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Les diagrammes suivants illuistrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 4 5 6 '»«« a -v'-- Information Wanted ^'' By MARK TWAINS :**■•' A. •t • « \ H :«;i ■it "^ w "•«» A CURIOUS Pleasure Excursion 'M / I INFORMATION WANTED. ••Waihinoton, Dutmltrro, iJUJj. *' r^OVLJy you give me airr information respecting ^^ such islands, if any, as the Government is going to purchase ?* It is an uncle of mine that wants to know. He is an industrious man and well-disposed, and wants to make a living in an honest, humble way, but more especially he wants to be quiet He wishes to settle down, and be quiet and unostentatious. He has been to the new island St. Thomas, but he says he thinks things are unsettled there. He went there early with an attachi of the State department, wlio was sent down with money to pay for the island. My uncle had his money in the same box, and so when they went ashore, getting a receipt, the sailors broke open the box and took all the money, not making any distinction between Govprnment money, wiuch was legitimate money to be stolen, and my Information Wanted, uncle's, which was his o\vn private property, and should have been respected. But he came home and got some more and went back. And then he took Uie fever. There are seven kinds of fever down there, you know ; and, as his blood was out of order by reason of loss of sleep and general wear and tear of mind, he failed to cure the first fever, and then somehow he got the other six. He is not a kind of man that enjoys fevers, though he is well-meaning and always does what he thinks is right, and so he was a good deal annoyed when it appeared he was going to die. But he worried through, and got well and started a farm. He fenced it in, and the next day Uiat great storm came on and washed most of it over to Gib- raltar, or around there somewhere. He only said, in his patient way, that it was gone, and he wouldn't bother about trying to find out where it went to, though it was his opinion it went to Gibraltar. Then he invested in a mountain, and started a farm up there, so as to be out of the way when the sea came ashore again. It was a good mountain, and a good firm, but it wasn't any use; an earthquake came the next night and shook it all down. It was all fragments, you know, and so mixed up with another man's property, that lie couM not tell which were his fragments without going to law; and he would not do that, because his main object in going to St. Thomas was to be quiet All that he wanted was to settle down and be quiet. He thought it all over, and finally he concluded to •> ■h Information Wanted. 9 try the low ground again, especially as lie wanted to start a brickyard this time. He bought a flat, and put out a hundred thousand bricks to dry preparatory to baking them. But luck appeared to be against him. A volcano shoved itself through there that night, and elevated his bridcyard about two thousand feet in the air. It irritated him a good deal. He has been up there, and he says the bricks are all baked right enough, but he can't get them down. At first, he thought maybe the Government would get the bricks down for him, because since Government bought the island, it ought to protect the property where a man has invested in good faith ; but all he wants is quiet, and so he is not going to apply for the subsidy he was thinking about. He went back there last week in a couple of ships of war, to prospect around the coast for a safe place for a farm where he could be quiet ; but a great " tidal wave " came, and hoisted both of the ships out into one of the interior counties, and he came near losing his life. So he has given up prospecting in a ship, and is discouraged. Well, now, he don't know what to do. He has tried Alaska ; but the bears kept after him so much, and kept him so much on the jump, as it were, that he had to leave the country. He could not be quiet there with those bears prancing after him all the time. That is how he came to go to the new island we have bought — St Thomas. But he is getting to think St Thomas is not quiet enough for a man of hia turn of mind, and that is why he wishes me to find out if Y I I to tnformation Wanld, Government is likely to buy some more islands shortly. He has heard that Government is thinking about buying Porto Rico. If that is true, he wishes to try Porto Rico, if it is a quiet place. How is Porto Rico for hij style of man ? Do you Uiink tlv« Govcinvaent will hirv it ? '.j it ♦•"-^S^.iiJBwrvTW^*'* Bi n ^ Cau^h of f o«ms bn ^mxn an^t THOSE EVENING BELLS. BY THOMAS MOORS. Those er^'ening bells I those evening bells I How many a tile their music tells Of youth, and home, and that sweet time When last I heard thcu: soothing chime. Tliose joyous hours are passed away ; And many a heart that then was gay, Within the tomb now darkV dwells, And hears no more those evening bclla. And so 'twill be when I am gone — That tuneful peal will still ring on ; ^^^lile other bards shall walk these delL?, Aud sing your praise, sweet evening bei»«. \2 A Couple of Poems by Twain attd Moon, \ THOSE ANNUAL BILLS. BY MARK TWAUr. These annual bills ! these annual bills 1 How many a song their discord trills Of " truck " consumed, enjoyed, forgot, Since I was skinned by last year's lot I 1. Tliose joyous beans are passed away ; Those onions blithe, O where are tliey ! Once loved, lost, mourned — now vexing ilu Your shades troop back in annual bills 1 And so 'twill be when T'm aground— These yearly duns will still go round, While other baras, wiin nrantic quills, Shall damn and damn these annual bills I \\ ts Pasara. •*«- a ^^ lAGARA FALLS is a most enjoyable place of •*"^ resort. The hotels are excellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant The opportunities for fishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not even equalled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in the streams are much better than others ; but at Niagara one place is just as good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and so there is no use in your (valking five miles to fish, when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advan- tages of this state of things have never heretofore been properly placed before the public. The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasant and none of them fatiguing. When you start out to " do " the Falls you first drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the pri- vilege of looking down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the Niagara river. A railway " cut " through a hill would be as comely if it had the angry river tumbling and foaming tlirough its bottom. You can descend a staircase here a hundred "X 14 Niagara, and i5fty feet down, and stand at the edge of the water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you did it ; but you will then be too late. The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curd- ling way, how he saw the little steamer. Maid of iht, Misty descend the fearful rapids— how firet one pad- dle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows, and then the other, and at what point it was that her smokestack toppled overboard, and where her planking began to break and part asunder — and how she did finally live through the trip, after accompKsh- ing tlie incredible feat of travelling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeen minutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extra- ordinary, anyhow. It is worth the price of admis- sion to hear the guide tell the story nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter a sentence or a gesture. Then you drive over the Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery between the chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, and the chances of having the railway train overhead smashing down on to you. Either possibihty is discomforting taken by itself, but mixed together, they amount in tlie aggregate to positive unliappiness. On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks of photographers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make an ostentatious frontispiece of you and your decaying ambulance, and your solemn crate v/ith a hide on it, which you »re expected to regard in the light of a horse, and a 4 Jt^ia^ara, «5 dunimshcd and unimportant background of sublime Niagara; and a great many people /tave the incredible effrontery or the native depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime. Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see stately pictures of papa and mamma, Johr.ny and Bub and Sis, or a couple of country cousins, all smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied and un- comfortable attitudes in their carriage, and all loom- ing up in their awe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment of that majestic presence whose miniistering spirits are the rainbows, whose voice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, who was monarch here dead and forgotten ages before this hackful of small reptiles was deemed temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world's unnoted myriads, and will still be monarch here ages and decades of ages after they shall have gathered themselves to their blood relations, the other worms, and been mingled with the unrcmem- bering dust. There is no actual harm in making Niagara a batk- giound whereon to display one's marvellous insignifi- cance in a good strong ligiit, but it requires a sort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it. When you have examined the stupendous Horse- shoe Fall till you are citisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new Suspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where tliey exhibit the Cave of t]\e Winds. litre I followed iiiauuctions, and divcsttd myself -i^i i6 Niagara, of all my clothing, and put on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque, but not beau- tiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flight of winding stairs, which wound and wound, and still kept on winding long after the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long before it had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under the precipice, but still considerably above the level of the river. We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our persons sliielded from destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clung with both hands — not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently the descent became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, and sprays from the American Fall began to rain do^vn on us in fast-increasing sheets that soon became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in the nature of groping. Now a furious wind began to rush out from behind the waterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that I wanted to go home ; but it was too late. We were almost under the mon strous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was in vain in the midst of such a pitiless crash of sound. In another moment the guide disappeared behmd the dehige, and bewildered by the thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and smitten by the arrow7 tempest of rain, I followed. All was darkness. Such a uiad stonuing, roaring, and bello^nng of wamiig \ i; i Niagara, «7 I J ~, If I.' \ wind and water never crazed my ears before. I bent my head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on my back. The world seemed going to destructioa I could not see anything, the flood poured down so savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and the most of the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung a leak now, I had been lost And at this moment I discovered that the bridge had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery and precipitous rocks. I never was so scared before and survived it But we got through at last, and emerged into the open day, where we could stand in front of the laced and frothy and seething world of descending water, and look at it When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfully in earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I love to read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read of his inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of oaountain and forest, and his general nobility of cha- racter, and his stately metaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When I found Uie shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian bead-work, and stunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures repre- senting human beings who carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms and bodies, and had feet shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotioik I 19 Niagara, knew tliat now, at last, I was going to come fiice to iace with the noble Red Man. A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array of curiosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about the Falls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous to speak to them. And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading over to Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under a tree, dili- gently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat and brogans, and had a short bhck pipe in his mouth. Thus does the baneful contact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pomp which is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his native haunts. I addressed the relic as follows : — "Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a^ Whack happy? Does the great Speckled Thunder sigh for the war path, or is his heart contented with dreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest ? Does the mighty Sachem yearn to drink tho blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied to make bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface ? Speak, sublime relic of by3;one grandeur'— venerable zui% speak I " The relic said,— " An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd b« takin' for a dirty Injin, ye drawlin', lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil 1 By the piper that played before Moses, I'll ate ye 1 " I went away from there. Niagara, to By and by, in the neighbourhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon a gentle daughter of the abori- gines in fringed and beaded buckskin moccasins and leggins, seated on a bench, with her pretty ware about her. She had just carved out a wooden chief that had a strong family resemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now boring a hole through his abdomen to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment) and tlien addressed her : " Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpole lonely ? Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, and the van* ished glory of her ancestors ? Or does her sad spirit wander afar towards the hunting-grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone ? Why is my daughter silent ? Has she aught against the paleface stranger?" The maiden said,— ** Faix, an' is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callln' names ? Lave this, or I'll shy your lean carcass ovef the cataract, ye sniveling blaggard I * I adjourned from there also. "Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were tame; but, if appearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the war path." I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I came upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making \rampum and moccasins, and addressed them in the language o/ Qriendshiy t C a ao Niagara, "Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, Wai Chiefs, Squaws, and high Muck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you I You, Beneficent Polecat— you, Devourer of Mountains — you. Roaring Thundergust— you, Bully Boy, with a Glass eye — the paleface from beyond the great waters greets you all 1 War and pestilence have thinned your ranks, and destroyed your once pro 'd nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have de- pleted your purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity the property of others, has gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple innocence, has damaged y* ir reputation with the soulless usurper. Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and tomahawk your families, has played the everlasting mischief with the r^icturesque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light of the nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag-and-bcbtall of the purlieus of New York. For shame I Remen.