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BLOKE'S ITEM</a><br><br> +<a href="#medieval">A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE</a><br><br> +<a href="#petition">PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT</a><br><br> +<a href="#afterdinner">AFTER-DINNER SPEECH</a><br><br> +<a href="#murderers">LIONIZING MURDERERS</a><br><br> +<a href="#newcrime">A NEW CRIME</a><br><br> +<a href="#dream">A CURIOUS DREAM</a><br><br> +<a href="#truestory">A TRUE STORY</a><br><br> + + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="franklin"></a>THE LATE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1870]</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p275.jpg (93K)" src="images/p275.jpg" height="893" width="650"> +</center><br><br><br><br> + +<p>["Never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow just +as well."—B. F.]</p> + +<p>This party was one of those persons whom they call Philosophers. He was +twins, being born simultaneously in two different houses in the city of +Boston. These houses remain unto this day, and have signs upon them +worded in accordance with the facts. The signs are considered well +enough to have, though not necessary, because the inhabitants point out +the two birthplaces to the stranger anyhow, and sometimes as often as +several times in the same day. The subject of this memoir was of a +vicious disposition, and early prostituted his talents to the invention +of maxims and aphorisms calculated to inflict suffering upon the rising +generation of all subsequent ages. His simplest acts, also, were +contrived with a view to their being held up for the emulation of boys +forever—boys who might otherwise have been happy. It was in this spirit +that he became the son of a soap-boiler, and probably for no other reason +than that the efforts of all future boys who tried to be anything might +be looked upon with suspicion unless they were the sons of soap-boilers. +With a malevolence which is without parallel in history, he would work +all day, and then sit up nights, and let on to be studying algebra by the +light of a smoldering fire, so that all other boys might have to do that +also, or else have Benjamin Franklin thrown up to them.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p276.jpg (29K)" src="images/p276.jpg" height="445" width="355"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Not satisfied +with these proceedings, he had a fashion of living wholly on bread and +water, and studying astronomy at meal-time—a thing which has brought +affliction to millions of boys since, whose fathers had read Franklin's +pernicious biography.</p> + +<p>His maxims were full of animosity toward boys. Nowadays a boy cannot +follow out a single natural instinct without tumbling over some of those +everlasting aphorisms and hearing from Franklin on the spot. If he buys +two cents' worth of peanuts, his father says, "Remember what Franklin has +said, my son—'A grout a day's a penny a year"'; and the comfort is all +gone out of those peanuts. If he wants to spin his top when he has done +work, his father quotes, "Procrastination is the thief of time." If he +does a virtuous action, he never gets anything for it, because "Virtue is +its own reward." And that boy is hounded to death and robbed of his +natural rest, because Franklin, said once, in one of his inspired flights +of malignity:</p> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<br> Early to bed and early to rise +<br> Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise. + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<p>As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on +such terms. The sorrow that that maxim has cost me, through my parents, +experimenting on me with it, tongue cannot tell. The legitimate result is +my present state of general debility, indigence, and mental aberration. +My parents used to have me up before nine o'clock in the morning +sometimes when I was a boy. If they had let me take my natural rest +where would I have been now? Keeping store, no doubt, and respected by +all.</p> + +<p>And what an adroit old adventurer the subject of this memoir was! +In order to get a chance to fly his kite on Sunday he used to hang a key +on the string and let on to be fishing for lightning. And a guileless +public would go home chirping about the "wisdom" and the "genius" of the +hoary Sabbath-breaker. If anybody caught him playing "mumblepeg" by +himself, after the age of sixty, he would immediately appear to be +ciphering out how the grass grew—as if it was any of his business. +My grandfather knew him well, and he says Franklin was always +fixed—always ready. If a body, during his old age, happened on him +unexpectedly when he was catching flies, or making mud-pies, or sliding +on a cellar door, he would immediately look wise, and rip out a maxim, +and walk off with his nose in the air and his cap turned wrong side +before, trying to appear absent-minded and eccentric. He was a hard lot.</p> + +<p>He invented a stove that would smoke your head off in four hours by the +clock. One can see the almost devilish satisfaction he took in it by his +giving it his name.</p> + +<p>He was always proud of telling how he entered Philadelphia for the first +time, with nothing in the world but two shillings in his pocket and four +rolls of bread under his arm. But really, when you come to examine it +critically, it was nothing. Anybody could have done it.</p> + +<p>To the subject of this memoir belongs the honor of recommending the army +to go back to bows and arrows in place of bayonets and muskets. +He observed, with his customary force, that the bayonet was very well +under some circumstances, but that he doubted whether it could be used +with accuracy at a long range.</p> + +<p>Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, +and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such +a son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. +No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, +which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that +had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel; +and also to snub his stove, and his military inspirations, his unseemly +endeavor to make himself conspicuous when he entered Philadelphia, and +his flying his kite and fooling away his time in all sorts of such ways +when he ought to have been foraging for soap-fat, or constructing +candles.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p278.jpg (24K)" src="images/p278.jpg" height="429" width="341"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I merely desired to do away with somewhat of the prevalent +calamitous idea among heads of families that Franklin acquired his great +genius by working for nothing, studying by moonlight, and getting up in +the night instead of waiting till morning like a Christian; and that this +program, rigidly inflicted, will make a Franklin of every father's fool. +It is time these gentlemen were finding out that these execrable +eccentricities of instinct and conduct are only the evidences of genius, +not the creators of it. I wish I had been the father of my parents long +enough to make them comprehend this truth, and thus prepare them to let +their son have an easier time of it. When I was a child I had to boil +soap, notwithstanding my father was wealthy, and I had to get up early +and study geometry at breakfast, and peddle my own poetry, and do +everything just as Franklin did, in the solemn hope that I would be a +Franklin some day. And here I am.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p279.jpg (85K)" src="images/p279.jpg" height="880" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="p280.jpg (95K)" src="images/p280.jpg" height="837" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="p281.jpg (69K)" src="images/p281.jpg" height="965" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="p282.jpg (82K)" src="images/p282.jpg" height="799" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="bloke"></a>MR. BLOKE'S ITEM</h2></center> +<br> +<center><h3>[written about 1865]</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p167.jpg (130K)" src="images/p167.jpg" height="890" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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 toward 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:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> 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 reconnoitering 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, upwards 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.' +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed than +ever.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p169.jpg (60K)" src="images/p169.jpg" height="557" width="561"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>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 whatever +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 driveling 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.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="medieval"></a>A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE [written about 1868] +</h2> +</center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p171.jpg (95K)" src="images/p171.jpg" height="856" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><h3>CHAPTER I. +<br><br> +THE SECRET REVEALED.</h3></center> + +<p>It was night. Stillness reigned in the grand old feudal castle of +Klugenstein. The year 1222 was drawing to a close. Far away up in the +tallest of the castle's towers a single light glimmered. A secret +council was being held there. The stern old lord of Klugenstein sat in +a chair of state meditating. Presently he said, with a tender +accent:</p> + +<p>"My daughter!"</p> + +<p>A young man of noble presence, clad from head to heel in knightly mail, +answered:</p> + +<p>"Speak, father!"</p> + +<p>"My daughter, the time is come for the revealing of the mystery that hath +puzzled all your young life. Know, then, that it had its birth in the +matters which I shall now unfold. My brother Ulrich is the great Duke of +Brandenburgh. Our father, on his deathbed, decreed that if no son were +born to Ulrich, the succession should pass to my house, provided a son +were born to me. And further, in case no son were born to either, but +only daughters, then the succession should pass to Ulrich's daughter, +if she proved stainless; if she did not, my daughter should succeed, +if she retained a blameless name. And so I, and my old wife here, prayed +fervently for the good boon of a son, but the prayer was vain. You were +born to us. I was in despair. I saw the mighty prize slipping from my +grasp—the splendid dream vanishing away. And I had been so hopeful! +Five years had Ulrich lived in wedlock, and yet his wife had borne no +heir of either sex.