University of California Berkeley
The
THEODORE H. KOUNDAKJIAN
COLLECTION OF AMERICAN HUMOR
THE DORCAS SOCIETY
AND OTHER SKETCHES
BY 7*.
PAUL PASTNOR
[HUMORIST OF THE BURLINGTON FREE PRESS]
ST. JOHNSBURY
CHARLES T. WALTER
1889
COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY CHAS. T. WALTER
The St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Republican Press:
Printed by The Caledonia County Publishing Company.
Electrotyped by C. J. Peters & Son, Boston.
PREFATORY NOTE.
SOME of the following sketches have never before
been published ; but most of them have appeared,
during the last few years, in the columns of Pdck,
Life, Tid Bits, Outing, Detroit Free Press, Drake's
Magazine, Burlington Free Press, and other jour-
nals. Most of the sketches have been hastily pre-
pared, in intervals of newspaper work, and the
reader is asked to kindly pardon a somewhat care-
less style and rapid treatment of subject less
faults, perhaps, in humorous writing than in any
other.
PAUL PASTNOR.
Burlington, Vt., May 2, 1889.
THE DORCAS SOCIETY,
AND OTHER SKETCHES.
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWN-
INGTON.
THE FIRST MEETING.
HE first meeting of the Dorcas Society of
Brown ingtoii was held at the house of
Mrs. Dustin Enos. Twenty ladies were
present, and about fifteen of their hus-
bands congregated in the barn, and
swapped horses, during the time the ladies were
engaged in their deliberations.
Mrs. Dustin Enos, by courtesy, was called to the
chair. "It is proposed, ladies," she said, " that, as
the first business of importance, we elect officers to
preside over us, and transact our executive affairs."
" Do we need officers for a Dorcas Society ? "
inquired Mrs. Bogwell.
" It would be parliamentary," remarked Mrs.
Tucker.
1
2 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
i
" Well, I don't know, I think we could get
along better without 'em," protested Mrs. Bogwell.
Twenty minutes were exhausted in debating the
question whether the society had better have any
officers or not. It was finally decided, by a vote of
twelve to eight, v that it would be advisable to have
officers. A president, vice-president, and secretary
were accordingly elected. Mrs. Enos, though not
appointed president, continued to occupy the chair,
until it was mildly suggested by the secretary that
she vacate in favor of the president-elect. Mrs.
Enos then flounced out of the big rocking-chair at
the head of the table, blushing painfully. She
remarked that it was " her house, anyway, and she
thought it was real mean not to let her preside."
Mrs. D. K. Crane, -the newly elected president,
assumed the chair with becoming dignity. " We
are met, ladies," she said, "to organize a Dorcas
Society for the town of Brownington. It has been
suggested that the society have a motto, embodying
in poetical form its mission and its character. I
believe Mrs. Zenas Skinner has drawn up something
in this line, which she will 'be glad to submit to the
ladies."
Mrs. Zenas Skinner took out her spectacles and
deliberately adjusted them on her nose. She then
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BKOWNINGTON. 3
opened her work-bag and drew thence a roll of
paper, which she unfolded with much satisfaction.
Then, in a high voice, and with a sing-song tone,
she read the following,
" MOTTO FOB THE DORCAS SOCIETT.
" Little pairs of breeches,
Little shirts and coats, '
Make the heathen happy,
And reform the bloats.
" I had some reluctance," continued the blushing
poetess, when the storm of applause which followed
her little effusion had died away, " I had some
reluctance about penning the last line. I was very
much perplexed to find a rhyme for ' coats,' so I
took the poem to my husband and asked him if he
could suggest one. He at once inquired if we
intended to include temperance work in our pro-
gram. I told him that we certainly did ; that our
field was the world. Then he proposed that the
last line should read thus,
' And reform the sots.'
But I pointed out to him that sots,' was not a per-
fect rhyme for * coats ' ; and said I, 4 Zenas, we must
make this poem perfect, because it ain't going to be'
4 $HE bOKCAS SOCIETY.
very long, and what there is of it must be without
fleck or flaw.'
" 4 Exactly,' says he. Then he scratched his head
for a minute. ' I have it ! ' he cried, 4 a rhyme as
good as if made to order by Tennyson ; listen,
' Little shirts and coats,
Make the heathen happy,
And reform the bloats. 9
" ' Is that an elegant term ? ' said I.
" 4 Don't it make an elegant rhyme?' said he,
* and isn't that what you're after ? ' So I concluded
that I would submit it to you, ladies, and let your
judgment decide the matter. If anybody can sug-
gest a better, rhyme, I should be glad to hear it."
Mrs. Skinner moistened the point of her pencil in
her mouth, and awaited developments.
"How would 4 boots ' do?" ventured a little lady
in the corner.
"A very poor rhyme and what sort of sense
would it make?" sneered Mrs. Skinner. "'And
reform the boots,' huh ! "
" Mrs. President," cried an impulsive lady, " why
hasn't anybody thought of throats? That would
cover the whole ground, besides being an elegant
and proper word."
THE DOKCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 5
" Throats throats " reflected the poetess,
scratching her head with the end of her pencil.