*)er your ancestors 1 Recall their mighty deeds ! F. (;^ nbcr Uncas ' — ^and Red Jacket I — and Hole in tie r>a> i — and VVhoopdedoodledo I Emulate theii achi r^ements I Unfurl yourselves under my banner, noble savages, illustrious gutter- snipes ■" " Down wid him ! • '* Scoop the blaggard ! " "Bum him!" "Hang him 1" " Dhround him ! " It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudacn 4ash in the air of clubs, brick- bats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins-'a singlt Niagara, t\ flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them in the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore half the clothes off me ; they broke my arms and legs ; they gave me a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee like a saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add msult to injury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vest caught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could get loose. I finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at the foot of the Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered up several inches above my head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round and round in it forty-four times— chasing a chip and gaining on it — each round trip a half mile — reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-four times, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every time. At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipe in his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept the other on the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind. Presently a puff of wind blew it out The next time I swept around he said,— "Got a match?** ** Yes ; in my other vest Help me out, please* •* Not for Joe." When I came round again, I said— • Ejccuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a it Niagara, drowning man, but will you explain this singular con- duct of yours ?'* "With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my accoimt I can wait for you. But I wish I had a match." I said,— "Take my place, and 111 go and get you one." He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coldness between us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea, in case any- thing happened to me, to so time the occurrence as to throw my custom into the hands of the opposition coroner over on the American side. At last a policeman came along, and arrested me for disturbing the peace by yelling at people on shore for help. The judge fined me, but I had the advan- tage of him. My money was with my pantaloons, And my pantaloons were with the Indians. Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition. At least I am lying anyway — critical or not critical I am hurt all over, but I cannot tell the lull extent yet, because the doctor is not done taking inventory. He will make out my manifest this even- ing. However, thus far he thinks only sixteen of my wounds are fatal I don't mind the others. Upon regaining my right mind, I said, — " It is an awfiil savage tribe of Indians that do the bead work and moccasins for Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from ? ** ** Limerick, my soa* to $ai8i ^mdbs* •4^ CERIOUSLY, from early youth I have taken an ^ especial mterest in the subject of poultry-raisings and so this membership touches a ready sympathy in my breast.* Even as a schoolboy, poultry-raising was a study with me, and I may say without egotism that as early as the age of seventeen I was acquainted with all the best and speediest methods of raising chickens, from raising them off a roost by burning lucifer matches tmder their noses, down to lifting them ott a fence on a frosty night by insinuating the end of a warm board under their heels. By the time I was twenty years old, I really suppose I had raised more poultry than any one individual in all the seo tion round about there. The very chickens came to know my talent by-and-by. The youth of both sexes ceased to paw the earth for worms, and old roosters that came to crow, '* remained to pray," when I passed by. I have had so much experience in the raising of fowls that I cannot but think that a few hints irom * Being a letter written to a Ponltrjr docietjr titat had confecni A oompliinentary membership tipoa Uto auUiar* H To Raise Poultry, me might be useful to the Society. The two method! I have already touched upon are very simple, and are only used in the raising of the commonest class of fowls; one is for summer, the other for winter. In the one case you start out with a friend along about eleven o'clock on a summer's night (not later, because in some States — especially in California and Oregon — chickens always rouse up just at midnight and crow from ten to thirty minutes, according to the ease or difficulty they experience in getting the public waked up), and your friend carries with him a sack. Arrived at the hen-roost (your neighbor's, not your own), you light a match and hold it under first one and then another pullet's nose until they are willing to go into that bag without making any trouble about it. You then return home, either taking the bag with you or leaving it behind, according as circum- stances shall dictate. N.B. — I have seen the time when it was eligible and appropriate to leave the sack behind and walk off with considerable velocity, with- out ever leaving any word where to send it In the case of the other method mentioned for raising poultry, your fiiend takes along a covered vessel with a charcoal fire in it, and you carry a long slender plank. This is a fix}sty night, understand. Arrived at the tree, or fence, or other hen-roost (your own if you are an idiot), you warm the end of your plank in your friend's fire-vessd, and then raise it aloft and ease it up gently against a slumbering chicken's foot If the subject of your attentions is a true bird, be will infiUIibly return thanks with a sleepy duck or \ To Raise Poultry, n \ two, aud step out and take up quarters on the plank, thus becoming so conspicuously accessory before the fact to his own murder as to make it a grave question in our minds, as it once was in the mind of Black- stone, whether he is not really and deliberately com- mitting suicide in the second degree. [But you enter into a contemplation of these legal refinements sub' sequently — not then.] When you wish to raise a fine, large, donkey-voiced Shanghai rooster, you do it with a lasso, just as you would a bull. It is because he must be choked, and choked effectually, too. It is the only good, certain way, for whenever he mentions a matter which he is cordially interested in, the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred that he secures somebody else's immediate attention to it too, whether it be day or night The Black Spanish is an exceedingly fine bird and a costly one. Thirty five dollars is the usual figure, and fifty a not uncommon price for a specimen. Even its eggs are worth from a dollar to a dollar and a half a-piece, and yet are so unwholesome that the city physician seldom or never orders them for the work- house. Still I have once or twice procured as high as a dozen at a time for nothing, in the dark of the moon. The )est way to raise the Black Spanish fowl is to go late in the evening and raise coop and alL The reason I recommend this method is, that the birds being so valuable, the owners do not permit them to roost around promiscuously, but put them in a coop as strong as a fire-proof safe, and keep it in the kitchen at night The method I speak of is noC s6 Ta Ralsi Poulity, always a bright and satisfying success, and yet then are so many little articles of vertu about a kitchen, that if you fail on the coop you can generally bring away something else. I brought away a nice steel trap one night, worth ninety cents. But what is the use in my pouring out my whole intellect on this subject ? I have shown the Western New York Poultry Society that they have taken to their bosom a party who is not a spring chicken by any means, but a man who knows all about poultry, and is just as high up in the most efficient methods of raising it as the President of the institution him- selC I thank these gentlemen for the honorary mem- berFhip they have conferred upon me, and shall stand at all times ready and willing to testify my good feeling and my official zeal by deeds as well as by this hastily penned advice and information. Whenever they are ready to go to raising poultry, let them call for me any evening afler eleven o'clock, and I shall be on hand promptl/. [tmbranoxia €tanif. Us related to tlie author of this book by Mr. *• McWiUiams, a pleasant Neiv York ge,ttlenian whom the said author met by chance on ajoumey.\ WELL, to go back to where I was before I digressed to explain to you how that frightful and incurable disease, membranous croup, was ravag- ing the town and driving all mothers mad wiA terror, I called Mrs. McWiUiam's attention to little Penelope and said,— . , • ^i. * « Darling, I wouldn»t let that child be chewmg that pine stick if I were you." « Precious, where is the harm m it ? » said she, but at the same time preparing to take away the stick- for woman cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; Uiat is, married women. I replied, — . , , . ^ « Love, it is notorious that pme is the least nutrl. lious wood that a child can eat* $B Experience of tJu Mc Williamses My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returned itself to hsf lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said,— " Hubby, you know better than that You know you do. Doctors all say that the tuqjentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys." "Ah — I was under a misapprehension. I did not kx.ow that the child's kidneys and spine were affected, and that the family physician has recommended — " "Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?" " My love, you intimated it** "The ideal I never intimated anything of the kmd." " Why, my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said — ** " Bother what I said I I don't care what I did say. There isn't any harm in the child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know it perfectly well And she shall chew it, too. So there, now 1" " Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will go and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall want while I — ** " please go along to your office and let me have gome peace. A body can never make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to arguing and arguing and arguing till you don't know what you are talking about, and you never do.** " Very well, it shall be as you say. But there ii A want of logic in your last remark whicb— * With Mtmbranous Croup, «9 'V However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had laken the child with her. That night at dinner she confronted me with a face as white aa a sheet : "O, Mortimer, there's another 1 Little Georgie Gordon is taken." " Membranous croup ? * " Membranous croup." " Is there any hope for him ?* ** None m the wide world. O, what is to become ofusl" By-and-by a nurse brought in our Penelope, to say good-night and offer the customary prayer at the mother's knee. In the midst of " Now I lay me down to sleep," she gave a slight cough I My wife fell back like one stricken with death. But the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities which terror inspires. She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to our bedroom; and she went along to see the order executed. She took me with her, of course. We got matters arranged with speed. A cot bed was put up in my wife's dressing-room for the nurse. But now Mrs. McWilliams said we were too far away from the other baby, and what if h£ were to have the symptoros in the night — and she blanched again, poor thing. We then restot 'd the crib and the nurse to tne nursery, and put up a bed for ourselves in a room adjoining. Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said, "Suppose 50 Etperitnct of thi McWilliamsn the baby should catch it from Penelope?" This thought struck a new panic to her heart, and the tribe of us could not get the crib out of the nursery again fast enough to satisfy my wife, though she assisted in her own person and well nigh pulled the crib to pieces in her frantic hurry. We moved downstairs ; but there was no place there to stow the nurse, and Mrs. McWilliams said the nurse's experience would be an inestimable help. So we re- turned, bag and baggage, to our own bedroom once more, and felt a great gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest again. Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going on there. She was back in a mo- ment with a new dread. She said, — " What can make Baby sleep so ? " I said,— " Why, my darling. Baby always sleeps like a graven image." " I know. I know ; but there's something peculiar about his sleep, now. He seems to— to — ^he seems to breathe so regularly. O, this is dreadful'' " But my dear he always breathes regularly." <'0h, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now. His nurse is too young and inex- perienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and be on hand if anything happens." " That is a good idea, but who will help you f " ** You can help me all I want I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything but myself, any how, at such a tune as this." O * I » .' WtiA Mimbranous Croup, 31 I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watch and toil over our little patient all the weary night — But she reconciled me to it So old Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in the nursery. Penelope coughed twice in her sleep. " Oh, why dofit that doctor come ! Mortimer, this room is too warm. This room is certainly too warm. Turn off the register— quick ! " I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, and wondering to myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child. The coachman arrived from down town, now, mth the news that our physician was ill and confined to his bed. — Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye upon me, and said in a dead voice, — " There is a Providence m it It is foreordained. He never was sick before. — Never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time again I have told you so. Now you see the result Our child will never get well Be thankful if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive »ysel£" I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that I could not see that we bad been living such an abandoned life. " Mortimer / Do yott want to bring the judgment upon Baby, too 1" Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed^— " The doctor must have sent medicines 1** I said,— 33 Expericnci of th* McWilliamstt ** Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me a chance." ** Well, do give them to me I Don't you know that every moment is precious now ? But what was the use in sending medicinesi when he kwufs that the disease is incurable ? " I said that while there was life there was hope. *' Hope I Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the child unborn. If you would — As I live, the directions say give one tea- spoonful once an hour ! Once an hour ! — as if we had a whole year before us to save the child in 1 Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing thing a table-spoonful, and try to be quick ! " " Why, my dear, a table-spoonful might — ** **Dorit drive me frantic I There, there, there, my precious, my own ; it's nasty bitter stuf^ but it's good for Nelly — good for Mother's precious darling; and it will make her well There, there, there, put the little head on Mamma's breast and go to sleep, and pretty soon — Oh, I know she can't livj till morning ! Mortimer, a table-spoonful every hall hour will — Oh, the child needs belladonna too ; I know she does— and aconite. Get them, Mortimer. Now do let me have my way. You know nothing about these things." We nojy went to bed, placing the crib dose to my wife's pillow. All this turmoil had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something more than half asleep. Mrs. McWilliams roused me : ''Darling, is that register turned ob?