</p> + +<p>"'But hold,' I said, 'all is not lost.' A saving scheme had shot athwart +my brain. You were born at midnight. Only the leech, the nurse, and six +waiting-women knew your sex. I hanged them every one before an hour had +sped. Next morning all the barony went mad with rejoicing over the +proclamation that a son was born to Klugenstein—an heir to mighty +Brandenburgh! And well the secret has been kept. Your mother's own +sister nursed your infancy, and from that time forward we feared nothing.</p> + +<p>"When you were ten years old, a daughter was born to Ulrich. We grieved, +but hoped for good results from measles, or physicians, or other natural +enemies of infancy, but were always disappointed. She lived, she +throve—Heaven's malison upon her! But it is nothing. We are safe. For, +Ha-ha! have we not a son? And is not our son the future Duke? Our +well-beloved Conrad, is it not so?—for, woman +of eight-and-twenty years—as +you are, my child, none other name than that hath ever fallen to you!</p> + +<p>"Now it hath come to pass that age hath laid its hand upon my brother, +and he waxes feeble. The cares of state do tax him sore, therefore he +wills that you shall come to him and be already—Duke in act, though not +yet in name. Your servitors are ready—you journey forth to-night.</p> + +<p>"Now listen well. Remember every word I say. There is a law as old as +Germany, that if any woman sit for a single instant in the great ducal +chair before she hath been absolutely crowned in presence of the people, +SHE SHALL DIE! So heed my words. Pretend humility. Pronounce your +judgments from the Premier's chair, which stands at the foot of the +throne. Do this until you are crowned and safe. It is not likely that +your sex will ever be discovered, but still it is the part of wisdom to +make all things as safe as may be in this treacherous earthly life."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my father, is it for this my life hath been a lie! Was it that I +might cheat my unoffending cousin of her rights? Spare me, father, +spare your child!"</p> + +<p>"What, hussy! Is this my reward for the august fortune my brain has +wrought for thee? By the bones of my father, this puling sentiment of +thine but ill accords with my humor.</p> + +<p>"Betake thee to the Duke, instantly! And beware how thou meddlest with my +purpose!"</p> + +<p>Let this suffice, of the conversation. It is enough for us to know that +the prayers, the entreaties, and the tears of the gentle-natured girl +availed nothing. Neither they nor anything could move the stout old lord of +Klugenstein. And so, at last, with a heavy heart, the daughter saw the +castle gates close behind her, and found herself riding away in the +darkness surrounded by a knightly array of armed vassals and a brave +following of servants.</p> + +<p>The old baron sat silent for many minutes after his daughter's departure, +and then he turned to his sad wife and said:</p> + +<p>"Dame, our matters seem speeding fairly. It is full three months since I +sent the shrewd and handsome Count Detzin on his devilish mission to my +brother's daughter Constance. If he fail, we are not wholly safe; but if +he do succeed, no power can bar our girl from being Duchess e'en though +ill-fortune should decree she never should be Duke!"</p> + +<p>"My heart is full of bodings, yet all may still be well."</p> + +<p>"Tush, woman! Leave the owls to croak. To bed with ye, and dream of +Brandenburgh and grandeur!"</p> + + +<br><br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER II. +<br><br> +FESTIVITY AND TEARS</h3></center> + +<p>Six days after the occurrences related in the above chapter, the +brilliant capital of the Duchy of Brandenburgh was resplendent with +military pageantry, and noisy with the rejoicings of loyal multitudes, +for Conrad, the young heir to the crown, was come. The old duke's heart +was full of happiness, for Conrad's handsome person and graceful bearing +had won his love at once. The great halls of the palace were thronged +with nobles, who welcomed Conrad bravely; and so bright and happy did all +things seem, that he felt his fears and sorrows passing away and giving +place to a comforting contentment.</p> + +<p>But in a remote apartment of the palace a scene of a different nature +was transpiring. By a window stood the duke's only child, the Lady +Constance. Her eyes were red and swollen, and full of tears. She was +alone. Presently she fell to weeping anew, and said aloud:</p> + +<p>"The villain Detzin is gone—has fled the dukedom! I could not believe +it at first, but alas! it is too true. And I loved him so. I dared to +love him though I knew the duke, my father, would never let me wed him. +I loved him—but now I hate him! With all my soul I hate him! Oh, what +is to become of me! I am lost, lost, lost! I shall go mad!"</p> + + +<br><br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER III. +<br><br> +THE PLOT THICKENS</h3></center> + + +<p>Few months drifted by. All men published the praises of the young +Conrad's government and extolled the wisdom of his judgments, the +mercifulness of his sentences, and the modesty with which he bore himself +in his great office. The old duke soon gave everything into his hands, +and sat apart and listened with proud satisfaction while his heir +delivered the decrees of the crown from the seat of the premier. +It seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honored of all men +as Conrad was, could not be otherwise than happy. But, strangly enough, +he was not. For he saw with dismay that the Princess Constance had begun +to love him! The love of the rest of the world was happy fortune for +him, but this was freighted with danger! And he saw, moreover, that the +delighted duke had discovered his daughter's passion likewise, and was +already dreaming of a marriage. Every day somewhat of the deep sadness +that had been in the princess's face faded away; every day hope and +animation beamed brighter from her eye; and by and by even vagrant smiles +visited the face that had been so troubled.</p> + +<p>Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having yielded to +the instinct that had made him seek the companionship of one of his own +sex when he was new and a stranger in the palace—when he was sorrowful +and yearned for a sympathy such as only women can give or feel. He now +began to avoid his cousin. But this only made matters worse, for, +naturally enough, the more he avoided her the more she cast herself in +his way. He marveled at this at first, and next it startled him. The +girl haunted him; she hunted him; she happened upon him at all times and +in all places, in the night as well as in the day. She seemed singularly +anxious. There was surely a mystery somewhere.</p> + +<p>This could not go on forever. All the world was talking about it. The +duke was beginning to look perplexed. Poor Conrad was becoming a very +ghost through dread and dire distress. One day as he was emerging from a +private ante-room attached to the picture-gallery, Constance confronted +him, and seizing both his hands, in hers, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Oh, why do you avoid me? What have I done—what have I said, to lose +your kind opinion of me—for surely I had it once? Conrad, do not +despise me, but pity a tortured heart? I cannot,—cannot hold the words +unspoken longer, lest they kill me—I LOVE YOU, CONRAD! There, despise +me if you must, but they would be uttered!"</p> + +<p>Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then, +misinterpreting his silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and she +flung her arms about his neck and said:</p> + +<p>"You relent! you relent! You can love me—you will love me! Oh, say you +will, my own, my worshipped Conrad!"</p> + +<p>Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his countenance, and +he trembled like an aspen. Presently, in desperation, he thrust the poor +girl from him, and cried:</p> + +<p>"You know not what you ask! It is forever and ever impossible!" And then +he fled like a criminal, and left the princess stupefied with amazement. +A minute afterward she was crying and sobbing there, and Conrad was +crying and sobbing in his chamber. Both were in despair. Both saw ruin +staring them in the face.</p> + +<p>By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying:</p> + +<p>"To think that he was despising my love at the very moment that I thought +it was melting his cruel heart! I hate him! He spurned me—did this +man—he spurned me from him like a dog!"</p> + +<br><br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER IV. +<br><br> +THE AWFUL REVELATION</h3></center> + + +<p>Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenance +of the good duke's daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no more +now. The duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away, Conrad's +color came back to his cheeks and his old-time vivacity to his eye, and +he administered the government with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom.</p> + +<p>Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grew +louder; it spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold of it. It +swept the dukedom. And this is what the whisper said:</p> + +<p>"The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!"</p> + +<p>When the lord of Klugenstein heard it, he swung his plumed helmet thrice +around his head and shouted:</p> + +<p>"Long live Duke Conrad!—for lo, his crown is sure from this day +forward! Detzin has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shall +be rewarded!"</p> + +<p>And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours no +soul in all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, to +celebrate the great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein's +expense.