND INFLUENCE MEN</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"He does not teach elocution, but the art of public speaking.... +Gives suggestions that will enable one to reach and move and +influence men."—<i>The Pittsburg Chronicle.</i></p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>12mo, Cloth, 152 Pages. Price, 75 cents</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h4><i>FORCEFUL SPEAKING BY NEW METHODS</i></h4> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<h2>THE ESSENTIALS OF ELOCUTION</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Revised, Enlarged, New Matter</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">By ALFRED AYRES</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Author of "The Orthoepist," "The Verbalist," etc., etc.</i></p> + +<p>A unique and valuable guide on the art of speaking the language so as to +make the thought it expresses clear and impressive. It is a departure +from the old and conventional methods which have tended so often to make +mere automatons on the platform or stage instead of animated souls.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>HIGHLY PRAISED BY AUTHORITIES</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is worth more than all the ponderous philosophies on the +subject."—<i>The Lutheran Observer.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a case where brevity is the soul of value."—<i>The Rochester +Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"His suggestions are simple and sensible."—<i>The +Congregationalist.</i></p> + +<p>"An unpretentious but really meritorious volume."—<i>Dramatic +Review.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Ayres has made this subject a study for many years, and what +he has written is worth reading"<i>—The Dramatic News.</i></p> + +<p>"It is brightly written and original."—<i>Richard Henry Stoddard.</i></p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>16mo, Cloth, 174 Pages, Tasteful Binding Deckle Edges. With +Frontispiece. 75 cts.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h2>HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>A Most Suggestive and Practical Self-Instructor</i></p> + +<h3>By <span class="smcap">Grenville Kleiser</span></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center;">Author of "Power and Personality in Speaking," etc.</p> + +<p>This new book is a complete elocutionary manual comprizing numerous +exercises for developing the speaking voice, deep breathing, +pronunciation, vocal expression, and gesture; also selections for +practise from masterpieces of ancient and modern eloquence. It is +intended for students, teachers, business men, lawyers, clergymen, +politicians, clubs, debating societies, and, in fact, every one +interested in the art of public speaking.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>OUTLINE OF CONTENTS</i></p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="ad1"> +<tr><td align='left'>Mechanics of Elocution</td><td align='left'>Previous Preparation</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mental Aspects</td><td align='left'>Physical Preparation</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Public Speaking</td><td align='left'>Mental Preparation</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Selections for Practise</td><td align='left'>Moral Preparation</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>Preparation of Speech</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Many useful suggestions in it."—<i>Hon. Joseph H. Choate</i>, New +York.</p> + +<p>"It is admirable and practical instruction in the technic of +speaking, and I congratulate you upon your thorough work."—<i>Hon. +Albert J. Beveridge.</i></p> + +<p>"The work has been very carefully and well compiled from a large +number of our best works on the subject of elocution. It contains +many admirable suggestions for those who are interested in becoming +better speakers. As a general text for use in teaching public +speaking, it may be used with great success."</p> + +<p><i>John W. Wetzel</i>, Instructor in Public Speaking, Yale University, +New Haven, Conn.</p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>12mo, Cloth. $1.25, Net; Post-paid, $1.40</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h2><span class="smcap">How to Develop</span></h2> + +<h2>Power and Personality</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">in Speaking</span></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center;">By GRENVILLE KLEISER</p> + +<p>Author of "How to Speak in Public." Introduction by Lewis O. Brastow, +D.D., <i>Professor Emeritus, Yale Divinity School</i></p> + +<p>This new book gives practical suggestions and exercises for Developing +Power and Personality in Speaking. It has many selections for practise.</p> + +<p><b>POWER.</b>—Power of Voice—Power of Gesture—Power of Vocabulary—Power of +Imagination—Power of English Style—Power of Illustration—Power of +Memory—Power of Extempore Speech—Power of Conversation—Power of +Silence—Power of a Whisper—Power of the Eye.</p> + +<p><b>PERSONALITY.</b>—More Personality for the Lawyer—The Salesman—The +Preacher—The Politician—The Physician—The Congressman—The Alert +Citizen.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I give it my hearty commendation. It should take its place upon +the library shelves of every public speaker; be read carefully, +consulted frequently, and held as worthy of faithful obedience. For +lack of the useful hints that here abound, many men murder the +truth by their method of presenting it."—<span class="smcap">S. Parkes Cadman, D.D.</span>, +Brooklyn, N.Y.</p> + +<p>"It is a book of value. The selections are fine. It is an excellent +book for college students."—<span class="smcap">Wm. P. Frye</span>, <i>President pro tem. of +the United States Senate.</i></p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>12mo, Cloth, 422 pages. Price, $1.25, net; by mail, $1.40</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h2>How to Develop Self-Confidence</h2> + +<h3>in Speech and Manner</h3> + +<p style="text-align: center;">By GRENVILLE KLEISER</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Author of "How to Speak in Public"; "How to Develop Power and +Personality in Speaking," etc.</i></p> + +<p>The purpose of this book is to inspire in men lofty ideals. It is +particularly for those who daily defraud themselves because of doubt, +fearthought, and foolish timidity.</p> + +<p>Thousands of persons are held in physical and mental bondage, owing to +lack of self-confidence. Distrusting themselves, they live a life of +limited effort, and at last pass on without having realized more than a +small part of their rich possessions. It is believed that this book will +be of substantial service to those who wish to rise above mediocrity, +and who feel within them something of their divine inheritance. It is +commended with confidence to every ambitious man.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>CONTENTS</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Preliminary Steps—Building the Will—The Cure of +Self-Consciousness—The Power of Right Thinking—Sources of +Inspiration—Concentration—Physical Basis—Finding +Yourself—General Habits—The Man and the Manner—The Discouraged +Man—Daily Steps in Self-Culture—Imagination and +Initiative—Positive and Negative Thought—The Speaking +Voice—Confidence in Business—Confidence in Society—Confidence in +Public Speaking—Toward the Heights—Memory Passages that Build +Confidence.</p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.35</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h2>How to<br /> +ARGUE AND WIN</h2> + +<h4>IN CONVERSATION, IN SALESMANSHIP, IN COMMITTEE-MEETINGS, IN JURY CASES, +IN THE PULPIT, ON THE ROSTRUM, IN DEBATING SOCIETIES.</h4> + +<p style="text-align: center;">By GRENVILLE KLEISER</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Author of "How to Speak in Public," etc.</i></p> + +<p>In this book will be found definite suggestions for training the mind in +accurate thinking and in the power of clear and effective statement. It +is the outcome of many years of experience in teaching men "to think on +their feet." The aim throughout is practical, and the ultimate end is a +knowledge of successful argumentation.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">CONTENTS</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Introductory—Truth and Facts—Clearness and Conciseness—The Use +of Words—The Syllogism—Faults—Personality—The Lawyer—The +Business Man—The Preacher—The Salesman—The Public +Speaker—Brief-Drawing—The Discipline of Debate—Tact—Cause and +Effect—Reading Habits—Questions for Solution—Specimens of +Argumentation—Golden Rules in Argumentation.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="ad2"> +<tr><td align='left'>Note for Law Lecture</td><td align='left'><i>Abraham Lincoln</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Of Truth</td><td align='left'><i>Francis Bacon</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Of Practise and Habits</td><td align='left'><i>John Locke</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Improving the Memory</td><td align='left'><i>Isaac Watts</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;">"Mr. Kleiser offers no panacea (as the title might seem to imply). +Logic will not make a dunce a philosopher, neither will it insure +success where success is not deserved. But what he does offer the +honest debater in this practical book, is to put him in possession +of those laws of argumentation which lie at the bottom of sound +reasoning, based on fact."—<i>Times-Dispatch</i>, Richmond, Va.</p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.35</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h2>How to Read and Declaim</h2> + +<h4>A COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN READING AND DECLAMATION HAVING AS ITS PRIME +OBJECT THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE AND REFINEMENT</h4> + +<h3>By GRENVILLE KLEISER</h3> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Formerly Instructor in Public Speaking at Yale Divinity School; Author +of "How to Speak in Public," etc.</i></p> + +<p>This eminently practical book is divided into five parts:</p> + +<p>PART ONE—Preparatory Course: Twenty Lessons on Naturalness, +Distinctness, Vivacity, Confidence, Simplicity, Deliberateness, and +kindred topics.</p> + +<p>PART TWO—Advance Course: Twenty Lessons on Thought Values, Thought +Directions, Persuasion, Power, Climax, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>PART THREE—Articulation and Pronunciation.</p> + +<p>PART FOUR—Gesture and Facial Expression.</p> + +<p>PART FIVE—The most up-to-date and popular prose and poetic selections +anywhere to be found.</p> + +<p>It is a book to beget intelligent reading, so as to develop in the +student mental alertness, poise, and self-confidence.</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.40</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h4>"<i>The Laugh Trust—Their Book</i>"</h4> + +<h2>HUMOROUS HITS AND HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center;">By GRENVILLE KLEISER</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Author of "How to Speak in Public," etc.</i></p> + +<p>A new collection of successful recitations, sketches, stories, poems, +monologues. The favorite numbers of favorite authors and entertainers. +The book also contains practical advice on the delivery of the +selections. The latest and best book for family reading, for teachers, +elocutionists, orators, after-dinner speakers, and actors.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kleiser gives also some practical suggestions as to the most +successful methods of delivering humorous or other selections, so that +they may make the strongest impression upon an audience. The book will +not only be found to be just what teachers, elocutionists, actors, +orators, and after-dinner speakers have been waiting for, but it will +also furnish entertaining material to read aloud to the family.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FAVORITE SELECTIONS BY FAVORITE AUTHORS<br /> +INCLUDING</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>James Whitcomb Riley</td><td align='left'>W.D. Nesbit</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Henry Drummond</td><td align='left'>Thos. Bailey Aldrich</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Paul Laurence Dunbar</td><td align='left'>Nixon Waterman</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Edward Everett Hale</td><td align='left'>Ben King</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Tom Masson</td><td align='left'>Walt Whitman</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Fred. Emerson Brooks</td><td align='left'>Mark Twain</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>S.E. Kiser</td><td align='left'>Finley Peter Dunne</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>S.W. Foss</td><td align='left'>Richard Mansfield</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Eugene Field</td><td align='left'>Charles Follen Adams</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Robert J. Burdette</td><td align='left'>Charles Batell Loomis</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bill Nye</td><td align='left'>Joe Kerr</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>W.J. Lampton</td><td align='left'>Wallace Irwin</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan='2'>AND MANY OTHERS</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Cloth, 12mo, 316 pages Price, $1, Net; Post-paid, $1.10</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h3>SPEECHES OF</h3> + +<h2>William Jennings Bryan</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Revised and Arranged by Himself</i></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center;">In Five Uniform Volumes, Thin 12mo, Ornamented Boards—Dainty Style</p> + + +<p><i>Following Are the Titles:</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p> +THE PEOPLE'S LAW—A discussion of State Constitutions and what they should contain.<br /> +THE PRICE OF A SOUL<br /> +THE VALUE OF AN IDEAL<br /> +THE PRINCE OF PEACE<br /> +MAN<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>Reprinted in this form from Volume II of Mr. Bryan's Speeches. Each of +these four addresses has been delivered before many large audiences.</p> + +<p>These five volumes make a most attractive series.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Price of Each, 30 cents, net. Postage 5 cents</i></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3><i>Two Other Notable Speeches</i></h3> + +<p>THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES; to which is added FAITH. The most important +address by Mr. Bryan since his two volumes of "Selected Speeches" were +compiled, with one of the best of those added.</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>One 16mo Volume, in Flexible Leather, with Gilt-Top. 75 cents, net. +Postage 5 cents</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="bbox"> +<div class="boxtext"> + +<h4><i>THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE LANGUAGE AND ITS LITERATURE</i></h4> + +<h2>Essentials of English Speech and Literature</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center;">By FRANK H. VIZETELLY, Litt.D., LL.D.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>Managing Editor of the Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary; Author +of "A Desk-Book of Errors in English," etc.</i></p> + +<p>A record, in concise and interesting style, of the Origin, Growth, +Development, and Mutations of the English language. It treats of +Literature and its Elements; of the Dictionary as a Text-Book, and its +Functions; of Grammar, Phonetics, Pronunciation, and Reading; of the +Bible as a model of pure English; of Writing for Publication and of +Individuality in Writing; also of the Corruption of English Speech.</p> + +<p>An Appendix of the principal Authors and their works, and a Selection of +a Hundred Best Books is included.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Raymond Weeks, Ph.D.</i>, Prof. Romance Languages, Columbia +University, says it is: "One of the most valuable books on this +subject which have come into my hands for a long time."</p> + +<p><i>Brander Matthews, Litt.D., LL.D.</i>, says it is: "A good book—a +book likely to do good, because it is generally sound and always +stimulating."</p></div> + + +<p style="text-align: center;"><i>8vo, Cloth, 428 pages. $1.50 net; average carriage charges, 12 cents</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center;">FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br /> +NEW YORK and LONDON</p> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume +I. 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(of +X.), by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) + +Author: Various + +Editor: Marshall P. Wilder + +Release Date: May 28, 2006 [EBook #18464] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR I. *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + +Library Edition + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +In Ten Volumes + +VOL. I + + + + +[Illustration: MARSHALL P. WILDER +Drawing from photo by Marceau] + + + + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER + +_Volume I_ + + +Funk & Wagnalls Company +New York and London + +Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + Anatole Dubois at de Horse Show Wallace Bruce Amsbary 152 + Billville Spirit Meeting, The Frank L. Stanton 188 + British Matron, The Nathaniel Hawthorne 192 + Champion Checker-Player of Ameriky, The James Whitcomb Riley 156 + Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt Alfred Henry Lewis 98 + Cry from the Consumer, A Wilbur D. Nesbit 190 + Curse of the Competent, The Henry J. Finn 14 + Darby and Joan St. John Honeywood 166 + Day We Do Not Celebrate, The Robert J. Burdette 134 + Deacon's Masterpiece, The; or, The + Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay" O.W. Holmes 9 + Deacon's Trout, The Henry Ward Beecher 212 + Disappointment, A John Boyle O'Reilly 191 + Distichs John Hay 65 + Down Around the River James Whitcomb Riley 29 + Enough Tom Masson 213 + Experiences of the A.C., The Bayard Taylor 116 + Feast of the Monkeys, The John Philip Sousa 183 + Fighting Race, The Joseph I.C. Clarke 214 + Grammatical Boy, The Bill Nye 16 + Grizzly-Gru Ironquill 174 + John Henry in a Street Car Hugh McHugh 177 + Laffing Josh Billings 171 + Letter from Mr. Biggs, A E.W. Howe 69 + Medieval Discoverer, A Bill Nye 31 + Melons Bret Harte 1 + Menagerie, The William Vaughn Moody 24 + Mrs. Johnson William Dean Howells 74 + Muskeeter, The Josh Billings 181 + My Grandmother's Turkey-Tail Fan Samuel Minturn Peck 219 + Myopia Wallace Rice 151 + Odyssey of K's, An Wilbur D. Nesbit 209 + Old Maid's House, The: In Plan Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 60 + Organ, The Henry Ward Beecher 217 + Partingtonian Patchwork B.P. Shillaber 20 + Pass Ironquill 91 + Pettibone Lineage, The James T. Fields 196 + Psalm of Life, A Phoebe Cary 207 + Purple Cow, The Gelett Burgess 13 + Quarrel, The S.E. Kiser 68 + Similar Cases Charlotte Perkins Gilman 56 + Simple English Ray Clarke Rose 19 + Spelling Down the Master Edward Eggleston 138 + Stage Whispers Carolyn Wells 195 + Teaching by Example John G. Saxe 91 + Tragedy of It, The Alden Charles Noble 194 + Turnings of a Bookworm, The Carolyn Wells 182 + Wanted--A Cook Alan Dale 35 + What Mr. Robinson Thinks James Russell Lowell 131 + When Albani Sang William Henry Drummond 92 + When the Frost is on the Punkin James Whitcomb Riley 169 + Why Moles Have Hands Anne Virginia Culbertson 202 + Wouter Van Twiller Washington Irving 109 + Yankee Dude'll Do, The S.E. Kiser 136 + +COMPLETE INDEX AT END OF VOLUME X. + + + + +FOREWORD + +EMBODYING A FEW REMARKS ON THE GENTLE ART OF LAUGH-MAKING. + +BY MARSHALL P. WILDER. + + +Happiness and laughter are two of the most beautiful things in the +world, for they are of the few that are purely unselfish. Laughter is +not for yourself, but for others. When people are happy they present a +cheerful spirit, which finds its reflection in every one they meet, for +happiness is as contagious as a yawn. Of all the emotions, laughter is +the most versatile, for it plays equally well the role of either parent +or child to happiness. + +Then can we say too much in praise of the men who make us laugh? God +never gave a man a greater gift than the power to make others laugh, +unless it is the privilege of laughing himself. We honor, revere, admire +our great soldiers, statesmen, and men of letters, but we love the man +who makes us laugh. + +No other man to-day enjoys to such an extent the close personal +affection, individual yet national, that is given to Mr. Samuel L. +Clemens. He is ours, he is one of us, we have a personal pride in +him--dear "Mark Twain," the beloved child of the American nation. And +it was through our laughter that he won our love. + +He is the exponent of the typically American style of fun-making, the +humorous story. I asked Mr. Clemens one day if he could remember the +first money he ever earned. With his inimitable drawl he said: + +"Yes, Marsh, it was at school. All boys had the habit of going to school +in those days, and they hadn't any more respect for the desks than they +had for the teachers. There was a rule in our school that any boy +marring his desk, either with pencil or knife, would be chastised +publicly before the whole school, or pay a fine of five dollars. Besides +the rule, there was a ruler; I knew it because I had felt it; it was a +darned hard one, too. One day I had to tell my father that I had broken +the rule, and had to pay a fine or take a public whipping; and he said: + +"'Sam, it would be too bad to have the name of Clemens disgraced before +the whole school, so I'll pay the fine. But I don't want you to lose +anything, so come upstairs.' + +"I went upstairs with father, and he was for-_giving_ me. I came +downstairs with the feeling in one hand and the five dollars in the +other, and decided that as I'd been punished once, and got used to it, I +wouldn't mind taking the other licking at school. So I did, and I kept +the five dollars. That was the first money I ever earned." + +The humorous story as expounded by Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, and Robert +J. Burdette, is purely American. Artemus Ward could get laughs out of +nothing, by mixing the absurd and the unexpected, and then backing the +combination with a solemn face and earnest manner. For instance, he was +fond of such incongruous statements as: "I once knew a man in New +Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head," here he would pause for some +time, look reminiscent, and continue: "and yet he could beat a base-drum +better than any man I ever knew." + +Robert J. Burdette, who wrote columns of capital humor for _The +Burlington Hawkeye_ and told stories superbly, on his first visit to New +York was spirited to a notable club, where he told stories leisurely +until half the hearers ached with laughter, and the other half were +threatened with apoplexy. Everyone present declared it the red-letter +night of the club, and members who had missed it came around and +demanded the stories at secondhand. Some efforts were made to oblige +them, but without avail, for the tellers had twisted their recollections +of the stories into jokes, and they didn't sound right, so a committee +hunted the town for Burdette to help them out of their difficulty. + +Humor is the kindliest method of laugh-making. Wit and satire are +ancient, but humor, it has been claimed, belongs to modern times. A +certain type of story, having a sudden and terse conclusion to a direct +statement, has been labeled purely American. For instance: "Willie Jones +loaded and fired a cannon yesterday. The funeral will be to-morrow." But +the truth is, it is older than America; it is very venerable. If you +will turn to the twelfth verse of the sixteenth chapter of II. +Chronicles, you will read: + +"And Asa in the thirty-ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, +until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not +the Lord, but turned to the physicians--and Asa slept with his fathers." + +Bill Nye was a sturdy and persistent humorist of so good a sort that he +never could help being humorous, yet there was never a sting in his +jokes. Gentle raillery was the severest thing he ever attempted, and +even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word +of his friendly chaffing was worth more than any amount of formal +praise. + +Few of the great world's great despatches contained so much wisdom in so +few words as Nye's historic wire from Washington: + +"My friends and money gave out at 3 A.M." + +Eugene Field, the lover of little children, and the self-confessed +bibliomaniac, gives us still another sort of laugh--the tender, +indulgent sort. Nothing could be finer than the gentle reminiscence of +"Long Ago," a picture of the lost kingdom of boyhood, which for all its +lightness holds a pathos that clutches one in the throat. + +And yet this writer of delicate and subtle humor, this master of tender +verse, had a keen and nimble wit. An ambitious poet once sent him a poem +to read entitled "Why do I live?" and Field immediately wrote back: +"Because you sent your poem by mail." + +Laughter is one of the best medicines in the world, and though some +people would make you force it down with a spoon, there is no doubt that +it is a splendid tonic and awakens the appetite for happiness. + +Colonel Ingersoll wrote on his photograph which adorns my home: "To the +man who knows that mirth is medicine and laughter lengthens life." + +Abraham Lincoln, that divinely tender man, believed that fun was an +intellectual impetus, for he read Artemus Ward to his Cabinet before +reading his famous emancipation proclamation, and laying down his book +marked the place to resume. + +Joel Chandler Harris, whose delightful stories of negro life hold such a +high place in American literature, told me a story of an old negro who +claimed that a sense of humor was necessary to happiness in married +life. He said: + +"I met a poor old darkey one day, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with +cooking utensils and household effects. Seeing me looking curiously at +him, he shook his head and said: + +"'I cain't stand her no longer, boss, I jes' nash'ully cain't stand her +no longer.' + +"'What's the matter, uncle?' I inquired. + +"'Well, you see, suh, she ain't got no idee o' fun--she won't take a +joke nohow. The other night I went home, an' I been takin' a little jes' +to waam ma heart--das all, jes to waam ma heart--an' I got to de fence, +an' tried to climb it. I got on de top, an' thar I stays; I couldn't git +one way or t'other. Then a gem'en comes along, an' I says, "Would you +min' givin' me a push?" He says, "Which way you want to go?" I says, +"Either way--don't make no dif'unce, jes' so I git off de fence, for +hit's pow'ful oncom'fable up yer." So he give me a push, an' sont me +over to'ard ma side, an' I went home. Then I want sum'in t' eat, an' my +ol' 'ooman she wouldn' git it fo' me, an' so, jes' fo' a joke, das +all--jes' a joke, I hit 'er awn de haid. But would you believe it, she +couldn't take a joke. She tu'n aroun', an' sir, she sail inter me +sum'in' scan'lous! I didn' do nothin', 'cause I feelin' kind o'weak jes' +then--an' so I made up ma min' I wasn' goin' to stay with her. Dis +mawnin' she gone out washin', an' I jes' move right out. Hit's no use +tryin' to live with a 'ooman who cain't take a joke!'" + +From the poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich to George Ade's Fables in Slang +is a far cry, but one is as typical a style of humor as the other. +Ade's is the more distinctly original, for he not only created the +style, but another language. The aptness of its turns, and the marvelous +way in which he hit the bull's-eye of human foibles and weaknesses +lifted him into instantaneous popularity. A famous _bon mot_ of George +Ade's which has been quoted threadbare, but which serves excellently to +illustrate his native wit, is his remark about a suit of clothes which +the tailor assured him he could _never_ wear out. He said when he put +them on he didn't _dare_ to. + +From the laughter-makers pure and simple, we come to those who, while +acknowledging the cloud, yet see the silver lining--the exponents of the +smile through tears. + +The best of these, Frank L. Stanton, has beautifully said: + + "This world that we're a-livin' in + Is mighty hard to beat; + With every rose you get a thorn, + But ain't the roses sweet?" + +He does not deny the thorns, but calls attention to the sweetness of the +roses--a gospel of compensation that speaks to the heart of all; kind +words of cheer to the weary traveler. + +Such a philosopher was the kind-hearted and sympathetic Irish boy who, +walking along with the parish priest, met a weary organ-grinder, who +asked how far it was to the next town. The boy answered, "Four miles." +The priest remonstrated: + +"Why, Mike, how can you deceive him so? You know it is eight." + +"Well, your riverence," said the good-natured fellow, "I saw how tired +he was, and I wanted to kape his courage up. If I'd told him the truth, +he'd have been down-hearted intirely!" + +This is really a jolly old world, and people are very apt to find just +what they are looking for. If they are looking for happiness, the best +way to find it is to try to give it to others. If a man goes around with +a face as long as a wet day, perfectly certain that he is going to be +kicked, he is seldom disappointed. + +A typical exponent of the tenderly human, the tearfully humorous, is +James Whitcomb Riley--a name to conjure with. Only mention it to anyone, +and note the spark of interest, the smiling sigh, the air of gentle +retrospection into which he will fall. There is a poem for each and +every one, that commends itself for some special reason, and holds such +power of memory or sentiment as sends it straight into the heart, to +remain there treasured and unforgotten. + +In these volumes are selections from the pen of all whom I have +mentioned, as well as many more, including a number by the clever women +humorists, of whom America is justly proud. + +It is with pride and pleasure that I acknowledge the honor done me in +being asked to introduce this company of fun-makers--such a goodly +number that space permits the mention of but a few. But we cannot have +too much or even enough of anything so good or so necessary as the +literature that makes us laugh. In that regard we are like a little +friend of Mr. Riley's. + +The Hoosier poet, as everyone knows, is the devoted friend, companion, +and singer of children. He has a habit of taking them on wild orgies +where they are turned loose in a candy store and told to do their worst. +This particular young lady had been allowed to choose all the sorts of +candy she liked until her mouth, both arms, and her pockets were full. +Just as they got to the door to go out, she hung back, and when Mr. +Riley stooped over asking her what was the matter, she whispered: + +"Don't you think it smells like ice cream?" + +Poems, stories, humorous articles, fables, and fairy tales are offered +for your choice, with subjects as diverse as the styles; but however the +laugh is gained, in whatever fashion the jest is delivered, the +laugh-maker is a public benefactor, for laughter is the salt of life, +and keeps the whole dish sweet. + +Merrily yours, +MARSHALL P. WILDER. + +ATLANTIC CITY, 1908. + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +Acknowledgment is due to the following publishers, whose permission was +cordially granted to reprint selections which appear in this collection +of American humor. + +AINSLEE'S MAGAZINE for "Not According to Schedule," by Mary Stewart +Cutting. + +THE HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY for "The New Version," by William J. Lampton. + +THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY for "How We Bought a Sewin' Machine and +Organ," from _Josiah Allen's Wife as a P.A. and P.I._, by Marietta +Holley. + +D. APPLETON & COMPANY for "The Recruit," from _With the Band_, by Robert +W. Chambers. + +E.H. BACON & COMPANY for "The V-a-s-e" and "A Concord Love-Song," from +_The V-a-s-e and Other Bric-a-Brac_, by James Jeffrey Roche. + +THE H.M. CALDWELL COMPANY for "Yes" and "Disappointment," from _In +Bohemia_, by John Boyle O'Reilly. + +THE COLVER PUBLISHING HOUSE for "The Crimson Cord," by Ellis Parker +Butler, and "A Ballade of the 'How to' Books," by John James Davies, +from _The American Illustrated Magazine_. + +THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY for "Familiar Authors at Work," by Hayden +Carruth, from _The Woman's Home Companion_. + +THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY for "The Love Sonnets of a Husband," by +Maurice Smiley, and "Cheer for the Consumer," by Nixon Waterman, from +_The Saturday Evening Post_. + +DEWOLFE, FISKE & COMPANY for "Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready for +Sunday-School," from _Cape Cod Folks_, by Sarah P. McLean Greene. + +DICK & FITZGERALD for "The Thompson Street Poker Club," from _The +Thompson Street Poker Club_, by Henry Guy Carleton. + +G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY for "The Tower of London" and "Science and +Natural History," by Charles Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"); "The +Musketeer," from _Farmer's Alminax_, and "Laffing," from _Josh Billings: +His Works_, by Henry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings"); and for "John Henry in a +Street Car," from _John Henry_, by George V. Hobart ("Hugh McHugh"). + +DODD, MEAD & COMPANY for "The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark," "The +Forbearance of the Admiral," "The Dutiful Mariner," "The Meditations of +a Mariner" and "The Boat that Ain't," from _Nautical Lays of a +Landsman_, by Wallace Irwin. + +THE DUQUESNE DISTRIBUTING COMPANY for "The Grand Opera," from _Billy +Baxter's Letters_, by William J. Kountz, Jr. + +PAUL ELDER & COMPANY for Sonnets I, VIII, IX, XII, XIV, XXI, from _The +Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum_, by Wallace Irwin. + +EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE for "The Strike of One," by Elliott Flower; "The +Wolf's Holiday," by Caroline Duer; "A Mother of Four," by Juliet Wilbor +Tompkins; "The Weddin'," by Jennie Betts Hartswick, and "A Double-Dyed +Deceiver," by Sydney Porter ("O. Henry"). + +THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY for "Budge and Toddie," from _Helen's Babies_, +by John Habberton. + +FORDS, HOWARD & HURLBURT, for "The Deacon's Trout," from _Norwood_, by +Henry Ward Beecher. + +FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY for "The Paintermine," "The Octopussycat," "The +Welsh Rabbittern," "The Bumblebeaver," "The Wild Boarder," from _Mixed +Beasts_, by Kenyon Cox; "The Lost Inventor," "Niagara Be Dammed," "The +Ballad of Grizzly Gulch," "A Letter from Home," "Crankidoxology" and +"Fall Styles in Faces," from _At the Sign of the Dollar_, by Wallace +Irwin, and a selection from _The Golfer's Rubaiyat_, by Henry W. +Boynton. + +THE HARVARD LAMPOON for "A Lay of Ancient Rome," by Thomas Ybarra. + +HENRY HOLT & COMPANY for "Araminta and the Automobile," from _Cheerful +Americans_, by Charles Battell Loomis. + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY for "A Letter from Mr. Biggs," from _The +Story of a Country Town_, by E.W. Howe; "The Notary of Perigueux," from +_Outre-Mer_, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "A Nautical Ballad," from +_Davy and the Goblin_, by Charles E. Carryl; "The Spring Beauties," from +_The Ride to the Lady_, by Helen Avery Cone; "Praise-God Barebones," +from _Songs and Lyrics_, by Ellen M. Hutchinson-Cortissoz; "Fable," from +_Poems_, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; "The Owl Critic" and "Caesar's Quiet +Lunch with Cicero," from _Ballads and Other Poems_, by James T. Fields; +"The Menagerie," from _Poems_, by William Vaughn Moody; "The Briefless +Barrister," "Comic Miseries," "A Reflective Retrospect," "How the Money +Goes," "The Coquette," "Icarus," "Teaching by Example," from _Poems_, by +John Godfrey Saxe; "My Honey, My Love," by Joel Chandler Harris; "Banty +Tim," "The Mystery of Gilgal" and "Distichs," from _Poems_, by John Hay; +"The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One Hoss Shay," "The Height +of the Ridiculous," "Evening, By a Tailor," "Latter Day Warnings," and +"Contentment," from _Poems_, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; two selections +from _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, +and "Dislikes," from _The Poet at the Breakfast Table_, by Oliver +Wendell Holmes; "Plain Language from Truthful James," and "The Society +Upon the Stanislaus," from _Poems_, by Bret Harte; "Melons," from _Mrs. +Skaggs' Husbands and Other Sketches_, by Bret Harte; "The Courtin'," "A +Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow" and "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," from +_Poems_, by James Russell Lowell; "The Chief Mate," from _Fireside +Travels_, by James Russell Lowell; "A Night in a Rocking Chair" and "A +Rival Entertainment," from _Haphazard_, by Kate Field; "Mrs. Johnson," +from _Suburban Sketches_, by William Dean Howells; "Garden Ethics," from +_My Summer in a Garden_, by Charles Dudley Warner; "Our Nearest +Neighbor," from _Marjorie Daw and Other Stories_, by Thomas Bailey +Aldrich; "Simon Starts in the World" (J.J. Hooper), "The Duluth Speech" +(J. Proctor Knott), "Bill Arp on Litigation" (C.H. Smith), "Assault and +Battery" (J.G. Baldwin), "How Ruby Played" (G.W. Bagby), from _Oddities +of Southern Life_, edited by Henry Watterson; "The Demon of the Study," +from _Poems_, by John Greenleaf Whittier; "The Old Maid's House: in +Plan," from _An Old Maid's Paradise_, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; "Dum +Vivimus Vigilamus," "What She Said About It," "Dictum Sapienti," "The +Lost Word" and "Abou Ben Butler," from _Poems_, by Charles Henry Webb +("John Paul"); "Chad's Story of the Goose" and "Colonel Carter's Story +of the Postmaster," from _Colonel Carter of Cartersville_, by F. +Hopkinson Smith; "The British Matron," from _Our Old Home_, by Nathaniel +Hawthorne; "As Good as a Play," from _Stories from My Attic_, by Horace +E. Scudder; "The Pettibone Lineage," by James T. Fields; "The +Experiences of the A.C.," by Bayard Taylor; "Eve's Daughter," by Edward +Rowland Sill, and "The Diamond Wedding," by Edmund Clarence Stedman. + +WILLIAM R. JENKINS for "It Is Time to Begin to Conclude," from _Soldier +Songs and Love Songs_, by Alexander H. Laidlaw. + +JOHN LANE COMPANY for "The Invisible Prince," from _Comedies and +Errors_, by Henry Harland. + +LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY for "Hard," "Enough" and "Desolation," from _In +Merry Measure_, by Tom Masson; "A Branch Library" and "Table Manners," +from _Tomfoolery_, by James Montgomery Flagg; "The Sonnet of the Lovable +Lass and the Plethoric Dad," by J.W. Foley; "Thoughts for an Easter +Morning," by Wallace Irwin; "Suppressed Chapters," by Carolyn Wells; +"The Conscientious Curate and the Beauteous Ballad Girl," by William +Russell Rose, and "A Poe-'em of Passion," by Charles F. Lummis. + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE for "The Modern Farmer," by Jack Appleton; "The +Wicked Zebra" and "The Happy Land," by Frank Roe Batchelder; "A Mothers' +Meeting," by Madeline Bridges; "The Final Choice" and "A Daniel Come to +Judgment," by Edmund Vance Cooke; "The Co-operative Housekeepers" and +"Her 'Angel' Father," by Elliott Flower; "Wasted Opportunities," by Roy +Farrell Greene; "The Auto Rubaiyat," by Reginald W. Kauffman; "It Pays +to be Happy" and "Victory," by Tom Masson; "Is It I?" by Warwick S. +Price; "Johnny's Lessons," by Carroll Watson Rankin; "Her Brother: +Enfant Terrible" and "Trouble-Proof," by E.L. Sabin; "A Bookworm's +Plaint," by Clinton Scollard; "Nothin' Done," by S.S. Stinson, and +"Uncle Bentley and the Roosters," by Hayden Carruth. + +LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY for "Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper," from _The +Peterkin Papers_, by Lucretia P. Hale; "The Skeleton in the Closet," by +Edward Everett Hale, and "The Wolf at Susan's Door," from _The Wolf at +Susan's Door and Mrs. Lathrop's Love Affair_, by Anne Warner. + +LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD for "A Letter," from _Swingin' Round the Circle_, +by David Ross Locke ("P. V. Nasby"); "A Cable Car Preacher" and "The +Prayer of Cyrus Brown," from _Dreams in Homespun_, by Sam Walter Foss; +"He Wanted to Know," "Hullo!" and "She Talked," from _Back Country +Poems_, by Sam Walter Foss; "Mr. Stiver's Horse" and "After the +Funeral," from the works of James M. Bailey (The Danbury News Man); +"Yawcob Strauss," "Der Oak und der Vine," "To Bary Jade" and "Shonny +Schwartz," from _Leetle Yawcob Strauss_, by Charles Follen Adams; "The +Coupon Bonds" and "Darius Greene," from the works of J.T. Trowbridge, +and Chapters VII, IX, XVI, XX, XXI, from "Partingtonian Patchwork," by +B.P. Shillaber. + +THE S.S. MCCLURE COMPANY and MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY for "Morris and +the Honorable Tim," from _Little Citizens_, by Myra Kelly. + +A.C. MCCLURG & COMPANY for "Simple English," from _At the Sign of the +Ginger Jar_, by Ray Clarke Rose, and "Ye Legende of Sir Yroncladde," by +Wilbur D. Nesbit, from _The Athlete's Garland_. + +DAVID MCKAY for "Hans Breitmann's Party," "Breitmann and the Turners," +"Ballad," "Breitmann in Politics" and "Love Song," from _Hans +Breitmann's Ballads_, by Charles Godfrey Leland, and "A Boston Ballad," +from _Leaves of Grass_, by Walt Whitman. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY for "In a State of Sin," from _The Virginian_, by +Owen Wister. + +THE MONARCH BOOK COMPANY for "The Apostasy of William Dodge," from _The +Seekers_, by Stanley Waterloo. + +THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY for "An Educational Project" and "The +Woman-Hater Reformed," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Trial That Job +Missed," by Kennett Harris; "The Education of Grandpa," by Wallace +Irwin; "An Improved Calendar," by Tudor Jenks. + +SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY for "Mr. Dooley on Gold Seeking," "Mr. Dooley +on Expert Testimony," "Mr. Dooley on Golf," "Mr. Dooley on Football," +"Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates," from _Mr. Dooley in Peace and War_, +by Finley Peter Dunne; "E.O.R.S.W." from _Alphabet of Celebrities_, by +Oliver Herford; "A Letter," from _The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to +His Son_, by George Horace Lorimer; "Vive La Bagatelle" and "Willy and +the Lady," from _A Gage of Youth_, by Gelett Burgess; "When the Allegash +Drive Goes Through," from _Pine Tree Ballads_, by Holman F. Day; "Had a +Set of Double Teeth," from _Up in Maine_, by Holman F. 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Ware, Anne Warner French and +Stanley Waterloo for permission to reprint selections from their works +and for many valuable suggestions. + + + + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + + + + +MELONS + +BY BRET HARTE + + +As I do not suppose the most gentle of readers will believe that +anybody's sponsors in baptism ever wilfully assumed the responsibility +of such a name, I may as well state that I have reason to infer that +Melons was simply the nickname of a small boy I once knew. If he had any +other, I never knew it. + +Various theories were often projected by me to account for this strange +cognomen. His head, which was covered with a transparent down, like that +which clothes very small chickens, plainly permitting the scalp to show +through, to an imaginative mind might have suggested that succulent +vegetable. That his parents, recognizing some poetical significance in +the fruits of the season, might have given this name to an August child, +was an oriental explanation. That from his infancy, he was fond of +indulging in melons, seemed on the whole the most likely, particularly +as Fancy was not bred in McGinnis's Court. He dawned upon me as Melons. +His proximity was indicated by shrill, youthful voices, as "Ah, Melons!" +or playfully, "Hi, Melons!" or authoritatively, "You Melons!" + +McGinnis's Court was a democratic expression of some obstinate and +radical property-holder. Occupying a limited space between two +fashionable thoroughfares, it refused to conform to circumstances, but +sturdily paraded its unkempt glories, and frequently asserted itself in +ungrammatical language. My window--a rear room on the ground floor--in +this way derived blended light and shadow from the court. So low was the +window-sill that, had I been the least disposed to somnambulism, it +would have broken out under such favorable auspices, and I should have +haunted McGinnis's Court. My speculations as to the origin of the court +were not altogether gratuitous, for by means of this window I once saw +the Past, as through a glass darkly. It was a Celtic shadow that early +one morning obstructed my ancient lights. It seemed to belong to an +individual with a pea-coat, a stubby pipe, and bristling beard. He was +gazing intently at the court, resting on a heavy cane, somewhat in the +way that heroes dramatically visit the scenes of their boyhood. As there +was little of architectural beauty in the court, I came to the +conclusion that it was McGinnis looking after his property. The fact +that he carefully kicked a broken bottle out of the road somewhat +strengthened me in the opinion. But he presently walked away, and the +court knew him no more. He probably collected his rents by proxy--if he +collected them at all. + +Beyond Melons, of whom all this is purely introductory, there was little +to interest the most sanguine and hopeful nature. In common with all +such localities, a great deal of washing was done, in comparison with +the visible results. There was always some thing whisking on the line, +and always some thing whisking through the court, that looked as if it +ought to be there. A fish-geranium--of all plants kept for the +recreation of mankind, certainly the greatest illusion--straggled under +the window. Through its dusty leaves I caught the first glance of +Melons. + +His age was about seven. He looked older from the venerable whiteness of +his head, and it was impossible to conjecture his size, as he always +wore clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth of nineteen. A +pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained by a single suspender, +completely equipped him, formed his every-day suit. How, with this +lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the surprising +gymnastic feats it has been my privilege to witness, I have never been +able to tell. His "turning the crab," and other minor dislocations, were +always attended with success. It was not an unusual sight at any hour of +the day to find Melons suspended on a line, or to see his venerable head +appearing above the roofs of the outhouses. Melons knew the exact height +of every fence in the vicinity, its facilities for scaling, and the +possibility of seizure on the other side. His more peaceful and quieter +amusements consisted in dragging a disused boiler by a large string, +with hideous outcries, to imaginary fires. + +Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few youth of his own age +sometimes called upon him, but they eventually became abusive, and their +visits were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles and junk +which formed the staple of McGinnis's Court. Overcome by loneliness one +day, Melons inveigled a blind harper into the court. For two hours did +that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed calling, unrecompensed, and +going round and round the court, apparently under the impression that it +was some other place, while Melons surveyed him from an adjoining fence +with calm satisfaction. It was this absence of conscientious motives +that brought Melons into disrepute with his aristocratic neighbors. +Orders were issued that no child of wealthy and pious parentage should +play with him. This mandate, as a matter of course, invested Melons +with a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances were cast at +Melons from nursery windows. Baby fingers beckoned to him. Invitations +to tea (on wood and pewter) were lisped to him from aristocratic +back-yards. It was evident he was looked upon as a pure and noble being, +untrammelled by the conventionalities of parentage, and physically as +well as mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual commotion +prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's Court. Looking from my window I +saw Melons perched on the roof of a stable, pulling up a rope by which +one "Tommy," an infant scion of an adjacent and wealthy house, was +suspended in mid-air. In vain the female relatives of Tommy, congregated +in the back-yard, expostulated with Melons; in vain the unhappy father +shook his fist at him. Secure in his position, Melons redoubled his +exertions and at last landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the +humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been acting in collusion +with Melons. He grinned delightedly back at his parents, as if "by merit +raised to that bad eminence." Long before the ladder arrived that was to +succor him, he became the sworn ally of Melons, and, I regret to say, +incited by the same audacious boy, "chaffed" his own flesh and blood +below him. He was eventually taken, though, of course, Melons escaped. +But Tommy was restricted to the window after that, and the companionship +was limited to "Hi Melons!" and "You Tommy!" and Melons to all practical +purposes, lost him forever. I looked afterward to see some signs of +sorrow on Melons's part, but in vain; he buried his grief, if he had +any, somewhere in his one voluminous garment. + +At about this time my opportunities of knowing Melons became more +extended. I was engaged in filling a void in the Literature of the +Pacific Coast. As this void was a pretty large one, and as I was +informed that the Pacific Coast languished under it, I set apart two +hours each day to this work of filling in. It was necessary that I +should adopt a methodical system, so I retired from the world and locked +myself in my room at a certain hour each day, after coming from my +office. I then carefully drew out my portfolio and read what I had +written the day before. This would suggest some alterations, and I would +carefully rewrite it. During this operation I would turn to consult a +book of reference, which invariably proved extremely interesting and +attractive. It would generally suggest another and better method of +"filling in." Turning this method over reflectively in my mind, I would +finally commence the new method which I eventually abandoned for the +original plan. At this time I would become convinced that my exhausted +faculties demanded a cigar. The operation of lighting a cigar usually +suggested that a little quiet reflection and meditation would be of +service to me, and I always allowed myself to be guided by prudential +instincts. Eventually, seated by my window, as before stated, Melons +asserted himself. Though our conversation rarely went further than +"Hello, Mister!" and "Ah, Melons!" a vagabond instinct we felt in common +implied a communion deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling the +time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the fence or line (always +with an eye to my window) until dinner was announced and I found a more +practical void required my attention. An unlooked-for incident drew us +in closer relation. + +A sea-faring friend just from a tropical voyage had presented me with a +bunch of bananas. They were not quite ripe, and I hung them before my +window to mature in the sun of McGinnis's Court, whose forcing +qualities were remarkable. In the mysteriously mingled odors of ship +and shore which they diffused throughout my room, there was lingering +reminiscence of low latitudes. But even that joy was fleeting and +evanescent: they never reached maturity. + +Coming home one day, as I turned the corner of that fashionable +thoroughfare before alluded to, I met a small boy eating a banana. There +was nothing remarkable in that, but as I neared McGinnis's Court I +presently met another small boy, also eating a banana. A third small boy +engaged in a like occupation obtruded a painful coincidence upon my +mind. I leave the psychological reader to determine the exact +co-relation between the circumstance and the sickening sense of loss +that overcame me on witnessing it. I reached my room--the bananas were +gone. + +There was but one that knew of their existence, but one who frequented +my window, but one capable of gymnastic effort to procure them, and that +was--I blush to say it--Melons. Melons the depredator--Melons, despoiled +by larger boys of his ill-gotten booty, or reckless and indiscreetly +liberal; Melons--now a fugitive on some neighborhood house-top. I lit a +cigar, and, drawing my chair to the window, sought surcease of sorrow in +the contemplation of the fish-geranium. In a few moments something white +passed my window at about the level of the edge. There was no mistaking +that hoary head, which now represented to me only aged iniquity. It was +Melons, that venerable, juvenile hypocrite. + +He affected not to observe me, and would have withdrawn quietly, but +that horrible fascination which causes the murderer to revisit the scene +of his crime, impelled him toward my window. I smoked calmly, and gazed +at him without speaking. He walked several times up and down the court +with a half-rigid, half-belligerent expression of eye and shoulder, +intended to represent the carelessness of innocence. + +Once or twice he stopped, and putting his arms their whole length into +his capacious trousers, gazed with some interest at the additional width +they thus acquired. Then he whistled. The singular conflicting +conditions of John Brown's body and soul were at that time beginning to +attract the attention of youth, and Melons's performance of that melody +was always remarkable. But to-day he whistled falsely and shrilly +between his teeth. At last he met my eye. He winced slightly, but +recovered himself, and going to the fence, stood for a few moments on +his hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned +toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary. + +"They is a cirkis"--said Melons gravely, hanging with his back to the +fence and his arms twisted around the palings--"a cirkis over +yonder!"--indicating the locality with his foot--"with hosses, and +hossback riders. They is a man wot rides six hosses to onct--six hosses +to onct--and nary saddle"--and he paused in expectation. + +Even this equestrian novelty did not affect me. I still kept a fixed +gaze on Melons's eye, and he began to tremble and visibly shrink in his +capacious garment. Some other desperate means--conversation with Melons +was always a desperate means--must be resorted to. He recommenced more +artfully. + +"Do you know Carrots?" + +I had a faint remembrance of a boy of that euphonious name, with scarlet +hair, who was a playmate and persecutor of Melons. But I said nothing. + +"Carrots is a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in +his boots, saw him to-day looking in your windy." + +I felt that this must end here. I rose sternly and addressed Melons. + +"Melons, this is all irrelevant and impertinent to the case. _You_ took +those bananas. Your proposition regarding Carrots, even if I were +inclined to accept it as credible information, does not alter the +material issue. You took those bananas. The offense under the Statutes +of California is felony. How far Carrots may have been accessory to the +fact either before or after, is not my intention at present to discuss. +The act is complete. Your present conduct shows the _animo furandi_ to +have been equally clear." + +By the time I had finished this exordium, Melons had disappeared, as I +fully expected. + +He never reappeared. The remorse that I have experienced for the part I +had taken in what I fear may have resulted in his utter and complete +extermination, alas, he may not know, except through these pages. For I +have never seen him since. Whether he ran away and went to sea to +reappear at some future day as the most ancient of mariners, or whether +he buried himself completely in his trousers, I never shall know. I have +read the papers anxiously for accounts of him. I have gone to the Police +Office in the vain attempt of identifying him as a lost child. But I +never saw him or heard of him since. Strange fears have sometimes +crossed my mind that his venerable appearance may have been actually the +result of senility, and that he may have been gathered peacefully to his +fathers in a green old age. I have even had doubts of his existence, and +have sometimes thought that he was providentially and mysteriously +offered to fill the void I have before alluded to. In that hope I have +written these pages. + + + + +THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE + +OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" + +_A Logical Story_ + +BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, + That was built in such a logical way + It ran a hundred years to a day, + And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay, + I'll tell you what happened without delay, + Scaring the parson into fits, + Frightening people out of their wits,-- + Have you ever heard of that, I say? + + Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. + _Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,-- + Snuffy old drone from the German hive. + That was the year when Lisbon-town + Saw the earth open and gulp her down, + And Braddock's army was done so brown, + Left without a scalp to its crown. + It was on the terrible Earthquake-day + That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. + + Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, + There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,-- + In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, + In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, + In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still, + Find it somewhere you must and will,-- + Above or below, or within or without,-- + And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, + That a chaise _breaks down_, but doesn't _wear out_. + + But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do, + With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell _yeou_,") + He would build one shay to beat the taown + 'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; + It should be so built that it _couldn'_ break daown: + --"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain + Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; + 'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, + Is only jest + T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." + + So the Deacon inquired of the village folk + Where he could find the strongest oak, + That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-- + That was for spokes and floor and sills; + He sent for lancewood to make the thills; + The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, + The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese, + But lasts like iron for things like these; + The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"-- + Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em, + Never an axe had seen their chips, + And the wedges flew from between their lips, + Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; + Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, + Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, + Steel of the finest, bright and blue; + Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; + Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide + Found in the pit when the tanner died. + That was the way he "put her through."-- + "There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" + + Do! I tell you, I rather guess + She was a wonder, and nothing less! + Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, + Deacon and deaconess dropped away, + Children and grandchildren--where were they? + But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay + As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! + + EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--It came and found + The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. + Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-- + "Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. + Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-- + Running as usual; much the same. + Thirty and forty at last arrive, + And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. + + Little of all we value here + Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year + Without both feeling and looking queer. + In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, + So far as I know, but a tree and truth. + (This is a moral that runs at large; + Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.) + + FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--The Earthquake-day-- + There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, + A general flavor of mild decay, + But nothing local, as one may say. + There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art + Had made it so like in every part + That there wasn't a chance for one to start. + For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, + And the floor was just as strong as the sills, + And the panels just as strong as the floor, + And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, + And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, + And the spring and axle and hub _encore_. + And yet, as a _whole_, it is past a doubt + In another hour it will be _worn out_! + + First of November, 'Fifty-five! + This morning the parson takes a drive. + Now, small boys, get out of the way! + Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, + Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. + "Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they. + The parson was working his Sunday's text,-- + Had got to _fifthly_, and stopped perplexed + At what the--Moses--was coming next. + All at once the horse stood still, + Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. + --First a shiver, and then a thrill, + Then something decidedly like a spill,-- + And the parson was sitting upon a rock, + At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,-- + Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! + --What do you think the parson found, + When he got up and stared around? + The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, + As if it had been to the mill and ground! + You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, + How it went to pieces all at once,-- + All at once, and nothing first,-- + Just as bubbles do when they burst. + + End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. + Logic is logic. That's all I say. + + + + +THE PURPLE COW + +BY GELETT BURGESS + + + _Reflections on a Mythic Beast, + Who's Quite Remarkable, at Least._ + + I never Saw a Purple Cow; + I never Hope to See One; + But I can Tell you, Anyhow, + I'd rather See than Be One. + + _Cinq Ans Apres._ + + (_Confession: and a Portrait, Too, + Upon a Background that I Rue!_) + + Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow"-- + I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it! + But I can Tell you, Anyhow, + I'll Kill you if you Quote it! + + + + +THE CURSE OF THE COMPETENT + +BY HENRY J. FINN + + + My spirit hath been seared, as though the lightning's scathe had rent, + In the swiftness of its wrath, through the midnight firmament, + The darkly deepening clouds; and the shadows dim and murky + Of destiny are on me, for my dinner's naught but--_turkey_. + + The chords upon my silent lute no soft vibrations know, + Save where the meanings of despair--out-breathings of my woe-- + Tell of the cold and selfish world. In melancholy mood, + The soul of genius chills with only--_fourteen cords of wood_. + + The dreams of the deserted float around my curtained hours, + And young imaginings are as the thorns bereft of flowers; + A wretched outcast from mankind, my strength of heart has sank + Beneath the evils of--_ten thousand dollars in the bank_. + + This life to me a desert is, and kindness, as the stream + That singly drops upon the waste where burning breezes teem; + A banished, blasted plant, I droop, to which no freshness lends + Its healing balm, for Heaven knows, I've but--_a dozen friends_. + + And Sorrow round my brow has wreathed its coronal of thorns; + No dewy pearl of Pleasure my sad sunken eyes adorns; + Calamity has clothed my thoughts, I feel a bliss no more,-- + Alas! my wardrobe now would only--_stock a clothing store_. + + The joyousness of Memory from me for aye hath fled; + It dwells within the dreary habitation of the dead; + I breathe my midnight melodies in languor and by stealth, + For Fate inflicts upon my frame--_the luxury of health_. + + Envy, Neglect, and Scorn have been my hard inheritance; + And a baneful curse clings to me, like the stain on innocence; + My moments are as faded leaves, or roses in their blight-- + I'm asked but once a day to dine--_to parties every night_. + + Would that I were a silver ray upon the moonlit air, + Or but one gleam that's glorified by each Peruvian's prayer! + My tortured spirit turns from earth, to ease its bitter loathing; + My hatred is on all things here, because--_I want for nothing_. + + + + +THE GRAMMATICAL BOY + +BY BILL NYE + + +Sometimes a sad, homesick feeling comes over me, when I compare the +prevailing style of anecdote and school literature with the old McGuffey +brand, so well known thirty years ago. To-day our juvenile literature, +it seems to me, is so transparent, so easy to understand, that I am not +surprised to learn that the rising generation shows signs of +lawlessness. + +Boys to-day do not use the respectful language and large, luxuriant +words that they did when Mr. McGuffey used to stand around and report +their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is +disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I +think we should face the facts. + +I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following +selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged +with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with +the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of +to-day. + +One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing +through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite +direction along the highway. + +"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we +here?" + +"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do +you reside in this locality?" + +"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder +cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children +dwell with me." + +"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection. + +"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor +mother is a widow." + +"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on +the other foot a while. + +"Alas! sir," said George, as a large hot tear stole down his pale cheek +and fell with a loud report on the warty surface of his bare foot, "he +was lost at sea in a bitter gale. The good ship foundered two years ago +last Christmastide, and father was foundered at the same time. No one +knew of the loss of the ship and that the crew was drowned until the +next spring, and it was then too late." + +"And what is your age, my fine fellow?" quoth the stranger. + +"If I live till next October," said the boy, in a declamatory tone of +voice suitable for a Second Reader, "I will be seven years of age." + +"And who provides for your mother and her large family of children?" +queried the man. + +"Indeed, I do, sir," replied George, in a shrill tone. "I toil, oh, so +hard, sir, for we are very, very poor, and since my elder sister, Ann, +was married and brought her husband home to live with us, I have to toil +more assiduously than heretofore." + +"And by what means do you obtain a livelihood?" exclaimed the man, in +slowly measured and grammatical words. + +"By digging wells, kind sir," replied George, picking up a tired ant as +he spoke and stroking it on the back. "I have a good education, and so I +am able to dig wells as well as a man. I do this day-times and take in +washing at night. In this way I am enabled barely to maintain our family +in a precarious manner; but, oh, sir, should my other sisters marry, I +fear that some of my brothers-in-law would have to suffer." + +"And do you not fear the deadly fire-damp?" asked the stranger in an +earnest tone. + +"Not by a damp sight," answered George, with a low gurgling laugh, for +he was a great wag. + +"You are indeed a brave lad," exclaimed the stranger, as he repressed a +smile. "And do you not at times become very weary and wish for other +ways of passing your time?" + +"Indeed, I do, sir," said the lad. "I would fain run and romp and be gay +like other boys, but I must engage in constant manual exercise, or we +will have no bread to eat, and I have not seen a pie since papa perished +in the moist and moaning sea." + +"And what if I were to tell you that your papa did not perish at sea, +but was saved from a humid grave?" asked the stranger in pleasing tones. + +"Ah, sir," exclaimed George, in a genteel manner, again doffing his cap, +"I am too polite to tell you what I would say, and besides, sir, you are +much larger than I am." + +"But, my brave lad," said the man in low musical tones, "do you not know +me, Georgie? Oh, George!" + +"I must say," replied George, "that you have the advantage of me. Whilst +I may have met you before, I can not at this moment place you, sir." + +"My son! oh, my son!" murmured the man, at the same time taking a large +strawberry mark out of his valise and showing it to the lad. "Do you not +recognize your parent on your father's side? When our good ship went to +the bottom, all perished save me. I swam several miles through the +billows, and at last, utterly exhausted, gave up all hope of life. +Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It was the United States. + +"And now, my brave boy," exclaimed the man with great glee, "see what I +have brought for you." It was but the work of a moment to unclasp from a +shawl-strap which he held in his hand and present to George's astonished +gaze a large forty-cent watermelon, which until now had been concealed +by the shawl-strap. + + + + +SIMPLE ENGLISH + +BY RAY CLARKE ROSE + + + Ofttimes when I put on my gloves, + I wonder if I'm sane. + For when I put the right one on, + The right seems to remain + To be put on--that is, 'tis left; + Yet if the left I don, + The other one is left, and then + I have the right one on. + But still I have the left on right; + The right one, though, is left + To go right on the left right hand + All right, if I am deft. + + + + +PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK + +BY B.P. SHILLABER + + +VII + +"Are you in favor of the prohibitive law, or the license law?" asked her +opposite neighbor of the relict of P.P.; corporal of the "Bloody +'Leventh." + +She carefully weighed the question, as though she were selling snuff, +and answered,-- + +"Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not." + +Her neighbor was perplexed, and repeated the question, varying it a +little. + +"Have you seen the 'Mrs. Partington Twilight Soap'?" she asked. + +"Yes," was the reply; "everybody has seen that; but why?" + +"Because," said the dame, "it has two sides to it, and it is hard to +choose between them. Now here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on +both sides--one goes for probation, t'other for licentiousness; and I +think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance." + +She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired, and smiled, while +Ike lay on the floor, with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. +Partington's fancy waiter on his toe. + + +IX + +Christmas Ike was made the happy possessor of a fiddle, which he found +in the morning near his stocking. + +"Has he got a musical bent?" Banfield asked, of whom Mrs. Partington was +buying the instrument. + +"Bent, indeed!" said she; "no, he's as straight as an error." + +He explained by repeating the question regarding his musical +inclination. + +"Yes," she replied; "he's dreadfully inclined to music since he had a +drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another Pickaninny or +an Old Bull of him. Jews-harps is simple, though I can't see how King +David played on one of 'em, and sung his psalms at the same time; but +the fiddle is best, because genius can show itself plainer on it without +much noise. Some prefers a violeen; but I don't know." + +The fiddle was well improved, till the horsehair all pulled out of the +bow, and it was then twisted up into a fish-line. + + +XVI + +"How limpid you walk!" said a voice behind us, as we were making a +hundred and fifty horse-power effort to reach a table whereon reposed a +volume of Bacon. "What is the cause of your lameness?" It was Mrs. +Partington's voice that spoke, and Mrs. Partington's eyes that met the +glance we returned over our left shoulder. "Gout," said we, briefly, +almost surlily. "Dear me," said she; "you are highly flavored! It was +only rich people and epicacs in living that had the gout in olden +times." "Ah!" we growled, partly in response, and partly with an +infernal twinge, "Poor soul!" she continued, with commiseration, like an +anodyne, in the tones of her voice; "the best remedy I know for it is an +embarkation of Roman wormwood and lobelia for the part infected, though +some say a cranberry poultice is best; but I believe the cranberries is +for erisipilis, and whether either of 'em is a rostrum for the gout or +not, I really don't know. If it was a fraction of the arm, I could jest +know what to subscribe." We looked into her eye with a determination to +say something severely bitter, because we felt allopathic just then; but +the kind and sympathizing look that met our own disarmed severity, and +sinking into a seat with our coveted Bacon, we thanked her. It was very +evident, all the while, that she, or they, stayed, that Ike was seeing +how near he could come to our lame member, and not touch it. He did +touch it sometimes, but those didn't count. + + +XX + +"I've always noticed," said Mrs. Partington on New Year's Day, dropping +her voice to the key that people adopt when they are disposed to be +philosophical or moral; "I've always noticed that every year added to a +man's life is apt to make him older, just as a man who goes a journey +finds, as he jogs on, that every mile he goes brings him nearer where he +is going, and farther from where he started. I am not so young as I was +once, and I don't believe I shall ever be, if I live to the age of +Samson, which, Heaven knows as well as I do, I don't want to, for I +wouldn't be a centurion or an octagon, and survive my factories, and +become idiomatic, by any means. But then there is no knowing how a thing +will turn out till it takes place; and we shall come to an end some day, +though we may never live to see it." + +There was a smart tap on the looking-glass that hung upon the wall, +followed instantly by another. + +"Gracious!" said she; "what's that? I hope the glass isn't fractioned, +for it is a sure sign of calamity, and mercy knows they come along full +fast enough without helping 'em by breaking looking-glasses." + +There was another tap, and she caught sight of a white bean that fell on +the floor; and there, reflected in the glass, was the face of Ike, who +was blowing beans at the mirror through a crack in the door. + + +XXI + +"As for the Chinese question," said Mrs. Partington, reflectively, +holding her spoon at "present," while the vapor of her cup of tea curled +about her face, which shone through it like the moon through a mist, "it +is a great pity that somebody don't answer it, though who under the +canister of heaven can do it, with sich letters as they have on their +tea-chists, is more than I can tell. It is really too bad, though, that +some lingister doesn't try it, and not have this provoking question +asked all the time, as if we were ignoramuses, and did not know Toolong +from No Strong, and there never was sich a thing as the seventh +commandment, which, Heaven knows, suits this case to a T, and I hope the +breakers of it may escape, but I don't see how they can. The question +must be answered, unless it is like a cannondrum, to be given up, which +nobody of any spirit should do." + +She brought the spoon down into the cup, and looked out through the +windows of her soul into celestial fields, peopled with pig-tails, that +were all in her eye, while Ike took a double charge of sugar for his +tea, and gave an extra allowance of milk to the kitten. + + + + +THE MENAGERIE + +BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY + + + Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut + Such capers every day! I'm just about + Mellow, but then--There goes the tent flap shut. + Rain's in the wind. I thought so: every snout + Was twitching when the keeper turned me out. + + That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold. + Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant + Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold, + And jabber that it's rain-water they want. + (It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.) + + I'll foot it home, to try and make believe + I'm sober. After this I stick to beer, + And drop the circus when the sane folks leave. + A man's a fool to look at things too near: + They look back and begin to cut up queer. + + Beasts do, at any rate; especially + Wild devils caged. They have the coolest way + Of being something else than what you see: + You pass a sleek young zebra nosing hay, + A nylghau looking bored and distingue,-- + + And think you've seen a donkey and a bird. + Not on your life! Just glance back, if you dare. + The zebra chews, the nylghau hasn't stirred; + But something's happened, Heaven knows what or where, + To freeze your scalp and pompadour your hair. + + I'm not precisely an aeolian lute + Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment, + But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute + Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent + Didn't just floor me with embarrassment! + + 'Twas like a thunder-clap from out the clear-- + One minute they were circus beasts, some grand, + Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer: + Rival attractions to the hobo band, + The flying jenny, and the peanut-stand. + + Next minute they were old hearth-mates of mine! + Lost people, eyeing me with such a stare! + Patient, satiric, devilish, divine; + A gaze of hopeless envy, squalid care, + Hatred, and thwarted love, and dim despair. + + Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke-- + Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar + Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke, + Or through fern forests roared the plesiosaur + Locked with the giant-bat in ghastly war. + + And suddenly, as in a flash of light, + I saw great Nature working out her plan; + Through all her shapes, from mastodon to mite, + Forever groping, testing, passing on + To find at last the shape and soul of Man. + + Till in the fullness of accomplished time, + Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent, + Tracks her through frozen and through torrid clime, + And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent, + The stages of her huge experiment; + + Babbling aloud her shy and reticent hours; + Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods; + Publishing fretful seasons when her powers + Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes, + Or when her mordant laughter shook the woods. + + Here, round about me, were her vagrant births; + Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she essayed; + Her qualms, her fiery prides, her craze mirths; + The troublings of her spirit as she strayed, + Cringed, gloated, mocked, was lordly, was afraid, + + On that long road she went to seek mankind; + Here were the darkling coverts that she beat + To find the Hider she was sent to find; + Here the distracted footprints of her feet + Whereby her soul's Desire she came to greet. + + But why should they, her botch-work, turn about + And stare disdain at me, her finished job? + Why was the place one vast suspended shout + Of laughter? Why did all the daylight throb + With soundless guffaw and dumb-stricken sob? + + Helpless I stood among those awful cages; + The beasts were walking loose, and I was bagged! + I, I, last product of the toiling ages, + Goal of heroic feet that never lagged-- + A little man in trousers, slightly jagged. + + Deliver me from such another jury! + The Judgment-day will be a picnic to't. + Their satire was more dreadful than their fury, + And worst of all was just a kind of brute + Disgust, and giving up, and sinking mute. + + Survival of the fittest adaptation, + And all their other evolution terms, + Seem to omit one small consideration, + To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms + Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms. + + And souls are restless, plagued, impatient things, + All dream and unaccountable desire; + Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings; + Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire, + Mystical hanker after something higher. + + Wishes _are_ horses, as I understand. + I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes + Of feeling faint to gallivant on land + Will come to be a scandal to his folk; + Legs he will sprout, in spite of threats and jokes. + + And at the core of every life that crawls + Or runs or flies or swims or vegetates-- + Churning the mammoth's heart-blood, in the galls + Of shark and tiger planting gorgeous hates, + Lighting the love of eagles for their mates; + + Yes, in the dim brain of the jellied fish + That is and is not living--moved and stirred + From the beginning a mysterious wish, + A vision, a command, a fatal Word: + The name of Man was uttered, and they heard. + + Upward along the aeons of old war + They sought him: wing and shank-bone, claw and bill, + Were fashioned and rejected; wide and far + They roamed the twilight jungles of their will; + But still they sought him, and desired him still. + + Man they desired, but mind you, Perfect Man, + The radiant and the loving, yet to be! + I hardly wonder, when they come to scan + The upshot of their strenuosity, + They gazed with mixed emotions upon _me_. + + Well, my advice to you is, Face the creatures, + Or spot them sideways with your weather eye, + Just to keep tab on their expansive features; + It isn't pleasant when you're stepping high + To catch a giraffe smiling on the sly. + + If Nature made you graceful, don't get gay + Back-to before the hippopotamus; + If meek and godly, find some place to play + Besides right where three mad hyenas fuss; + You may hear language that we won't discuss. + + If you're a sweet thing in a flower-bed hat, + Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in, + Don't squander love's bright springtime girding at + An old chimpanzee with an Irish chin: + _There may be hidden meaning in his grin_. + + + + +DOWN AROUND THE RIVER + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + Noon-time and June-time, down around the river! + Have to furse with 'Lizey Ann--but lawzy! I fergive her! + Drives me off the place, and says 'at all 'at she's a-wishin', + Land o' gracious! time'll come I'll git enough o' fishin'! + Little Dave, a-choppin' wood, never 'pears to notice; + Don't know where she's hid his hat, er keerin' where his coat is,-- + Specalatin', more'n like, he haint a-goin' to mind me, + And guessin' where, say twelve o'clock, a feller'd likely find me. + + Noon-time and June-time, down around the river! + Clean out o' sight o' home, and skulkin' under kivver + Of the sycamores, jack-oaks, and swamp-ash and ellum-- + Idies all so jumbled up, you kin hardly tell'em!