* • HUi/i Alimtfranoui LrvHjj. II ** I thought as much. Flcase turn it on at once. This room is cold." I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused once more : " Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your tide of the bed ? It is nearer the register." I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child. I dozed off once more, while my wife quieted the sufferer. But in a little while these words came murmuring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness : " Mortimer, if we only had some goose-grease- will you ring?" I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, whicli responded with a protest and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had not got it instead. " Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the child again ?" " Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline." " Well, look at the chair, too — I have no doubt it is ruined. Poor cat, suppose you had — ** " Now I am not going to suppose anything about the cat It never would have occurred if Maria had been allowed to remain here and attend to these duties, which are in her line and are not in mine." " Now, Mortimer, I should think you would be ashamed to make a remark like that It is a D 34 Expcrimce of the McWiliiamses pity il you cannot do the few little thing:3 I ask of you at such an awful time as tliis when our child—" " Tliere, there, I will do anything you want But I can't raise anybody with this belL They're all gone to bed. Where is the goose-grease ?" " On the mantelpiece in the nursery. If you'll step there and speak to Maria — " I fetched the goose-greese and went to sleep again. Once more I was called : " Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold for me to try to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire ? It is all ready to touch a match to." I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat dovm disconsolate. "Moitimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed." As I was stepping in, she said, — " But wait a moment. Please give the child some more of the medicine." Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively ; so my wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over with the goose-oil. I was soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get up. "Mortimer, I feel a draft. 1 feel it distinctly. There is nothing so bad for this disease as a draft. Please move the crib in front of the fire." . I did it ; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in tlie fure. Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of WM MiimbraHaus Croup, 3S bed and rescued it and we liad some wordi. I bad another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up, by request, and constructed a flax-seed poultice. This was placed upon the child's breast and left there to do its healing work. A wood fire is not a permanent thing. I got up every twenty minutes and renewed ours, and this gave Mrs. McWilliams the opportunity to shorten the times of giving the medicines by ten minutes, which was a great satisfaction to her. Now and then, between times, I reorganized the flax-keed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where unoccupied places could be found upon tho child. Well, toward morning the wood gave otu and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get tome more. I said,— "My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough, with her extra clotliing. Now mightn't we put on another layer of poultices and—" I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood up from below for some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can whose strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out Just at broad daylight I felt a grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly.—* My wife was glaring down upon me and gasping As soon as she could command her tongue she •aid, — " It is all over ! All over I The child's perspiring V WhatJ^ioZ/wedo?" I> a %6 Experiince of the MclVilliamses 1 . .■( .1 ;, u ** Merqr, how you terrify me I /don't know what we ought to do. Maybe if we soaped her and put her in the draft again—* " O, idiot ! There is not a moment to lose I Go for the doctor. Go yoursell Tell him he must com^ dead or alive." I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him. He looked at the child and said she was not dying. This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront Then he said the child's cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the throat At this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door. Now the doctor said he would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble. So he gave her something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little wood splinter or so. " This child has no membranous croup," said he. '*She has been chewing a bit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little sUvers in her throat They won't do her any hurt" " No," said I, " I can well believe that Indeed t.ie turpentine that is in them is very good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar to children. My wife will tell you so." But she did not She turned away in disdain and left the room ; and since that time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the tide of our days flows ^ in deep and untroubled serenity. With Membranous Croup. 37 [Very few married men have such an experience as McWiUiams»s, and so the author of this book thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it » p*»«ng interest to the reader.] gote 1^1 ^ul^0r foas Sob in ^tbwck -^*r- TT is seldom pleasant to tell on one's self, but some- "^ times it is a sort of relief to a man to make a con- fession. I wish to miburden my mind now, and yet I almost believe that I am moved to do it more because I long to bring censure upon another man than because I desire to pour baUn upon my wounded heart (I don't know what balm is, but I believe it is the correct expression to use in this connection — never having seen any balm.) You may remember that I lectured in Newark lately for the young gentlemen of the— — Society? I did at any rate. During the afternoon of that day I was talking with one of the young gentlemen just referred to, and he said he had an imcle who, from some cause or other, seemed to have grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And with tears in his eyes, this young man said, ** Oh, if I could only see him laugh once morel Oh, if I could only see him weep 1 " I was touched. I coul^ never withstand distress. I said, ''Bring him to my lecture. I'll start huf for you." How the Author was Sold in Newark. 39 " Oh, if you could but do it ! If you could but do it, all our family would bless you for evermore — for he is so very deax to us. Oh, my benefactor, can you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to tliose parched orbs ? ** I was profoundly moved. I said, " My son, bring the old party round. I have got some jokes in that lecture tliat will make him laugh if there is any laugh in him ; and if they miss fire, I have got some others that will make him cry or kill him, one or the other." Then the young man blessed me, and wept on my neck, and went after his uncle. He placed him in full view, in the second row of benches that night, and I began on him. I tried him with mild jokes, then with severe ones ; I dosed him with bad jokes and riddled him with good ones ; I fired old stale jokes into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new ones ; I warmed up to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in front and behind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse and sick, and frantic and fiuious; but I never moved him once — I never started a smile or a tear ! Never a ghost of a smile, and liever a suspicion of moisture I I was astounded. I closed the lecture at last with one despairing shriek —•with one wild burst of humour, and hurled a joke of supernatural atrocity full at him I Then I sat down bewildered and exhausted. The president of the society came up and bathed my head with cold water, and said, ''What made you »ftrrv on so towards the last ? " 40 How the AutJwr was Sold in Newark, I said, "I was trymg to make that confounded old fool laugh, in the second row." And he said, " Well, you were wasting your time, because he is deaf and dumb, and as blind as a badger !** Now, was that any way for that old man's nephew to impose on a stranger and orphan like me ? I ask you as a man and brother, if that was any way fox him to do ? 1/ 41 Cge (Dffirt ^axL TT E arrives just as regularly as the clock strikes •'■ -'■ nine in the morning. And so he even beats the editor sometimes, and the porter must leave his work and climb two or three pair of stairs to unlock the " Sanctum " door and let him in. He lights one of the office pipes — not reflecting, perhaps, that the editor may be one of those "stuck-up" people who would as soon have a stranger defile his tooth-brush as his pipe-stem. Then he begins to loll — for a per- son who can consent to loaf his useless life away in ignominious indolence has not the energy to sit up •traight He stretches full length on the sofa awhile ; then draws up to half length ; then gets into a chair, hangs his head back and his arms abroad, and stretches his legs till the rims of his boot-heels rest upon the floor ; by and by sits up and leans forward, with one leg or both over the arm of the chair. But it is still observable that with all his changes of position, he never assumes the upright or a fraudful afiectation of dignity. From time to time he yawns, and stretches, and scratches himself with a tranquil, mangy enjoyment, and now and then he grunts a ■ I; I 4« The Office Bore. kind of stuf!}', overfed grunt, which is full of antroal contentment. At rare and long intervals, however, lie sighs a sigh that is the eloquent expression of a secret confession, to wit: "I am useless and a nuisance, a cumberer of the earth." The bore and his comrades — for there are usually from two to four o/i nand, day and night — mix into the conversation when men come in to see the editors for a moment on business ; they hold noisy talks among themselves about politics in particular, and all other subjects in general — even warming up, after a fashion, some- times, and seeming to take almost a real interest in what they are discussing. They ruthlessly call an editor from his work with such a remark as-—" Did you see this. Smith, in the Gazette t^* and proceed to read the paragraph while the suf&rer reins in his im- patient pen and listens : they often loll and sprawl round the office hour after hour, swapping anecdotes, and relating personal experiences to each other- hairbreadth escapes, social encounters with distin- guished men, election reminiscences, sketches of odd characters, etc. And through all those hours they never seem to comprehoid th&t they are robbing the editors of their time, and the public of journalistic excellence in next day's paper. At other times they drowse, or dreanuly pore over .exchanges, or droop limp and pensive over the chair-arms for an hour. Even this solemn silence is small respite to the editor. for the next imcomfSor^ble thing to having people aook over his shoulders, perhaps, is to have them sit by in silence and listen to the scratching of his pen. \ i TAe Office Bore. 43 \ i If a body desires to talk private business with one of the editors, he must call him outside, for no hint milder than blasting powder or nitro-glycerine would be likely to move the bores out of listening distance. To have to sit and endure the presence of a bore day after day ; to feel your cheerful spirits begin to sink as his footstep sounds on the stair, and utterly vanish away as his tiresome form enters the dooi ; to suffer through his anecdotes and die slowly to his reminiscences; to feel always the fetters of his clogging presence; to long hopelessly for one single day's privacy ; to note with a shudder, by and by, that to contemplate his funeral in fancy has ceased to soothe, to imagine him undergoing in strict and fearful detail the tortures of the ancient Inquisi- tion has lost its power to satisfy the heart, end that even to wish him milliontt and millions and millions of miles in Tophet is able to bring only a fitful gleam of joy ; to have to endure all this, day after day, and week, and month after month, is an affliction that transcends any other that men suffer. Physical pain b pastime to it, and hanging a pleasure excursion. «4 gis0ra«ful pcrswufion d a ^o^* • I* ■^♦i ! I TN San Francisco, the other day, "A well-dressed -*• boy, on his way to Sunday-sdiool, was arrested and thrown into the city prison for stoning Chinamen.** ^Vhat a commentary is this upon human justice t What sad prominence it gives to our human disposi* tion to tyrannize over the weak 1 San Francisco has little right to take credit to herself for her treatment of this poor boy. What had the child's education been ? How should he suppose it was wrong to stone a Chinaman ? Before we side against him, along with outraged San Francisco, let us give him a chance — let us hear the testimony for the defence. He was a *' well-dressed " boy, and a Sunday-school scholar, and therefore, the chances are that his parenti were intelligent, well-to-do people, with just enough natural villany in their composition to make them yearn after the daily papers, and enjoy them ; and so this boy had opportunities to learn all through ths week how to do right, as well as on Sunday. It was in this way that he found out that ths great commonwealth of California imposes an unlaw U.'*** Y I - I» UfM Disgi'oceful Persecution of a Boy. 45 fill mining-tax upon John the foreigner, and allows I'atrick the foreigner to dig gold for nothing — pro- bably because the degraded Mongol is at no expense for whisky, and the refined Celt cannot exist without it It was in this way that he found out that a respect- able number of the tax-gatherers — it would be unkind to say all of them — collect the tax twice, instead of once ; and that, inasmuch as they do it solely to dis- courage Chinese immigration into the mines, it is a thing that is much applauded, and likewise regarded as being singularly facetious. It was in this way that he found out that when a white man robs a sluice-box (by the term white man is meant Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese, Irish, Hon- durans, Peruvians, Chileans, &c. &c), they make him leave the camp; and when a Chinaman does that thing, they hang him. It was in this way that he found out that in many districts of the vast Pacific coast, so strong is the wild, free love of justice in the hearts of the people, that whenever any secret and mysterious crime is com- mitted, they say, " Let justice be done, though the heavens fall," and go straightway and swing a China- man. It was in this way that he found out that by study- ing one half of each day's " I'^cal items," it would appear that the police of San Francisco were either asleep or dead, and by studying the other half it would seem that the reporters were gone mad with admiration of th* energy, the virtue, the high effectiveness, and the ^^ V r 4fi Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy, dare-devil intrepidity of that very police—making exultant mention of how " the Argus-eyed officer So- and-so," captured a wretched knave of a Chinaman who was stealing chickens, and brought him gloriously to tlie city prison ; and how " the gallant officer Such- and-such-a-one," quietly kept an eye on the move- ments of an " unsuspecting, almond-eyed son of Con- fucius " (your reporter is nothing if not facetious), fol- lowing him around with that far-off look of vacancy and unconsciousness always so finely affected by that inscrutable being, the forty-dollar policeman, during a waking interval, and captured him at last in the very act of placing his hands in a suspicious manner upon a paper of tacks, left by the owner in an exposed situation; and how one officer performed this pro- digious thing, and another officer that, and another the other — and pretty much every one of these perform- ances having for a dazzling central incident a China- man guilty of a shilling's worth of crime, an unfor- tunate, whose misdemeanor mpst be hurraed into something enormous in order to keep the public from noticing how many really important rascals went un- captured in the meantime, and how overrated tliose jlorified policemen actually are. It was in this way that the boy found out that the Legislature, being aware that the Constitution has made America an asylum for the poor and the op* pressed of all nations, and that, therefore, the poor and oppressed who fly to our shelter must not be charged a disabling admission fee, made a law that every Chinanon, upon landing, must be vacdnnUd M - V M h) Dtsgraccfttl Persecution of a Boy. i,j upon the wharf, and pay to the Slate's apiTointed officer Un dollars for the service, when there are plenty of doctors in San Francisco who would be glad enough to do it for him for fifty cents. It was in this way that the boy found out that a Chinaman had no riglits that any man was bound to respect ; that he had no sorrows that any man was bound to pity ; thr t neither his Hfe nor his liberty was worth the purchase of a penny when a white man needed a scapegoat; that nobody loved Chinamen, nobody befriended them, nobody spared them suffer* ing when it was convenient to inflict it ; everybody, individuals, communities, the majesty of the State itself, joined in hating, abusing, and persecuting these humble strangers. And, therefore, what could have been more natural than for this sunny-hearted boy, tripping along to Sunday-school, with his mind teeming with freshly- learned incentives to high and virtuous actioHi to say to himself, — " Ah, there goes a Chinaman ! God will not love me if \ do not stone him." And for this he was arrested and put in the city jail. Everything conspired to teach him that it was a high and holy thing to stone a Chinaman, and yet he no sooner attempts to do his duty than he is punished for it — ^he, poor chap, who has been aware all his life that one of the principal recreations of the police, out towards the Gold Refmery, is to look on with tranquil enjoyment while the butchers of Brannan Street set V^ r 48 Disgraceful Persenttion of a /T.