</p> + + +<br><br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER V. +<br><br> +THE FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE</h3></center> + + +<p>The trial was at hand. All the great lords and barons of Brandenburgh +were assembled in the Hall of Justice in the ducal palace. No space was +left unoccupied where there was room for a spectator to stand or sit. +Conrad, clad in purple and ermine, sat in the Premier's chair, and on +either side sat the great judges of the realm. The old Duke had sternly +commanded that the trial of his daughter should proceed without favor, +and then had taken to his bed broken-hearted. His days were numbered. +Poor Conrad had begged, as for his very life, that he might be spared the +misery of sitting in judgment upon his cousin's crime, but it did not +avail.</p> + +<p>The saddest heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad's breast.</p> + +<p>The gladdest was in his father's, for unknown to his daughter "Conrad," +the old Baron Klugenstein was come, and was among the crowd of nobles, +triumphant in the swelling fortunes of his house.</p> + +<p>After the heralds had made due proclamation and the other preliminaries +had followed, the venerable Lord Chief justice said:</p> + +<p>"Prisoner, stand forth!"</p> + +<p>The unhappy princess rose, and stood unveiled before the vast multitude. +The Lord Chief Justice continued:</p> + +<p>"Most noble lady, before the great judges of this realm it hath been +charged and proven that out of holy wedlock your Grace hath given birth +unto a child; and by our ancient law the penalty is death, excepting in +one sole contingency whereof his Grace the acting Duke, our good Lord +Conrad, will advertise you in his solemn sentence now; wherefore, give +heed."</p> + +<p>Conrad stretched forth the reluctant sceptre, and in the selfsame moment +the womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pityingly toward the doomed +prisoner, and the tears came into his eyes. He opened his lips to speak, +but the Lord Chief Justice said quickly:</p> + +<p>"Not there, your Grace, not there! It is not lawful to pronounce +judgment upon any of the ducal line SAVE FROM THE DUCAL THRONE!"</p> + +<p>A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad, and a tremor shook the iron +frame of his old father likewise. CONRAD HAD NOT BEEN CROWNED—dared he +profane the throne? He hesitated and turned pale with fear. But it must +be done. Wondering eyes were already upon him. They would be suspicious +eyes if he hesitated longer. He ascended the throne. Presently he +stretched forth the sceptre again, and said:</p> + +<p>"Prisoner, in the name of our sovereign lord, Ulrich, Duke of +Brandenburgh, I proceed to the solemn duty that hath devolved upon me. +Give heed to my words. By the ancient law of the land, except you +produce the partner of your guilt and deliver him up to the executioner, +you must surely die. Embrace this opportunity—save yourself while yet +you may. Name the father of your child!"</p> + +<p>A solemn hush fell upon the great court—a silence so profound that men +could hear their own hearts beat. Then the princess slowly turned, with +eyes gleaming with hate, and pointing her finger straight at Conrad, +said:</p> + +<p>"Thou art the man!"</p> + +<p>An appalling conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck a chill to +Conrad's heart like the chill of death itself. What power on earth could +save him! To disprove the charge he must reveal that he was a woman; +and for an uncrowned woman to sit in the ducal chair was death! At one +and the same moment he and his grim old father swooned and fell to the +ground.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p178.jpg (128K)" src="images/p178.jpg" height="576" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will NOT be found in +this or any other publication, either now or at any future time.</p> + +<p>The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a particularly +close place that I do not see how I am ever going to get him (or her) +out of it again—and therefore I will wash my hands of the whole +business, and leave that person to get out the best way that offers—or +else stay there. I thought it was going to be easy enough to straighten +out that little difficulty, but it looks different now.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="petition"></a>PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT +</h2></center> +<center><h3>TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES +IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED +</h3></center> +<br> + +<blockquote> +<p><b>Whereas</b>, The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all, backed by the +Declaration of Independence; and</p> + +<p><b>Whereas</b>, Under our laws, the right of property in real estate is +perpetual; and</p> + +<p><b>Whereas</b>, Under our laws, the right of property in the literary result of +a citizen's intellectual labor is restricted to forty-two years; and</p> + +<p><b>Whereas</b>, Forty-two years seems an exceedingly just and righteous term, +and a sufficiently long one for the retention of property;</p> + +<p><b>Therefore</b>, Your petitioner, having the good of his country solely at +heart, humbly prays that "equal rights" and fair and equal treatment may +be meted out to all citizens, by the restriction of rights in all +property, real estate included, to the beneficent term of forty-two +years. Then shall all men bless your honorable body and be happy. And +for this will your petitioner ever pray. +<br><br> + +MARK TWAIN.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<br><br><br> +<center><h3>A PARAGRAPH NOT ADDED TO THE PETITION</h3> +</center> + +<p>The charming absurdity of restricting property-rights in books to +forty-two years sticks prominently out in the fact that hardly any man's +books ever live forty-two years, or even the half of it; and so, for the +sake of getting a shabby advantage of the heirs of about one Scott or +Burns or Milton in a hundred years, the lawmakers of the "Great" Republic +are content to leave that poor little pilfering edict upon the +statute-books. It is like an emperor lying in wait to rob a phoenix's +nest, and waiting the necessary century to get the chance.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="afterdinner"></a>AFTER-DINNER SPEECH +</h2></center> +<center><h3>[AT A FOURTH OF JULY GATHERING, IN LONDON, OF AMERICANS] +</h3></center> +<br> + +<p>MR. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I thank you for the compliment +which has just been tendered me, and to show my appreciation of it I will +not afflict you with many words. It is pleasant to celebrate in this +peaceful way, upon this old mother soil, the anniversary of an experiment +which was born of war with this same land so long ago, and wrought out to +a successful issue by the devotion of our ancestors. It has taken nearly +a hundred years to bring the English and Americans into kindly and +mutually appreciative relations, but I believe it has been accomplished +at last. It was a great step when the two last misunderstandings were +settled by arbitration instead of cannon. It is another great step when +England adopts our sewing-machines without claiming the invention—as +usual. It was another when they imported one of our sleeping-cars the +other day. And it warmed my heart more than I can tell, yesterday, when +I witnessed the spectacle of an Englishman ordering an American sherry +cobbler of his own free will and accord—and not only that but with a +great brain and a level head reminding the barkeeper not to forget the +strawberries. With a common origin, a common language, a common +literature, a common religion and—common drinks, what is longer needful +to the cementing of the two nations together in a permanent bond of +brotherhood?</p> + +<p>This is an age of progress, and ours is a progressive land. A great and +glorious land, too—a land which has developed a Washington, a Franklin, +a William M. Tweed, a Longfellow, a Motley, a Jay Gould, a Samuel C. +Pomeroy, a recent Congress which has never had its equal (in some +respects), and a United States Army which conquered sixty Indians in +eight months by tiring them out—which is much better than uncivilized +slaughter, God knows. We have a criminal jury system which is superior +to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty +of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read. +And I may observe that we have an insanity plea that would have saved +Cain. I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some +legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.</p> + +<p>I refer with effusion to our railway system, which consents to let us +live, though it might do the opposite, being our owners. It only +destroyed three thousand and seventy lives last year by collisions, and +twenty-seven thousand two hundred and sixty by running over heedless and +unnecessary people at crossings. The companies seriously regretted the +killing of these thirty thousand people, and went so far as to pay for +some of them—voluntarily, of course, for the meanest of us would not +claim that we possess a court treacherous enough to enforce a law against +a railway company. But, thank Heaven, the railway companies are +generally disposed to do the right and kindly thing without compulsion. +I know of an instance which greatly touched me at the time. After an +accident the company sent home the remains of a dear distant old relative +of mine in a basket, with the remark, "Please state what figure you hold +him at—and return the basket." Now there couldn't be anything +friendlier than that.</p> + +<p>But I must not stand here and brag all night. However, you won't mind a +body bragging a little about his country on the fourth of July. It is a +fair and legitimate time to fly the eagle. I will say only one more word +of brag—and a hopeful one. It is this. We have a form of government +which gives each man a fair chance and no favor. With us no individual +is born with a right to look down upon his neighbor and hold him in +contempt. Let such of us as are not dukes find our consolation in that. +And we may find hope for the future in the fact that as unhappy as is the +condition of our political morality to-day, England has risen up out of +a far fouler since the days when Charles I. ennobled courtesans and all +political place was a matter of bargain and sale. There is hope for us +yet.