-- + _Tired_, you know, but _lovin'_ it, and smilin' jest to think 'at + Any sweeter tiredness you'd fairly want to _drink_ it. + Tired o' fishin'--tired o' fun--line out slack and slacker-- + All you want in all the world's a little more tobacker! + + Hungry, but _a-hidin'_ it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':-- + Kingfisher gittin' up and skootin' out o' hearin'; + Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is, + Wadin' up and down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches! + Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin' + Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen! + Worter, shade and all so mixed, don't know which you'd orter + Say, th' _worter_ in the shadder--_shadder_ in the _worter_! + + Somebody hollerin'--'way around the bend in + Upper Fork--where yer eye kin jes' ketch the endin' + Of the shiney wedge o' wake some muss-rat's a-makin' + With that pesky nose o' his! Then a sniff o' bacon, + Corn-bread and 'dock-greens--and little Dave a-shinnin' + 'Crost the rocks and mussel-shells, a-limpin' and a-grinnin', + With yer dinner fer ye, and a blessin' from the giver. + Noon-time and June-time down around the river! + + + + +A MEDIEVAL DISCOVERER + +BY BILL NYE + + +Galilei, commonly called Galileo, was born at Pisa on the 14th day of +February, 1564. He was the man who discovered some of the fundamental +principles governing the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities +of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he +was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its +infancy and astronomy was taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in +to make a few discoveries and advance some theories which he loved. + +He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments +himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great +musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections, and +then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for +several years in a band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that his +manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in his +eye after playing a selection, while he gently up-ended his alto horn +and worked the mud-valve as he poured out about a pint of moist melody +that had accumulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand. + +At the age of twenty Galileo began to discover. His first discoveries +were, of course, clumsy and poorly made, but very soon he commenced to +turn out neat and durable discoveries that would stand for years. + +It was at this time that he noticed the swinging of a lamp in a church, +and, observing that the oscillations were of equal duration, he inferred +that this principle might be utilized in the exact measurement of time. +From this little accident, years after, came the clock, one of the most +useful of man's dumb friends. And yet there are people who will read +this little incident and still hesitate about going to church. + +Galileo also invented the thermometer, the microscope and the +proportional compass. He seemed to invent things not for the money to be +obtained in that way, but solely for the joy of being first on the +ground. He was a man of infinite genius and perseverance. He was also +very fair in his treatment of other inventors. Though he did not +personally invent the rotary motion of the earth, he heartily indorsed +it and said it was a good thing. He also came out in a card in which he +said that he believed it to be a good thing, and that he hoped some day +to see it applied to the other planets. + +He was also the inventor of a telescope that had a magnifying power of +thirty times. He presented this to the Venetian senate, and it was used +in making appropriations for river and harbor improvements. + +By telescopic investigation Galileo discovered the presence of microbes +in the moon, but was unable to do anything for it. I have spoken of Mr. +Galileo, informally calling him by his first name, all the way through +this article, for I feel so thoroughly acquainted with him, though there +was such a striking difference in our ages, that I think I am justified +in using his given name while talking of him. + +Galileo also sat up nights and visited with Venus through a long +telescope which he had made himself from an old bamboo fishing-rod. + +But astronomy is a very enervating branch of science. Galileo frequently +came down to breakfast with red, heavy eyes, eyes that were swollen full +of unshed tears. Still he persevered. Day after day he worked and +toiled. Year after year he went on with his task till he had worked out +in his own mind the satellites of Jupiter and placed a small tin tag on +each one, so that he would know it readily when he saw it again. Then he +began to look up Saturn's rings and investigate the freckles on the sun. +He did not stop at trifles, but went bravely on till everybody came for +miles to look at him and get him to write something funny in their +autograph albums. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in +the morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful, new-born star, to +find his front yard full of albums. Some of them were little red albums +with floral decorations on them, while others were the large plush and +alligator albums of the affluent. Some were new and had the price-mark +still on them, while others were old, foundered albums, with a droop in +the back and little flecks of egg and gravy on the title-page. All came +with a request for Galileo "to write a little, witty, characteristic +sentiment in them." + +Galileo was the author of the hydrostatic paradox and other sketches. He +was a great reader and a fluent penman. One time he was absent from +home, lecturing in Venice for the benefit of the United Aggregation of +Mutual Admirers, and did not return for two weeks, so that when he got +back he found the front room full of autograph albums. It is said that +he then demonstrated his great fluency and readiness as a thinker and +writer. He waded through the entire lot in two days with only two men +from West Pisa to assist him. Galileo came out of it fresh and youthful, +and all of the following night he was closeted with another inventor, a +wicker-covered microscope, and a bologna sausage. The investigations +were carried on for two weeks, after which Galileo went out to the +inebriate asylum and discovered some new styles of reptiles. + +Galileo was the author of a little work called "I Discarsi e +Dimas-Trazioni Matematiche Intorus a Due Muove Scienze." It was a neat +little book, of about the medium height, and sold well on the trains, +for the Pisan newsboys on the cars were very affable, as they are now, +and when they came and leaned an armful of these books on a passenger's +leg and poured into his ear a long tale about the wonderful beauty of +the work, and then pulled in the name of the book from the rear of the +last car, where it had been hanging on behind, the passenger would most +always buy it and enough of the name to wrap it up in. + +He also discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. He saw that the +pendulum at certain seasons of the year looked yellow under the eyes, +and that it drooped and did not enter into its work with the old zest. +He began to study the case with the aid of his new bamboo telescope and +a wicker-covered microscope. As a result, in ten days he had the +pendulum on its feet again. + +Galileo was inclined to be liberal in his religious views, more +especially in the matter of the Scriptures, claiming that there were +passages in the Bible which did not literally mean what the translator +said they did. This was where Galileo missed it. So long as he +discovered stars and isochronisms and such things as that, he succeeded, +but when he began to fool with other people's religious beliefs he got +into trouble. He was forced to fly from Pisa, we are told by the +historian, and we are assured at the same time that Galileo, who had +always been far, far ahead of all competitors in other things, was +equally successful as a fleer. + +Galileo received but sixty scudi per year as his salary while at Pisa, +and a part of that he took in town orders, worth only sixty cents on the +scudi. + + + + +WANTED--A COOK + +BY ALAN DALE + + +There was a ring at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously +clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then, +alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and +expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could +not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized +that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin, +small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in and smiled at me. + +"_Talar ni svensk?_" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She +may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she +looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently, +reverently, to Letitia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a +wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed +her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that +any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed I heaved a +sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five +advertisements. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little +mouse, too! + +"_Talar ni svensk?_" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you +speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I +left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each +other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circumstances. I had +some misgivings on the subject of Letitia and _svensk_, but the +universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly +hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a +cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment, +delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the +drawing-room. Letitia was smiling and the hand-maiden sat grim and +uninspired. + +"I've engaged her, Archie," said Letitia. "She knows nothing, as she has +told me in the few words of English that she has picked up, but--you +remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate." + +I gazed at the maiden, and reflected that while the term "slate" might +be perfectly correct, the adjective seemed a bit over-enthusiastic. She +was decidely soiled, this quintessence of a quintette of advertisements. +I said nothing, anxious not to dampen Letitia's elation. + +"She has no references," continued my wife, "as she has never been out +before. She is just a simple little Stockholm girl. I like her face +immensely, Archie--immensely. She is willing to begin at once, which +shows that she is eager, and consequently likely to suit us. Wait for +me, Archie, while I take her to the kitchen. _Kom_, Gerda." + +Exactly why Letitia couldn't say "Come, Gerda," seemed strange. She +probably thought that _Kom_ must be Swedish, and that it sounded well. +She certainly invented _Kom_ on the spur of the Scandinavian moment, and +I learned afterward that it was correct. My inspired Letitia! Still, in +spite of all, my opinion is that "Come, Gerda," would have done just as +well. + +"Isn't it delightful?" cried Letitia, when she joined me later. "I am +really enthusiastic at the idea of a Swedish girl. I adore Scandinavia, +Archie. It always makes me think of Ibsen. Perhaps Gerda Lyberg--that's +her name--will be as interesting as Hedda Gabler, and Mrs. Alving, and +Nora, and all those lovely complex Ibsen creatures." + +"They were Norwegians, dear," I said gently, anxious not to shatter +illusions; "the Ibsen plays deal with Christiania, not with Stockholm." + +"But they are so near," declared Letitia, amiable and seraphic once +more. "Somehow or other, I invariably mix up Norway and Sweden and +Denmark. I know I shall always look upon Gerda as an Ibsen girl, who has +come here to 'live her life,' or 'work out her inheritance.' Perhaps, +dear, she has some interesting internal disease, or a maggoty brain. +Don't you think, Archie, that the Ibsen inheritances are always most +fascinating? A bit morbid, but surely fascinating." + +"I prefer a healthy cook, Letitia," I said meditatively, "somebody +willing to interest herself in our inheritance, rather than in her own." + +"I don't mind what you say now," she pouted, "I am not to be put down by +clamor. We really have a cook at last, and I feel more lenient toward +you, Archie. Of course I was only joking when I suggested the Ibsen +diseases. Gerda Lyberg may have inherited from her ancestors something +quite nice and attractive." + +"Then you mustn't look upon her as Ibsen, Letitia," I protested. "The +Ibsen people never inherit nice things. Their ancestors always bequeath +nasty ones. That is where their consistency comes in. They are +receptacles for horrors. Personally, if you'll excuse my flippancy, I +prefer Norwegian anchovies to Norwegian heroines. It is a mere matter of +opinion." + +"I'm ashamed of you," retorted Letitia defiantly. "You talk like some of +the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so called, that men like Acton +Davies and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never +amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies, +but he has never yet cursed them with the odious incubus known as 'a +sense of humor.' The people with a sense of humor have something in +their brains worse than maggots. We'll drop the subject, Archie. I'm +going to learn Swedish. Before Gerda Lyberg has been with us a month I +intend to be able to talk fluently. It will be most useful. Next time we +go to Europe we'll take in Sweden, and I'll do the piloting. I am going +to buy some Swedish books, and study. Won't it be jolly? And just think +how melancholy we were this morning, you and I, looking out of that +window, and trying to materialize cooks. Wasn't it funny, Archie? What +amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!" + +Letitia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle +parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to +leave my household gods for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could +not feel quite as sanguine as Letitia, who seemed to have forgotten the +dismal results of the advertisement--just one little puny Swedish +result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Letitia was as pleased +with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a +that-or-nothing. + +If somebody had dramatized Gerda Lyberg's initial dinner, it would +probably have been considered exceedingly droll. As a serious episode, +however, its humor, to my mind, lacked spontaneity. Letitia had asked +her to cook us a little Swedish meal, so that we could get some idea of +Stockholm life, in which, for some reason or other, we were supposed to +be deeply interested. Unfortunately I was extremely hungry, and had +carefully avoided luncheon in order to give my appetite a chance. We +sat down to a huge bowl of cold, greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of +meat swam, as though for their life, awaiting rescue at the prongs of a +fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of +water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Letitia said +that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was +that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Letitia was so engrossed +with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that +she forgot the mere material question of food--forgot everything but the +horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who +looked more unlike a clean slate than ever. + +"What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Letitia, turning over the pages +of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in +which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' '_Jag +aer myckel hungrig_.' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: '_Kypare gif +mig matsedeln och vinlistan._' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of +fare, and the list of wines.'" + +"Don't," I cried; "don't. This woman doesn't know what dining means. +Look out a chapter on feeding." + +Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. +She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at +her Swedish. + +"Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "_Gif mir apven senap +och naegra potaeter_." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned +potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, +Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. _Jag +tackar_, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' _Jag tackar_. See if you can +say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. _Jag tackar._ Now, that's +a good boy, _jag tackar_." + +"I won't," I declared spitefully. "No _jag tackar_ing for a parody like +this, Letitia. You don't seem to realize that I'm hungry. Honestly, I +prefer a delicatessen dinner to this." + +"'Pray, give me a piece of venison,'" read Letitia, absolutely +disregarding my mood. "'_Var god och gif mig ett stycke vildt._' It is +almost intelligible, isn't it, dear? '_Ni aeter icke_': you do not eat." + +"I can't," I asserted mournfully, anxious to gain Letitia's sympathy. + +It was not forthcoming. Letitia's eyes were fastened on Gerda, and I +could not help noting on the woman's face an expression of scorn. I felt +certain of it. She appeared to regard my wife as a sort of irresponsible +freak, and I was vexed to think that Letitia should make such an +exhibition of herself, and countenance the alleged meal that was set +before us. + +"'I have really dined very well,'" she continued joyously. "_Jag har +verkligen atit mycket bra._'" + +"If you are quite sure that she doesn't understand English, Letitia," I +said viciously, "I'll say to you that this is a kind of joke I don't +appreciate. I won't keep such a woman in the house. Let us put on our +things and go out and have dinner. Better late than never." + +Letitia was turning over the pages of her book, quite lost to her +surroundings. As I concluded my remarks she looked up and exclaimed, +"How very funny, Archie. Just as you said 'Better late than never,' I +came across that very phrase in the list of Swedish proverbs. It must be +telepathy, dear. 'Better late than never,' '_Battre sent aen aldrig_.' +What were you saying on the subject, dear? Will you repeat it? And do +try it in Swedish. Say '_Battre sent aen aldrig_.'" + +"Letitia," I shot forth in a fury, "I'm not in the humor for this sort +of thing. I think this dinner and this woman are rotten. See if you can +find the word rotten in Swedish." + +"I am surprised at you," Letitia declared glacially, roused from her +book by my heroic though unparliamentary language. "Your expressions are +neither English nor Swedish. Please don't use such gutter-words before a +servant, to say nothing of your own wife." + +"But she doesn't understand," I protested, glancing at Miss Lyberg. I +could have sworn that I detected a gleam in the woman's eyes and that +the sphinx-like attitude of dull incomprehensibility suggested a +strenuous effort. "She doesn't understand anything. She doesn't want to +understand." + +"In a week from now," said Letitia, "she will understand everything +perfectly, for I shall be able to talk with her. Oh, Archie, do be +agreeable. Can't you see that I am having great fun? Don't be such a +greedy boy. If you could only enter into the spirit of the thing, you +wouldn't be so oppressed by the food question. Oh, dear! How important +it does seem to be to men. Gerda, _hur gammal aer ni_?" + +The maiden sullenly left the room, and I felt convinced that Letitia had +Swedishly asked her to do so. I was wrong. "_Hur gammal aer ni_," Letitia +explained, simply meant, "How old are you?" + +"She evidently didn't want to tell me," was my wife's comment, as we +went to the drawing-room. "I imagine, dear, that she doesn't quite like +the idea of my ferreting out Swedish so persistently. But I intend to +persevere. The worst of conversation books is that one acquires a +language in such a parroty way. Now, in my book, the only answer to the +question 'How old are you?' is, 'I was born on the tenth of August, +1852.' For the life of me, I couldn't vary that, and it would be most +embarrassing. It would make me fifty-two. If any one asked me in Swedish +how old I was, I should _have_ to be fifty-two!" + +"When I think of my five advertisements," I said lugubriously, as I +threw myself into an arm-chair, fatigued at my efforts to discover +dinner, "when I remember our expectation, and the pleasant anticipations +of to-day, I feel very bitter, Letitia. Just to think that from it all +nothing has resulted but that beastly mummy, that atrocious ossified +thing." + +"Archie, Archie!" said my wife warningly; "please be calm. Perhaps I was +too engrossed with my studies to note the deficiencies of dinner. But do +remember that I pleaded with her for a Swedish meal. The poor thing did +what I asked her to do. Our dinner was evidently Swedish. It was not her +fault that I asked for it. To-morrow, dear, it shall be different. We +had better stick to the American regime. It is more satisfactory to you. +At any rate, we have somebody in the house, and if our five +advertisements had brought forth five hundred applicants we should only +have kept one. So don't torture yourself, Archie. Try and imagine that +we _had_ five hundred applicants, and that we selected Gerda Lyberg." + +"I can't, Letitia," I said sulkily, and I heaved a heavy sigh. + +"Come," she said soothingly, "come and study Swedish with me. It will be +most useful for your _Lives of Great Men_. You can read up the Swedes in +the original. I'll entertain you with this book, and you'll forget all +about Mrs. Potz--I mean Gerda Lyberg. By-the-by, Archie, she doesn't +remind me so much of Hedda Gabler. I don't fancy that she is very +subtile." + +"You, Letitia," I retorted, "remind me of Mrs. Nickleby. You ramble on +so." + +Letitia looked offended. She always declared that Dickens "got on her +nerves." She was one of the new-fashioned readers who have learned to +despise Dickens. Personally, I regretted only his nauseating sense of +humor. Letitia placed a cushion behind my head, smoothed my forehead, +kissed me, made her peace, and settled down by my side. Lack of +nourishment made me drowsy, and Letitia's babblings sounded vague and +muffled. + +"It is a most inclusive little book," she said, "and if I can succeed in +memorizing it all I shall be quite at home with the language. In fact, +dear, I think I shall always keep Swedish cooks. Hark at this: 'If the +wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours.' '_Om +vinden aer god, sa aero vi pa pyrtio timmar i Goteborg._' I think it is +sweetly pretty. 'You are seasick.' 'Steward, bring me a glass of brandy +and water.' 'We are now entering the harbor.' 'We are now anchoring.' +'Your passports, gentlemen.'" + +A comfortable lethargy was stealing o'er me. Letitia took a pencil and +paper, and made notes as she plied the book. "A chapter on 'seeing a +town' is most interesting, Archie. Of course, it must be a Swedish town. +'Do you know the two private galleries of Mr. Smith, the merchant, and +Mr. Muller, the chancellor?' 'To-morrow morning I wish to see all the +public buildings and statues.' '_Statyerna_' is Swedish for statues, +Archie. Are you listening, dear? 'We will visit the Church of the Holy +Ghost, at two, then we will make an excursion on Lake Maelan and see the +fortress of Vaxholm.' It _is_ a charming little book. Don't you think +that it is a great improvement on the old Ollendorff system? I don't +find nonsensical sentences like 'The hat of my aunt's sister is blue, +but the nose of my brother-in-law's sister-in-law is red.'" + +I rose and stretched myself. Letitia was still plunged in the +irritating guide to Sweden, where I vowed I would never go. Nothing on +earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice +between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the +former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splashing noise in the +kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. She was evidently +too deeply engrossed. + +I strolled nonchalantly into the hall, and proceeded deliberately toward +the kitchen. The thick carpet deadened my footsteps. The splashing noise +grew louder. The kitchen door was closed. I gently opened it. As I did +so a wild scream rent the air. There stood Gerda Lyberg in--in--my pen +declines to write it--a simple unsophisticated birthday dress, taking an +ingenuous reluctant bath in the "stationary tubs," with the plates, and +dishes, and dinner things grouped artistically around her! + +The instant she saw me she modestly seized a dish-towel and shouted at +the top of her voice. The kitchen was filled with the steam from the hot +water. 'Venus arising' looked nebulous, and mystic. I beat a hasty +retreat, aghast at the revelation, and almost fell against Letitia, who, +dropping her conversation book, came to see what had happened. + +"She's bathing!" I gasped, "in the kitchen--among the plates--near the +soup--" + +"Never!" cried Letitia. Then, melodramatically: "Let me pass. Stand +aside, Archie. I'll go and see. Perhaps--perhaps--you had better come +with me." + +"Letitia," I gurgled, "I'm shocked! She has nothing on but a +dish-towel." + +Letitia paused irresolutely for a second, and going into the kitchen +shut the door. The splashing noise ceased. I heard the sound of voices, +or rather of a voice--Letitia's! Evidently she had forgotten Swedish, +and such remarks as "If the wind be favorable, we shall be at +Gothenburg in forty hours." I listened attentively, and could not even +hear her say "We will visit the Church of the Holy Ghost at two." It is +strange how the stress of circumstances alters the complexion of a +conversation book! All the evening she had studied Swedish, and yet +suddenly confronted by a Swedish lady bathing in our kitchen, +dish-toweled but unashamed, all she could find to say was "How +disgusting!" and "How disgraceful!" in English! + +"You see," said Letitia, when she emerged, "she is just a simple peasant +girl, and only needs to be told. It is very horrid, of course." + +"And unappetizing!" I chimed in. + +"Of course--certainly unappetizing. I couldn't think of anything Swedish +to say, but I said several things in English. She was dreadfully sorry +that you had seen her, and never contemplated such a possibility. After +all, Archie, bathing is not a crime." + +"And we were hunting for a clean slate," I suggested satirically. "Do +you think, Letitia, that she also takes a cold bath in the morning, +among the bacon and eggs, and things?" + +"That is enough," said Letitia sternly. "The episode need not serve as +an excuse for indelicacy." + +It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely +certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a +thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted +in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had +definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves +openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the +enigma in all its force and defiance. + +The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly +blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew. +Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical +fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg, +apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain +views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to +have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in +the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become +eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those +antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled +egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly +thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had +laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, +perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda. + +Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was +certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her +hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The +situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a +particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely +ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique. +Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, +laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our +daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess +some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it +was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the +slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that +water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a +salary. + +Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with +Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was +a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil +coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the +dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She +grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived +on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily. + +"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third +day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That +is why she is so ignorant." + +I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I +muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers +have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why +can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have +arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to +'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of +peasant food. The result has been _nil_." + +"It _is_ odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in +the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't +understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish." + +"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the +conversation book." + +"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green +peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and--" + +"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours,'" +I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end +your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they +do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always +pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind. Even with an American +cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison +steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty +hours." + +Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in +the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had +consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a +rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly +tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to +supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an +indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. +People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of +this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men +and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not +particular--so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of +these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest +gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best +isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a +score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, +canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look +askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" +liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor +whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment. + +Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not +to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return, +the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up. +We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American +institution, the boarding-house feeder and the restaurant diner. We +knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and +a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts +its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook--no lack of +cook--should drive us to these abysmal depths. + +Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath +of _The Lives of Great Men_. She read a sweet little classic called "The +Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by +Alessandro Filippini--a delightful _table-d'hote_-y name. I lay back in +my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence. +As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned +that I should not have to wait long. I was right. + +"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the +civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers +as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his +able lieutenants." + +"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I +should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of +low-livers." + +"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory +of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at +one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the +hands of the metropolis of the New World.'" + +"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant +talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris +there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there they +have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New +York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any +more of your cook-book to me, my girl. It is written to catch the +American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery." + +"Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know +you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just +talking cussedly with your own wife." + +A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the +humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth _was_ most trying. We were +bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to +which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each +wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers, +forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me. + +"Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and +from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in +the face. + +For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could +say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure +that I wasn't that I was about to close the door. + +"She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth +the poppies. + +I came to myself with an effort. "She is the--the cook," I muttered +weakly. + +"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her +voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable." + +The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went +toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was +amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of +tongues, and then--I groped my way back to Letitia. + +"They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried. + +"Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent +of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she +said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were +festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant and +convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better a +happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia thought +the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges to a +cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark, however, +that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook. + +"Then let us call her a 'girl,'" said Letitia. + +"Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly. +"If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness +knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!" + +This time Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More +arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily +attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which, +in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were +Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra--as we soon learned. It was +wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at +home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and +humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia +stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. +Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our +house. + +"Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say +to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent--most uncalled for." + +"Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But +please don't think _I_ shall, for I assure you that I shan't. I suppose +that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want +to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks by +doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were +possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to +labor." + +I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite +unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again she took up the cook-book. The +sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we +could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of +her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My +nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that +there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings I should have +slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to +comfort me. + +Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs _a la reine_ seemed as +difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential +calculus--and much more expensive. Certainly the eight giggling cooks in +the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried +themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play +pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and +wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was +close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought +it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock +struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the +door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and +a mountain of cake--that in my famished condition made my mouth +water--and announced in a severe, yet subdued tone, that the revel must +cease. + +"You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house." + +Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of +tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard +noisily leaving the house. Two minutes later, there was a knock at our +door and Miss Lyberg appeared, her eyes blazing, her face flushed and +the expression of the hunted antelope defiantly asserting that it would +never be brought to bay, on her perspiring features. + +"You've insulted my guests!" she cried, in English as good as my own. +"I've had to turn them out of the house, and I've had about enough of +this place." + +Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation, +humiliation--all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse +Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the +language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! The +dense, dumb Scandinavian--the lady of the "me no understand" +rejoinder--apparently had the "gift of tongues." Letitia trembled. +Rarely have I seen her so thoroughly perturbed. Yet seemingly she was +unwilling to credit the testimony of her own ears, for with sudden +energy, she confronted Miss Lyberg, and exclaimed imperiously, in +Swedish that was either pure or impure: "_Tig. Ga din vaeg!