-y. their dogs on unoffending Chinamen, and make them flee for their lives.* Keeping in mind the tuition in the humanitief which the entire "Pacific coast" gives its youth, there is a very sublimity of incongruity in the virtuous flourish with which the good dty fathers of San Fran- cisco proclaim (as they have lately done) t-.iat "The police are positively ordered to arrest all boys, of ever;' description and wherever found, who engage in assaulting Chinamen." Still, let us be truly glad they have made the order, notwithstanding its inconsistency; and let us rest perfectly confident the police are glad, too. Because there is no personal peril in arresting boys, provided they be of the small kind, and the reporters will have to laud their performances just as loyally as ever, or go without items. The new form for local items in San Francisco will now be : — " The ever viguant and eflficient officer So-and-so succeeded, yesterday afternoon, in arresting Master Tommy Jones, after a determined resistance," etc, etc, followed by the customary statistics and * I have many such memories in mj mind, but am thinking just at present of one particular one, where the Brannan Street butchers let thvir dogs on a Chinaman who was quietly passing with a basket of clothes on his head ; and while the dogs mutilated his flesh, a butcher increased the hilarity of the occasion by knocking some d the Chinaman's teeth down his throa. with half a brick. This incW dent sticks in my memory with a more malevolent tenacity, perhaps, on account of the fact that I was in the employ of a San Francisco journal at the time, and was not albwed to publish it because it might offend some of the peculiar elemeat that subscribed for tbt paper. Disgraceful Ptrstcution of a Bay, 49 final liurrah, with its unconscious sarcasm : " We are happy in being able to state that this is the forty- seventh boy arrested by this gallant officer since the new ordinance went into effect The most extraordinary activity prevails in the police department Nothing like it has been seen since we can remember." 10 C^c |ub0c*3 "Sgirilib SHoman.* -»♦- g, T WAS sitting here," said the judge, " in this old "*■ pulpit, holding court, and we were trying a big, wicked-looking Spanish desperado for killing the husband of a bright, pretty Mexican woman. It was a lazy summer day, and an awfully long one, and the witnesses were tedious. None of us took any interest in the trial except that nervous, uneasy devil of a Mexican woman — ^because you know how they love and how they hate, and this one had loved her husband with all her might, and now sne had boiled it all down into hate, and stood here spitting it at that Spaniard with her eyes ; and I tell you she would stir me up too, with a little of her summer liglitning, occasionally. Well, I had my coat ofif and my heels op, lolling and sweating, and smoking one of those cabbage cigars the San Francisco people used to think were good enough for us in those timec ; and the lawyers they all had their coats off, and were smoking and whittling, and the witnesses the same, and so was the prisoner. Well, the fact is, there wam't any in- terest in a murder trial then, because the fellow was Always broU|{ht ia "not guilty," the jury expecting TJie Judge's "Spirited Woman* 51 him to do as much for them some time; and, al- though the evidence was straight and square against this Spaniard, we knew we could not convict him without seeming to be rather high-handed and sort of reflecting on every gentleman in the community ; for there wam't ar./ carriages and liveries then, and so the only * style * there was, was to keep your private graveyard. But that woman seemed to have her heart set on hanging that Spaniard ; and you'd ought to have seen how she would glare on him a minute, and then look up at me in her pleading way, and then turn and for the next five minutes search the jury's faces, and by and by drop her face in her hxmds for just a little while as if she was most ready to give up ; but out she'd come again directly, and be as live and anxious as ever. But when the jury an- nounced the verdict — Not Guilty, and I told the prisoner he was acquitted and free to go^ that woman rose up till she appeared to be as tall and grand as a seventy-four-gun-ship, and says she, — " Judge, do I understand you to say that this man is not guilty, that murdered my husband without any cause before my own eyes and my little children's, and that all has been done to him that ever justice and law can do?" ** * The same,' says I. " And then what do you reckon she did? Why, she turned on that smirking Spanish fool like a wild cat, and out with a ' navy ' and shot him dead in open court 1" •* That was spirited, I am willing to admit* s. 9 K2 Tkt Ju^t ** spirited Woman* ••Wasn't it though?** said the judge admiringly. « I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I adjourned court right on the spot, and we put on our coats and went out and took up a collection for her and her cubs, and sent them over the mountains to their (fiends. Ah,she was a spirited wench I** $$ Sotat ttnmib Jfablts for (SooK) ®Ib §0|^9 nxiH (Skis. •«♦• IN THREE FARTSL Part First. BOW THE ANIMALS OV THE WOOD SENT OUT A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION. /^NCE the creatures of the forest held a great con. ^^ vention and appointed a commission consisting of the most illustrious scientists among them to go forth, clear beyond the forest and out into the unknown and unexplored world, to verify the truth of the matters already taught in their schools and colleges and also to make discoveries. It was the most imposing enter- prise of the kind the nation had ever embarked in. True, the government had once sent Dr. Bull Frog, with a picked crew, to hunt for a north-westerly pas- sage through the swamp to the light-hand comer of the wood, and had since sent out many expeditions to hunt for Dr Bull Frog ; but they never could find hio^ 54 Fdbhi for Good Old Boys and Girls. and so government finally gave him up and ennobled his mother to show its gratitude for the services * er son had rendered to science. And once government sent Sir Grass Hopper to hunt for the sources of the rill that emptied into the swamp ; and afterwards sent out many expeditions to hunt for Sir Grass, and at last they were successful — they found his body, but if he had discovered the sources meantime, he did not let on. So government acted handsomely by deceased, and many envied his funeral. But these expeditions were trifles compared with the present one ; for this one comprised among its servants the very Greatest among the learned ; and besides it was to go to the utterly unvisited regions believed to lie beyond the mighty forest — ^as we have remarked before. How the membess were banqueted and glorified, and talked about ! Everywhere that one of them showed himself, straightway there was a crowd to gape and stare at him. Finally they set off, and it was a sight to see the long procession of dry-land Tortoises heavily laden with savants, scientific instruments, Glow-Worms and Fire-Flies for signal-service, provisions, Ants and Tumble-Bugs to fetch and carry and delve, Spiders to carry the surveying chain and do other engineering duty, and so forth and so on ; and after the Tortoises came another long train of iron-clads — stately and spacious Mud Turtles for marine transportation ser- vice; and from every Tortoise and every Turtle Haunted a flaming gladiolus or other splendid banner; «t the head of tlie column a great band of Bumblt FahUs for Good Old Beys and Girls, 55 Bees, Mosquitoes, Katy^Dids and Crickets discouriird martial music; and the entire train was under the escort and protection of twelve picked regiments oi the Army Worm. At the end of three weeks the expedition emerged from the forest and looked upon the great Unknown World. Their eyes were greeted with an impressive spectacle. A vast level plain stretched bcfuic them, watered by a sinuous stream; and beyond, there towered up against the sky a long and lofty barrier of some kind, they did not know what. The Tumble- Bug said he believed it wa^^ simply land tilted up on its edge, because he knew he could see trees on it But Prof. Snail and the others said, — " You are hired to dig, sir — that is alL We need your muscle, not your brains. When we want your opinion on scientific matters, we will hasten to let you know. Your coolness is intolerable, too— loafing about here meddling with august matters of learning, when the other laborers are pitching camp. Go along and help handle the baggage." The Tumble-Bug turned on his heel uncrushed, unabashed, observing to himself, " If it isn't land tilted up, let me die the death of the unrighteous." Professor Bull Frog, {nephew of the late explorer,) ■aid he believed the ridge was the wall that enclosed the earth. He contmued : " Our fathers have left us much leammg, but tliey had not traveled far, and so we may count this a noblti new discovery. We are safe for renown, now, even Uiot};^ our lobars bogan and ended with this sin^lif 56 Fables for Good Old Boys and Girlt, achieve.nent I wonder what this wall is built of? Can it be fungus? Fungus is an honorable good thing to build a wall oC" Professor Snail adjusted his field-glass and examined the rampart critically. Finally he said, — " ITie (act that it is not diaphanous, convinces me that it is a dense vapor formed by the calorification of ascending moisture dephlogisticated by refraction. A few endiometrical experiments would confirm this, but it is not necessary. — ^The thing is obvious." So he shut up his glass and went into his shell to make a note of the discovery of the world's end, and the nature of it " Profound mind I " said Professor Angle-Worm to Professor Field-Mouoe; "profound mind! nothing can long remain a mystery to that august brain." Night drew on apace, the sentinel crickets were posted, the Glow Worm and Fire-Fly lamps were lighted, and the camp sank to silence and sleep. After breakfast in the morning, the expedition moved on. About noon a great avenue was reached, which had in it two endless parallel bars of some kind of hard black substance, raised the height of the tallest Bull Frog above the general level. The scientists climbed up on these and examined and tested them in various ways. They walked along them for a great distance, but found no end and no break in them. They could arrive at no decision. There was nothing in tlie records of science that mentioned anything of this kind. But at last the bald and venerable geo- grapher, Professor Mud Turtle* a person who, bom Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls, 57 poor, and of a drudging low family, had, by his own native force raised himself to the headship of the geographers of his generation, said, — *'My friends, we have indeed made a discovery here. We have found in a palpable, compact and imperishable state what the wisest of our fathers always regarded as a mere thing of the imagination. Humble yourselves, my friends, for we stand in a majestic presence. Those are pnallels of lati- tude I " Every heart and every head was bowed, so awful, 80 sublime was the magnitude of the discovery. Many shed tears. The camp was pitched and the rest of the day given up to writing voluminous accounts of the mar- vel, and correcting astronomical tables to fit it. Toward midnight a demoniacal shriek was heard, then a clattering and rumbling noise, and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and disappeared in the gloom, still uttering triumphant shrieks. The poor camp laborers were stricken to the heart with fright, and stampeded for the high grass in a body. But not the scientists. They had no super- stitions. They calmly proceeded to exchange theories. The ancient geographer's opinion was asked. He went into his shell and deliberated long and profoundly. When he came out at last, they all knew by his worshiping countenance that he brought light Said he: . - > ^ Give thanks for this stuxi^iDdous thing which wa 58 Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls, have been permitted to witness. — It is the Vernal Equinox I '* There were shoutings and great rejoicings. "But," said the Angle-Worm, uncoiling after re- flection, " tliis is dead summer time." " Very well," said the Turtle, " we are far from our region ; the season diiTers with the difference of time between the two points." " Ah, true. True enough. But it is night How should the sun pass in the night ? " "In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at this hour." " Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that we could see him ? '* ** It is a great mystery. I grant that But I am persuaded that the humidity of the atmosphere in these remote regions is such that particles of day- light adhere to the disk, and it was by aid of these that we were enabled to see the sun in the dark." This was deemed satisfactory, and due dntry was made of the decision. But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again ; again the rumbling and thundering came speeding up out of the night ; and once more a flaming great eye fla&hed by and lost itself in gloom and distance. The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost The savants were sorely perplexed. Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and they talked, they talked and they thought— Finally the learned and aged Lord Gnu}d«Daddy-Icd, fellow-savants (it almost takes my breath away \) is nothing less than the transit of Venus ! " Eveiy scholar sprang to his feet pale with astonish- ment Then ensued tears, hand-shakings, frenzied embraces, and the most extravagant jubilations of every sort. But by and by, as emotion began to retire within bounds, and reflection to return to the front, the accomplished Chief Inspector Lizard ob- served, — " But how is this ? — Venus should traverse the sun's surface, not the earth's." The arrow went home. It carried sorrow to the breast of every apostle of learning there, for none could deny that this was a formidable criticism. But tranquilly the venerable Duke crossed his limbs behind his ears, and said, — *' My friend lias touched the marrow of our mighty discovery. Yes — all that liave lived before us thought a transit of Venus consisted of a flight across the •uu's face ; they thought it, they maintained it, they 1 Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls. 6 1 honestly believed it, simple hearts, and were justified in it by the limitations of their knowledge ; but to us has been granted the inestimable boon of proving that the transit occurs across the carth'i face, y2v weAavfSEza ///'* The assembled wisdom sat in speechless adoration of this imperial intellect All doubts had instantly departed, like night before the lightning. The Tumble-Bug had just intruded, unnoticed. He now came reeling forward among the scholars., familiarly slapping first one and then another on the shoulder, saying " Nice ('ic !) nice old boy I " and smiling a smile of elaborate content. Arrived at a good position for speaking, he put his left arm akimbo with his knuckles planted in his hip just under the edge of his cut-away coat, bent his right leg, placing his toe on the ground and resting his heel with easy gmce against his left shin, pufied out his aldermanic stomach, opened his lips, leant his right elbow on Inspector Lizard's shoulder, and — But the shoulder was indignantly withdrawn and the hard-handed son of toil went to earth. He floun- dered a bit but came up smiling, arranged his attitude with the same careful detail as before, only choosing Professor Dogtick's shoulder for a support, opened his lips and — Went to earth agaiiL He presently scrambled up once more, still smiling, made a loose effort to brush the dust off his coat and legs, but a smart pass of hia hand missed entirely and the force of the unchecked impulse slewed him suddenly around, twisted his legs ^ Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls, together, and projected him, Umber and sprawling^ into the lap of the Lord Longlegs. Two or three scholars sprang forward, flung the low creature head over hecis into a comer and reinstated the patridan, smoothing his ruffled dignity with many soothing and regretful speeches. Professor Bull Frog roared out,-* "No more of this, sinah Tumble-Bug I Say yoitf say and then get you about your business with speed I — Quick — what is your errand ? Come — move off a trifle ; you smell like a stable ; what have you been at?" "Please ('ic 1) please your worship I chanced to light upon a find. But no m {e-uckt) matter about that There's b ('icl) been another find which— —beg pardon, your honors, what was that th ('id) thing that ripped by here first ? " " It was the Vernal Equinox." " Inf ('ic I) femal equinox. 