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> [At least the above is the speech which I was going to make, but our + minister, General Schenck, presided, and after the blessing, got up + and made a great long inconceivably dull harangue, and wound up by + saying that inasmuch as speech-making did not seem to exhilarate the + guests much, all further oratory would be dispensed with during the + evening, and we could just sit and talk privately to our + elbow-neighbors and have a good sociable time. It is known that in + consequence of that remark forty-four perfected speeches died in the + womb. The depression, the gloom, the solemnity that reigned over + the banquet from that time forth will be a lasting memory with many + that were there. By that one thoughtless remark General Schenck + lost forty-four of the best friends he had in England. More than + one said that night, "And this is the sort of person that is sent to + represent us in a great sister empire!"]</p> +</blockquote> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="murderers"></a>LIONIZING MURDERERS +</h2></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p182.jpg (135K)" src="images/p182.jpg" height="880" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I had heard so much about the celebrated fortune-teller Madame— +—, that +I went to see her yesterday. She has a dark complexion naturally, and +this effect is heightened by artificial aids which cost her nothing. +She wears curls—very black ones, and I had an impression that she gave +their native attractiveness a lift with rancid butter. She wears a +reddish check handkerchief, cast loosely around her neck, and it was +plain that her other one is slow getting back from the wash. I presume +she takes snuff. At any rate, something resembling it had lodged among +the hairs sprouting from her upper lip. I know she likes garlic—I knew +that as soon as she sighed. She looked at me searchingly for nearly a +minute, with her black eyes, and then said:</p> + +<p>"It is enough. Come!"</p> + +<p>She started down a very dark and dismal corridor—I stepping close after +her. Presently she stopped, and said that, as the way was so crooked and +dark, perhaps she had better get a light. But it seemed ungallant to +allow a woman to put herself to so much trouble for me, and so I said:</p> + +<p>"It is not worth while, madam. If you will heave another sigh, I think I +can follow it."</p> + +<p>So we got along all right. Arrived at her official and mysterious den, +she asked me to tell her the date of my birth, the exact hour of that +occurrence, and the color of my grandmother's hair. I answered as +accurately as I could. Then she said:</p> + +<p>"Young man, summon your fortitude—do not tremble. I am about to reveal +the past."</p> + +<p>"Information concerning the future would be, in a general way, more—"</p> + +<p>"Silence! You have had much trouble, some joy, some good fortune, some +bad. Your great grandfather was hanged."</p> + +<p>"That is a l—"</p> + +<p>"Silence! Hanged sir. But it was not his fault. He could not help it."</p> + +<p>"I am glad you do him justice."</p> + +<p>"Ah—grieve, rather, that the jury did. He was hanged. His star crosses +yours in the fourth division, fifth sphere. Consequently you will be +hanged also."</p> + +<p>"In view of this cheerful—"</p> + +<p>"I must have silence. Yours was not, in the beginning, a criminal +nature, but circumstances changed it. At the age of nine you stole +sugar. At the age of fifteen you stole money. At twenty you stole +horses. At twenty-five you committed arson. At thirty, hardened in +crime, you became an editor. You are now a public lecturer. Worse +things are in store for you. You will be sent to Congress. Next, to the +penitentiary. Finally, happiness will come again—all will be well—you +will be hanged."</p> + +<p>I was now in tears. It seemed hard enough to go to Congress; but to be +hanged—this was too sad, too dreadful. The woman seemed surprised at my +grief. I told her the thoughts that were in my mind. Then she comforted +me.</p> + +<p>"Why, man," she said, "hold up your head—you have nothing to grieve +about. Listen.</p> + +<p>—[In this paragraph the fortune-teller details the exact history of the +Pike-Brown assassination case in New Hampshire, from the succoring and +saving of the stranger Pike by the Browns, to the subsequent hanging and +coffining of that treacherous miscreant. She adds nothing, invents +nothing, exaggerates nothing (see any New England paper for November, +1869). This Pike-Brown case is selected merely as a type, to illustrate +a custom that prevails, not in New Hampshire alone, but in every state in +the Union—I mean the sentimental custom of visiting, petting, +glorifying, and snuffling over murderers like this Pike, from the day +they enter the jail under sentence of death until they swing from the +gallows. The following extract from the Temple Bar (1866) reveals the +fact that this custom is not confined to the United States.—"on December +31, 1841, a man named John Johnes, a shoemaker, murdered his sweetheart, +Mary Hallam, the daughter of a respectable laborer, at Mansfield, in the +county of Nottingham. He was executed on March 23, 1842. He was a man +of unsteady habits, and gave way to violent fits of passion. The girl +declined his addresses, and he said if he did not have her no one else +should. After he had inflicted the first wound, which was not +immediately fatal, she begged for her life, but seeing him resolved, +asked for time to pray. He said that he would pray for both, and +completed the crime. The wounds were inflicted by a shoemaker's knife, +and her throat was cut barbarously. After this he dropped on his knees +some time, and prayed God to have mercy on two unfortunate lovers. +He made no attempt to escape, and confessed the crime. After his +imprisonment he behaved in a most decorous manner; he won upon the good +opinion of the jail chaplain, and he was visited by the Bishop of +Lincoln. It does not appear that he expressed any contrition for the +crime, but seemed to pass away with triumphant certainty that he was +going to rejoin his victim in heaven. He was visited by some pious and +benevolent ladies of Nottingham, some of whom declared he was a child of +God, if ever there was one. One of the ladies sent him a white camellia +to wear at his execution."]</p> + +<p>"You will live in New Hampshire. In your sharp need and distress the +Brown family will succor you—such of them as Pike the assassin left +alive. They will be benefactors to you. When you shall have grown fat +upon their bounty, and are grateful and happy, you will desire to make +some modest return for these things, and so you will go to the house some +night and brain the whole family with an ax. You will rob the dead +bodies of your benefactors, and disburse your gains in riotous living +among the rowdies and courtesans of Boston. Then you will be arrested, +tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happy +day. You will be converted—you will be converted just as soon as +every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed—and +then!—Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest +young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns. +This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write a +touching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns. This +will excite the public admiration. No public can withstand magnanimity. +Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great éclat, at the head +of an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizens +generally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearing +bouquets and immortelles. You will mount the scaffold, and while the +great concourse stand uncovered in your presence, you will read your +sappy little speech which the minister has written for you. And then, in +the midst of a grand and impressive silence, they will swing you into +per—Paradise, my son. There will not be a dry eye on the ground. You +will be a hero! Not a rough there but will envy you. Not a rough there +but will resolve to emulate you. And next, a great procession will +follow you to the tomb—will weep over your remains—the young ladies +will sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations connected with +the jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and appreciation +of your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around your +bier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it. And lo! you are canonized.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p185.jpg (65K)" src="images/p185.jpg" height="438" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Think of it, son-ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawler +among thieves and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the pet +of the pure and innocent daughters of the land the next! A bloody and +hateful devil—a bewept, bewailed, and sainted martyr—all in a month! +Fool!—so noble a fortune, and yet you sit here grieving!"</p> + +<p>"No, madam," I said, "you do me wrong, you do, indeed. I am perfectly +satisfied. I did not know before that my great-grandfather was hanged, +but it is of no consequence. He has probably ceased to bother about it +by this time—and I have not commenced yet. I confess, madam, that I do +something in the way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes you +mention have escaped my memory. Yet I must have committed them—you +would not deceive a stranger. But let the past be as it was, and let the +future be as it may—these are nothing. I have only cared for one thing. +I have always felt that I should be hanged some day, and somehow the +thought has annoyed me considerably; but if you can only assure me that I +shall be hanged in New Hampshire—"</p> + +<p>"Not a shadow of a doubt!"</p> + +<p>"Bless you, my benefactress!—excuse this embrace—you have removed a +great load from my breast. To be hanged in New Hampshire is +happiness—it leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once into +the best New Hampshire society in the other world."</p> + +<p>I then took leave of the fortune-teller. But, seriously, is it well to +glorify a murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in New +Hampshire? Is it well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into a +reward? Is it just to do it? Is it safe?