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diff --git a/18465.txt b/18465.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1c3ff4 --- /dev/null +++ b/18465.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6192 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. +(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 II. (of X.) + +Author: Various + +Editor: Marshall P. Wilder + +Release Date: May 28, 2006 [EBook #18465] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR II. *** + + + + +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. II + + + + +[Illustration: JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY] + + + + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER + +_Volume II_ + + +Funk & Wagnalls Company +New York and London + +Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + Archaeological Congress, An Robert J. Burdette 390 + Aunt Dinah's Kitchen Harriet Beecher Stowe 335 + Ballad Charles Godfrey Leland 355 + Barney McGee Richard Hovey 223 + Beecher Beached, The John B. Tabb 232 + Boy's View of It, A Frank L. Stanton 393 + Budd Wilkins at the Show S.E. Kiser 352 + Colonel's Clothes, The Caroline Howard Gilman 396 + Comin' Thu Anne Virginia Culbertson 333 + Dutchman Who Had the "Small Pox," The Henry P. Leland 295 + Evening Musicale, An May Isabel Fisk 325 + Familiar Authors at Work Hayden Carruth 289 + Fascination John B. Tabb 222 + Golfer's Rubaiyat, The H.W. Boynton 319 + Go Lightly, Gal (The Cake Walk) Anne Virginia Culbertson 317 + Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready + for Sunday-School Sarah P. McLean Greene 266 + Hoosier and the Salt Pile, The Danforth Marble 357 + How "Ruby" Played George W. Bagby 311 + Letter, A Petroleum V. Nasby 282 + Lost Word, The John Paul 293 + Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum Wallace Irwin 307 + Mr. Dooley on Gold-Seeking Finley Peter Dunne 304 + Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates Finley Peter Dunne 321 + Natural Perversities James Whitcomb Riley 350 + Nautical Ballad, A Charles E. Carryl 348 + Old Deacon's Version of the Story + of the Rich Man and Lazarus, The Frank L. Stanton 227 + Our Best Society George William Curtis 233 + Plagiarism John B. Tabb 316 + Recruit, The Robert W. Chambers 230 + "Ringworm Frank" James Whitcomb Riley 395 + Rival Entertainment, A Kate Field 362 + Samuel Brown Phoebe Cary 259 + Seffy and Sally John Luther Long 372 + She Talked Sam Walter Foss 264 + Strike at Hinman's, The Robert J. Burdette 342 + Two Brothers, The Carolyn Wells 281 + Two Farmers, The Carolyn Wells 258 + Two New Houses, The Carolyn Wells 221 + Two Suitors, The Carolyn Wells 229 + Vive La Bagatelle Gelett Burgess 280 + Walk William Devere 300 + Way it Wuz, The James Whitcomb Riley 261 + Yawcob Strauss Charles Follen Adams 370 + Yes? John Boyle O'Reilly 222 + +COMPLETE INDEX AT THE END OF VOLUME X. + + + + +THE TWO NEW HOUSES + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time, there were Two Men, each of whom decided to build for +himself a Fine, New House. + +One Man, being of an Arrogant and Conceited Nature, took counsel of +Nobody, but declared that he would build his House to suit himself. + +"For," said he, "since it is My House and I am to Live in It, why should +I ask the Advice of my Neighbors as to its Construction?" + +While the House was Building, the Neighbors came often and Looked at it, +and went away, Whispering and Wagging their Heads in Derision. + +But the Man paid no Heed, and continued to build his House as he Would. + +The Result was that, when completed, his House was lacking in Symmetry +and Utility, and in a Hundred ways it was Unsatisfactory, and for each +Defect there was a Neighbor who said, "Had you asked Me, I would have +Warned you against that Error." + +The Other Man, who was of a Humble and Docile Mind, went to Each of his +Neighbors in Turn, and asked Advice about the Building of his House. + +His Friends willingly and at Great Length gave him the Benefit of their +Experiences and Opinions, and the Grateful Man undertook to Follow Out +all their Directions. + +The Result was that his House, when finished, was a Hodge-Podge of +Varying Styles and Contradictory Effects, and Exceedingly Uncomfortable +and Inconvenient to Live In. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that In a Multitude of Counselors there is Safety, +and that Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth. + + + + +YES? + +BY JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY + + + The words of the lips are double or single, + True or false, as we say or sing: + But the words of the eyes that mix and mingle + Are always saying the same old thing. + + + + +FASCINATION + +BY JOHN B. TABB + + + Among your many playmates here, + How is it that you all prefer + Your little friend, my dear? + "Because, mamma, tho' hard we try, + Not one of us can spit so high, + And catch it in his ear." + + + + +BARNEY MCGEE + +BY RICHARD HOVEY + + + Barney McGee, there's no end of good luck in you, + Will-o'-the-wisp, with a flicker of Puck in you, + Wild as a bull-pup, and all of his pluck in you-- + Let a man tread on your coat and he'll see! + Eyes like the lakes of Killarney for clarity, + Nose that turns up without any vulgarity, + Smile like a cherub, and hair that is carroty-- + Whoop, you're a rarity, Barney McGee! + Mellow as Tarragon, + Prouder than Aragon-- + Hardly a paragon, + You will agree-- + Here's all that's fine to you! + Books and old wine to you! + Girls be divine to you, + Barney McGee! + + Lucky the day when I met you unwittingly, + Dining where vagabonds came and went flittingly. + Here's some _Barbera_ to drink it befittingly, + That day at Silvio's, Barney McGee! + Many's the time we have quaffed our Chianti there, + Listened to Silvio quoting us Dante there-- + Once more to drink Nebiolo spumante there, + How we'd pitch Pommery into the sea! + There where the gang of us + Met ere Rome rang of us, + They had the hang of us + To a degree. + How they would trust to you! + That was but just to you. + Here's o'er their dust to you, + Barney McGee! + + Barney McGee, when you're sober you scintillate, + But when you're in drink you're the pride of the intellect; + Divil a one of us ever came in till late, + Once at the bar where you happened to be-- + Every eye there like a spoke in you centering, + You with your eloquence, blarney, and bantering-- + All Vagabondia shouts at your entering, + King of the Tenderloin, Barney McGee! + There's no satiety + In your society + With the variety + Of your esprit. + Here's a long purse to you, + And a great thirst to you! + Fate be no worse to you, + Barney McGee! + + Och, and the girls whose poor hearts you deracinate, + Whirl and bewilder and flutter and fascinate! + Faith, it's so killing you are, you assassinate-- + Murder's the word for you, Barney McGee! + Bold when they're sunny, and smooth when they're showery-- + Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! + Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! + How would they silence you, Barney machree? + Naught can your gab allay, + Learned as Rabelais + (You in his abbey lay + Once on the spree). + Here's to the smile of you, + (Oh, but the guile of you!) + And a long while of you, + Barney McGee! + + Facile with phrases of length and Latinity, + Like honorificabilitudinity, + Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, + Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? + Then your vivacity and pertinacity + Carry the day with the divil's audacity; + No mere veracity robs your sagacity + Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. + When all is new to them, + What will you do to them? + Will you be true to them? + Who shall decree? + Here's a fair strife to you! + Health and long life to you! + And a great wife to you, Barney McGee! + + Barney McGee, you're the pick of gentility; + Nothing can phase you, you've such a facility; + Nobody ever yet found your utility-- + There is the charm of you, Barney McGee; + Under conditions that others would stammer in, + Still unperturbed as a cat or a Cameron, + Polished as somebody in the Decameron, + Putting the glamour on price or Pawnee. + In your meanderin', + Love and philanderin', + Calm as a mandarin + Sipping his tea! + Under the art of you, + Parcel and part of you, + Here's to the heart of you, + Barney McGee! + + You who were ever alert to befriend a man, + You who were ever the first to defend a man, + You who had always the money to lend a man, + Down on his luck and hard up for a V! + Sure, you'll be playing a harp in beatitude + (And a quare sight you will be in that attitude)-- + Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude, + You'll find your latitude, Barney McGee. + That's no flim-flam at all, + Frivol or sham at all, + Just the plain--Damn it all, + Have one with me! + Here's one and more to you! + Friends by the score to you, + True to the core to you, + Barney McGee! + + + + +THE OLD DEACON'S VERSION OF THE STORY OF THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS + +BY FRANK L. STANTON + + + I s'pose yo' know de story, O my brotherin', er de man + Dat wuz rich ez cream, en livin' on de fatness er de lan'? + How he sot dar eatin' 'possum, en when Laz'rus ax fer some, + He tell 'im: "Git erway, dar! fer you'll never git a crumb!" + + De rich man wuz a feastin' f'um his chiny plate en cup, + Kaze he 'fraid his po' relations come en eat his wittles up; + I spec' he had _two_ 'possums on de table long en wide, + En a jimmyjohn er cane juice wuz a-settin' by his side. + + En he say: "Dis heah des suits me, en I gwine ter eat my fill; + But I'll sic de dogs on Laz'rus, ef he waitin' roun' heah still." + En de dogs commence dey barkin', raise a racket high en low, + En when Laz'rus see 'em comin' he decide 'twuz time ter go. + + So, he limp off on his crutches, en de rich man think it's fun, + But I reckon Laz'rus answer: "I'll git even wid you, son!" + De rich man so enjoy hisse'f he laugh hisse'f ter bed, + En, brotherin', when he wake up he wuz stiff, stone dead! + + En den he raise a racket, en he holler out: "What dis? + De place is onfamiliar, en I wonder whar' I is?" + Den Satan, he mek answer: "I'm de man ter tell you dat: + You's in de fire department er de place I livin' at!" + + Den de rich man say: "Whar' Laz'rus dat wuz beggin' at my gate?" + En Satan tell him: "Yander, wid a silver spoon en plate; + En he eatin' fit ter kill hisse'f! He spendin' er de day + Wid good ol' Mister Abra'm, but he mighty fur away!" + + "Will you please, suh," say de rich man, "ax him bring a drink ter me, + Wid a li'l' ice ter cool it? Kaze I hot ez hot kin be!" + But Satan fall ter laughin', whilst he stir de fire roun':-- + "De ice would melt, my brother, 'fo' it ever hit de groun'!" + + Den he fill a cup wid brimstone--fill it steamin' ter de top; + But de rich man say he swear off, dat he never tech a drop! + But Satan grab his pitchfork whilst de rich man give a squall, + En in 'bout a half a second he had swallered cup en all! + + Now, dat's erbout de story er de rich man at de feas', + What wouldn't pass de 'possum roun' when Laz'rus want a piece. + De 'possum means yo' pocketbook, de moral's plain ez day: + Shake de dollars in de basket 'fo' you go de rich man's way! + + + + +THE TWO SUITORS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there was a Charming Young Maiden who had Two Suitors. + +One of These, who was of a Persistent and Persevering Nature, managed to +be Continually in the Young Lady's Company. + +He would pay her a visit in the Morning, Drop In to Tea in the +Afternoon, and Call on her Again in the Evening. + +He took her Driving, and he Escorted her to the Theater. He would take +her to a Party, and then he would Dance, or Sit on the Stairs, or Flit +into the Conservatory with her. + +The Young Lady admired this man but she Wearied of his never-ceasing +Presence, and she Said to Herself, "If he were not Always at my Elbow I +should Better Appreciate his Good Qualities." + +The Other Suitor, who considered himself a Man of Deep and Penetrating +Cleverness, said to himself, "I will Go Away for a Time, and then my +Fair One will Realize my Worth and Call Me Back to Her." + +With a sad Visage he made his Adieus, and he Exacted her Pledge to Write +to him Occasionally. But after he had Gone she Forgot her Promise, and +Soon she Forgot his Very Existence. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, and that +Out of Sight is Out of Mind. + + + + +THE RECRUIT + +BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + "Bedad, yer a bad 'un! + Now turn out yer toes! + Yer belt is unhookit, + Yer cap is on crookit, + Ye may not be dhrunk, + But, be jabers, ye look it! + Wan--two! + Wan--two! + Ye monkey-faced divil, I'll jolly ye through! + Wan--two! + Time! Mark! + Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Parrk!" + + Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + "A saint it ud sadden + To dhrill such a mug! + Eyes front! ye baboon, ye! + Chin up! ye gossoon, ye! + Ye've jaws like a goat-- + Halt! ye leather-lipped loon, ye! + Wan--two! + Wan--two! + Ye whiskered orang-outang, I'll fix you! + Wan--two! + Time! Mark! + Ye've eyes like a bat! can ye see in the dark?" + + Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + "Yer figger wants padd'n-- + Sure, man, ye've no shape! + Behind ye yer shoulders + Stick out like two bowlders; + Yer shins is as thin + As a pair of pen-holders! + Wan--two! + Wan--two! + Yer belly belongs on yer back, ye Jew! + Wan--two! + Time! Mark! + I'm dhry as a dog--I can't shpake but I bark!" + + Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + "Me heart it ud gladden + To blacken yer eye. + Ye're gettin' too bold, ye + Compel me to scold ye-- + 'T is halt! that I say-- + Will ye heed what I told ye? + Wan--two + Wan--two! + Be jabers, I'm dhryer than Brian Boru! + Wan--two! + Time! Mark! + What's wur-ruk for chickens is sport for the lark!" + + Sez Corporal Madden to Private McFadden: + "I'll not stay a gadd'n + Wid dagoes like you! + I'll travel no farther, + I'm dyin' for--wather; + Come on, if ye like-- + Can ye loan me a quarther? + Ya-as, you, + What--two? + And ye'll pay the potheen? Ye're a daisy! + Whurroo! + You'll do! + Whist! Mark! + The Rigiment's flatthered to own ye, me spark!" + + + + +THE BEECHER BEACHED + +BY JOHN B. TABB + + + Were Harriet Beecher well aware + Of what was done in Delaware, + Of that unwholesome smell aware, + + She'd make all heaven and hell aware, + And ask John Brown to tell her where + Henceforth she best might sell her ware. + + + + +OUR BEST SOCIETY + +BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS + + +If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common sense, what a fine thing +our society would be! If to lavish money upon _objets de vertu_, to wear +the most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in the height of +the fashion; to build houses thirty feet broad, as if they were palaces; +to furnish them with all the luxurious devices of Parisian genius; to +give superb banquets, at which your guests laugh, and which make you +miserable; to drive a fine carriage and ape European liveries, and +crests, and coats-of-arms; to resent the friendly advances of your +baker's wife, and the lady of your butcher (you being yourself a +cobbler's daughter); to talk much of the "old families" and of your +aristocratic foreign friends; to despise labor; to prate of "good +society"; to travesty and parody, in every conceivable way, a society +which we know only in books and by the superficial observation of +foreign travel, which arises out of a social organization entirely +unknown to us, and which is opposed to our fundamental and essential +principles; if all this were fine, what a prodigiously fine society +would ours be! + +This occurred to us upon lately receiving a card of invitation to a +brilliant ball. We were quietly ruminating over our evening fire, with +Disraeli's Wellington speech, "all tears," in our hands, with the +account of a great man's burial, and a little man's triumph across the +channel. So many great men gone, we mused, and such great crises +impending! This democratic movement in Europe; Kossuth and Mazzini +waiting for the moment to give the word; the Russian bear watchfully +sucking his paws; the Napoleonic empire redivivus; Cuba, and annexation, +and Slavery; California and Australia, and the consequent considerations +of political economy; dear me! exclaimed we, putting on a fresh hodful +of coal, we must look a little into the state of parties. + +As we put down the coal-scuttle, there was a knock at the door. We said, +"come in," and in came a neat Alhambra-watered envelope, containing the +announcement that the queen of fashion was "at home" that evening week. +Later in the evening, came a friend to smoke a cigar. The card was lying +upon the table, and he read it with eagerness. "You'll go, of course," +said he, "for you will meet all the 'best society.'" + +Shall we, truly? Shall we really see the "best society of the city," the +picked flower of its genius, character and beauty? What makes the "best +society" of men and women? The noblest specimens of each, of course. The +men who mould the time, who refresh our faith in heroism and virtue, who +make Plato, and Zeno, and Shakespeare, and all Shakespeare's gentlemen, +possible again. The women, whose beauty, and sweetness, and dignity, and +high accomplishment, and grace, make us understand the Greek mythology, +and weaken our desire to have some glimpse of the most famous women of +history. The "best society" is that in which the virtues are most +shining, which is the most charitable, forgiving, long-suffering, +modest, and innocent. The "best society" is, by its very name, that in +which there is the least hypocrisy and insincerity of all kinds, which +recoils from, and blasts, artificiality, which is anxious to be all that +it is possible to be, and which sternly reprobates all shallow pretense, +all coxcombry and foppery, and insists upon simplicity as the +infallible characteristic of true worth. That is the "best society," +which comprises the best men and women. + +Had we recently arrived from the moon, we might, upon hearing that we +were to meet the "best society," have fancied that we were about to +enjoy an opportunity not to be overvalued. But unfortunately we were not +so freshly arrived. We had received other cards, and had perfected our +toilette many times, to meet this same society, so magnificently +described, and had found it the least "best" of all. Who compose it? +Whom shall we meet if we go to this ball? We shall meet three classes of +persons: first, those who are rich, and who have all that money can buy; +second, those who belong to what are technically called "the good old +families," because some ancestor was a man of mark in the state or +country, or was very rich, and has kept the fortune in the family; and, +thirdly, a swarm of youths who can dance dexterously, and who are +invited for that purpose. Now these are all arbitrary and factitious +distinctions upon which to found so profound a social difference as that +which exists in American, or, at least in New York, society. First, as a +general rule, the rich men of every community, who make their own money, +are not the most generally intelligent and cultivated. They have a +shrewd talent which secures a fortune, and which keeps them closely at +the work of amassing from their youngest years until they are old. They +are sturdy men, of simple tastes often. Sometimes, though rarely, very +generous, but necessarily with an altogether false and exaggerated idea +of the importance of money. They are a rather rough, unsympathetic, and, +perhaps, selfish class, who, themselves, despise purple and fine linen, +and still prefer a cot-bed and a bare room, although they may be worth +millions. But they are married to scheming, or ambitious, or +disappointed women, whose life is a prolonged pageant, and they are +dragged hither and thither in it, are bled of their golden blood, and +forced into a position they do not covet and which they despise. Then +there are the inheritors of wealth. How many of them inherit the valiant +genius and hard frugality which built up their fortunes; how many +acknowledge the stern and heavy responsibility of their opportunities +how many refuse to dream their lives away in a Sybarite luxury; how many +are smitten with the lofty ambition of achieving an enduring name by +works of a permanent value; how many do not dwindle into dainty +dilettanti, and dilute their manhood with factitious sentimentality +instead of a hearty, human sympathy; how many are not satisfied with +having the fastest horses and the "crackest" carriages, and an unlimited +wardrobe, and a weak affectation and puerile imitation of foreign life? + +And who are these of our secondly, these "old families?" The spirit of +our time and of our country knows no such thing, but the habitue of +"society" hears constantly of "a good family." It means simply, the +collective mass of children, grand-children, nephews, nieces, and +descendants, of some man who deserved well of his country, and whom his +country honors. But sad is the heritage of a great name! The son of +Burke will inevitably be measured by Burke. The niece of Pope must show +some superiority to other women (so to speak), or her equality is +inferiority. The feeling of men attributes some magical charm to blood, +and we look to see the daughter of Helen as fair as her mother, and the +son of Shakespeare musical as his sire. If they are not so, if they are +merely names, and common persons--if there is no Burke, nor Shakespeare, +nor Washington, nor Bacon, in their words, or actions, or lives, then we +must pity them, and pass gently on, not upbraiding them, but regretting +that it is one of the laws of greatness that it dwindles all things in +its vicinity, which would otherwise show large enough. Nay, in our +regard for the great man, we may even admit to a compassionate honor, as +pensioners upon our charity, those who bear and transmit his name. But +if these heirs should presume upon that fame, and claim any precedence +of living men and women because their dead grandfather was a hero--they +must be shown the door directly. We should dread to be born a Percy, or +a Colonna, or a Bonaparte. We should not like to be the second Duke of +Wellington, nor Charles Dickens, Jr. It is a terrible thing, one would +say, to a mind of honorable feeling, to be pointed out as somebody's +son, or uncle, or granddaughter, as if the excellence were all derived. +It must be a little humiliating to reflect that if your great-uncle had +not been somebody, you would be nobody--that, in fact, you are only a +name, and that, if you should consent to change it for the sake of a +fortune, as is sometimes done, you would cease to be anything but a rich +man. "My father was President, or Governor of the State," some pompous +man may say. But, by Jupiter! king of gods and men, what are _you_? is +the instinctive response. Do you not see, our pompous friend, that you +are only pointing your own unimportance? If your father was Governor of +the State, what right have you to use that fact only to fatten your +self-conceit? Take care, good care; for whether you say it by your lips +or by your life, that withering response awaits you--"then what are +_you_?" If your ancestor was great, you are under bonds to greatness. If +you are small, make haste to learn it betimes, and, thanking heaven that +your name has been made illustrious, retire into a corner and keep it, +at least, untarnished. + +Our thirdly, is a class made by sundry French tailors, bootmakers, +dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown. They are a corps-de-ballet, for use of +private entertainments. They are fostered by society for the use of +young debutantes, and hardier damsels, who have dared two or three years +of the "tight" polka. They are cultivated for their heels, not their +heads. Their life begins at ten o'clock in the evening, and lasts until +four in the morning. They go home and sleep until nine; then they reel, +sleepy, to counting-houses and offices, and doze on desks until +dinnertime. Or, unable to do that, they are actively at work all day, +and their cheeks grow pale, and their lips thin, and their eyes +bloodshot and hollow, and they drag themselves home at evening to catch +a nap until the ball begins, or to dine and smoke at their club, and the +very manly with punches and coarse stories; and then to rush into hot +and glittering rooms, and seize very _decollete_ girls closely around +the waist, and dash with them around an area of stretched linen, saying +in the panting pauses, "How very hot it is!" "How very pretty Miss Podge +looks!" "What a good redowa!" "Are you going to Mrs. Potiphar's?" + +Is this the assembled flower of manhood and womanhood, called "best +society," and to see which is so envied a privilege? If such are the +elements, can we be long in arriving at the present state, and necessary +future condition of parties? + +_Vanity Fair_ is peculiarly a picture of modern society. It aims at +English follies, but its mark is universal, as the madness is. It is +called a satire, but, after much diligent reading, we can not discover +the satire. A state of society not at all superior to that of _Vanity +Fair_ is not unknown to our experience; and, unless truth-telling be +satire; unless the most tragically real portraiture be satire; unless +scalding tears of sorrow, and the bitter regret of a manly mind over the +miserable spectacle of artificiality, wasted powers, misdirected +energies, and lost opportunities, be satirical; we do not find satire in +that sad story. The reader closes it with a grief beyond tears. It +leaves a vague apprehension in the mind, as if we should suspect the air +to be poisoned. It suggests the terrible thought of the enfeebling of +moral power, and the deterioration of noble character, as a necessary +consequence of contact with "society." Every man looks suddenly and +sharply around him, and accosts himself and his neighbors, to ascertain +if they are all parties to this corruption. Sentimental youths and +maidens, upon velvet sofas, or in calf-bound libraries, resolve that it +is an insult to human nature--are sure that their velvet and calf-bound +friends are not like the _dramatis personae_ of _Vanity Fair_, and that +the drama is therefore hideous and unreal. They should remember, what +they uniformly and universally forget, that we are not invited, upon the +rising of the curtain, to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the world, +but a representation of that part of it called Vanity Fair. What its +just limits are--how far its poisonous purlieus reach--how much of the +world's air is tainted by it, is a question which every thoughtful man +will ask himself, with a shudder, and look sadly around, to answer. If +the sentimental objectors rally again to the charge, and declare that, +if we wish to improve the world, its virtuous ambition must be piqued +and stimulated by making the shining heights of "the ideal" more +radiant; we reply, that none shall surpass us in honoring the men whose +creations of beauty inspire and instruct mankind. But if they benefit +the world, it is no less true that a vivid apprehension of the depths +into which we are sunken or may sink, nerves the soul's courage quite as +much as the alluring mirage of the happy heights we may attain. "To +hold the mirror up to Nature," is still the most potent method of +shaming sin and strengthening virtue. + +If _Vanity Fair_ be a satire, what novel of society is not? Are _Vivian +Grey_, and _Pelham_, and the long catalogue of books illustrating +English, or the host of Balzacs, Sands, Sues, and Dumas, that paint +French society, less satires? Nay, if you should catch any dandy in +Broadway, or in Pall-Mall, or upon the Boulevards, this very morning, +and write a coldly true history of his life and actions, his doings and +undoings, would it not be the most scathing and tremendous satire?--if +by satire you mean the consuming melancholy of the conviction that the +life of that pendant to a mustache is an insult to the possible life of +a man. + +We have read of a hypocrisy so thorough, that it was surprised you +should think it hypocritical: and we have bitterly thought of the +saying, when hearing one mother say of another mother's child, that she +had "made a good match," because the girl was betrothed to a stupid boy +whose father was rich. The remark was the key of our social feeling. + +Let us look at it a little, and, first of all, let the reader consider +the criticism, and not the critic. We may like very well, in our +individual capacity, to partake of the delicacies prepared by our +hostess's _chef_, we may not be averse to _pate_ and myriad _objets de +gout_, and if you caught us in a corner at the next ball, putting away a +fair share of _dinde aux truffes_, we know you would have at us in a +tone of great moral indignation, and wish to know why we sneaked into +great houses, eating good suppers, and drinking choice wines, and then +went away with an indigestion, to write dyspeptic disgusts at society. + +We might reply that it is necessary to know something of a subject +before writing about it, and that if a man wished to describe the habits +of South Sea Islanders, it is useless to go to Greenland; we might also +confess a partiality for _pate_, and a tenderness for _truffes_, and +acknowledge that, considering our single absence would not put down +extravagant, pompous parties, we were not strong enough to let the +morsels drop into unappreciating mouths; or we might say, that if a man +invited us to see his new house, it would not be ungracious nor +insulting to his hospitality, to point out whatever weak parts we might +detect in it, nor to declare our candid conviction, that it was built +upon wrong principles and could not stand. He might believe us, if we +had been in the house, but he certainly would not, if we had never seen +it. Nor would it be a very wise reply upon his part, that we might build +a better if we didn't like that. We are not fond of David's pictures, +but we certainly could never paint half so well; nor of Pope's poetry, +but posterity will never hear of our verses. Criticism is not +construction, it is observation. If we could surpass in its own way +everything which displeased us, we should make short work of it, and +instead of showing what fatal blemishes deform our present society, we +should present a specimen of perfection, directly. + +We went to the brilliant ball. There was too much of everything. Too +much light, and eating, and drinking, and dancing, and flirting, and +dressing, and feigning, and smirking, and much too many people. Good +taste insists first upon fitness. But why had Mrs. Potiphar given this +ball? We inquired industriously, and learned it was because she did not +give one last year. Is it then essential to do this thing biennially? +inquired we with some trepidation. "Certainly," was the bland reply, "or +society will forget you." Everybody was unhappy at Mrs. Potiphar's, +save a few girls and boys, who danced violently all the evening. Those +who did not dance walked up and down the rooms as well as they could, +squeezing by non-dancing ladies, causing them to swear in their hearts +as the brusque broadcloth carried away the light outworks of gauze and +gossamer. The dowagers, ranged in solid phalanx, occupied all the chairs +and sofas against the wall, and fanned themselves until supper-time, +looking at each other's diamonds, and criticizing the toilettes of the +younger ladies, each narrowly watching her peculiar Polly Jane, that she +did not betray too much interest in any man who was not of a certain +fortune.--It is the cold, vulgar truth, madam, nor are we in the +slightest degree exaggerating.