'At's all rigJiL— D Cic !) Dunno him. What's other one ? " " The transit of Venus." " G ('ic !) Got me again. No matter. Las* one dropped something." " Ah, indeed I Good luck ! Good news I Quick — what is it?" " M ('ic !) Mosey out '»' see. It'll pay.* No more votes were taken for four and twenty hours. Then the following entry was made : ** The commission went in a body to view the find. It was found to consist of a hard, smooth, huge object with a rounded summit surmounted by a short upright projection resembling a section of a cabbage stalk ^» Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls, 63 divided transvenely. — This projection was not solid, but was a hollow cylinder plugged with a soft woody substance unknown tooui region — that is, it had been so plugged, but unfortunately this obstruction had been heedlessly removed by Norway Rat, Chief of the Sappers and Miners, before our arrival. The vast object before us, so mysteriously conveyed from the glittering domains of space, was found to be hollow and nearly filled with a pungent liquid of a brownish hue, like rain-water tliat has stood for some time. And such a spectacle as met our view i Norway Rat was perched upon the summit engaged in thrusting his tail into the cylindrical projection, drawing it out dripping, permitting the struggling multitude of laborers to suck the end of it, then straightway reinserting it and delivering the fluid to the moH as before. Evidently this liquor had strangely potens qualities; for all that partook of it were imme- diately exalted with great and pleasurable emotions, and went staggering about singing ribald son£,s, cm* bracing, fighting, dancing, discharging irruptions ol profanity, and defying all authority. Around us stniggled a massed and uncontrolled mob — uncon- trolled and likewise uncontrollable, for the whole army, down to the very sentinels, were mad like the rest, by reason of the drink. We were seized upon by these reckless creatures, and within the hour we, even we, were undistinguishable from the rest — the demoralization was complete and universal. In time the camp wore itself out with its orgies and sank into t stolid and pitiable stupor, in whose mysterious bonds 64 Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls* rank was forgotten and strange bed-fellows made, our eyes, at the resurrection, being blasted and our souls petrified with the incredible spectacle of that intoler- able stinking scavenger, the Tumble-Bug, and the illustrious patrician my lord Grand Daddy, Duke ol Longlegs, lying soundly steeped in sleep, and clasped lovingly in each other's arms, the like whereof hath not been seen in all the ages that tradition compas- seth, and doubtless none shall ever in this world find faith to master the belief of it save only we that have beheld the damnable and unholy visioa Thus inscrutable be the ways of God, whose will be done! "This day, by order, did the Engineer-in-Chie(i Herr Spider, rig the necessary tackle for the overturn- ing of the vast reservoir, and so its calamitous con- tents were discharged in a torrent upon the tliirsty earth, which drank it up and now there is no more danger, we reserving but a few drops for experiment niid scrutiny, and to exhibit to the king and subse^ c^uently preserve among the wonders of the museum. What this liquid is, has been determined. It is with- out question that fierce and most destructive fluid called lightning. It was wxested, in its container, firom its store-house in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurled at our feet as she sped by. An interesting discovery here results. Which is, that lightning, kept to itself is quiescent \ it is the assaulting contact of the thunderbolt that re- leases it firom captivity, ignites its awfiil fires, and so produces an instantaneous combustion and explosion Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls. 65 which spread disaster and desolation for and wide in the earth." After another day devoted to rest and recovery, the expedition proceeded upon its way. Some days later it went into camp in a pleasant part of the plain, and the savants sallied ^rth to see what they might find. Their reward was at hand. Professor Bull Frog dis- covered a strange tree, and called his comrades. They inspected it with profound interest — It was very tall and straight, and wholly devoid of bark, limbs or foliage. By triangulation Lord Longlegs determined its altitude ; Herr Spider measured its circumference at the base and computed the circumference at its top by a mathematical demonstration based upon tbt warrant furnished by the uniform degree of its taper upward. It was considered a very extraordinary find ; and since it was a tree of a hitherto unknown species, Professor Woodlouse gave it a name of a learned sound, being none other than that of Professor Bull Frog translated into the ancient Mastodon language, for it had always been the custom with discoverers to perpetuate their names and honor themselves by this sort of connection with their discoveries. Now, Professor Field-Mouse having placed hit sensitive ear to the tree, detected a rich, harmonious sound issuing from it This surprising thing was tested and enjoyed by each scholar in turn and great was the gladness and astonishment of all. Professor Woodlouse was requested to add to and extend the tree's name so as to make it suggest the musical quality it possessed — ^which he did, fiimishing the 66 Fables for Good Old Boys and Girb» addition Anthem StngeTf done Into the Mastodon tongue. By this time Professor Snail was making some tele- scopic inspections. He discovered a great number of these trees, extending in a single rank, \nAi wide intervals between, as far as his instrument would carry, both southward and northward. He also pre- sently discovered that all these trees were bound to- gether, near their tops, by fourteen great ropes, one above another, which ropes were continuous, from tree to tree, as far as his vision could reach. This was surprising. Chief Engineer Spider ran aloft and soon reported that these ropes were simply a web hung there by some colossal member of his own species, for he could see its prey dangling here and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shreds and rags that had a woven look about their texture and were no doubt the discarded skins of prodigious insects which had been caught and eaten. And then he ran along one of the ropes to make a closer inspection, but felt a smart sudden bum on the soles of his feet, accompanied by a paralyzing shock, wherefore he let go and swung himself to the earth by a thread of his own spinning, and advised all to hurry at once to camp, lest the monster should appear and get as much interested in the savants as they were in him and his works. So they departed with speed, making notes about the gigantic web as they went And that evening the naturalist of the expedition built a beauti« ful model of the colossal spider, having no need to see it in order to do this, because he had picked up • Fables for Good Old Beys and Girls. 67 fragment of its vertebrae by the tree, and so knew exactly what the creature looked like and what its habit! and its preferences were by this simple evidence alone. He built it with a tail, teeth, fourteen legs and a snout, and said it ate grass, cattle, pebbles and dirt with equal enthusiasm. This animal was regarded as a very precious addition to science. It was hoped a dead one might be found, to stuff. Professor Wood- louse thought that he and his brother scholars, by lying hid and being quiet, might maybe catch a live one. He was advised to try it Which was all the attention that was paid to his suggestion. The con- ference ended with the naming the monster after the naturalist, since he, after God, had created it. " And improved it, mayhap,** muttered the Tumble- Bug, who was btruding again, according to his idle custom and his unappeasable curiosity. WD Of PAKT FiRn; •■.'V." r t 68 Fables for Good Old Beys and (m^h, fART SECONU ■OW TRB ANIMALS OF THE WOOD COMPLBTED THIXK SCIENTIFIC LABOURS. A WEEK later the expedition camped in the ^^ midst of a collection of ri'onderful curiosities. These were a sort of vast caverns of stone that rose sing!y and in bunches out of the plain by the side of the river which they had first seen when they emerged from the forest These caverns stood in long straight rows on opposite sides that were bor- dered with single ranks of trees. The summit of each cavern sloped sharply both ways. Several horizontal rr/ s of great square holes, obstructed by a thin, shiny, transparent substance, pierced tlie frontage of each cavern. Inside were caverns within caverns ; and one might ascend and visit these minor compartments by means of curious winding ways consisting of continuous regular terraces raised one above another. There were many huge shapeless objects in each compartment which were considered to have been living creatures at one time, though now the thin brown skin was shrunken and loose, and rattled when disturbed. Spiders were here io Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls. 69 great number, and their cobwebs, stretched in all directions, and wreathing the great skinny dead together, were a pleasant spectacle, since they in- spired with life and wholesome cheer a scene which woidd otherwise have brought to the mind only a sense of forsakenness and desolation. Informa- tion was sought of these spiders, but in vain. They were of a differer.!. nationality from those with the expedition, and their language seemed but a musical, meaningless jargon. They were a timid, gentle rac^ but ignorant, and heathenish worshippers of unknown gods. The expedition detailed a great detachment of missionaries to teach them the true religion, and in a week's time a precious work had been wrought among those da'-kened creatures, not three families being by that time at peace with each other, or having a settled belief in any system of religion whatever. This encouraged the expedition to estab- lish a colony of missionaries there permanently, that the work of grace might go on. But let us not outrun our narrative. After close examination of the fronts of the caverns, and much thinking and exchanging of theories, these scientists determined the nature of these smgular formations. They said that each belonged mainly to the Old Red Sandstone period ; that the cavern fronts rose in in- numerable and wonderfully regular strata high in the air, each stratum about five frog-spans thick, and that in the present discovery lay an overpowering refuta- tion of all received geology ; for between every two layers of Old Red Sandstone reposed a thm layer of '- 1 li 70 Fables for Gccd Old Boyt and Girh, decomposed limestone; so instead of there luving been but one Old iU :1 Sandstone period there had certainly been not less than one hj idred and seventy- five I And by the same token it ^^ pla- ^ that there had also been a hundred and sever. 76 ve fioodings of the earth and depositings of lin^e.'tone strata I The unavoidable deduction iiom which pair of facts, was, the overwhelming truth that the world, instead of being only two hundred thousand years old, was older by milli)ns upon millions of years! And there was anotl>er curious tiling; every stratum of Old Red Sandstone was pierced and divided at mathe- matical regular internals by vertical strata of lime- stone. Up-shootings of igneous rock through frac tures in water formations were cimmon; but here was the first inslance where water-formed rock had been so projected. It was a great and noble disco* very, and its value to science was considered to b« inestimable. A critical examination of some of the lower strata demonstrated the presence of fossil ants and tumble- bugs (the latter accompanied by their peculiar goods), and with high gratification the fact w^ enrolled upon the scientific record; for this was proof that these vulgar laborers belonged to the first ^^.d lowest orders of created beings, though, at thd- same time^ there was something repulsive in the reflection that the perfect and exquisite creature of the modem uppermost order owed its origin to such ignominious beings through the mysterious law cf Development of Species. m Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls, yt *rhe Tumble-Bug, overhearing thU discussion, said he was willing that the parvenus of these new times should find what comfort they might in their wise- drawn theories, since as far as he was concerned he was content to be of the old first families, and proud to point back to his place among the old original aristocracy of the land. "Enjoy your mushroom dignity, stinking of the varnish of yesterday's veneering, since you like it," said he ; " sudice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable works embalmed in the Old Red Sand- stone to proclaim it to the wasting centuries as they file along the highway of Time ! " " O, take a walk 1 " said the chief of the expedition, with derision. The summer passed, and winter approached. In and about many of the caverns were what seemed to be inscriptions. Most of the scientists said they were inscriptions, a few said they were not The chief philologist. Professor Woodlouse, maintained tliat they were writings, doiic in a character utterly un- knoivn to scholars, and in a language equally unknown. He hid early ordered his artists and draughtsmen to make fac-similes of all that were discovered; and liad set himself about finding the key to the hidden tongue. In this work he had followed the method which had always been used by decipherers pi^i^ously. That is to say, he placed a number of copies f inscriptions before him and iiii /a Pables for Good Old Boys and Git Is, •tudied them both collectively and in detail To begin with, he placed the following copies together ; Thb American Hoteu Thb Shades. Boats for Hire Cheat, Billiards. The a I Barber Shop. Meals at all Hour& No S&ioKiNa Union Prayer Meeting, 4 p.m. The Waterside Journal Telegraph Office. Keep off the Grass. Try Brandreth's Pillsl Cottages for Rent during the Watering Season. For Sale Cheap. For Sale Cheap. For Rale Cheap. For Sale Cheap. At first it seemed to the Professor that this was a lign-language, and that each word was repiesented by a distinct sign; further examination convinced him that it was a written language, and that every letter of its alphabet was represented by a character of its own ; and finally, he decided that it was a language which conveyed itself partly by letters, and paitly bjr '>j Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls. 73 •igns or hieroglyphics. This conclusion was forced apon him by the discovery of several specimens of a curious nature. He observed that certain inscriptions were met with in greater frequency than others. Such as " For Sale Cheap ; " " Billiards ;" "S. T.— 1860— X ;" "Keno;" "Ale on Draught." Naturally, then, these must be religious maxims. But this idea was cast aside, by and by, as the mystery of the strange alphabet began to clear itself. In time, the Professor rvas enabled to translate several of the inscri^Aions with considerable plausibility, though not to the perfect satisfaction of all the scholars. Still, he ;imde constant and encouraging progress. Finally a cavern was discoveied with tliese io- scriptions upon it : WATERSIDE MUSEUM Open at all Hours, Admission 50 cents. Wonderful Collection of Wax -Works, Ancient Fossils, etc. r/ofcssor Woodlouse affirmed ihat the word " Museum " was equivalent to the phrase " lumgath molo^ or " Burial-Place." Upon entering, tl;8 scientists were well astonished. But what they saw may be best cc- "eyed in the bnguage of their own official repf -•*• I' 1 ! 1 ! i i I ri "M" EAR the margin of the great river the scientists ■'■^ presently found a huge, shapely stone, with this inscription : ** In 1847 f in the springy the river over/lowed its banks atid covered the whole township. The depth was from two to six fat. More than goo Jiead of cattle were lost, and many homes destroyed. The Mayor ordered this memorial to be erected to perpetuate tht event. God spare us the repetition of it I** With infinite trouble, Professor Woodlouse suo* ceeded in making a translation of this inscription, which was sent home and straightway an enormous excitement was created about it It confirmed, in a remarkable way, certain treasured traditions of the ancients. The translation was slightly marred by one or two untranslatable words, but these did not impair the general clearness of the meaning. It is here presented s ** One thousand eig,*J hundred and forty-seven year% «!jv, the {fires t) descen^ied and consumed the whole diy. '•y *7 Fab!«(s for Good Old Boys and Girls. 