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diff --git a/19484.txt b/19484.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9154786 --- /dev/null +++ b/19484.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1583 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Editorial Wild Oats, by Mark Twain + +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: Editorial Wild Oats + +Author: Mark Twain + +Release Date: October 6, 2006 [EBook #19484] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDITORIAL WILD OATS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzan Flanagan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +Editorial Wild Oats + +BY + +Mark Twain + +ILLUSTRATED + +NEW YORK AND LONDON +HARPER & BROTHERS +PUBLISHERS--MCMV + + + + +Copyright, 1875, 1899, 1903, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS. + +Copyright, 1879, 1899, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS. + +Copyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + +Published September, 1905. + +[Illustration: See p. 57 + +"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED"] + + + + +Contents + + + PAGE +MY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE 3 + +JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE 11 + +NICODEMUS DODGE--PRINTER 30 + +MR. BLOKE'S ITEM 41 + +HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL +PAPER 52 + +THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED" 70 + + + + +Illustrations + + +"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED" _Frontispiece_ + +"HE HAD CONCLUDED HE +WOULDN'T" _Facing p._ 4 + +"GILLESPIE HAD CALLED" " 24 + +"WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN +RACES'" " 38 + +"I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM +OVER" " 50 + +"A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE" " 58 + +"THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE +POCKETS" " 82 + + ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's Note: The dialect in this book is transcribed exactly as| +|in the original. | ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +Editorial Wild Oats + + + + +My First Literary Venture + + +I was a very smart child at the age of thirteen--an unusually +smart child, I thought at the time. It was then that I did my first +newspaper scribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a +fine sensation in the community. It did, indeed, and I was very +proud of it, too. I was a printer's "devil," and a progressive and +aspiring one. My uncle had me on his paper (the _Weekly Hannibal +Journal_, two dollars a year, in advance--five hundred subscribers, +and they paid in cord-wood, cabbages, and unmarketable turnips), +and on a lucky summer's day he left town to be gone a week, and +asked me if I thought I could edit one issue of the paper +judiciously. Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor on +the rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend +found an open note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated +that he could no longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear +Creek. The friend ran down there and discovered Higgins wading back +to shore. He had concluded he wouldn't. The village was full of it +for several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. I thought this +was a fine opportunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of +the whole matter, and then illustrated it with villanous cuts +engraved on the bottoms of wooden type with a jack-knife--one of +them a picture of Higgins wading out into the creek in his shirt, +with a lantern, sounding the depth of the water with a walking-stick. +I thought it was desperately funny, and was densely unconscious that +there was any moral obliquity about such a publication. Being +satisfied with this effort, I looked around for other worlds to +conquer, and it struck me that it would make good, interesting matter +to charge the editor of a neighboring country paper with a piece of +gratuitous rascality and "see him squirm." + +[Illustration: "HE HAD CONCLUDED HE WOULDN'T"] + +I did it, putting the article into the form of a parody on the +"Burial of Sir John Moore"--and a pretty crude parody it was, too. + +Then I lampooned two prominent citizens outrageously--not because +they had done anything to deserve it, but merely because I thought +it was my duty to make the paper lively. + +Next I gently touched up the newest stranger--the lion of the day, +the gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering +coxcomb of the first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the +State. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy +"poetry" for the _Journal_, about his newest conquest. His rhymes +for my week were headed, "TO MARY IN H--L," meaning to Mary in +Hannibal, of course. But while setting up the piece I was suddenly +riven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt +of humor, and I compressed it into a snappy footnote at the +bottom--thus: + + "We will let this thing pass, just this once; but we wish Mr. J. + Gordon Runnels to understand distinctly that we have a character + to sustain, and from this time forth when he wants to commune + with his friends in h--l, he must select some other medium than + the columns of this journal!" + +The paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so +much attention as those playful trifles of mine. + +For once the _Hannibal Journal_ was in demand--a novelty it had +not experienced before. The whole town was stirred. Higgins dropped +in with a double-barrelled shot-gun early in the forenoon. When he +found that it was an infant (as he called me) that had done him the +damage, he simply pulled my ears and went away; but he threw up his +situation that night and left town for good. The tailor came with +his goose and a pair of shears; but he despised me, too, and +departed for the South that night. The two lampooned citizens came +with threats of libel, and went away incensed at my insignificance. +The country editor pranced in with a warwhoop next day, suffering +for blood to drink; but he ended by forgiving me cordially and +inviting me down to the drug-store to wash away all animosity in a +friendly bumper of "Fahnestock's Vermifuge." It was his little +joke. My uncle was very angry when he got back--unreasonably so, I +thought, considering what an impetus I had given the paper, and +considering also that gratitude for his preservation ought to have +been uppermost in his mind, inasmuch as by his delay he had so +wonderfully escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his +head shot off. But he softened when he looked at the accounts and +saw that I had actually booked the unparalleled number of +thirty-three new subscribers, and had the vegetables to show for +it--cord-wood, cabbage, beans, and unsalable turnips enough to run +the family for two years! + + + + +Journalism in Tennessee + + The editor of the Memphis _Avalanche_ swoops thus mildly down upon + a correspondent who posted him as a Radical: "While he was writing + the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and + punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was + saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."--_Exchange_. + + +I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve +my health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the +_Morning-Glory and Johnson County Warwhoop_ as associate editor. +When I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in +a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was +another pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and +both were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of +manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with +cigar-stubs and "old soldiers," and a stove with a door hanging by +its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth +frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and +neatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a +standing collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief +with the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was +smoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his +hair he had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling +fearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly +knotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through +them and write up the "Spirit of the Tennessee Press," condensing +into the article all of their contents that seemed of interest. + +I wrote as follows: + + "SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS + + "The editors of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ evidently labor + under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It + is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one + side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important + points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to + slight it. The gentlemen of the _Earthquake_ will, of course, + take pleasure in making the correction. + + "John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville + _Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Freedom_, arrived in the city + yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House. + + "We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs _Morning + Howl_ has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of + Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have + discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no + doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns. + + "It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is + endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its + wellnigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The + _Daily Hurrah_ urges the measure with ability, and seems + confident of ultimate success." + +I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance, +alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. +He ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. +It was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up +and said: + +"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of +those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to +stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!" + +I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or +plough through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. +While he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through +the open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear. + +"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the _Moral +Volcano_--he was due yesterday." And he snatched a navy revolver +from his belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot +spoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and he +crippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off. + +Then the chief editor went on with his erasures and +interlineations. Just as he finished them a hand-grenade came down +the stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a +thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that +a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out. + +"That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor. + +I said I believed it was. + +"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the +man that did it. I'll get him. Now, _here_ is the way this stuff +ought to be written." + +I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and +interlineations till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had +had one. It now read as follows: + + "SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS + + "The inveterate liars of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ are + evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous + people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to + that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the + Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off + at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in + the settlings which _they_ regard as brains. They had better + swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile + carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve. + + "That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville _Thunderbolt and + Battle-Cry of Freedom_, is down here again sponging at the Van + Buren. + + "We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs + _Morning Howl_ is giving out, with his usual propensity for + lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of + journalism is to disseminate truth: to eradicate error; to + educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and + manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more + charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and + yet this black-hearted scoundrel degrades his great office + persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, + vituperation, and vulgarity. + + "Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a + poor-house more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town + composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that + mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the _Daily Hurrah_! The crawling + insect, Buckner, who edits the _Hurrah_, is braying about this + business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is + talking sense." + +"Now _that_ is the way to write--peppery and to the point. +Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods." + +About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering +crash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved +out of range--I began to feel in the way. + +The chief said: "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting +him for two days. He will be up now right away." + +He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment +afterwards with a dragoon revolver in his hand. + +He said: "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who +edits this mangy sheet?" + +"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs +is gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, +Colonel Blatherskite Tecumseh?" + +"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are +at leisure we will begin." + +"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and +Intellectual Development in America' to finish, but there is no +hurry. Begin." + +Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The +chief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its +career in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder +was clipped a little. They fired again. Both missed their men this +time, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both +gentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I +then said I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a +private matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it +further. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured +me that I was not in the way. + +They then talked about the elections and the crops while they +reloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they +opened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect--but +it is proper to remark that five out of the six fell to my share. +The sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine +humor, that he would have to say good-morning now, as he had +business up-town. He then inquired the way to the undertaker's and +left. + +The chief turned to me and said: "I am expecting company to dinner, +and shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will +read proof and attend to the customers." + +I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I +was too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my +ears to think of anything to say. + +He continued: "Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie +will call earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson +will be along about four--kill him. That is all for to-day, I +believe. If you have any odd time, you may write a blistering +article on the police--give the chief inspector rats. The cowhides +are under the table; weapons in the drawer--ammunition there in the +corner--lint and bandages up there in the pigeon-holes. In case of +accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, down-stairs. He advertises--we +take it out in trade." + +[Illustration: "GILLESPIE HAD CALLED"] + +He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I +had been through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all +cheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown +_me_ out of the window. Jones arrived promptly, and when I got +ready to do the cowhiding he took the job off my hands. In an +encounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my +scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere +wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in the corner, +and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians, +and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons +about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of +steel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the +chief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic +friends. Then ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human +pen, or steel one either, could describe. People were shot, probed, +dismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief +tornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance +glimmering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes there +was silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the +sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us. + +He said: "You'll like this place when you get used to it." + +I said: "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I +might write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some +practice and learned the language I am confident I could. But, to +speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its +inconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption. You see that +yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no +doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it +calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so +much as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I +don't like to be left here to wait on the customers. The +experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a +fashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman +shoots at you through the window and cripples _me_; a bomb-shell +comes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the +stove-door down _my_ throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments +with you, and freckles _me_ with bullet-holes till my skin won't +hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his +cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all +my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy +freedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all +the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and +proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take +it altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I +have had to-day. No; I like you, and I like your calm, unruffled +way