--Elderly gentlemen, twisting single +gloves in a very wretched manner, came up and bowed to the dowagers, and +smirked, and said it was a pleasant party, and a handsome house, and +then clutched their hands behind them, and walked miserably away, +looking as affable as possible. And the dowagers made a little fun of +the elderly gentlemen, among themselves, as they walked away. + +Then came the younger non-dancing men--a class of the community who wear +black cravats and waistcoats, and thrust their thumbs and forefingers in +their waistcoat-pockets, and are called "talking men." Some of them are +literary, and affect the philosopher; have, perhaps, written a book or +two, and are a small species of lion to very young ladies. Some are of +the _blase_ kind; men who affect the extremest elegance, and are reputed +"so aristocratic," and who care for nothing in particular, but wish they +had not been born gentlemen, in which case they might have escaped +ennui. These gentlemen stand with hat in hand, and their coats and +trousers are unexceptionable. They are the "so gentlemanly" persons of +whom one hears a great deal, but which seems to mean nothing but +cleanliness. Vivian Grey and Pelham are the models of their ambition, +and they succeed in being Pendennis. They enjoy the reputation of being +"very clever," and "very talented fellows," and "smart chaps"; but they +refrain from proving what is so generously conceded. They are often men +of a certain cultivation. They have traveled, many of them--spending a +year or two in Paris, and a month or two in the rest of Europe. +Consequently they endure society at home, with a smile, and a shrug, and +a graceful superciliousness, which is very engaging. They are perfectly +at home, and they rather despise Young America, which, in the next room, +is diligently earning its invitation. They prefer to hover about the +ladies who did not come out this season, but are a little used to the +world, with whom they are upon most friendly terms, and they criticize +together, very freely, all the great events in the great world of +fashion. + +These elegant Pendennises we saw at Mrs. Potiphar's, but not without a +sadness which can hardly be explained. They had been boys once, all of +them, fresh and frank-hearted, and full of a noble ambition. They had +read and pondered the histories of great men; how they resolved, and +struggled, and achieved. In the pure portraiture of genius, they had +loved and honored noble women, and each young heart was sworn to truth +and the service of beauty. Those feelings were chivalric and fair. Those +boyish instincts clung to whatever was lovely, and rejected the specious +snare, however graceful and elegant. They sailed, new knights, upon that +old and endless crusade against hypocrisy and the devil, and they were +lost in the luxury of Corinth, nor longer seek the difficult shores +beyond. A present smile was worth a future laurel. The ease of the +moment was worth immortal tranquillity. They renounced the stern +worship of the unknown God, and acknowledged the deities of Athens. But +the seal of their shame is their own smile at their early dreams, and +the high hopes of their boyhood, their sneering infidelity of +simplicity, their skepticism of motives and of men. Youths, whose +younger years were fervid with the resolution to strike and win, to +deserve, at least, a gentle remembrance, if not a dazzling fame, are +content to eat, and drink, and sleep well; to go to the opera and all +the balls; to be known as "gentlemanly," and "aristocratic," and +"dangerous," and "elegant"; to cherish a luxurious and enervating +indolence, and to "succeed," upon the cheap reputation of having been +"fast" in Paris. The end of such men is evident enough from the +beginning. They are snuffed out by a "great match," and become an +appendage to a rich woman; or they dwindle off into old _roues_, men of +the world in sad earnest, and not with elegant affectation, _blase_; and +as they began Arthur Pendennises, so they end the Major. But, believe +it, that old fossil heart is wrung sometimes by a mortal pang, as it +remembers those squandered opportunities and that lost life. + +From these groups we passed into the dancing-room. We have seen dancing +in other countries, and dressing. We have certainly never seen gentlemen +dance so easily, gracefully, and well, as the American. But the _style_ +of dancing, in its whirl, its rush, its fury, is only equaled by that of +the masked balls at the French opera, and the balls at the _Salle +Valentino_, the _Jardin Mabille_, the _Chateau Rouge_, and other +favorite resorts of Parisian grisettes and lorettes. We saw a few young +men looking upon the dance very soberly, and, upon inquiry, learned that +they were engaged to certain ladies of the corps-de-ballet. Nor did we +wonder that the spectacle of a young woman whirling in a _decollete_ +state, and in the embrace of a warm youth, around a heated room, induced +a little sobriety upon her lover's face, if not a sadness in his heart. +Amusement, recreation, enjoyment! There are no more beautiful things. +But this proceeding falls under another head. We watched the various +toilettes of these bounding belles. They were rich and tasteful. But a +man at our elbow, of experience and shrewd observation, said, with a +sneer, for which we called him to account, "I observe that American +ladies are so rich in charms that they are not at all chary of them. It +is certainly generous to us miserable black coats. But, do you know, it +strikes me as a generosity of display that must necessarily leave the +donor poorer in maidenly feeling." We thought ourselves cynical, but +this was intolerable; and in a very crisp manner we demanded an apology. + +"Why," responded our friend with more of sadness than of satire in his +tone, "why are you so exasperated? Look at this scene! Consider that +this is, really, the life of these girls. This is what they 'come out' +for. This is the end of their ambition. They think of it, dream of it, +long for it. Is it amusement? Yes, to a few, possibly. But listen and +gather, if you can, from their remarks (when they make any), that they +have any thought beyond this, and going to church very rigidly on +Sunday. The vigor of polkaing and church-going are proportioned; as is +the one so is the other. My young friend, I am no ascetic, and do not +suppose a man is damned because he dances. But life is not a ball +(more's the pity, truly, for these butterflies), nor is its sole duty +and delight dancing. When I consider this spectacle--when I remember +what a noble and beautiful woman is, what a manly man,--when I reel, +dazzled by this glare, drunken by these perfumes, confused by this +alluring music, and reflect upon the enormous sums wasted in a pompous +profusion that delights no one--when I look around upon all this rampant +vulgarity in tinsel and Brussels lace, and think how fortunes go, how +men struggle and lose the bloom of their honesty, how women hide in a +smiling pretense, and eye with caustic glances their neighbor's newer +house, diamonds or porcelain, and observe their daughters, such as +these--why, I tremble, and tremble, and this scene to-night, every +'crack' ball this winter, will be, not the pleasant society of men and +women, but--even in this young country--an orgie such as rotting Corinth +saw, a frenzied festival of Rome in its decadence." + +There was a sober truth in this bitterness, and we turned away to escape +the sombre thought of the moment. Addressing one of the panting houris +who stood melting in a window, we spoke (and confess how absurdly) of +the Duesseldorf Gallery. It was merely to avoid saying how warm the room +was, and how pleasant the party was, facts upon which we had already +enlarged. "Yes, they are pretty pictures; but la! how long it must have +taken Mr. Duesseldorf to paint them all;" was the reply. + +By the Farnesian Hercules! no Roman sylph in her city's decline would +ever have called the sun-god, Mr. Apollo. We hope that houri melted +entirely away in the window; but we certainly did not stay to see. + +Passing out toward the supper-room we encountered two young men. "What, +Hal," said one, "_you_ at Mrs. Potiphar's?" It seems that Hal was a +sprig of one of the "old families." "Well, Joe," said Hal, a little +confused, "it _is_ a little strange. The fact is I didn't mean to be +here, but I concluded to compromise by coming, _and not being introduced +to the host_." Hal could come, eat Potiphar's supper, drink his wines, +spoil his carpets, laugh at his fashionable struggles, and affect the +puppyism of a foreign lord, because he disgraced the name of a man who +had done some service somewhere, while Potiphar was only an honest man +who made a fortune. + +The supper-room was a pleasant place. The table was covered with a chaos +of supper. Everything sweet and rare, and hot and cold, solid and +liquid, was there. It was the very apotheosis of gilt gingerbread. There +was a universal rush and struggle. The charge of the guards at Waterloo +was nothing to it. Jellies, custard, oyster-soup, ice-cream, wine and +water, gushed in profuse cascades over transparent precipices of +_tulle_, muslin, gauze, silk and satin. Clumsy boys tumbled against +costly dresses and smeared them with preserves; when clean plates +failed, the contents of plates already used were quietly "chucked" under +the table--heel-taps of champagne were poured into the oyster tureens or +overflowed upon plates to clear the glasses--wine of all kinds flowed in +torrents, particularly down the throats of very young men, who evinced +their manhood by becoming noisy, troublesome, and disgusting, and were +finally either led, sick, into the hat room, or carried out of the way, +drunk. The supper over, the young people, attended by their matrons, +descended to the dancing-room for the "German." This is a dance +commencing usually at midnight or a little after, and continuing +indefinitely toward daybreak. The young people were attended by their +matrons, who were there to supervise the morals and manners of their +charges. To secure the performance of this duty, the young people took +good care to sit where the matrons could not see them, nor did they, by +any chance, look toward the quarter in which the matrons sat. In that +quarter, through all the varying mazes of the prolonged dance, to two +o'clock, to three, to four, sat the bediamonded dowagers, the mothers, +the matrons--against nature, against common sense. They babbled with +each other, they drowsed, they dozed. Their fans fell listless into +their laps. In the adjoining room, out of the waking sight, even, of the +then sleeping mamas, the daughters whirled in the close embrace of +partners who had brought down bottles of champagne from the supper-room, +and put them by the side of their chairs for occasional refreshment +during the dance. The dizzy hours staggered by--"Azalia, you _must_ come +now," had been already said a dozen times, but only as by the scribes. +Finally it was declared with authority. Azalia went--Amelia--Arabella. +The rest followed. There was prolonged cloaking, there were lingering +farewells. A few papas were in the supper-room, sitting among the +_debris_ of game. A few young non-dancing husbands sat beneath gas +unnaturally bright, reading whatever chance book was at hand, and +thinking of the young child at home waiting for mama who was dancing the +"German" below. A few exhausted matrons sat in the robing-room, tired, +sad, wishing Jane would come up; assailed at intervals by a vague +suspicion that it was not quite worth while; wondering how it was they +used to have such good times at balls; yawning, and looking at their +watches; while the regular beat of the music below, with sardonic +sadness, continued. At last Jane came up, had had the most glorious +time, and went down with mamma to the carriage, and so drove home. Even +the last Jane went--the last noisy youth was expelled--and Mr. and Mrs. +Potiphar, having duly performed their biennial social duty, dismissed +the music, ordered the servants to count the spoons, and an hour or two +after daylight went to bed. Enviable Mr. and Mrs. Potiphar! + +We are now prepared for the great moral indignation of the friend who +saw us eating our _dinde aux truffes_ in that remarkable supper-room. +We are waiting to hear him say in the most moderate and "gentlemanly" +manner, that it is all very well to select flaws and present them as +specimens, and to learn from him, possibly with indignant publicity, +that the present condition of parties is not what we have intimated. Or, +in his quiet and pointed way, he may smile at our fiery assault upon +edged flounces, and nuga pyramids, and the kingdom of Lilliput in +general. + +Yet, after all, and despite the youths who are led out, and carried +home, or who stumble through the "German," this is a sober matter. My +friend told us we should see the "best society." But he is a prodigious +wag. Who make this country? From whom is its character of unparalleled +enterprise, heroism, and success derived? Who have given it its place in +the respect and the fear of the world? Who, annually, recruit its +energies, confirm its progress, and secure its triumph? Who are its +characteristic children, the pith, the sinew, the bone, of its +prosperity? Who found, and direct, and continue its manifold +institutions of mercy and education? Who are, essentially, Americans? +Indignant friend, these classes, whoever they may be, are the "best +society," because they alone are the representatives of its character +and cultivation. They are the "best society" of New York, of Boston, of +Baltimore, of St. Louis, of New Orleans, whether they live upon six +hundred or sixty thousand dollars a year--whether they inhabit princely +houses in fashionable streets (which they often do), or not--whether +their sons have graduated at Celarius's and the _Jardin Mabille_, or +have never been out of their father's shops--whether they have "air" and +"style," and are "so gentlemanly" and "so aristocratic," or not. Your +shoemaker, your lawyer, your butcher, your clergyman--if they are +simple and steady, and, whether rich or poor, are unseduced by the +sirens of extravagance and ruinous display, help make up the "best +society." For that mystic communion is not composed of the rich, but of +the worthy; and is "best" by its virtues, and not by its vices. When +Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds, and their friends, met at +supper in Goldsmith's rooms, where was the "best society" in England? +When George the Fourth outraged humanity in his treatment of Queen +Caroline, who was the first scoundrel in Europe? + +Pause yet a moment, indignant friend. Whose habits and principles would +ruin this country as rapidly as it has been made? Who are enamored of a +puerile imitation of foreign splendors? Who strenuously endeavor to +graft the questionable points of Parisian society upon our own? Who pass +a few years in Europe and return skeptical of republicanism and human +improvement, longing and sighing for more sharply emphasized social +distinctions? Who squander, with profuse recklessness, the hard-earned +fortunes of their sires? Who diligently devote their time to nothing, +foolishly and wrongly supposing that a young English nobleman has +nothing to do? Who, in fine, evince by their collective conduct, that +they regard their Americanism as a misfortune, and are so the most +deadly enemies of their country? None but what our wag facetiously +termed "the best society." + +If the reader doubts, let him consider its practical results in any +great emporiums of "best society." Marriage is there regarded as a +luxury, too expensive for any but the sons of rich men, or fortunate +young men. We once heard an eminent divine assert, and only half in +sport, that the rate of living was advancing so incredibly, that +weddings in his experience were perceptibly diminishing. The reasons +might have been many and various. But we all acknowledge the fact. On +the other hand, and about the same time, a lovely damsel (ah! Clorinda!) +whose father was not wealthy, who had no prospective means of support, +who could do nothing but polka to perfection, who literally knew almost +nothing, and who constantly shocked every fairly intelligent person by +the glaring ignorance betrayed in her remarks, informed a friend at one +of the Saratoga balls, whither he had made haste to meet "the best +society," that there were "not more than three good matches in society." +_La Dame aux Camelias_, Marie Duplessis, was to our fancy a much more +feminine, and admirable, and moral, and human person, than the adored +Clorinda. And yet what she said was the legitimate result of the state +of our fashionable society. It worships wealth, and the pomp which +wealth can purchase, more than virtue, genius or beauty. We may be told +that it has always been so in every country, and that the fine society +of all lands is as profuse and flashy as our own. We deny it, flatly. +Neither English, nor French, nor Italian, nor German society, is so +unspeakably barren as that which is technically called "society" here. +In London, and Paris, and Vienna, and Rome, all the really eminent men +and women help make up the mass of society. A party is not a mere ball, +but it is a congress of the wit, beauty, and fame of the capital. It is +worth while to dress, if you shall meet Macaulay, or Hallam, or Guizot, +or Thiers, or Landseer, or Delaroche--Mrs. Norton, the Misses Berry, +Madame Recamier, and all the brilliant women and famous foreigners. But +why should we desert the pleasant pages of those men, and the recorded +gossip of those women, to be squeezed flat against a wall, while young +Doughface pours oyster-gravy down our shirt-front, and Caroline +Pettitoes wonders at "Mr. Duesseldorf's" industry? + +If intelligent people decline to go, you justly remark, it is their own +fault. Yes, but if they stay away, it is very certainly their great +gain. The elderly people are always neglected with us, and nothing +surprises intelligent strangers more than the tyrannical supremacy of +Young America. But we are not surprised at this neglect. How can we be, +if we have our eyes open? When Caroline Pettitoes retreats from the +floor to the sofa, and, instead of a "polker," figures at parties as a +matron, do you suppose that "tough old Joes" like ourselves are going to +desert the young Caroline upon the floor, for Madame Pettitoes upon the +sofa? If the pretty young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness, a +fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-transparent haze of flounced +and flowered gauze, is so vapid that we prefer to accost her with our +eyes alone, and not with our tongues, is the same Caroline married into +a Madame Pettitoes, and fanning herself upon a sofa--no longer +particularly fresh, nor young, nor pretty, and no longer budding, but +very fully blown--likely to be fascinating in conversation? We can not +wonder that the whole connection of Pettitoes, when advanced to the +matron state, is entirely neglected. Proper homage to age we can all pay +at home, to our parents and grandparents. Proper respect for some +persons is best preserved by avoiding their neighborhood. + +And what, think you, is the influence of this extravagant expense and +senseless show upon these same young men and women? We can easily +discover. It saps their noble ambition, assails their health, lowers +their estimate of men, and their reverence for women, cherishes an eager +and aimless rivalry, weakens true feeling, wipes away the bloom of true +modesty, and induces an ennui, a satiety, and a kind of dilettante +misanthropy, which is only the more monstrous because it is undoubtedly +real. You shall hear young men of intelligence and cultivation, to whom +the unprecedented circumstances of this country offer opportunities of a +great and beneficent career, complaining that they were born within this +blighted circle; regretting that they were not bakers and +tallow-chandlers, and under no obligation to keep up appearances; +deliberately surrendering all the golden possibilities of that future +which this country, beyond all others, holds before them; sighing that +they are not rich enough to marry the girls they love, and bitterly +upbraiding fortune that they are not millionaires; suffering the vigor +of their years to exhale in idle wishes and pointless regrets; +disgracing their manhood by lying in wait behind their "so gentlemanly" +and "aristocratic" manners, until they can pounce upon a "fortune" and +ensnare an heiress into matrimony: and so, having dragged their +gifts--their horses of the sun--into a service which shames all their +native pride and power, they sink in the mire; and their peers and +emulators exclaim that they have "made a good thing of it." + +Are these the processes by which a noble race is made and perpetuated? +At Mrs. Potiphar's we heard several Pendennises longing for a similar +luxury, and announcing their firm purpose never to have wives nor houses +until they could have them as splendid as jewelled Mrs. Potiphar, and +her palace, thirty feet front. Where were their heads, and their hearts, +and their arms? How looks this craven despondency, before the stern +virtues of the ages we call dark? When a man is so voluntarily imbecile +as to regret he is not rich, if that is what he wants, before he has +struck a blow for wealth; or so dastardly as to renounce the prospect of +love, because, sitting sighing, in velvet dressing-gown and slippers, he +does not see his way clear to ten thousand a year: when young women +coiffed _a merveille_, of unexceptionable "style," who, with or without +a prospective penny, secretly look down upon honest women who struggle +for a livelihood, like noble and Christian beings, and, as such, are +rewarded; in whose society a man must forget that he has ever read, +thought, or felt; who destroy in the mind the fair ideal of woman, which +the genius of art, and poetry, and love, their inspirer has created; +then, it seems to us, it is high time that the subject should be +regarded, not as a matter of breaking butterflies upon the wheel, but as +a sad and sober question, in whose solution, all fathers and mothers, +and the state itself, are interested. When keen observers, and men of +the world, from Europe, are amazed and appalled at the giddy whirl and +frenzied rush of our society--a society singular in history for the +exaggerated prominence it assigns to wealth, irrespective of the talents +that amassed it, they and their possessor being usually hustled out of +sight--is it not quite time to ponder a little upon the Court of Louis +XIV, and the "merrie days" of King Charles II? Is it not clear that, if +what our good wag, with caustic irony, called "best society," were +really such, every thoughtful man would read upon Mrs. Potiphar's +softly-tinted walls the terrible "mene, mene" of an imminent +destruction? + +Venice in her purple prime of luxury, when the famous law was passed +making all gondolas black, that the nobles should not squander fortunes +upon them, was not more luxurious than New York to-day. Our hotels have +a superficial splendor, derived from a profusion of gilt and paint, wood +and damask. Yet, in not one of them can the traveler be so quietly +comfortable as in an English inn, and nowhere in New York can the +stranger procure a dinner, at once so neat and elegant, and economical, +as at scores of cafes in Paris. The fever of display has consumed +comfort. A gondola plated with gold was no easier than a black wooden +one. We could well spare a little gilt upon the walls, for more +cleanliness upon the public table; nor is it worth while to cover the +walls with mirrors to reflect a want of comfort. One prefers a wooden +bench to a greasy velvet cushion, and a sanded floor to a soiled and +threadbare carpet. An insipid uniformity is the Procrustes-bed, upon +which "society" is stretched. Every new house is the counterpart of +every other, with the exception of more gilt, if the owner can afford +it. The interior arrangement, instead of being characteristic, instead +of revealing something of the tastes and feelings of the owner, is +rigorously conformed to every other interior. The same hollow and tame +complaisance rules in the intercourse of society. Who dares say +precisely what he thinks upon a great topic? What youth ventures to say +sharp things, of slavery, for instance, at a polite dinner-table? What +girl dares wear curls, when Martelle prescribes puffs or bandeaux? What +specimen of Young America dares have his trousers loose or wear straps +to them? We want individuality, heroism, and, if necessary, an +uncompromising persistence in difference. + +This is the present state of parties. They are wildly extravagant, full +of senseless display; they are avoided by the pleasant and intelligent, +and swarm with reckless regiments of "Brown's men." The ends of the +earth contribute their choicest products to the supper, and there is +everything that wealth can purchase, and all the spacious splendor that +thirty feet front can afford. They are hot, and crowded, and glaring. +There is a little weak scandal, venomous, not witty, and a stream of +weary platitude, mortifying to every sensible person. Will any of our +Pendennis friends intermit their indignation for a moment, and consider +how many good things they have said or heard during the season? If Mr. +Potiphar's eyes should chance to fall here, will he reckon the amount of +satisfaction and enjoyment he derived from Mrs. Potiphar's ball, and +will that lady candidly confess what she gained from it beside weariness +and disgust? What eloquent sermons we remember to have heard in which +the sins and the sinners of Babylon, Jericho and Gomorrah were scathed +with holy indignation. The cloth is very hard upon Cain, and completely +routs the erring kings of Judah. The Spanish Inquisition, too, gets +frightful knocks, and there is much eloquent exhortation to preach the +gospel in the interior of Siam. Let it be preached there and God speed +the Word. But also let us have a text or two in Broadway and the Avenue. + +The best sermon ever preached upon society, within our knowledge, is +_Vanity Fair_. Is the spirit of that story less true of New York than of +London? Probably we never see Amelia at our parties, nor Lieutenant +George Osborne, nor good gawky Dobbin, nor Mrs. Rebecca Sharp Crawley, +nor old Steyne. We are very much pained, of course, that any author +should take such dreary views of human nature. We, for our parts, all go +to Mrs. Potiphar's to refresh our faith in men and women. Generosity, +amiability, a catholic charity, simplicity, taste, sense, high +cultivation, and intelligence, distinguish our parties. The statesman +seeks their stimulating influence; the literary man, after the day's +labor, desires the repose of their elegant conversation; the +professional man and the merchant hurry up from down town to shuffle off +the coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life in the agreeable +picture of its amenities and graces presented by Mrs. Potiphar's ball. +Is this account of the matter, or _Vanity Fair_, the satire? What are +the prospects of any society of which that tale is the true history? + +There is a picture in the Luxembourg gallery at Paris, _The Decadence of +the Romans_, which made the fame and fortune of Couture, the painter. It +represents an orgie in the court of a temple, during the last days of +Rome. A swarm of revellers occupy the middle of the picture, wreathed in +elaborate intricacy of luxurious posture, men and women intermingled; +their faces, in which the old Roman fire scarcely flickers, brutalized +with excess of every kind; their heads of dishevelled hair bound with +coronals of leaves, while, from goblets of an antique grace, they drain +the fiery torrent which is destroying them. Around the bacchanalian +feast stand, lofty upon pedestals, the statues of old Rome, looking, +with marble calmness and the severity of a rebuke beyond words, upon the +revellers. A youth of boyish grace, with a wreath woven in his tangled +hair, and with red and drowsy eyes, sits listless upon one pedestal, +while upon another stands a boy insane with drunkenness, and proffering +a dripping goblet to the marble mouth of the statue. In the corner of +the picture, as if just quitting the court--Rome finally departing--is a +group of Romans with care-worn brows, and hands raised to their faces in +melancholy meditation. In the foreground of the picture, which is +painted with all the sumptuous splendor of Venetian art, is a stately +vase, around which hangs a festoon of gorgeous flowers, its end dragging +upon the pavement. In the background, between the columns, smiles the +blue sky of Italy--the only thing Italian not deteriorated by time. The +careful student of this picture, if he have been long in Paris, is some +day startled by detecting, especially in the faces of the women +represented, a surprising likeness to the women of Paris, and perceives, +with a thrill of dismay, that the models for this picture of decadent +human nature are furnished by the very city in which he lives. + + + + +THE TWO FARMERS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there were Two Farmers who wished to Sell their Farms. + +To One came a Buyer who offered a Fair Price, but the Farmer refused to +Sell, saying he had heard rumors of a Railroad which was to be Built in +his Vicinity, and he hoped The Corporation would buy his Farm at a Large +Figure. + +The Buyer therefore went Away, and as the Railroad never Materialized, +the Farmer Sorely Regretted that he lost a Good Chance. + +The Other Farmer Sold his Farm to the First Customer who came Along, +although he Received but a Small Price for it. Soon Afterward a Railroad +was Built right through the Same Farm, and The Railroad Company paid an +Enormous Sum for the Land. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that a Bird In The Hand is worth Two In The Bush, and +The Patient Waiter Is No Loser. + + + + +SAMUEL BROWN + +BY PHOEBE CARY + + + It was many and many a year ago, + In a dwelling down in town, + That a fellow there lived whom you may know, + By the name of Samuel Brown; + And this fellow he lived with no other thought + Than to our house to come down. + + I was a child, and he was a child, + In that dwelling down in town, + But we loved with a love that was more than love, + I and my Samuel Brown,-- + With a love that the ladies coveted, + Me and Samuel Brown. + + And this was the reason that, long ago, + To that dwelling down in town, + A girl came out of her carriage, courting + My beautiful Samuel Brown; + So that her high-bred kinsmen came, + And bore away Samuel Brown, + And shut him up in a dwelling house, + In a street quite up in town. + + The ladies, not half so happy up there, + Went envying me and Brown; + Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, + In this dwelling down in town), + That the girl came out of the carriage by night, + Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown. + + But our love is more artful by far than the love + If those who are older than we,-- + Of many far wiser than we,-- + And neither the girls that are living above, + Nor the girls that are down in town, + Can ever dissever my soul from the soul + Of the beautiful Samuel Brown. + + For the morn never shines, without bringing me lines, + From my beautiful Samuel Brown; + And the night's never dark, but I sit in the park + With my beautiful Samuel Brown. + And often by day, I walk down in Broadway, + With my darling, my darling, my life and my stay, + To our dwelling down in town, + To our house in the street down town. + + + + +THE WAY IT WUZ + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + Las' July--an', I presume + 'Bout as hot + As the ole Gran'-Jury room + Where they sot!-- + Fight 'twixt Mike an' Dock McGriff-- + 'Pears to me jes' like as if + I'd a dremp' the whole blame thing-- + Allus ha'nts me roun' the gizzard + When they're nightmares on the wing, + An' a feller's blood 's jes' friz! + Seed the row from a to izzard-- + 'Cause I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em + As me an' you is! + + Tell you the way it wuz-- + An' I don't want to see, + Like _some_ fellers does, + When they're goern to be + Any kind o' fuss-- + On'y makes a rumpus wuss + Fer to interfere + When their dander's riz-- + But I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em + As me an' you is! + + I wuz kind o' strayin' + Past the blame saloon-- + Heerd some fiddler playin' + That "ole hee-cup tune!" + Sort o' stopped, you know, + Fer a minit er so, + And wuz jes' about + Settin' down, when--_Jeemses whizz_! + Whole durn winder-sash fell out! + An' there laid Dock McGriff, and Mike + A-straddlin' him, all bloody-like, + An' both a-gittin' down to biz!