</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="newcrime"></a>A NEW CRIME +</h2></center> +<center><h3>LEGISLATION NEEDED +</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p187.jpg (139K)" src="images/p187.jpg" height="856" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>This country, during the last thirty or forty years, has produced some of +the most remarkable cases of insanity of which there is any mention in +history. For instance, there was the Baldwin case, in Ohio, twenty-two +years ago. Baldwin, from his boyhood up, had been of a vindictive, +malignant, quarrelsome nature. He put a boy's eye out once, and never +was heard upon any occasion to utter a regret for it. He did many such +things. But at last he did something that was serious. He called at a +house just after dark one evening, knocked, and when the occupant came to +the door, shot him dead, and then tried to escape, but was captured. +Two days before, he had wantonly insulted a helpless cripple, and the man +he afterward took swift vengeance upon with an assassin bullet had +knocked him down. Such was the Baldwin case. The trial was long and +exciting; the community was fearfully wrought up. Men said this +spiteful, bad-hearted villain had caused grief enough in his time, and +now he should satisfy the law. But they were mistaken; Baldwin was +insane when he did the deed—they had not thought of that. By the +argument of counsel it was shown that at half past ten in the morning on +the day of the murder, Baldwin became insane, and remained so for eleven +hours and a half exactly. This just covered the case comfortably, and he +was acquitted. Thus, if an unthinking and excited community had been +listened to instead of the arguments of counsel, a poor crazy creature +would have been held to a fearful responsibility for a mere freak of +madness. Baldwin went clear, and although his relatives and friends were +naturally incensed against the community for their injurious suspicions +and remarks, they said let it go for this time, and did not prosecute. +The Baldwins were very wealthy. This same Baldwin had momentary fits of +insanity twice afterward, and on both occasions killed people he had +grudges against. And on both these occasions the circumstances of the +killing were so aggravated, and the murders so seemingly heartless and +treacherous, that if Baldwin had not been insane he would have been +hanged without the shadow of a doubt. As it was, it required all his +political and family influence to get him clear in one of the cases, and +cost him not less than ten thousand dollars to get clear in the other. +One of these men he had notoriously been threatening to kill for twelve +years. The poor creature happened, by the merest piece of ill fortune, +to come along a dark alley at the very moment that Baldwin's insanity +came upon him, and so he was shot in the back with a gun loaded with +slugs.</p> + +<p>Take the case of Lynch Hackett, of Pennsylvania. Twice, in public, he +attacked a German butcher by the name of Bemis Feldner, with a cane, and +both times Feldner whipped him with his fists. Hackett was a vain, +wealthy, violent gentleman, who held his blood and family in high esteem, +and believed that a reverent respect was due to his great riches. He +brooded over the shame of his chastisement for two weeks, and then, in a +momentary fit of insanity, armed himself to the teeth, rode into town, +waited a couple of hours until he saw Feldner coming down the street with +his wife on his arm, and then, as the couple passed the doorway in which +he had partially concealed himself, he drove a knife into Feldner's neck, +killing him instantly. The widow caught the limp form and eased it to +the earth. Both were drenched with blood. Hackett jocosely remarked to +her that as a professional butcher's recent wife she could appreciate the +artistic neatness of the job that left her in condition to marry again, +in case she wanted to. This remark, and another which he made to a +friend, that his position in society made the killing of an obscure +citizen simply an "eccentricity" instead of a crime, were shown to be +evidences of insanity, and so Hackett escaped punishment. The jury were +hardly inclined to accept these as proofs at first, inasmuch as the +prisoner had never been insane before the murder, and under the +tranquilizing effect of the butchering had immediately regained his right +mind; but when the defense came to show that a third cousin of Hackett's +wife's stepfather was insane, and not only insane, but had a nose the +very counterpart of Hackett's, it was plain that insanity was hereditary +in the family, and Hackett had come by it by legitimate inheritance.</p> + +<p>Of course the jury then acquitted him. But it was a merciful providence +that Mrs. H.'s people had been afflicted as shown, else Hackett would +certainly have been hanged.</p> + +<p>However, it is not possible to recount all the marvelous cases of +insanity that have come under the public notice in the last thirty or +forty years. There was the Durgin case in New Jersey three years ago. +The servant girl, Bridget Durgin, at dead of night, invaded her +mistress's bedroom and carved the lady literally to pieces with a knife. +Then she dragged the body to the middle of the floor, and beat and banged +it with chairs and such things. Next she opened the feather beds, and +strewed the contents around, saturated everything with kerosene, and set +fire to the general wreck. She now took up the young child of the +murdered woman in her blood smeared hands and walked off, through the +snow, with no shoes on, to a neighbor's house a quarter of a mile off, +and told a string of wild, incoherent stories about some men coming and +setting fire to the house; and then she cried piteously, and without +seeming to think there was anything suggestive about the blood upon her +hands, her clothing, and the baby, volunteered the remark that she was +afraid those men had murdered her mistress! Afterward, by her own +confession and other testimony, it was proved that the mistress had +always been kind to the girl, consequently there was no revenge in the +murder; and it was also shown that the girl took nothing away from the +burning house, not even her own shoes, and consequently robbery was not +the motive.</p> + +<p>Now, the reader says, "Here comes that same old plea of insanity again." +But the reader has deceived himself this time. No such plea was offered +in her defense. The judge sentenced her, nobody persecuted the governor +with petitions for her pardon, and she was promptly hanged.</p> + +<p>There was that youth in Pennsylvania, whose curious confession was +published some years ago. It was simply a conglomeration of incoherent +drivel from beginning to end, and so was his lengthy speech on the +scaffold afterward. For a whole year he was haunted with a desire to +disfigure a certain young woman, so that no one would marry her. He did +not love her himself, and did not want to marry her, but he did not want +anybody else to do it. He would not go anywhere with her, and yet was +opposed to anybody else's escorting her. Upon one occasion he declined +to go to a wedding with her, and when she got other company, lay in wait +for the couple by the road, intending to make them go back or kill the +escort. After spending sleepless nights over his ruling desire for a +full year, he at last attempted its execution—that is, attempted to +disfigure the young woman. It was a success. It was permanent. In +trying to shoot her cheek (as she sat at the supper-table with her +parents and brothers and sisters) in such a manner as to mar its +comeliness, one of his bullets wandered a little out of the course, and +she dropped dead. To the very last moment of his life he bewailed the +ill luck that made her move her face just at the critical moment. And so +he died, apparently about half persuaded that somehow it was chiefly her +own fault that she got killed. This idiot was hanged. The plea of +insanity was not offered.</p> + +<p>Insanity certainly is on the increase in the world, and crime is dying +out. There are no longer any murders—none worth mentioning, at any +rate. Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you were +insane—but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a man, it is +evidence that you are a lunatic. In these days, too, if a person of good +family and high social standing steals anything, they call it +kleptomania, and send him to the lunatic asylum. If a person of high +standing squanders his fortune in dissipation, and closes his career with +strychnine or a bullet, "Temporary Aberration" is what was the trouble +with him.</p> + +<p>Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common +that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal +case that comes before the courts? And is it not so cheap, and so +common, and often so trivial, that the reader smiles in derision when the +newspaper mentions it? And is it not curious to note how very often it +wins acquittal for the +prisoner? Of late years it does not seem possible for a man to so +conduct himself, before killing another man, as not to be manifestly +insane. If he talks about the stars, he is insane. If he appears +nervous and uneasy an hour before the killing, he is insane. If he weeps +over a great grief, his friends shake their heads, and fear that he is +"not right." If, an hour after the murder, he seems ill at ease, +preoccupied, and excited, he is, unquestionably insane.</p> + +<p>Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against +insanity. There is where the true evil lies.