of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am not +used to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive; Southern +hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I +have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly +hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will +wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will +come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for +breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present +at these festivities. I came South for my health; I will go back on +the same errand, and suddenly. Tennessean journalism is too +stirring for me." + +After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at +the hospital. + + + + +Nicodemus Dodge--Printer + + +When I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a +loose-jointed, long-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad, countrified cub +of about sixteen lounged in one day, and without removing his hands +from the depths of his trousers pockets or taking off his faded +ruin of a slouch hat, whose broken rim hung limp and ragged about +his eyes and ears like a bug-eaten cabbage-leaf, stared +indifferently around, then leaned his hip against the editors' +table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant fly from a +crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said, with composure: + +"Whar's the boss?" + +"I am the boss," said the editor, following this curious bit of +architecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye. + +"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?" + +"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?" + +"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show +somers if I kin, 'tain't no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty, +and I don't turn my back on no kind of work, hard nur soft." + +"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?" + +"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I _do_ learn, so's I git a +chance fur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n' 's +anything." + +"Can you read?" + +"Yes--middlin'." + +"Write?" + +"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar." + +"Cipher?" + +"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur as +twelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what +gits me." + +"Where is your home?" + +"I'm f'm old Shelby." + +"What's your father's religious denomination?" + +"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith." + +"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his _religious_ +denomination?" + +"_Oh_--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason." + +"No, no; you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he +belong to any _church_?" + +"_Now_ you're talkin'! Gouldn't make out what you was +a-tryin' to git through yo' head no way. B'long to a _church_! Why, +boss, he's be'n the pizenest kind of a Free-will Babtis' for forty +year. They ain't no pizener ones 'n' what _he_ is. Mighty good man, +pap is. Everybody says that. If they said any diffrunt they +wouldn't say it whar _I_ wuz--not _much_ they wouldn't." + +"What is your own religion?" + +"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me thar--and yit you hain't got me +so mighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller +when he's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things, +nur noth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the +Saviour's name with a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's +about as saift as if he b'longed to a church." + +"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?" + +"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no +chance,--he _oughtn't_ to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten +certain 'bout that." + +"What is your name?" + +"Nicodemus Dodge." + +"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial, +anyway." + +"All right." + +"When would you like to begin?" + +"Now." + +So, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript +he was one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it. + +Beyond that end of our establishment which was farthest from the +street was a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the +bloomy and villanous "jimpson" weed and its common friend the +stately sunflower. In the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed +and aged little "frame" house with but one room, one window, and no +ceiling--it had been a smoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus +was given this lonely and ghostly den as a bedchamber. + +The village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus right +away--a butt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was +inconceivably green and confiding. George Jones had the glory of +perpetrating the first joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a +fire-cracker in it and winked to the crowd to come; the thing +exploded presently and swept away the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows +and eyelashes. He simply said: + +"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome"--and seemed to +suspect nothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and +poured a bucket of ice-water over him. + +One day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy "tied" his +clothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation. + +A third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he +walked up the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night, +with a staring hand-bill pinned between his shoulders. The joker +spent the remainder of the night, after church, in the cellar of a +deserted house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar door till towards +breakfast-time to make sure that the prisoner remembered that if +any noise was made some rough treatment would be the consequence. +The cellar had two feet of stagnant water in it, and was bottomed +with six inches of soft mud. + +But I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that +brought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time +had elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable +consciousness of not having made a very shining success out of +their attempts on the simpleton from "old Shelby." Experimenters +grew scarce and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. +There was delight and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus +to death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble +new skeleton--the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity, +Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a grisly piece of property which +he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars, +under great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tanyard a +fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for +whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in +the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in +Nicodemus's bed! + +This was done--about half-past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's +usual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily +through the jimpson weeds and sunflowers towards the lonely frame +den. They reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged +pauper, on his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was +dangling his legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music +of "Camptown Races" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing +against his mouth; by him lay a new jews-harp, a new top, a solid +india-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of +"store" candy, and a well-knawed slab of gingerbread as big and as +thick as a volume of sheet music. He had sold the skeleton to a +travelling quack for three dollars and was enjoying the result! + +[Illustration: "WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN RACES'"] + + + + +Mr. Bloke's Item + + +Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City, +walked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last +night, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon +his countenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item +reverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a +moment at the door, and seemed struggling to command his feelings +sufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head +towards his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, "Friend of +mine--oh! how sad!" and burst into tears. We were so moved at his +distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to +comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had +already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider +the publication of this item important, and cherishing the hope +that to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his +sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in +our columns: + + DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.--Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. + William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, + was leaving his residence to go down-town, as has been his usual + custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval + in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by + injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by + thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing + up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single + moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still + more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to + himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing + by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and + saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, + though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in + another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and + on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her + own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in + the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upward of three years + ago, aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, + as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849, + which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such + is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and + let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die + we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with + earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware + of the intoxicating bowl.--_First edition of the Californian._ + +The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing +his hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a +pickpocket. He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the +paper for half an hour, I get imposed upon by the first infant or +the first idiot that comes along. And he says that that distressing +item of Mr. Bloke's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and +has no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it, +and that there was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to +publish it. + +Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as +unaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told +Mr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late +hour; but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped +at the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read +his item to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but +hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the +printers. And what has my kindness done for me? It has done nothing +but bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy. + +Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any +foundation for all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it +shall hear from me. + + * * * * * + +I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little +mixed at a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more. + + * * * * * + +I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more +mixed than ever. + + * * * * * + +I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of +it, I wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There +are things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say +what ever became of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him +to get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is +William Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in, +and if he started down-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there, +and if he did, did anything happen to him? Is _he_ the individual +that met with the "distressing accident"? Considering the elaborate +circumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me +that it ought to contain more information than it does. On the +contrary, it is obscure--and not only obscure, but utterly +incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen +years ago, the "distressing accident" that plunged Mr. Bloke into +unspeakable grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night +and stop our press to acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or +did the "distressing accident" consist in the destruction of +Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist +in the death of that person herself three years ago (albeit it does +not appear that she died by accident)? In a word, what _did_ that +"distressing accident" consist in? What did that drivelling ass of a +Schuyler stand _in the wake_ of a runaway horse for, with his +shouting and gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the +mischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed +beyond him? And what are we to take "warning" by? And how is this +extraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a "lesson" +to us? And, above all, what has the intoxicating "bowl" got to do +with it, anyhow? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his +wife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse +drank--wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl? It +does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone +himself, he never would have got into so much trouble about this +exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over +and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head +swims, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly +seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is +impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the +sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to +request that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's +friends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it +as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom +it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I +should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out +the meaning of another such production as the above. + +[Illustration: "I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM OVER"] + + + + +How I Edited an Agricultural Paper + + +I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper +without misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship +without misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary +an object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a +holiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his place. + +The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought +all the week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I +waited a day with some solicitude to see whether my effort was +going to attract any notice. As I left the office, towards sundown, +a group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed with +one impulse, and gave me passageway, and I heard one or two of them +say, "That's him!" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The +next morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and +scattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the +street, and over the way, watching me with interest. The group +separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, +"Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I was +attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing +to write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of +stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near +the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young +rural-looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they +saw me, and then they both plunged through the window with a great +crash. I was surprised. + +In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a +fine but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. +He seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set +it on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy +of our paper. + +He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles +with his handkerchief, he said, "Are you the new editor?" + +I said I was. + +"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?" + +"No," I said; "this is my first attempt." + +"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture +practically?" + +"No; I believe I have not." + +"Some instinct told me so," said the old gentleman, putting on his +spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he +folded his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what +must have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. +Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it: + + "Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much + better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree." + +"Now, what do you think of that--for I really suppose you wrote +it?" + +"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have +no doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of +turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a +half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the +tree--" + +"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!" + +"Oh, they don't, don't they! Well, who said they did? The language +was intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that +knows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the +vine." + +Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small +shreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his +cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out +and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such a way +that I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing +what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him. + +Pretty soon after this a long cadaverous creature, with lanky +locks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling +from the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and +halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in +listening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No +sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately +tiptoeing towards me till he was within long reaching distance of +me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense +interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his +bosom, and said: + +"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I +suffer." + +[Illustration: "A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE"] + +I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see +the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety +go out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like +the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape: + + "The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing + it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than + September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where + it can hatch out its young. + + "It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. + Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his + corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat-cakes in July instead of + August. + + "Concerning the pumpkin.