-- + An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em + As me an' you is! + + I wuz the on'y man aroun'-- + (Durn old-fogy town! + 'Peared more like, to me, + _Sund'y_ 'an _Saturd'y!_) + Dog come 'crost the road + An' tuck a smell + An' put right back; + Mishler driv by 'ith a load + O' cantalo'pes he couldn't sell-- + Too mad, 'y jack! + To even ast + What wuz up, as he went past! + Weather most outrageous hot!-- + Fairly hear it sizz + Roun' Dock an' Mike--till Dock he shot, + An' Mike he slacked that grip o' his + An' fell, all spraddled out. Dock riz + 'Bout half up, a-spittin' red, + An' shuck his head-- + An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em + As me an' you is! + + An' Dock he says, + A-whisperin'-like,-- + "It hain't no use + A-tryin'!--Mike + He's jes' ripped my daylights loose!-- + Git that blame-don fiddler to + Let up, an' come out here--You + Got some burryin' to do,-- + Mike makes _one_, an' I expects + In ten seconds I'll make _two_!" + And he drapped back, where he riz, + 'Crost Mike's body, black and blue, + Like a great big letter X!-- + An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em + As me an' you is! + + + + +SHE TALKED + +BY SAM WALTER FOSS + + + She talked of Cosmos and of Cause, + And wove green elephants in gauze, + And while she frescoed earthen jugs, + Her tongue would never pause: + On sages wise and esoteric, + And bards from Wendell Holmes to Herrick: + Thro' time's proud Pantheon she walked, + And talked and talked and talked and talked! + + And while she talked she would crochet, + And make all kinds of macrame, + Or paint green bobolinks upon + Her mother's earthen tray; + She'd decorate a smelling bottle + While she conversed on Aristotle; + While fame's proud favorites round her flocked, + She talked and talked and talked and talked! + + She talked and made embroidered rugs, + She talked and painted 'lasses jugs, + And worked five sea-green turtle doves + On papa's shaving mugs; + With Emerson or Epictetus, + Plato or Kant, she used to greet us: + She talked until we all were shocked, + And talked and talked and talked and talked! + + She had a lover, and he told + The story that is never old, + While she her father's bootjack worked + A lovely green and gold. + She switched off on Theocritus, + And talked about Democritus; + And his most ardent passion balked, + And talked and talked and talked and talked. + + He begged her to become his own; + She talked of ether and ozone, + And painted yellow poodles on + Her brother's razor hone; + Then talked of Noah and Neb'chadnezzar, + And Timon and Tiglath-pileser-- + While he at her heart portals knocked, + She talked and talked and talked and talked! + + He bent in love's tempestuous gale, + She talked of strata and of shale, + And worked magenta poppies on + Her mother's water pail; + And while he talked of passion's power, + She amplified on Schopenhauer-- + A pistol flashed: he's dead! Unshocked, + She talked and talked and talked and talked! + + + + +GRANDMA KEELER GETS GRANDPA READY FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL + +BY SARAH P. McLEAN GREENE + + +Sunday morning nothing arose in Wallencamp save the sun. + +At least, that celestial orb had long forgotten all the roseate flaming +of his youth, in an honest, straightforward march through the heavens, +ere the first signs of smoke came curling lazily up from the Wallencamp +chimneys. + +I had retired at night, very weary, with the delicious consciousness +that it wouldn't make any difference when I woke up the next morning, or +whether, indeed, I woke at all. So I opened my eyes leisurely and lay +half-dreaming, half-meditating on a variety of things. + +I deciphered a few of the texts on the scriptural patchwork quilt which +covered my couch. There were--"Let not your heart be troubled," +"Remember Lot's wife," and "Philander Keeler," traced in inky +hieroglyphics, all in close conjunction. + +Finally I reached out for my watch, and, having ascertained the time of +day, I got up and proceeded to dress hastily enough, wondering to hear +no signs of life in the house. + +I went noiselessly down the stairs. All was silent below, except for the +peaceful snoring of Mrs. Philander and the little Keelers, which was +responded to from some remote western corner of the Ark by the +triumphant snores of Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. + +I attempted to kindle a fire in the stove, but it sizzled a little +while, spitefully, as much as to say, "What, Sunday morning? Not I!" and +went out. So I concluded to put on some wraps and go out and warm myself +in the sun. + +I climbed the long hill back of the Ark, descended, and walked along the +bank of the river. It was a beautiful morning. The air was--everything +that could be desired in the way of air, but I felt a desperate need of +something more substantial. + +Standing alone with nature, on the bank of the lovely river, I thought, +with tears in my eyes, of the delicious breakfast already recuperating +the exhausted energies of my far-away home friends. + +When I got back to the house, Mrs. Philander, in simple and unaffected +attire, was bustling busily about the stove. + +The snores from Grandma and Grandpa's quarter had ceased, signifying +that they, also, had advanced a stage in the grand processes of Sunday +morning. + +The children came teasing me to dress them, so I fastened for them a +variety of small articles which I flattered myself on having combined in +a very ingenious and artistic manner, though I believe those infant +Keelers went weeping to Grandma afterward, and were remodeled by her +all-comforting hand with much skill and patience. + +In the midst of her preparations for breakfast, Madeline abruptly +assumed her hat and shawl, and was seen from the window, walking +leisurely across the fields in the direction of the woods. She returned +in due time, bearing an armful of fresh evergreens, which she twisted +around the family register. + +When the ancient couple made their appearance, I remarked silently, in +regard to Grandma Keeler's hair, what proved afterward to be its usual +holiday morning arrangement. It was confined in six infinitesimal braids +which appeared to be sprouting out, perpendicularly, in all directions +from her head. The effect of redundancy and expansiveness thus +heightened and increased on Grandma's features was striking in the +extreme. + +While we were eating breakfast, that good soul observed to Grandpa +Keeler: "Wall, pa, I suppose you'll be all ready when the time comes to +take teacher and me over to West Wallen to Sunday-school, won't ye?" + +Grandpa coughed, and coughed again, and raised his eyes helplessly to +the window. + +"Looks some like showers," said he. "A-hem! a-hem! Looks mightily to me +like showers, over yonder." + +"Thar', r'aly, husband! I must say I feel mortified for ye," said +Grandma. "Seein' as you're a perfessor, too, and thar' ain't been a +single Sunday mornin' since I've lived with ye, pa, summer or winter, +but what you've seen showers, and it r'aly seems to me it's dreadful +inconsistent when thar' ain't no cloud in the sky, and don't look no +more like rain than I do." And Grandma's face, in spite of her +reproachful tones, was, above all, blandly sunlike and expressive of +anything rather than deluge and watery disaster. + +Grandpa was silent a little while, then coughed again. I had never seen +Grandpa in worse straits. + +"A-hem! a-hem! 'Fanny' seems to be a little lame, this mornin'," said +he. "I shouldn't wonder. She's been goin' pretty stiddy this week." + +"It does beat all, pa," continued Grandma Keeler, "how 't all the horses +you've ever had since I've known ye have always been took lame Sunday +mornin'. Thar' was 'Happy Jack,' he could go anywhers through the week, +and never limp a step, as nobody could see, and Sunday mornin' he was +always took lame! And thar' was 'Tantrum'--" + +"Tantrum" was the horse that had run away with Grandma when she was +thrown from the wagon, and generally smashed to pieces. And now, Grandma +branched off into the thrilling reminiscences connected with this +incident of her life, which was the third time during the week that the +horrible tale had been repeated for my delectation. + +When she had finished, Grandpa shook his head with painful earnestness, +reverting to the former subject of discussion. + +"It's a long jaunt!" said he; "a long jaunt!" + +"Thar's a long hill to climb before we reach Zion's mount," said Grandma +Keeler, impressively. + +"Wall, there's a darned sight harder one on the road to West Wallen!" +burst out the old sea-captain desperately; "say nothin' about the +devilish stones!" + +"Thar' now," said Grandma, with calm though awful reproof; "I think +we've gone fur enough for one day; we've broke the Sabbath, and took the +name of the Lord in vain, and that ought to be enough for perfessors." + +Grandpa replied at length in a greatly subdued tone: "Wall, if you and +the teacher want to go over to Sunday-school to-day, I suppose we can go +if we get ready," a long submissive sigh--"I suppose we can." + +"They have preachin' service in the mornin', I suppose," said Grandma. +"But we don't generally git along to that. It makes such an early start. +We generally try to get around, when we go, in time for Sunday-school. +They have singin' and all. It's just about as interestin', I think, as +preachin'. The old man r'aly likes it," she observed aside to me; "when +he once gets started, but he kind o' dreads the gittin' started." + +When I beheld the ordeal through which Grandpa Keeler was called to +pass, at the hands of his faithful consort, before he was considered in +a fit condition of mind and body to embark for the sanctuary, I marveled +not at the old man's reluctance, nor that he had indeed seen clouds and +tempest fringing the horizon. + +Immediately after breakfast, he set out for the barn, ostensibly to "see +to the chores;" really, I believe, to obtain a few moments' respite, +before worse evil should come upon him. + +Pretty soon Grandma was at the back door calling in firm though +persuasive tones: + +"Husband! husband! come in, now, and get ready." + +No answer. Then it was in another key, weighty, yet expressive of no +weak irritation, that Grandma called "Come, pa! pa-a! pa-a-a!" Still no +answer. + +Then that voice of Grandma's sung out like a trumpet, terrible with +meaning--"Bijonah Keeler!" + +But Grandpa appeared not. Next, I saw Grandma slowly but surely +gravitating in the direction of the barn, and soon she returned, +bringing with her that ancient delinquent, who looked like a lost sheep +indeed and a truly unreconciled one. + +"Now the first thing," said Grandma, looking her forlorn captive over; +"is boots. Go and get on yer meetin' gaiters, pa." + +The old gentleman, having dutifully invested himself, with those sacred +relics, came pathetically limping into the room. + +"I declare, ma," said he; "somehow these things--phew! Somehow they +pinch my feet dreadfully. I don't know what it is,--phew! They're +dreadful oncomf'table things somehow." + +"Since I've known ye, pa," solemnly ejaculated Grandma Keeler, "you've +never had a pair o' meetin' boots that set easy on yer feet. You'd ought +to get boots big enough for ye, pa," she continued, looking down +disapprovingly on the old gentleman's pedal extremities, which resembled +two small scows at anchor in black cloth encasements: "and not be so +proud as to go to pinchin' yer feet into gaiters a number o' sizes too +small for ye." + +"They're number tens, I tell ye!" roared Grandpa nettled outrageously by +this cutting taunt. + +"Wall, thar', now, pa," said Grandma, soothingly; "if I had sech feet as +that, I wouldn't go to spreadin' it all over town, if I was you--but +it's time we stopped bickerin' now, husband, and got ready for meetin'; +so set down and let me wash yer head." + +"I've washed once this mornin'. It's clean enough," Grandpa protested, +but in vain. He was planted in a chair, and Grandma Keeler, with rag and +soap and a basin of water, attacked the old gentleman vigorously, much +as I have seen cruel mothers wash the faces of their earth-begrimed +infants. He only gave expression to such groans as: + +"Thar', ma! don't tear my ears to pieces! Come, ma! you've got my eyes +so full o' soap now, ma, that I can't see nothin'. Phew, Lordy! ain't ye +most through with this, ma?" + +Then came the dyeing process, which Grandma Keeler assured me, aside, +made Grandpa "look like a man o' thirty;" but to me, after it he looked +neither old nor young, human nor inhuman, nor like anything that I had +ever seen before under the sun. + +"There's the lotion, the potion, the dye-er, and the setter," said +Grandma, pointing to four bottles on the table. "Now whar's the +directions, Madeline?" + +These having been produced from between the leaves of the family Bible, +Madeline read, while Grandma made a vigorous practical application of +the various mixtures. + +"This admirable lotion"--in soft ecstatic tones Madeline rehearsed the +flowery language of the recipe--"though not so instantaneously startling +in its effect as our inestimable dyer and setter, yet forms a most +essential part of the whole process, opening, as it does, the dry and +lifeless pores of the scalp, imparting to them new life and beauty, and +rendering them more easily susceptible to the applications which follow. +But we must go deeper than this; a tone must be given to the whole +system by means of the cleansing and rejuvenating of the very centre of +our beings, and, for this purpose, we have prepared our wonderful +potion." Here Grandpa, with a wry face, was made to swallow a spoonful +of the mixture. "Our unparalleled dyer," Madeline continued, "restores +black hair to a more than original gloss and brilliancy, and gives to +the faded golden tress the sunny flashes of youth." Grandpa was dyed. +"Our world-renowned setter completes and perfects the whole process by +adding tone and permanency to the efficacious qualities of the lotion, +potion, and dyer, etc.;" while on Grandpa's head the unutterable dye was +set. + +"Now, read teacher some of the testimonials, daughter," said Grandma +Keeler, whose face was one broad, generous illustration of that rare and +peculiar virtue called faith. + +So Madeline continued: "Mrs. Hiram Briggs, of North Dedham, writes: 'I +was terribly afflicted with baldness, so that, for months, I was little +more than an outcast from society, and an object of pity to my most +familiar friends. I tried every remedy in vain. At length I heard of +your wonderful restorative. After a week's application, my hair had +already begun to grow in what seemed the most miraculous manner. At the +end of ten months it had assumed such length and proportions as to be a +most luxurious burden, and where I had before been regarded with pity +and aversion, I became the envied and admired of all beholders.'" + +"Just think!" said Grandma Keeler, with rapturous sympathy and +gratitude, "how that poor creetur must a' felt!" + +"'Orion Spaulding, of Weedsville, Vermont,'" Madeline went on--but, +here, I had to beg to be excused, and went to my room to get ready for +the Sunday-school. + +When I came down again, Grandpa Keeler was seated, completely arrayed in +his best clothes, opposite Grandma, who held the big family Bible in her +lap, and a Sunday-school question book in one hand. + +"Now, pa," said she; "what tribe was it in sacred writ that wore +bunnits?" + +I was compelled to infer from the tone of Grandpa Keeler's answer that +his temper had not undergone a mollifying process during my absence. + +"Come, ma," said he; "how much longer ye goin' to pester me in this +way?" + +"Why, pa," Grandma rejoined calmly; "until you git a proper +understandin' of it. What tribe was it in sacred writ that wore +bunnits?" + +"Lordy!" exclaimed the old man. "How d'ye suppose I know! They must 'a' +been a tarnal old womanish lookin' set anyway." + +"The tribe o' Judah, pa," said Grandma, gravely. "Now, how good it is, +husband, to have your understandin' all freshened up on the scripters!" + +"Come, come, ma!" said Grandpa, rising nervously. "It's time we was +startin'. When I make up my mind to go anywhere I always want to git +there in time. If I was goin' to the Old Harry, I should want to git +there in time." + +"It's my consarn that we shall git thar' before time, some on us," said +Grandma, with sad meaning, "unless we larn to use more respec'ful +language." + +I shall never forget how we set off for church that Sabbath morning, way +out at one of the sunny back doors of the Ark: for there was Madeline's +little cottage that fronted the highway, or lane, and then there was a +long backward extension of the Ark, only one story in height. This +belonged peculiarly to Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. It contained the +"parlor" and three "keepin'" rooms opening one into the other, all of +the same size and general bare and gloomy appearance, all possessing the +same sacredly preserved atmosphere, through which we passed with +becoming silence and solemnity into the "end" room, the sunny kitchen +where Grandma and Grandpa kept house by themselves in the summer time, +and there at the door, her very yellow coat reflecting the rays of the +sun, stood Fanny, presenting about as much appearance of life and +animation as a pensive summer squash. + +The carriage, I thought, was a fac-simile of the one in which I had been +brought from West Wallen on the night of my arrival. One of the most +striking peculiarities of this sort of vehicle was the width at which +the wheels were set apart. The body seemed comparatively narrow. It was +very long, and covered with white canvas. It had neither windows nor +doors, but just the one guarded opening in front. There were no steps +leading to this, and, indeed, a variety of obstacles before it. And the +way Grandma effected an entrance was to put a chair on a mound of earth, +and a cricket on top of the chair, and thus, having climbed up to +Fanny's reposeful back, she slipped passively down, feet foremost, to +the whiffle-tree; from thence she easily gained the plane of the +carriage floor. + +Grandpa and I took a less circuitous, though, perhaps, not less +difficult route. + +I sat with Grandpa on the "front" seat--it may be remarked that the +"front" seat was very much front, and the "back" seat very much +back--there was a kind of wooden shelf built outside as a resting-place +for the feet, so that while our heads were under cover, our feet were +out, utterly exposed to the weather, and we must either lay them on the +shelf or let them hang off into space. + +Madeline and the children stood at the door to see us off. + +"All aboard! ship ballasted! wind fa'r! go ahead thar', Fanny!" shouted +Grandpa, who seemed quite restored in spirits, and held the reins and +wielded the whip with a masterful air. + +He spun sea-yarns, too, all the way--marvelous ones, and Grandma's +reproving voice was mellowed by the distance, and so confusedly mingled +with the rumbling of the wheels, that it seemed hardly to reach him at +all. Not that Grandma looked discomfited on this account, or in bad +humor. On the contrary, as she sat back there in the ghostly shadows, +with her hands folded, and her hair combed out in resplendent waves on +either side of her head, she appeared conscious that every word she +uttered was taking root in some obdurate heart. She was, in every +respect, the picture of good-will and contentment. + +But the face under Grandpa's antiquated beaver began to give me a fresh +shock every time I looked up at him, for the light and the air were +rapidly turning his rejuvenated locks and his poor, thin fringe of +whiskers to an unnatural greenish tint, while his bushy eyebrows, +untouched by the hand of art, shone as white as ever. + +In spite of the old sea-captain's entertaining stories, it seemed, +indeed, "a long jaunt" to West Wallen. + +To say that Fanny was a slow horse would be but a feeble expression of +the truth. + +A persevering "click! click! click!" began to arise from Grandma's +quarter. This annoyed Grandpa exceedingly. + +"Shet up, ma!" he was moved to exclaim at last. "I'm steerin' this +craft." + +"Click! click! click!" came perseveringly from behind. + +"Dum it, ma! thar', ma!" cried Grandpa, exasperated beyond measure. "How +is this hoss goin' to hear anything that I say ef you keep up such a +tarnal cacklin'?" + +Just as we were coming out of the thickest part of the woods, about a +mile beyond Wallencamp, we discovered a man walking in the distance. It +was the only human being we had seen since we started. + +"Hullo, there's Lovell!" exclaimed Grandpa. "I was wonderin' why we +hadn't overtook him before. We gin'ally take him in on the road. Yis, +yis; that's Lovell, ain't it, teacher?" + +I put up my glasses, helplessly. + +"I'm sure," I said, "I can't tell, positively. I have seen Mr. Barlow +but once, and at that distance I shouldn't know my own father." + +"Must be Lovell," said Grandpa. "Yis, I know him! Hullo, thar'! Ship +ahoy! ship ahoy!" + +Grandpa's voice suggested something of the fire and vigor it must have +had when it rang out across the foam of waves and pierced the tempest's +roar. + +The man turned and looked at us, and then went on again. + +"He don't seem to recognize us," said Grandma. + +"Ship a-hoy! Ship a-hoy!" shouted Grandpa. + +The man turned and looked at us again, and this time he stopped and kept +on looking. + +When we got up to him we saw that it wasn't Lovell Barlow at all, but a +stranger of trampish appearance, drunk and fiery, and fixed in an +aggressive attitude. + +I was naturally terrified. What if he should attack us in that lonely +spot! Grandpa was so old! And moreover, Grandpa was so taken aback to +find that it wasn't Lovell that he began some blunt and stammering +expression of surprise, which only served to increase the stranger's +ire. Grandma, imperturbable soul! who never failed to come to the rescue +even in the most desperate emergencies--Grandma climbed over to the +front, thrust out her benign head, and said in that deep, calm voice of +hers: + +"We're a goin' to the house of God, brother; won't you git in and go +too?" + +"No!" our brother replied, doubling up his fists and shaking them +menacingly in our faces: "I won't go to no house o' God. What d'ye mean +by overhauling me on the road, and askin' me to git into yer d--d old +traveling lunatic asylum?" + +"Drive on, pa," said Grandma, coldly. "He ain't in no condition to be +labored with now. Drive on kind o' quick!" + +"Kind o' quick" we could not go, but Fanny was made to do her best, and +we did not pause to look behind. + +When we got to the church Sunday-school had already begun. There was +Lovell Barlow looking preternaturally stiff in his best clothes, sitting +with a class of young men. He saw us when we came in, and gave me a look +of deep meaning. It was the same expression--as though there was some +solemn, mutual understanding between us--which he had worn on that night +when he gave me his picture. + +"There's plenty of young folks' classes," said Grandma; "but seein' as +we're late maybe you'd jest as soon go right along in with us." + +I said that I should like that best, so I went into the "old folks'" +class with Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. + +There were three pews of old people in front of us, and the teacher, who +certainly seemed to me the oldest person I had ever seen, sat in an +otherwise vacant pew in front of all, so that, his voice being very thin +and querulous, we could hear very little that he said, although we were +edified in some faint sense by his pious manner of shaking his head and +rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. + +The church was a square wooden edifice, of medium size, and contained +three stoves all burning brightly. Against this, and the drowsy effect +of their long drive in the sun and wind, my two companions proved +powerless to struggle. + +Grandpa looked furtively up at Grandma, then endeavored to put on as a +sort of apology for what he felt was inevitably coming, a sanctimonious +expression which was most unnatural to him, and which soon faded away as +the sweet unconsciousness of slumber overspread his features. His head +fell back helplessly, his mouth opened wide. He snored, but not very +loudly. I looked at Grandma, wondering why her vigilance had failed on +this occasion, and lo! her head was falling peacefully from side to +side. She was fast asleep, too. She woke up first, however, and then +Grandpa was speedily and adroitly aroused by some means, I think it was +a pin; and Grandma fed him with bits of unsweetened flag-root, which he +munched penitently, though evidently without relish, until he dropped +off to sleep again, and she dropped off to sleep again, and so they +continued. + +But it always happened that Grandma woke up first. And whereas Grandpa, +when the avenging pin pierced his shins, recovered himself with a start +and an air of guilty confusion, Grandma opened her eyes at regular +intervals, with the utmost calm and placidity, as though she had merely +been closing them to engage in a few moments of silent prayer. + + + + +VIVE LA BAGATELLE + +BY GELETT BURGESS + + + Sing a song of foolishness, laughing stocks and cranks! + The more there are the merrier; come join the ranks! + Life is dry and stupid; whoop her up a bit! + Donkeys live in clover; bray and throw a fit! + + Take yourself in earnest, never stop to think, + Strut and swagger boldly, dress in red and pink; + Prate of stuff and nonsense, get yourself abused; + Some one's got to play the fool to keep the crowd amused! + + Bully for the idiot! Bully for the guy! + You could be a prig yourself, if you would only try! + Altruistic asses keep the fun alive; + Clowns are growing scarcer; hurry and arrive! + + I seen a crazy critic a-writin' of a screed; + "Tendencies" and "Unities"--Maeterlinck indeed! + He wore a paper collar, and his tie was up behind; + If that's the test of Culture, then I'm glad I'm not refined! + + Let me laugh at you, then you can laugh at me; + Then we'll josh together everything we see; + Every one's a nincompoop to another's view; + Laughter makes the sun shine! Roop-de-doodle-doo! + + + + +THE TWO BROTHERS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there were Two Brothers who Set Out to make their Way In +The World. + +One was of a Roving Disposition, and no sooner had he settled Down to +Live in One Place than he would Gather Up all his Goods and Chattels and +Move to another Place. From here again he would Depart and make him a +Fresh Home, and so on until he Became an Old Man and had gained neither +Fortune nor Friends. + +The Other, being Disinclined to Change or Diversity of Scene, remained +all his Life in One Place. He therefore Became Narrow-Minded and +Provincial, and gained None of the Culture and Liberality of Nature +which comes from Contact with various Scenes of Life. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that a Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss, and a Setting +Hen Never Grows Fat. + + + + +A LETTER + +FROM PETROLEUM V. NASBY + +I AM REQUESTED TO ACT AS CHAPLAIN OF THE CLEVELAND CONVENTION.