_" + +"Ah, come off!" cried the handmaiden insolently. "I understand English. +I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. It's just on +account of folks like you that poor hard-working girls, who ain't +allowed to take no baths or entertain no lady friends, have to protect +themselves. Pretend not to understand them, says I. I've found it worked +before this. If they think you don't understand 'em, they'll let you +alone and stop worriting. It's like your impidence to turn my +lady-friends out of this flat. It's like your impidence. I'll--" + +Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely +upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another +minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled +there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be. + +"You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a +smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I +haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks +after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just +you push me out." + +She edged up to me defiantly. My blood boiled. I would have mortgaged +the prospects of my _Lives of Great Men_ (not that they were worth +mortgaging) for the exquisite satisfaction of confounding this +abominable woman. Then I saw the peril of the situation. I thought of +horrid headliners in the papers: "Author charged with abusing servant +girl," or, "Arrest of Archibald Fairfax on serious charge," and my mood +changed. + +"I understood you all the time," continued Miss Lyberg insultingly. "I +listened to you. I knew what you thought of me. Now I'm telling you what +I think of you. The idea of turning out my lady-friends, on a Thursday +night, too! And me a-slaving for them, and a-bathing for them, and +a-treating them to ice cream and cake, and in me own kitchen. You ain't +no lady. As for you"--I seemed to be her particular pet--"when I sees a +man around the house all the time, a-molly-coddling and a-fussing, I +says to myself, he ain't much good if he can't trust the women folk +alone." + +We stood there like dummies, listening to the tirade. What could we do? +To be sure, there were two of us, and we were in our own house. The +antagonist, however, was a servant, not in her own house. The situation, +for reasons that it is impossible to define, was hers. She knew it, too. +We allowed her full sway, because we couldn't help it. The sympathy of +the public, in case of violent measures, would not have been on our +side. The poor domestic, oppressed and enslaved, would have appealed to +any jury of married men, living luxuriously in cheap boarding-houses! + +When she left us, as she did when she was completely ready to do so, +Letitia began to cry. The sight of her tears unnerved me, and I checked +a most unfeeling remark that I intended to make to the effect that, "if +the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours." + +"It's not that I mind her insolence," she sobbed, "we were going to send +her off anyway, weren't we? But it's so humiliating to be 'done.' We've +been 'done.' Here have I been working hard at Swedish--writing exercises, +learning verbs, studying proverbs--just to talk to a woman who speaks +English as well as I do. It's--it's--so--so--mor--mortifying." + +"Never mind, dear," I said, drying her eyes for her; "the Swedish will +come in handy some day." + +"No," she declared vehemently, "don't say that you'll take me to Sweden. +I wouldn't go to the hateful country. It's a hideous language, anyway, +isn't it, Archie? It is a nasty, laconic, ugly tongue. You heard me say +_Tig_ to her just now. _Tig_ means 'be silent.' Could anything sound +more repulsive? _Tig! Tig! Ugh!_" + +Letitia stamped her foot. She was exceeding wroth. + + + + +SIMILAR CASES + +BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN + + + There was once a little animal, + No bigger than a fox, + And on five toes he scampered + Over Tertiary rocks. + They called him Eohippus, + And they called him very small, + And they thought him of no value-- + When they thought of him at all; + For the lumpish old Dinoceras + And Coryphodon so slow + Were the heavy aristocracy + In days of long ago. + + Said the little Eohippus, + "I am going to be a horse! + And on my middle finger-nails + To run my earthly course! + I'm going to have a flowing tail! + I'm going to have a mane! + I'm going to stand fourteen hands high + On the psychozoic plain!" + + The Coryphodon was horrified, + The Dinoceras was shocked; + And they chased young Eohippus, + But he skipped away and mocked; + Then they laughed enormous laughter, + And they groaned enormous groans, + And they bade young Eohippus + Go view his father's bones: + Said they, "You always were as small + And mean as now we see, + And that's conclusive evidence + That you're always going to be: + What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast, + With hoofs to gallop on? + _Why, you'd have to change your nature!_" + Said the Loxolophodon: + They considered him disposed of, + And retired with gait serene; + That was the way they argued + In "the early Eocene." + + There was once an Anthropoidal Ape, + Far smarter than the rest, + And everything that they could do + He always did the best; + So they naturally disliked him, + And they gave him shoulders cool, + And when they had to mention him + They said he was a fool. + + Cried this pretentious Ape one day, + "I'm going to be a Man! + And stand upright, and hunt, and fight, + And conquer all I can! + I'm going to cut down forest trees, + To make my houses higher! + I'm going to kill the Mastodon! + I'm going to make a fire!" + + Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes, + With laughter wild and gay; + They tried to catch that boastful one, + But he always got away; + So they yelled at him in chorus, + Which he minded not a whit; + And they pelted him with cocoanuts, + Which didn't seem to hit; + And then they gave him reasons, + Which they thought of much avail, + To prove how his preposterous + Attempt was sure to fail. + + Said the sages, "In the first place, + The thing can not be done! + And, second, if it _could_ be, + It would not be any fun! + And, third, and most conclusive + And admitting no reply, + _You would have to change your nature!_ + We should like to see you try!" + They chuckled then triumphantly, + These lean and hairy shapes, + For these things passed as arguments + With the Anthropoidal Apes. + + There was once a Neolithic Man, + An enterprising wight, + Who made his chopping implements + Unusually bright; + Unusually clever he, + Unusually brave, + And he drew delightful Mammoths + On the borders of his cave. + + To his Neolithic neighbors, + Who were startled and surprised, + Said he, "My friends, in course of time, + We shall be civilized! + We are going to live in cities! + We are going to fight in wars! + We are going to eat three times a day + Without the natural cause! + We are going to turn life upside down + About a thing called gold! + We are going to want the earth, and take + As much as we can hold! + We are going to wear great piles of stuff + Outside our proper skins! + We are going to have Diseases! + And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!" + + Then they all rose up in fury + Against their boastful friend, + For prehistoric patience + Cometh quickly to an end: + Said one, "This is chimerical! + Utopian! Absurd!" + Said another, "What a stupid life! + Too dull, upon my word!" + Cried all, "Before such things can come, + You idiotic child, + _You must alter Human Nature_!" + And they all sat back and smiled: + Thought they, "An answer to that last + It will be hard to find!" + It was a clinching argument + To the Neolithic Mind! + + + + +THE OLD MAID'S HOUSE: IN PLAN + +BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS + + +Corona had five hundred dollars and some pluck for her enterprise. She +had also at her command a trifle for furnishing. But that seemed very +small capital. Her friends at large discouraged her generously. Even Tom +said he didn't know about that, and offered her three hundred more. + +This manly offer she declined in a womanly manner. + +"It is to be _my_ house, thank you, Tom, dear. I can live in yours at +home." ... + +Corona's architectural library was small. She found on the top shelf one +book on the construction of chicken-roosts, a pamphlet in explanation of +the kindergarten system, a cook-book that had belonged to her +grandmother, and a treatise on crochet. There her domestic literature +came to an end. She accordingly bought a book entitled "North American +Homes"; then, having, in addition, begged or borrowed everything within +two covers relating to architecture that was to be found in her +immediate circle of acquaintance, she plunged into that unfamiliar +science with hopeful zeal. + +The result of her studies was a mixed one. It was necessary, it seemed, +to construct the North American home in so many contradictory methods, +or else fail forever of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, +that Corona felt herself to be laboring under a chronic aberration of +mind.... Then the plans. Well, the plans, it must be confessed, Corona +_did_ find it difficult to understand. She always had found it difficult +to understand such things; but then she had hoped several weeks of close +architectural study would shed light upon the density of the subject. +She grew quite morbid about it. She counted the steps when she went +up-stairs to bed at night. She estimated the bedroom post when she +walked in the cold, gray dawn.... + +But the most perplexing thing about the plans was how one story ever got +upon another. Corona's imagination never fully grappled with this fact, +although her intellect accepted it. She took her books down-stairs one +night, and Susy came and looked them over. + +"Why, these houses are all one-story," said Susy. "Besides, they're +nothing but lines, anyway. I shouldn't draw a house so." + +Corona laughed with some embarrassment and no effort at enlightenment. +She was not used to finding herself and Susy so nearly on the same +intellectual level as in this instance. She merely asked: "How should +you draw it?" + +"Why, so," said Susy, after some severe thought. So she took her little +blunt lead pencil, that the baby had chewed, and drew her plan as +follows: + +[Illustration: SUSY'S PLAN] + +Corona made no comment upon this plan, except to ask Susy if that were +the way to spell L; and then to look in the dictionary, and find that it +was not spelled at all. Tom came in, and asked to see what they were +doing. + +"I'm helping Corona," said Susy, with much complacency. "These +architects' things don't look any more like houses than they do like the +first proposition in Euclid; and the poor girl is puzzled." + +"_I'll_ help you to-morrow, Co," said Tom, who was in too much of a +hurry to glance at his wife's plan. But to-morrow Tom went into town by +the early train, and when Corona emerged from her "North American +Homes," with wild eye and knotted brow, at 5 o'clock p.m., she found +Susy crying over a telegram which ran: + + Called to California immediately. Those lost cargoes A No. 1 hides + turned up. Can't get home to say good-by. Send overcoat and + flannels by Simpson on midnight express. Gone four weeks. Love to + all. + + TOM. + +This unexpected event threw Corona entirely upon her own resources; and, +after a few days more of patient research, she put on her hat, and stole +away at dusk to a builder she knew of down-town--a nice, fatherly man +who had once built a piazza for Tom and had just been elected +superintendent of the Sunday-school. These combined facts gave Corona +confidence to trust her case to his hands. She carried a neat little +plan of her own with her, the result of several days' hard labor. Susy's +plan she had taken the precaution to cut into paper dolls for the baby. +Corona found the good man at home, and in her most business-like manner +presented her points. + +"Got any plan in yer own head?" asked the builder, hearing her in +silence. In silence Corona laid before him the paper which had cost her +so much toil. + +It was headed in her clear black hand: + + PLAN + FOR A SMALL BUT HAPPY + HOME + +This was + +[Illustration: CORONA'S PLAN] + +"Well," said the builder, after a silence,--"well, I've seen worse." + +"Thank you," said Corona, faintly. + +"How does she set?" asked the builder. + +"Who set?" said Corona, a little wildly. She could think of nothing that +set but hens. + +"Why, the house. Where's the points o' compass?" + +"I hadn't thought of those," said Corona. + +"And the chimney," suggested the builder. "Where's your chimneys?" + +"I didn't put in any chimneys," said Corona. + +"Where did you count on your stairs?" pursued the builder. + +"Stairs? I--forgot the stairs." + +"That's natural," said Mr. Timbers. "Had a plan brought me once without +an entry or a window to it. It wasn't a woman did it, neither. It was a +widower, in the noospaper line. What's your scale?" + +"Scale?" asked Corona, without animation. + +"Scale of feet. Proportions." + +"Oh! I didn't have any scales, but I thought about forty feet front +would do. I have but five hundred dollars. A small house must answer." + +The builder smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book +from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, +not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger +house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what +is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn +with the beauty of science. + +"There," said Mr. Timbers, "I know a lady built one of those upon her +brother-in-law's land. He give her the land, and she just put up the +cottage, and they was all as pleasant as pease about it. That's about +what I'd recommend to you, if you don't object to the name of it." + +"What is the matter with the name?" asked Corona. + +"Why," said the builder, hesitating, "it is called the Old Maid's +House--in the _book_." + +"Mr. Timbers," said Corona, with decision, "why should we seek further +than the truth? I will have that house. Pray, draw me the plan at +once." + + + + +DISTICHS + +BY JOHN HAY + + + I + + Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her. + This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not. + + + II + + There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming + are going, + When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs. + + + III + + Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection, + As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea. + + + IV + + As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them, + Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king. + + + V + + What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second? + What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first. + + + VI + + Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle. + Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love. + + + VII + + Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it + the fouler, + But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom. + + + VIII + + Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient: + Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel. + + + IX + + When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures; + Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins. + + + X + + Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? + Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else. + + + XI + + Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him, + And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins. + + + XII + + Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor's approval: + Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain. + + + XIII + + Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of + his pronouns. + Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I. + + + XIV + + The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish + Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day. + + + XV + + True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table: + Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home. + + + XVI + + Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues; + But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud. + + XVII + + Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters; + Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few. + + + XVIII + + Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady + sifting, + Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life. + + + + +THE QUARREL + +BY S.E. KISER + + + "There are quite as good fish + In the sea + As any one ever has caught," + Said he. + "But few of the fish-- + In the sea + Will bite at such bait as you've got," + Said she. + To-day he is gray, and his line's put away, + But he often looks back with regret; + She's still "in the sea," and how happy she'd be + If he were a fisherman yet! + + + + +A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS + +BY E.W. HOWE + + +MY DEAR SIR--Occasionally a gem occurs to me which I am unable to favor +you with because of late we are not much together. Appreciating the keen +delight with which you have been kind enough to receive my philosophy, I +take the liberty of sending herewith a number of ideas which may please +and benefit you, and which I have divided into paragraphs with headings. + + +HAPPINESS + +I have observed that happiness and brains seldom go together. The +pin-headed woman who regards her thin-witted husband as the greatest man +in the world, is happy, and much good may it do her. In such cases +ignorance is a positive blessing, for good sense would cause the woman +to realize her distressed condition. A man who can think he is as "good +as anybody" is happy. The fact may be notorious that the man is not so +"good as anybody" until he is as industrious, as educated, and as +refined as anybody, but he has not brains enough to know this, and, +content with conceit, is happy. A man with a brain large enough to +understand mankind is always wretched and ashamed of himself. + + +REPUTATION + +Reputation is not always desirable. The only thing I have ever heard +said in Twin Mounds concerning Smoky Hill is that good hired girls may +be had there. + + +WOMEN + +1. Most women seem to love for no other reason than that it is expected +of them. + +2. I know too much about women to honor them more than they deserve; in +fact I know all about them. I visited a place once where doctors are +made, and saw them cut up one. + +3. A woman loses her power when she allows a man to find out all there +is to her; I mean by this that familiarity breeds contempt. I knew a +young man once who worked beside a woman in an office, and he never +married. + +4. If men would only tell what they actually know about women, instead +of what they believe or hear, they would receive more credit for +chastity than is now the case, for they deserve more. + + +LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE + +As a people we lack self-confidence. The country is full of men that +will readily talk you to death privately, who would run away in alarm if +asked to preside at a public meeting. In my Alliance movement I often +have trouble in getting out a crowd, every farmer in the neighborhood +feeling of so much importance as to fear that if he attends he will be +called upon to say something. + + +IN DISPUTE + +In some communities where I have lived the women were mean to their +husbands; in others, the husbands were mean to their wives. It is +usually the case that the friends of a wife believe her husband to be a +brute, and the friends of the husband believe the wife to possess no +other talent than to make him miserable. You can't tell how it is; the +evidence is divided. + + +MAN + +There is only one grade of men; they are all contemptible. The judge may +seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I +have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and +grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about +him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity, +induced by the servility of those who expect favors. + + +OPPORTUNITY + +You hear a great many persons regretting lack of opportunity. If every +man had opportunity for his desires, this would be a nation of murderers +and disgraced women. + + +EXPECTATION + +Always be ready for that which you do not expect. Nothing that you +expect ever happens. You have perhaps observed that when you are waiting +for a visitor at the front door, he comes in at the back, and surprises +you. + + +WOMAN'S WORK + +A woman's work is never done, as the almanacs state, for the reason that +she does not go about it in time to finish it. + + +THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY + +If you can not resist the low impulse to talk about people, say only +what you actually know, instead of what you have heard. And, while you +are about it, stop and consider whether you are not in need of charity +yourself. + + +NEIGHBORS + +Every man overestimates his neighbors, because he does not know them so +well as he knows himself. A sensible man despises himself because he +knows what a contemptible creature he is. I despise Lytle Biggs, but I +happen to know that his neighbors are just as bad. + + +VIRTUE + +Men are virtuous because the women are; women are virtuous from +necessity. + + +ASHAMED OF THE TRUTH + +I believe I never knew any one who was not ashamed of the truth. Did you +ever notice that a railroad company numbers its cars from 1,000, instead +of from 1? + + +KNOWING ONLY ONE OF THEM + +We are sometimes unable to understand why a pretty little woman marries +a fellow we know to be worthless; but the fellow, who knows the woman +better than we do, considers that he has thrown himself away. We know +the fellow, but we do not know the woman. + + +AN APOLOGY + +I detest an apology. The world is full of people who are always making +trouble and apologizing for it. If a man respects me, he will not give +himself occasion for apology. An offense can not be wiped out in that +way. If it could, we would substitute apologies for hangings. I hope you +will never apologize to me; I should regard it as evidence that you had +wronged me. + + +OLDEST INHABITANTS + +The people of Smoky Hill are only fit for oldest inhabitants. In thirty +or forty years from now there will be a great demand for reminiscences +of the pioneer days. I recommend that they preserve extensive data for +the only period in their lives when they can hope to attract attention. + +Be good enough, sir, to regard me, as of old, your friend. + +L. BIGGS. +_To_ NED WESTLOCK, _Twin Mounds_. + + + + +MRS. JOHNSON + +BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + + +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 side-walks +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 hoop-skirts 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 grape-vine 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 lots, 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 any one 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 evening 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? Any one 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 +midsummer-like 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 Charlesbridge 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 +gayly are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and +down the side-walks, and in and out through the pendent 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 +ungenteelly 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 from 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 +wickedness of a low American street. A gayety not born of the things +that bring its serious joy to the true New England heart--a ragged +gayety, 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 child-like 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 side-walks 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 out 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 wildness +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 child-like 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 life-time 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 life-time 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 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 +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 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 shame 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 her 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 +blonde 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 instruction 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 modified even this +form of service, and 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 supple 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 +or the Grand Custom in each grotesque development. We were conscious of +something warmer in this old soul than in ourselves, and something +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 +afterwards 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 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 comparison with the blonde 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 hangdog 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 there was no one so agreeable in +society, or so quick-witted 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 masterstroke 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 till 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." + + + + +PASS + +BY IRONQUILL + + + A father said unto his hopeful son, + "Who was Leonidas, my cherished one?" + The boy replied, with words of ardent nature, + "He was a member of the legislature." + "How?" asked the parent; then the youngster saith: + "He got a pass, and held her like grim death." + "Whose pass? what pass?" the anxious father cried; + "'Twas the'r monopoly," the boy replied. + + In deference to the public, we must state, + That boy has been an orphan since that date. + + + + +TEACHING BY EXAMPLE + +BY JOHN G. SAXE + + + "What is the 'Poet's License,' say?" + Asked rose-lipped Anna of a poet. + "Now give me an example, pray, + That when I see one I may know it." + Quick as a flash he plants a kiss + Where perfect kisses always fall. + "Nay, sir! what liberty is this?" + "The _Poet's License_,--that is all!" + + + + +WHEN ALBANI SANG[1] + +BY WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND + + + Was workin' away on de farm dere, wan morning not long ago, + Feexin' de fence for winter--'cos dat's w'ere we got de snow! + W'en Jeremie Plouffe, ma neighbor, come over an' spik wit' me, + "Antoine, you will come on de city, for hear Ma-dam All-ba-nee?" + + "W'at you mean?" I was sayin' right off, me, "Some woman was mak' + de speech, + Or girl on de Hooraw Circus, doin' high kick an' screech?" + "Non--non," he is spikin'--"Excuse me, dat's be Madam All-ba-nee + Was leevin' down here on de contree, two mile 'noder side Chambly. + + "She's jus' comin' over from Englan', on steamboat arrive Kebeck, + Singin' on Lunnon an' Paree, an' havin' beeg tam, I ex-pec', + But no matter de moche she enjoy it, for travel all roun' de worl', + Somet'ing on de heart bring her back here, for she was de Chambly girl. + + "She never do not'ing but singin' an' makin' de beeg grande tour + An' travel on summer an' winter, so mus' be de firs' class for sure! + Ev'ryboddy I'm t'inkin' was know her, an' I also hear 'noder t'ing, + She's frien' on La Reine Victoria an' show her de way to sing!" + + "Wall," I say, "you're sure she is Chambly, w'at you call Ma-dam + All-ba-nee? + Don't know me dat nam' on de Canton--I hope you're not fool wit' me?" + An he say, "Lajeunesse, dey was call her, before she is come mariee, + But she's takin' de nam' of her husban'--I s'pose dat's de only way." + + "C'est bon, mon ami," I was say me, "If I get t'roo de fence nex' day + An' she don't want too moche on de monee, den mebbe I see her play." + So I finish dat job on to-morrow, Jeremie he was helpin' me too, + An' I say, "Len' me t'ree dollar quickly for mak' de voyage wit' you." + + Correc'--so we're startin' nex' morning, an' arrive Montreal all right, + Buy dollar tiquette on de bureau, an' pass on de hall dat night. + Beeg crowd, wall! I bet you was dere too, all dress on some fancy + dress, + De lady, I don't say not'ing, but man's all w'ite shirt an' no ves'. + + Don't matter, w'en ban' dey be ready, de foreman strek out wit' hees + steek, + An' fiddle an' ev'ryt'ing else too, begin for play up de musique. + It's fonny t'ing too dey was playin' don't lak it mese'f at all, + I rader be lissen some jeeg, me, or w'at you call "Affer de ball." + + An' I'm not feelin' very surprise den, w'en de crowd holler out, + "Encore," + For mak' all dem feller commencin' an' try leetle piece some more, + 'Twas better wan' too, I be t'inkin', but slow lak you're goin' to die, + All de sam', noboddy say not'ing, dat mean dey was satisfy. + + Affer dat come de Grande piano, lak we got on Chambly Hotel, + She's nice lookin' girl was play dat, so of course she's go off purty + well, + Den feller he's ronne out an' sing some, it's all about very fine moon, + Dat shine on Canal, ev'ry night too, I'm sorry I don't know de tune. + + Nex' t'ing I commence get excite, me, for I don't see no great Ma-dam + yet, + Too bad I was los all dat monee, an' too late for de raffle tiquette! + W'en jus' as I feel very sorry, for come all de way from Chambly, + Jeremie he was w'isper, "Tiens, tiens, prenez garde, she's comin' Ma-dam + All-ba-nee!" + + Ev'ryboddy seem glad w'en dey see her, come walkin' right down de + platform, + An' way dey mak' noise on de han' den, w'y! it's jus' lak de beeg + tonder storm! + I'll never see not'ing lak dat, me, no matter I travel de worl', + An' Ma-dam, you t'ink it was scare her? Non, she laugh lak de Chambly + girl! + + Dere was young feller comin' behin' her, walk nice, comme un Cavalier, + An' before All-ba-nee she is ready an' piano get startin' for play, + De feller commence wit' hees singin', more stronger dan all de res', + I t'ink he's got very bad manner, know not'ing at all politesse. + + Ma-dam, I s'pose she get mad den, an' before anyboddy can spik, + She settle right down for mak' sing too, an' purty soon ketch heem up + quick, + Den she's kip it on gainin' an' gainin', till de song it is tout finis, + An' w'en she is beatin' dat feller, Bagosh! I am proud Chambly! + + I'm not very sorry at all, me, w'en de feller was ronnin' away, + An' man he's come out wit' de piccolo, an' start heem right off for + play, + For it's kin' de musique I be fancy, Jeremie he is lak it also, + An' wan de bes' t'ing on dat ev'ning is man wit' de piccolo! + + Den mebbe ten minute is passin', Ma-dam she is comin' encore, + Dis tam all alone on de platform, dat feller don't show up no more, + An' w'en she start off on de singin' Jeremie say, "Antoine, dat's + Francais," + Dis give us more pleasure, I tole you, 'cos w'y? We're de pure Canayen! + + Dat song I will never forget me, 't was song of de leetle bird, + W'en he's fly from it's nes' on de tree top, 'fore res' of de worl' get + stirred, + Ma-dam she was tole us about it, den start off so quiet an' low, + An' sing lak de bird on de morning, de poor leetle small oiseau. + + I 'member wan tam I be sleepin' jus' onder some beeg pine tree + An song of de robin wak' me, but robin he don't see me, + Dere's not'ing for scarin' dat bird dere, he's feel all alone on de + worl', + Wall! Ma-dam she mus' lissen lak dat too, w'en she was de Chambly girl! + + Cos how could she sing dat nice chanson, de sam' as de bird I was hear, + Till I see it de maple an' pine tree an' Richelieu ronnin' near, + Again I'm de leetle feller, lak young colt upon de spring + Dat's jus' on de way I was feel, me, w'en Ma-dam All-ba-nee is sing! + + An' affer de song it is finish, an' crowd is mak' noise wit' its han', + I s'pose dey be t'inkin' I'm crazy, dat mebbe I don't onderstan', + Cos I'm set on de chair very quiet, mese'f an' poor Jeremie, + An' I see dat hees eye it was cry too, jus' sam' way it go wit' me. + + Dere's rosebush outside on our garden, ev'ry spring it has got new + nes', + But only wan bluebird is buil' dere, I know her from all de res', + An' no matter de far she be flyin' away on de winter tam, + Back to her own leetle rosebush she's comin' dere jus' de sam'. + + We're not de beeg place on our Canton, mebbe cole on de winter, too, + But de heart's "Canayen" on our body an' dat's warm enough for true! + An' w'en All-ba-nee was got lonesome for travel all roun' de worl' + I hope she'll come home, lak de bluebird, an' again be de Chambly girl! + +[Footnote 1: From "The Habitant and Other French Canadian Poems," by +William Henry Drummond. Copyright 1897 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.] + + + + +COLONEL STERETT'S PANTHER HUNT + +BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS + + +"Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old +Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped +of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to +skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' +about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still +ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to +be urged in favor of mountain lions that they never forces themse'fs on +no gent; they're shore considerate, that a-way, an' speshul of +themse'fs. If one's ever hurt, you can bet it won't be a accident. +However, it ain't for me to go 'round impugnin' the motives of no +mountain lion; partic'lar when the entire tribe is strangers to me +complete. But still a love of trooth compels me to concede that if +mountain lions ain't cowardly, they're shore cautious a lot. Cattle an' +calves they passes up as too bellicose, an' none of 'em ever faces any +anamile more warlike than a baby colt or mebby a half-grown deer. I'm +ridin' along the Caliente once when I hears a crashin' in the bushes on +the bluff above--two hundred foot high, she is, an' as sheer as the +walls of this yere tavern. As I lifts my eyes, a fear-frenzied mare an' +colt comes chargin' up an' projects themse'fs over the precipice an' +lands in the valley below. They're dead as Joolius Caesar when I rides +onto 'em, while a brace of mountain lions is skirtin' up an' down the +aige of the bluff they leaps from, mewin' an' lashin' their long tails +in hot enthoosiasm. Shore, the cats has been chasin' the mare an' foal, +an' they locoes 'em to that extent they don't know where they're headin' +an' makes the death jump I relates. I bangs away with my six-shooter, +but beyond givin' the mountain lions a convulsive start I can't say I +does any execootion. They turns an' goes streakin' it through the pine +woods like a drunkard to a barn raisin'. + +"Timid? Shore! They're that timid, seminary girls compared to 'em is as +sternly courageous as a passel of buccaneers. Out in Mitchell's canyon a +couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her +two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely +deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers +takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains. +That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she +ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a +anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't +possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions. + +"It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got +through his day's toil on that _Coyote_ paper he's editor of, onfolds +concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth. + +"'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third +tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm +a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is. +An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the +dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a +child, an' I recalls how my aptitoode for learnin' promotes me to be +regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors to the +school, or if the selectman invades that academy to sort o' size us up, +the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit. +Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode--the +teacher's done wrote it himse'f--an' which is entitled _Napoleon's Mad +Career_. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' +selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with +the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said +recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty +clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse: + + I'd drink an' sw'ar an' r'ar an' t'ar + An' fall down in the mud, + While the y'earth for forty miles about + Is kivered with my blood. + +"'You-all can see from that speciment that our school-master ain't +simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no, sir, he +means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it +jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I +finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the +brim! + +"'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he +uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, +on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into +talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains +yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a +shore-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fashion I assoomes at a +tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes +throughout the entire summer in that neighborhood; an' many a time an' +oft does my yoothful but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the +insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes in +the Bloo Grass is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit. + +"'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky +_ton_ comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to +school one dewy mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a +onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the +misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no +means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me +thoroughly convinced. + +"'Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep +goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast +myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school +I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the +heroism of the Spartan boy who stands to be eat by a fox, an' keeps 'em +to myself. But the views of my late enemy is not to be smothered; they +appeals to my young companions; who tharupon puts up a most onneedful +riot of coughin's an' sneezin's. But nobody knows me as the party who's +so pungent. + +"'It's a tryin' moment. I can see that, once I'm located, I'm goin' to +be as onpop'lar as a b'ar in a hawg pen; I'll come tumblin' from my +pinnacle in that proud commoonity as the glass of fashion an' the mold +of form. You can go your bottom _peso_, the thought causes me to feel +plenty perturbed. + +"'At this peril I has a inspiration; as good, too, as I ever entertains +without the aid of rum. I determines to cast the opprobrium on some +other boy an' send the hunt of gen'ral indignation sweepin' along his +trail. + +"'Thar's a innocent infant who's a stoodent at this temple of childish +learnin' an' his name is Riley Bark. This Riley is one of them giant +children who's only twelve an' weighs three hundred pounds. An' in +proportions as Riley is a son of Anak, physical, he's dwarfed mental; he +ain't half as well upholstered with brains as a shepherd dog. That's +right; Riley's intellects, is like a fly in a saucer of syrup, they +struggles 'round plumb slow. I decides to uplift Riley to the public eye +as the felon who's disturbin' that seminary's sereenity. Comin' to this +decision, I p'ints at him where he's planted four seats ahead, all +tangled up in a spellin' book, an' says in a loud whisper to a child +who's sittin' next: + +"'"Throw him out!" + +"'That's enough. No gent will ever realize how easy it is to direct a +people's sentiment ontil he take a whirl at the game. In two minutes by +the teacher's bull's-eye copper watch, every soul knows it's pore Riley; +an' in three, the teacher's done drug Riley out doors by the ha'r of his +head an' chased him home. Gents, I look back on that yoothful feat as a +triumph of diplomacy; it shore saved my standin' as the Beau Brummel of +the Bloo Grass. + +"'Good old days, them!' observes the Colonel mournfully, 'an' ones never +to come ag'in! My sternest studies is romances, an' the peroosals of old +tales as I tells you-all prior fills me full of moss an' mockin' birds +in equal parts. I reads deep of _Walter Scott_ an' waxes to be a sharp +on Moslems speshul. I dreams of the Siege of Acre, an' Richard the Lion +Heart; an' I simply can't sleep nights for honin' to hold a tournament +an' joust a whole lot for some fair lady's love. + +"'Once I commits the error of my career by joustin' with my brother +Jeff. This yere Jeff is settin' on the bank of the Branch fishin' for +bullpouts at the time, an' Jeff don't know I'm hoverin' near at all. +Jeff's reedic'lous fond of fishin'; which he'd sooner fish than read +_Paradise Lost_. I'm romancin' along, sim'larly bent, when I notes Jeff +perched on the bank. To my boyish imagination Jeff at once turns to be a +Paynim. I drops my bait box, couches my fishpole, an' emittin' a +impromptoo warcry, charges him. It's the work of a moment; Jeff's +onhossed an' falls into the Branch. + +"'But thar's bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana from +the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin' a +crimp in folks! Gents, when Jeff's wrath is assuaged I'm all on one side +like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my +spinal column. + +"'A week later my folks takes me to a doctor. That practitioner puts on +his specs an' looks me over with jealous care. + +"'"Whatever's wrong with him, Doc?" says my father. + +"'"Nothin'," says the physician, "only your son Willyum's five inches +out o' plumb." + +"'Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an' stay-laths, an' I +has to wear it; an' mebby in three or four weeks or so he's got me +warped back into the perpendic'lar.' + +"'But how about this cat hunt?' asks Dan Boggs. 'Which I don't aim to be +introosive none, but I'm camped yere through the second drink waitin' +for it, an' these procrastinations is makn' me kind o' batty.' + +"'That panther hunt is like this,' says the Colonel, turnin' to Dan. 