79 Only some nine hundred souls were saved^ all others destroyed. The {kingf) commanded this stone to be sd up to {untranslatable) • • • • : prevent the repetition of it!* This was the first successful and satisfactoiy trans- lation tliat had been made of the mysterious character left behind him by extinct man,, and it gave Professor Woodlouse such reputation that at once every seat of learning in his native land conferred a degree of the most illustrious grade upon him, and it was be- lieved that if he had been a soldier and had turned his splendid talents to the extermination of a remote tribe of reptiles, the king would have ennobled him and made him rich. And this, too, was the origin of that school of scientists called Manologists, whose speciality is the deciphering of the ancient records of the extinct bird termed Man. [For it is now decided than Man was a bird and not a reptile]. But Pro- fessor Woodlouse began and remained chief of these, for it was granted that no translations were ever so free from error as his. Others made mistakes — he seemed incapable of it Many a memorial of the lost race was afterward found, but none ever attained to the reno>vn and veneration achieved by the " Mayori- tish Stone " — ^it being so called from the word " Mayor ** in it, which, being translated "King," "Mayoritish Stone " was but another way of saying " King Stone." Another time the expedition made a great " find." It was a vast round flattish mass, ten frog-spans iu diameter and five 01 six high. Professor Snail put on So Fables for Good Old Boys and GirU his spectacles and examined it all around, and thea climbed up and inspected the top. He said : " The result of my perlustration and perscontation of this isoperimetrical protuberance is a belief that it is one of those rare and wonderful creations left by the Mound Builders. The fact that this one is lamellibranchiate in its formation, simply adds to its interest as being possibly of a dificrent kind from any we read of in the records of science, but yet in no manner marring its authenticity. Let the megalo- phonous grasshopper sound a blast and summon hither the perfunctory and circumforaneous Tumble- Bug, to the end that excavations may be made and learning gather new treasures." Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by a working party of Ants. Nothing was discovered. This would have been a great disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained the matter. — He said : ** It is now plain to me that the mysterious and for- gotten race of Mound Builders did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in this case as in all previous cases, their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude implements which the creatures used in life. Is not this manifest ? " " True ! true ! " from everybody. " Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a discovery which greatly extends our know- ledge of this creature in place of diminishing it ; a discovery which will add lustre to the achievements of this expedition and win for \;is the commendations Fables for Good Old Boys und Girls. »i of scholars ever>'where. For the absence of the customary relics here means nothing less than this : The Mound Builder, instead of being the ignorant, savage reptile we have been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultivation and high intelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements of the great and noble of his species, but of com- memorating them ! Fellow-scholars, this stately Mound is not a sepulchre, it is a monument ! " A profound impression was produced by this. But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laugh- ter — and the Tumble-Bug appeared. " A monument 1 " quoth he. " A monument set up by a Mound Builder I Aye, so it is ! So it is in- deed, to the shrewd keen eye of science j but to an ignorant poor devil who has never seen a coDege, it is not a Monument, strictly speaking, but is yet a most rich and noble property: and with your wor- ships' good permission I will proceed to manuilrture it into spheres of exceeding grace and — " The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draughtsmen of the expedition were set to make views of the Monument from different standpoints, while Professor Woodlouse, in a frenzy of scientitic zeal, travelled all over it and all around it hoping to find an inscription. But if there had ever been one it had decayed or been removed by some vandal as a relic The views having been completed, it was now con sidered safe to load the precious Monument itself upon the backs of four o/ the largest Tortoises and send G 82 Falks for Good Old Boys and Girls. it home to the Kiiig's museum, which was done ; and whea it arrived it was rec*;ived with enormous iclat and escoited to its futtire abiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King Bullfrog XVI. himself attending and conde»sa!i^«>g to sit enthroned upon it throughout the progress. The growing rigor of the weather was now ad- monishing the scientists to close their labors for the present, so they made preparations to journey home- ward. But even their last day among the Caverns bore fruit ; for one of the scholars found in an out- of-the-way corner of the Museum or " Eurial-Place " a most strange and extraordinary thing. It was nothing less than a double Man-Bird lashed together breast to breast by a natural ligament, and labelled with the '.mtranslatable words, ** Siamese Twins" The official report concerning this thing closed thus : " Wherefore it appears that there were in old times two distinct species of this majestic fowl, the one being single and the other double. Nature has a reason for all things. — It is plain to the eye of science that the Double-man originally inhabited a region where dangers abounded; heiice he was paired to- gether to the end that while one part slept the other ^ight watch; and likewise that, danger being dis- covered, there might always be a double instead of a single power to oppose it All honor to the mystery- dispelling eye of god-like ScieT-^. !" And near the Double Man-Bird was found what Vas plainly an ancient record of his marked upon iiurnberless sheets of a thiu white substance ^nd Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls. 83 bound together. Almost the first glance that Pro- fessor Woolhouse threw into it revealed this following sentence, which he instantly translated and laid be- fore the scientists, in a tremble, and it uplifted every soul there with exultatiOi. and astonishment : " In truth it is belia^ed by many that the lower a7ip> tnals reason and talk togetJur" When the great official report of the expedition appeared, the above sentence bore this comment : ** Then there are lower animals than Man I Thi:i remarkable passage can mean nothing else. IMan himself is extinct, but they may still exist What can they be ? Where do they inhabit ? One's enthusiasm bursts all bounds in the contemplation of the brilliant field of discovery and investigation here throvm open to science. We close our labors with the humble prayer that your Majesty will immediately appoint a commission and command it to rest not nor spare expense until the search for this hitherto unsuspected race of the creatures of God shall be crowned with success.** The expedition then journeyed homeward after its long absence and its faithful endeavours, and was re- ceived with a mighty ovation by the whole grateful country. There were vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course as there always are and ah. ays will be; and naturally one of these was the obscene Tumble-iiug. He said that all he had learned by his tiavels was that science only need a spoonful of supposition to build a moun- G 2 ,1 i 84 Fables for Good Old Beys and Girh. tain of demonstrattxl JVxt out of; and that foi th» future be meant to be content with the knowledge that nature had friade tree to all creatures and not vo prying into the Jgust seaets of the Deity. k % fim ®lb W^m, JOHN WAGTTER, the oldest man in Buffaio— one hundred and four years old— recently walked a mile and a half in two weeks, He is as cheerful and bright as any of these other old men that charge around so persistently and tire- soraely In the newspapers, and in every way as re- markable. Last November he walked five blocks in a rab-storm without any shelter but an umbrella, and cast his vote for Grant, remarking that he had voted for forty-seven presidents — which was a lie. His " second crop " of rich brown hair arrived from New York yesterday, and he has a new set of teeth coming— from Philadelphia. He is to be married next week to a girl one hundred and two years old. who still takes in washing. , They have been engaged eighty years, but their parents persistenUy refused theiif consent until thiet days aga #?*) 96 A Fine Old Man, John Wagner is two years older than the Rho^» «r [at a fOURTH-OF-J[7LY GATHERINO, IN LONDON, OF AMERICANS.] «♦♦■ ]y/[R. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND ^^^ GENTLEMP:N : I thank you for the com- pliment which has just been tendered me, ai.d to show my appreciation of it I will not afflict you witli many words. It is pleasant to celebrate in this peaceful way, upon this old mother soil, tlie anniver- sary of an experiment Miiich was bom of war with this same land so long ago, and wrought out to a successful ibsue 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 ^o 'ist mis- understandings were settled by arbiUntion instead of cannon. It is another gieat step whc.i England udo^Hs oui sewing machines without c^.u).i]ig ti^e 88 After-Dinner Speech, invention — as usual. It was another when they im- ported 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 bar-keeper not to forget the strawberries. With a common origin, a common language, a common liteiitut , a common religion and — conmion drinks, wh/^ iy linger needful to the cementing of the tv o nut ions together in a permanent bond of brotherhood ? T! 's 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 Wm. 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 diffi- culty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read. Arid 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 I refer with effiision to otir railway system, which consents to let us live, though it might do the opposite y After-Diuner Speech, being our owners. It only destroyed three thou 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 com- pulsion. 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 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 fore? of government which gives each man a fair chance and no favor. With us no individual is bom 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 fiiture in the fact that as unhappy as is the condition of our political morality toHlay, England has risen up out of a far fouler since the days when Charles I. ennobled courtezans and c^. ^r^ ^o.> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT.3) 1.0 I.I 150 ^^ ^ 1^ 11-25 illiu 6" IM 18 1.6 <^ /y- # 3% ^'\ 1^*/ /. '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 # \ iV \\ ^9) V ^\ ^\ <^% ^9>'- 90 After-DiMie>' Speech, all political place was a matter of brjrgain and sale;. There is hope for us yet* * At least the above is the speech which I was going to make, but our minister, Gen. Schcnck, 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- ueighbors, and have a good social time. It is known that in con- sequence 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 manjr that were there. By that one thoughtless remark Gen. Schenck lost forty-four of the Ix^st friends he had in England. More than ono said that night, "And this is the sort of person that is sent to tepn^ seat us io a gt^t tistcr eaiplrtt I** 1. ■wHgffcr»^vtiJ9< ..»» :* 91 u ..f» 1 % Crttt Slaxis. REPEATED \50RD FOR WORD AS I HEARD IT, IT was summer time, and twilight. We were sitting on the porch of the farm-houj,e, on the summit of the hill, and "Aunt Rachel" was sitting respect- fully below our level, on the steps,— for she was our servant, and colored. She was of mighty frame and stature J 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, — "Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and never had any trouble?" if i ^ 92 A True Story, She stopped quaking. She paused, and there way a moment of silence. She turned her face over her shoulder toward me, and said, without even a smile in her voice,— " Misto C , is you in 'amest ? " It surprised me a good deal ; and it sobered my manner and my speech, too. I said,— "Why, I thought — that is, I meant — why, you catit have had any trouble. I've never heard you sigh, and never seen your eye when there wasn't a laugh in it" She faced fairly around, now, and was full '^f earnestness. "Has I had any trouble? Misto C , 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 — daf 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 chii'en jist de same as you loves yo' chil'en. Dey was black, but de Lord can't make no chil'en so black but what dey mother loves 'em an* wouldn't give 'em up, no^ not for anything daf s in dis whole world. " 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 I My lari f 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'nt f. ri f^ ! A True Stoty, 93 O f.r, bawn in the mash to be fooV by trash ! Fs cne o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, / 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 his head, right up at de top of his forehead, an' de niggers didn't fly aroun' fas^ enongh 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'nt bawn in de mash 1 3 be fool' by trash ! I's one o* de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, /is!' an' den she clar' dat kitchen an' bandage' up de chile herse'fl So I says dat word, too, when I's riled. " Well, bymeby my ole mistis says she-'s broke, an' she' got to sell all the niggers on de place. An' when I heah dat dey gwyne to sell us all off at oction in Richmon', oh de good gracious 1 I know what dat toeanl" Aunt Rachel had gradually risen, while she warmed to her subject, and now she towered above us, black against the stars. " 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 94 A True Story, dem away, an* I begin to cry ; an* de iran say, * Shet up yo' dam blubberin*,' an* hit me on de mouf wid his han.* An' when de las' one was gone but my little Henry, I grab' htm clost up to my breas' so, an' I ris up an' says, *You shan't take him away," I says; * I'll kill the man dat tetches him 1 * 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 with my chain ; an' dey give it to w A True Story. 9S »/ 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 y(«"' gemmen comes from, you might 'a' seen him, maybe, an' could tell me so as I could fine him ag'in j 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 say, * How long scnce 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 !* " I never thought o' dat befo' ! He was only dat little feller to mgy 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' / 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 nuflfin 'bout dis. How was /g^vyne lo know it ? 