--THAT +BEAUTIFUL CITY VISITED FOR THAT PURPOSE. + +POST OFFIS, CONFEDRIT X ROADS, + (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), + September 20, 1866. + + +I wuz sent for to come to Washington, from my comfortable quarters at +the Post Offis, to attend the convenshun uv sich soldiers and sailors uv +the United States ez bleeve in a Union uv 36 States, and who hev sworn +allejinse to a flag with 36 stars onto it, at Cleveland. My esteemed and +life-long friend and co-laborer, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, wuz to hev bin +the chaplin uv the convenshun, but he failed us, and it wuz decided in a +Cabinet meetin that I shood take his place. I didn't see the necessity +uv hevin a chaplin at every little convenshun uv our party, and so +stated; but Seward remarked, with a groan, that ef ever there wuz a +party, since parties wuz invented, wich needed prayin for, ours wuz that +party. "And, Parson," sed he, glancin' at a list uv delegates, "ef yoo +hev any agonizin petitions, any prayers uv extra fervency, offer em up +for these fellers. Ef there is any efficacy in prayer, it's my honest, +unbiased opinion that there never wuz in the history uv the world, nor +never will be agin, sich a magnificent chance to make it manifest. Try +yoor-self particularly on Custer; tho', after all," continyood he, in a +musin, abstracted sort uv a way, wich he's fallen into lately, "the +fellow is sich a triflin bein, that he reely kin hardly be held +'sponsible for what he's doin; and the balance uv em, good Hevens! +they'r mostly druv to it by hunger." And the Secretary maundered on +suthin about "sixty days" and "ninety days," payin no more attention to +the rest uv us than ez ef we wuzn't there at all. + +So, receevin transportashen and suffishent money from the secret service +fund for expenses, I departed for Cleveland, and after a tejus trip +thro' an Ablishn country, I arrived there. My thots were gloomy beyond +expression. I hed recently gone through this same country ez chaplin to +the Presidential tour, and every stashen hed its pecooliar onpleasant +remembrances. Here wuz where the cheers for Grant were vociferous, with +nary a snort for His Eggslency; there wuz where the peasantry laft in +his face when he went thro' with the regler ritooal uv presentin the +constitooshn and the flag with 36 stars onto it to a deestrick assessor; +there wuz--but why recount my sufferins? Why harrow up the public bosom, +or lasserate the public mind? Suffice to say, I endoored it; suffice to +say that I hed strength left to ride up Bank street, in Cleveland, the +seen uv the most awful insult the Eggsecutive ever receeved. + +The evenin I arrived, the delegates, sich ez wuz on hand, held a +informal meetin to arrange matters so ez they wood work smooth when the +crowd finally got together. Genral Wool wuz ez gay and frisky ez though +he reely belonged to the last ginerashn. There wuz Custar, uv Michigan, +with his hair freshly oiled and curled, and busslin about ez though he +hed cheated hisself into the beleef that he reely amounted to suthin; +and there wuz seventy-eight other men, who hed distinguished theirselves +in the late war, but who hed never got their deserts, ceptin by brevet, +owin to the fact that the Administrashn wuz Ablishn, which they wuzn't. +They were, in a pekuniary pint uv view, suthin the worse for wear, tho' +why that shood hev bin the case I coodent see (they hevin bin, to an +alarmin extent, quarter-masters and commissaries, and in the recrootin +service), til I notist the prevailin color uv their noses, and heerd one +uv em ask his neighbor ef Cleveland wuz blest with a faro bank! Then I +knowd all about it. + +There wuz another pekooliarity about it which for a time amoozed me. +Them ez wuz present wuz divided into 2 classes--those ez hed bin +recently appinted to posishens, and them ez expected to be shortly. I +notist on the countenances uv the first class a look uv releef, sich ez +I hev seen in factories Saturday nite, after the hands wuz paid off for +a hard week's work; and on the other class the most wolfish, hungry, +fierce expression I hev ever witnessed. Likewise, I notist that the +latter set uv patriots talked more hefty uv the necessity uv sustainin +the policy uv our firm and noble President, and damned the Ablishunists +with more emphasis and fervency than the others. + +One enthoosiastic individual, who hed bin quartermaster two years, and +hed bin allowed to resign "jest after the battle, mother," wich, hevin +his papers all destroyed, made settlin with the government a easy +matter, wuz so feroshus that I felt called upon to check him. "Gently, +my frend," sed I, "gently! I hev bin thro' this thing; I hev my +commission. It broke out on me jest ez it hez on yoo; but yoo won't git +yoor Assessorship a minit sooner for it." + +"It ain't a Assessorship I want," sez he. "I hev devoted myself to the +task uv bindin up the wounds uv my beloved country--" + +"Did you stop anybody very much from inflictin them sed wounds?" +murmured I. + +"An ef I accept the Post Orfis in my native village,--which I hev bin +solissited so strongly to take that I hev finally yielded,--I do it only +that I may devote my few remainin energies wholly to the great cause uv +restorin the 36 States to their normal posishens under the flag with 36 +stars onto it, in spite uv the Joodis Iskariots wich, ef I am whom, wat +is the Savior, and--and where is--" + +Perseevin that the unfortunate man hed got into the middle uv a +quotashen from the speech uv our noble and patriotic President, and +knowin his intellek wuzn't hefty enough to git it off jist as it wuz +originally delivered, I took him by the throat, and shet off the flood +uv his elokence. + +"Be quiet, yoo idiot!" remarked I, soothingly, to him. "Yoo'll git your +apintment, becoz, for the fust time in the history uv this or any other +Republic, there's a market for jist sich men ez yoo; but all this +blather won't fetch it a minit sooner." + +"Good Lord!" tho't I, ez I turned away, "wat a President A.J. is, to hev +to buy up _sich_ cattle! Wat a postmaster he must be, whose gineral +cussedness turns _my_ stummick!" + +It wuz deemed necessary to see uv wat we wuz compozed; whatever Kernel +K----, who is now Collector uv Revenue in Illinoy, asked ef there wuz +ary man in the room who hed bin a prizner doorin the late fratricidle +struggle. A gentleman uv, perhaps, thirty aroze, and sed he wuz. He hed +bin taken three times, and wuz, altogether, 18 months in doorance vile +in three diffrent prizns. + +Custar fell on his neck, and asked him, aggitatidly, ef he wuz +shoor--quite shoor, after sufferin all that, that he supported the +policy of the President? Are you quite shoor--quite shoor? + +"I am," returned the phenomenon. "I stand by Andrew Johnson and his +policy, and I don't want no office!" + +"Hev yoo got wun?" shouted they all in korus. + +"Nary!" sed he. "With me it is a matter uv principle!" + +"Wat prizns wuz yoo incarcerated in?" asked I, lookin at him with +wonder. + +"Fust at Camp Morton, then at Camp Douglas, and finally at Johnson's +Island!" + +Custar dropt him, and the rest remarked that, while they hed a very +helthy opinion uv him, they guessed he'd better not menshen his +presence, or consider hisself a delegate. Ez ginerous foes they loved +him ruther better than a brother; yet, as the call didn't quite inclood +him, tho' there wuz a delightful oneness between em, yet, ef 'twuz all +the same, he hed better not announce hisself. He wuz from Kentucky, I +afterwards ascertained. + +The next mornin, suthin over two hundred more arriv; and the delegashens +bein all in, it wuz decided to go on with the show. A big tent hed bin +brought on from Boston to accommodate the expected crowd, and quite an +animated discussion arose ez to wich corner uv it the Convenshun wuz to +ockepy. This settled, the biznis wuz begun. Genral Wool wuz made +temporary Chairman, to wich honor he responded in a elokent +extemporaneous speech, which he read from manuscript. General Ewing made +another extemporaneous address, which he read from manuscript, and we +adjourned for dinner. + +The dinner hour was spent in caucussin privately in one uv the parlors +uv the hotel. The Chairman asked who shood make speeches after dinner, +wen every man uv em pulled from his right side coat pocket a roll uv +manuscript, and sed he hed jotted down a few ijees wich he hed +conclooded to present extemporaneously to the Convenshun. That Babel +over, the Chairman sed he presoomed some one shood be selected to +prepare a address; whereupon every delegate rose, and pulled a roll uv +manuscript from his left side coat pocket, and sed he had jotted down a +few ijees on the situashn, wich he proposed to present, et settry. This +occasioned another shindy; wen the Chairman remarked "Resolushens," wen +every delegate rose, pulled a roll uv manuscript from his right breast +coat pocket, and sed he hed jotted down a few ijees, wich, etc. + +I stood it until some one mentioned me ez Chaplin to the expedition +West, when the pressure becum unendurable. They sposed I was keeper uv +the President's conscience, and I hed not a minit's peece after that. In +vain I ashoored em that, there bein no consciences about the White +House, no one could hold sich a offis; in vain I ashoored em that I hed +no influence with His Majesty. Two-thirds uv em pulled applicashens for +places they wanted from the left breast coat pocket, and insistid on my +takin em, and seem that they was appinted. I told em that I cood do +nuthin for em; but they laft me to skorn. "You are jist the style uv +man," said they, "who hez inflooence with His Eggslency, and yoo must do +it." Hemmed in, there wuz but one way uv escape, and that way I took. +Seezin a carpet sack, wich, by the way, belonged to a delegate (I took +it to give myself the look of a traveler), I rushed to the depot, and +startid home, entirely satisfied that ef Cleveland may be taken as a +sample, the less His Majesty depends on soljers, the better. + +PETROLEUM V. NASBY, P.M. (wich is Postmaster), and likewise late +Chaplain to the expedishn. + +P.S.--I opened the carpet sack on the train, spectin to find a clean +shirt in it, at least. It contained, to my disgust, an address to be +read before the Cleveland Convention, a set uv resolutions, a speech, +and a petition uv the proprietor thereof for a collectorship, signed by +eight hundred names, and a copy uv the Indiana State Directory for 1864. +The names wuz in one hand-writin, and wuz arranged alphabetically. + +PETROLEUM V. NASBY. + + + + +FAMILIAR AUTHORS AT WORK + +BY HAYDEN CARRUTH + + +MISS TRIPP + + Miss Tripp for years has lived alone, + Without display or fuss or pother. + The house she dwells in is her own-- + She got it from her dying father. + + Miss T. delights in all good works, + She goes to church three times on Sunday, + Her daily duty never shirks, + Nor keeps her goodness for this one day. + + She loves to bake and knit and sew, + For wider fields she doesn't hanker; + Yet for the things they have I know + A-many poor folk have to thank her. + + The simple life she truly leads, + She loves her small domestic labors; + In spring she plants her garden seeds + And shares the product with her neighbors. + + By _Books and Authors_ now I see + In literature she's made a foray: + "The Yellow Shadow"--said to be + "A crackerjack detective-story." + + +CAPTAIN BROWN + + Bluff Captain Brown is somewhat queer, + But of the sea he's very knowing. + I scarcely meet him once a year-- + He's off in search of whales a-blowing. + + For fifty years--perhaps for more-- + He's sailed about upon the ocean. + He thinks that if he lived ashore + He'd die. But this is just a notion. + + Still when the Captain comes to port + With barrels of oil from whales caught napping, + He'll pace the deck, and loudly snort, + "This land air is my strength a-sapping. + + "I call this living on hard terms; + I wish that I had never seen land; + I wish I were a-chasing sperms + Abaft the nor'east coast of Greenland." + + Yet on his latest cruise, 'tween whales + The Captain wrote a book most charming. + It's called--and it is having sales-- + "Some Practical Advice on Farming." + + +T.H. SMITH + + Tom Henry Smith I long have known + Although he really is a hermit-- + At least, Tom Henry lives alone, + And that's what people always term it. + + Tom Henry never is annoyed + By fashion's change. He wears a collar + Constructed out of celluloid. + His hats ne'er cost above a dollar. + + Tom loves about his room to mess, + And cook a sausage at the fireplace. + It doesn't serve to help his dress-- + Grease spatters over the entire place. + + Tom Henry likes to read a book, + And writes a little for the papers, + But scarcely ever leaves his nook, + And takes no part in social capers. + + Now Tom has penned a book himself. + I hope he'll never feel compunctions! + Its title is--it's on my shelf-- + "Pink Teas and Other Social Functions." + + +RUTH JONES + + I've found the Joneses pleasant folk-- + I've watched them all their children fetch up. + Jones loves to have a quiet smoke-- + _She's_ famous for tomato catchup. + + Ruth is their eldest--now fifteen, + A tallish girl with pleasing features. + Each school-day morn she can be seen + As she trips by to meet her teachers. + + A serious-minded miss, you'd say, + Not given much to school-girl follies. + She still sometimes will slip away + To spend a half-hour with her dollies. + + She's learned to sweep, to sew, to bake-- + She's quite a helpmate to her mother. + On Saturday she loves to take + The go-cart out with little brother. + + At writing now she bids for fame-- + Her book a great success is reckoned. + "By Right of Flashing Sword," its name, + A strong romance of James the Second. + + + + +THE LOST WORD + +BY JOHN PAUL + + + Seated one day at the typewriter, + I was weary of a's and e's, + And my fingers wandered wildly, + Over the consonant keys. + + I know not what I was writing, + With that thing so like a pen; + But I struck one word astounding-- + Unknown to the speech of men. + + It flooded the sense of my verses, + Like the break of a tinker's dam, + And I felt as one feels when the printer + Of your "infinite calm" makes clam. + + It mixed up s's and x's + Like an alphabet coming to strife. + It seemed the discordant echo + Of a row between husband and wife. + + It brought a perplexed meaning + Into my perfect piece, + And set the machinery creaking + As though it were scant of grease. + + I have tried, but I try it vainly, + The one last word to divine + Which came from the keys of my typewriter + And so would pass as mine. + + It may be some other typewriter + Will produce that word again, + It may be, but only for others-- + _I_ shall write henceforth with a pen. + + + + +THE DUTCHMAN WHO HAD THE "SMALL POX" + +BY HENRY P. LELAND + + +Very dry, indeed, is the drive from Blackberry to Squash Point,--dry +even for New Jersey; and when you remember that it's fifty miles between +the two towns, its division into five drinks seems very natural. When +you are packed, three on one narrow seat, in a Jersey stage, it is +necessary. + +A Jersey stage! It is not on record, but when Dante winds up his Tenth +"Canter" into the Inferno with-- + + Each, as his back was laden, came indeed + Or more or less contracted; and it seemed + As he who showed most patience in his look, + Wailing, exclaimed, "I can endure no more!" + +the conclusion that he alluded to a crowded Jersey stage-load is +irresistible. A man with long legs, on a back seat, in one of these +vehicles, suffers like a snipe shut up in a snuff-box. For this reason, +the long-legged man should sit on the front seat with the driver; there, +like the hen-turkey who tried to sit on a hundred eggs, he can "spread +himself." The writer sat alongside the driver one morning, just at break +of day, as the stage drove out of Blackberry: he was a through passenger +to Squash Point. It was a very cold morning. In order to break the ice +for a conversation, he praised the fine points of an off horse. The +driver thawed: + +"Ya-as; she's a goot hoss, und I knows how to trive him!" It was +evidently a case of mixed breed. + +"Where is Wood, who used to drive this stage?" + +"He be's lait up mit ter rummatiz sence yesterweek, und I trives for +him. So--" I went on reading a newspaper: a fellow-passenger, on a back +seat, not having the fear of murdered English on his hands, coaxed the +Dutch driver into a long conversation, much to the delight of a very +pretty Jersey-blue belle, who laughed so merrily that it was contagious; +and in a few minutes, from being like unto a conventicle, we were all as +wide awake as one of Christy's audiences. By sunrise we were in +excellent spirits, up to all sorts of fun; and when, a little later on, +our stage stopped at the first watering-place, the driver found himself +the center of a group of treaters to the distilled "juice of apples." It +is just as easy to say "apple-jack," and be done with it; but the +writer, being very anxious to form a style, cribs from all quarters. The +so oft-repeated expression "juice of the grape" has been for a long time +on his hands, and, wishing to work it up, he would have done it in this +case, only he fears the skepticism of his readers. By courtesy, they may +wink at the poetical license of a reporter of a public dinner who calls +turnip-juice and painted whisky "juice of the grape," but they would not +allow the existence, for one minute, of such application to the liquors +of a Jersey tavern. It's out of place. + +"Here's a package to leave at Mr. Scudder's, the third house on the +left-hand side after you get into Jericho. What do you charge?" asked a +man who seemed to know the driver. + +"Pout a leffy," answered he. Receiving the silver, he gathered up the +reins, and put the square package in the stage-box. Just as he started +the horses, he leaned his head out of the stage, and, looking back to +the man who gave him the package, shouted out the question: + +"Ter fird haus on ter lef hant out of Yeriko?" The man didn't hear him, +but the driver was satisfied. On we went at a pretty good rate, +considering how heavy the roads were. Another tavern, more watering, +more apple-jack. Another long stretch of sand, and we were coming into +Jericho. + +"Anypotty know ter Miss Scutter haus?" asked the driver, bracing his +feet on the mail-bag which lay in front of him, and screwing his head +round so as to face in. There seemed to be a consultation going on +inside the stage. + +"I don't know nobody o' that name in Jericho. Do you, Lishe?" asked a +weather-beaten-looking man, who evidently "went by water," of another +one who apparently went the same way. + +"There wos ole Square Gow's da'ter, she marri'd a Scudder; moved up here +some two years back. Come to think on't, guess she lives nigher to +Glass-house," answered Lishe. + +The driver, finding he could get no light out of the passengers, seeing +a tall, raw-boned woman washing some clothes in front of a house, and +who flew out of sight as the stage flew in, handed me the reins as he +jumped from his seat and chased the fugitive, hallooing,-- + +"I'fe got der small pox, I'fe got der--" Here his voice was lost as he +dashed into the open door of the house. But in a minute he reappeared, +followed by a broom with an enraged woman annexed, and a loud voice +shouting out,-- + +"You git out of this! Clear yourself, quicker! I ain't goin' to have you +diseasin' honest folks, ef you have got the smallpox." + +"I dells you I'fe got der small pox. Ton't you versteh? der SMALL POX!" +This time he shouted it out in capital letters! + +"Clear out! I'll call the men-folks ef you don't clear;" and at once she +shouted, in a tip-top voice, "Ike, you Ike, where air you?" + +Ike made his appearance on the full run. + +"W-w-what's the matter, mother?"--_Miss_ Scudder his mother! I should +have been shocked, as I was on my first visit to New Jersey, if I had +not had a key to this. "That is a very pretty girl," I said on that +occasion to a Jersey-man; "who is she?"--"She's old _Miss_ Perrine's +da'ter," was the reply. I looked at the innocent victim of man's +criminal conduct with commiseration. "What a pity!" I remarked. + +"Not such a very great pity," said Jersey, eying me very severely. "I +reckon old man Perrine's got as big a cedar-swamp as you, or I either, +would like to own." + +"Her grandfather you speak of?" + +"No, I don't: I'm talking 'bout her father,--he that married Abe Simm's +da'ter and got a power of land by it; and that gal, their da'ter, one of +these days will step right into them swamps." + +"Oh," I replied, "_Mrs._ Perrine's daughter," accenting the "Missis!" + +"Mussus or Miss, it's all the same in Jersey," he answered. + +Knowing this, Ike's appeal was intelligible. To proceed with our story, +the driver, very angry by this time, shouted,-- + +"I dells you oonst more for der last dime. I'fe got der small pox! unt +Mishter Ellis he gifs me a leffy to gif der small pox to Miss Scutter; +unt if dat vrow is Miss Scutter, I bromised to gif her ter small pox." + +It was _Miss_ Scudder, and I explained to her that it was a _small box_ +he had for her. The affair was soon settled as regarded its delivery, +but not as regards the laughter and shouts of the occupants of the old +stage-coach as we rolled away from Jericho. The driver joined in, +although he had no earthly idea as to its cause, and added not a little +to it by saying, in a triumphant tone of voice,-- + +"I vos pound to gif ter olt voomans ter small pox!" + + + + +WALK + +BY WILLIAM DEVERE + + + Up the dusty road from Denver town + To where the mines their treasures hide, + The road is long, and many miles, + The golden styre and town divide. + Along this road one summer's day, + There toiled a tired man, + Begrimed with dust, the weary way + He cussed, as some folks can. + The stranger hailed a passing team + That slowly dragged its load along; + His hail roused up the teamster old, + And checked his merry song. + "Say-y, stranger!" "Wal, whoap." + + "Ken I walk behind your load + A spell in this road?" + "Wal, no, yer can't walk, but git + Up on this seat an' ride; git up hyer." + "Nop, that ain't what I want, + Fur it's in yer dust, that's like a smudge, + I want to trudge, for I desarve it." + "Wal, pards, I ain't no hog, an' I don't + Own this road, afore nor 'hind. + So jest git right in the dust + An' walk, if that's the way yer 'clined. + Gee up, ger lang!" the driver said. + The creaking wagon moved amain, + While close behind the stranger trudged, + And clouds of dust rose up again. + + The teamster heard the stranger talk + As if two trudged behind his van, + Yet, looking 'round, could only spy + A single lonely man. + Yet heard the teamster words like these + Come from the dust as from a cloud, + For the weary traveler spoke his mind. + His thoughts he uttered loud, + And this the burden of his talk: + "Walk, now, you ----, walk! + Not the way you went to Denver? + Walk, ---- ----! Jest walk! + + "Went up in the mines an' made yer stake, + 'Nuff to take yer back to ther state + Whar yer wur born. + Whar'n hell's yer corn? + Wal, walk, you ----, walk! + + "Dust in yer eyes, dust in yer nose, + Dust down yer throat, and thick + On yer clothes. Can't hardly talk? + I know it, but walk, you ----, walk! + + "What did yer do with all yer tin? + Ya-s, blew every cent of it in; + Got drunk, got sober, got drunk agin. + Wal, walk, ----! Jest walk. + + "What did yer do? What didn't yer do? + Why, when ye war thar, yer gold-dust flew, + Yer thought it fine to keep op'nin' wine. + Now walk, you ----, walk. + + "Stop to drink? What--water? + Why, thar + Water with you warn't anywhere. + 'Twas wine, Extra Dry. Oh, + You flew high-- + Now walk, you ----, walk. + + "Chokes yer, this dust? Wal, that + Ain't the wust, + When yer get back whar the + Diggins are + No pick, no shovel, no pan; + Wal, yer a healthy man, + Walk--jest walk." + + The fools don't all go to Denver town, + Nor do they all from the mines come down. + 'Most all of us have in our day-- + In some sort of shape, some kind of way-- + Painted the town with the old stuff, + Dipped in stocks or made some bluff, + Mixed wines, old and new, + Got caught in wedlock by a shrew, + Stayed out all night, tight, + Rolled home in the morning light, + With crumpled tie and torn clawhammer, + 'N' woke up next day with a katzenjammer, + And walked, oh ----, how we walked. + + Now, don't try to yank every bun, + Don't try to have all the fun, + Don't think that you know it all, + Don't think real estate won't fall, + Don't try to bluff on an ace, + Don't get stuck on a pretty face, + Don't believe every jay's talk-- + For if you do you can bet you'll walk! + + + + +MR. DOOLEY ON GOLD-SEEKING + +BY FINLEY PETER DUNNE + + +"Well, sir," said Mr. Hennessy, "that Alaska's th' gr-reat place. I +thought 'twas nawthin' but an iceberg with a few seals roostin' on it, +an' wan or two hundherd Ohio politicians that can't be killed on account +iv th' threaty iv Pawrs. But here they tell me 'tis fairly smothered in +goold. A man stubs his toe on th' ground, an' lifts th' top off iv a +goold mine. Ye go to bed at night, an' wake up with goold fillin' in +ye'er teeth." + +"Yes," said Mr. Dooley, "Clancy's son was in here this mornin', an' he +says a frind iv his wint to sleep out in th' open wan night, an' whin he +got up his pants assayed four ounces iv goold to th' pound, an' his +whiskers panned out as much as thirty dollars net." + +"If I was a young man an' not tied down here," said Mr. Hennessy, "I'd +go there: I wud so." + +"I wud not," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin I was a young man in th' ol' +counthry, we heerd th' same story about all America. We used to set be +th' tur-rf fire o' nights, kickin' our bare legs on th' flure an' +wishin' we was in New York, where all ye had to do was to hold ye'er hat +an' th' goold guineas'd dhrop into it. An' whin I got to be a man, I +come over here with a ham and a bag iv oatmeal, as sure that I'd return +in a year with money enough to dhrive me own ca-ar as I was that me name +was Martin Dooley. An' that was a cinch. + +"But, faith, whin I'd been here a week, I seen that there was nawthin' +but mud undher th' pavement,--I larned that be means iv a pick-axe at +tin shillin's th' day,--an' that, though there was plenty iv goold, thim +that had it were froze to it; an' I come west, still lookin' f'r mines. +Th' on'y mine I sthruck at Pittsburgh was a hole f'r sewer pipe. I made +it. Siven shillin's th' day. Smaller thin New York, but th' livin' was +cheaper, with Mon'gahela rye at five a throw, put ye'er hand around th' +glass. + +"I was still dreamin' goold, an' I wint down to Saint Looey. Th' nearest +I come to a fortune there was findin' a quarther on th' sthreet as I +leaned over th' dashboord iv a car to whack th' off mule. Whin I got to +Chicago, I looked around f'r the goold mine. They was Injuns here thin. +But they wasn't anny mines I cud see. They was mud to be shovelled an' +dhrays to be dhruv an' beats to be walked. I choose th' dhray; f'r I was +niver cut out f'r a copper, an' I'd had me fill iv excavatin'. An' I +dhruv th' dhray till I wint into business. + +"Me experyence with goold minin' is it's always in th' nex' county. If I +was to go to Alaska, they'd tell me iv th' finds in Seeberya. So I think +I'll stay here. I'm a silver man, annyhow; an' I'm contint if I can see +goold wanst a year, whin some prominent citizen smiles over his +newspaper. I'm thinkin' that ivry man has a goold mine undher his own +dure-step or in his neighbor's pocket at th' farthest." + +"Well, annyhow," said Mr. Hennessy, "I'd like to kick up th' sod, an' +find a ton iv gold undher me fut." + +"What wud ye do if ye found it?" demanded Mr. Dooley. + +"I--I dinnaw," said Mr. Hennessy, whose dreaming had not gone this far. +Then, recovering himself, he exclaimed with great enthusiasm, "I'd throw +up me job an'--an' live like a prince." + +"I tell ye what ye'd do," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye'd come back here an' +sthrut up an' down th' sthreet with ye'er thumbs in ye'er armpits; an' +ye'd dhrink too much, an' ride in sthreet ca-ars. Thin ye'd buy foldin' +beds an' piannies, an' start a reel estate office. Ye'd be fooled a good +deal an' lose a lot iv ye'er money, an' thin ye'd tighten up. Ye'd be in +a cold fear night an' day that ye'd lose ye'er fortune. Ye'd wake up in +th' middle iv th' night, dhreamin' that ye was back at th' gas-house +with ye'er money gone. Ye'd be prisidint iv a charitable society. Ye'd +have to wear ye'er shoes in th' house, an' ye'er wife'd have ye around +to rayciptions an' dances. Ye'd move to Mitchigan Avnoo, an' ye'd hire a +coachman that'd laugh at ye. Ye'er boys'd be joods an' ashamed iv ye, +an' ye'd support ye'er daughters' husbands. Ye'd rackrint ye'er tinants +an' lie about ye'er taxes. Ye'd go back to Ireland on a visit, an' put +on airs with ye'er cousin Mike. Ye'd be a mane, close-fisted, +onscrupulous ol' curmudgeon; an', whin ye'd die, it'd take haf ye'er +fortune f'r rayqueems to put ye r-right. I don't want ye iver to speak +to me whin ye get rich, Hinnissy." + +"I won't," said Mr. Hennessy. + + + + +LOVE SONNETS OF A HOODLUM + +BY WALLACE IRWIN + + +I + + Say, will she treat me white, or throw me down, + Give me the glassy glare, or welcome hand, + Shovel me dirt, or treat me on the grand, + Knife me, or make me think I own the town? + Will she be on the level, do me brown, + Or will she jolt me lightly on the sand, + Leaving poor Willie froze to beat the band, + Limp as your grandma's Mother Hubbard gown? + + I do not know, nor do I give a whoop, + But this I know: if she is so inclined + She can come play with me on our back stoop, + Even in office hours, I do not mind-- + In fact I know I'm nice and good and ready + To get an option on her as my steady. + + +VIII + + I sometimes think that I am not so good, + That there are foxier, warmer babes than I, + That Fate has given me the calm go-by + And my long suit is sawing mother's wood. + Then would I duck from under if I could, + Catch the hog special on the jump and fly + To some Goat Island planned by destiny + For dubs and has-beens and that solemn brood. + But spite of bug-wheels in my cocoa tree, + The trade in lager beer is still a-humming, + A schooner can be purchased for a V + Or even grafted if you're fierce at bumming. + My finish then less clearly do I see, + For lo! I have another think a-coming. + + +IX + + Last night I tumbled off the water cart-- + It was a peacherino of a drunk; + I put the cocktail market on the punk + And tore up all the sidewalks from the start. + The package that I carried was a tart + That beat Vesuvius out for sizz and spunk, + And when they put me in my little bunk + You couldn't tell my jag and me apart. + + Oh! would I were the ice man for a space, + Then might I cool this red-hot cocoanut, + Corral the jim-jam bugs that madly race + Around the eaves that from my forehead jut-- + Or will a carpenter please come instead + And build a picket fence around my head? + + +XII + + Life is a combination hard to buck, + A proposition difficult to beat, + E'en though you get there Zaza with both feet, + In forty flickers, it's the same hard luck, + And you are up against it nip and tuck, + Shanghaied without a steady place to eat, + Guyed by the very copper on your beat + Who lays to jug you when you run amuck. + O Life! you give Yours Truly quite a pain. + On the T square I do not like your style; + For you are playing favorites again + And you have got me handicapped a mile. + Avaunt, false Life, with all your pride and pelf: + Go take a running jump and chase yourself! + + +XIV + + O mommer! wasn't Mame a looty toot + Last night when at the Rainbow Social Club + She did the bunny hug with every scrub + From Hogan's Alley to the Dutchman's Boot, + While little Willie, like a plug-eared mute, + Papered the wall and helped absorb the grub, + Played nest-egg with the benches like a dub + When hot society was easy fruit! + + Am I a turnip? On the strict Q.T., + Why do my Trilbys get so ossified? + Why am I minus when it's up to me + To brace my Paris Pansy for a glide? + Once more my hoodoo's thrown the game and scored + A flock of zeros on my tally-board. + + +XXI + + At noon to-day Murphy and Mame were tied. + A gospel huckster did the referee, + And all the Drug Clerks' Union loped to see + The queen of Minnie Street become a bride, + And that bad actor, Murphy, by her side, + Standing where Yours Despondent ought to be. + I went to hang a smile in front of me, + But weeps were in my glimmers when I tried. + The pastor murmured, "Two and two make one," + And slipped a sixteen K on Mamie's grab; + And when the game was tied and all was done + The guests shied footwear at the bridal cab, + And Murphy's little gilt-roofed brother Jim + Snickered, "She's left her happy home for him." + + + + +HOW "RUBY" PLAYED + +BY GEORGE W. BAGBY + + +(Jud Brownin, when visiting New York, goes to hear Rubinstein, and gives +the following description of his playing.) + +Well, sir, he had the blamedest, biggest, catty-cornerdest pianner you +ever laid eyes on; somethin' like a distracted billiard-table on three +legs. The lid was hoisted, and mighty well it was. If it hadn't been, +he'd 'a' tore the entire inside clean out and shattered 'em to the four +winds of heaven. + +_Played well?_ You bet he did; but don't interrupt me. When he first sit +down he 'peared to keer mighty little 'bout playin' and wisht he hadn't +come. He tweedle-leedled a little on a treble, and twoodle-oodled some +on the base,--just foolin' and boxin' the thing's jaws for bein' in his +way. And I says to a man sittin' next to me, says I, "What sort of fool +playin' is that?" And he says, "Heish!" But presently his hands +commenced chasin' one another up and down the keys, like a passel of +rats scamperin' through a garret very swift. Parts of it was sweet, +though, and reminded me of a sugar squirrel turnin' the wheel of a candy +cage. + +"Now," I says to my neighbor, "he's showin' off. He thinks he's a-doin' +of it, but he ain't got no idee, no plan of nothin'. If he'd play me a +tune of some kind or other, I'd--" + +But my neighbor says, "Heish!" very impatient. + +I was just about to git up and go home, bein' tired of that +foolishness, when I heard a little bird waking up away off in the woods +and call sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up and see that Rubin was +beginning to take some interest in his business, and I sit down again. +It was the peep of day. The light came faint from the east, the breezes +blowed gentle and fresh, some more birds waked up in the orchard, then +some more in the trees near the house, and all begun singin' together. +People began to stir, and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the +first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms a leetle more, and it techt +the roses on the bushes, and the next thing it was broad day; the sun +fairly blazed, the birds sung like they'd split their little throats; +all the leaves was movin', and flashin' diamonds of dew, and the whole +wide world was bright and happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a +good breakfast in every house in the land, and not a sick child or woman +anywhere. It was a fine mornin'. + +And I says to my neighbor, "That's music, that is." + +But he glared at me like he'd like to cut my throat. + +Presently the wind turned; it begun to thicken up, and a kind of gray +mist came over things; I got low-spirited directly. Then a silver rain +began to fall. I could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up +like long pearl ear-rings, and the rest rolled away like round rubies. +It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into +long strands and necklaces, and then they melted into thin silver +streams, running between golden gravels, and then the streams joined +each other at the bottom of the hill, and made a brook that flowed +silent, except that you could kinder see the music, especially when the +bushes on the banks moved as the music went along down the valley. I +could smell the flowers in the meadow. But the sun didn't shine, nor the +birds sing: it was a foggy day, but not cold. + +The most curious thing was the little white angel-boy, like you see in +pictures, that run ahead of the music brook and led it on, and on, away +out of the world, where no man ever was, certain, I could see the boy +just as plain as I see you. Then the moonlight came, without any sunset, +and shone on the graveyards, where some few ghosts lifted their hands +and went over the wall, and between the black, sharp-top trees splendid +marble houses rose up, with fine ladies in the lit-up windows, and men +that loved 'em, but could never get anigh 'em, who played on guitars +under the trees, and made me that miserable I could have cried, because +I wanted to love somebody, I don't know who, better than the men with +the guitars did. + +Then the sun went down, it got dark, the wind moaned and wept like a +lost child for its dead mother, and I could 'a' got up then and there +and preached a better sermon than any I ever listened to. There wasn't a +thing in the world left to live for, not a blame thing, and yet I didn't +want the music to stop one bit. It was happier to be miserable than to +be happy without being miserable. I couldn't understand it. I hung my +head and pulled out my handkerchief, and blowed my nose loud to keep me +from cryin'. My eyes is weak anyway; I didn't want anybody to be +a-gazin' at me a-sniv'lin', and it's nobody's business what I do with my +nose. It's mine. But some several glared at me mad as blazes. Then, all +of a sudden, old Rubin changed his tune. He ripped out and he rared, he +tipped and he tared, he pranced and he charged like the grand entry at a +circus. 