'At +the age of seventeen, me an' eight or nine of my intimate brave comrades +founds what we-all denom'nates as the "Chevy Chase Huntin' Club." Each +of us maintains a passel of odds an' ends of dogs, an' at stated +intervals we convenes on hosses, an' with these fourscore curs at our +tails goes yellin' an' skally-hootin' up an' down the countryside +allowin' we're shore a band of Nimrods. + +"'The Chevy Chasers ain't been in bein' as a institootion over long when +chance opens a gate to ser'ous work. The deep snows in the Eastern +mountains it looks like has done drove a panther into our neighborhood. +You could hear of him on all sides. Folks glimpses him now an' then. +They allows he's about the size of a yearlin' calf; an' the way he pulls +down sech feeble people as sheep or lays desolate some he'pless henroost +don't bother him a bit. This panther spreads a horror over the county. +Dances, pra'er meetin's, an' even poker parties is broken up, an' the +social life of that region begins to bog down. Even a weddin' suffers; +the bridesmaids stayin' away lest this ferocious monster should show up +in the road an' chaw one of 'em while she's _en route_ for the scene of +trouble. That's gospel trooth! the pore deserted bride has to heel an' +handle herse'f an' never a friend to yoonite her sobs with hers doorin' +that weddin' ordeal. The old ladies present shakes their heads a heap +solemn. + +"'"It's a worse augoory," says one, "than the hoots of a score of +squinch owls." + +"'When this reign of terror is at its height, the local eye is rolled +appealin'ly towards us Chevy Chasers. We rises to the opportoonity. Day +after day we're ridin' the hills an' vales, readin' the milk white snow +for tracks. An' we has success. One mornin' I comes up on two of the +Brackenridge boys an' five more of the Chevy Chasers settin' on their +hosses at the Skinner cross roads. Bob Crittenden's gone to turn me out, +they says. Then they p'ints down to a handful of close-wove bresh an' +stunted timber an' allows that this maraudin' cat-o-mount is hidin' +thar; they sees him go skulkin' in. + +"'Gents, I ain't above admittin' that the news puts my heart to a +canter. I'm brave; but conflicts with wild an' savage beasts is to me a +novelty an' while I faces my fate without a flutter, I'm yere to say I'd +sooner been in pursoot of minks or raccoons or some varmint whose +grievous cap'bilities I can more ackerately stack up an' in whose merry +ways I'm better versed. However, the dauntless blood of my grandsire +mounts in my cheek; an' as if the shade of that old Trojan is thar +personal to su'gest it, I searches forth a flask an' renoos my sperit; +thus qualified for perils, come in what form they may, I resolootely +stands my hand. + +"'Thar's forty dogs if thar's one in our company as we pauses at the +Skinner cross-roads. An' when the Crittenden yooth returns, he brings +with him the Rickett boys an' forty added dogs. Which it's worth a +ten-mile ride to get a glimpse of that outfit of canines! Thar's every +sort onder the canopy: thar's the stolid hound, the alert fice, the +sapient collie; that is thar's individyool beasts wherein the hound, or +fice, or collie seems to preedominate as a strain. The trooth is thar's +not that dog a-whinin' about our hosses' fetlocks who ain't proudly +descended from fifteen different tribes, an' they shorely makes a motley +mass meetin'. Still, they're good, zealous dogs; an' as they're going to +go for'ard an' take most of the resks of that panther, it seems +invidious to criticize 'em. + +"'One of the Twitty boys rides down an' puts the eighty or more dogs +into the bresh. The rest of us lays back an' strains our eyes. Thar he +is! A shout goes up as we descries the panther stealin' off by a far +corner. He's headin' along a hollow that's full of bresh an' baby timber +an' runs parallel with the pike. Big an' yaller he is; we can tell from +the slight flash we gets of him as he darts into a second clump of +bushes. With a cry--what young Crittenden calls a "view halloo,"--we +goes stampeedin' down the pike in pursoot. + +"'Our dogs is sta'nch; they shore does themse'fs proud. Singin' in +twenty keys, reachin' from growls to yelps an' from yelps to shrillest +screams, they pushes dauntlessly on the fresh trail of their terrified +quarry. Now an' then we gets a squint of the panther as he skulks from +one copse to another jest ahead. Which he's goin' like a arrow; no +mistake! As for us Chevy Chasers, we parallels the hunt, an' continyoos +poundin' the Skinner turnpike abreast of the pack, ever an' anon givin' +a encouragin' shout as we briefly sights our game. + +"'Gents,' says Colonel Sterett, as he ag'in refreshes hims'ef, 'it's +needless to go over that hunt in detail. We hustles the flyin' demon +full eighteen miles, our faithful dogs crowdin' close an' breathless at +his coward heels. Still, they don't catch up with him; he streaks it +like some saffron meteor. + +"'Only once does we approach within strikin' distance; that's when he +crosses at old Stafford's whisky still. As he glides into view, +Crittenden shouts: + +"'"Thar he goes!" + +"'For myse'f I'm prepared. I've got one of these misguided cap-an'-ball +six-shooters that's built doorin' the war; an' I cuts that hardware +loose! This weapon seems a born profligate of lead, for the six chambers +goes off together. Which you should have seen the Chevy Chasers dodge! +An' well they may; that broadside ain't in vain! My aim is so troo that +one of the r'armost dogs evolves a howl an' rolls over; then he sets up +gnawin' an' lickin' his off hind laig in frantic alternations. That hunt +is done for him. We leaves him doctorin' himse'f an' picks him up two +hours later on our triumphant return. + +"'As I states, we harries that foogitive panther for eighteen miles an' +in our hot ardor founders two hosses. Fatigue an' weariness begins to +overpower us; also our prey weakens along with the rest. In the half +glimpses we now an' ag'in gets of him it's plain that both pace an' +distance is tellin' fast. Still, he presses on; an' as thar's no spur +like fear, that panther holds his distance. + +"'But the end comes. We've done run him into a rough, wild stretch of +country where settlements is few an' cabins roode. Of a sudden, the +panther emerges onto the road an' goes rackin' along the trail. We +pushes our spent steeds to the utmost. + +"'Thar's a log house ahead; out in the stump-filled lot in front is a +frowsy woman an' five small children. The panther leaps the rickety +worm-fence an' heads straight as a bullet for the cl'arin! Horrors! the +sight freezes our marrows! Mad an' savage, he's doo to bite a hunk outen +that devoted household! Mutooally callin' to each other, we goads our +horses to the utmost. We gain on the panther! He may wound but he won't +have time to slay that fam'ly. + +"'Gents, it's a soopreme moment! The panther makes for the female +squatter an' her litter, we pantin' an' pressin' clost behind. The +panther is among 'em; the woman an' the children seems transfixed by the +awful spectacle an' stands rooted with open eyes an' mouths. Our +emotions shore beggars deescriptions. + +"'Now ensooes a scene to smite the hardiest of us with dismay. No sooner +does the panther find himse'f in the midst of that he'pless bevy of +little ones, than he stops, turns round abrupt, an' sets down on his +tail; an' then upliftin' his muzzle he busts into shrieks an' yells an' +howls an' cries, a complete case of dog hysterics! That's what he is, a +great yeller dog; his reason is now a wrack because we harasses him the +eighteen miles. + +"'Thar's a ugly outcast of a squatter, mattock in hand, comes tumblin' +down the hillside from some'ers out back of the shanty where he's been +grubbin': + +"'"What be you-all eediots chasin' my dog for?" demands this onkempt +party. Then he menaces us with the implement. + +"'We makes no retort but stands passive. The great orange brute whose +nerves has been torn to rags creeps to the squatter an' with mournful +howls explains what we've made him suffer. + +"'No, thar's nothin' further to do an' less to be said. That cavalcade, +erstwhile so gala an' buoyant, drags itself wearily homeward, the +exhausted dogs in the r'ar walkin' stiff an' sore like their laigs is +wood. For more'n a mile the complainin' howls of the hysterical yeller +dog is wafted to our years. Then they ceases; an' we figgers his +sympathizin' master has done took him into the shanty an' shet the door. + +"'No one comments on this adventure, not a word is heard. Each is silent +ontil we mounts the Big Murray hill. As we collects ourse'fs on this +eminence one of the Brackenridge boys holds up his hand for a halt. +"Gents," he says, as--hosses, hunters an' dogs--we-all gathers 'round, +"gents, I moves you the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club yereby stands adjourned +_sine die_." Thar's a moment's pause, an' then as by one impulse every +gent, hoss an' dog, says "Ay!" It's yoonanimous, an' from that hour till +now the Chevy Chase Huntin' Club ain't been nothin' save tradition. But +that panther shore disappears; it's the end of his vandalage; an' ag'in +does quadrilles, pra'rs, an poker resoom their wonted sway. That's the +end; an' now, gents, if Black Jack will caper to his dooties we'll +uplift our drooped energies with the usual forty drops.'" + + + + +WOUTER VAN TWILLER + +BY WASHINGTON IRVING + + +It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was +appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under the +commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords States +General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India +Company. + +This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month +of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo seems to +dance up the transparent firmament,--when the robin, the thrush, and a +thousand other wanton songsters make the woods to resound with amorous +ditties, and the luxurious little bob-lincoln revels among the +clover-blossoms of the meadows,--all which happy coincidence persuaded +the old dames of New Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of +foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous +administration. + +The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long +line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives +and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had +comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they +were never either heard or talked of--which, next to being universally +applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and +rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in +the world; one, by talking faster than they think, and the other, by +holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a +smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, +many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be +considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual +remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to +Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, +like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then it +was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his +gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the +whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered +in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was +observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would +deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the +joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his +pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, +"Well, I see nothing in all that to laugh about." + +With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. +His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his +ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not +room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain +it is, that if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary +mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, +mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound +silence, and at length observe, that "he had his doubts about the +matter"; which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not +easily imposed upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name; for to +this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of Twiller; which +is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain +English, _Doubter_. + +The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned +as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch +statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five +feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. +His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that +Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to +construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined +the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just +between the shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious +at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a +man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. +His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to +sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer +barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented +a vast expanse, unfurrowed by those lines and angles which disfigure the +human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes +twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a +hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll +of everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and +streaked with dusty red, like a spitzenberg apple. + +His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated +meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted +eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. +Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true philosopher, for his +mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares +and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without +feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, +or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, +the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling +his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher +would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the +surrounding atmosphere. + +In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a +huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, +fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously +carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic eagle's +claws. Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with +jasmin and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder of Holland +at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In +this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he +smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye +for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a +black frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it +has even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length +and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his eyes +for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by external +objects; and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was +evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared +were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and +opinions. + +It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these +biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts +respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so +questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the +search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would +have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait. + +I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of +Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the +first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient +and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, +that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any +offender being brought to punishment,--a most indubitable sign of a +merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of +the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van +Twiller was a lineal descendant. + +The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was +distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering +presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had +been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his +breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian +pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a +very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of +one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement of +accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said +Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of +few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings--or +being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the +statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he +shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth,--either as a sign +that he relished the dish, or comprehended the story,--he called unto +him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge +jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied +by his tobacco-box as a warrant. + +This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the +seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. The +two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of +accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled +any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian +obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having +poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of +leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an +hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his +nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has +just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his +mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous +gravity and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over +the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as +thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final opinion of +the court that the accounts were equally balanced: therefore, Wandle +should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt, +and the constable should pay the costs. + +This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy +throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they +had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its +happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place throughout the +whole of his administration; and the office of constable fell into such +decay, that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the +province for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this +transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and +righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern +magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the +renowned Wouter--being the only time he was ever known to come to a +decision in the whole course of his life. + + + + +THE EXPERIENCES OF THE A.C. + +BY BAYARD TAYLOR + + +"Bridgeport! Change cars for the Naugatuck Railroad!" shouted the +conductor of the New York and Boston Express Train, on the evening of +May 27, 1858.... Mr. Johnson, carpet-bag in hand, jumped upon the +platform, entered the office, purchased a ticket for Waterbury, and was +soon whirling in the Naugatuck train towards his destination. + +On reaching Waterbury, in the soft spring twilight, Mr. Johnson walked +up and down in front of the station, curiously scanning the faces of the +assembled crowd. Presently he noticed a gentleman who was performing the +same operation upon the faces of the alighting passengers. Throwing +himself directly in the way of the latter, the two exchanged a steady +gaze. + +"Is your name Billings?" "Is your name Johnson?" were simultaneous +questions, followed by the simultaneous exclamations,--"Ned!" "Enos!" + +Then there was a crushing grasp of hands, repeated after a pause, in +testimony of ancient friendship, and Mr. Billings, returning to +practical life, asked: + +"Is that all your baggage? Come, I have a buggy here: Eunice has heard +the whistle, and she'll be impatient to welcome you." + +The impatience of Eunice (Mrs. Billings, of course) was not of long +duration; for in five minutes thereafter she stood at the door of her +husband's chocolate-colored villa, receiving his friend.... + +J. Edward Johnson was a tall, thin gentleman of forty-five.... A year +before, some letters, signed "Foster, Kirkup & Co., per Enos Billings," +had accidently revealed to him the whereabouts of the old friend of his +youth, with whom we now find him domiciled.... + +"Enos," said he, as he stretched out his hand for the third cup of tea +(which he had taken only for the purpose of prolonging the pleasant +table-chat), "I wonder which of us is most changed." + +"You, of course," said Mr. Billings, "with your brown face and big +moustache. Your own brother wouldn't have known you, if he had seen you +last, as I did, with smooth cheeks and hair of unmerciful length. Why, +not even your voice is the same!" + +"That is easily accounted for," replied Mr. Johnson. "But in your case, +Enos, I am puzzled to find where the difference lies. Your features seem +to be but little changed, now that I can examine them at leisure; yet it +is not the same face. But really, I never looked at you for so long a +time, in those days. I beg pardon; you used to be so--so remarkably +shy." + +Mr. Billings blushed slightly, and seemed at a loss what to answer. His +wife, however, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming: + +"Oh, that was before the days of the A.C.!" + +He, catching the infection, laughed also; in fact, Mr. Johnson laughed, +but without knowing why. + +"The 'A.C.'!" said Mr. Billings. "Bless me, Eunice! how long it is since +we have talked of that summer! I had almost forgotten that there ever +was an A.C.... Well, the A.C. culminated in '45. You remember something +of the society of Norridgeport, the last winter you were there? Abel +Mallory, for instance?" + +"Let me think a moment," said Mr. Johnson, reflectively. "Really, it +seems like looking back a hundred years. Mallory,--wasn't that the +sentimental young man, with wispy hair, a tallowy skin, and big, sweaty +hands, who used to be spouting Carlyle on the 'reading evenings' at +Shelldrake's? Yes, to be sure; and there was Hollins, with his clerical +face and infidel talk,--and Pauline Ringtop, who used to say, 'The +Beautiful is the Good.' I can still hear her shrill voice singing, +'Would that _I_ were beautiful, would that _I_ were fair!'" + +There was a hearty chorus of laughter at poor Miss Ringtop's expense. It +harmed no one, however; for the tar-weed was already becoming thick over +her Californian grave. + +"Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities of +those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them then. But I +was younger, and far from being so clear-headed, and I looked upon those +evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at least, to the _symposia_ of +Plato. Something in Mallory always repelled me. I detested the sight of +his thick nose, with the flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed +lips, of the bluish color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these +feelings as unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing +the admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the +subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except Graham +bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he +considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of +health,--or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left +temple should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as the last +feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the meat he had +formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory was, that through +a body so purged and purified none but true and natural impulses could +find access to the soul. Such, indeed, was the theory we all held.... + +"Shelldrake was a man of more pretense than real cultivation, as I +afterwards discovered. He was in good circumstances, and always glad to +receive us at his house, as this made him virtually the chief of our +tribe, and the outlay for refreshments involved only the apples from his +own orchard, and water from his well.... + +"Well, 'twas in the early part of '45,--I think in April,--when we were +all gathered together, discussing, as usual, the possibility of leading +a life in accordance with Nature. Abel Mallory was there, and Hollins, +and Miss Ringtop, and Faith Levis, with her knitting,--and also Eunice +Hazleton, a lady whom you have never seen, but you may take my wife as +her representative.... + +"I wish I could recollect some of the speeches made on that occasion. +Abel had but one pimple on his temple (there was a purple spot where the +other had been), and was estimating that in two or three months more he +would be a true, unspoiled man. His complexion, nevertheless, was more +clammy and whey-like than ever. + +"'Yes,' said he, 'I also am an Arcadian! This false dual existence which +I have been leading will soon be merged in the unity of Nature. Our +lives must conform to her sacred law. Why can't we strip off these +hollow Shams' (he made great use of that word), 'and be our true selves, +pure, perfect, and divine?' ... + +"Shelldrake, however, turning to his wife, said,-- + +"'Elviry, how many up-stairs rooms is there in that house down on the +Sound?' + +"'Four,--besides three small ones under the roof. Why, what made you +think of that, Jesse?' said she. + +"'I've got an idea, while Abel's been talking,' he answered. 'We've +taken a house for the summer, down the other side of Bridgeport, right +on the water, where there's good fishing and a fine view of the Sound. +Now there's room enough for all of us,--at least, all that can make it +suit to go. Abel, you and Enos, and Pauline and Eunice might fix matters +so that we could all take the place in partnership, and pass the summer +together, living a true and beautiful life in the bosom of Nature. There +we shall be perfectly free and untrammelled by the chains which still +hang around us in Norridgeport. You know how often we have wanted to be +set on some island in the Pacific Ocean, where we could build up a true +society, right from the start. Now, here's a chance to try the +experiment for a few months, anyhow.' + +"Eunice clapped her hands (yes, you did!) and cried out,-- + +"'Splendid! Arcadian! I'll give up my school for the summer.' ... + +"Abel Mallory, of course, did not need to have the proposal repeated. He +was ready for anything which promised indolence and the indulgence of +his sentimental tastes. I will do the fellow the justice to say that he +was not a hypocrite. He firmly believed both in himself and his +ideas,--especially the former. He pushed both hands through the long +wisps of his drab-colored hair, and threw his head back until his wide +nostrils resembled a double door to his brain. + +"'O Nature!' he said, 'you have found your lost children! We shall obey +your neglected laws! we shall hearken to your divine whispers! we shall +bring you back from your ignominious exile, and place you on your +ancestral throne!' ... + +"The company was finally arranged to consist of the Shelldrakes, +Hollins, Mallory, Eunice, Miss Ringtop, and myself. We did not give much +thought, either to the preparations in advance, or to our mode of life +when settled there. We were to live near to Nature: that was the main +thing. + +"'What shall we call the place?' asked Eunice. + +"'Arcadia!' said Abel Mallory, rolling up his large green eyes. + +"'Then,' said Hollins, 'let us constitute ourselves the Arcadian Club!'" + +--"Aha!" interrupted Mr. Johnson, "I see! The A.C.!" + +"Yes, you see the A.C. now, but to understand it fully you should have +had a share in those Arcadian experiences.... It was a lovely afternoon +in June when we first approached Arcadia.... Perkins Brown, Shelldrake's +boy-of-all-work, awaited us at the door. He had been sent on two or +three days in advance, to take charge of the house, and seemed to have +had enough of hermit-life, for he hailed us with a wild whoop, throwing +his straw hat half-way up one of the poplars. Perkins was a boy of +fifteen, the child of poor parents, who were satisfied to get him off +their hands, regardless as to what humanitarian theories might be tested +upon him. As the Arcadian Club recognized no such thing as caste, he was +always admitted to our meetings, and understood just enough of our +conversation to excite a silly ambition in his slow mind.... + +"Our board, that evening, was really tempting. The absence of meat was +compensated to us by the crisp and racy onions, and I craved only a +little salt, which had been interdicted, as a most pernicious substance. +I sat at one corner of the table, beside Perkins Brown, who took an +opportunity, while the others were engaged in conversation, to jog my +elbow gently. As I turned towards him, he said nothing, but dropped his +eyes significantly. The little rascal had the lid of a blacking-box, +filled with salt, upon his knee, and was privately seasoning his onions +and radishes. I blushed at the thought of my hypocrisy, but the onions +were so much better that I couldn't help dipping into the lid with him. + +"'Oh,' said Eunice, 'we must send for some oil and vinegar! This lettuce +is very nice.' + +"'Oil and vinegar?' exclaimed Abel. + +"'Why, yes,' said she, innocently: 'they are both vegetable substances.' + +"Abel at first looked rather foolish, but quickly recovering himself, +said,-- + +"'All vegetable substances are not proper for food: you would not taste +the poison-oak, or sit under the upas-tree of Java.' + +"'Well, Abel,' Eunice rejoined, 'how are we to distinguish what is best +for us? How are we to know _what_ vegetables to choose, or what animal +and mineral substances to avoid?' + +"I will tell you,' he answered, with a lofty air. 'See here!' pointing +to his temple, where the second pimple--either from the change of air, +or because, in the excitement of the last few days, he had forgotten +it--was actually healed. 'My blood is at last pure. The struggle between +the natural and the unnatural is over, and I am beyond the depraved +influences of my former taste. My instincts are now, therefore, entirely +pure also. What is good for man to eat, that I shall have a natural +desire to eat: what is bad will be naturally repelled. How does the cow +distinguish between the wholesome and the poisonous herbs of the meadow? +And is man less than a cow, that he can not cultivate his instincts to +an equal point? Let me walk through the woods and I can tell you every +berry and root which God designed for food, though I know not its name, +and have never seen it before. I shall make use of my time, during our +sojourn here, to test, by my purified instinct, every substance, animal, +mineral, and vegetable, upon which the human race subsists, and to +create a catalogue of the True Food of Man!' ... + +"Our lazy life during the hot weather had become a little monotonous. +The Arcadian plan had worked tolerably well, on the whole, for there was +very little for any one to do,--Mrs. Shelldrake and Perkins Brown +excepted. Our conversation, however, lacked spirit and variety. We were, +perhaps unconsciously, a little tired of hearing and assenting to the +same sentiments. But, one evening, about this time, Hollins struck upon +a variation, the consequences of which he little foresaw. We had been +reading one of Bulwer's works (the weather was too hot for Psychology), +and came upon this paragraph, or something like it: + +"'Ah, Behind the Veil! We see the summer smile of the Earth,--enamelled +meadow and limpid stream,--but what hides she in her sunless heart? +Caverns of serpents, or grottoes of priceless gems? Youth, whose soul +sits on thy countenance, thyself wearing no mask, strive not to lift the +masks of others! Be content with what thou seest; and wait until Time +and Experience shall teach thee to find jealousy behind the sweet smile, +and hatred under the honeyed word!' + +"This seemed to us a dark and bitter reflection; but one or another of +us recalled some illustration of human hypocrisy, and the evidences, by +the simple fact of repetition, gradually led to a division of +opinion,--Hollins, Shelldrake, and Miss Ringtop on the dark side, and +the rest of us on the bright. The last, however, contented herself with +quoting from her favorite poet Gamaliel J. Gawthrop: + + "'I look beyond thy brow's concealment! + I see thy spirit's dark revealment! + Thy inner self betrayed I see: + Thy coward, craven, shivering ME' + +"'We think we know one another,' exclaimed Hollins; 'but do we? We see +the faults of others, their weaknesses, their disagreeable qualities, +and we keep silent. How much we should gain, were candor as universal as +concealment! Then each one, seeing himself as others see him, would +truly know himself. How much misunderstanding might be avoided, how much +hidden shame be removed, hopeless because unspoken love made glad, +honest admiration cheer its object, uttered sympathy mitigate +misfortune,--in short, how much brighter and happier the world would +become, if each one expressed, everywhere and at all times, his true and +entire feeling! Why, even Evil would lose half its power!' + +"There seemed to be so much practical wisdom in these views that we were +all dazzled and half-convinced at the start. So, when Hollins, turning +towards me, as he continued, exclaimed,--'Come, why should not this +candor be adopted in our Arcadia? Will any one--will you, Enos--commence +at once by telling me now--to my face--my principal faults?' I answered, +after a moment's reflection,--'You have a great deal of intellectual +arrogance, and you are, physically, very indolent.' + +"He did not flinch from the self-invited test, though he looked a little +surprised. + +"'Well put,' said he, 'though I do not say that you are entirely +correct. Now, what are my merits?' + +"'You are clear-sighted,' I answered, 'an earnest seeker after truth, +and courageous in the avowal of your thoughts.' + +"This restored the balance, and we soon began to confess our own +private faults and weaknesses. Though the confessions did not go very +deep,--no one betraying any thing we did not all know already,--yet they +were sufficient to strengthen Hollins in his new idea, and it was +unanimously resolved that Candor should thenceforth be the main charm of +our Arcadian life.... + +"The next day, Abel, who had resumed his researches after the True Food, +came home to supper with a healthier color than I had before seen on his +face. + +"'Do you know,' said he, looking shyly at Hollins, 'that I begin to +think Beer must be a natural beverage? There was an auction in the +village to-day, as I passed through, and I stopped at a cake-stand to +get a glass of water, as it was very hot. There was no water,--only +beer: so I thought I would try a glass, simply as an experiment. Really, +the flavor was very agreeable. And it occurred to me, on the way home, +that all the elements contained in beer are vegetable. Besides, +fermentation is a natural process. I think the question has never been +properly tested before.' + +"'But the alcohol!' exclaimed Hollins. + +"I could not distinguish any, either by taste or smell. I know that +chemical analysis is said to show it; but may not the alcohol be +created, somehow, during the analysis?' + +"'Abel,' said Hollins, in a fresh burst of candor, 'you will never be a +Reformer, until you possess some of the commonest elements of +knowledge.' + +"The rest of us were much diverted: it was a pleasant relief to our +monotonous amiability. + +"Abel, however, had a stubborn streak in his character. The next day he +sent Perkins Brown to Bridgeport for a dozen bottles of 'Beer.' Perkins, +either intentionally or by mistake, (I always suspected the former,) +brought pint-bottles of Scotch ale, which he placed in the coolest part +of the cellar. The evening happened to be exceedingly hot and sultry; +and, as we were all fanning ourselves and talking languidly, Abel +bethought him of his beer. In his thirst, he drank the contents of the +first bottle, almost at a single draught. + +"'The effect of beer,' said he, 'depends, I think, on the commixture of +the nourishing principle of the grain with the cooling properties of the +water. Perhaps, hereafter, a liquid food of the same character may be +invented, which shall save us from mastication and all the diseases of +the teeth.' + +"Hollins and Shelldrake, at his invitation, divided a bottle between +them, and he took a second. The potent beverage was not long in acting +on a brain so unaccustomed to its influence. He grew unusually talkative +and sentimental, in a few minutes. + +"'Oh, sing, somebody!' he sighed in hoarse rapture: 'the night was made +for Song.' + +"Miss Ringtop, nothing loath, immediately commenced, 'When stars are in +the quiet skies'; but scarcely had she finished the first verse before +Abel interrupted her. + +"'Candor's the order of the day, isn't it?' he asked. + +"'Yes!' 'Yes!' two or three answered. + +"'Well, then,' said he, 'candidly, Pauline, you've got the darn'dest +squeaky voice'-- + +"Miss Ringtop gave a faint little scream of horror. + +"'Oh, never mind!' he continued. 'We act according to impulse, don't we? +And I've the impulse to swear; and it's right. Let Nature have her way. +Listen! Damn, damn, damn, damn! I never knew it was so easy. Why, +there's a pleasure in it! Try it, Pauline! try it on me!' + +"'Oh-ooh!' was all Miss Ringtop could utter. + +"'Abel! Abel!' exclaimed Hollins, 'the beer has got into your head.' + +"'No, it isn't Beer,--it's Candor!' said Abel. "It's your own proposal, +Hollins. Suppose it's evil to swear: isn't it better I should express +it, and be done with it, than keep it bottled up, to ferment in my mind? +Oh, you're a precious, consistent old humbug, _you_ are!' + +"And therewith he jumped off the stoop, and went dancing awkwardly down +toward the water, singing in a most unmelodious voice, ''Tis home +where'er the heart is.' ... + +"We had an unusually silent breakfast the next morning. Abel scarcely +spoke, which the others attributed to a natural feeling of shame, after +his display of the previous evening. Hollins and Shelldrake discussed +Temperance, with a special view to his edification, and Miss Ringtop +favored us with several quotations about 'the maddening bowl,'--but he +paid no attention to them.... + +"The forenoon was overcast, with frequent showers. Each one occupied his +or her room until dinner-time, when we met again with something of the +old geniality. There was an evident effort to restore our former flow of +good feeling. Abel's experience with the beer was freely discussed. He +insisted strongly that he had not been laboring under its effects, and +proposed a mutual test. He, Shelldrake, and Hollins were to drink it in +equal measures, and compare observations as to their physical +sensations. The others agreed,--quite willingly, I thought,--but I +refused.... + +"There was a sound of loud voices, as we approached the stoop. Hollins, +Shelldrake and his wife, and Abel Mallory were sitting together near the +door. Perkins Brown, as usual, was crouched on the lowest step, with one +leg over the other, and rubbing the top of his boot with a vigor which +betrayed to me some secret mirth. He looked up at me from under his +straw hat with the grin of a malicious Puck, glanced toward the group, +and made a curious gesture with his thumb. There were several empty pint +bottles on the stoop. + +"'Now, are you sure you can bear the test?' we heard Hollins ask, as we +approached. + +"'Bear it? Why, to be sure!' replied Shelldrake; 'if I couldn't bear it, +or if _you_ couldn't, your theory's done for. Try! I can stand it as +long as you can.' + +"'Well, then,' said Hollins, 'I think you are a very ordinary man. I +derive no intellectual benefit from my intercourse with you, but your +house is convenient to me. I'm under no obligations for your +hospitality, however, because my company is an advantage to you. Indeed, +if I were treated according to my deserts, you couldn't do enough for +me.' + +"Mrs. Shelldrake was up in arms. + +"'Indeed,' she exclaimed, I think you get as good as you deserve, and +more, too.' + +"'Elvira,' said he, with a benevolent condescension, I have no doubt you +think so, for your mind belongs to the lowest and most material sphere. +You have your place in Nature, and you fill it; but it is not for you to +judge of intelligences which move only on the upper planes.' + +"'Hollins,' said Shelldrake, 'Elviry's a good wife and a sensible woman, +and I won't allow you to turn up your nose at her.' + +"'I am not surprised,' he answered, 'that you should fail to stand the +test. I didn't expect it.' + +"'Let me try it on _you_!' cried Shelldrake. 'You, now, have some +intellect,--I don't deny that,--but not so much, by a long shot, as you +think you have. Besides that, you're awfully selfish in your opinions. +You won't admit that anybody can be right who differs from you. You've +sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned something +from you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call +acting according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own +laziness.' + +"'Gosh! that's it!' interrupted Perkins, jumping up; then, recollecting +himself, he sank down on the steps again, and shook with a suppressed +'Ho! ho! ho!' + +"Hollins, however, drew himself up with an exasperated air. + +"'Shelldrake,' said he, 'I pity you. I always knew your ignorance, but I +thought you honest in your human character. I never suspected you of +envy and malice. However, the true Reformer must expect to be +misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds. That love which I bear +to all creatures teaches me to forgive you. Without such love, all plans +of progress must fail. Is it not so, Abel?'" + +"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, 'Pity!' 