--This berry is a favorite with the + natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the + gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it + the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more + filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent + of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the + gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of + planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going + out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin + as a shade tree is a failure. + + "Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to + spawn"-- + +The excited listener sprang towards me to shake hands, and said: + +"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because +you have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when +I first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never +believed it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch +so strict, but now I believe I _am_ crazy; and with that I fetched +a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill +somebody--because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or +later, and so I might as well begin. I read one of them paragraphs +over again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down +and started. I have crippled several people, and have got one +fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought +I would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly +certain; and now it _is_ certain, and I tell you it is lucky for +the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I +went back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye; you have taken a great load off +my mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural +articles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. +_Good_-bye, sir." + +I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this +person had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help +feeling remotely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly +banished, for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, +Now if you had gone to Egypt, as I recommended you to, I might have +had a chance to get my hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here +you are. I sort of expected you.] + +The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected. + +He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and these two young +farmers had made, and then said: "This is a sad business--a very +sad business. There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of +glass, and a spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the +worst. The reputation of the paper is injured--and permanently, I +fear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and +it never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but +does one want to be famous for lunacy, and prosper upon the +infirmities of his mind? My friend, as I am an honest man, the +street out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the +fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are +crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. They are +a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that you +could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first +rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being +the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you +recommend the domestication of the polecat on account of its +playfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams +will lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous--entirely +superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams _always_ lie quiet. Clams +care nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if +you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you +could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I +never saw anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut +as an article of commerce is steadily gaining in favor, is simply +calculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up your +situation and go. I want no more holiday--I could not enjoy it if I +had it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always stand in +dread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose +all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under +the head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth +could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you _tell_ +me you didn't know anything about agriculture?" + +"_Tell_ you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son of a +cauliflower? It's the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling +remark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on +fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man's +having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip! +Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a +parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know +just as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no +more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up +the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest +opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticise the +Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a warwhoop from a +wigwam, and who never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, +or pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to +build the evening campfire with. Who write the temperance appeals, +and clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw +another sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the +agricultural papers, you--yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in +the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation-drama line, +city-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a +temporary reprieve from the poor-house. _You_ try to tell _me_ +anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it +from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the +bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. +Heaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and +impudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself +in this cold selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been +treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I +have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was +permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to +all classes--and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to +twenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I'd have +done it. And I'd have given you the best class of readers that ever +an agricultural paper had--not a farmer in it, nor a solitary +individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to +save his life. _You_ are the loser by this rupture, not me, +Pie-plant. Adios." + +I then left. + + + + +The Killing of Julius Caesar "Localized" + + _Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from + the "Roman Daily Evening Fasces," of the date of that tremendous + occurrence._ + + +Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much +satisfaction as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious +murder, and writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He +takes a living delight in this labor of love--for such it is to +him, especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to +press, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful +intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was +not reporting in Rome when Caesar was killed--reporting on an +evening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least +twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this most +magnificent "item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other +events have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed +so peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the +present day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high +rank, fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it. + +However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in +the regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to +translate the following able account of it from the original Latin +of the _Roman Daily Evening Fasces_ of that date--second edition. + + "Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild + excitement yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody + affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with fear, while + they inspire all thinking men with forebodings for the future of + a city where human life is held so cheaply, and the gravest laws + are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it + is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death + of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose name is known + wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our + pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from + the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor + ability. We refer to Mr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect. + + "The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could + determine them from the conflicting statements of eyewitnesses, + were about as follows:--The affair was an election row, of + course. Nine-tenths of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the + city nowadays grow out of the bickerings and jealousies and + animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be + the gainer by it if her very constables were elected to serve a + century; for in our experience we have never even been able to + choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen + knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with + drunken vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense + majority for Caesar at the polls in the market was declared the + other day, and the crown was offered to that gentleman, even his + amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not + sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as + Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of the disappointed + candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth and + other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically + and contemptuously of Mr. Caesar's conduct upon that occasion. + + "We are further informed that there are many among us who think + they are justified in believing that the assassination of Julius + Caesar was a put-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by + Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only + too faithfully according to the programme. Whether there be good + grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to + judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the + following account of the sad occurrence carefully and + dispassionately before they render that judgment. + + "The Senate was already in session, and Caesar was coming down + the street towards the Capitol, conversing with some personal + friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens. + Just as he was passing in front of Demosthenes & Thucydides' + drug-store, he was observing casually to a gentleman, who, our + informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March + were come. The reply was, 'Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.' + At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day, + and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the + kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus + also said something about an 'humble suit' which _he_ wanted + read. Artemidorus begged that attention might be paid to his + first, because it was of personal consequence to Caesar. The + latter replied that what concerned himself should be read last, + or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to + read the paper instantly.[1] However, Caesar shook him off, and + refused to read any petition in the street. He then entered the + Capitol, and the crowd followed him. + + "About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we + consider that, taken in connection with the events which + succeeded it, it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius + Lena remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the 'Nobby + Boy of the Third Ward'), a bruiser in the pay of the Opposition, + that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when + Cassius asked, 'What enterprise?' he only closed his left eye + temporarily and said with simulated indifference, 'Fare you + well,' and sauntered towards Caesar. Marcus Brutus, who is + suspected of being the ringleader of the band that killed Caesar, + asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told him, and + added, in a low tone, '_I fear our purpose is discovered._' + + "Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, + and a moment after Cassius urged that lean and hungry vagrant, + Casca, whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden + for _he feared prevention_. He then turned to Brutus, apparently + much excited, and asked what should be done, and swore that + either he or Caesar _should never turn back_--he would kill + himself first. At this time Caesar was talking to some of the + back-country members about the approaching fall elections, and + paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy + Trebonius got into conversation with the people's friend and + Caesar's--Mark Antony--and under some pretence or other got him + away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and + others of the gang of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at + present, closed around the doomed Caesar. Then Metellus Cimber + knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from + banishment, but Caesar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and + refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, + first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the + banished Publius; but Caesar still refused. He said he could not + be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded + to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that + star and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and + he believed he was the only man in the country that was; + therefore, since he was 'constant' that Cimber should be + banished, he was also 'constant' that he should stay banished, + and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so! + + "Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, + Casca sprang at Caesar and struck him with a dirk. Caesar grabbing + him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow straight + from the shoulder with his left that sent the reptile bleeding to + the earth. He then backed up against Pompey's statue, and squared + himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and Cinna + rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former + succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but before he + could strike again, and before either of the others could strike + at all, Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as + many blows of his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in + an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies + had blockaded the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from + the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants were + struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside + their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches and flying + down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the + committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting 'Po-lice! + Po-lice!' in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din + like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it + all, great Caesar stood with his back against the statue, like a + lion at bay, and fought his assailants weaponless and hand to + hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which + he had shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and + Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers and fell, as their + brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when + Caesar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a + murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with + grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his + side, he hid his face in the folds of his mantle and received the + treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand that gave it. + He only said, '_Et tu, Brute?_' and fell lifeless on the marble + pavement. + + "We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was + the same one he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he + overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse + it was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different + places. There was nothing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at + the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of + the killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them + from Mark Antony, whose position enables him to learn every item + of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of + to-day. + + [Illustration: "THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE POCKETS"] + + "LATER.--While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and + other friends of the late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged + it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were + making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people + that, as we go to press, the chief of police is satisfied there + is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly." + + +[Footnote 1: Mark that: It is hinted by William Shakespeare, who +saw the beginning and the end of the unfortunate affray, that this +"schedule" was simply a note discovering to Caesar that a plot was +brewing to take his life.] + + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Editorial Wild Oats, by Mark Twain + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDITORIAL WILD OATS *** + +***** This file should be named 19484.txt or 19484.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/4/8/19484/ + +Produced by Suzan Flanagan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries) + + +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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