'Peared to me that all the gas in the house was turned on at +once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head, ready to look any man +in the face, and not afraid of nothin'. It was a circus and a brass band +and a big ball all goin' on at the same time. He lit into them keys like +a thousand of brick; he give 'em no rest day or night; he set every +livin' joint in me a-goin', and, not bein' able to stand it no longer, I +jumped spang onto my seat, and jest hollered,-- + +_"Go it, my Rube!"_ + +Every blame man, woman and child in the house riz on me, and shouted, +"Put him out! put him out!" + +"Put your great-grandmother's grizzly gray greenish cat into the middle +of next month!" I says. "Tech me if you dare! I paid my money, and you +jest come anigh me!" + +With that some several policemen run up, and I had to simmer down. But I +would 'a' fit any fool that laid hands on me, for I was bound to hear +Ruby out or die. + +He had changed his tune again. He hop-light ladies and tip-toed fine +from end to end of the key-board. He played soft and low and solemn. I +heard the church bells over the hills. The candles of heaven was lit, +one by one; I saw the stars rise. The great organ of eternity began to +play from the world's end to the world's end, and all the angels went to +prayers.... Then the music changed to water, full of feeling that +couldn't be thought, and began to drop--drip, drop--drip, drop, clear +and sweet, like tears of joy falling into a lake of glory. It was +sweeter than that. It was as sweet as a sweet-heart sweetened with white +sugar mixed with powdered silver and seed-diamonds. It was too sweet. I +tell you the audience cheered. Rubin he kinder bowed, like he wanted to +say, "Much obleeged, but I'd rather you wouldn't interrup' me." + +He stopped a moment or two to catch breath. Then he got mad. He run his +fingers through his hair, he shoved up his sleeve, he opened his +coat-tails a leetle further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over, and, +sir, he just went for that old pianner. He slapped her face, he boxed +her jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, and he scratched her +cheeks, until she fairly yelled. He knocked her down and he stamped on +her shameful. She bellowed like a bull, she bleated like a calf, she +howled like a hound, she squealed like a pig, she shrieked like a rat, +and _then_ he wouldn't let her up. He run a quarter stretch down the low +grounds of the base, till he got clean in the bowels of the earth, and +you heard thunder galloping after thunder through the hollows and caves +of perdition; and then he fox-chased his right hand with his left till +he got 'way out of the treble into the clouds, whar the notes was finer +than the p'ints of cambric needles, and you couldn't hear nothin' but +the shadders of 'em. And _then_ he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He +for'ard two'd, he crost over first gentleman, he chassade right and +left, back to your places, he all hands'd aroun', ladies to the right, +promenade all, in and out, here and there, back and forth, up and down, +perpetual motion, double twisted and turned and tacked and tangled into +forty-eleven thousand double bow-knots. + +By jinks! it was a mixtery. And then he wouldn't let the old pianner go. +He fetcht up his right wing, he fetcht up his left wing, he fetcht up +his center, he fetcht up his reserves. He fired by file, he fired by +platoons, by company, by regiments, and by brigades. He opened his +cannon,--siege-guns down thar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders +yonder,--big guns, little guns, middle-sized guns, round shot, shells, +shrapnels, grape, canister, mortar, mines and magazines, every livin' +battery and bomb a-goin' at the same time. The house trembled, the +lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor come up, the ceilin' come down, +the sky split, the ground rocked--heavens and earth, creation, sweet +potatoes, Moses, ninepences, glory, tenpenny nails, Samson in a +'simmon-tree, Tump Tompson in a tumbler-cart, roodle-oodle-oodle-oodle- +ruddle-uddle-uddle-uddle--raddle-addle-eedle--riddle-iddle-iddle- +iddle--reedle-eedle-eedle-eedle--p-r-r-r-rlank! Bang!!! lang! perlang! +p-r-r-r-r-r!! Bang!!!! + +With that bang! he lifted himself bodily into the a'r, and he come down +with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows, and his nose, +striking every single solitary key on the pianner at the same time. The +thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven +thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi-demi-semi-quivers, and I know'd +no mo'. + +When I come to, I were under ground about twenty foot, in a place they +call Oyster Bay, treatin' a Yankee that I never laid eyes on before and +never expect to ag'in. Day was breakin' by the time I got to the St. +Nicholas Hotel, and I pledge you my word I did not know my name. The man +asked me the number of my room, and I told him, "Hot music on the +half-shell for two!" + + + + +PLAGIARISM + +BY JOHN B. TABB + + + If Poe from Pike The Raven stole, + As his accusers say, + Then to embody Adam's soul, + God _plagiarised_ the clay. + + + + +GO LIGHTLY, GAL + +(THE CAKE-WALK) + +BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON + + + Sweetes' li'l honey in all dis lan', + Come erlong yer an' gimme yo' han', + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + Cawn all shucked an' de barn flo' clear, + Come erlong, come erlong, come erlong, my dear, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + Fiddles dey callin' us high an' fine, + "Time fer de darnsin', come an' jine," + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + My pooty li'l honey, but you is sweet! + An' hit's clap yo' han's an' shake yo' feet, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + Hit's cut yo' capers all down de line, + Den mek yo' manners an' tiptoe fine, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + Oh, hit's whu'll yo' pardners roun' an' roun', + Twel you hyst dey feet clean off de groun', + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + Oh, hit's tu'n an' twis' all roun' de flo', + Fling out yo' feet behime, befo', + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + Gre't Lan' o' Goshen! but you is spry! + Kain't none er de urr gals spring so high, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + Oh, roll yo' eyes an' wag yo' haid + An' shake yo' bones twel you nigh most daid, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + Doan' talk ter me 'bout gittin' yo' bref, + Gwine darnse dis out ef hit cause my def! + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + Um-humph! done darnse all de urr folks down! + Skip erlong, honey, jes' one mo' roun'! + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + Fiddles done played twel de strings all break! + Come erlong, honey, jes' one mo' shake, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + Now teck my arm an' perawd all roun', + So dey see whar de _sho'-nuff_ darnsers foun', + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + Den gimme yo' han' an' we quit dish yer, + Come erlong, come erlong, come erlong, my dear, + Go lightly, gal, go lightly! + + + + +THE GOLFER'S RUBAIYAT[1] + +BY H.W. BOYNTON + + + Wake! for the sun has driven in equal flight + The stars before him from the Tee of Night, + And holed them every one without a miss, + Swinging at ease his gold-shod Shaft of Light. + + Now the fresh Year, reviving old Desires, + The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, + Pores on this Club and That with anxious eye, + And dreams of Rounds beyond the Rounds of Liars. + + Come, choose your ball, and in the Fire of Spring + Your Red Coat, and your wooden Putter fling; + The Club of Time has but a little while + To waggle, and the Club is on the swing. + + Whether at Musselburgh or Shinnecock, + In motley Hose or humbler motley Sock, + The Cup of Life is ebbing Drop by Drop, + Whether the Cup be filled with Scotch or Bock. + + A Bag of Clubs, a Silver-Town or two, + A Flask of Scotch, a Pipe of Shag--and Thou + Beside me caddying in the Wilderness-- + Ah, Wilderness were Paradise enow. + + They say the Female and the Duffer strut + On sacred Greens where Morris used to put; + Himself a natural Hazard now, alas! + That nice hand quiet now, that great Eye shut. + + I sometimes think that never springs so green + The Turf as where some Good Fellow has been, + And every emerald Stretch the Fair Green shows + His kindly Tread has known, his sure Play seen. + + Myself when young did eagerly frequent + Jamie and His, and heard great argument + Of Grip and Stance and Swing; but evermore + Found at the Exit but a Dollar spent. + + With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, + And with mine own hand sought to make it grow; + And this was all the Harvest that I reaped: + "You hold it This Way, and you swing it So." + + The swinging Brassie strikes; and, having struck, + Moves on: nor all your Wit or future Luck + Shall lure it back to cancel half a Stroke, + Nor from the Card a single Seven pluck. + + And that inverted Ball they call the High-- + By which the Duffer thinks to live or die, + Lift not your hands to IT for help, for it + As impotently froths as you or I. + + Yon rising Moon that leads us Home again, + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; + How oft hereafter rising wait for us + At this same Turning--and for One in vain. + + And when, like her, my Golfer, I have been + And am no more above the pleasant Green, + And you in your mild Journey pass the Hole + I made in One--ah! pay my Forfeit then! + +[Footnote 1: By permission of Fox, Duffield and Company. From _The +Golfer's Rubaiyat_. Copyright, 1901, by Herbert S. Stone and Company.] + + + + +MR. DOOLEY ON REFORM CANDIDATES + +BY FINLEY PETER DUNNE + + +"That frind iv ye'ers, Dugan, is an intilligent man," said Mr. Dooley. +"All he needs is an index an' a few illusthrations to make him a +bicyclopedja iv useless information." + +"Well," said Mr. Hennessy, judiciously, "he ain't no Soc-rates an' he +ain't no answers-to-questions colum; but he's a good man that goes to +his jooty, an' as handy with a pick as some people are with a cocktail +spoon. What's he been doin' again ye?" + +"Nawthin'," said Mr. Dooley, "but he was in here Choosday. 'Did ye +vote?' says I. 'I did,' says he. 'Which wan iv th' distinguished bunko +steerers got ye'er invalu'ble suffrage?' says I. 'I didn't have none +with me,' says he, 'but I voted f'r Charter Haitch,' says he. 'I've been +with him in six ilictions,' says he, 'an' he's a good man,' he says. +'D'ye think ye're votin' f'r th' best?' says I. 'Why, man alive,' I +says, 'Charter Haitch was assassinated three years ago,' I says. 'Was +he?' says Dugan. 'Ah, well, he's lived that down be this time. He was a +good man,' he says. + +"Ye see, that's what thim rayform lads wint up again. If I liked +rayformers, Hinnissy, an' wanted f'r to see thim win out wanst in their +lifetime, I'd buy thim each a suit iv chilled steel, ar-rm thim with +raypeatin' rifles, an' take thim east iv State Sthreet an' south iv +Jackson Bullyvard. At prisint th' opinion that pre-vails in th' ranks +iv th' gloryous ar-rmy iv ray-form is that there ain't anny-thing worth +seein' in this lar-rge an' commodyous desert but th' pest-house an' the +bridewell. Me frind Willum J. O'Brien is no rayformer. But Willum J. +undherstands that there's a few hundherds iv thousands iv people livin' +in a part iv th' town that looks like nawthin' but smoke fr'm th' roof +iv th' Onion League Club that have on'y two pleasures in life, to +wur-ruk an' to vote, both iv which they do at th' uniform rate iv wan +dollar an' a half a day. That's why Willum J. O'Brien is now a sinitor +an' will be an aldherman afther next Thursdah, an' it's why other people +are sinding him flowers. + +"This is th' way a rayform candydate is ilicted. Th' boys down town has +heerd that things ain't goin' r-right somehow. Franchises is bein' +handed out to none iv thim; an' wanst in a while a mimber iv th' club, +comin' home a little late an' thryin' to riconcile a pair iv r-round +feet with an embroidered sidewalk, meets a sthrong ar-rm boy that pushes +in his face an' takes away all his marbles. It begins to be talked that +th' time has come f'r good citizens f'r to brace up an' do somethin', +an' they agree to nomynate a candydate f'r aldherman. 'Who'll we put +up?' says they. 'How's Clarence Doolittle?' says wan. 'He's laid up with +a coupon thumb, an' can't r-run.' 'An' how about Arthur Doheny?' 'I +swore an oath whin I came out iv colledge I'd niver vote f'r a man that +wore a made tie.' 'Well, thin, let's thry Willie Boye.' 'Good,' says th' +comity. 'He's jus' th' man f'r our money.' An' Willie Boye, after +thinkin' it over, goes to his tailor an' ordhers three dozen pairs iv +pants, an' decides f'r to be th' sthandard-bearer iv th' people. Musin' +over his fried eyesthers an' asparagus an' his champagne, he bets a polo +pony again a box of golf-balls he'll be ilicted unanimous; an' all th' +good citizens make a vow f'r to set th' alar-rm clock f'r half-past +three on th' afthernoon iv iliction day, so's to be up in time to vote +f'r th' riprisintitive iv pure gover'mint. + +"'Tis some time befure they comprehind that there ar-re other candydates +in th' field. But th' other candydates know it. Th' sthrongest iv +thim--his name is Flannigan, an' he's a re-tail dealer in wines an' +liquors, an' he lives over his establishment. Flannigan was nomynated +enthusyastically at a prim'ry held in his bar-rn; an' befure Willie Boye +had picked out pants that wud match th' color iv th' Austhreelyan ballot +this here Flannigan had put a man on th' day watch, tol' him to speak +gently to anny raygistered voter that wint to sleep behind th' sthove, +an' was out that night visitin' his frinds. Who was it judged th' cake +walk? Flannigan. Who was it carrid th' pall? Flannigan. Who was it sthud +up at th' christening? Flannigan. Whose ca-ards did th' grievin' widow, +th' blushin' bridegroom, or th' happy father find in th' hack? +Flannigan's. Ye bet ye'er life. Ye see Flannigan wasn't out f'r th' good +iv th' community. Flannigan was out f'r Flannigan an' th' stuff. + +"Well, iliction day come around; an' all th' imminent frinds iv good +gover'mint had special wires sthrung into th' club, an' waited f'r th' +returns. Th' first precin't showed 28 votes f'r Willie Boye to 14 f'r +Flannigan. 'That's my precin't,' says Willie. 'I wondher who voted thim +fourteen?' 'Coachmen,' says Clarence Doolittle. 'There are thirty-five +precin'ts in this ward,' says th' leader iv th' rayform ilimint. 'At +this rate, I'm sure iv 440 meejority. Gossoon,' he says, 'put a keg iv +sherry wine on th' ice,' he says. 'Well,' he says, 'at last th' +community is relieved fr'm misrule,' he says. 'To-morrah I will start in +arrangin' amindmints to th' tariff schedool an' th' ar-bitration +threety,' he says. 'We must be up an' doin',' he says. 'Hol' on there,' +says wan iv th' comity. 'There must be some mistake in this fr'm th' +sixth precin't,' he says. 'Where's the sixth precin't?' says Clarence. +'Over be th' dumps,' says Willie. 'I told me futman to see to that. He +lives at th' cor-ner iv Desplaines an' Bloo Island Av'noo on Goose's +Island,' he says. 'What does it show?' 'Flannigan, three hundherd an' +eighty-five; Hansen, forty-eight; Schwartz, twinty; O'Malley, sivinteen; +Casey, ten; O'Day, eight; Larsen, five; O'Rourke, three; Mulcahy, two; +Schmitt, two; Moloney, two; Riordon, two; O'Malley, two; Willie Boye, +wan.' 'Gintlemin,' says Willie Boye, arisin' with a stern look in his +eyes, 'th' rascal has bethrayed me. Waither, take th' sherry wine off +th' ice. They'se no hope f'r sound financial legislation this year. I'm +goin' home.' + +"An', as he goes down th' sthreet, he hears a band play an' sees a +procission headed be a calceem light; an', in a carredge, with his plug +hat in his hand an' his di'mond makin' th' calceem look like a piece iv +punk in a smokehouse, is Flannigan, payin' his first visit this side iv +th' thracks." + + + + +AN EVENING MUSICALE + +BY MAY ISABEL FISK + + +Scene--_A conventional, but rather over-decorated, drawing-room. Grand +piano drawn conspicuously to center of floor. Rows of camp-chairs. It is +ten minutes before the hour of invitation._ The Hostess, _a large woman, +is costumed in yellow satin, embroidered in spangles. Her diamonds are +many and of large size. She is seated on the extreme edge of a chair, +struggling with a pair of very long gloves. She looks flurried and +anxious._ Poor Relative, _invited as a "great treat," sits opposite. Her +expression is timid and apprehensive. They are the only occupants of the +room._ + +HOSTESS--No such thing, Maria. You look all right. Plain black is always +very genteel. Nothing I like so well for evening, myself. Just keep your +face to the wall as much as you can, and the worn places will never +show. You can take my ecru lace scarf, if you wish, and that will cover +most of the spots. I don't mean my new scarf--the one I got two years +ago. It's a little torn, but it won't matter--for you. I think you will +find it on the top shelf of the store-room closet on the third floor. If +you put a chair on one of the trunks, you can easily reach it. Just wait +a minute, till I get these gloves on; I want you to button them. I do +hope I haven't forgotten anything. Baron von Gosheimer has promised to +come. I have told everybody. It would be terrible if he should +disappoint me. + +MASCULINE VOICE FROM ABOVE--Sarah, where the devil have you put my +shirts? Everything is upside down in my room, and I can't find them. I +pulled every blessed thing out of the chiffonier and wardrobe, and +they're not there! + +HOSTESS--Oh, Henry! You _must_ hurry--I'm going to use your room for the +gentlemen's dressing-room, and it's time now for people to come. You +_must_ hurry. + +HOST (_from above, just as front door opens, admitting_ Baron von +Gosheimer _and two women guests_)--Where the devil are my shirts? + +HOSTESS (_unconscious of arrivals_)--Under the bed in my room. Hurry! + +(HOST, _in bath gown and slippers, dashes madly into wife's room, and +dives under bed as women guests enter. Unable to escape, he crawls +farther beneath bed. His feet remain visible. Women guests discover +them._) + +GUESTS (_in chorus_)--Burglars! burglars! Help! help! + +(Baron von Gosheimer, _ascending to the next floor, hears them and +hastens to the rescue._) + +BARON--Don't be alarmed, ladies. Has either of you a poker? No? That is +to be deplored. (_Catches_ Host _by heels and drags him out. Tableau._) + +HOSTESS (to Poor Relative, _giving an extra tug at her gloves_)--There, +it's all burst out on the side! That stupid saleslady said she knew they +would be too small. Oh, dear, I'm that upset! And these Louis Quinze +slippers are just murdering me. I wish it were all over. + +(_Enter_ Baron von Gosheimer _and women guests._) + +HOSTESS--Dear baron, how good of you! I was just saying, if you didn't +come I should wish my musicale in Jericho. And, now that you are here, I +don't care if any one else comes or not. (_To women guests._) How d'ye +do? I must apologize for Mr. Smythe--he's been detained down-town. He +just telephoned me. He'll be in later. Do sit down; it's just as cheap +as standing, I always say, and it does save your feet. You ladies can +find seats over in the corner. (_Detaining_ Baron.) Dear baron--(_Enter +guests._) + +GUEST--So glad you have a clear evening. Now, when _we_ gave _our_ +affair, it _poured_. Of course, _we_ had a crowd, just the same. People +_always_ come to _us_, whether it rains or not. (_Takes a seat. Guests +begin to arrive in numbers._) + +HOSTESS--So sweet of you to come! + +GUEST--So glad you have a pleasant evening. I am sure to have a bad +night whenever I entertain-- + +HOSTESS--(_to another guest_)--So delightful of you to come! + +GUEST--Such a perfect evening! I'm _so_ glad. I said as we started out, +"Now, this time, Mrs. Smythe can't help but have plenty of people. +Whenever I entertain, it's sure to--" (_More guests._) + +(_Telegram arrives, announcing that the prima donna has a sore throat, +and will be unable to come. Time passes._) + +MALE GUEST (_to another_)--Well, I wish to heaven, something would be +doing soon. This is the deadest affair I was ever up against. + +OMNIPRESENT JOKER (_greeting acquaintance_)--Hello, old man!--going to +sing to-night? + +ACQUAINTANCE--Oh, yes, going to sing a solo. + +JOKER--So low you can't hear it? Ha, ha! (_Guests near by groan._) + +VOICE (_overheard_)--Madame Cully? My dear, she always tells you that +you haven't half enough material, and makes you get yards more. Besides, +she never sends your pieces back, though I have-- + +FAT OLD LADY (_to neighbor_)--I never was so warm in my life! I can't +imagine why people invite you, just to make you uncomfortable. Now, when +I entertain, I have the windows open for hours before any one comes. + +JOKER (_aside_)--That's why she always has a frost! Ha, ha! + +(HOST _enters, showing traces of hasty toilette--face red, and a +razor-cut on chin._) + +HOST (_rubbing his hands, and endeavoring to appear at ease and +facetious_)--Well, how d'ye do, everybody! Sorry to be late on such an +auspicious-- + +JOKER (_interrupting_)--Suspicious! Ha, ha! + +HOST--occasion. I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. + +CHORUS OF GUESTS--Yes, indeed! + +HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh! I have a great disappointment for you all. Here +is a telegram from my _best_ singer, saying she is sick, and can't come. +Now, we will have the pleasure of listening to Miss Jackson. Miss +Jackson is a pupil of Madame Parcheesi, of Paris. (_Singer whispers to +her._) Oh, I beg your pardon! It's Madame _Mar_cheesi. + +DEAF OLD GENTLEMAN (_seated by piano, talking to pretty girl_)--I'd +rather listen to you than hear this caterwauling. (Old Gentleman _is +dragged into corner and silenced._) + +YOUNG WOMAN (_singing_)--"Why do I sing? I know not, I know not! I can +not help but sing. Oh, why do I sing?" + +(_Guests moan softly and demand of one another_, Why does she sing?) + +WOMAN GUEST (_to another_)--Isn't that just the way?--their relatives +are always dying, and it's sure to be wash-day or just when you expect +company to dinner, and off they go to the funeral-- + +(Butler _appears with trayful of punch-glasses._) + +MALE GUEST (_to another_)--Thank the Lord! here's relief in sight. Let's +drown our troubles. + +THE OTHER--It's evident you haven't sampled the Smythes' punch before. I +tell you it's a crime to spoil a thirst with this stuff. Well, here's +how. + +WOMAN GUEST (_to neighbor_)--I never saw Mrs. Smythe looking quite so +hideous and atrociously vulgar before, did you? + +NEIGHBOR--Never! Why did we come? + +VOICE (_overheard_)--The one in the white-lace gown and all those +diamonds? + +ANOTHER VOICE--Yes. Well, you know it was common talk that before he +married her-- + +HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh! Signor Padrella has offered to play some of his +own compositions, but I thought you would all rather hear something +familiar by one of the real composers--Rubens or Chopin--Chopinhauer, I +think-- + +(Pianist _plunges wildly into something._) + +VOICE (_during a lull in the music_)--First, you brown an onion in the +pan, then you chop the cabbage-- + +GUEST (_in the dressing-room, just arriving, to another_)--Yes, we are +awfully late, too, but I always say you never can be too late at one of +the Smythes' horrors. + +THIN YOUNG WOMAN (_in limp pink gown and string of huge pearls, who has +come to recite_)--I'm awfully nervous, and I do believe I'm getting +hoarse. Mama, you didn't forget the lemon juice and sugar? (_Drinks from +bottle._) Now, where are my bronchial troches? Don't you think I could +stand just a little more rouge? I think it's a shame I'm not going to +have footlights. Remember, you are not to prompt me, unless I look at +you. You will get me all mixed up, if you do. (_They descend._) + +HOSTESS (_to elocutionist_)--Why, I thought you were never coming! I +wanted you to fill in while people were taking their seats. The guests +always make so much noise, and the singers hate it. Now, what did you +say you would require--an egg-beater and a turnip, wasn't it? Oh, no! +That's for the young man who is going to do the tricks. I remember. Are +you all ready? + +ELOCUTIONIST (_in a trembling voice_)--Ye-es. + +HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh! + +ELOCUTIONIST--_Aux Italiens._ + + "At Paris it was, at the opera there, + And she looked like--" + +GUEST (_to another_)--Thirty cents, old chap! I tell you, there's +nothing will knock you out quicker than-- + +HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh! + +(_Young woman finishes, and retires amidst subdued applause. Reappears +immediately and gives "The Maniac."_) + +HOSTESS--As I have been disappointed in my best talent for this evening, +Mr. Briggs has kindly consented to do some of his parlor-magic tricks. + +(Mr. Briggs _steps forward, a large, florid young man, wearing a "made" +dress-tie, the buckle of which crawls up the back of his collar._) + +BRIGGS--Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall have to ask you all to move +to the other side of the room. (_This is accomplished with muttered +uncomplimentary remarks concerning the magician._) + +BRIGGS (_to Hostess_)--I must have the piano pushed to the further end. +I must have plenty of space. (_All the men guests are pressed into +service, and, with much difficulty the piano is moved._) + +BRIGGS--Now, I want four large screens. + +HOSTESS (_faintly_)--But I have only two! + +BRIGGS--Well, then, get me a clothes-horse and a couple of sheets. + +POOR RELATIVE--You know, Sarah, I used the last two when I made up my +bed in the children's nursery yesterday. I can easily get-- + +HOSTESS (_hastily_)--No, Maria, don't trouble. (_To guests_)--Perhaps, +some of you gentlemen wouldn't mind lending us your overcoats to cover +the clothes-horse? + +CHORUS (_with great lack of enthusiasm_)--Of course! Delighted! (_They +go for coats._) + +HOSTESS (_to Poor Relative_)--Maria, you get the clothes-horse. I think +it's in the laundry, or--Oh, I think it's in the cellar. Well, you look +till you find it. (_To Briggs_)--I got as many of the things you asked +for as I could remember. Will you read the list over? + +BRIGGS--Turnip and egg-beater-- + +HOSTESS--Yes. + +BRIGGS--Egg, large clock, jar of gold-fish, rabbit and empty barrel. + +HOSTESS--I have the egg. + +BRIGGS (_much annoyed_)--I particularly wanted the gold-fish, the clock +and the barrel. + +(_Guests grow restless._) + +Hostess--Couldn't you do a trick while we are waiting--one with the +egg-beater and turnip? + +BRIGGS--No; I don't know one. + +HOSTESS--Couldn't you make up one? + +BRIGGS (_icily_)--Certainly not. + +(_Gloom descends over the company, until the Poor Relative arrives, +staggering under the clothes-horse._) + +CHORUS OF MEN GUESTS--Let me help you! + +(_Improvised screen is finally arranged._ Briggs _performs "parlor +magic" for an hour. Guests, fidget, yawn and commence to drop away, one +by one._) + +GUEST (_to Hostess_)--Really, we must tear ourselves away. Such a +delightful evening!--not a dull moment. And your punch--heavenly! Do ask +us again. Good night. + +HOSTESS--Thank you so much! So good of you to come. + +ANOTHER GUEST--Yes, we must go. I've had a perfectly dear time. + +HOSTESS--So sorry you must go. So good of you to come. Good night. + + +IN THE DRESSING-ROOM + +CHORUS OF GUESTS--Wasn't it awful?--Such low people!