11 96 A True Story, '* Well, one night we had a big sojer ball ; de sojen 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' 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 te/I you 1 "Well, one night — it was a Friday night — dey comes a whole plattoon fem a n(gs^er ridgment dat was on guard at de house, — de house was head-quar. ters, you know, — an' den I was just a-^/V/V / Mad P I was jist z.'boomiti / I swelled aroun', an' swelled aroun' ; I jist was a-itchin' for 'em to do somefin for to start me. Ari dey was a-waltziu' an' a-dancin'l my I but dey was havin' a time ! an' I jist a-swellin' an' a-swellin' upl Footy 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 I — rub- bage ! ' 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 S'long* to de ban', an' dey never could git along A True Story, 97 wJdout puttin' on airs. An' de very fust air dey put on dat nighti I lit into 'em 1 Dey laughed, an' dat made me wuss. De res' o' de niggers got to laughin', an' den my soul alive but I was hot t My eye was jist a-blazin' 1 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 1 ' I says, * I want you niggers to understan* dat I wa'nt bawn in de mash to be fool' by trash ! I's one o' de ole Blue Hen's Chickens, / 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 was a-goin' orit, 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' ; de/s somefin on my mine,' he sayr ; * I don't sleep no mo' dis night You go 'long, he says, *an' leave me by my own se'f.' " Dis was 'bout one o'clock in de mawnin'. We31, '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 mme, 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 »i.i 98 A Trut Story, pan begin to tremble, an' all of a sudden I kmnuedl De pan drop' on de flo' an' I grab his lef ban' zxi 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 1 * 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 I* " Oh, no, Misto C » / hain't had no trouble An' no joy V* \ :) 99 Sptc^ si lift ^siMn"^ Sanqtul h AT the anniversary fbst!val of the Scottish Cor- poration of London on Monday evening, in response to the toast of " The Ladies," Mark Twain replied. The following is his speech as repcorted iq the London Observer ,'—' '^ I am proud> indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to this especial toast, to 'The Ladies,' or to women if vou please, for that is the preferable term, perhaps ; it is certainly the older, and therefore the more entitled to reverence. (Laughter.) I have noticed that the Bible, with that plain, blunt honesty which is such a conspicuous characteristic of the Scriptures, is always particular to never refer to even the illustrious mother of all mankind herself as a * lady,' but speaks of her as a woman. (Laugnter.) It is odd ; but you will find it is so. I am peculiarly proud of this honor, because I think that the toast to women is one which, by right and by every rule of gallantry, should take precedence of all otiiers— of H a ICX) Speech at the Scottish Banquet, hti ' the anny, of the navy, of even royalty itself— perhapi, though the latter is not necessary in this day and in this land, for the reason that, tacitly, you do drink a broad general health to all good women when you drink the health of the Queen of England and the Princess of Wales. (Loud cheers.) I have in mind a poem just now which is familiar to you all, familiar to everybody. And what an inspiration that was (and how instantly the present toast recalls the verses to all our minds) when the most noble, the most gracious, the purest, and sweetest of all poets says :— •• ' Woman I O woman 1 er— — Worn ' (Laughter.) However, you remember the lines ; and you remember how feelingly, how daintily, how almost imperceptibly the verses raise up before you, feature by feature, the ideal of a true and perfect woman ; and how, as you contemplate the finished marvel, your homage grows into worship of the intellect that could create so fair a thing out of mere breath, mere words. And you call to mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stem fidelity to the history of all humanity, delivers this beautiful child of his heart and his brain over to the trials and the sorrows that must come to all, sooner or later, that abide in the earth, and how the pathetic story culminates in that apos- trc^he — so wUd, so regretful, so full of mournful retrospection. The lines run thus :— •* ' Alas i— alas l-Hi-alas I ^Atasl alas I' —and 10 oa (Laughter.) I do not remember the Speech at tJut Scottish Bauqiiet. lOl feit i but, taken altogether, it seems to me that poem is the noblest tribute to woman that human genius has ever brought forth — (laughter) — and I feel that if I were to talk hours I could not do my great theme completer or more graceful justice than I havj now done in simply quoting that poet's matchless words. (Renewed laughter.) The phases of the womanly nature are infinite in their variety. Take any type of woman, and you shall find in it something to respect, something to admire, something to love. And you shall find the whole joining you heart and hand. Who was more patriotic than Joan of Arc? Who was braver ? Who has given us a grander instance of self-sacrificing devotion ? Ah ! you remember, you remember well, what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief swept over us all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. (Much laughier.) Who does not sorrow for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel? (Ljvughter.) Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia ? (Laughter.) Who can join in the heartless libel that says woman is ex- travagant in dress when he can look back and call to mind our simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed in her modification of the Highland costume. (Roars of laughter.) Sir, women have been soldiers, women have been painters, women have been poets. As long as language lives the name of Cleopatra will live; And, not because she conquered George III.— (laughter) — but because she wrote those divint liiic»— "I 101 Speech at tht Scottish BavquAt, *• *I^ dogs delight to bark and biti^ For God Lub made them aow* (More laughter.) The story of the world is adorned with the names of illustrious ones of our own sex — some of them sons of St Andrew, too— Scott, Bruce, Bums, the wairior Wallace, Ben Nevis — (laughter) — the gifted Ben I^mond, and the great new Scotch- man, Ben Disraeli.* (Great laughter.) Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountain ranges of sublime women — tlie Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey Gamp ; the list is endless — (laugh- ter) — but I will not call the mighty roll, the names rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the gloiry of deeds that caimot die^ hallowed by the loving worship of tlie good and the true of all epochs and all climes. (Cheers.) Suffice it for our pride and our honor that we in our day have added to it such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. (Cheers.) Woman is all that she should be — gentle, patient, long suffer- ing, trustful, unselfish, full of generous impulses. It is her blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift tlie fallen, befriend the friendless — in a word, afford the healing of her sympatliies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted children of misfortune that knock at its hospitabld * Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime Minister of England, had just been elected Lonl Rector of Glasgow University, aod tuwt, niAdie * a^txsdi which gave rise to a world Mt discowuoa. speech at tJie Scottish Batiquet. io3 door. (Cheers.) And when I say, God bless her. there is none among us who has known the ennobhng affection of a wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother, but in his heart wiU say, Amen ! (Loud atvS prulonsed cheering.) 104 y % C|^os»i Slorff. -•«- m ':i T TOOK a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years, until I came. The place had long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my life a supv.rstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom. I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mould and the darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past ; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all tin. ., and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadder and sadder patlios, the # A G/tost Stoty. 105 ihrieking of the winds outside softened to a wnil, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind. The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tip-toe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed with sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and by listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters till they lulled me to sleep. I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I found myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own heart — I could hear it beat Presently the bed clothes began to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling them 1 I could not stir ; I could not speak. Still the blankets slipped deliberately away, dll my breast was uncovered. Then with a great effort I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I lay torpid for a century of dragging seconds, till my breast was naked again. At last I roused my energies and snatched the covers back to their place, and held them with a strong grip. I waited. £y-and-by I felt a faint tug, and took a firesh grip. The tug Itrengthened to a steady strain — it grew stronger and to6 A Ghst Stcfy, stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot of the bed 1 Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more dead than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room — the step of an elephant, it seemed to me— it was not like anything human. Cut it was moving from me — there was relief in that I heard it approach the door — ^pass out without moving bolt or lock — and wander away among the dismal corridors, straining the floors and joints till they creaked again as it passed — ^and then silence reigned once more. When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, " This is a dream — simply a hideous dream." And 80 I lay thinking it over until I convinced myself that it was & dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I was happy again. I got up and struck a light j and when I found that the locks and bolts were just as I had left them, another sooth- ing laugh welled in my heart and rippled from my lips. I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before the fire, when down went the pipe out of my nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid breathing was cut short with a gaspl In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with my own bare footprint was another, so vast that in comparison mine was but an infant's 1 Then I had iuid a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained. I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long tim^ peering into the dark- less, and listenini^ Then I heard a grating uoit^ i .y; V V A G/wst Story, 107 iwerhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor ; then the throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my iiiindows in response to the concussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the niulHed slamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the clr nking of chains faintly, in remote pas- sages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer- while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heard muttered sen- tences ; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded — that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whisperings. Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped — ^two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They spattered, liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they had turned to gouts of blood as they fell — I needed no light to satisfy myself of that Then I saw pallid faces, dimly lumi- nous, and white uplifted hands, floating bodiless in the air, — ^floating a moment and then disappearing. Th« whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, %yiA a solemn stillness followed. I waited, an<,^ listenedL i io8 A G/wst Story, 'I ; 'i! ! ,li I felt that I must have light, or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand I All strength went from me, apparently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment — it seemed to pass to the door and go out When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred years. The light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down and fell into a dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes. By a freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in M^j vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds iiu accident ticket all right. And I have seen nothing so sad as ^he look that came into another splintered customei^B ^z-\ when he found he couldn't collect on a woodeti Vig, I will rnmark here, by way of advertisement, that that nobk charity which we have named the HaRT- PORD Accident Insurance Company,* is an insti- tution which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it his custom. * The speaker is a director :/ f m compas/ ttuied. speech on Accident Insurance. it 5 No man can take out a policy in it and not get crip- pled before the year is out. Now there was one indigiot num who had been disappointed so often with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite left him, he ceased to smile— said life was but a weariness. Tliree weeks ago I got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land— has a good steady income md a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and i ravels around on a shutter. I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the wel- come to our guest is none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that i can say the same for the rest of the speakers. ^oj^n (IC^inamati in pete goA ■♦«- AS I passed along by one of those monster American tea-stores in New York, I found a Chinaman sitting before it acting in the capacity of a sign. Everybody tliat passed by him gave him a steady stare as long as their heads would twist over tlicir shoulders without dislocating their necks, and a group had stopped to stare deliberately, Is It not a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization and humanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office as this ? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing to see in such a being, matter for frivolous curiosity in- stead of regret and grave reflection ? Here was a poor creature whom hard fortime had exiled from his natural home beyond the seas, and whose troubles ought to have touctiea these idle strangers that thronged cbout him; but did it? Apparently not. Men calling themselves the superior race, the race of culture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint Chinese hat, with peaked roof and ball on top, and )u$ long queue dangling down his backj his short John Chinaman tn New York, wf silken blouse, cuiiously frog^^i^od and figured (and, like the rest of his raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awk- wardly put on) ; his blue cotton, tight-legged pants, tied close around the ancles ; and his clumsy blunt-toed shoes with thick cork soles ; and having so scanned him from head to foot, cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire or his melancholy face, and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friend- less Mongol. 1 wondered what was passing behind his sad face, and what distant scene his vacant eye was dreaming of. Were his thoughts with his hean, ten thousand miles away, beyond the billowy wastes of the Pacific ? among the rice-fields and the plumy palms of China ? under the shadows of remembered mountain-peaks, or in groves of bloomy shrubs and strange forest-trees unknown to climes like ours? And now and then, rippling among his visions and his dreams, did he hear familiar laughter and half- forgotten voices, and did he catch fitful glimpses of the friendly faces of a bygone time ? A cruel fate it is, I said, that, that is befallen this bronzed wanderer. In order that the group of idlers might be touched at least by the words of the poor fellow, since the appeal of his pauper dress and nis dreary exile was lost upon them, I touched him ca the shoulder and said, — "Cheer up — don't be down-hearted. It is not America that treats you in this way, it is merely one citizen, whose greed of gain has eaten the humanity out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality or the exiled and oppressed. America and Americans ' i 1 1 -.1 m HI* Ii8 7oAn Chinaman in New York, are always ready to help the unfortunate. Money shall be raised— you shall go back to China— you shall see your friends again. ^Vhat ^-ages do they pay you here ? ** " Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find rae- sclf ; but if s aisy, barrin the troublesome furrin clothes that's so expinsive." The exile remains at his post The New York tea- merchants who need picturesque signs are not likely 10 run out of Chinamea. mmum'm^^'m^rm 119 Pa PaHsatrt* T^IIE other burlesque I have referred to was my ■*• fine satire upon the financial expedients of « cooking dividends," a thing which became shamefully frequent on the Pacific coast for a while. Once more, in my self-complacent simplicity, I felt that the time had arrived for me to rise up and be a reformer. I put this reformatory satire in the shape of a fearfiil " Massacre at Empire City." The San Francisco papers were making a great outcry about the iniquity of the Daney Silver-Mining Company, whose directors had declared a "cooked" or false dividend, for the purpose of increasing the value of their stock, so that they could sell out at a comfortable figure, and then scramble from under the tumbling concern. And while abusing tl:e Daney, those papers did not forget to urge the public to get rid of all their silver stocks and invest in sound and safe San Francisco stocks, such as the Spring Valley Water Company, etc. But right at this unfortunate juncture, behold the Spring Valley cooked a dividend too ! And so, under the insidious mask of an invented *' massacre," I stole upon the public unawares with my scathing satiro 120 My Massacre* upon the dividend-cooking system. In about half a column of imaginary human carnage I told how a citizen had murdered his wife and nine children, and then committed suicide. And I said slyly, at the bottom, that the sudden madness of which this me- lancholy massacre was the result, had been brought about by his having allowed himself to be persuaded by the California papers to sell his sound and lucrative Nevada silver stocks, and buy into Spring Valley just in time to get cooked along with