'Forgive!' in his +most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking violently in her +chair, gave utterance to the peculiar clucking '_ts, ts, ts, ts_,' +whereby certain women express emotions too deep for words. + +"Abel, roused by Hollins' question, answered, with a sudden energy: + +"'Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me, +and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were +like mine, we might have an Arcadia: but most men have no hearts. The +world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy. +No: let us give up. We were born before our time: this age is not worthy +of us.' + +"Hollins stared at the speaker in utter amazement. Shelldrake gave a +long whistle, and finally gasped out: + +"'Well, what next?' + +"None of us were prepared for such a sudden and complete wreck of our +Arcadian scheme. The foundations had been sapped before, it is true; but +we had not perceived it; and now, in two short days, the whole edifice +tumbled about our ears. Though it was inevitable, we felt a shock of +sorrow, and a silence fell upon us. Only that scamp of a Perkins Brown, +chuckling and rubbing his boot, really rejoiced. I could have kicked +him. + +"We all went to bed, feeling that the charm of our Arcadian life was +over.... In the first revulsion of feeling, I was perhaps unjust to my +associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries, which +originated in a genuine aspiration, and failed from an ignorance of the +true nature of Man, quite as much as from the egotism of the +individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society were made about the +same time by men of culture and experience, but in the A.C. we had +neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their +minds, were speedily warped into errors." ... + + + + +WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS + +BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + + + Guvener B. is a sensible man; + He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; + He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, + An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + + My! ain't it terrible? Wut shall we du? + We can't never choose him, o' course,--thet's flat; + Guess we shall hev to come round (don't you?) + An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; + Fer John P. + Robinson he + Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + + Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: + He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; + But consistency still was a part of his plan,-- + He's ben true to _one_ party,--an' thet is himself;-- + So John P. + Robinson he + Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. + + Gineral C. he goes in fer the war; + He don't vally principle more'n an old cud; + Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, + But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood? + So John P. + Robinson he + Sez he shall vote for Gineral C. + + We were gettin' on nicely up here to our village, + With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't, + We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, + An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. + + The side of our country must ollers be took, + An' Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country, + An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book + Puts the _debit_ to him, an' to us the _per contry_; + An' John P. + Robinson he + Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. + + Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies; + Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest _fee, faw, fum_; + An' thet all this big talk of our destinies + Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez it ain't no sech thing; an', of course, so must we. + + Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life + Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, + An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, + To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee. + + Wall, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us + The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,-- + God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, + To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; + Fer John P. + Robinson he + Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee! + + + + +THE DAY WE DO NOT CELEBRATE + +BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE + + + One famous day in great July + John Adams said, long years gone by, + + "This day that makes a people free + Shall be the people's jubilee, + + With games, guns, sports, and shows displayed, + With bells, pomp, bonfires, and parade, + + Throughout this land, from shore to shore, + From this time forth, forevermore." + + The years passed on, and by and by, + Men's hearts grew cold in hot July. + + And Mayor Hawarden Cholmondely said + "Hof rockets Hi ham sore hafraid; + + Hand hif you send one hup hablaze, + Hi'll send you hup for sixty days." + + Then said the Mayor O'Shay McQuade, + "Thayre uz no nade fur no perade." + + And Mayor Hans Von Schwartzenmeyer + Proclaimed, "I'll haf me no bonfier!" + + Said Mayor Baptiste Raphael + "No make-a ring-a dat-a bell!" + + "By gar!" cried Mayor Jean Crapaud, + "Zis July games vill has to go!" + + And Mayor Knud Christofferrssonn + Said, "Djeath to hjjim who fjjres a gjjunn!" + + At last, cried Mayor Wun Lung Lee-- + "Too muchee hoop-la boberee!" + + And so the Yankee holiday, + Of proclamations passed away. + + + + +THE YANKEE DUDE'LL DO + +BY S.E. KISER + + + When Cholly swung his golf-stick on the links, + Or knocked the tennis-ball across the net, + With his bangs done up in cunning little kinks-- + When he wore the tallest collar he could get, + Oh, it was the fashion then + To impale him on the pen-- + To regard him as a being made of putty through and through; + But his racquet's laid away, + He is roughing it to-day, + And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do. + + When Algy, as some knight of old arrayed, + Was the leading figure at the "fawncy ball," + We loathed him for the silly part he played, + He was set down as a monkey--that was all! + Oh, we looked upon him then + As unfit to class with men, + As one whose heart was putty, and whose brains were made of glue; + But he's thrown his cane away, + And he grasps a gun to-day, + While the world beholds him, knowing that the Yankee dude'll do. + + When Clarence cruised about upon his yacht, + Or drove out with his footman through the park, + His mamma, it was generally thought, + Ought to have him in her keeping after dark! + Oh, we ridiculed him then, + We impaled him on the pen, + We thought he was effeminate, we dubbed him "Sissy," too; + But he nobly marched away, + He is eating pork to-day, + And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do. + + How they hurled themselves against the angry foe, + In the jungle and the trenches on the hill! + When the word to charge was given, every dude was on the go-- + He was there to die, to capture, or to kill! + Oh, he struck his level when + Men were called upon again + To preserve the ancient glory of the old red, white, and blue! + He has thrown his spats away, + He is wearing spurs to-day, + And the world will please take notice that the Yankee dude'll do! + + + + +SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER + +BY EDWARD EGGLESTON + + +"I 'low," said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco into her cob pipe +after supper on that eventful Wednesday evening: "I 'low they'll app'int +the Squire to gin out the words to-night. They mos' always do, you see, +kase he's the peartest _ole_ man in this deestrick; and I 'low some of +the young fellers would have to git up and dust ef they would keep up to +him. And he uses sech remarkable smart words. He speaks so polite, too. +But laws! don't I remember when he was poarer nor Job's turkey? Twenty +year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggin's, that air Squire Hawkins +was a poar Yankee school-master, that said 'pail' instid of bucket, and +that called a cow a 'caow,' and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard +what we meant by _'low_ and by _right smart_. But he's larnt our ways +now, an' he's jest as civilized as the rest of us. You would-n know he'd +ever been a Yankee. He didn't stay poar long. Not he. He jest married a +right rich girl! He! he!" And the old woman grinned at Ralph, and then +at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until Ralph shuddered. Nothing was so +frightful to him as to be fawned on by this grinning ogre, whose few +lonesome, blackish teeth seemed ready to devour him. "He didn't stay +poar, you bet a hoss!" and with this the coal was deposited on the pipe, +and the lips began to crack like parchment as each puff of smoke +escaped. "He married rich, you see," and here another significant look +at the young master, and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed +away reflectively. "His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through +the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity' on it a second +time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married, and never +could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law +allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, besides, +book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never +knowed but one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and she +was so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a +apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the +tablecloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos' clean too. +Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But I was goin' fer to say +that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny Gray he got a heap o' money, +or, what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's +better'n book-larnin', says I. Ef a gal had gone clean through all +eddication, and got to the rule of three itself, that would-n buy a +feather-bed. Squire Hawkins jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and +traded even, an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd no +complaints." + +And here she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into +the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing, +all-imploring, and all-confiding look on the young master. + +"I say, ole woman," broke in old Jack, "I say, wot is all this 'ere +spoutin' about the Square fer?" and old Jack, having bit off an ounce of +"pigtail," returned the plug to his pocket. + +As for Ralph, he fell into a sort of terror. He had a guilty feeling +that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him beyond +recall to Mirandy. He did not see visions of breach-of-promise suits. +But he trembled at the thought of an avenging big brother. + +"Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the +dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and +latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front +of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an +eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed, +they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a +lumber room, and so, except a parlor which Mirandy had made an effort to +furnish a little (in hope of the blissful time when somebody should "set +up" with her of evenings), the new building was almost unoccupied, and +the family went in and out through the back door, which, indeed, was the +front door also, for, according to a curious custom, the "front" of the +house was placed toward the south, though the "big road" (Hoosier for +_highway_) ran along the northwest side, or, rather, past the northwest +corner of it. + +When the old woman had spoken thus to Hannah and had latched the door, +she muttered, "That gal don't never show no gratitude fer favors;" to +which Bud rejoined that he didn't think she had no great sight to be +pertickler thankful fer. To which Mrs. Means made no reply, thinking it +best, perhaps, not to wake up her dutiful son on so interesting a theme +as her treatment of Hannah. Ralph felt glad that he was this evening to +go to another boarding place. He should not hear the rest of the +controversy. + +Ralph walked to the school-house with Bill. They were friends again. For +when Hank Banta's ducking and his dogged obstinacy in sitting in his wet +clothes had brought on a serious fever, Ralph had called together the +big boys, and had said: "We must take care of one another, boys. Who +will volunteer to take turns sitting up with Henry?" He put his own name +down, and all the rest followed. + +"William Means and myself will sit up to-night," said Ralph. And poor +Bill had been from that moment the teacher's friend. He was chosen to be +Ralph's companion. He was Puppy Means no longer! Hank could not be +conquered by kindness, and the teacher was made to feel the bitterness +of his resentment long after. But Bill Means was for the time entirely +placated, and he and Ralph went to spelling-school together. + +Every family furnished a candle. There were yellow dips and white dips, +burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing, and talking, and +giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a +full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole +County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this +legend: "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole +County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society +who love dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were +those who loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the battle +from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping to +freshen the laurels they had won in their school days. + +"I 'low," said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal school trustee, "I +'low our friend the Square is jest the man to boss this 'ere consarn +to-night. Ef nobody objects, I'll app'int him. Come, Square, don't be +bashful. Walk up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the man said to +his donkey." + +There was a general giggle at this, and many of the young swains took +occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly for the purpose +of making them see the joke, but really for the pure pleasure of +nudging. The Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably because he wears +so many disguises that they could not select a costume for him. + +The Squire came to the front. Ralph made an inventory of the +agglomeration which bore the name of Squire Hawkins, as follows: + +1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state occasions, +when its owner was called to figure in his public capacity. Either the +Squire had grown too large or the coat too small. + +2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnormal and unexpected +apparition conceivable in Flat Creek district, where the preachers wore +no coats in the summer, and where a black glove was never seen except on +the hands of the Squire. + +3. A wig of that dirty, waxen color so common to wigs. This one showed a +continual inclination to slip off the owner's smooth, bald pate, and the +Squire had frequently to adjust it. As his hair had been red, the wig +did not accord with his face, and the hair ungrayed was doubly +discordant with a countenance shriveled by age. + +4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge of the jaw and chin. +These were dyed a frightful dead-black, such a color as belonged to no +natural hair or beard that ever existed. At the roots there was a +quarter of an inch of white, giving the whiskers the appearance of +having been stuck on. + +5. A pair of spectacles "with tortoise-shell rim." Wont to slip off. + +6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in color from its +natural mate, perpetually getting out of focus by turning in or out. + +7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing up and +down. + +8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were loosely attached. + +It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father begging him to +come West, because "mighty mean men get into office out here." But Ralph +concluded that some Yankees had taught school in Hoopole County who +would not have held a high place in the educational institutions of +Massachusetts. Hawkins had some New England idioms, but they were well +overlaid by a Western pronunciation. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, shoving up his spectacles, and sucking +his lips over his white teeth to keep them in place, "ladies and +gentlemen, young men and maidens, raley I'm obleeged to Mr. Means fer +this honor," and the Squire took both hands and turned the top of his +head round half an inch. Then he adjusted his spectacles. Whether he was +obliged to Mr. Means for the honor of being compared to a donkey was not +clear. "I feel in the inmost compartments of my animal spirits a most +happifying sense of the success and futility of all my endeavors to +sarve the people of Flat Creek deestrick, and the people of Tomkins +township, in my weak way and manner." This burst of eloquence was +delivered with a constrained air and an apparent sense of a danger that +he, Squire Hawkins, might fall to pieces in his weak way and manner, and +of the success and futility of all attempts at reconstruction. For by +this time the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was +looking away round to the left, while the little blue one on the right +twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The front teeth would drop down so +that the Squire's mouth was kept nearly closed, and his words whistled +through. + +"I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion," +twisting his scalp round, "but raley I must forego any such exertions. +It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand, +underlying subterfuge, of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-book +prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do, raley. I +think I may put it ahead of the Bible. Fer if it wurn't fer +spellin'-books and sich occasions as these, where would the Bible be? I +should like to know. The man who got up, who compounded this work of +inextricable valoo was a benufactor to the whole human race or any +other." Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire replaced them in some +confusion, gave the top of his head another twist, and felt of his glass +eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder, and Betsey Short rolled from +side to side in the effort to suppress her giggle. Mrs. Means and the +other old ladies looked the applause they could not speak. + +"I app'int Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fer captings," said the +Squire. And the two young men thus named took a stick and tossed it from +hand to hand to decide which should have the "first choice." One tossed +the stick to the other, who held it fast just where he happened to catch +it. Then the first placed his hand above the second, and so the hands +were alternately changed to the top. The one who held the stick last +without room for the other to take hold had gained the lot. This was +tried three times. As Larkin held the stick twice out of three times, he +had the choice. He hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim +Phillips. But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown seas, and so he +said, "I take the master," while a buzz of surprise ran round the room, +and the captain of the other side, as if afraid his opponent would +withdraw the choice, retorted quickly, and with a little smack of +exultation and defiance in his voice, "And _I_ take Jeems Phillips." + +And soon all present, except a few of the old folks, found themselves +ranged in opposing hosts, the poor spellers lagging in, with what grace +they could, at the foot of the two divisions. The Squire opened his +spelling-book and began to give out the words to the two captains, who +stood up and spelled against each other. It was not long until Larkin +spelled "really" with one _l_, and had to sit down in confusion, while a +murmur of satisfaction ran through the ranks of the opposing forces. His +own side bit their lips. The slender figure of the young teacher took +the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement made the house very +quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of prestige he would suffer if he should +be easily spelled down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the +darkest corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting in the +shadow. Why should his evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he +turned his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully to the +words which the Squire did not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them +with extreme deliberation. This gave him an air of hesitation which +disappointed those on his own side. They wanted him to spell with a +dashing assurance. But he did not begin a word until he had mentally +felt his way through it. After ten minutes of spelling hard words Jeems +Buchanan, the captain on the other side, spelled "atrocious" with an _s_ +instead of a _c_, and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming +up against the teacher. This brought the excitement to fever-heat. For +though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely on trust, and most of the +company were disappointed. The champion who now stood up against the +school-master was a famous speller. + +Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered fellow who had never +distinguished himself in any other pursuit than spelling. Except in +this one art of spelling he was of no account. He could not catch well +or bat well in ball. He could not throw well enough to make his mark in +that famous Western game of bull-pen. He did not succeed well in any +study but that of Webster's Elementary. But in that he was--to use the +usual Flat Creek locution--in that he was "a hoss." This genius for +spelling is in some people a sixth sense, a matter of intuition. Some +spellers are born, and not made, and their facility reminds one of the +mathematical prodigies that crop out every now and then to bewilder the +world. Bud Means, foreseeing that Ralph would be pitted against Jim +Phillips, had warned his friend that Jim could "spell like thunder and +lightning," and that it "took a powerful smart speller" to beat him, for +he knew "a heap of spelling-book." To have "spelled down the master" is +next thing to having whipped the biggest bully in Hoopole County, and +Jim had "spelled down" the last three masters. He divided the +hero-worship of the district with Bud Means. + +For half an hour the Squire gave out hard words. What a blessed thing +our crooked orthography is! Without it there could be no +spelling-schools. As Ralph discovered his opponent's metal he became +more and more cautious. He was now satisfied that Jim would eventually +beat him. The fellow evidently knew more about the spelling-book than +old Noah Webster himself. As he stood there, with his dull face and +long, sharp nose, his hands behind his back, and his voice spelling +infallibly, it seemed to Hartsook that his superiority must lie in his +nose. Ralph's cautiousness answered a double purpose; it enabled him to +tread surely, and it was mistaken by Jim for weakness. Phillips was now +confident that he should carry off the scalp of the fourth school-master +before the evening was over. He spelled eagerly, confidently, +brilliantly. Stoop-shouldered as he was, he began to straighten up. In +the minds of all the company the odds were in his favor. He saw this, +and became ambitious to distinguish himself by spelling without giving +the matter any thought. + +Ralph always believed that he would have been speedily defeated by +Phillips had it not been for two thoughts which braced him. The sinister +shadow of young Dr. Small sitting in the dark corner by the water-bucket +nerved him. A victory over Phillips was a defeat to one who wished only +ill to the young school-master. The other thought that kept his pluck +alive was the recollection of Bull. He approached a word as Bull +approached the raccoon. He did not take hold until he was sure of his +game. When he took hold, it was with a quiet assurance of success. As +Ralph spelled in this dogged way for half an hour the hardest words the +Squire could find, the excitement steadily rose in all parts of the +house, and Ralph's friends even ventured to whisper that "maybe Jim had +cotched his match, after all!" + +But Phillips never doubted of his success. + +"Theodolite," said the Squire. + +"T-h-e, the, o-d, od, theod, o, theodo, l-y-t-e, theodolite," spelled +the champion. + +"Next," said the Squire, nearly losing his teeth in his excitement. +Ralph spelled the word slowly and correctly, and the conquered champion +sat down in confusion. The excitement was so great for some minutes that +the spelling was suspended. Everybody in the house had shown sympathy +with one or the other of the combatants, except the silent shadow in the +corner. It had not moved during the contest, and did not show any +interest now in the result. + +"Gewhilliky crickets! Thunder and lightning! Licked him all to smash!" +said Bud, rubbing his hands on his knees. "That beats my time all +holler!" + +And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb fell out, though she was +not on the defeated side. + +Shocky got up and danced with pleasure. + +But one suffocating look from the aqueous eyes of Mirandy destroyed the +last spark of Ralph's pleasure in his triumph, and sent that awful +below-zero feeling all through him. + +"He's powerful smart, is the master," said old Jack to Mr. Pete Jones. +"He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of 'em afore he's through. I know'd +he was smart. That's the reason I tuck him," proceeded Mr. Means. + +"Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh," answered Pete Jones. "No +lickin', no larnin'," says I. + +It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite side went +down quickly under the hard words which the Squire gave out. The master +had mowed down all but a few, his opponents had given up the battle, and +all had lost their keen interest in a contest to which there could be +but one conclusion, for there were only the poor spellers left. But +Ralph Hartsook ran against a stump where he was least expecting it. It +was the Squire's custom, when one of the smaller scholars or poorer +spellers rose to spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy +words, that they might have some breathing-spell before being +slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He +let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but +one person left on the opposite side, and, as she rose in her blue +calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack +Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never +spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain +quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that +page of Webster, so well known to all who ever thumbed it, as "baker," +from the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these +words in an absent and uninterested manner. As everybody knew that she +would have to go down as soon as this preliminary skirmishing was over, +everybody began to get ready to go home, and already there was the buzz +of preparation. Young men were timidly asking girls if "they could see +them safe home," which was the approved formula, and were trembling in +mortal fear of "the mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to +close the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, +which had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the +leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers as +"incomprehensibility," and began to give out those "words of eight +syllables with the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now turned +round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in at the master's final +triumph. But to their surprise "ole Miss Meanses' white nigger," as some +of them called her in allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great +words with as perfect ease as the master. Still not doubting the result, +the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he +could find. The school became utterly quiet, the excitement was too +great for the ordinary buzz. Would "Meanses' Hanner" beat the master? +beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was +now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, +and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In +fact, Ralph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl +so long oppressed flush and shine with interest; as he looked at the +rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white +complexion and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under +the influence of applause and sympathy--he did not want to beat. If he +had not felt that a victory given would insult her, he would have missed +intentionally. The bulldog, the stern, relentless setting of the will, +had gone, he knew not whither. And there had come in its place, as he +looked in that face, a something which he did not understand. You did +not, gentle reader, the first time it came to you. + +The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard words in the book. +He again pulled the top of his head forward. Then he wiped his +spectacles and put them on. Then out of the depths of his pocket he +fished up a list of words just coming into use in those days--words not +in the spelling-book. He regarded the paper attentively with his blue +right eye. His black left eye meanwhile fixed itself in such a stare on +Mirandy Means that she shuddered and hid her eyes in her red silk +handkerchief. + +"Daguerreotype," sniffed the Squire. It was Ralph's turn. + +"D-a-u, dau--" + +"Next." + +And Hannah spelled it right. + +Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could not be heard, but +Shocky shouted: "Hanner beat! my Hanner spelled down the master!" And +Ralph went over and congratulated her. + +And Dr. Small sat perfectly still in the corner. + +And then the Squire called them to order, and said: "As our friend +Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her side, she will have to spell +against nearly all on t'other side. I shall therefore take the liberty +of procrastinating the completion of this interesting and exacting +contest until to-morrow evening. I hope our friend Hanner may again +carry off the cypress crown of glory. There is nothing better for us +than healthful and kindly simulation." + +Dr. Small, who knew the road to practice, escorted Mirandy, and Bud went +home with somebody else. The others of the Means family hurried on, +while Hannah, the champion, stayed behind a minute to speak to Shocky. +Perhaps it was because Ralph saw that Hannah must go alone that he +suddenly remembered having left something which was of no consequence, +and resolved to go round by Mr. Means's and get it. + + + + +MYOPIA + +BY WALLACE RICE + + + As down the street he took his stroll, + He cursed, for all he is a saint. + He saw a sign atop a pole, + As down the street he took a stroll, + And climbed it up (near-sighted soul), + So he could read--and read "FRESH PAINT," ... + As down the street he took a stroll, + He cursed, for all he is a saint. + + + + +ANATOLE DUBOIS AT DE HORSE SHOW + +BY WALLACE BRUCE AMSBARY + + + My vife an' me ve read so moch + In papier here of late, + About Chicago Horse Show, ve + Remember day an' date. + Ve mak' it op togedder dat + Ve go an' see dat show, + Dere's som't'ing dere ve fin' it out + Maybe ve vant to know. + + Ve leave de leddle farm avile, + Dat's near to Bourbonnais; + Ve're soon op to Chicago town + For spen' de night an' day; + I nevere lak' dat busy place, + It's mos' too swif for me,-- + Ve vaste no tam', but gat to place + Dat ve is com' for see. + + Ve pay de price for tak' us in, + Dey geeve me _deux_ ticquette; + Charlotte an' me ve com' for see + De Horse Show now, you bet. + Ve soon gat in it veree moch, + "De push," I t'ink you call, + To inside on de beeg building, + Ve're going to see it all. + + De Coliseum is de place, + Dey mak' de Horse Show dere, + Five tam's so beeg dan any barn + At Bourbonnais, by gar! + I'm look aroun' for place dey haf' + For dem to pitch de hay. + "I guess it's 'out of sight,' I t'ink," + Dey's von man to me say. + + An' den ve valk aroun' an' 'roun' + Som' horses for to see; + Dere's pretty vomans, lots of dem, + But, for de life of me, + I can not see de trotter nag, + Or vat's called t'oroughbred, + I vonder if ve mak' mistake, + Gat in wrong place instead. + + But Charlotte is not disappoint', + Her eyes dey shine so bright, + It's ven she sees dem vimmens folks, + Dey dance vit moch delight; + I den vos tak' a look myself + On ladies vit fin' drass, + Dere's nodding else in dat whol' place + Dat is so interes'. + + I say, "Charlotte," say I to her, + "Dat ladee in box seat-- + Across de vay vos von beeg swell, + Her beauty's hard to beat; + De von dat's gat fon_ee_ eyeglass + Opon a leddle stek, + I'm t'ink she is most' fin' loo_kin_' + Wen she bow an' spe'k. + + "It's pretty drass dat she's got on, + I lak' de polonaise, + Vere bodice it is all meex op + Vit jabot all de vays. + Dat's hang in front vit pleats all roun'-- + It is von fin' tableau." + An' den Charlotte she turn to me + An' ask me how I know + + So moch about de Beeg Horse Show, + W'ich we are com' for see; + An' den I op an' tol' her dere + Dat I had com' to be + Expert on informatione, + Read papier, I fin' out + Vat all is in de Horse's Show, + An' vat's it all about. + + I point to ladee in nex' box, + She's feex op mighty vell, + I vish I could haf' vords enough + Vat she had on to tell; + De firs' part it vas nodding moch, + From cloth it vas quite free, + Lak' fleur-de-lis at Easter tam', + Mos' beautiful to see. + + An' den dere is commence a line + Of fluffy cream souffle, + My vife it mak' her very diz', + She's not a vord to say. + An' den com' yard of _crepe de chine_, + Vit omelette stripe beneadt', + All fill it op vit fine guimpe jew'ls + An' concertina pleat. + + Mon Dieu! an' who vould evere t'ink + Dat Horse Show vas lak' dese! + A Horse Show dere vidout no horse, + I t'ink dat's strange beez_nesse_. + But I suppose affer de man + De dry-goods bill dey pay, + Dere's nodding lef' to spen' on horse + Ontil som' odder day. + + I tell you every hour you leeve, + You fin' out som't'ing new; + An' now I haf' som' vords to tell, + Som' good it might do you; + It's mighty fonny, de advise + I'm geeve to you, of course, + But never go to Horses Show + Expecting to see horse. + + + + +THE CHAMPION CHECKER-PLAYER OF AMERIKY + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + +Of course as fur as Checker-playin's concerned, you can't jest adzackly +claim 'at lots makes fortunes and lots gits bu'sted at it--but still, +it's on'y simple jestice to acknowledge 'at there're absolute p'ints in +the game 'at takes scientific principles to figger out, and a mighty +level-headed feller to _dim_onstrate, don't you understand! + +Checkers is a' _old_ enough game, ef age is any rickommendation; and +it's a' evident fact, too, 'at "the tooth of time," as the feller says, +which fer the last six thousand years has gained some reputation fer +a-eatin' up things in giner'l, don't 'pear to 'a' gnawed much of a hole +in Checkers--jedgin' from the checker-board of to-day and the ones 'at +they're uccasionally shovellin' out at _Pom_p'y-_i_, er whatever its +name is. Turned up a checker-board there not long ago, I wuz readin' +'bout, 'at still had the spots on--as plain and fresh as the modern +white-pine board o' our'n, squared off with pencil-marks and +pokeberry-juice. These is facts 'at history herself has dug out, and of +course it ain't fer me ner you to turn our nose up at Checkers, whuther +we ever tamper with the fool-game er not. Fur's that's concerned, I +don't p'tend to be no checker-player _myse'f_,--but I know'd a feller +onc't 'at _could_ play, and sorto' made a business of it; and _that_ +man, in my opinion, was a geenyus! Name wuz Wesley Cotterl--John Wesley +Cotterl--jest plain Wes, as us fellers round the Shoe-Shop ust to call +him; ust to allus make the Shoe-Shop his headquarters-like; and, rain +er shine, wet er dry, you'd allus find _Wes_ on hands, ready to banter +some feller fer a game, er jest a-settin' humped up there over the +checker-board all alone, a-cipher'n' out some new move er 'nuther, and +whistlin' low and solem' to hisse'f-like and a-payin' no attention to +nobody. + +And _I'll_ tell _you_, Wes Cotterl wuz no man's fool, as sly as you keep +it! He wuz a deep thinker, Wes wuz; and ef he'd 'a' jest turned that +mind o' his loose on _preachin'_, fer instunce, and the 'terpertation o' +the Bible, don't you know, Wes 'ud 'a' worked p'ints out o' there 'at no +livin' expounderers ever got in gunshot of! + +But Wes he didn't 'pear to be cut out fer nothin' much but jest +Checker-playin'. Oh, of course, he _could_ knock round his own woodpile +some, and garden a little, more er less; and the neighbers ust to find +Wes purty handy 'bout trimmin' fruit-trees, you understand, and workin' +in among the worms and cattapillers in the vines and shrubbery, and the +like. And handlin' bees!--They wuzn't no man under the heavens 'at +knowed more 'bout handlin' bees'n Wes Cotterl!--"Settlin'" the blame' +things when they wuz a-swarmin'; and a-robbin' hives, and all sich +fool-resks. W'y, I've saw Wes Cotterl, 'fore now, when a swarm of bees +'ud settle in a' orchard,--like they will sometimes, you know,--I've saw +Wes Cotterl jest roll up his shirt-sleeves and bend down a' apple tree +limb 'at wuz jest kivvered with the pesky things, and scrape 'em back +into the hive with his naked hands, by the quart and gallon, and never +git a scratch! You couldn't _hire_ a bee to sting Wes Cotterl! But +_lazy_?--I think that man had railly ort to 'a' been a' Injun! He wuz +the fust and on'y man 'at ever I laid eyes on 'at wuz too lazy to drap a +checker-man to p'int out the right road fer a feller 'at ast him onc't +the way to Burke's Mill; and Wes, 'ithout ever a-liftin' eye er finger, +jest sorto' crooked out that mouth o' his'n in the direction the feller +wanted, and says: "_H-yonder!_" and went on with his whistlin'. But all +this hain't Checkers, and that's what I started out to tell ye. + +Wes had a way o' jest natchurly a-cleanin' out anybody and ever'body 'at +'ud he'p hold up a checker-board! Wes wuzn't what you'd call a _lively_ +player at all, ner a competiter 'at talked much 'crost the board er made +much furse over a game whilse he _wuz_ a-playin'. He had his faults, o' +course, and _would_ take back moves 'casion'ly, er inch up on you ef you +didn't watch him, mebby. But, _as a rule_, Wes had the insight to grasp +the idy of whoever wuz a-playin' ag'in' him, and _his_ style o' game, +you understand, and wuz on the lookout continual'; and under sich +circumstances _could_ play as _honest_ a game o' Checkers as the babe +unborn. + +One thing in _Wes's_ favor allus wuz the feller's temper.--Nothin' +'peared to aggervate Wes, and nothin' on earth could break his slow and +lazy way o' takin' his own time fer ever'thing. You jest _couldn't crowd +Wes_ er git him rattled anyway.--Jest 'peared to have one fixed +principle, and that wuz to take plenty o' time, and never make no move +'ithout a-ciphern'n' ahead on the prob'ble consequences, don't you +understand! "Be shore you're right," Wes 'ud say, a-lettin' up fer a +second on that low and sorry-like little wind-through-the-keyhole +whistle o' his, and a-nosin' out a place whur he could swap one man fer +two.--"Be shore you're right"--and somep'n' after this style wuz Wes's +way: "Be shore you're right"--(whistling a long, lonesome bar of +"Barbara Allen")--"and then"--(another long, retarded bar)--"go +ahead!"--and by the time the feller 'ud git through with his whistlin', +and a-stoppin' and a-startin' in ag'in, he'd be about three men ahead +to your one. And then he'd jest go on with his whistlin' 'sef nothin' +had happened, and mebby you a-jest a-rearin' and a-callin' him all the +mean, outlandish, ornry names 'at you could lay tongue to. + +But Wes's good nature, I reckon, was the thing 'at he'ped him out as +much as any other p'ints the feller had. And _Wes 'ud allus win, in the +long run_!--I don't keer _who_ played ag'inst him! It was on'y a +question o' time with Wes o' waxin' it to the best of 'em. Lots o' +players has _tackled_ Wes, and right at the _start_ 'ud mebby give him +trouble,--but in the _long run_, now mind ye--_in the long run_, no +mortal man, I reckon, had any business o' rubbin' knees with Wes Cotterl +under no airthly checker-board in all this vale o' tears! + +I mind onc't th' come along a high-toned feller from in around +In'i'nop'lus somers.--Wuz a _lawyer_, er some _p'fessional_ kind o' man. +Had a big yaller, luther-kivvered book under his arm, and a bunch o' +these-'ere big en_vel_op's and a lot o' suppeenies stickin' out o' his +breastpocket. Mighty slick-lookin' feller he wuz; wore a stovepipe hat, +sorto' set 'way back on his head--so's to show off his Giner'l Jackson +forr'ed, don't you know! Well-sir, this feller struck the place, on some +business er other, and then missed the hack 'at _ort_ to 'a' tuk him out +o' here sooner'n it _did_ take him out!