--Why did we ever +come--Parvenue! + +ELOCUTIONIST--I was all right, wasn't I, mama? You noticed they never +clapped a bit until I'd walked the whole length of the room to my chair. +It just showed how wrought up they were. You nearly mixed me up, though, +prompting me in the wrong place; I-- + +HOSTESS (_throwing herself on sofa as door closes on last guest_)--Well, +I'm completely done up! (_To Poor Relative_)--Maria, run up to my room, +and get my red worsted bed-slippers. I can't stand these satin tortures +a minute longer. Entertaining is an awful strain. It's so hard trying +not to say the wrong thing at the right place. But, then, it certainly +went off beautifully. I could tell every one had such a good time! + + + + +COMIN' THU + +BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON + + + Yer's a sinner comin' thu, + Crowd roun', bre'ren, sisters, too, + Sing wid all yo' might an' main, + He'p de sinner out er pain, + He's comin', comin' thu. + + He bin "seekin'" dis long time, + He'p him cas' de foe behime, + Clap yo' han's an' sing an' shout, + He'p him cas' de debil out, + Le's wrassel him right thu. + + Tu'rr side de Gate er Sin, + Year him kickin' ter git in, + Putt up prayers wid might an' main, + Dat he doesn' kick in vain, + Y'all kin pray him thu. + + Heart a-bus'in' fer de right, + Debil hol'in' to him tight, + Year him swish dat forked tail, + See de sinner-man turn pale, + Come on an' he'p him thu. + + Sinner hangin' 'bove de pit, + By a hya'r strotch over hit, + Debil hol' one eend an' shake, + Y'all kin see de sinner quake, + Quick, he'p dis man come thu. + + Seize de ropes, now, ev'y man, + He'p de gospel ship ter lan', + One long pull an' one gre't shout, + Hallelu! We got him out, + De sinner done come thu! + + + + +AUNT DINAH'S KITCHEN + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + + +Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah perfectly scorned +logic and reason in every shape, and always took refuge in intuitive +certainty; and here she was perfectly impregnable. No possible amount of +talent, or authority, or explanation could ever make her believe that +any other way was better than her own, or that the course she had +pursued in the smallest matter could be in the least modified. This had +been a conceded point with her old mistress, Marie's mother; and "Miss +Marie," as Dinah always called her young mistress, even after her +marriage, found it easier to submit than contend; and so Dinah had ruled +supreme. This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress of that +diplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of manner with the +utmost inflexibility as to measure. + +Dinah was the mistress of the whole art and mystery of excuse-making, in +all its branches. Indeed, it was an axiom with her that the cook can do +no wrong, and a cook in a Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and +shoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintain +her own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was a failure, +there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it, and it was the fault, +undeniably, of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparing +zeal. + +But it was very seldom that there was any failure in Dinah's last +results. Though her mode of doing everything was peculiarly meandering +and circuitous, and without any sort of calculation as to time and +place,--though her kitchen generally looked as if it had been arranged +by a hurricane blowing through it, and she had about as many places for +each cooking utensil as there were days in the year,--yet, if one could +have patience to wait her own good time, up would come her dinner in +perfect order, and in a style of preparation with which an epicure could +find no fault. + +It was now the season of incipient preparation for dinner. Dinah, who +required large intervals of reflection and repose, and was studious of +ease in all her arrangements, was seated on the kitchen floor, smoking a +short, stumpy pipe, to which she was much addicted, and which she always +kindled up, as a sort of censer, whenever she felt the need of an +inspiration in her arrangements. It was Dinah's mode of invoking the +domestic Muses. + +Seated around her were various members of that rising race with which a +Southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes, +picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements, +Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke, +or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators, with the +pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly +heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to consider +them born for no earthly purpose but to "save her steps," as she phrased +it. It was the spirit of the system under which she had grown up, and +she carried it out to its full extent. + +Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory tour through all the +other parts of the establishment, now entered the kitchen. Dinah had +heard, from various sources, what was going on, and resolved to stand on +defensive and conservative ground,--mentally determined to oppose and +ignore every new measure, without any actual and observable contest. + +The kitchen was a large, brick-floored apartment, with a great +old-fashioned fireplace stretching along one side of it,--an arrangement +which St. Clair had vainly tried to persuade Dinah to exchange for the +convenience of a modern cook-stove. Not she. No Pusseyite, or +conservative of any school, was ever more inflexibly attached to +time-honored inconveniences than Dinah. + +When St. Clair had first returned from the North, impressed with the +system and order of his uncle's kitchen arrangements, he had largely +provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers, and various +apparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguine illusion +that it would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in her +arrangements. He might as well have provided them for a squirrel or a +magpie. The more drawers and closets there were, the more hiding-holes +could Dinah make for the accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, old +shoes, ribbons, cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of +_vertu_, wherein her soul delighted. + +When Miss Ophelia entered the kitchen, Dinah did not rise, but smoked on +in sublime tranquillity, regarding her movements obliquely out of the +corner of her eye, but apparently intent only on the operations around +her. + +Miss Ophelia commenced opening a set of drawers. + +"What is this drawer for, Dinah?" she said. + +"It's handy for 'most anything, missis," said Dinah. So it appeared to +be. From the variety it contained Miss Ophelia pulled out first a fine +damask table-cloth stained with blood, having evidently been used to +envelop some raw meat. + +"What's this, Dinah? You don't wrap up meat in your mistress's best +table-cloth?" + +"Oh, Lor', missis, no; the towels was all a-missin', so I just did it. I +laid it out to wash that ar; that's why I put it thar." + +"Shir'less!" said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to tumble over the +drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater and two or three nutmegs, a +Methodist hymn-book, a couple of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarn +and knitting-work, a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers, one or +two gilded china saucers with some pomade in them, one or two thin old +shoes, a piece of flannel carefully pinned up enclosing some small white +onions, several damask table-napkins, some coarse crash towels, some +twine and darning-needles, and several broken papers, from which sundry +sweet herbs were sifting into the drawer. + +"Where do you keep your nutmegs, Dinah?" said Miss Ophelia, with the air +of one who "prayed for patience." + +"Most anywhar, missis; there's some in that cracked tea-cup up there, +and there's some over in that ar cupboard." + +"Here are some in the grater," said Miss Ophelia, holding them up. + +"Laws, yes; I put 'em there this morning; I likes to keep my things +handy," said Dinah. "You Jake! what are you stopping for? You'll cotch +it! Be still, thar!" she added, with a dive of her stick at the +criminal. + +"What's this?" said Miss Ophelia, holding up the saucer of pomade. + +"Laws, it's my _har-grease_: I put it thar to have it handy." + +"Do you use your mistress's best saucers for that?" + +"Law! it was 'cause I was driv' and in sich a hurry. I was gwine to +change it this very day." + +"Here are two damask table-napkins." + +"Them table-napkins I put thar to get 'em washed out some day." + +"Don't you have some place here on purpose for things to be washed?" + +"Well, Mas'r St. Clair got dat ar chest, he said, for dat; but I likes +to mix up biscuit and hev my things on it some days, and then it ain't +handy a-liftin' up the lid." + +"Why don't you mix your biscuits on the pastry-table, there?" + +"Law, missis, it gets sot so full of dishes, and one thing and another, +der ain't no room, noways." + +"But you should wash your dishes, and clear them away." + +"Wash my dishes!" said Dinah, in a high key, as her wrath began to rise +over her habitual respect of manner. "What does ladies know 'bout work, +I want to know? When'd mas'r ever get his dinner, if I was to spend all +my time a-washin' and a-puttin' up dishes? Miss Marie never telled me +so, nohow." + +"Well, here are these onions." + +"Laws, yes!" said Dinah; "that _is_ whar I put 'em, now. I couldn't +'member. Them's particular onions I was a savin' for dis yer very stew. +I'd forgot they was in dat ar old flannel." + +Miss Ophelia lifted out the sifting papers of sweet herbs. "I wish +missis wouldn't touch dem ar. I likes to keep my things where I knows +whar to go to 'em," said Dinah, rather decidedly. + +"But you don't want these holes in the papers." + +"Them's handy for siftin' on't out," said Dinah. + +"But you see it spills all over the drawer." + +"Laws, yes! if missis will go a-tumblin' things all up so, it will. +Missis has spilt lots dat ar way," said Dinah, coming uneasily to the +drawers. "If missis only will go up-sta'rs till my clarin'-up time +comes, I'll have everything right; but I can't do nothin' when ladies is +'round a-henderin'. You Sam, don't you gib de baby dat ar sugar-bowl! +I'll crack ye over, if ye don't mind!" + +"I'm going through the kitchen, and going to put everything in order, +_once_, Dinah; and then I'll expect you to _keep_ it so." + +"Lor', now, Miss 'Phelia, dat ar ain't no way for ladies to do. I never +did see ladies doin' no sich; my old missis nor Miss Marie never did, +and I don't see no kinder need on't." And Dinah stalked indignantly +about, while Miss Ophelia piled and sorted dishes, emptied dozens of +scattering bowls of sugar into one receptacle, sorted napkins, +table-cloths, and towels, for washing; washing, wiping and arranging +with her own hands, and with a speed and alacrity which perfectly amazed +Dinah. + +"Lor', now! if dat ar de way dem Northern ladies do, dey ain't ladies +nohow," she said to some of her satellites, when at a safe +hearing-distance. "I has things as straight as anybody, when my +clarin'-up times comes; but I don't want ladies 'round a-henderin' and +gettin' my things all where I can't find 'em." + +To do Dinah justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxysms of +reformation and arrangement, which she called "clarin'-up times," when +she would begin with great zeal and turn every drawer and closet wrong +side outward on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusion +sevenfold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe and leisurely +go over her arrangements, looking things over and discoursing upon them; +making all the young fry scour most vigorously on the tin things, and +keeping up for several hours a most energetic state of confusion, which +she would explain to the satisfaction of all inquirers by the remark +that she was a "clarin'-up." "She couldn't hev things a-gwine on so as +they had been, and she was gwine to make these yer young ones keep +better order;" for Dinah herself, somehow, indulged the illusion that +she herself was the soul of order, and it was only the _young uns_, and +the everybody else in the house, that were the cause of anything that +fell short of perfection in this respect. When all the tins were +scoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and everything that could +offend tucked out of sight in holes and corners, Dinah would dress +herself up in a smart dress, clean apron, and high, brilliant Madras +turban, and tell all marauding "young uns" to keep out of the kitchen, +for she was gwine to have things kept nice. Indeed, these periodic +seasons were often an inconvenience to the whole household, for Dinah +would contract such an immoderate attachment to her scoured tin as to +insist upon it that it shouldn't be used again for any possible +purpose,--at least till the ardor of the "clarin'-up" period abated. + + + + +THE STRIKE AT HINMAN'S + +BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE + + +Away back in the fifties, "Hinman's" was not only the best school in +Peoria, but it was the greatest school in the world. I sincerely thought +so then, and as I was a very lively part of it, I should know. Mr. +Hinman was the Faculty, and he was sufficiently numerous to demonstrate +cube root with one hand and maintain discipline with the other. Dear old +man; boys and girls with grandchildren love him to-day, and think of him +among their blessings. He was superintendent of public instruction, +board of education, school trustee, county superintendent, principal of +the high school and janitor. He had a pleasant smile, a genius for +mathematics, and a West Point idea of obedience and discipline. He +carried upon his person a grip that would make the imported malady which +mocks that name in these degenerate days, call itself Slack, in very +terror at having assumed the wrong title. + +We used to have "General Exercises" on Friday afternoon. The most +exciting feature of this weekly frivolity consisted of a free-for-all +exercise in mental arithmetic. Mr. Hinman gave out lists of numbers, +beginning with easy ones and speaking slowly; each succeeding list he +dictated more rapidly and with ever-increasing complications of +addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, until at last he was +giving them out faster than he could talk. One by one the pupils dropped +out of the race with despairing faces, but always at the closing +peremptory: + +"Answer?" + +At least a dozen hands shot into the air and as many voices shouted the +correct result. We didn't have many books, and the curriculum of an +Illinois school in those days was not academic; but two things the +children could do, they could spell as well as the dictionary and they +could handle figures. Some of the fellows fairly wallowed in them. I +didn't. I simply drowned in the shallowest pond of numbers that ever +spread itself on the page. As even unto this day I do the same. + +Well, one year the Teacher introduced an innovation; "compositions" by +the girls and "speakin' pieces" by the boys. It was easy enough for the +girls, who had only to read the beautiful thought that "spring is the +pleasantest season of the year." Now and then a new girl, from the east, +awfully precise, would begin her essay--"spring is the most pleasant +season of the year," and her would we call down with derisive laughter, +whereat she walked to her seat, very stiffly, with a proud dry-eyed look +in her face, only to lay her head upon her desk when she reached it, and +weep silently until school closed. But "speakin' pieces" did not meet +with favor from the boys, save one or two good boys who were in training +by their parents for congressmen or presidents. + +The rest of us, who were just boys, with no desire ever to be anything +else, endured the tyranny of compulsory oratory about a month, and then +resolved to abolish the whole business by a general revolt. Big and +little, we agreed to stand by each other, break up the new exercise, and +get back to the old order of things--the hurdle races in mental +arithmetic and the geographical chants which we could run and intone +together. + +Was I a mutineer? Well, say, son, your Pa was a constituent conspirator. +He was in the color guard. You see, the first boy called on for a +declamation was to announce the strike, and as my name stood very +high--in the alphabetical roll of pupils--I had an excellent chance of +leading the assaulting column, a distinction for which I was not at all +ambitious, being a stripling of tender years, ruddy countenance, and +sensitive feelings. However, I stiffened the sinews of my soul, girded +on my armor by slipping an atlas back under my jacket and was ready for +the fray, feeling a little terrified shiver of delight as I thought that +the first lick Mr. Hinman gave me would make him think he had broken my +back. + +The hour for "speakin' pieces," an hour big with fate, arrived on time. +A boy named Aby Abbott was called up ahead of me, but he happened to be +one of the presidential aspirants (he was mate on an Illinois river +steamboat, stern-wheeler at that, the last I knew of him), and of course +he flunked and "said" his piece--a sadly prophetic selection--"Mr. +President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope." +We made such suggestive and threatening gestures at him, however, when +Mr. Hinman wasn't looking, that he forgot half his "piece," broke down +and cried. He also cried after school, a little more bitterly, and with +far better reason. + +Then, after an awful pause, in which the conspirators could hear the +beating of each other's hearts, my name was called. + +I sat still at my desk and said: + +"I ain't goin' to speak no piece." + +Mr. Hinman looked gently surprised and asked: + +"Why not, Robert?" + +I replied: + +"Because there ain't goin' to be any more speakin' pieces." + +The teacher's eyes grew round and big as he inquired: + +"Who says there will not?" + +I said, in slightly firmer tones, as I realized that the moment had come +for dragging the rest of the rebels into court: + +"All of us boys!" + +But Mr. Hinman smiled, and said quietly that he guessed there would be +"a little more speaking before the close of the session." Then laying +his hand on my shoulder, with most punctilious but chilling courtesy, he +invited me to the rostrum. The "rostrum" was twenty-five feet distant, +but I arrived there on schedule time and only touched my feet to the +floor twice on my way. + +And then and there, under Mr. Hinman's judicious coaching, before the +assembled school, with feelings, nay, emotions which I now shudder to +recall, I did my first "song and dance." Many times before had I stepped +off a solo-cachuca to the staccato pleasing of a fragment of slate +frame, upon which my tutor was a gifted performer, but never until that +day did I accompany myself with words. Boy like, I had chosen for my +"piece" a poem sweetly expressive of those peaceful virtues which I most +heartily despised. So that my performance, at the inauguration of the +strike, as Mr. Hinman conducted the overture, ran something like this-- + + "Oh, not for me (whack) is the rolling (whack) drum, + Or the (whack, whack) trumpet's wild (whack) appeal! (Boo-hoo!) + Or the cry (swish--whack) of (boo-hoo-hoo!) war when the (whack) foe + is come (ouch!) + Or the (ow--wow!) brightly (whack) flashing (whack-whack) steel! + (wah-hoo, wah-hoo!)" + +Words and symbols can not convey to the most gifted imagination the +gestures with which I illustrated the seven stanzas of this beautiful +poem. I had really selected it to please my mother, whom I had invited +to be present, when I supposed I would deliver it. But the fact that she +attended a missionary meeting in the Baptist church that afternoon made +me a friend of missions forever. Suffice it to say, then, that my +pantomime kept pace and time with Mr. Hinman's system of punctuation +until the last line was sobbed and whacked out. I groped my bewildered +way to my seat through a mist of tears and sat down gingerly and +sideways, inly wondering why an inscrutable providence had given to the +rugged rhinoceros the hide which the eternal fitness of things had +plainly prepared for the school-boy. + +But I quickly forgot my own sorrow and dried my tears with laughter in +the enjoyment of the subsequent acts of the opera, as the chorus +developed the plot and action. Mr. Hinman, who had been somewhat gentle +with me, dealt firmly with the larger boy who followed, and there was a +scene of revelry for the next twenty minutes. The old man shook Bill +Morrison until his teeth rattled so you couldn't hear him cry. He hit +Mickey McCann, the tough boy from, the Lower Prairie, and Mickey ran out +and lay down in the snow to cool off. He hit Jake Bailey across the legs +with a slate frame, and it hurt so that Jake couldn't howl--he just +opened his mouth wide, held up his hands, gasped, and forgot his own +name. He pushed Bill Haskell into a seat and the bench broke. + +He ran across the room and reached out for Lem Harkins, and Lem had a +fit before the old man touched him. He shook Dan Stevenson for two +minutes, and when he let him go, Dan walked around his own desk five +times before he could find it, and then he couldn't sit down without +holding on. He whipped the two Knowltons with a skate-strap in each hand +at the same time; the Greenwood family, five boys and a big girl, he +whipped all at once with a girl's skipping rope, and they raised such a +united wail that the clock stopped. + +He took a twist in Bill Rodecker's front hair, and Bill slept with his +eyes open for a week. He kept the atmosphere of that school-room full of +dust, and splinters, and lint, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, +until he reached the end of the alphabet and all hearts ached and +wearied of the inhuman strife and wicked contention. Then he stood up +before us, a sickening tangle of slate frame, strap, ebony ferule and +skipping rope, a smile on his kind old face, and asked, in clear, +triumphant tones: + +"WHO says there isn't going to be any more speaking pieces?" + +And every last boy in that school sprang to his feet; standing there as +one human being with one great mouth, we shrieked in concerted anguish: + +"NOBODY DON'T!" + +And your Pa, my son, who led that strike, has been "speakin' pieces" +ever since. + + + + +A NAUTICAL BALLAD + +BY CHARLES E. CARRYL + + + A capital ship for an ocean trip + Was the "Walloping Window-blind"; + No gale that blew dismayed her crew + Or troubled the captain's mind. + The man at the wheel was taught to feel + Contempt for the wildest blow, + And it often appeared, when the weather had cleared, + That he'd been in his bunk below. + + "The boatswain's mate was very sedate, + Yet fond of amusement, too; + And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch, + While the captain tickled the crew. + And the gunner we had was apparently mad, + For he sat on the after rail, + And fired salutes with the captain's boots, + In the teeth of the booming gale. + + "The captain sat in a commodore's hat + And dined in a royal way + On toasted pigs and pickles and figs + And gummery bread each day. + But the cook was Dutch and behaved as such; + For the diet he gave the crew + Was a number of tons of hot-cross buns + Prepared with sugar and glue. + + "All nautical pride we laid aside, + And we cast the vessel ashore + On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smiles, + And the Rumbletumbunders roar. + And we sat on the edge of a sandy ledge + And shot at the whistling bee; + And the cinnamon-bats wore water-proof hats + As they danced in the sounding sea. + + "On rubgub bark, from dawn to dark, + We fed, till we all had grown + Uncommonly shrunk,--when a Chinese junk + Came by from the torriby zone. + She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care, + And we cheerily put to sea; + And we left the crew of the junk to chew + The bark of the rubgub tree." + + + + +NATURAL PERVERSITIES + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + I am not prone to moralize + In scientific doubt + On certain facts that Nature tries + To puzzle us about,-- + For I am no philosopher + Of wise elucidation, + But speak of things as they occur, + From simple observation. + + I notice _little_ things--to wit:-- + I never missed a train + Because I didn't _run_ for it; + I never knew it rain + That my umbrella wasn't lent,-- + Or, when in my possession, + The sun but wore, to all intent, + A jocular expression. + + I never knew a creditor + To dun me for a debt + But I was "cramped" or "busted"; or + I never knew one yet, + When I had plenty in my purse, + To make the least invasion,-- + As I, accordingly perverse, + Have courted no occasion. + + Nor do I claim to comprehend + What Nature has in view + In giving us the very friend + To trust we oughtn't to.-- + But so it is: The trusty gun + Disastrously exploded + Is always sure to be the one + We didn't think was loaded. + + Our moaning is another's mirth,-- + And what is worse by half, + We say the funniest thing on earth + And never raise a laugh: + Mid friends that love us overwell, + And sparkling jests and liquor, + Our hearts somehow are liable + To melt in tears the quicker. + + We reach the wrong when most we seek + The right; in like effect, + We stay the strong and not the weak-- + Do most when we neglect.-- + Neglected genius--truth be said-- + As wild and quick as tinder, + The more you seek to help ahead + The more you seem to hinder. + + I've known the least the greatest, too-- + And, on the selfsame plan, + The biggest fool I ever knew + Was quite a little man: + We find we ought, and then we won't-- + We prove a thing, then doubt it,-- + Know _everything_ but when we don't + Know _anything_ about it. + + + + +BUDD WILKINS AT THE SHOW + +BY S.E. KISER + + + Since I've got used to city ways and don't scare at the cars, + It makes me smile to set and think of years ago.--My stars! + How green I was, and how green all them country people be-- + Sometimes it seems almost as if this hardly could be me. + + Well, I was goin' to tell you 'bout Budd Wilkins: I declare + He was the durndest, greenest chap that ever breathed the air-- + The biggest town on earth, he thought, was our old county seat, + With its one two-story brick hotel and dusty bizness street. + + We'd fairs in fall and now and then a dance or huskin' bee, + Which was the most excitin' things Budd Wilkins ever see, + Until, one winter, Skigginsville was all turned upside down + By a troupe of real play actors a-comin' into town. + + The court-house it was turned into a theater, that night, + And I don't s'pose I'll live to see another sich a sight: + I guess that every person who was able fer to go + Jest natchelly cut loose fer oncet, and went to see the show. + + Me and Budd we stood around there all day in the snow, + But gosh! it paid us, fer we got seats right in the second row! + Well, the brass band played a tune or two, and then the play begun, + And 'twa'n't long 'fore the villain had the hero on the run. + + Say, talk about your purty girls with sweet, confidin' ways-- + I never see the equal yit, in all o' my born days. + Of that there brave young heroine, so clingin' and so mild, + And jest as innocent as if she'd been a little child. + + I most forgot to say that Budd stood six feet in his socks, + As brave as any lion, too, and stronger than an ox! + But there never was a man, I'll bet, that had a softer heart, + And he was always sure to take the weaker person's part. + + Budd, he fell dead in love right off with that there purty girl, + And I suppose the feller's brain was in a fearful whirl, + Fer there he set and gazed at her, and when she sighed he sighed, + And when she hid her face and sobbed, he actually cried. + + He clinched his fists and ground his teeth when the villain laid + his plot + And said out loud he'd like to kill the rogue right on the spot, + And when the hero helped the girl, Budd up and yelled "Hooray!" + He'd clean fergot the whole blame thing was nothing but a play. + + At last the villain trapped the girl, that sweet confidin' child, + And when she cried for help, why I'll admit that I was riled; + The hero couldn't do a thing, but roll and writhe around + And tug and groan because they'd got the poor chap gagged and bound. + + The maiden cried: "Unhand me now, or, weak girl that I am--" + And then Budd Wilkins he jumped up and give his hat a slam, + And, quicker'n I can tell it he was up there raisin' Ned, + A-rescuin' the maiden and a-punchin' the rogue's head. + + I can't, somehow, perticklerize concernin' that there row: + The whole thing seems a sort of blur as I recall it now-- + But I can still remember that there was a fearful thud, + With the air chock full of arms and legs and the villain under Budd. + + I never see a chap so bruised and battered up before + As that there villain was when he was picked up from the floor!-- + The show? Oh, it was busted, and they put poor Budd in jail, + And kept him there all night, because I couldn't go his bail. + + Next mornin' what d' you think we heard? Most s'prised in all my life! + That sweet, confidin' maiden was the cruel villain's wife! + Budd wilted when he heard it, and he groaned, and then, says he: + "Well, I'll be dummed! Bill, that's the last play actin' show fer me!" + + + + +BALLAD + +BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND + + + Der noble Ritter Hugo + Von Schwillensaufenstein, + Rode out mit shpeer and helmet, + Und he coom to de panks of de Rhine. + + Und oop dere rose a meer maid, + Vot hadn't got nodings on, + Und she say, "Oh, Ritter Hugo, + Vhere you goes mit yourself alone?" + + And he says, "I rides in de creenwood + Mit helmet und mit shpeer, + Till I cooms into em Gasthaus, + Und dere I trinks some beer." + + Und den outshpoke de maiden + Vot hadn't got nodings on: + "I tont dink mooch of beoplesh + Dat goes mit demselfs alone. + + "You'd petter coom down in de wasser, + Vere deres heaps of dings to see, + Und hafe a shplendid tinner + Und drafel along mit me. + + "Dere you sees de fisch a schwimmin, + Und you catches dem efery one:"-- + So sang dis wasser maiden + Vot hadn't got nodings on. + + "Dere ish drunks all full mit money + In ships dat vent down of old; + Und you helpsh yourself, by dunder! + To shimmerin crowns of gold. + + "Shoost look at dese shpoons und vatches! + Shoost see dese diamant rings! + Coom down und full your bockets, + Und I'll giss you like avery dings. + + "Vot you vantsh mit your schnapps und lager? + Coom down into der Rhine! + Der ish pottles der Kaiser Charlemagne + Vonce filled mit gold-red wine!" + + _Dat_ fetched him--he shtood all shpell pound; + She pooled his coat-tails down, + She drawed him oonder der wasser, + De maidens mit nodings on. + + + + +THE HOOSIER AND THE SALT PILE + +BY DANFORTH MARBLE + + +"I'm sorry," said Dan, as he knocked the ashes from his regalia, as he +sat in a small crowd over a glass of sherry, at Florence's, New York, +one evening,--"I'm sorry that the stages are disappearing so rapidly. I +never enjoyed traveling so well as in the slow coaches. I've made a good +many passages over the Alleghanies, and across Ohio, from Cleveland to +Columbus and Cincinnati, all over the South, down East, and up North, in +stages, and I generally had a good time. + +"When I passed over from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the last time, in a +stage, I met a queer crowd. Such a corps, such a time, you never did +see. I never was better amused in my life. We had a good team,--spanking +horses, fine coaches, and one of them drivers you read of. Well, there +was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a stage full of +Christians ever started before, so chuck full of music. + +"There was a beautiful young lady going to one of the Cincinnati +academies; next to her sat a Jew peddler,--Cowes and a market; wedging +him was a dandy black-leg, with jewelry and chains around about his +breast and neck enough to hang him. There was myself, and an old +gentleman with large spectacles, gold-headed cane, and a jolly, +soldering-iron-looking nose; by him was a circus-rider, whose breath was +enough to breed yaller fever and could be felt just as easy as cotton +velvet! A cross old woman came next, whose look would have given any +reasonable man the double-breasted blues before breakfast; alongside of +her was a rale backwoods preacher, with the biggest and ugliest mouth +ever got up since the flood. He was flanked by the low comedian of the +party, an Indiana Hoosier, 'gwine down to Orleans to get an army +contrac' to supply the forces, then in Mexico, with beef. + +"We rolled along for some time. Nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The +old aunty sat bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the +hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of +her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat to nod and +dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalets and poetry; the old +gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph nose, looked out at the corduroy +and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the circus convoy +followed suit, leaving the preacher and me _vis-a-vis_ and saying +nothing to nobody. 'Indiany,' he stuck his mug out of the window and +criticized the cattle we now and then passed. I was wishing somebody +would give the conversation a start, when 'Indiany' made a break. + +"'This ain't no great stock country,' says he to the old gentleman with +the cane. + +"'No, sir,' says the old gentleman. 