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="dream"></a>A CURIOUS DREAM [Written about 1870.] +</h2></center> +<center><h3>CONTAINING A MORAL +</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p192.jpg (99K)" src="images/p192.jpg" height="638" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Night before last I had a singular dream. I seemed to be sitting on a +doorstep (in no particular city perhaps) ruminating, and the time of +night appeared to be about twelve or one o'clock. The weather was balmy +and delicious. There was no human sound in the air, not even a footstep. +There was no sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness, except +the occasional hollow barking of a dog in the distance and the fainter +answer of a further dog. Presently up the street I heard a bony +clack-clacking, and guessed it was the castanets of a serenading party. +In a minute more a tall skeleton, hooded, and half clad in a tattered and +moldy shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby latticework of +its person, swung by me with a stately stride and disappeared in the gray +gloom of the starlight. It had a broken and worm-eaten coffin on its +shoulder and a bundle of something in its hand. I knew what the +clack-clacking was then; it was this party's joints working together, +and his elbows knocking against his sides as he walked. I may say I was +surprised. Before I could collect my thoughts and enter upon any +speculations as to what this apparition might portend, I heard another +one coming for I recognized his clack-clack. He had two-thirds of a +coffin on his shoulder, and some foot and head boards under his arm. +I mightily wanted to peer under his hood and speak to him, but when he +turned and smiled upon me with his cavernous sockets and his projecting +grin as he went by, I thought I would not detain him. He was hardly gone +when I heard the clacking again, and another one issued from the shadowy +half-light. This one was bending under a heavy gravestone, and dragging +a shabby coffin after him by a string. When he got to me he gave me a +steady look for a moment or two, and then rounded to and backed up to me, +saying:</p> + +<p>"Ease this down for a fellow, will you?"</p> + +<p>I eased the gravestone down till it rested on the ground, and in doing so +noticed that it bore the name of "John Baxter Copmanhurst," with "May, +1839," as the date of his death. Deceased sat wearily down by me, and +wiped his os frontis with his major maxillary—chiefly from former habit +I judged, for I could not see that he brought away any perspiration.</p> + +<p>"It is too bad, too bad," said he, drawing the remnant of the shroud +about him and leaning his jaw pensively on his hand. Then he put his +left foot up on his knee and fell to scratching his anklebone absently +with a rusty nail which he got out of his coffin.</p> + +<p>"What is too bad, friend?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, everything, everything. I almost wish I never had died."</p> + +<p>"You surprise me. Why do you say this? Has anything gone wrong? What +is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Matter! Look at this shroud-rags. Look at this gravestone, all +battered up. Look at that disgraceful old coffin. All a man's property +going to ruin and destruction before his eyes, and ask him if anything is +wrong? Fire and brimstone!"</p> + +<p>"Calm yourself, calm yourself," I said. "It is too bad—it is certainly +too bad, but then I had not supposed that you would much mind such +matters, situated as you are."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear sir, I do mind them. My pride is hurt, and my comfort is +impaired—destroyed, I might say. I will state my case—I will put it to +you in such a way that you can comprehend it, if you will let me," said +the poor skeleton, tilting the hood of his shroud back, as if he were +clearing for action, and thus unconsciously giving himself a jaunty and +festive air very much at variance with the grave character of his +position in life—so to speak—and in prominent contrast with his +distressful mood.</p> + +<p>"Proceed," said I.</p> + +<p>"I reside in the shameful old graveyard a block or two above you here, +in this street—there, now, I just expected that cartilage would let +go!—third rib from the bottom, friend, hitch the end of it to my spine with +a string, if you have got such a thing about you, though a bit of silver +wire is a deal pleasanter, and more durable and becoming, if one keeps it +polished—to think of shredding out and going to pieces in this way, just +on account of the indifference and neglect of one's posterity!"—and the +poor ghost grated his teeth in a way that gave me a wrench and a +shiver—for the effect is mightily increased by the absence of muffling flesh +and cuticle. "I reside in that old graveyard, and have for these thirty +years; and I tell you things are changed since I first laid this old +tired frame there, and turned over, and stretched out for a long sleep, +with a delicious sense upon me of being done with bother, and grief, +and anxiety, and doubt, and fear, forever and ever, and listening with +comfortable and increasing satisfaction to the sexton's work, from the +startling clatter of his first spadeful on my coffin till it dulled away +to the faint patting that shaped the roof of my new home—delicious! My! +I wish you could try it to-night!" and out of my reverie deceased fetched +me a rattling slap with a bony hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, thirty years ago I laid me down there, and was happy. For it +was out in the country then—out in the breezy, flowery, grand old woods, +and the lazy winds gossiped with the leaves, and the squirrels capered +over us and around us, and the creeping things visited us, and the birds +filled the tranquil solitude with music. Ah, it was worth ten years of a +man's life to be dead then! Everything was pleasant. I was in a good +neighborhood, for all the dead people that lived near me belonged to the +best families in the city. Our posterity appeared to think the world of +us. They kept our graves in the very best condition; the fences were +always in faultless repair, head-boards were kept painted or whitewashed, +and were replaced with new ones as soon as they began to look rusty or +decayed; monuments were kept upright, railings intact and bright, the +rose-bushes and shrubbery trimmed, trained, and free from blemish, the +walks clean and smooth and graveled. But that day is gone by. Our +descendants have forgotten us. My grandson lives in a stately house +built with money made by these old hands of mine, and I sleep in a +neglected grave with invading vermin that gnaw my shroud to build them +nests withal! I and friends that lie with me founded and secured the +prosperity of this fine city, and the stately bantling of our loves +leaves us to rot in a dilapidated cemetery which neighbors curse and +strangers scoff at. See the difference between the old time and +this—for instance: Our graves are all caved in now; our head-boards have +rotted away and tumbled down; our railings reel this way and that, with +one foot in the air, after a fashion of unseemly levity; our monuments +lean wearily, and our gravestones bow their heads discouraged; there be +no adornments any more—no roses, nor shrubs, nor graveled walks, nor +anything that is a comfort to the eye; and even the paintless old board +fence that did make a show of holding us sacred from companionship with +beasts and the defilement of heedless feet, has tottered till it +overhangs the street, and only advertises the presence of our dismal +resting-place and invites yet more derision to it. And now we cannot +hide our poverty and tatters in the friendly woods, for the city has +stretched its withering arms abroad and taken us in, and all that remains +of the cheer of our old home is the cluster of lugubrious forest trees +that stand, bored and weary of a city life, with their feet in our +coffins, looking into the hazy distance and wishing they were there. +I tell you it is disgraceful!</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p195.jpg (45K)" src="images/p195.jpg" height="266" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"You begin to comprehend—you begin to see how it is. While our +descendants are living sumptuously on our money, right around us in the +city, we have to fight hard to keep skull and bones together. Bless you, +there isn't a grave in our cemetery that doesn't leak—not one. Every +time it rains in the night we have to climb out and roost in the trees, +and sometimes we are wakened suddenly by the chilly water trickling down +the back of our necks. Then I tell you there is a general heaving up of +old graves and kicking over of old monuments, and scampering of old +skeletons for the trees! Bless me, if you had gone along there some such +nights after twelve you might have seen as many as fifteen of us roosting +on one limb, with our joints rattling drearily and the wind wheezing +through our ribs! Many a time we have perched there for three or four +dreary hours, and then come down, stiff and chilled through and drowsy, +and borrowed each other's skulls to bail out our graves with—if you will +glance up in my mouth now as I tilt my head back, you can see that my +head-piece is half full of old dry sediment—how top-heavy and stupid it +makes me sometimes! Yes, sir, many a time if you had happened to come +along just before the dawn you'd have caught us bailing out the graves +and hanging our shrouds on the fence to dry. Why, I had an elegant +shroud stolen from there one morning—think a party by the name of Smith +took it, that resides in a plebeian graveyard over yonder—I think so +because the first time I ever saw him he hadn't anything on but a check +shirt, and the last time I saw him, which was at a social gathering in +the new cemetery, he was the best-dressed corpse in the company—and it +is a significant fact that he left when he saw me; and presently an old +woman from here missed her coffin—she generally took it with her when +she went anywhere, because she was liable to take cold and bring on the +spasmodic rheumatism that originally killed her if she exposed herself to +the night air much. She was named Hotchkiss—Anna Matilda Hotchkiss—you +might know her? She has two upper front teeth, is tall, but a good deal +inclined to stoop, one rib on the left side gone, has one shred of rusty +hair hanging from the left side of her head, and one little tuft just +above and a little forward of her right ear, has her underjaw wired on +one side where it had worked loose, small bone of left forearm gone—lost +in a fight—has a kind of swagger in her gait and a 'gallus' way of going +with her arms akimbo and her nostrils in the air—has been pretty free +and easy, and is all damaged and battered up till she looks like a +queensware crate in ruins—maybe you have met her?"