--And whilse he wuz a-loafin' +round, sorto' lonesome--like a feller allus _is_ in a strange place, you +know--he kindo' drapped in on our crowd at the Shoe-Shop, ostenchably to +git a boot-strop stitched on, but _I_ knowed, the minute he set foot in +the door, 'at _that_ feller wanted _comp'ny_ wuss'n _cobblin'_. + +Well, as good luck would have it, there set Wes, as usual, with the +checker-board in his lap, a-playin' all by hisse'f, and a-whistlin' so +low and solem'-like and sad it railly made the crowd seem like a +_religious_ getherun' o' some kind er other, we wuz all so quiet and +still-like, as the man come in. + +Well, the stranger stated his business, set down, tuk off his boot, and +set there nussin' his foot and talkin' weather fer ten minutes, I +reckon, 'fore he ever 'peared to notice Wes at all. We wuz all back'ard, +anyhow, 'bout talkin' much; besides, we knowed, long afore he come in, +all about how hot the weather wuz, and the pore chance there wuz o' +rain, and all that; and so the subject had purty well died out, when +jest then the feller's eyes struck Wes and the checker-board,--and I'll +never fergit the warm, salvation smile 'at flashed over him at the +promisin' discovery. "_What!_" says he, a-grinnin' like a' angel and +a-edgin' his cheer to'rds Wes, "have we a checker-board and checkers +here?" + +"We hev," says I, knowin' 'at Wes wouldn't let go o' that whistle long +enough to answer--more'n to mebby nod his head. + +"And who is your best player?" says the feller, kindo' pitiful-like, +with another inquirin' look at Wes. + +"Him," says I, a-pokin' Wes with a peg-float. But Wes on'y spit kindo' +absent-like, and went on with his whistlin'. + +"Much of a player, is he?" says the feller, with a sorto' doubtful smile +at Wes ag'in. + +"Plays a purty good hick'ry," says I, a-pokin' Wes ag'in. "Wes," says I, +"here's a gentleman 'at 'ud mebby like to take a hand with you there, +and give you a few idys," says I. + +"Yes," says the stranger, eager-like, a-settin' his plug-hat keerful' up +in the empty shelvin', and a-rubbin' his hands and smilin' as +confident-like as old Hoyle hisse'f,--"Yes, indeed, I'd be glad to give +the gentleman" (meanin' Wes) "a' idy er two about Checkers--ef _he'd_ +jest as lief,--'cause I reckon ef there're any one thing 'at I _do_ +know more about 'an another, it's Checkers," says he; "and there're no +game 'at delights me more--_pervidin'_, o' course, I find a competiter +'at kin make it anyways inte_rest_in'." + +"Got much of a rickord on Checkers?" says I. + +"Well," says the feller, "I don't like to brag, but I've never _ben_ +beat--in any _legitimut_ contest," says he, "and I've played more'n one +o' _them_," he says, "here and there round the country. Of course, _your +friend_ here," he went on, smilin' sociable at Wes, "_he'll_ take it all +in good part ef I should happen to lead him a little--jest as _I'd_ do," +he says, "ef it wuz possible fer him to lead _me_." + +"_Wes_," says I, "_has_ warmed the wax in the yeers of some mighty good +checker-players," says I, as he squared the board around, still +a-whistlin' to hisse'f-like, as the stranger tuk his place, +a-smilin'-like and roachin' back his hair. + +"Move," says Wes. + +"No," says the feller, with a polite flourish of his hand; "the first +move shall be your'n." And, by jucks! fer all he wouldn't take even the +advantage of a starter, he flaxed it to Wes the fust game in less'n +fifteen minutes. + +"Right shore you've give' me your best player?" he says, smilin' round +at the crowd, as Wes set squarin' the board fer another game and +whistlin' as onconcerned-like as ef nothin' had happened more'n +ordinary. + +"'S your move," says Wes, a-squintin' out into the game 'bout forty foot +from shore, and a-whistlin' purt' nigh in a whisper. + +Well-sir, it 'peared-like the feller railly didn't _try_ to play; and +you could see, too, 'at Wes knowed he'd about met his match, and played +accordin'. He didn't make no move at all 'at he didn't give keerful +thought to; whilse the feller--! well, as I wuz sayin', it jest +'peared-like _Checkers_ wuz _child's-play_ fer him! Putt in most o' the +time 'long through the game a-sayin' things calkilated to kindo' bore a' +ordinary man. But Wes helt hisse'f purty level, and didn't show no +signs, and kep' up his _whistlin'_, mighty well--considerin'. + +"Reckon you play the _fiddle_, too, as well as _Checkers_?" says the +feller, laughin', as Wes come a-whistlin' out of the little end of the +second game and went on a-fixin' fer the next round. + +"'S my move!" says Wes, 'thout seemin' to notice the feller's +tantalizin' words whatsomever. + +"'L! _this_ time," thinks I, "Mr. Smarty from the _me_trolopin +deestricts, _you're_ liable to git _waxed_--_shore_!" But the _feller_ +didn't 'pear to think so at all, and played right ahead as glib-like and +keerless as ever--'casion'ly a-throwin' in them sircastic remarks o' +his'n,--'bout bein' "slow and shore" 'bout things in gineral--"Liked to +_see_ that," he said:--"Liked to see fellers do things with plenty o' +_deliberation_, and even ef a feller _wuzn't_ much of a checker-player, +liked to see him _die_ slow _anyhow_!--and then 'tend his own funeral," +he says,--"and march in the p'session--to his own _music_," says +he.--And jest then his remarks wuz brung to a close by Wes a-jumpin' two +men, and a-lightin' square in the king-row.... "Crown that," says Wes, +a-droppin' back into his old tune. And fer the rest o' _that_ game Wes +helt the feller purty level, but had to finally knock under--but by jest +the clos'test kind o' shave o' winnin'. + +"They ain't much use," says the feller, "o' keepin' _this_ thing +up--'less I could manage, _some_ way er other, to git beat _onc't 'n a +while_!" + +"Move," says Wes, a-drappin' back into the same old whistle and +a-_settlin'_ there. + +"'Music has charms,' as the Good Book tells us," says the feller, kindo' +nervous-like, and a-roachin' his hair back as ef some sort o' p'tracted +headache wuz a-settin' in. + +"Never wuz '_skunked_,' wuz ye?" says Wes, kindo' suddent-like, with a +fur-off look in them big white eyes o' his--and then a-whistlin' right +on 'sef he hadn't said _nothin'_. + +"_Not much!_" says the feller, sorto' s'prised-like, as ef such a' idy +as that had never struck him afore.--"Never was 'skunked' _myse'f_: but +I've saw fellers in my time 'at _wuz_!" says he. + +But from that time on I noticed the feller 'peared to play more keerful, +and railly la'nched into the game with somepin' like inter'st. Wes he +seemed to be jest a-limber-in'-up-like; and-sir, blame me! ef he didn't +walk the feller's log fer him _that_ time, 'thout no 'pearent trouble at +all! + +"And, _now_," says Wes, all quiet-like, a-squarin' the board fer +another'n,--"we're kindo' gittin' at things _right_. Move." And away +went that little unconcerned whistle o' his ag'in, and _Mr. Cityman_ +jest gittin' white and sweaty too--he wuz so nervous. Ner he didn't +'pear to find much to laugh at in the _next_ game--ner the next _two_ +games nuther! Things wuz a-gettin' mighty inte_rest_in' 'bout them +times, and I guess the feller wuz ser'ous-like a-wakin' up to the solem' +fact 'at it tuk 'bout all _his_ spare time to keep up his end o' the +row, and even that state o' pore satisfaction wuz a-creepin' furder and +furder away from him ever' new turn he undertook. Whilse _Wes_ jest +peared to git more deliber't' and certain ever' game; and that unendin' +se'f-satisfied and comfortin' little whistle o' his never drapped a +stitch, but toed out ever' game alike,--to'rds the _last_, and, fer the +_most_ part, disasterss to the feller 'at had started in with sich +confi_dence_ and actchul promise, don't you know. + +Well-sir, the feller stuck the whole _forenoon_ out, and then the +_afternoon_; and then knuckled down to it 'way into the night--yes, and +plum _midnight_!--And he buckled into the thing bright and airly _next +morning_! And-sir, fer _two long days_ and nights, a-hardly a-stoppin' +long enough to _eat_, the feller stuck it out,--and Wes a-jest a-warpin' +it to him hand-over-fist, and leavin' him furder behind, ever' +game!--till finally, to'rds the last, the feller got so blamedon worked +up and excited-like, he jes' 'peared actchully purt' nigh plum crazy and +histurical as a woman! + +It was a-gittin' late into the shank of the second day, and the boys hed +jest lit a candle fer 'em to finish out one of the clost'est games the +feller'd played Wes fer some time. But Wes wuz jest as cool and ca'm as +ever, and still a-whistlin' consolin' to hisse'f-like, whilse the feller +jest 'peared wore out and ready to drap right in his tracks any minute. + +"_Durn you!_" he snarled out at Wes, "hain't you never goern to move?" +And there set Wes, a-balancin' a checker-man above the board, a-studyin' +whur to set it, and a-fillin' in the time with that-air whistle. + +"_Flames and flashes!_" says the feller ag'in, "will you _ever_ stop +that death-seducin' tune o' your'n long enough to move?"--And as Wes +deliber't'ly set his man down whur the feller see he'd haf to jump it +and lose two men and a king, Wes wuz a-singin', low and sad-like, as ef +all to hisse'f: + + "O we'll move that man, and leave him there.-- + Fer the love of B-a-r-b--bry Al-len!" + +Well-sir! the feller jest jumped to his feet, upset the board, and tore +out o' the shop stark-starin' crazy--blame ef he wuzn't!--'cause some of +us putt out after him and overtook him 'way beyent the 'pike-bridge, and +hollered to him;--and he shuk his fist at us and hollered back and +says, says he: "Ef you fellers over here," says he, "'ll agree to +_muzzle_ that durn checker-player o' your'n, I'll bet fifteen hunderd +dollars to fifteen cents 'at I kin beat him 'leven games out of ever' +dozent!--But there're _no money_," he says, "'at kin hire me to play him +ag'in, on this aboundin' airth, on'y on them conditions--'cause that +durn, eternal, infernal, dad-blasted whistle o' his 'ud beat the oldest +man in Ameriky!" + + + + +DARBY AND JOAN + +BY ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD + + +I + + When Darby saw the setting sun, + He swung his scythe, and home he run, + Sat down, drank off his quart, and said, + "My work is done, I'll go to bed." + "My work is done!" retorted Joan, + "My work is done! your constant tone; + But hapless woman ne'er can say, + 'My work is done,' till judgment day. + You men can sleep all night, but we + Must toil."--"Whose fault is that?" quoth he. + "I know your meaning," Joan replied, + "But, Sir, my tongue shall not be tied; + I will go on, and let you know + What work poor women have to do: + First, in the morning, though we feel + As sick as drunkards when they reel; + Yes, feel such pains in back and head + As would confine you men to bed, + We ply the brush, we wield the broom, + We air the beds, and right the room; + The cows must next be milked--and then + We get the breakfast for the men. + Ere this is done, with whimpering cries, + And bristly hair, the children rise; + These must be dressed, and dosed with rue, + And fed--and all because of you: + We next"--Here Darby scratched his head, + And stole off grumbling to his bed; + And only said, as on she run, + "Zounds! woman's clack is never done." + + +II + + At early dawn, ere Phoebus rose, + Old Joan resumed her tale of woes; + When Darby thus--"I'll end the strife, + Be you the man and I the wife: + Take you the scythe and mow, while I + Will all your boasted cares supply." + "Content," quoth Joan, "give me my stint." + This Darby did, and out she went. + Old Darby rose and seized the broom, + And whirled the dirt about the room: + Which having done, he scarce knew how, + He hied to milk the brindled cow. + The brindled cow whisked round her tail + In Darby's eyes, and kicked the pail. + The clown, perplexed with grief and pain, + Swore he'd ne'er try to milk again: + When turning round, in sad amaze, + He saw his cottage in a blaze: + For as he chanced to brush the room, + In careless haste, he fired the broom. + The fire at last subdued, he swore + The broom and he would meet no more. + Pressed by misfortune, and perplexed, + Darby prepared for breakfast next; + But what to get he scarcely knew-- + The bread was spent, the butter too. + His hands bedaubed with paste and flour, + Old Darby labored full an hour: + But, luckless wight! thou couldst not make + The bread take form of loaf or cake. + As every door wide open stood, + In pushed the sow in quest of food; + And, stumbling onward, with her snout + O'erset the churn--the cream ran out. + As Darby turned, the sow to beat, + The slippery cream betrayed his feet; + He caught the bread trough in his fall, + And down came Darby, trough, and all. + The children, wakened by the clatter, + Start up, and cry, "Oh! what's the matter?" + Old Jowler barked, and Tabby mewed, + And hapless Darby bawled aloud, + "Return, my Joan, as heretofore, + I'll play the housewife's part no more: + Since now, by sad experience taught, + Compared to thine my work is naught; + Henceforth, as business calls, I'll take, + Content, the plough, the scythe, the rake, + And never more transgress the line + Our fates have marked, while thou art mine. + Then, Joan, return, as heretofore, + I'll vex thy honest soul no more; + Let's each our proper task attend-- + Forgive the past, and strive to mend." + + + + +WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, + And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, + And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, + And the rooster's hallelooyer as he tiptoes on the fence, + Oh, it's then's the time a feller is a feelin' at his best, + With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of gracious rest, + As he leaves the house bareheaded and goes out to feed the stock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + There's sompin kind o' hearty-like about the atmosphere + When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here. + Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, + And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and the buzzin' of the bees; + But the air's so appetizin', and the landscape through the haze + Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days + Is a picture that no painter has the colorin' to mock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + The husky, rusty rustle of the tassels of the corn, + And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn; + The stubble in the furries--kind o' lonesome like, but still + A preachin' sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill; + The straw-stack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed, + The hosses in their stalls below, the clover overhead,-- + Oh, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + + + +LAFFING + +BY JOSH BILLINGS + + +Anatomikally konsidered, laffing iz the sensation ov pheeling good all +over, and showing it principally in one spot. + +Morally konsidered, it iz the next best thing tew the 10 +commandments.... + +Theoretikally konsidered, it kan out-argy all the logik in existence.... + +Pyroteknikally konsidered, it is the fire-works of the soul.... + +But i don't intend this essa for laffing in the lump, but for laffing on +the half-shell. + +Laffing iz just az natral tew cum tew the surface az a rat iz tew cum +out ov hiz hole when he wants tew. + +Yu kant keep it back by swallowing enny more than yu kan the heekups. + +If a man _kan't_ laff there iz sum mistake made in putting him together, +and if he _won't_ laff he wants az mutch keeping away from az a +bear-trap when it iz sot. + +I have seen people who laffed altogether too mutch for their own good or +for ennyboddy else's; they laft like a barrell ov nu sider with the tap +pulled out, a perfekt stream. + +This is a grate waste ov natral juice. + +I have seen other people who didn't laff enuff tew giv themselfs vent; +they waz like a barrell ov nu sider too, that waz bunged up tite, apt +tew start a hoop and leak all away on the sly. + +Thare ain't neither ov theze 2 ways right, and they never ought tew be +pattented.... + +Genuine laffing iz the vent ov the soul, the nostrils of the heart, and +iz just az necessary for health and happiness az spring water iz for a +trout. + +Thare iz one kind ov a laff that i always did rekommend; it looks out ov +the eye fust with a merry twinkle, then it kreeps down on its hands and +kneze and plays around the mouth like a pretty moth around the blaze ov +a kandle, then it steals over into the dimples ov the cheeks and rides +around into thoze little whirlpools for a while, then it lites up the +whole face like the mello bloom on a damask roze, then it swims oph on +the air with a peal az klear and az happy az a dinner-bell, then it goes +bak agin on golden tiptoze like an angel out for an airing, and laze +down on its little bed ov violets in the heart where it cum from. + +Thare iz another laff that nobody kan withstand; it iz just az honest +and noisy az a distrikt skool let out tew play, it shakes a man up from +hiz toze tew hiz temples, it dubbles and twists him like a whiskee phit, +it lifts him oph from his cheer, like feathers, and lets him bak agin +like melted led, it goes all thru him like a pikpocket, and finally +leaves him az weak and az krazy az tho he had bin soaking all day in a +Rushing bath and forgot to be took out. + +This kind ov a laff belongs tew jolly good phellows who are az healthy +az quakers, and who are az eazy tew pleaze az a gall who iz going tew be +married to-morrow. + +In konclushion i say laff every good chance yu kan git, but don't laff +unless yu feal like it, for there ain't nothing in this world more harty +than a good honest laff, nor nothing more hollow than a hartless one. + +When yu do laff open yure mouth wide enuff for the noize tew git out +without squealing, thro yure hed bak az tho yu waz going tew be shaved, +hold on tew yure false hair with both hands and then laff till yure soul +gets thoroly rested. + +But i shall tell yu more about theze things at sum fewter time. + + + + +GRIZZLY-GRU + +BY IRONQUILL + + + O Thoughts of the past and present, + O whither, and whence, and where, + Demanded my soul, as I scaled the height + Of the pine-clad peak in the somber night, + In the terebinthine air. + + While pondering on the frailty + Of happiness, hope, and mirth, + The ascending sun with derisive scoff + Hurled its golden lances and smote me off + From the bulge of the restless earth. + + Through the yellowish dawn of velvet + Where stars were so thickly strewn. + That quietly chuckled as I passed through, + I fell in the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, + On the mad, mysterious moon. + + I fell on the turquoise ether, + Low down in the wondrous west, + And thence to the moon in whose yielding blue + Were hidden the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, + In the Monarchy of Unrest. + + And there were the fairy gardens, + Where beautiful cherubs grew + In daintiest way and on separate stalks, + In the listed rows by the jasper walks, + Near the palace of Grizzly-Gru. + + While strolling around the garden + I noticed the rows were full + Of every conceivable size and type-- + Some that were buds, and some nearly ripe, + And some that were ready to pull. + + In gauzy and white corolla, + Was one who had eyes of blue, + A little excuse of a baby nose, + Little pink ears, and ten little toes, + And a mouth that kept saying ah-goo. + + Ah-gooing as I came near her, + She raised up her arms in glee-- + Her little fat arms--and she seemed to say, + "I'm ready to go with you right away; + Don't hunt any more--take me." + + I picked her off quick and kissed her, + And, hugging her to my breast, + I heard a loud yelling that pierced me through, + 'Twas His Terrible Eminence, Grizzly-Gru, + Of the Monarchy of Unrest. + + He had on a blood-red turban, + A picturesque lot of clothes, + With big moustaches both fierce and black, + And a ghastly saber to cut and hack, + And shoes that turned up at the toes. + + Out of the gate of the garden + The cherub and I took flight, + And closely behind us the saber flew, + And back of the saber came Grizzly-Gru, + And he chased us all day till night. + + I ran down the lunar crescent, + 'And out on the silver horn; + I kissed the baby and held her tight, + And jumped down into the starry night, + And--I lit on the earth at morn. + + He fitfully threw his saber, + It missed and went round the sun; + He followed no further, he was not rash, + But the baby held on to my coarse moustache, + And seemed to enjoy the fun. + + In saving that blue-eyed baby + From the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, + I suffered a terrible shock and fright; + But the doctor believes it will be all right, + And he thinks he can pull me through. + + + + +JOHN HENRY IN A STREET CAR + +BY HUGH McHUGH + + +Throw me in the cellar and batten down the hatches. + +I'm a wreck in the key of G flat. + +I side-stepped in among a bunch of language-heavers yesterday and ever +since I've been sitting on the ragged edge with my feet hanging over. + +I was on my way down to Wall Street to help J. Pierpont Morgan buy a +couple of railroads and all the world seemed as blithe and gay as a love +clinch from Laura Jean Libbey's latest. + +When I climbed into the cable-car I felt like a man who had mailed money +to himself the night before. + +I was aces. + +And then somebody blew out my gas. + +At the next corner two society flash-lights flopped in and sat next to +me. + +They had a lot of words they wanted to use and they started in. + +The car stopped and two more of the 400's leading ladies jumped the +hurdles and came down the aisle. + +They sat on the other side of me. + +In a minute they began to bite the dictionary. + +Their efforts aroused the energies of three women who sat opposite me, +and _they_ proceeded to beat the English language black and blue. + +In a minute the air was so full of talk that the grip germs had to pull +out on the platform and chew the conductor. + +The next one to me on my left started in: + +"Oh, yes; we discharged our cook day before yesterday, but there's +another coming this evening, and so--" + +Her friend broke away and was up and back to the center with this: + +"I was coming down Broadway this morning and I saw Julia Marlowe's +leading man. I'm sure it was him, because I saw the show once in Chicago +and he has the loveliest eyes I ever looked at!" + +I knew that that was my cue to walk out, kick the motorman in the +knuckles, upset the car and send in a fire call, but I passed it up. + +I just sat there and bit my nails like the heavy villain in one of Corse +Payton's ten, twen, thir dramas. + +That "loveliest eyes" speech had me groggy. + +Whenever I hear a woman turn on that "loveliest eyes" gag about an actor +I always feel that a swift slap from a wet dish-rag would look well on +her back hair. + +Then the bunch across the aisle got the flag. + +"Well, you know," says the broad lady who paid for one seat and was +compelled by Nature to use three, "you know there's only five in our +family, and so I take just five slices of stale bread and have a bowl of +water ready in which I've dropped a pinch of salt. Then I take a piece +of butter about the size of a walnut, and thoroughly grease the bottom +of a frying-pan; then beat five eggs to a froth, and--" + +I'm hoping the conductor will come in and give us all a tip to take to +the timber because the cops are going to pinch the room, but there's +nothing doing. + +One of the dames on my right finds her voice and passes it around:-- + +"Oh, I think it's a perfect fright! I always did detest electric blue, +anyway. It is so unbecoming, and then--" + +I've just decided that this lady ought to make up as a Swede servant +girl and play the part, when her friend hooks in: + +"Oh, yes; I think it will look perfectly sweet! It is a foulard in one +of those new heliotrope tints, made with a crepe de chine chemisette, +with a second vest peeping out on either side of the front over an +embroidered satin vest and cut in scallops on the edge, finished with a +full ruche of white chiffon, and the sleeves are just too tight for any +use, and the skirt is too long for any good, and I declare the lining is +too sweet! and I just hate to wear it out on the street and get it +soiled, and I was going to have it made with a tunic, and Mrs. +Wigwag--that's my brother-in-law's first cousin--she had her's made to +wear with guimpes--and they are so economical! and--" + +Think of a guy having to ride four miles and get his forehead fanned all +the while with talk about foulard and crepe de chine and guimpes! + +Wouldn't it lead you to a padded cell? + +Say! I was down and out--no kidding! + +I wanted to get up and fight the door-tender, but I couldn't. + +One of the conversationalists was sitting on my overcoat. + +I felt that if I got up and called my coat back to Papa she might lose +the thread of her story, and the jar would be something frightful. + +So I sat still and saved her life. + +The one on my right must have been the Lady President of The Hammer +Club. + +She was talking about some other girl and she didn't do a thing to the +absent one. + +She said she was svelte. + +I suppose that's Dago for a shine. + +That's the way with some women. They can't come right out and call +another woman a polish. They have to beat around the bush and chase +their friends to the swamps by throwing things like "svelte" at them. +Tush! + +I tried to duck the foreign tattle on my right and by so doing I'm next +to this on my left: + +"Oh, yes; I think politics is just too lovely! I don't know whether I'd +rather be a Democrat or a Republican, but I think--oh! just look at the +hat that woman has on! Isn't that a fright? Wonder if she trimmed it +herself. Of course she did; you can tell by--" + +I'm gasping for breath when the broad lady across the aisle gets the +floor: + +"No, indeed! I didn't have Eliza vaccinated. Why, she's too small yet, +and don't you know my sister's husband's brother's child was vaccinated, +and she is younger than our Eliza, but I don't just care, I don't +want--" + +Then the sweet girlish thing on my left gave me the corkscrew jab. + +It was the finish: + +"Isn't that lovely? Well, as I was telling you, Charlie came last night +and brought Mr. Storeclose with him. Mr. Storeclose is awfully nice. He +plays the mandolin just too sweet for anything, and--" + +Me!--to the oyster beds! No male impersonators garroting a mandolin--not +any in mine! + +When I want to take a course in music I'll climb into a public library +and read how Baldy Sloane wrote the Tiger Lily with one hand tied behind +him and his feet on the piano. + +So I fell off the car and crawled home to mother. + + + + +THE MUSKEETER + +BY JOSH BILLINGS + + +Muskeeters are a game bug, but they won't bite at a hook. Thare iz +millyuns ov them kaught every year, but not with a hook, this makes the +market for them unstiddy, the supply allways exceeding the demand. The +muskeeto iz born on the sly, and cums to maturity quicker than enny +other ov the domestik animiles. A muskeeter at 3 hours old iz just az +reddy and anxious to go into bizzness for himself, az ever he iz, and +bites the fust time az sharp, and natral, as red pepper duz. The +muskeeter haz a good ear for musik, and sings without notes. The song ov +the muskeeto iz monotonous to sum folks, but in me it stirs up the +memorys ov other days. I hav lade awake, all nite long, menny a time and +listened to the sweet anthems ov the muskeeter. I am satisfied that +thare want nothing made in vain, but i kant help thinking how mighty +kluss the musketoze kum to it. The muskeeter haz inhabited this world +since its kreashun, and will probably hang around here until bizzness +closes. Whare the muskeeter goes to in the winter iz a standing +konumdrum, which all the naturalists hav giv up, but we kno he dont go +far, for he iz on hand early each year with hiz probe fresh ground, and +polished. Muskeeters must be one ov the luxurys ov life, they certainly +aint one ov the necessarys, not if we kno ourselfs. + + + + +THE TURNINGS OF A BOOKWORM + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + + Love levels all plots. + Dead men sell no tales. + A new boom sweeps clean. + Circumstances alter bookcases. + The more haste the less read. + Too many books spoil the trade. + Many hands make light literature. + Epigrams cover a multitude of sins. + Ye can not serve Art and Mammon. + A little sequel is a dangerous thing. + It's a long page that has no turning. + Don't look a gift-book in the binding. + A gilt-edged volume needs no accuser. + In a multitude of characters there is safety. + Incidents will happen even in the best regulated novels. + One touch of Nature makes the whole book sell. + Where there's a will there's a detective story. + A book in the hand is worth two in the library. + An ounce of invention is worth a pound of style. + A good name is rather to be chosen than great characters. + Where there's so much puff, there must be some buyer. + + + + +THE FEAST OF THE MONKEYS + +BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA + + + In days of old, + So I've been told, + The monkeys gave a feast. + They sent out cards, + With kind regards, + To every bird and beast. + The guests came dressed, + In fashion's best, + Unmindful of expense; + Except the whale, + Whose swallowtail, + Was "soaked" for fifty cents. + + The guests checked wraps, + Canes, hats and caps; + And when that task was done, + The footman he + With dignitee, + Announced them one by one. + In Monkey Hall, + The host met all, + And hoped they'd feel at ease, + "I scarcely can," + Said the Black and Tan, + "I'm busy hunting fleas." + + "While waiting for + A score or more + Of guests," the hostess said, + "We'll have the Poodle + Sing _Yankee Doodle_, + A-standing on his head. + And when this through, + Good Parrot, you, + Please show them how you swear." + "Oh, dear; don't cuss," + Cried the Octopus, + And he walked off on his ear. + + The Orang-Outang + A sea-song sang, + About a Chimpanzee + Who went abroad, + In a drinking gourd, + To the coast of Barberee. + Where he heard one night, + When the moon shone bright, + A school of mermaids pick + Chromatic scales + From off their tails, + And did it mighty slick. + + "All guests are here, + To eat the cheer, + And dinner's served, my Lord." + The butler bowed; + And then the crowd + Rushed in with one accord. + The fiddler-crab + Came in a cab, + And played a piece in C; + While on his horn, + The Unicorn + Blew, _You'll Remember Me_. + + "To give a touch + Of early Dutch + To this great feast of feasts, + I'll drink ten drops + Of Holland's schnapps," + Spoke out the King of Beasts. + "That must taste fine," + Said the Porcupine, + "Did you see him smack his lip?" + "I'd smack mine, too," + Cried the Kangaroo, + "If I didn't have the pip." + + The Lion stood, + And said: "Be good + Enough to look this way; + Court Etiquette + Do not forget, + And mark well what I say: + My royal wish + Is ev'ry dish + Be tasted first by me." + "Here's where I smile," + Said the Crocodile, + And he climbed an axle-tree. + + The soup was brought, + And quick as thought, + The Lion ate it all. + "You can't beat that," + Exclaimed the Cat, + "For monumental gall." + "The soup," all cried. + "Gone," Leo replied, + "'Twas just a bit too thick." + "When we get through," + Remarked the Gnu, + "I'll hit him with a brick." + + The Tiger stepped, + Or, rather, crept, + Up where the Lion sat. + "O, mighty boss + I'm at a loss + To know where I am at. + I came to-night + With appetite + To drink and also eat; + As a Tiger grand, + I now demand, + I get there with both feet." + + The Lion got + All-fired hot + And in a passion flew. + "Get out," he cried, + "And save your hide, + You most offensive _You_." + "I'm not afraid," + The Tiger said, + "I know what I'm about." + But the Lion's paw + Reached the Tiger's jaw, + And he was good and out. + + The salt-sea smell + Of Mackerel, + Upon the air arose; + Each hungry guest + Great joy expressed, + And "sniff!" went every nose. + With glutton look + The Lion took + The spiced and sav'ry dish. + Without a pause + He worked his jaws, + And gobbled all the fish. + + Then ate the roast, + The quail on toast, + The pork, both fat and lean; + The jam and lamb, + The potted ham, + And drank the kerosene. + He raised his voice: + "Come, all rejoice, + You've seen your monarch dine." + "Never again," + Clucked the Hen, + And all sang _Old Lang Syne_. + + + + +THE BILLVILLE SPIRIT MEETING + +BY FRANK L. STANTON + + + We had a sperrit meetin' (we'll never have no more!) + To call up all the sperrits of them that's "gone before." + A feller called a "medium" (he wuz of medium size), + Took the contract fer the fetchin' o' them sperrits from the skies. + + The mayor--the town council--the parson an' his wife, + Come to shake han's with them sperrits what had left the other life; + The Colonel an' the Major--the coroner, an' all + Wuz waitin' an' debatin' in the darkness o' the hall. + + The medium roared, "Silence! Amanda Jones appears! + Is her husband present?" ("No, sir--he's been restin' twenty years!") + "Here's the ghost of Sally Spilkins, from the lan' whar' glories glow: + Would her husband like to see her?" (An' a feeble voice said, "_No_!") + + "Here's the wife of Colonel Buster; she wears a heavenly smile: + She wants to see the Colonel, an' she's comin' down the aisle!" + Then all wuz wild confusion--it warn't a bit o' fun!-- + With "Lord, have mercy on me," the Colonel broke an' run! + + Then the coroner got skeery an' scampered fer his life! + "Stop--stop him!" said the medium; "here comes his second wife!" + But thar' warn't a man could stop him in that whole blame settlement.-- + He turned a double summersault an' out the winder went! + + Then, the whole town council follered an' hollered all the way; + The parson said he had a call 'bout ten miles off, to pray! + He didn't preach nex' Sunday, an' they tell it roun' a bit, + Accordin' to the best reports the parson's runnin' yit! + + + + +A CRY FROM THE CONSUMER + +BY WILBUR D. NESBIT + + + Grasshoppers roam the Kansas fields and eat the tender grass-- + A trivial affair, indeed, but what then comes to pass? + You go to buy a panama, or any other hat; + You learn the price has been advanced a lot because of that. + A glacier up in Canada has slipped a mile or two-- + A little thing like this can boost the selling price of glue. + Occurrences so tragic always thrill me to the core; + I hope and pray that nothing ever happens any more. + + Last week the peaceful Indians went a-searching after scalps, + And then there was an avalanche 'way over in the Alps; + These diametric happenings seem nothing much, but look-- + We had to add a dollar to the wages of the cook. + The bean-crop down at Boston has grown measurably less, + And so the dealer charges more for goods to make a dress. + Each day there is some incident to make a man feel sore, + I'm on my knees to ask that nothing happens any more. + + It didn't rain in Utah and it did in old Vermont-- + Result: it costs you fifty more to take a summer's jaunt; + Upon the plains of Tibet some tornadoes took a roll-- + Therefore the barons have to charge a higher price for coal. + A street-car strike in Omaha has cumulative shocks-- + It boosted huckleberries up to twenty cents a box. + No matter what is happening it always finds your door-- + Give us a rest! Let nothing ever happen any more. + + Mosquitoes in New Jersey bite a magnate on the wing-- + Result: the poor consumer feels that fierce mosquito's sting: + The skeeter's song is silenced, but in something like an hour + The grocers understand that it requires a raise in flour. + A house burns down in Texas and a stove blows up in Maine, + Ten minutes later breakfast foods in prices show a gain. + Effects must follow causes--which is what I most deplore; + I hope and pray that nothing ever happens any more. + + + + +A DISAPPOINTMENT + +BY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY + + + Her hair was a waving bronze, and her eyes + Deep wells that might cover a brooding soul; + And who, till he weighed it, could ever surmise + That her heart was a cinder instead of a coal! + + + + +THE BRITISH MATRON + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +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 idea) 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 can not 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 the 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 ball-room, 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 over-blown 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 can not be held to include the three-fourths of the +wife that had no existence when the ceremony was performed? And as a +matter of conscience and good morals, ought not an English married pair +to insist upon the celebration of a silver wedding at the end of +twenty-five years in order to legalize and mutually appropriate that +corporeal growth of which both parties have individually come into +possession since they were pronounced one flesh? + + + + +THE TRAGEDY OF IT + +BY ALDEN CHARLES NOBLE + + + Alas for him, alas for it, + Alas for you and I! + When this I think I raise my mitt + To dry my weeping eye. + + + + +STAGE WHISPERS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + + Deadheads tell no tales. + Stars are stubborn things. + All's not bold that titters. + Contracts make cowards of us all. + One good turn deserves an encore. + A little actress is a dangerous thing. + It's a long skirt that has no turning. + Stars rush in where angels fear to tread. + Managers never hear any good of themselves. + A manager is known by the company he keeps. + A plot is not without honor save in comic opera. + Take care of the dance and the songs will take care of themselves. + + + + +THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE + +BY JAMES T. FIELDS + + +My name is Esek Pettibone, and I wish to affirm in the outset that it is +a good thing to be well-born. In thus connecting the mention of my name +with a positive statement, I am not aware that a catastrophe lies coiled +up in the juxtaposition. But I can not help writing plainly that I am +still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. ESTO PERPETUA! To have +had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To +be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but +respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, +I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done _him_ in +the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of +Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, +I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is +pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to do so. + +Left an orphan at the tender age of four years, having no brothers or +sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell +into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. +Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's +side. All my mother's relations kept shady when the lonely orphan looked +about for protection; but Patience Pettibone, in her stately way, +said,--"The boy belongs to a good family, and he shall never want while +his three aunts can support him." So I went to live with my plain, but +benignant protectors, in the state of New Hampshire. + +During my boyhood the best-drilled lesson that fell to my keeping was +this: "Respect yourself. We come of more than ordinary parentage. +Superior blood was probably concerned in getting up the Pettibones. Hold +your head erect, and some day you shall have proof of your high +lineage." + +I remember once, on being told that I must not share my juvenile sports +with the butcher's three little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt +Eunice looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew what she meant. + +"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family, no doubt, +came of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our +ancestors, it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were +embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in +the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not +regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with the +butcher's offspring." + +I felt mortified that I ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any but +kings' sons, or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals in +the urchin line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters. + +Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the +sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belonged to +ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim +eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of +some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House +of Pettibone. + +It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts were never tired +of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the +members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in +so many words, "There is no original sin in _our_ composition, whatever +of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of +Snowborough." + +Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her +through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshiped while she gazed. +The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had +constant zooelogical visions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and +quartered in every possible style known to the Heralds' College. The +Reverend Hebrew Bullet, who used to drop in quite often and drink +several compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encouraged his three +parishoners in their aristocratic notions, and extolled them for what he +called their "stooping-down to every-day life." He differed with the +ladies of our house only on one point. He contended that the unicorn of +the Bible and the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same animal. My +aunts held a different opinion. + +In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience reposed a trunk. Often during +my childish years I longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents +the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I +dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had +often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial +box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt +Mary used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in vain. +I must have the virtue of _years_ before I could view the treasures of +past magnificence so long entombed in that wooden sarcophagus. Once I +saw the faded sisters bending over the trunk together, and, as I +thought, embalming something in camphor. Curiosity impelled me to +linger, but, under some pretext, I was nodded out of the room. + +Although my kinswomen's means were far from ample, they determined that +Swiftmouth College should have the distinction of calling me one of her +sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent for preparation to a +neighboring academy. Years of study and hard fare in country +boarding-houses told upon my self-importance as the descendant of a +great Englishman, notwithstanding all my letters from the honored three +came with counsel to "respect myself and keep up the dignity of the +family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of +respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other +low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens +readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the +school-boy no envious pangs. + +I was nineteen when I entered the hoary halls of Swiftmouth. I call them +hoary, because they had been built more than fifty years. To me they +seemed uncommonly hoary, and I snuffed antiquity in the dusty purlieus. +I now began to study, in good earnest, the wisdom of the past. I saw +clearly the value of dead men and mouldy precepts, especially if the +former had been entombed a thousand years, and if the latter were well +done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began to reverence royal lines of +deceased monarchs, and longed to connect my own name, now growing into +college popularity, with some far-off mighty one who had ruled in pomp +and luxury his obsequious people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled my +dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof of our family +distinction. "I will go," quoth I, "to the home of my aunts next +vacation and there learn _how_ we became mighty, and discover precisely +why we don't practice to-day our inherited claims to glory." + +I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was now anxious to lay before her +impatient nephew the proof he burned to behold. But first she must +explain. All the old family documents and letters were, no doubt, +destroyed in the great fire of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment +or paper implying nobility had ever been discovered in Snowborough, or +elsewhere. _But_ there had been preserved, for many years, a suit of +imperial clothes that had been worn, by their great-grandfather in +England, and, no doubt, in the New World also. These garments had been +carefully watched and guarded, for were they not the proof that their +owner belonged to a station in life second, if second at all, to the +royal court of King George itself? Precious casket, into which I was +soon to have the privilege of gazing! Through how many long years these +fond, foolish virgins had lighted their unflickering lamps of +expectation and hope at this cherished old shrine! + +I was now on my way to the family repository of all our greatness. I +went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the +well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent +manner, turned the key. My heart,--I am not ashamed to confess it now, +although it is forty years since the quartet, in search of family +honors, were on their knees that summer afternoon in Snowborough,--my +heart beat high. I was about to look on that which might be a duke's or +an earl's regalia. And I was descended from the owner in a direct line! +I had lately been reading Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_; and I +remembered, there before the trunk, the lines: + + "O sacred receptacle of my joys, + Sweet cell of virtue and nobility!" + +The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll the precious garments, +which seemed all enshrined in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that +interior lives with me to this day; and I grow faint with the memory of +that hour. With pious precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last +the whole suit was laid before my expectant eyes. + +Reader! I am an old man now, and have not long to walk this planet. But +whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for my declining years, I am +certain I can bear it; for I went through that scene at Snowborough, and +still live! + +When the garments were fully displayed, all the aunts looked at me. I +had been to college; I had studied Burke's _Peerage_; I had been once to +New York. Perhaps I could immediately name the exact station in noble +British life to which that suit of clothes belonged. I could; I saw it +all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I dared not look my poor +deluded female relatives in the face. + +"What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced garments and big buttons +betoken?" cried all three. + +"_It is a suit of servant's livery!