'There's very little grazing here, +and the range is pretty much wore out.' + +"Then there was nothing said again for some time. Bimeby the hoosier +opened ag'in: + +"'It's the d----dest place for 'simmon-trees and turkey-buzzards I ever +did see!' + +"The old gentleman with the cane didn't say nothing, and the preacher +gave a long groan. The young lady smiled through her veil, and the old +lady snapped her eyes and looked sideways at the speaker. + +"'Don't make much beef here, I reckon,' says the hoosier. + +"'No,' says the gentleman. + +"'Well, I don't see how in h----ll they all manage to get along in a +country whar thar ain't no ranges and they don't make no beef. A man +ain't considered worth a cuss in Indiany what hasn't got his brand on a +hundred head.' + +"'Yours is a great beef country, I believe,' says the old gentleman. + +"'Well, sir, it ain't anything else. A man that's got sense enuff to +foller his own cow-bell with us ain't in no danger of starvin'. I'm +gwine down to Orleans to see if I can't git a contract out of Uncle Sam +to feed the boys what's been lickin' them infernal Mexicans so bad. I +s'pose you've seed them cussed lies what's been in the papers about the +Indiany boys at Bony Visty.' + +"'I've read some accounts of the battle,' says the old gentleman, 'that +didn't give a very flattering account of the conduct of some of our +troops.' + +"With that, the Indiany man went into a full explanation of the affair, +and, gettin' warmed up as he went along, begun to cuss and swear like +he'd been through a dozen campaigns himself. The old preacher listened +to him with evident signs of displeasure, twistin' and groanin' till he +couldn't stand it no longer. + +"'My friend,' says he, 'you must excuse me, but your conversation would +be a great deal more interesting to me--and I'm sure would please the +company much better--if you wouldn't swear so terribly. It's very wrong +to swear, and I hope you'll have respect for our feelin's, if you hain't +no respect for your Maker.' + +"If the hoosier had been struck with thunder and lightnin', he couldn't +have been more completely tuck aback. He shut his mouth right in the +middle of what he was sayin', and looked at the preacher, while his +face got as red as fire. + +"'Swearin',' says the old preacher, 'is a terrible bad practice, and +there ain't no use in it, nohow. The Bible says, Swear not at all, and I +s'pose you know the commandments about swearin'?' + +"The old lady sort of brightened up,--the preacher was her 'duck of a +man'; the old fellow with the nose and cane let off a few 'umph, ah! +umphs'; but 'Indiany' kept shady; he appeared to be cowed down. + +"'I know,' says the preacher, 'that a great many people swear without +thinkin', and some people don't b'lieve the Bible.' + +"And then he went on to preach a regular sermon ag'in swearing, and to +quote Scripture like he had the whole Bible by heart. In the course of +his argument he undertook to prove the Scriptures to be true, and told +us all about the miracles and prophecies and their fulfilment. The old +gentleman with the cane took a part in the conversation, and the hoosier +listened, without ever opening his head. + +"'I've just heard of a gentleman,' says the preacher, 'that's been to +the Holy Land and went over the Bible country. It's astonishin' to hear +what wonderful things he has seen. He was at Sodom and Gomorrow, and +seen the place whar Lot's wife fell.' + +"'Ah!' says the old gentleman with the cane. + +"'Yes,' says the preacher; 'he went to the very spot; and, what's the +remarkablest thing of all, he seen the pillar of salt what she was +turned into.' + +"'Is it possible!' says the old gentleman. + +"'Yes, sir; he seen the salt, standin' thar to this day.' + +"'What!' says the hoosier, 'real genewine, good salt?' + +"'Yes, sir, a pillar of salt, jest as it was when that wicked woman was +punished for her disobedience.' + +"All but the gambler, who was snoozing in the corner of the coach, +looked at the preacher,--the hoosier with an expression of countenance +that plainly told us that his mind was powerfully convicted of an +important fact. + +"'Right out in the open air?' he asked. + +"'Yes, standin' right in the open field, whar she fell.' + +"'Well, sir,' says 'Indiany,' 'all I've got to say is, if she'd dropped +in our parts, the cattle would have licked her up afore sundown!' + +"The preacher raised both his hands at such an irreverent remark, and +the old gentleman laughed himself into a fit of asthmatics, what he +didn't get over till we came to the next change of horses. The hoosier +had played the mischief with the gravity of the whole party; even the +old maid had to put her handkerchief to her face, and the young lady's +eyes were filled with tears for half an hour afterward. The old preacher +hadn't another word to say on the subject; but whenever we came to any +place, or met anybody on the road, the circus-man nursed the thing along +by asking what was the price of salt." + + + + +A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT + +BY KATE FIELD + + +I once heard a bright child declare that if circuses were prohibited in +heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under +Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given +her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naive utterance touched a +responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how +gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the +ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of +mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures who +jumped over flags and through balloons; how the clown was the dearest, +funniest of men; how the young athletes in tights and spangles were my +_beau-ideals_ of masculinity; and how La Belle Rose, with one foot upon +her native heath, otherwise a well-padded saddle, and the other pointed +in the direction of the sweet little cherubs that sat up aloft, was the +most fascinating of her sex. I am persuaded that circuses fill an aching +void in the universe. What children did before their invention I shudder +to think, for circuses are to childhood what butter is to bread; and +what the world did before the birth of Barnum is an almost equally +frightful problem. Some are born to shows, others attain shows, and yet +again others have shows thrust upon them. Barnum is a born showman. If +ever a man fulfills his destiny, it is the discoverer of Tom Thumb. With +the majority of men and women life is a failure. Not until one leg +dangles in the grave is their _raison d'etre_ disclosed. The round +people always find themselves sticking in the square holes, and _vice +versa_; but with Barnum we need not deplore a _vie manquee_. We can +smile at his reverses, for even the phoenix has cause to blush in his +presence. Though pursued by tongues of fire, Barnum remains invincible +when iron, stone, and mortar crumble around him; and while yet the smoke +is telling volumes of destruction, the cheery voice of the showman +exclaims, "Here you are, gentlemen; admission fifty cents, children half +price." + +Apropos of Barnum, once in my life I gave myself up to unmitigated joy. +Weary of lecturing, singing the song "I would I were a boy again," I +went to see the elephant. To speak truly, I saw not one elephant, but +half a dozen. I had a feast of roaring and a flow of circus. In fact I +indulged in the wildest dissipation. I visited Barnum's circus and +sucked peppermint candy in a way most childlike and bland. The reason +seems obscure, but circuses and peppermint candy are as inseparable as +peanuts and the Bowery. Appreciating this solemn fact, Barnum provides +bigger sticks adorned with bigger red stripes than ever Romans sucked in +the palmy days of the Coliseum. In the dim distance I mistook them for +barbers' poles, but upon direct application I recognized them for my +long lost own. + +However, let me, like the Germans, begin with the creation. "Here, +ladies and gentlemen, is for sale Mr. Barnum's Autobiography, full of +interest and anecdote, one of the most charming productions ever issued +from the press, 900 pages, thirty-two full-page engravings, reduced from +$3.50 to $1.50. Every purchaser enters free." + +How ordinary mortals can resist buying Barnum's Autobiography for one +dollar--such a bargain as never was--is incomprehensible. I believe +they can not. I believe they do their duty like men. As one man I +resisted, because I belong to the press, and therefore am not mortal. +Who ever heard of a journalist getting a bargain? With Spartan firmness +I turned a deaf ear to the persuasive music of the propagandist, and +entered where hope is all before. I was not staggered by a welcome from +all the Presidents of the United States, Fitz-Greene Halleck, General +Hooker, and Gratz Brown. These personages are rather woodeny and red +about the face, as though flushed with victories of the platform or the +table, but I recognize their fitness in a menagerie. What athlete has +turned more somersaults than some of these representative men? What lion +has roared more gently than a few of these sucking doves? Barnum's tact +in appropriately grouping curiosities, living and dead, is too well +known to require comment. Passing what Sam Weller would call "a reg'lar +knock-down of intellect," I took my seat high in the air amid a dense +throng of my fellow-creatures, and realized how many people it takes to +make up the world. What did I see? I saw double. I beheld not one ring +but two, in each of which the uncommon variety of man was disporting in +an entertaining manner. I felt for these uncommon men. Think what +immortal hates must arise from these dual performances! We all like to +receive the reward of merit, but when two performances are going on +simultaneously, how are the artists to know for whom it is intended? +Applause is the sweet compensation for which all strive privately or +publicly, and to be cheated out of it, or left in doubt as to its +destination, is a refined form of the Inquisition. Fancy the sensations +of the man balancing plates on the little end of nothing,--a feat to +which he has consecrated his life,--at thought of his neighbor's +performance of impossible feats in the air! It would be more than human +in both not to wish the other in Jericho, or in some equally remote +quarter of the globe. I sympathized with them. I became bewildered in my +endeavors to keep one eye on each. If human beings were constructed on +the same principles as Janus, and had two faces, a fore-and-aft circus +would be convenient; but as nowadays double-faced people only wear two +eyes in their heads, the Barnumian conception muddles the intellect. I +pray you, great and glorious showman, take pity on your artists and your +audiences. Don't drive the former mad and the latter distracted. +Remember that insanity is on the increase, and that accommodations in +asylums are limited. Take warning before you undermine the reason of an +entire continent. Beware! Beware! + +I hear much and see more of the physical weakness of woman. Michelet +tells the sentimental world that woman is an exquisite invalid, with a +perennial headache and nerves perpetually on the rack. It is a mistake. +When I gaze upon German and French peasant-women, I ask Michelet which +is right, he or Nature? And since my introduction to Barnum's female +gymnast,--a good-looking, well-formed mother of a family, who walks +about unflinchingly with men and boys on her shoulders, and carries a +300-pound gun as easily as the ordinary woman carries a +clothes-basket,--I have been persuaded that "the coming woman," like +Brother Jonathan, will "lick all creation." In that good time, woman +will have her rights because she will have her muscle. Then, if there +are murders and playful beatings between husbands and wives, the wives +will enjoy all the glory of crime. What an outlook! And what a sublime +consolation to the present enfeebled race of wives that are having their +throats cut and their eyes carved out merely because their biceps have +not gone into training! Barnum's female gymnast is an example to her +sex. What woman has done woman may do again. Mothers, train up your +daughters in the way they should fight, and when they are married they +will not depart this life. God is on the side of the stoutest muscle as +well as of the heaviest battalions. It is perfectly useless to talk +about the equality of the sexes as long as a man can strangle his own +mother-in-law. + +I was exceedingly thrilled by the appearance of the two young gentlemen +from the Cannibal Islands, who are beautifully embossed in green and +red, and compassionated them for the sacrifices they make in putting on +blankets and civilization. Is it right to deprive them of their daily +bread,--I mean their daily baby? Think what self-restraint they must +exercise while gazing upon the toothsome infants that congregate at the +circus! That they do gaze and smack their overhanging lips I know, +because, after going through their cannibalistic dance, they sat behind +me and howled in a subdued manner. The North American Indian who +occupied an adjoining seat, favored me with a translation of their +charming conversation, by which I learned many important facts +concerning man as an article of diet. It appears that babies, after all, +do not make the daintiest morsels. Tender they are, of course, but, +being immature, they have not the rich flavor of a youthful adult. This +seems reasonable. Veal is tender, but can it be favorably compared with +beef? The cases are parallel. The embossed young men consider babies +excellent for _entrees_, but for roasts there is nothing like plump +maidens in their teens. Men of twenty are not bad eating. When older, +they are invariably boiled. Commenting upon the audience, the critics +did not consider it appetizing; and, strange as it may appear, I felt +somewhat hurt by the remark, for who is not vain enough to wish to look +good enough to eat? Fancy being shipwrecked off the Fiji Islands, and +discarded by cannibals as a tough subject, while your companions are +literally killed with attention! Can you not imagine, that, under such +circumstances, a peculiar jealousy of the superior tenderness of your +friends would be a thorn in the flesh, rendering existence a temporary +burden? If we lived among people who adored squinting, should we not all +take to it, and cherish it as the apple of our eye? And if we fell among +anthropophagi, would not our love of approbation make us long to be as +succulent as young pigs? What glory to escape from the jaws of death, if +the jaws repudiate us? So long as memory holds a seat in this distracted +brain, I shall entertain unpleasant feelings toward the embossed young +gentlemen who did not sigh to fasten their affections--otherwise their +teeth--on me. It was worse than a crime: it was bad taste. + +Roaming among the wild animals, I made the acquaintance of the +cassowary, in which I have been deeply interested since childhood's +sunny hours, for then't was oft I sang a touching hymn running thus: + + "If I were a cassowary + Far away in Timbuctoo, + I should eat a missionary, + Hat, and boots, and hymn-book too." + +From that hour the cassowary occupied a large niche in my heart. The +desire to gaze upon a bird capable of digesting food to which even the +ostrich never aspired, pursued me by day and tinctured my dreams by +night. "What you seek for all your life you will come upon suddenly when +the whole family is at dinner," says Thoreau. I met the cassowary at +dinner. He was dining alone, having left his family in Africa, and I +must say that I never met with a greater disappointment. Were it not for +the touching intimation of the hymn, I should believe it impossible for +him to eat a missionary. A quieter, more amiable bird never stood on two +legs. A polite attendant stirred him up for me, yet his temper and his +feathers remained unruffled. Perhaps if our geographical position had +changed to Timbuctoo, and I had been a missionary with hymn-book in +hand, the cassowary might have realized my expectations. As it was, one +more illusion vanished. + +In order to regain my spirits, I shook hands with the handsome giant in +brass buttons; and speaking of giants leads me to the subject of all +_lusus naturae_, particularly the Circassian young lady, the dwarf, the +living skeleton, the Albinos, and What-is-it. I have dropped more than +one tear at the fate of these unfortunate beings; for what is more +horribly solitary than to live in a strange crowd, with + + "No one to love, + None to caress?" + +Noah was human. When he retired to the ark, he selected two of a kind +from all the animal kingdom for the sake of sociability as well as for +more practical purposes. Showmen should be equally considerate. To think +of those Albino sisters with never an Albino beau, of the Circassian +beauty with never a Circassian sweetheart, of the living skeleton with +never another skeleton in his closet (how he can look so good-natured +would be most mysterious, were not his digestion pronounced perfect), to +think of the wretched What-is-it with never a Mrs. What-is-it, produces +unspeakable anguish. May they meet their affinities in another and a +more sympathetic world, where monstrosities are impossible for the +reason that we leave our bones on earth. Since gazing at the What-is-it, +I have become a convert to Darwin. It is too true. Our ancestors stood +on their hind legs, and the less we talk about pedigree the better. The +noble democrat in search of a coat-of-arms and a grandfather should +visit a grand moral circus. Let us assume a virtue, though we have it +not; let our pride _ape_ humility. + +Were I asked which I thought the greater necessity of civilization, +lectures or circuses, I should lay my right hand upon my left heart, and +exclaim, "Circuses!" + + + + +YAWCOB STRAUSS + +BY CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS + + + I haf von funny leedle poy, + Vot gomes schust to mine knee; + Der queerest schap, der createst rogue, + As efer you dit see. + + He runs, und schumps, und schmashes dings + In all barts off der house: + But vot off dot? he vas mine son, + Mine leedle Yawcob Strauss. + + He gets der measles und der mumbs, + Und eferyding dot's oudt; + He sbills mine glass off lager bier, + Poots schnuff indo mine kraut. + + He fills mine pipe mit Limburg cheese,-- + Dot vas der roughest chouse: + I'd dake dot vrom no oder poy + But leedle Yawcob Strauss. + + He dakes der milk-ban for a dhrum, + Und cuts mine cane in dwo, + To make der schticks to beat it mit,-- + Mine cracious, dot vas drue! + + I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart, + He kicks oup sooch a touse: + But nefer mind; der poys vas few + Like dot young Yawcob Strauss. + + He asks me questions sooch as dese: + Who baints mine nose so red? + Who vas it cuts dot schmoodth blace oudt + Vrom der hair ubon mine hed? + + Und vhere der plaze goes vrom der lamp + Vene'er der glim I douse. + How gan I all dose dings eggsblain + To dot schmall Yawcob Strauss? + + I somedimes dink I schall go vild + Mit sooch a grazy poy, + Und vish vonce more I gould haf rest, + Und beaceful dimes enshoy; + + But ven he vas ashleep in ped, + So guiet as a mouse, + I prays der Lord, "Dake anyding, + But leaf dot Yawcob Strauss." + + + + +SEFFY AND SALLY + +BY JOHN LUTHER LONG + + +The place was the porch of the store, the time was about ten o'clock in +the morning of a summer day, the people were the amiable loafers--and +Old Baumgartner. The person he was discoursing about was his son +Sephenijah. I am not sure that the name was not the ripe fruit of his +father's fancy--with, perhaps, the Scriptural suggestion which is likely +to be present in the affairs of a Pennsylvania-German--whether a +communicant or not--even if he live in Maryland. + +"Yas--always last; expecial at funerals and weddings. Except his +own--he's sure to be on time at his own funeral. Right out in front! +Hah? But sometimes he misses his wedding. Why, I knowed a feller--yous +all knowed him, begoshens!--that didn't git there tell another feller'd +married her--'bout more'n a year afterward. Wasn't it more'n a year, +boys? Yas--Bill Eisenkrout. Or, now, was it his brother--Baltzer +Iron-Cabbage? Seems to me now like it was Baltz. Somesing wiss a B at +the front end, anyhow." + +Henry Wasserman diffidently intimated that there was a curious but +satisfactory element of safety in being last--a "fastnacht" in their +language, in fact. Those in front were the ones usually hurt in railroad +accidents, Alexander Althoff remembered. + +"Safe?" cried the speaker. "Of course! But for why--say, for why?" Old +Baumgartner challenged defiantly. + +No one answered and he let several impressive minutes intervene. + +"You don't know! Hang you, none of yous knows! Well--because he ain't +there when anysing occurs--always a little late!" + +They agreed with him by a series of sage nods. + +"But, fellers, the worst is about courting. It's no way to be always +late. Everybody else gits there first, and it's nossing for the +fastnacht but weeping and wailing and gnashing of the teeth. And mebby +the other feller gits considerable happiness--and a good farm." + +There was complaint in the old man's voice, and they knew that he meant +his own son Seffy. To add to their embarrassment, this same son was now +appearing over the Lustich Hill--an opportune moment for a pleasing +digression. For you must be told early concerning Old Baumgartner's +longing for certain lands, tenements and hereditaments--using his own +phrase--which were not his own, but which adjoined his. It had passed +into a proverb of the vicinage; indeed, though the property in question +belonged to one Sarah Pressel, it was known colloquially as +"Baumgartner's Yearn." + +And the reason of it was this: Between his own farm and the public road +(and the railroad station when it came) lay the fairest meadow-land +farmer's eye had ever rested upon. (I am speaking again for the father +of Seffy and with his hyperbole.) Save in one particular, it was like an +enemy's beautiful territory lying between one's less beautiful own and +the open sea--keeping one a poor inlander who is mad for the seas--whose +crops must either pass across the land of his adversary and pay tithes +to him, or go by long distances around him at the cost of greater tithes +to the soulless owners of the turnpikes--who aggravatingly fix a gate +each way to make their tithes more sure. So, I say, it was like having +the territory of his enemy lying between him and the deep water--save, +as I have also said, in one particular, to wit: that the owner--the +Sarah Pressel I have mentioned--was not Old Baumgartner's enemy. + +In fact, they were tremendous friends. And it was by this +friendship--and one other thing which I mean to mention later--that Old +Baumgartner hoped, before he died, to attain the wish of his life, and +see, not only the Elysian pasture-field, but the whole of the adjoining +farm, with the line fences down, a part of his. The other thing I +promised to mention as an aid to this ambition--was Seffy. And, since +the said Sarah was of nearly the same age as Seffy, perhaps I need not +explain further, except to say that the only obstruction the old man +could see now to acquiring the title by marriage was--Seffy himself. He +was, and always had been, afraid of girls--especially such aggressive, +flirtatious, pretty and tempestuous girls as this Sarah. + +These things, however, were hereditary with the girl. It was historical, +in fact, that, during the life of Sarah's good-looking father, so +importunate had been Old Baumgartner for the purchase of at least the +meadow--he could not have ventured more at that time--and so obstinate +had been the father of the present owner--(he had red hair precisely as +his daughter had)--that they had come to blows about it, to the +discomfiture of Old Baumgartner; and, afterward, they did not speak. +Yet, when the loafers at the store laughed, Baumgartner swore that he +would, nevertheless, have that pasture before he died. + +But then, as if fate, too, were against him, the railroad was built, and +its station was placed so that the Pressel farm lay directly between it +and him, and of course the "life" went more and more in the direction +of the station--left him more and more "out of it"--and made him poorer +and poorer, and Pressel richer and richer. And, when the store laughed +at _that_, Baumgartner swore that he would possess half of the farm +before he died; and as Pressel and his wife died, and Seffy grew up, and +as he noticed the fondness of the little red-headed girl for his little +tow-headed boy, he added to his adjuration that he would be harrowing +that whole farm before _he_ died,--_without paying a cent for it_! + +But both Seffy and Sally had grown to a marriageable age without +anything happening. Seffy had become inordinately shy, while the +coquettish Sally had accepted the attentions of Sam Pritz, the clerk at +the store, as an antagonist more worthy of her, and in a fashion which +sometimes made the father of Seffy swear and lose his temper--with +Seffy. Though, of course, in the final disposition of the matter, he was +sure that no girl so nice as Sally would marry such a person as Sam +Pritz, with no extremely visible means of support--a salary of four +dollars a week, and an odious reputation for liquor. And it was for +these things, all of which were known (for Baumgartner had not a single +secret) that the company at the store detected the personal equation in +Old Baumgartner's communications. + +Seffy had almost arrived by this time, and Sally was in the store! With +Sam! The situation was highly dramatic. But the old man consummately +ignored this complication and directed attention to his son. For him, +the molasses-tapper did not exist. The fact is he was overjoyed. Seffy, +for once in his life, would be on time! He would do the rest. + +"Now, boys, chust look at 'em! Dogged if they ain't bose like one +another! How's the proferb? Birds of a feather flock wiss one another? +I dunno. Anyhow, Sef flocks wiss Betz constant. And they understand one +another good. Trotting like a sidewise dog of a hot summer's day!" And +he showed the company, up and down the store-porch, just how a sidewise +dog would be likely to trot on a hot summer day--and then laughed +joyously. + +If there had been an artist eye to see they would have been well worth +its while--Seffy and the mare so affectionately disparaged. And, after +all, I am not sure that the speaker himself had not an artist's eye. For +a spring pasture, or a fallow upland, or a drove of goodly cows deep in +his clover, I know he had. (Perhaps you, too, have?) And this was his +best mare and his only son. + +The big bay, clad in broad-banded harness, soft with oil and glittering +with brasses, was shambling indolently down the hill, resisting her own +momentum by the diagonal motion the old man had likened to a dog's +sidewise trot. The looped trace-chains were jingling a merry dithyramb, +her head was nodding, her tail swaying, and Seffy, propped by his elbow +on her broad back, one leg swung between the hames, the other keeping +time on her ribs, was singing: + + "'I want to be an angel + And with the angels stand, + A crown upon my forehead + A harp within my hand--'" + +His adoring father chuckled. "I wonder what for kind of anchel he'd +make, anyhow? And Betz--they'll have to go together. Say, I wonder if it +_is_ horse-anchels?" + +No one knew; no one offered a suggestion. + +"Well, it ought to be. Say--he ken perform circus wiss ol' Betz!" + +They expressed their polite surprise at this for perhaps the hundredth +time. + +"Yas--they have a kind of circus-ring in the barnyard. He stands on one +foot, then on another, and on his hands wiss his feet kicking, and then +he says words--like hokey-pokey--and Betz she kicks up behind and throws +him off in the dung and we all laugh--happy efer after--Betz most of +all!" + +After the applause he said: + +"I guess I'd better wake 'em up! What you sink?" + +They one and all thought he had. They knew he would do it, no matter +what they thought. His method, as usual, was his own. He stepped to the +adjoining field, and, selecting a clod with the steely polish of the +plowshare upon it, threw it at the mare. It struck her on the flank. She +gathered her feet under her in sudden alarm, then slowly relaxed, looked +slyly for the old man, found him, and understanding, suddenly wheeled +and ambled off home, leaving Seffy prone on the ground as her part of +the joke. + +The old man brought Seffy in triumph to the store-porch. + +"Chust stopped you afore you got to be a anchel!" he was saying. "We +couldn't bear to sink about you being a anchel--an' wiss the anchels +stand--a harp upon your forehead, a crown within your hand, I +expect--when it's corn-planting time." + +Seffy grinned cheerfully, brushed off the dust and contemplated his +father's watch--held accusingly against him. Old Baumgartner went on +gaily. + +"About an inch and a half apast ten! Seffy, I'm glad you ain't breaking +your reputation for being fastnachtich. Chust about a quarter of an inch +too late for the prize wiss flour on its hair and arms and its frock +pinned up to show its new petticoat! Uhu! If I had such a nice +petticoat--" he imitated the lady in question, to the tremendous delight +of the gentle loafers. + +Seffy stared a little and rubbed some dust out of his eyes. He was +pleasant but dull. + +"Yassir, Sef, if you'd a-got yere at a inch and a quarter apast! Now +Sam's got her. Down in the cellar a-licking molasses together! Doggone +if Sam don't git eferysing--except his due bills. He don't want to be no +anchel tell he dies. He's got fun enough yere--but Seffy--you're like +the flow of molasses in January--at courting." + +This oblique suasion made no impression on Seffy. It is doubtful if he +understood it at all. The loafers began to smile. One laughed. The old +man checked him with a threat of personal harm. + +"Hold on there, Jefferson Dafis Busby," he chid. "I don't allow no one +to laugh at my Seffy--except chust me--account I'm his daddy. It's a +fight-word the next time you do it." + +Mr. Busby straightened his countenance. + +"He don't seem to notice--nor keer--'bout gals--do he?" + +No one spoke. + +"No, durn him, he ain't no good. Say--what'll you give for him, hah? +Yere he goes to the highest bidder--for richer, for poorer, for better, +for worser, up and down, in and out, swing your partners--what's bid? He +ken plow as crooked as a mule's hind leg, sleep hard as a 'possum in +wintertime, eat like a snake, git left efery time--but he ken ketch +fish. They wait on him. What's bid?" + +No one would hazard a bid. + +"Yit a minute," shouted the old fellow, pulling out his bull's-eye +watch again, "what's bid? Going--going--all done--going--" + +"A dollar!" + +The bid came from behind him, and the voice was beautiful to hear. A +gleam came into the old man's eyes as he heard it. He deliberately put +the watch back in its pocket, put on his spectacles, and turned, as if +she were a stranger. + +"Gone!" he announced then. "Who's the purchaser? Come forwards and take +away you' property. What's the name, please?" Then he pretended to +recognize her. "Oach! Sally! Well, that's lucky! He goes in good hands. +He's sound and kind, but needs the whip." He held out his hand for the +dollar. + +It was the girl of whom he had spoken accurately as a prize. Her sleeves +were turned up as far as they would go, revealing some soft lace-trimmed +whiteness, and there _was_ flour on her arms. Some patches of it on her +face gave a petal-like effect to her otherwise aggressive color. The +pretty dress was pinned far enough back to reveal the prettier +petticoat--plus a pair of trimly-clad ankles. + +Perhaps these were neither the garments nor the airs in which every +farmer-maiden did her baking. But then, Sally was no ordinary +farmer-maiden. She was all this, it is true, but she was, besides, grace +and color and charm itself. And if she chose to bake in such attire--or, +even, if she chose to pretend to do so, where was the churl to say her +nay, even though the flour was part of a deliberate "make up"? Certainly +he was not at the store that summer morning. + +And Seffy was there. Her hair escaped redness by only a little. But that +little was just the difference between ugliness and beauty. For, whether +Sally were beautiful or not--about which we might contend a bit--her +hair was, and perhaps that is the reason why it was nearly always +uncovered--or, possibly, again, because it was so much uncovered was the +reason it was beautiful. It seemed to catch some of the glory of the +sun. Her face had a few freckles and her mouth was a trifle too large. +But, in it were splendid teeth. + +In short, by the magic of brilliant color and natural grace she narrowly +escaped being extremely handsome--in the way of a sunburned peach, or a +maiden's-blush apple. And even if you should think she were not +handsome, you would admit that there was an indescribable rustic charm +about her. She was like the aroma of the hay-fields, or the woods, or a +field of daisies, or dandelions. + +The girl, laughing, surrendered the money, and the old man, taking an +arm of each, marched them peremptorily away. + +"Come to the house and git his clothes. Eferysing goes in--stofepipe +hat, butterfly necktie, diamond pin, toothbrush, hair-oil, razor and +soap." + +They had got far enough around the corner to be out of sight of the +store, during this gaiety, and the old man now shoved Seffy and the girl +out in front of him, linked their arms, and retreated to the rear. + +"What Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, Senior, hath j'ined together, let +nobody put athunder, begoshens!" he announced. + +The proceeding appeared to be painful to Seffy, but not to Sally. She +frankly accepted the situation and promptly put into action its +opportunities for coquetry. She begged him, first, with consummate +aplomb, to aid her in adjusting her parcels more securely, insisting +upon carrying them herself, and it would be impossible to describe +adequately her allures. The electrical touches, half-caress, +half-defiance; the confidential whisperings, so that the wily old man in +the rear might not hear; the surges up against him; the recoveries--only +to surge again--these would require a mechanical contrivance which +reports not only speech but action--and even this might easily fail, so +subtle was it all! + +"Sef--Seffy, I thought it was his old watch he was auctioning off. I +wanted it for--for--a nest-egg! aha-ha-ha! You must excuse me." + +"You wouldn't 'a' bid at all if you'd knowed it was me, I reckon," said +Seffy. + +"Yes, I would," declared the coquette. "I'd rather have you than any +nest-egg in the whole world--any two of 'em!"