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p197.jpg (25K)" src="images/p197.jpg" height="503" width="382"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"God forbid!" I involuntarily ejaculated, for somehow I was not looking +for that form of question, and it caught me a little off my guard. But I +hastened to make amends for my rudeness, and say, "I simply meant I had +not had the honor—for I would not deliberately speak discourteously of a +friend of yours. You were saying that you were robbed—and it was a +shame, too—but it appears by what is left of the shroud you have on that +it was a costly one in its day. How did—"</p> + +<p>A most ghastly expression began to develop among the decayed features and +shriveled integuments of my guest's face, and I was beginning to grow +uneasy and distressed, when he told me he was only working up a deep, +sly smile, with a wink in it, to suggest that about the time he acquired +his present garment a ghost in a neighboring cemetery missed one. This +reassured me, but I begged him to confine himself to speech thenceforth, +because his facial expression was uncertain. Even with the most +elaborate care it was liable to miss fire. Smiling should especially be +avoided. What he might honestly consider a shining success was likely to +strike me in a very different light. I said I liked to see a skeleton +cheerful, even decorously playful, but I did not think smiling was a +skeleton's best hold.</p> + +<p>"Yes, friend," said the poor skeleton, "the facts are just as I have +given them to you. Two of these old graveyards—the one that I resided +in and one further along—have been deliberately neglected by our +descendants of to-day until there is no occupying them any longer. Aside +from the osteological discomfort of it—and that is no light matter this +rainy weather—the present state of things is ruinous to property. We +have got to move or be content to see our effects wasted away and utterly +destroyed.</p> + +<p>"Now, you will hardly believe it, but it is true, nevertheless, that there +isn't a single coffin in good repair among all my acquaintance—now that +is an absolute fact. I do not refer to low people who come in a pine box +mounted on an express-wagon, but I am talking about your high-toned, +silver-mounted burial-case, your monumental sort, that travel under black +plumes at the head of a procession and have choice of cemetery +lots—I mean folks like the Jarvises, and the Bledsoes and Burlings, and such. +They are all about ruined. The most substantial people in our set, they +were. And now look at them—utterly used up and poverty-stricken. One +of the Bledsoes actually traded his monument to a late barkeeper for some +fresh shavings to put under his head. I tell you it speaks volumes, for +there is nothing a corpse takes so much pride in as his monument. He +loves to read the inscription. He comes after a while to believe what it +says himself, and then you may see him sitting on the fence night after +night enjoying it. Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world +of good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he was +alive. I wish they were used more. Now I don't complain, but +confidentially I do think it was a little shabby in my descendants to +give me nothing but this old slab of a gravestone—and all the more that +there isn't a compliment on it. It used to have:</p> + +<center> <h3>'GONE TO HIS JUST REWARD'</h3> +</center> + +<p>on it, and I was proud when I first saw it, but by and by I noticed that +whenever an old friend of mine came along he would hook his chin on the +railing and pull a long face and read along down till he came to that, +and then he would chuckle to himself and walk off, looking satisfied and +comfortable. So I scratched it off to get rid of those fools. But a +dead man always takes a deal of pride in his monument. Yonder goes half +a dozen of the Jarvises now, with the family monument along. And +Smithers and some hired specters went by with his awhile ago. Hello, +Higgins, good-by, old friend! That's Meredith Higgins—died in +'44—belongs to our set in the cemetery—fine old family— +great-grandmother +was an Injun—I am on the most familiar terms with him—he didn't hear me +was the reason he didn't answer me. And I am sorry, too, because I would +have liked to introduce you. You would admire him. He is the most +disjointed, sway-backed, and generally distorted old skeleton you ever +saw, but he is full of fun. When he laughs it sounds like rasping two +stones together, and he always starts it off with a cheery screech like +raking a nail across a window-pane. Hey, Jones! That is old Columbus +Jones—shroud cost four hundred dollars—entire trousseau, including +monument, twenty-seven hundred. This was in the spring of '26. It was +enormous style for those days. Dead people came all the way from the +Alleghanies to see his things—the party that occupied the grave next to +mine remembers it well. Now do you see that individual going along with +a piece of a head-board under his arm, one leg-bone below his knee gone, +and not a thing in the world on? That is Barstow Dalhousie, and next to +Columbus Jones he was the most sumptuously outfitted person that ever +entered our cemetery. We are all leaving. We cannot tolerate the +treatment we are receiving at the hands of our descendants. They open +new cemeteries, but they leave us to our ignominy. They mend the +streets, but they never mend anything that is about us or belongs to us. +Look at that coffin of mine—yet I tell you in its day it was a piece of +furniture that would have attracted attention in any drawing-room in this +city. You may have it if you want it—I can't afford to repair it. +Put a new bottom in her, and part of a new top, and a bit of fresh lining +along the left side, and you'll find her about as comfortable as any +receptacle of her species you ever tried. No thanks—no, don't mention it— +you have been civil to me, and I would give you all the property I have +got before I would seem ungrateful. Now this winding-sheet is a kind of +a sweet thing in its way, if you would like to—No? Well, just as you +say, but I wished to be fair and liberal—there's nothing mean about me. +Good-by, friend, I must be going. I may have a good way to go +to-night—don't know. I only know one thing for certain, and that is that I am +on the emigrant trail now, and I'll never sleep in that crazy old +cemetery again. I will travel till I find respectable quarters, if I +have to hoof it to New Jersey. All the boys are going. It was decided +in public conclave, last night, to emigrate, and by the time the sun +rises there won't be a bone left in our old habitations. Such cemeteries +may suit my surviving friends, but they do not suit the remains that have +the honor to make these remarks. My opinion is the general opinion. +If you doubt it, go and see how the departing ghosts upset things before +they started. They were almost riotous in their demonstrations of +distaste. Hello, here are some of the Bledsoes, and if you will give me +a lift with this tombstone I guess I will join company and jog along with +them—mighty respectable old family, the Bledsoes, and used to always +come out in six-horse hearses and all that sort of thing fifty years ago +when I walked these streets in daylight. Good-by, friend."</p> + +<p>And with his gravestone on his shoulder he joined the grisly procession, +dragging his damaged coffin after him, for notwithstanding he pressed it +upon me so earnestly, I utterly refused his hospitality. I suppose that +for as much as two hours these sad outcasts went clacking by, laden with +their dismal effects, and all that time I sat pitying them. One or two +of the youngest and least dilapidated among them inquired about midnight +trains on the railways, but the rest seemed unacquainted with that mode +of travel, and merely asked about common public roads to various towns +and cities, some of which are not on the map now, and vanished from it +and from the earth as much as thirty years ago, and some few of them +never had existed anywhere but on maps, and private ones in real-estate +agencies at that. And they asked about the condition of the cemeteries +in these towns and cities, and about the reputation the citizens bore as +to reverence for the dead.</p> + +<p>This whole matter interested me deeply, and likewise compelled my +sympathy for these homeless ones. And it all seeming real, and I not +knowing it was a dream, I mentioned to one shrouded wanderer an idea that +had entered my head to publish an account of this curious and very +sorrowful exodus, but said also that I could not describe it truthfully, +and just as it occurred, without seeming to trifle with a grave subject +and exhibit an irreverence for the dead that would shock and distress +their surviving friends. But this bland and stately remnant of a former +citizen leaned him far over my gate and whispered in my ear, and said:</p> + +<p>"Do not let that disturb you. The community that can stand such +graveyards as those we are emigrating from can stand anything a body can +say about the neglected and forsaken dead that lie in them."</p> + +<p>At that very moment a cock crowed, and the weird procession vanished and +left not a shred or a bone behind. I awoke, and found myself lying with +my head out of the bed and "sagging" downward considerably—a position +favorable to dreaming dreams with morals in them, maybe, but not poetry.</p> + +<p>NOTE.—The reader is assured that if the cemeteries in his town are kept +in good order, this Dream is not leveled at his town at all, but is +leveled particularly and venomously at the next town.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p201.jpg (23K)" src="images/p201.jpg" height="321" width="587"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="truestory"></a>A TRUE STORY +</h2></center> +<center><h3>REPEATED WORD FOR WORD AS I HEARD IT—[Written about 1876] +</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p202.jpg (118K)" src="images/p202.jpg" height="908" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It was summer-time, and twilight. We were sitting on the porch of the +farmhouse, on the summit of the hill, and "Aunt Rachel" was sitting +respectfully below our level, on the steps—for she was our Servant, and +colored. She was of mighty frame and stature; she was sixty years old, +but her eye was undimmed and her strength unabated. She was a cheerful, +hearty soul, and it was no more trouble for her to laugh than it is for a +bird to sing. She was under fire now, as usual when the day was done. +That is to say, she was being chaffed without mercy, and was enjoying it. +She would let off peal after peal of laughter, and then sit with her face in +her hands and shake with throes of enjoyment which she could no longer +get breath enough to express. At such a moment as this a thought +occurred to me, and I said:</p> + +<p>"Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and never had any +trouble?"