_" gasped I, and fell back with a +shudder. + +That evening, after the sun had gone down, we buried those hateful +garments in a ditch at the bottom of the garden. Rest there perturbed +body-coat, yellow trousers, brown gaiters, and all! + + "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!" + + + + +WHY MOLES HAVE HANDS + +BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON + + +One day the children came running to Aunt Nancy with a mole which one of +the dogs had just killed. They had never seen one before and were very +curious as to what it might be. + +"Well, befo' de king!" said Nancy, "whar y'all bin livin' dat you nuver +seed a mole befo'? Whar you come f'um mus' be a mighty cur'ous spot ef +dey ain' have no moleses dar; mus' be sump'n wrong wid dat place. I bin +mos' all over dish yer Sussex kyounty endurin' er my time, an' I ain' +nuver come 'cross no place yit whar dey ain' have moleses. + +"Moleses is sut'n'y cur'ous li'l creeturs," she continued. "I bin +teckin' tickler notuss un 'em dis long time, an' dey knows mo'n you'd +think fer, jes' ter look at 'em. Dough dey lives down un'need de groun', +yit dey is fus'class swimmers; I done seed one, wid my own eyes, +crossin' de branch, an' dey kin root 'long un'need de yearf mos' ez fas' +ez a hoss kin trot on top uv hit. Y'all neenter look dat-a-way, 'kase +hit's de trufe; dey's jes' built fer gittin' 'long fas' unner groun'. +Der han's is bofe pickaxes an' shovels fer 'em; dey digs an' scoops wid +der front ones an' kicks de dirt out de way wid der behime ones. Der +strong snouts he'ps 'em, too, ter push der way thu de dirt." + +"Their fur is just as soft and shiny as silk," said Janey. + +"Yas," said Aunt Nancy, "hit's dat sof an' shiny dat, dough dey live +all time in de dirt, not a speck er dirt sticks to 'em. You ses 'sof an' +shiny ez silk,' but I tell you hit _is_ silk; silk clo'es, dat 'zackly +w'at 'tis." + +Ned laughed. "Who ever heard of an animal dressed in silk clothes?" he +said. + +"Nemmine," she answered, "you talks mighty peart, but I knows w'at I +knows, an' dish yer I bin tellin' you is de sho'-'nuff trufe." + +"Just see its paws," Janey went on, "why, they look exactly like hands." + +"Look lak _han's_! _look_ lak han's! umph! dey _is_ han's, all thumbered +an' fingered jes lak yo'n; an', w'at's mo', dey wuz onct human ban's; +_human_, dey wuz so!" + +"How could they ever have been human hands and then been put on a mole's +body?" asked Ned. "I believe most things you say, Aunt Nancy, but I +can't swallow that." + +"Dar's a li'l boy roun' dese diggin's whar talkin' mighty sassy an' +rambunkshus, seem ter me. I am' ax you ter swoller nuttin' 't all, but +'pears ter me y'all bin swollerin' dem 'ar ol' tales right an' lef, +faster'n' I kin call 'em ter min', an' I am' seed none er you choke on +'em yit, ner cry, 'nuff said. I'se 'tickler saw'y 'bout dis, 'kase I +done had hit in min' ter tell you a tale 'bout huccome moleses have +han'ses, whar I larn f'um a ooman dat come f'um Fauquier kyounty, but +now dat Mars' Ned 'pear ter be so jubous 'bout hit, I ain' gwine was'e +my time on folks whar ain' gwine b'lieve me, nohows. Nemmine, de chillen +over on de Thompson place gwine baig me fer dat tale w'en I goes dar +ag'in, an', w'at's mo', dey gwine git hit; fer dey b'lieves ev'y wu'd +dat draps f'um my mouf, lak 'twuz de law an' de gospil." + +Of course, the children protested that they were as ready to hang upon +her words as the Thompson children could possibly be, and presented +their prior claim to the tale in such moving fashion that Aunt Nancy was +finally prevailed upon to come down from her high horse and tell the +story. + +"I done tol' you," she said, "dat dem 'ar han's is human, an' I mean +jes' w'at I ses, 'kase de moleses useter be folks, sho'-'nuff folks, +dough dey is all swunk up ter dis size an' der han's is all dat's lef +ter tell de tale. Yas, suh, in de ol' days, so fur back dat you kain't +kyount hit, de moleses wuz folks, an' mighty proud an' biggitty folks at +dat. Dey wan't gwine be ketched wearin' any er dish yer kaliker, er +linsey-woolsey, er homespun er sech ez dat, ner even broadclawf, ner +bombazine, naw suh! Dey jes' tricked derse'fs out in de fines' an' +shinies' er silk, nuttin' mo' ner less, an' den dey went a-traipsin' up +an' down an' hether an' yon, fer tu'rr folks ter look at an' mek +'miration over. Mo'n dat, dey 'uz so fine an' fiddlin' dey oon set foot +ter de groun' lessen dar wuz a kyarpet spread down fer 'em ter walk on. +Dey tells me hit sut'n'y wuz a sight in de worl' ter see dem 'ar folks +walkin' up an' down on de kyarpets, trailin' an' rus'lin' der silk +clo'es, an' curchyin' an' bobbin' ter one nu'rr w'en dey met up, but +nuver speakin' ter de common folks whar walkin' on de groun', ner even +so much ez lookin' at 'em. W'ats mo', dey wuz so uppish dey thought de +yearf wuz too low down fer 'em even ter run der eyes over, so dey went +'long wid der haids r'ared an' der eyes all time lookin' up, stidder +down. You kin be sho' dem gwines-on ain' mek 'em pop'lous wid tu'rr +folks, 'kase people jes' natchelly kain't stan' hit ter have you +th'owin' up to 'em dat you is better'n w'at dey is, w'en all de time dey +knows you're nuttin' but folks, same 'z dem. + +"Dey kep' gwine on so-fashion, an' gittin' mo' an' mo' pompered an' +uppish, 'twel las' dey 'tracted de 'tention er de Lawd, an' He say ter +Hisse'f, He do, 'Who is dese yer folks, anyhows, whar gittin' so airish, +walkin' up an' down an' back an' fo'th on my yearf an' spurnin' hit +so's't dey spread kyarpets 'twix' hit an' der footses, treatin' my +yearf, w'at I done mek, lak 'twuz de dirt un'need der footses, an' +'spisin' der feller creeturs an' excusin' 'em er bein' common, an' +keepin' der eyes turnt up all de time, ez ef dey wuz too good ter look +at de things I done mek an' putt on my yearf? I mus' see 'bout dis; I +mus' punish dese 'sumptious people an' show 'em dat one'r my creeturs is +jez' ez low down ez tu'rr, in my sight.' + +"So de Lawd He pass jedgment on de moleses. Fus' He tuck an' made 'em +lose der human shape an' den He swunk 'em up ontwel dey 'z no bigger'n +dey is now, dat 'uz ter show 'em how no-kyount dey wuz in His sight. Den +bekase dey thought derse'fs too good ter walk 'pun de bare groun' He +sont 'em ter live un'need hit, whar dey hatter dig an' scratch der way +'long. Las' uv all He tuck an' tuck 'way der eyes an' made 'em blin', +dat's 'kase dey done 'spise ter look at der feller creeturs. But He feel +kind er saw'y fer 'em w'en He git dat fur, an' He ain' wanter punish 'em +too haivy, so He lef 'em dese silk clo'es whar I done tol' you 'bout, +an' dese han's whar you kin see fer yo'se'fs is human, an' I reckon bofe +dem things putt 'em in min' er w'at dey useter be an' rack 'em 'umble. +Uver sence den de moleses bin gwine 'long un'need de groun', 'cordin ter +de jedgmen' er de Lawd, an' diggin' an' scratchin' der way thu de worl', +in trial an' tribilashun, wid dem po' li'l human han'ses. An' dat orter +l'arn you w'at comes er folks 'spisin' der feller creeturs, an' I want +y'all ter 'member dat nex' time I year you call dem Thompson chillen +'trash.'" + +"I'd like to know what use moles are," said Ned, who was of rather an +investigating turn of mind; "they just go round rooting through the +ground spoiling people's gardens, and I don't see what they're good for; +you can't eat them or use them any way." + +"Sho', chil'!" said Aunt Nancy, "you dunno w'at you talkin' 'bout; de +Lawd have some use fer ev'y creetur He done mek. Dey tells me dat de +moleses eats up lots er bugs an' wu'ms an' sech ez dat, dat mought hurt +de craps ef dey wuz let ter live. Sidesen dat, jes' gimme one'r de claws +er dat mole, an' lemme hang hit roun' de neck uv a baby whar cuttin' his +toofs, an' I boun' you, ev'y toof in his jaws gwine come bustin' thu his +goms widout nair' a ache er a pain ter let him know dey's dar. Don't +talk ter me 'bout de moleses bein' wufless! I done walk de flo' too much +wid cryin' babies not ter know de use er moleses." + +"You don't really believe that, do you?" asked Ned. + +"B'lieve hit!" she answered indignantly; "I don' _b'lieve_ hit, I +_knows_ hit. I done tol' you all de things a hyar's foot kin do; w'ats +de reason a mole's foot ain' good fer sump'n, too? Ef folks on'y knowed +mo' about sech kyores ez dat dar neenter be so much sickness an' mis'ry +in de worl'. I done kyored myse'f er de rheumatiz in my right arm jes' +by tyin' a eel-skin roun' hit, an' ev'yb'dy on dis plantation knows dat +ef you'll wrop a chil's hya'r wid eel-skin strings hit's boun' ter mek +hit grow. Ef you want de chil' hisse'f ter grow an' ter walk soon you +mus' bresh his feet wid de broom. I oon tell you dis ef I hadn't tried +'em myse'f. You mus'n' talk so biggitty 'bout w'at you dunno nuttin' 't +all about. You come f'um up Norf yonner, an' mebbe dese things don' wu'k +de same dar ez w'at dey does down yer whar we bin 'pendin' on 'em so +long." + + + + +A PSALM OF LIFE + +BY PHOEBE CARY + + + Tell me not, in idle jingle, + Marriage is an empty dream, + For the girl is dead that's single, + And things are not what they seem. + + Married life is real, earnest, + Single blessedness a fib, + Taken from man, to man returnest, + Has been spoken of the rib. + + Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, + Is our destined end or way; + But to act, that each to-morrow + Nearer brings the wedding-day. + + Life is long, and youth is fleeting, + And our hearts, if there we search, + Still like steady drums are beating + Anxious marches to the Church. + + In the world's broad field of battle, + In the bivouac of life, + Be not like dumb, driven cattle; + Be a woman, be a wife! + + Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! + Let the dead Past bury its dead! + Act--act in the living Present. + Heart within, and Man ahead! + + Lives of married folks remind us + We can live our lives as well, + And, departing, leave behind us;-- + Such examples as will tell;-- + + Such examples, that another, + Sailing far from Hymen's port, + A forlorn, unmarried brother, + Seeing, shall take heart, and court. + + Let us then be up and doing, + With the heart and head begin; + Still achieving, still pursuing, + Learn to labor, and to win! + + + + +AN ODYSSEY OF K'S + +BY WILBUR D. NESBIT + + + I've traveled up and down this land + And crossed it in a hundred ways, + But somehow can not understand + These towns with names chock-full of K's. + For instance, once it fell to me + To pack my grip and quickly go-- + I thought at first to Kankakee + But then remembered Kokomo. + "Oh, Kankakee or Kokomo," + I sighed, "just which I do not know." + + Then to the ticket man I went-- + He was a snappy man, and bald, + Behind an iron railing pent-- + And I confessed that I was stalled. + "A much K'd town is booked for me," + I said. "I'm due to-morrow, so + I wonder if it's Kankakee + Or if it can be Kokomo." + "There's quite a difference," growled he, + "'Twixt Kokomo and Kankakee." + + He spun a yard of tickets out-- + The folded kind that makes a strip + And leaves the passenger in doubt + When the conductor takes a clip. + He flipped the tickets out, I say, + And asked: "Now, which one shall it be? + I'll sell you tickets either way-- + To Kokomo or Kankakee." + And still I really did not know-- + I thought it might be Kokomo. + + At any rate, I took a chance; + He struck his stamp-machine a blow + And I, a toy of circumstance, + Was ticketed for Kokomo. + Upon the train I wondered still + If all was right as it should be. + Some mystic warning seemed to fill + My mind with thoughts of Kankakee, + The car-wheels clicked it out: "Now, he + Had better be for Kankakee!" + + Until at last it grew so loud, + At some big town I clambered out + And elbowed madly through the crowd, + Determined on the other route. + The ticket-agent saw my haste; + "Where do you wish to go?" cried he. + I yelled: "I have no time to waste-- + Please fix me up for Kankakee!" + Again the wheels, now fast, now slow, + Clicked: "Ought to go to Kokomo!" + + Well, anyhow, I did not heed + The message that they sent to me. + I went, and landed wrong indeed-- + Went all the way to Kankakee. + Then, in a rush, I doubled back-- + Went wrong again, I'd have you know. + There was no call for me, alack! + Within the town of Kokomo. + + And then I learned, confound the luck, + I should have gone to _Keokuk_! + + + + +THE DEACON'S TROUT + +BY HENRY WARD BEECHER + + +He was a curious trout. I believe he knew Sunday just as well as Deacon +Marble did. At any rate, the deacon thought the trout meant to aggravate +him. The deacon, you know, is a little waggish. He often tells about +that trout. Sez he, "One Sunday morning, just as I got along by the +willows, I heard an awful splash, and not ten feet from shore I saw the +trout, as long as my arm, just curving over like a bow, and going down +with something for breakfast. Gracious! says I, and I almost jumped out +of the wagon. But my wife Polly, says she, 'What on airth are you +thinkin' of, Deacon? It's Sabbath day, and you're goin' to meetin'! It's +a pretty business for a deacon!' That sort o' cooled me off. But I do +say that, for about a minute, I wished I wasn't a deacon. But 't +wouldn't made any difference, for I came down next day to mill on +purpose, and I came down once or twice more, and nothin' was to be seen, +tho' I tried him with the most temptin' things. Wal, next Sunday I came +along ag'in, and, to save my life I couldn't keep off worldly and +wanderin' thoughts. I tried to be sayin' my catechism, but I couldn't +keep my eyes off the pond as we came up to the willows. I'd got along in +the catechism, as smooth as the road, to the Fourth Commandment, and was +sayin' it out loud for Polly, and jist as I was sayin: '_What is +required in the Fourth Commandment?_' I heard a splash, and there was +the trout, and, afore I could think, I said: 'Gracious, Polly, I must +have that trout.' She almost riz right up, 'I knew you wa'n't sayin' +your catechism hearty. Is this the way you answer the question about +keepin' the Lord's day? I'm ashamed, Deacon Marble,' says she. 'You'd +better change your road, and go to meetin' on the road over the hill. If +I was a deacon, I wouldn't let a fish's tail whisk the whole catechism +out of my head'; and I had to go to meetin' on the hill road all the +rest of the summer." + + + + +ENOUGH[2] + +BY TOM MASSON + + + I shot a rocket in the air, + It fell to earth, I knew not where + Until next day, with rage profound, + The man it fell on came around. + In less time than it takes to tell, + He showed me where that rocket fell; + And now I do not greatly care + To shoot more rockets in the air. + +[Footnote 2: By permission of Life Publishing Company.] + + + + +THE FIGHTING RACE + +BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE + + + "Read out the names!" and Burke sat back, + And Kelly drooped his head, + While Shea--they call him Scholar Jack-- + Went down the list of the dead. + Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, + The crews of the gig and yawl, + The bearded man and the lad in his teens, + Carpenters, coal-passers--all. + Then knocking the ashes from out his pipe, + Said Burke, in an off-hand way, + "We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe! + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + "Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke. + "Wherever fighting's the game, + Or a spice of danger in grown man's work," + Said Kelly, "you'll find my name." + "And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad, + "When it's touch and go for life?" + Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, be dad, + Since I charged to drum and fife + Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen + Stopped a Rebel ball on its way. + There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green-- + Kelly and Burke and Shea-- + And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + "I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place," + Said Burke, "that we'd die by right, + In the cradle of our soldier race, + After one good stand-up fight. + My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, + And fighting was not his trade; + But his rusty pike's in the cabin still, + With Hessian blood on the blade." + "Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great + When the word was 'Clear the way!' + We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight-- + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy, + Said "We were at Ramillies. + We left our bones at Fontenoy, + And up in the Pyrenees, + Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain, + Cremona, Lille, and Ghent, + We're all over Austria, France, and Spain, + Wherever they pitched a tent. + We've died for England from Waterloo + To Egypt and Dargai; + And still there's enough for a corps or crew, + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + "Oh, the fighting races don't die out, + If they seldom die in bed, + For love is first in their hearts, no doubt," + Said Burke. Then Kelly said: + "When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands, + The angel with the sword, + And the battle-dead from a hundred lands + Are ranged in one big horde, + Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits, + Will stretch tree deep that day, + From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates-- + Kelly and Burke and Shea." + "Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!" + Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. + + + + +THE ORGAN + +BY HENRY WARD BEECHER + + +At one of his week night lectures, Beecher was speaking about the +building and equipping of new churches. After a few satirical touches +about church architects and their work, he went on to ridicule the usual +style of pulpit--the "sacred mahogany tub"--"plastered up against some +pillar like a barn-swallow's nest." Then he passed on to the erection of +the organ, and to the opening recital. + +"The organ long expected has arrived, been unpacked, set up, and gloried +over. The great players of the region round about, or of distant +celebrity, have had the grand organ exhibition; and this magnificent +instrument has been put through all its paces in a manner which has +surprised every one, and, if it had had a conscious existence, must have +surprised the organ itself most of all. It has piped, fluted, trumpeted, +brayed, thundered. It has played so loud that everybody was deafened, +and so soft that nobody could hear. The pedals played for thunder, the +flutes languished and coquetted, and the swell died away in delicious +suffocation, like one singing a sweet song under the bed-clothes. Now it +leads down a stupendous waltz with full brass, sounding very much as if, +in summer, a thunderstorm should play, 'Come, Haste to the Wedding,' or +'Moneymusk.' Then come marches, galops, and hornpipes. An organ playing +hornpipes ought to have elephants as dancers. + +"At length a fugue is rendered to show the whole scope and power of the +instrument. The theme, like a cautious rat, peeps out to see if the +coast is clear; and, after a few hesitations, comes forth and begins to +frisk a little, and run up and down to see what it can find. It finds +just what it did not want, a purring tenor lying in ambush and waiting +for a spring; and as the theme comes incautiously near, the savage cat +of a tenor springs at it, misses its hold, and then takes after it with +terrible earnestness. But the tenor has miscalculated the agility of the +theme. All that it could do, with the most desperate effort, was to keep +the theme from running back into its hole again; and so they ran up and +down, around and around, dodging, eluding, whipping in and out of every +corner and nook, till the whole organ was aroused, and the bass began to +take part, but unluckily slipped and rolled down-stairs, and lay at the +bottom raving and growling in the most awful manner, and nothing could +appease it. Sometimes the theme was caught by one part, and dangled for +a moment, then with a snatch, another part took it and ran off exultant, +until, unawares, the same trick was played on it; and, finally, all the +parts, being greatly exercised in mind, began to chase each other +promiscuously in and out, up and down, now separating and now rushing in +full tilt together, until everything in the organ loses patience and all +the 'stops' are drawn, and, in spite of all that the brave organist +could do--who bobbed up and down, feet, hands, head and all--the tune +broke up into a real row, and every part was clubbing every other one, +until at length, patience being no longer a virtue, the organist, with +two or three terrible crashes, put an end to the riot, and brought the +great organ back to silence." + + + + +MY GRANDMOTHER'S TURKEY-TAIL FAN + +BY SAMUEL MINTURN PECK + + + It owned not the color that vanity dons + Or slender wits choose for display; + Its beautiful tint was a delicate bronze, + A brown softly blended with gray. + From her waist to her chin, spreading out without break, + 'Twas built on a generous plan: + The pride of the forest was slaughtered to make + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + For common occasions it never was meant: + In a chest between two silken cloths + 'Twas kept safely hidden with careful intent + In camphor to keep out the moths. + 'Twas famed far and wide through the whole countryside, + From Beersheba e'en unto Dan; + And often at meeting with envy 'twas eyed, + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + Camp-meetings, indeed, were its chiefest delight. + Like a crook unto sheep gone astray + It beckoned backsliders to re-seek the right, + And exhorted the sinners to pray. + It always beat time when the choir went wrong, + In psalmody leading the van. + Old Hundred, I know, was its favorite song-- + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + A fig for the fans that are made nowadays, + Suited only to frivolous mirth! + A different thing was the fan that I praise, + Yet it scorned not the good things of earth. + At bees and at quiltings 'twas aye to be seen; + The best of the gossip began + When in at the doorway had entered serene + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + Tradition relates of it wonderful tales. + Its handle of leather was buff. + Though shorn of its glory, e'en now it exhales + An odor of hymn-books and snuff. + Its primeval grace, if you like, you can trace: + 'Twas limned for the future to scan, + Just under a smiling gold-spectacled face, + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + + + +_HOW TO ENJOY THE ECSTASY THAT ACCOMPANIES SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING_ + + +Before An Audience + +OR + +The Use of the Will in Public Speaking + +By NATHAN SHEPPARD + +_Talks to the Students of the University of St. Andrew and the +University of Aberdeen_ + +This is not a book on elocution, but it deals in a practical +common-sense way with the requirements and constituents of effective +public speaking. + +CAPITAL, FAMILIAR, AND RACY + + "I shall recommend it to our three schools of elocution. It is + capital, familiar, racy, and profoundly philosophical."--_Joseph T. + Duryea, D.D._ + +REPLETE WITH PRACTICAL SENSE + + "It is replete with practical sense and sound suggestions, and I + should like to have it talked into the students by the + author."--_Prof. J.H. Gilmore_, Rochester University. + +"KNOCKS TO FLINDERS" OLD THEORIES + + "The author knocks to flinders the theories of elocutionist, and + opposes all their rules with one simple counsel--'Wake up your + will.'"--_The New York Evangelist._ + +TO REACH, MOVE, AND INFLUENCE MEN + + "He does not teach elocution, but the art of public speaking.... + Gives suggestions that will enable one to reach and move and + influence men."--_The Pittsburg Chronicle._ + + +_12mo, Cloth, 152 Pages. Price, 75 cents_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +_FORCEFUL SPEAKING BY NEW METHODS_ + +THE ESSENTIALS OF ELOCUTION + +_Revised, Enlarged, New Matter_ + +By ALFRED AYRES + +_Author of "The Orthoepist," "The Verbalist," etc., etc._ + +A unique and valuable guide on the art of speaking the language so as to +make the thought it expresses clear and impressive. It is a departure +from the old and conventional methods which have tended so often to make +mere automatons on the platform or stage instead of animated souls. + +_HIGHLY PRAISED BY AUTHORITIES_ + + "It is worth more than all the ponderous philosophies on the + subject."--_The Lutheran Observer._ + + "It is a case where brevity is the soul of value."--_The Rochester + Herald._ + + "His suggestions are simple and sensible."--_The + Congregationalist._ + + "An unpretentious but really meritorious volume."--_Dramatic + Review._ + + "Mr. Ayres has made this subject a study for many years, and what + he has written is worth reading"--_The Dramatic News._ + + "It is brightly written and original."--_Richard Henry Stoddard._ + + +_16mo, Cloth, 174 Pages, Tasteful Binding Deckle Edges. With +Frontispiece. 75 cts._ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC + +_A Most Suggestive and Practical Self-Instructor_ + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +Author of "Power and Personality in Speaking," etc. + +This new book is a complete elocutionary manual comprizing numerous +exercises for developing the speaking voice, deep breathing, +pronunciation, vocal expression, and gesture; also selections for +practise from masterpieces of ancient and modern eloquence. It is +intended for students, teachers, business men, lawyers, clergymen, +politicians, clubs, debating societies, and, in fact, every one +interested in the art of public speaking. + +_OUTLINE OF CONTENTS_ + +Mechanics of Elocution Previous Preparation +Mental Aspects Physical Preparation +Public Speaking Mental Preparation +Selections for Practise Moral Preparation + Preparation of Speech + + "Many useful suggestions in it."--_Hon. Joseph H. Choate_, New + York. + + "It is admirable and practical instruction in the technic of + speaking, and I congratulate you upon your thorough work."--_Hon. + Albert J. Beveridge._ + + "The work has been very carefully and well compiled from a large + number of our best works on the subject of elocution. It contains + many admirable suggestions for those who are interested in becoming + better speakers. As a general text for use in teaching public + speaking, it may be used with great success." + + _John W. Wetzel_, Instructor in Public Speaking, Yale University, + New Haven, Conn. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, Net; Post-paid, $1.40_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +HOW TO DEVELOP + +Power and Personality + +IN SPEAKING + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +Author of "How to Speak in Public." Introduction by Lewis O. Brastow, +D.D., _Professor Emeritus, Yale Divinity School_ + +This new book gives practical suggestions and exercises for Developing +Power and Personality in Speaking. It has many selections for practise. + +POWER.--Power of Voice--Power of Gesture--Power of Vocabulary--Power of +Imagination--Power of English Style--Power of Illustration--Power of +Memory--Power of Extempore Speech--Power of Conversation--Power of +Silence--Power of a Whisper--Power of the Eye. + +PERSONALITY.--More Personality for the Lawyer--The Salesman--The +Preacher--The Politician--The Physician--The Congressman--The Alert +Citizen. + + "I give it my hearty commendation. It should take its place upon + the library shelves of every public speaker; be read carefully, + consulted frequently, and held as worthy of faithful obedience. For + lack of the useful hints that here abound, many men murder the + truth by their method of presenting it."--S. PARKES CADMAN, D.D., + Brooklyn, N.Y. + + "It is a book of value. The selections are fine. It is an excellent + book for college students."--WM. P. FRYE, _President pro tem. of + the United States Senate._ + + +_12mo, Cloth, 422 pages. Price, $1.25, net; by mail, $1.40_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +How to Develop + +Self-Confidence + +in Speech and Manner + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Author of "How to Speak in Public"; "How to Develop Power and +Personality in Speaking," etc._ + +The purpose of this book is to inspire in men lofty ideals. It is +particularly for those who daily defraud themselves because of doubt, +fearthought, and foolish timidity. + +Thousands of persons are held in physical and mental bondage, owing to +lack of self-confidence. Distrusting themselves, they live a life of +limited effort, and at last pass on without having realized more than a +small part of their rich possessions. It is believed that this book will +be of substantial service to those who wish to rise above mediocrity, +and who feel within them something of their divine inheritance. It is +commended with confidence to every ambitious man. + +_CONTENTS_ + + Preliminary Steps--Building the Will--The Cure of + Self-Consciousness--The Power of Right Thinking--Sources of + Inspiration--Concentration--Physical Basis--Finding + Yourself--General Habits--The Man and the Manner--The Discouraged + Man--Daily Steps in Self-Culture--Imagination and + Initiative--Positive and Negative Thought--The Speaking + Voice--Confidence in Business--Confidence in Society--Confidence in + Public Speaking--Toward the Heights--Memory Passages that Build + Confidence. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.35_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +How to + +ARGUE AND WIN + +IN CONVERSATION, IN SALESMANSHIP, IN COMMITTEE-MEETINGS, IN JURY CASES, +IN THE PULPIT, ON THE ROSTRUM, IN DEBATING SOCIETIES. + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Author of "How to Speak in Public," etc._ + +In this book will be found definite suggestions for training the mind in +accurate thinking and in the power of clear and effective statement. It +is the outcome of many years of experience in teaching men "to think on +their feet." The aim throughout is practical, and the ultimate end is a +knowledge of successful argumentation. + +CONTENTS + + Introductory--Truth and Facts--Clearness and Conciseness--The Use + of Words--The Syllogism--Faults--Personality--The Lawyer--The + Business Man--The Preacher--The Salesman--The Public + Speaker--Brief-Drawing--The Discipline of Debate--Tact--Cause and + Effect--Reading Habits--Questions for Solution--Specimens of + Argumentation--Golden Rules in Argumentation. + +Note for Law Lecture _Abraham Lincoln_ +Of Truth _Francis Bacon_ +Of Practise and Habits _John Locke_ +Improving the Memory _Isaac Watts_ + + "Mr. Kleiser offers no panacea (as the title might seem to imply). + Logic will not make a dunce a philosopher, neither will it insure + success where success is not deserved. But what he does offer the + honest debater in this practical book, is to put him in possession + of those laws of argumentation which lie at the bottom of sound + reasoning, based on fact."--_Times-Dispatch_, Richmond, Va. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.35_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +How to Read and Declaim + +A COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN READING AND DECLAMATION HAVING AS ITS PRIME +OBJECT THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE AND REFINEMENT + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Formerly Instructor in Public Speaking at Yale Divinity School; Author +of "How to Speak in Public," etc._ + +This eminently practical book is divided into five parts: + +PART ONE--Preparatory Course: Twenty Lessons on Naturalness, +Distinctness, Vivacity, Confidence, Simplicity, Deliberateness, and +kindred topics. + +PART TWO--Advance Course: Twenty Lessons on Thought Values, Thought +Directions, Persuasion, Power, Climax, etc., etc. + +PART THREE--Articulation and Pronunciation. + +PART FOUR--Gesture and Facial Expression. + +PART FIVE--The most up-to-date and popular prose and poetic selections +anywhere to be found. + +It is a book to beget intelligent reading, so as to develop in the +student mental alertness, poise, and self-confidence. + + +_12mo, Cloth. $1.25, net; by mail, $1.40_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +"_The Laugh Trust--Their Book_" + +HUMOROUS HITS AND HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE + +By GRENVILLE KLEISER + +_Author of "How to Speak in Public," etc._ + +A new collection of successful recitations, sketches, stories, poems, +monologues. The favorite numbers of favorite authors and entertainers. +The book also contains practical advice on the delivery of the +selections. The latest and best book for family reading, for teachers, +elocutionists, orators, after-dinner speakers, and actors. + +Mr. Kleiser gives also some practical suggestions as to the most +successful methods of delivering humorous or other selections, so that +they may make the strongest impression upon an audience. The book will +not only be found to be just what teachers, elocutionists, actors, +orators, and after-dinner speakers have been waiting for, but it will +also furnish entertaining material to read aloud to the family. + +FAVORITE SELECTIONS BY FAVORITE AUTHORS INCLUDING + +James Whitcomb Riley +Henry Drummond +Paul Laurence Dunbar +Edward Everett Hale +Tom Masson +Fred. Emerson Brooks +S.E. Kiser +S.W. Foss +Eugene Field +Robert J. Burdette +Bill Nye +W.J. Lampton +W.D. Nesbit +Thos. Bailey Aldrich +Nixon Waterman +Ben King +Walt Whitman +Mark Twain +Finley Peter Dunne +Richard Mansfield +Charles Follen Adams +Charles Batell Loomis +Joe Kerr +Wallace Irwin +AND MANY OTHERS + + +_Cloth, 12mo, 316 pages Price, $1, Net; Post-paid, $1.10_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +SPEECHES OF + +William Jennings Bryan + +_Revised and Arranged by Himself_ + + +In Five Uniform Volumes, Thin 12mo, Ornamented Boards--Dainty Style + + +_Following Are the Titles:_ + + THE PEOPLE'S LAW--A discussion of State Constitutions and what they + should contain. + THE PRICE OF A SOUL + THE VALUE OF AN IDEAL + THE PRINCE OF PEACE + MAN + +Reprinted in this form from Volume II of Mr. Bryan's Speeches. Each of +these four addresses has been delivered before many large audiences. + +These five volumes make a most attractive series. + +_Price of Each, 30 cents, net. Postage 5 cents_ + + * * * * * + +_Two Other Notable Speeches_ + +THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES; to which is added FAITH. The most important +address by Mr. Bryan since his two volumes of "Selected Speeches" were +compiled, with one of the best of those added. + + +_One 16mo Volume, in Flexible Leather, with Gilt-Top. 75 cents, net. +Postage 5 cents_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +_THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE LANGUAGE AND ITS LITERATURE_ + +Essentials of English Speech and Literature + +By FRANK H. VIZETELLY, Litt.D., LL.D. + +_Managing Editor of the Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary; Author +of "A Desk-Book of Errors in English," etc._ + +A record, in concise and interesting style, of the Origin, Growth, +Development, and Mutations of the English language. It treats of +Literature and its Elements; of the Dictionary as a Text-Book, and its +Functions; of Grammar, Phonetics, Pronunciation, and Reading; of the +Bible as a model of pure English; of Writing for Publication and of +Individuality in Writing; also of the Corruption of English Speech. + +An Appendix of the principal Authors and their works, and a Selection of +a Hundred Best Books is included. + + _Raymond Weeks, Ph.D._, Prof. Romance Languages, Columbia + University, says it is: "One of the most valuable books on this + subject which have come into my hands for a long time." + + _Brander Matthews, Litt.D., LL.D._, says it is: "A good book--a + book likely to do good, because it is generally sound and always + stimulating." + + +_8vo, Cloth, 428 pages. $1.50 net; average carriage charges, 12 cents_ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume +I. 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