--and when he did not take +his chance--"if they were made of gold!" + +But then she spoiled it. + +"It's worse fellows than you, Seffy." The touch of coquetry was but too +apparent. + +"And better," said Seffy, with a lump in his throat. "I know I ain't no +good with girls--and I don't care!" + +"Yes!" she assented wickedly. "There _are_ better ones." + +"Sam Pritz--" + +Sally looked away, smiled, and was silent. + +"Sulky Seffy!" she finally said. + +"If he does stink of salt mackerel, and 'most always drunk!" Seffy went +on bitterly. "He's nothing but a molasses-tapper!" + +Sally began to drift farther away and to sing. Calling Pritz names was +of no consequence--except that it kept Seffy from making love to her +while he was doing it--which seemed foolish to Sally. The old man came +up and brought them together again. + +"Oach! go 'long and make lofe some more. I like to see it. I expect I +am an old fool, but I like to see it--it's like ol' times--yas, and if +you don't look out there, Seffy, I'll take a hand myself--yassir! go +'long!" + +He drew them very close together, each looking the other way. Indeed he +held them there for a moment, roughly. + +Seffy stole a glance at Sally. He wanted to see how she was taking his +father's odiously intimate suggestion. But it happened that Sally wanted +to see how he was taking it. She laughed with the frankest of joy as +their eyes met. + +"Seffy--I _do_--like you," said the coquette. "And you ought to know it. +You imp!" + +Now this was immensely stimulating to the bashful Seffy. + +"I like _you_," he said--"ever since we was babies." + +"Sef--I don't believe you. Or you wouldn't waste your time so--about Sam +Pritz!" + +"Er--Sally--where you going to to-night?" Seffy meant to prove himself. + +And Sally answered, with a little fright at the sudden aggressiveness +she had procured. + +"Nowheres that _I_ know of." + +"Well--may I set up with you?" + +The pea-green sunbonnet could not conceal the utter amazement and then +the radiance which shot into Sally's face. + +"Set--up--with--me!" + +"Yes!" said Seffy, almost savagely. "That's what I said." + +"Oh, I--I guess so! Yes! of course!" she answered variously, and rushed +off home. + +"You know I own you," she laughed back, as if she had not been +sufficiently explicit. "I paid for you! Your pappy's got the money! +I'll expect my property to-night." + +"Yas!" shouted the happy old man, "and begoshens! it's a reg'lar +bargain! Ain't it, Seffy? You her property--real estate, hereditaments +and tenements." And even Seffy was drawn into the joyous laughing +conceit of it! Had he not just done the bravest thing of his small life? + +"Yes!" he cried after the fascinating Sally. "For sure and certain, +to-night!" + +"It's a bargain!" cried she. + +"For better or worser, richer or poorer, up an' down, in an' out, +chassez right and left! Aha-ha-ha! Aha-ha-ha! But, Seffy,"--and the +happy father turned to the happy son and hugged him, "don't you efer +forgit that she's a feather-head and got a bright red temper like her +daddy! And they both work mighty bad together sometimes. When you get +her at the right place onct--well, nail her down--hand and feet--so's +she can't git away. When she gits mad her little brain evaporates, and +if she had a knife she'd go round stabbing her best friends--that's the +only sing that safes her--yas, and us!--no knife. If she had a knife it +would be funerals following her all the time." + + +II + +They advanced together now, Seffy's father whistling some tune that was +never heard before on earth, and, with his arm in that of his son, they +watched Sally bounding away. Once more, as she leaped a fence, she +looked laughingly back. The old man whistled wildly out of tune. Seffy +waved a hand! + +"Now you shouting, Seffy! Shout ag'in!" + +"I didn't say a word!" + +"Well--it ain't too late! Go on!" + +Now Seffy understood and laughed with his father. + +"Nice gal, Sef--Seffy!" + +"Yes!" admitted Seffy with reserve. + +"Healthy." + +Seffy agreed to this, also. + +"No doctor-bills!" his father amplified. + +Seffy said nothing. + +"Entire orphen." + +"She's got a granny!" + +"Yas," chuckled the old man at the way his son was drifting into the +situation--thinking about granny!--"but Sally owns _the farm_!" + +"Uhu!" said Seffy, whatever that might mean. + +"And Sally's the boss!" + +Silence. + +"And granny won't object to any one Sally marries, anyhow--she dassent! +She'd git licked!" + +"Who said anything about marrying?" + +Seffy was speciously savage now--as any successful wooer might be. + +"Nobody but me, sank you!" said the old man with equally specious +meekness. "Look how she ken jump a six-rail fence. Like a three-year +filly! She's a nice gal, Seffy--and the farms j'ine together--her +pasture-field and our corn-field. And she's kissing her hand backwards! +At me or you, Seffy?" + +Seffy said he didn't know. And he did not return the kiss--though he +yearned to. + +"Well, I bet a dollar that the first initial of his last name is +Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, _Junior_." + +"Well!" said Seffy with a great flourish, "I'm going to set up with her +to-night." + +"Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it. + +"You'll see." + +"No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!" + +Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow. + +"I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in +the air. + +"No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him +about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be +explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was +dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that, +consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting. + +"Yes!" declared Seffy again. + + "Bring forth the stovepipe, + The stovepipe, the stovepipe--" + +chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus. + +"And my butterfly necktie with--" + +"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father. + +They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer, +was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew +who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it +were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the +difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near, +and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond +and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage. + +"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to _do_?" + +"Do?" + +Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's +the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it. +"Oh, of _course_! Hah? But what _yit_?" + +I regret to say that Seffy did not understand. + +"Seffy," he said impressively, "you haf' tol' me what you goin' to wear. +It ain't much. The weather's yit pooty col' nights. But I ken stand it +if you ken--God knows about Sally! Now, what you goin' to _do_--that's +the conuntrum I ast you!" + +Still it was not clear to Seffy. + +"Why--what I'm a-going to do, hah? Why--whatever occurs." + +"Gosh-a'mighty! And nefer say a word or do a sing to help the +occurrences along? Goshens! What a setting-up! Why--say--Seffy, what you +set up _for_?" + +Seffy did not exactly know. He had never hoped to practise the thing--in +that sublimely militant phase. + +"What do _you_ think?" + +"Well, Sef--plow straight to her heart. I wisht I had your chance. I'd +show you a other-guess kind a setting-up--yassir! Make your mouth warter +and your head swim, begoshens! Why, that Sally's just like a young +stubble-field; got to be worked constant, and plowed deep, and manured +heafy, and mebby drained wiss blind ditches, and crops changed constant, +and kep' a-going thataway--constant--constant--so's the weeds can't git +in her. Then you ken put her in wheat after a while and git your money +back." + +This drastic metaphor had its effect. Seffy began to understand. He said +so. + +"Now, look here, Seffy," his father went on more softly, "when you git +to this--and this--and this,"--he went through his pantomime again, and +it included a progressive caressing to the kissing point--"well, chust +when you bose comfortable--hah?--mebby on one cheer, what I know--it's +so long sence I done it myself--when you bose comfortable, ast +her--chust ast her--aham!--what she'll take for the pasture-field! She +owns you bose and she can't use bose you and the pasture. A bird in the +hand is worth seferal in another feller's--not so?" + +But Seffy only stopped and stared at his father. This, again, he did +_not_ understand. + +"You know well enough I got no money to buy no pasture-field," said he. + +"Gosh-a'mighty!" said the old man joyfully, making as if he would strike +Seffy with his huge fist--a thing he often did. "And ain't got nossing +to trade?" + +"Nothing except the mare!" said the boy. + +"Say--ain't you got no feelings, you idjiot?" + +"Oh--" said Seffy. And then: "But what's feelings got to do with +cow-pasture?" + +"Oach! No wonder he wants to be an anchel, and wiss the anchels +stand--holding sings in his hands and on his head! He's too good for +this wile world. He'd linger shifering on the brink and fear to launch +away all his durn life--if some one didn't push him in. So here goes!" + +This was spoken to the skies, apparently, but now he turned to his son +again. + +"Look a-yere, you young dummer-ux,[2] feelings is the same to gals like +Sally, as money is to you and me. You ken buy potatoes wiss 'em! Do you +understand?" + +Seffy said that he did, now. + +"Well, then, I'fe tried to _buy_ that pasture-field a sousand times--" + +Seffy started. + +"Yas, that's a little bit a lie--mebby a dozen times. And at last +Sally's daddy said he'd lick me if I efer said pasture-field ag'in, and +I said it ag'in and he licked me! He was a big man--and red-headed yit, +like Sally. Now, look a-yere--_you_ ken git that pasture-field wissout +money and wissout price--except you' dam' feelings which ain't no other +use. Sally won't lick _you_--if she is bigger--don't be a-skeered. You +got tons of feelin's you ain't got no other use for--don't waste +'em--they're good green money, and we'll git efen wiss Sally's daddy for +licking me yit--and somesing on the side! Huh?" + +[Footnote 2: Dumb ox--a term of reproach.] + +At last it was evident that Seffy fully understood, and his father broke +into that discordant whistle once more. + +"A gal that ken jump a six-rail fence--and wissout no running +start--don't let her git apast you!" + +"Well, I'm going to set up with her to-night," said Seffy again, with a +huge ahem. And the tune his father whistled as he opened the door for +him sounded something like "I want to be an angel." + +"But not to buy no pasture-land!" warned Seffy. + +"Oach, no, of course not!" agreed his wily old father. "That's just one +of my durn jokes. But I expect I'll take the fence down to-morrow! Say, +Sef, you chust marry the gal. I'll take keer the fence!" + + +III + +It took Seffy a long time to array himself as he had threatened. And +when it was all done you wouldn't have known him--you wouldn't have +cared to know him. For his fine yellow hair was changed to an ugly brown +by the patent hair-oil with which he had dressed it--and you would not +have liked its fragrance, I trust. Bergamot, I think it was. His fine +young throat was garroted within a starched standing collar, his feet +were pinched in creaking boots, his hands close-gauntleted in buckskin +gloves, and he altogether incomparable, uncomfortable, and triumphant. + +Down stairs his father paced the floor, watch in hand. From time to time +he would call out the hour, like a watchman on a minaret. At last: + +"Look a-yere, Seffy, it's about two inches apast seven--and by the time +you git there--say, _nefer_ gif another feller a chance to git there +afore you or to leave after you!" + +Seffy descended at that moment with his hat poised in his left hand. + +His father dropped his watch and picked it up. + +Both stood at gaze for a moment. + +"Sunder, Sef! You as beautiful as the sun, moon and stars--and as stinky +as seferal apothecary shops. Yere, take the watch and git along--so's +you haf some time wiss you--now git along! You late a'ready. Goshens! +You wass behind time when you wass born! Yas, your mammy wass +disapp'inted in you right at first. You wass seventy-six hours late! But +now you reformed--sank God! I always knowed it wass a cure for it, but I +didn't know it wass anysing as nice as Sally." + +Seffy issued forth to his first conquest--lighted as far as the front +gate by the fat lamp held in his father's hand. + +"A--Sef--Seffy, shall I set up for you tell you git home?" he called +into the dark. + +"No!" shouted Seffy. + +"Aha--aha--aha! That sounds _right_! Don't you forgit when you +bose--well--comfortable--aha--aha! Mebby on one cheer aha--ha-ha. And +we'll bose take the fence down to-morrow. Mebby all three!" + + + + +AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS + +BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE + + + "'There's none can tell about my birth + For I'm as old as the big round earth; + Ye young Immortals clear the track, + I'm the bearded Joke on the Carpet tack." + + Thus spoke + A Joke + With boastful croak; + And as he said, + Upon his head + He stood, and waited for the tread + Of thoughtless wight, + Who, in the night, + Gets up, arrayed in garments white, + And indiscreet, + With unshod feet, + Prowls round for something good to eat. + + But other Jokes + His speech provokes; + And old, and bald, and lame, and gray, + With loftiest scorn they say him Nay; + And bid him hold his unweaned tongue, + For they were blind ere he was young. + So hot + They grew, + This complot + Crew, + They laid a plan + To catch a Man; + That all the clan + Might then trepan + His skull with Jokes; they thus began: + + First Mule, his heel its skill to try, + Amid his ribs like lightning laid-- + And back recoiled--he well knew why; + "Insurance Man," he faintly sayed. + + Next Stove Pipe rushed, as hot as fire, + "Put up!" he cried, in accents bold; + With Elbow joint he struck the lyre, + And knocked the Weather Prophet cold. + + But thou, Ice Cream, with hair so gray, + Three thousand years before the Flood, + Cold, bitter cold, will be the day + Thou dost not warm the Jester's blood. + "Spoons for the spooney," was her ancient song, + That with slow measure dragged its deathless length along. + + And longer had she sung, but with a frown, + Old Pie, impatient, rose + And roared, "Behold, I am the Funny Clown! + And without me there is no Joke that goes. + + "To every Jester in the land, + I lend my omnipresent hand; + I've filled in Jokes of every grade + Since ever Jokes and Pies were made; + Sewed, pegged and pasted, glued or cast, + If not the first of Jokes, I'll be the last." + + With heart unripe and mottled hide, + Pale summer watermeloncholly sighed, + And--but the Muse would find it vain + To give a list of all the train; + The hairless, purblind, toothless crew, + That burst on Man's astonished view-- + The Bull dog and the Garden gate; + The Girl's Papa in wrathful state; + Ma'ma in law; the Leathern Clam; + The Woodshed Cat; the Rampant Ram; + The Fly, the Goat, the Skating Rink, + The Paste-brush plunging in the Ink; + The Baby wailing in the Dark; + The Songs they sang upon the Ark; + Things that were old when Earth was new, + And as they lived still old and older grew, + And as these Jokes about him cried, + And all their Ancient Arts upon him tried, + Their hapless victim, Man, lay down and died. + + + + +A BOY'S VIEW OF IT + +BY FRANK L. STANTON + + + Mother--she's always a-sayin', she is, + Boys must be looked after--got to be strict; + When I tear my breeches like Billy tears his, + It helps 'em considerable when I am licked! + But it ain't leapin' over the fence or the post-- + It's jest that same lickin' 'at tears 'em the most! + + Mother--she's always a-sayin' to me, + Boys must have people to foller 'em roun'; + Never kin tell where they're goin' to be; + Sure to git lost, an' then have to be foun'. + An' then--when they find 'em, they're so full of joy + They can't keep from lovin' an' lickin' the boy! + + There's Jimmy Johnson--got lost on the road; + Daddy wuz drivin' to market one day, + Fell out the wagon, an' nobody knowed + Till they come to a halt, an' his daddy said: "Hey! + Wonder where Jimmy is gone to?" But Jim-- + Warn't no two hosses could keep up with him! + + Jest kept a-goin', an' got to a place + Where wuz a circus; took up with the clown, + Cut off his ringlets and painted his face, + An' then come right back to his daddy's own town! + An' what do you reckon? His folks didn't know, + An' paid to see Jimmy that night in the show! + + An' there's Billy Jenkins--he jest run away + (Folks at his house wuzn't treatin' him right); + Went to the place where the red Injuns stay; + An' once, when his daddy wuz travelin' at night + An' the Injuns took after him, hollerin' loud, + Bill run to his rescue, an' scalped the whole crowd! + + No use in talkin'--boys don't have no show! + Wuzn't fer people a-follerin' 'em roun', + Jest ain't no tellin' how fast they would grow; + Bet you they'd fool everybody in town! + But mother--she says they need lickin', an' so + They're too busy hollerin' to git up an' grow! + + + + +"RINGWORM FRANK" + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + Jest Frank Reed's his _real_ name--though + Boys all calls him "Ringworm Frank," + 'Cause he allus _runs round_ so.-- + No man can't tell where to bank + _Frank_'ll be, + Next you see + Er _hear_ of him!--Drat his melts!-- + That man's allus _somers else_! + + We're old pards.--But Frank he jest + _Can't_ stay still!--Wuz _prosper'n here_, + But lit out on furder West + Somers on a ranch, last year: + Never heard + Nary a word + _How_ he liked it, tel to-day, + Got this card, reads thisaway:-- + + "Dad-burn climate out here makes + Me homesick all Winter long, + And when Springtime _comes_, it takes + Two pee-wees to sing one song,-- + One sings '_pee_' + And the other one '_wee_!' + Stay right where you air, old pard.-- + Wisht _I_ wuz this postal-card!" + + + + +THE COLONEL'S CLOTHES + +BY CAROLINE HOWARD GILMAN + + +Every man has some peculiar taste or preference, and, I think, though +papa dressed with great elegance, his was a decided love of his old +clothes; his garments, like his friends, became dearer to him from their +wear and tear in his service, and they were deposited successively in +his dressing-room, though mamma thought them quite unfit for him. He +averred that he required his old hunting-suits for accidents; his summer +jackets and vests, though faded, were the coolest in the world; his +worm-eaten but warm _roquelaure_ was admirable for riding about the +fields, etc. In vain mamma represented the economy of cutting up some +for the boys, and giving others to the servants; he would not consent, +nor part with articles in which he said he felt at home. Often did mamma +remonstrate against the dressing-room's looking like a haberdasher's +shop; often did she take down a coat, hold it up to the light, and show +him perforations that would have honored New Orleans or Waterloo; often, +while Chloe was flogging the pantaloons, which ungallantly kicked in +return, did she declare that it was a sin and a shame for her master to +have such things in the house; still the anti-cherubic shapes +accumulated on the nails and hooks, and were even considered as of +sufficient importance to be preserved from the fire at the burning of +Roseland. + +Our little circle about this time was animated by a visit from a +peddler. As soon as he was perceived crossing the lawn with a large +basket on his arm, and a bundle slung across a stick on his shoulder, a +stir commenced in the house. Mamma assumed an air of importance and +responsibility; I felt a pleasurable excitement; Chloe's and Flora's +eyes twinkled with expectation; while, from different quarters, the +house servants entered, standing with eyes and mouth silently open, as +the peddler, after depositing his basket and deliberately untying his +bundle, offered his goods to our inspection. He was a stout man, with a +dark complexion, pitted with the small-pox, and spoke in a foreign +accent. I confess that I yielded myself to the pleasure of purchasing +some gewgaws, which I afterward gave to Flora, while mamma looked at the +glass and plated ware. + +"Ver sheap," said the peddler, following her eye, and taking up a pair +of glass pitchers; "only two dollar--sheap as dirt. If te lady hash any +old closhes, it is petter as money." + +Mamma took the pitchers in her hand with an inquisitorial air, balanced +them, knocked them with her small knuckles--they rang as clear as a +bell--examined the glass--there was not a flaw in it. Chloe went through +the same process; they looked significantly at each other, nodded, set +the pitchers on the slab, and gave a little approbatory cough. + +"They are certainly very cheap," said mamma, tentatively. + +"They is, for true, my mistress," said Chloe, with solemnity, "and more +handsomer than Mrs. Whitney's that she gin six dollars for at +Charleston." + +"Chloe," said mamma, "were not those pantaloons you were shaking to-day +quite shrunk and worn out?" + +"Yes, ma'am," said she; "and they don't fit nohow. The last time the +colonel wore them he seemed quite _on-restless_." + +"Just step up," said her mistress, "and bring them down; but stay--what +did you say was the price of these candlesticks, sir?" + +"Tish only von dollars; but tish more cheaper for te old closhes. If te +lady will get te old closhes, I will put in te pellows and te prush, and +it ish more sheaper, too." + +Chloe and mamma looked at each other, and raised their eyebrows. + +"I will just step up and see those pantaloons," said mamma, in a +consulting tone. "It will be a mercy to the colonel to clear out some of +that rubbish. I am confident he can never wear the pantaloons again; +they are rubbed in the knees, and require seating, and he never _will_ +wear seated pantaloons. These things are unusually cheap, and the +colonel told me lately we were in want of a few little matters of this +sort." Thus saying, with a significant whisper to me to watch the +peddler, she disappeared with Chloe. + +They soon returned, Chloe bearing a variety of garments, for mamma had +taken the important _premier pas_. The pantaloons were first produced. +The peddler took them in his hand, which flew up like an empty scale, to +show how light they were; he held them up to the sun, and a half +contemptuous smile crossed his lips; then shaking his head, he threw +them down beside his basket. A drab overcoat was next inspected, and was +also thrown aside with a doubtful expression. + +"Mr. Peddler," said mamma, in a very soft tone, "you must allow me a +fair price; these are very excellent articles." + +"Oh, ver fair," said he, "but te closhes ish not ver goot; te +closhesman is not going to give me noting for dish," and he laid a +waistcoat on the other two articles. + +Mamma and Chloe had by this time reached the depths of the basket, and, +with sympathetic exclamations, arranged several articles on the slab. + +"You will let me have these pitchers," said mamma, with a look of +concentrated resolution, "for that very nice pair of pantaloons." + +The peddler gave a short whistle expressive of contempt, shook his head, +and said, "Tish not possibles. I will give two pishers and von prush for +te pantaloon and waistcoat." + +Mamma and Chloe glanced at each other and at me; I was absorbed in my +own bargains, and said, carelessly, that the pitchers were perfect +beauties. Chloe pushed one pitcher a little forward, mamma pushed the +other on a parallel line, then poised a decanter, and again applied her +delicate knuckles for the test. That, too, rang out the musical, +unbroken sound, so dear to the housewife's ear, and, with a pair of +plated candlesticks, was deposited on the table. The peddler took up the +drab overcoat. + +"Te closhesman's give noting for dish." + +Mamma looked disconcerted. The expression of her face implied the fear +that the peddler would not even accept it as a gift. Chloe and she held +a whispering consultation. At this moment Binah came in with little +Patsey, who, seeing the articles on the slab, pointed with her dimpled +fingers, and said her only words, + +"Pretty! pretty!" + +At the same moment, Lafayette and Venus, the two little novices in +furniture-rubbing, exclaimed, + +"Ki! if dem ting an't shine too much!" + +These opinions made the turning-point in mamma's mind, though coming +from such insignificant sources. + +"So they are pretty, my darling," said mamma to Patsey; and then, +turning to the peddler, she asked him what he would give in exchange for +the pantaloons, the waistcoat and the coat. + +The peddler set aside two decanters, one pitcher, the plated +candlesticks, and a hearth-brush. + +"Tish ver goot pargains for te lady," said he. + +Mamma gained courage. + +"I can not think of letting you have all these things without something +more. You must at least throw in that little tray," and she looked at a +small scarlet one, worth perhaps a quarter of a dollar. + +The peddler hesitated, and held it up so that the morning sun shone on +its bright hues. + +"I shall not make a bargain without _that_," said mamma, resolutely. The +peddler sighed, and laying it with the selected articles said: + +"Tish ver great pargains for te lady." + +Mamma smiled triumphantly, and the peddler, tying up his bundle and +slinging his stick, departed with an air of humility. + +Papa's voice was soon heard, as usual, before he was seen. + +"Rub down Beauty, Mark, and tell Diggory to call out the hounds." + +There was a slight embarrassment in mamma's manner when he entered, +mingled with the same quantity of bravado. He nodded to her, tapped me +on the head with his riding-whip, gave Patsey a kiss as she stretched +out her arms to him, tossed her in the air, and, returning her to her +nurse, was passing on. + +"Do stop, Colonel," said mamma, "and admire my bargains. See this cut +glass and plate that we have been wishing for, to save our best set." + +"What, this trash?" said he, pausing a moment at the table--"blown glass +and washed brass! Who has been fooling you?" + +"Colonel," said mamma, coloring highly, "how can you--" + +"I can not stop a minute, now, wife," said he, "Jones and Ferguson are +for a hunt to-day! They are waiting at Drake's corner. It looks like +falling weather and my old drab will come in well to-day." + +Mamma looked frightened, and he passed on up-stairs. He was one of those +gentlemen who keep a house alive, as the phrase is, whether in merriment +or the contrary, and we were always prepared to search for his hat, or +whip, or slippers, which he was confident he put in their places, but +which, by some miracle, were often in opposite directions. Our greatest +trial, however, was with mamma's and his spectacles, for they had four +pairs between them--far-sighted and near-sighted. There were, indeed, +_optical_ delusions practiced with them; for when papa wanted his, they +were hidden behind some pickle-jar; and when mamma had carefully placed +hers in her key-basket, they were generally found in one of papa's +various pockets; when a distant object was to be seen, he was sure to +mount the near-sighted, and cry "Pshaw!" and if a splinter was to be +taken out, nothing could be found but the far-sighted ones, and he said +something worse: sometimes all four pairs were missing, and such a +scampering ensued! + +We now heard a great outcry up-stairs. "Wife! Chloe! Cornelia! come and +find my drab coat!" We looked at each other in dismay, but papa was not +a man for delay, and we obeyed his summons. + +"Wife," said he, beating aside the externals of man that hung about his +dressing-room, "where is my old drab coat?" + +Mamma swallowed as if a dry artichoke was in her throat, as she said, +slowly, "Why, colonel, you know you had not worn that coat for months, +and as you have another one, and a _roquelaure_, and the coat was full +of moth-holes, I exchanged it with the peddler for cut glass and plate." + +"Cut devils!" said papa, who liked to soften an oath by combinations; +"it was worth twenty dollars--yes, more, because I felt at home in it. I +hate new coats as I do--" + +"But, colonel," interrupted mamma, "you did not see the scarlet tray, +and the--" + +"Scarlet nonsense," shouted papa; "I believe, if they could, women would +sell their husbands to those rascally peddlers!" + +Beauty and the hounds were now pronounced ready. I followed papa to the +piazza, and heard his wrath rolling off as he cantered away. + + + + +_HERE'S A MERRY BOOK BY A MERRY MAN_ + +THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET + +By MARSHALL P. WILDER + +_Author of "Smiling 'Round the World"._ + +"His book--like American conversation--is made up of anecdotes. He talks +intimately of Richard Croker, President McKinley, President Harrison, +Joseph Jefferson, Senator Depew, Henry Watterson, Gen. Horace Porter, +Augustin Daly, Henry Irving, Buffalo Bill, King Edward VII., Mrs. +Langtry, and a host of other personages, large and small, and +medium-sized. He tells many good stories. We can recommend his book as +cheerful reading."--_New York Times._ + + "It is replete with anecdotes and observations relating to the + humorous side of life, intimate bits of interesting personalia, and + bright and witty chat concerning things in general."--_Pittsburg + Leader._ + + "Reading the book is like listening to a humorous lecture by + Marshall P. Wilder, full of wit and brightness, and it will cheer + and comfort the most morose man or woman just to read + it."--_Baltimore American._ + + _12mo, Cloth. Humorous Pen-and-Ink Sketches by Bart Haley. + Frontispiece Portrait of Mr. Wilder. Price, $1.20._ + + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +_ANOTHER ROARING FUN BOOK!_ + +SMILING 'ROUND THE WORLD + +By MARSHALL P. WILDER + +_Author of "The Sunny Side of the Street"_ + +"_Laugh and the world laughs with you_" can be truly said of Marshall P. +Wilder, the captivating entertainer of Presidents, Kings, Princes, and +the great public. As the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew says, "His mirth is +contagious," and as the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere remarked, "He makes +melancholy fly apace." You'll find laughs bubbling all through this new +book. + +_SOME OPINIONS FROM THE NEWSPAPERS_ + + "There are many cheerful, amusing incidents of travel. It is a very + readable and entertaining book."--_Democrat and Chronicle_, + Rochester, N.Y. + + "A marvelous lot of 'sunny stuff' is to be found in Mr. Wilder's + latest book. He merrily prattles of a thousand different things and + of as many different people."--_Record_, Philadelphia, Pa. + + "In addition to the keen enjoyment which the reader will elicit + from the undercurrent of humor running through the volume, the book + gives a vivid picture of life as it is lived in distant + lands."--_Journal_, Boston, Mass. + + _Decorated Cloth Cover. 12mo. Profusely Illustrated._ + + _Price, $1.50_ + + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents in the print edition lists +John Boyle O'Reilly's work entitled "A Disappointment" as being on +page 191. It is indeed on this page, but in Volume I, so has been +removed Volume II's Table of Contents here.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume +II. (of X.), by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR II. *** + +***** This file should be named 18465.txt or 18465.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/6/18465/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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