</p> + +<p>She stopped quaking. She paused, and there was moment of silence. She +turned her face over her shoulder toward me, and said, without even a +smile her voice:</p> + +<p>"Misto C——, is you in 'arnest?"</p> + +<p>It surprised me a good deal; and it sobered my manner and my speech, too. +I said:</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought—that is, I meant—why, you can't have had any trouble. +I've never heard you sigh, and never seen your eye when there wasn't a +laugh in it."</p> + +<p>She faced fairly around now, and was full earnestness.</p> + +<p>"Has I had any trouble? Misto C——-, I's gwyne to tell you, den I leave +it to you. I was bawn down 'mongst de slaves; I knows all 'bout slavery, +'case I ben one of 'em my own se'f. Well sah, my ole man—dat's my +husban'—he was lovin' an' kind to me, jist as kind as you is to yo' own +wife. An' we had chil'en—seven chil'en—an' we loved dem chil'en jist de +same as you loves yo' chil'en. Dey was black, but de Lord can't make +chil'en so black but what dey mother loves 'em an' wouldn't give 'em up, +no, not for anything dat's in dis whole world.</p> + +<p>"Well, sah, I was raised in ole Fo'ginny, but my mother she was raised in +Maryland; an' my souls she was turrible when she'd git started! My lan! +but she'd make de fur fly! When she'd git into dem tantrums, she always +had one word dat she said. She'd straighten herse'f up an' put her fists +in her hips an' say, 'I want you to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in the +mash to be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, I is!' +'Ca'se you see, dat's what folks dat's bawn in Maryland calls deyselves, +an' dey's proud of it. Well, dat was her word. I don't ever forgit it, +beca'se she said it so much, an' beca'se she said it one day when my +little Henry tore his wris' awful, and most busted 'is head, right up at +de top of his forehead, an' de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas' enough to +'tend to him. An' when dey talk' back at her, she up an' she says, +'Look-a-heah!' she says, 'I want you niggers to understan' dat I wa'n't +bawn in de mash be fool' by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's chickens, +I is!' an' den she clar' dat kitchen an' bandage' up de chile herse'f. +So I says dat word, too, when I's riled.</p> + +<p>"Well, bymeby my ole mistis say she's broke, an' she got to sell all de +niggers on de place. An' when I heah dat dey gwyne to sell us all off at +oction in Richmon', oh, de good gracious! I know what dat mean!"</p> + +<p>Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and now +she towered above us, black against the stars.</p> + +<p>"Dey put chains on us an' put us on a stan' as high as dis po'ch—twenty +foot high—an' all de people stood aroun', crowds an' crowds. An' dey'd +come up dah an' look at us all roun', an' squeeze our arm, an' make us +git up an' walk, an' den say, Dis one too ole,' or 'Dis one lame,' or +'Dis one don't 'mount to much.' An' dey sole my ole man, an' took him +away, an' dey begin to sell my chil'en an' take dem away, an' I begin to +cry; an' de man say, 'Shet up yo' damn blubberin',' an' hit me on de mouf +wid his han'. An' when de las' one was gone but my little Henry, I grab' +him clost up to my breas' so, an' I ris up an' says, 'You sha'nt take him +away,' I says; 'I'll kill de man dat tetches him!' I says. But my little +Henry whisper an' say 'I gwyne to run away, an' den I work an' buy yo' +freedom.' Oh, bless de chile, he always so good! But dey got him—dey got +him, de men did; but I took and tear de clo'es mos' off of 'em an' beat +'em over de head wid my chain; an' dey give it to me too, but I didn't +mine dat.</p> + +<p>"Well, dah was my ole man gone, an' all my chil'en, all my seven +chil'en—an' six of 'em I hain't set eyes on ag'in to dis day, an' dat's +twenty-two year ago las' Easter. De man dat bought me b'long' in +Newbern, an' he took me dah. Well, bymeby de years roll on an' de waw +come. My marster he was a Confedrit colonel, an' I was his family's +cook. So when de Unions took dat town, dey all run away an' lef' me all +by myse'f wid de other niggers in dat mons'us big house. So de big Union +officers move in dah, an' dey ask me would I cook for dem. 'Lord bless +you,' says I, 'dat what I's for.'</p> + +<p>"Dey wa'n't no small-fry officers, mine you, dey was de biggest dey is; +an' de way dey made dem sojers mosey roun'! De Gen'l he tole me to boss +dat kitchen; an' he say, 'If anybody come meddlin' wid you, you jist make +'em walk chalk; don't you be afeared,' he say; 'you's 'mong frens now.'</p> + +<p>"Well, I thinks to myse'f, if my little Henry ever got a chance to run +away, he'd make to de Norf, o' course. So one day I comes in dah whar de +big officers was, in de parlor, an' I drops a kurtchy, so, an' I up an' +tole 'em 'bout my Henry, dey a-listenin' to my troubles jist de same as +if I was white folks; an' I says, 'What I come for is beca'se if he got +away and got up Norf whar you gemmen comes from, you might 'a' seen him, +maybe, an' could tell me so as I could fine him ag'in; he was very +little, an' he had a sk-yar on his lef' wris' an' at de top of his +forehead.' Den dey look mournful, an' de Gen'l says, 'How long sence you +los' him?' an' I say, 'Thirteen year.' Den de Gen'l say, 'He wouldn't be +little no mo' now—he's a man!'</p> + +<p>"I never thought o' dat befo'! He was only dat little feller to me yit. +I never thought 'bout him growin' up an' bein' big. But I see it den. +None o' de gemmen had run acrost him, so dey couldn't do nothin' for me. +But all dat time, do' I didn't know it, my Henry was run off to de Norf, +years an' years, an' he was a barber, too, an' worked for hisse'f. An' +bymeby, when de waw come he ups an' he says: 'I's done barberin',' he +says, 'I's gwyne to fine my ole mammy, less'n she's dead.' So he sole +out an' went to whar dey was recruitin', an' hired hisse'f out to de +colonel for his servant; an' den he went all froo de battles everywhah, +huntin' for his ole mammy; yes, indeedy, he'd hire to fust one officer +an' den another, tell he'd ransacked de whole Souf; but you see I didn't +know <i>nuffin</i> 'bout dis. How was <i>I</i> gwyne to know it?</p> + +<p>"Well, one night we had a big sojer ball; de sojers dah at Newbern was +always havin' balls an' carryin' on. Dey had 'em in my kitchen, heaps o' +times, 'ca'se it was so big. Mine you, I was down on sich doin's; +beca'se my place was wid de officers, an' it rasp me to have dem common +sojers cavortin' roun' in my kitchen like dat. But I alway' stood aroun' +an kep' things straight, I did; an' sometimes dey'd git my dander up, an' +den I'd make 'em clar dat kitchen, mine I TELL you!</p> + +<p>"Well, one night—it was a Friday night—dey comes a whole platoon f'm a +nigger ridgment da was on guard at de house—de house was head quarters, +you know-an' den I was jist a-bilin' mad? I was jist a-boomin'! I +swelled aroun', an swelled aroun'; I jist was a-itchin' for 'em to do +somefin for to start me. An' dey was a-waltzin' an a dancin'! my but dey +was havin' a time! an I jist a-swellin' an' a-swellin' up! Pooty soon, +'long comes sich a spruce young nigger a-sailin' down de room wid a +yaller wench roun' de wais'; an' roun an' roun' an roun' dey went, enough +to make a body drunk to look at 'em; an' when dey got abreas' o' me, dey +went to kin' o' balancin' aroun' fust on one leg an' den on t'other, an' +smilin' at my big red turban, an' makin' fun, an' I ups an' says 'Git +along wid you!—rubbage!'</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p206.jpg (32K)" src="images/p206.jpg" height="427" width="337"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>De young man's face kin' o' changed, all of a +sudden, for 'bout a second, but den he went to smilin' ag'in, same as he +was befo'. Well, 'bout dis time, in comes some niggers dat played music +and b'long' to de ban', an' dey never could git along widout puttin' on +airs. An' de very fust air dey put on dat night, I lit into em! Dey +laughed, an' dat made me wuss. De res' o' de niggers got to laughin', +an' den my soul alive but I was hot! My eye was jist a-blazin'! I jist +straightened myself up so—jist as I is now, plum to de ceilin', +mos'—an' I digs my fists into my hips, an' I says, 'Look-a-heah!' I says, 'I +want you niggers to understan' dat I wa'n't bawn in de mash to be fool' +by trash! I's one o' de ole Blue hen's Chickens, I is!'—an' den I see +dat young man stan' a-starin' an' stiff, lookin' kin' o' up at de ceilin' +like he fo'got somefin, an' couldn't 'member it no mo'. Well, I jist +march' on dem niggers—so, lookin' like a gen'l—an' dey jist cave' away +befo' me an' out at de do'. An' as dis young man a-goin' out, I heah him +say to another nigger, 'Jim,' he says, 'you go 'long an' tell de cap'n I +be on han' 'bout eight o'clock in de mawnin'; dey's somefin on my mine,' +he says; 'I don't sleep no mo' dis night. You go 'long,' he says, 'an' +leave me by my own se'f.'</p> + +<p>"Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin'. Well, 'bout seven, I was up +an' on han', gittin' de officers' breakfast. I was a-stoopin' down by de +stove—jist so, same as if yo' foot was de stove—an' I'd opened de stove +do' wid my right han'—so, pushin' it back, jist as I pushes yo' +foot—an' I'd jist got de pan o' hot biscuits in my han' an' was 'bout to raise +up, when I see a black face come aroun' under mine, an' de eyes a-lookin' +up into mine, jist as I's a-lookin' up clost under yo' face now; an' I +jist stopped right dah, an' never budged! jist gazed an' gazed so; an' de +pan begin to tremble, an' all of a sudden I knowed! De pan drop' on de +flo' an' I grab his lef' han' an' shove back his sleeve—jist so, as I's +doin' to you—an' den I goes for his forehead an' push de hair back so, +an' 'Boy!' I says, 'if you an't my Henry, what is you doin' wid dis welt +on yo' wris' an' dat sk-yar on yo' forehead? De Lord God ob heaven be +praise', I got my own ag'in!'</p> + +<p> "Oh no' Misto C———, I hain't had no trouble. An' no joy!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p207.jpg (12K)" src="images/p207.jpg" height="393" width="361"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<br><br> + + +<center> +<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3> +<tr><td> + <a href="p3.htm">Previous Part</a> +</td><td> + <a href="3189-h.htm">Main Index</a> +</td><td> + <a href="p5.htm">Next Part</a> + +</td></tr> + +</table> +</center> +</body> +</html> |