that Company's fancy dividend, and sink every cent he had in the world. Ah, it was a deep, deep satire, and most ingeniously contrived. But I made the horrible details so care- fully and conscientiously interesting that the public devoured them greedily, and wholly overlooked the following distinctly-stated facts, to wit : — The mur- derer was perfectly well known to every creature in the land as a bachelor^ and consequently he could not murder his wife and nine children ; he murdered them " in his splendid dressed-stone mansion just in the edge of the great pine forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," when even the very pickled oysters that came on our tables knew that there was not a " dressed-stone mansion " in all Nevada Terri- tory ; also that, so far from there being a " great pine forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," there wasn't a solitary tree within fifteen miles of either place ; and, finally, it was patent and notorious that Empire City and Dutch Nick's were one and the •sune place, and contained only six houses anyhow« My Massacrt, I2t and consequently there could be no forest hetu^^een them ; and on top of all these absurdities I stated that this diabolical murderer, after inflicting a wound upon himself that the reader ought to have seen would kill an elephant in the twinkling of an eye, jumped on his horse and rode four tniles^ waving his wife's reeking scalp in the air, and thus perfoiming entered Carson City with tremendous iclat^ and dropped dead in front of the chief saloon, the envy and admiration of all beholders. Well, in all my life I never saw anything like the sensation that little satire created. It was the talk of the town, it was the talk of the Territory. Most of the citizens dropped gently into it at break- fast, and they never finished their meal There was something about those minutely faithful details that was a suflicing substitute for food. Few people that were able to read took food that morning. Dan and I (Dan was my reportorial associate) took our seats on either side of our customary table in the " Eagle Restau- rant," and, as I unfolded the shred they used to call a napkin in that establishment, I saw at the next table two stalwart innocents with that sort of vegetable dandrufT sprinkled about their clothing which was the sign and evidence that they were in from the Truckee with a load of hay. The one facing me had the morning paper folded to a long narrow strip, and I knew, without any telling, that that strip represented the column that contained my pleasant financial satire. From the way he was excitedly mumbling, I saw that the heedless son of a hay-mow was skipping with all rs3 My Massacre, !l his might, in order to get to the bloody details at quickly as possible ; and so he was missing the guide- boards I had set up to warn him that the whole thing was a fraud. Presently his eyes spread wide open, just as his jaws swung asunder to take in a potato approaching it on a fork ; the potato halted, the face lit up redly, and the whole man was on fire with excitement Then he broke into a disjointed check- ing off of the particulars — his potato cooling in mid- air meantime, and his mouth making a reach lor it occasionally, but always bringing up suddenly against a new and still more direful performance of my hero. At last he looked his stunned and rigid comrade impressively in the face, and said with an expression of concentrated awe, — "Jim, he b'iled his baby, and he took the old 'oman's skelp. Cuss'd if / want any breakfast i " And he laid his lingering potato reverently down, and he and his friend departed from the restaurant empty but satisfied. He never got down to where the satire part of it began. Nobody ever did. Tney found the thrilling particulars sufficient To drop in with a poor little moral at the fag-end of such a gorgeous massacre, was to follow the expiring sun with a candle, and hope to attract the world's attention to it The idea that anybody could ever take my massacre for a genuine occurrence never once suggested itself to me, hedged about as it was by all those tell-tale absurdities and impossibilities concerning the *' great pine forest/ the " dressed-stone mansion/' etc But V My Massacrt, 123 1 I found out then, and never have forgotten since, that we never read the dull explanatory surroundmgs of marvellously exciting things when we have no occasion to suppose that some irresponsible scribbler is trying to defraud us ; we skip all that, and hasten to revei m the blood-curdling particulars and be happy. \' tu ''JParis Cries'* in |wlanb. i^*> "DELFAST is a peculiarly religious community. ^ This may be said of the whole of the north of Ireland. About one-half of the people are Protestants and the other half Catholics. Each party does all it can to make its own doctrines popular and draw the affections of the irreligious toward them. One hears constantly of the most touching instances of thig zeaL A week ago a vast concourse of Catholics assembled at Armagh to dedicate a new Cathedral ; and when they started home again the roadways were lined with groups of meek and lowly Protestants who stoned them till all the region round about was marked with blood. I thought that only Catholics argued in that way, but it seems to be a mistake. Every man in the community is a missionary and carries a brick to admonish the erring with. The law has tried to break this up, but not with perfect success. It has decreed that irritating *' party cries " shall not be indulged in, and that persons uttering them shall be fined forty shillings and costs. And so, in the police court reports, every day, one sees these fines recorded. Last week a girl twelve years old was v *^ Party Cria* in IrelaftJ, MS fined the usual forty shillings and costs for proclaim- ing in the public streets that she was " a Protestant." The usual cry is, " To hell with the Pope 1" or " To hell with the ProtesUnts I" according to the uttcrer'a system of salvation. One of Belfast's local jokes was very good. It referred to the uniform and inevitable fine of forty •hillings and costs for uttering a party cry — and it is no economical fine for a poor man, either, by the way. They say that a policeman found a drunken man lying on the ground, up a dark alley, entertaining himself with shouting, « To Mi with ! " " To Mi with I *» ITie officer smelt a fine— informers get half i— «*^Vhat's that you say?" ««ToAr//with!" *« To hell with wAo t To hell with wAai f " "Ah, bedad ye can finish it yourself—it's too cxpinsive for mel" I think the seditious disposition, restrained by th€ •conomical instinct is finely put, in that 1. 126 J^hioxii fiipials |i9tIL V f HTHE following I find in a Sandwich Island '^itpct "*" which some friend has sent me from Jitit tranquil far-off retreat The coincidence between my own experience and that here set down by the late Mr. Benton is so remarkable that I cannot forbear publishing and commenting upon the paragraph. Tlie Sandwich Island paper says :— " How toaching is this tribute of the late Hon. T. H. Benton to his mother's influence : — ' My mother asked me never to use tobacco ; I have never touched it from that time to the present day. She asked mc not to gamble, and I have never gambled. I cannot tell who is losing in games that are being played. She admonislied me, too, against liquor-drinking, and whatever capacity for endurance I have at present, and whatever usefulness I may have attained through life, I attribute to having complied with her piouit and correct wishes. When I was seven years of age she asked me not to drink, and then I made a resolution of total abstinence ; and that I have adhered to it througn au oom 1 owe to my mother.' " I never saw anything so cunous. It is almost an exact epitome of my own moral career — after simply substituting a grandmother for a mother. How well I remember my grandmother's asking me fsct to uso tobacco, good old soul I She said, "You're at it History RepcaU Itself, 127 I V again, are you, you whelp? Now, don't ever let me catch you chewing tobacco before breakfast again, or I lay I'll black-snake you within an inch of your life I " I have never touched it at that hour of the morning from that time to the present day. She asked me not to gamble. She whispered and said, " Put up those wicked cards this minute 1— two pair'and a jack, you numskull, and the other fellow's got a flush I" I never have gambled from that day to this— never once— without a " cold deck " in my pocket. I can- not even tell who is going to lose in games that are being pbyed unless I dealt myself. When I was two years of age she asked me not to drink, and then I made a resolution of total absti- nence. That I have adhered to it and enjoyed the beneficent effects of it through all time, I owe to my grandmother. I have never drunk a drop from that day to this of any kind of water. ir* Jfirfit Inltrbitfa hnilj %xUm\XB Kttarb. •**- T HAD never seen him before. He brought letten ■^ of introduction from mutual friends in San Fran- cisco, and by invitation I breakfasted with him. It was almost religion, there in the silver mines, to pre- cede such a meal with whiskey cocktails. Artemus, with the true cosmopolitan instinct, always deferred to the customs of the country he was in, and so he ordered three of those abominations, llingston was present I said I would rather not drink a whiskey cocktail I said it would go right to my head, and confuse me so that I would be in a helpless tangle la ten minutes. I did not want to act like a lunatic before strangers. But Artemus gently insisted, and I drank the treasonable mixture under protest, and felt all the time that I was doing a thing I might be sorry for. In a minute or two I bfgan to imagine that my ideas were clouded. I waited in great anxiety for the conversation to open, with a sort of vague hope that my understanding would prove clear, after all, and my misgivings groundless. Artemus dropped an unimportant remark or two. S First Intervitw with ArUmus Ward. 129 and then assumed a look of superhuman earnestness, and made the following astounding speech, lie said : — " Now there is one thing I ought to ask you about before I forget it. You have been here in Silverland — here in Nevada — two or three years, and, of course, your position on the daily press har niade it necessary for you to go down in the mines and examine them carefully in detail, and therefore you know all about the silver-mining business. Now, what I want to get at is — is, well, the way the deposits of ore are made, you know. For instance. Now, as I understand it, the vein which contains the silver is sandwiched in between casings of granite, and runs along the ground, and sticks up like a curb-stone. Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for example, or eighty, for that matter, or even a hundred — say you go down on it with a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what you call 'incline,' maybe you go down five hundred feet, or maybe you don't go down but two hundred — any way you go down, and ail the time this vein grows nar- rower, when the casings come nearer or approach each other, you may say — that is, when they do approach, which of course they do not always do» particularly in cases where the nature of the formation is such that they stand apart wider than they otherwise would, and which geology has failed to account for, although everything in that science goes to prove that, all things being equal, it would if it did not, or would not certainly if it did, and then of course they are. iJo iot yon think it is?" 130 First Interview with Artemus "A^ard, I said to myself:— " Now I just knew how it would be — that whiskey cocktail has done the business for sie ; I don't under- stand any more than a clam." And then I said aloud,— " I— I — that is — if you don't mind, would you— would you say that over again ? I ought ** "Oh, certainly, certainly! You see I am very unfamiliar with the subject, and perhaps I don't pre- sent my case clearly, but I ** " No, no— no, no— you state it plain enough, but that cocktail has muddled me a little. But I will —no, I do not understand for that matter; bat I would get the hang of it all the better if you went over it again — ^and I'll pay better attention this time." He said, " Why, what I was after was this." [Here he became even more fearfully impressive than ever, and emphasized each particular point by checking it off on his finger ends.] "This vein, or lode, or ledge, or whatever you call it, runs along between two layers of granite, just the same as if it were a sandwich. Very well. Now, suppose you go down on that, say a thousand feet, or maybe twelve hundred (it don't really matter), before you drift, and then you start your drifts, some of them across the ledge, and others along the length of it, where the sulphurets —I believe they call them sulphurets, though why they should, considering tliat, so far as I can see, the main dependence of a miner does not so lie, as soma fluppos^ but in wliich it cannot be successfully maix> $ First Interview with Arteinus IVarJ. 131 tained, wherein the same should not continue, while part and parcel of the same ore not committed to either m the sense referred to, whereas, under dif- ferent circumstances, the most inexperienced among us could not detect it if it were, or might overlook it if it did, or scorn the very idea of such a thing, even though it were palpably demonstrated as such. Am I not right?" . I said, sorrowfully, — " I feel ashamed of myself, Mr. Ward. I know I ought to understand you perfectly well, but you see that treacherous whiskey cocktail has got into my head, and now I cannot understand even the simplest proposition. I told you how it would be." " Oh, don't mind it, don't mind it ; the fault wai my own, no doubt — though I did think it clear enough for '* ** Don't say a word Clear ! ^Vhy, you stated it as clear as the sun to anybody but an abject idiot ; but if s that confounded cocktail that has played the mischieC" *' No ; now don't say that. I'll begin it all over again, and—" " Don't now — ^for goodness sake, don't do anything of the kind, because I tell you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe I could understand tlie most trifling question a man could ask me." •*Now don't you be afraid. I'll put it so plain this time that you can't help but get the hang 0/ it We will begin at the very beginning." [Lean- iKg far across the table, with determined impressive* K 2 132 First Interview with Artsmus Ward, %■'•.• I ness wrought upon his every feature, and fingers pre- pared to keep tally of each point as enumerated ; and I, leaning forward with painful interest, resolved to comprehend or perish.] " You know the vein, the ledge, the thing that contains the metal, whereby it constitutes the medium between all other forces, whether of present or remote agencies, so brought to bear in favor of the former against the latter, or the latter against the former or all, or both, or com- promising the relative differences existing within the radius whence culminate the several degrees of simi* larity to which " I said, — " Oh, hang my wooden head, it ain't any use I — it ain't any use to try — I can't understand any- thing. The plainer you get it the more I can't get the hang of it." I heard a suspicious noise behind me, and turned in time to see Kingston dodging behind a newspaper, and quaking with a gentle ecstasy of laughter. I looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dread solemnity and was laughing also. Then I saw that I had been sold — that I had been made the victim cf a swindle in the way of a string of plausibly worded sentences that didn't mean anything under the sun. Artemus Ward was one of the best fellows in the world, and one of the most companionable. It has been said that he was not fluent in conversa- tions, but, with the above experience in my mind, I differ. k m %. €miam "^Itmnn €xoxxBtan.^ ■♦♦- ["We have received the following advertisement, ^•lt, Inasmuch m it concerns a matter of deep and general intert,^t, we feel fally Justified in inserting it in our reading columns. We are con- fident that our conduct in this regard aeeds only explanation, not apology. —Ed. N. Y. Herald."] ADVERTISEMENT. 'T'HIS is to inform the public that in connection "^ with Mr. Bamum I have leased the comet for a term of years ; and I desire also to solicit the public patronage in favor of a beneficial enterprise which we have in view. We propose to fit up comfortable, and even luxu- rious, accommodations in the comet for as many per- sons as will honor us with their patronage, and make an extended excursion among the heavenly bodiea We shall prepare x,ooo,ooo state rooms in the tail of the comet (with hot and cold water, gas, looking-glass, parachute, umbrella, etc, in each), and shall construct moie if we meet with a sufHciently generous encourage* • Published at tlie time of the " Comet Scare' in the summer