" ' Make the heathen happy, and reform the
throats.' No, I don't think it would do, Mrs. Pres-
ident. It might refer to sore throats or tonsilitis
or diphtheria, or any other legitimate disease of that
kind. I still think that 4 bloats ' is the best word.
There is nothing ambiguous about it."
"Well, does any lady think of another rhyme?"
queried Mrs. President Crane.
A few moments of deep thought succeeded, but
nobody seemed to capture a rhyme.
" I think, then, the motto will have to stand as it
is," said Mrs. President Crane.
44 Will have to stand, Mrs. President ! " ex-
claimed the author. " Don't you think it is a
good one?"
This was a rather embarrassing question, but the
president artfully dodged it by calling for " a vote
of thanks to the talented lady who had so kindly
and promptly furnished the society with a motto."
The vote was made by acclamation, and Mrs.'Zenas
Skinner was radiantly happy. She walked to the
secretary's seat with a bland smile, and laying the
precious roll of manuscript in the centre of the
record book, suggested that " the motto be en-
6 THE DOBCAS SOCIETY.
grossed by our secretary, as handsomely as possible,
upon the first page of the records."
The secretary was so instructed. But just then
Mrs. Enos's hired girl eame to the door and said
that the refreshments were all ready ; so the society
adjourned to the dining-room without the formality
of a vote.
THE SECOND MEETING.
The Dorcas Society of Brownington held its
second meeting at the house of its president, Mrs.
D. K. Crane. The day was drizzly and snowy,
but Mr. Crane had laid out a track on the ice of
the pond near by, and when the husbands of the
members of the society drove up with their wives,
he invited them down on the ice to have* a trot.' In
fact, it was an opportunity he had long been waiting
for, as he had a fast colt and wanted a chance to lay
a few bits on it.
The ladies took off their wraps, warmed them-
selves, and then collected in the parlor, where the
meeting was called to order at two o'clock.
When the secretary was asked to read the minutes
of the last meeting, she said that. there had been
company at her house during the entire week, and,
as the hired girl had seized the opportunity to leave.
THE DOECAS SOCIETY OF BKOWNINGTON. 7
she had not had time to write her notes up. She
promised, however, that she would take extra pains
to make them interesting, and would read them the
succeeding week.
As a compromise, Mrs. Zenas Skinner suggested
that the motto of the society should be read, at all
events i but as nobody seconded the motion it was
lost. Mrs. Skinner then wanted to know if the
secretary had engrossed the motto in the record
book, as instructed ? The secretary replied that her
domestic cares had prevented the performance of
any literary work, whatever, during the week past.
Whereupon Mrs. Skinner proposed that a new secre-
tary be elected who could devote some time, at least,
to the duties of her office. This motion also was
lost.
Mrs. Enos inquired if the Society was to have a
constitution ? The question was put to vote and it
was decided that a constitution was not necessary.
Mrs. Bogwell declared that she " didn't see what
help a constitution, or officers either, would be in
making shirts arid pants for the heathen and the
poor." Mrs. Tucker replied that organization was
always a great power for good, and that, in general, *
the more intellectuality that could be infused into
work of any kind, the better its products would be ;
8 THE DOECAS SOCIETY.
and she instanced the great improvement in fashion
plates since women had been admitted to colleges,
and society had become freckled with Browning
circles.
Mrs. Zenas Skinner thought that the intellectual-
ity of the Dorcas Society was equal to a poetical
constitution, and she moved that such a constitution
be drawn up. President Crane reminded her that
the motion to have a constitution of any sort had
been lost.' Mrs. Skinner acknowledged that it had,
but professed her readiness to compose a poetical
constitution at any time, and upon any subject. She
already had, she said, the beginning of one m her
mind,
" The Dorcas Society of Brownington,
The name of it shall be;
Its object, to make shirts and pants;
Its officers shall be three,
President, vice-president, and sec "
"Mrs. Zenas Skinner will please come to order ! "
cried Mrs. President Crane. " It has been voted that
we shall not have a constitution at all ; and as there
is important business still to come before the soci-
ety, and the hour is getting late, I think we had
better postpone this "informal discussion until some
future time."
Mrs. Skinner moved that the matter be laid upon
THE DOKCAS SOCIETY OP BROWNINGTON.
the table until the next meeting; and it was so
voted (with great reluctance) as the only feasible
method of inducing Mrs. Skinner to subside.
Mrs. Emory Watkins then rose and begged leave
to inquire the object of the Dorcas Society? The
President replied that it was very well and succinct-
ly stated in the motto,
" Little pairs of breeches,
Little shirts and coats.'*
44 What about ' little pairs of breeches, little shirts
and coats?' " persisted Mrs. Watkins.
44 Why make 'em, of course ! " cried Mrs. Deacon
Tucker. " Anybody would know that was what
was meant."
44 Well, then, why don't we do it?" demanded
Mrs. Watkins.
This was something of a poser, and was succeeded
by a brief silence, during which the excited shouts
and yells of the men-folks v-acing horses down on the
pond could be distinctly heard.
44 1 suppose it is because we aren't fully organized
yet," replied Mrs. President Crane.
44 Well, for mercy's sake, how much longer is it
going to j take to get organized, I should like to
know?" indignantly demanded Mrs. Bogwell, "I
10 THE DORCAS SOCIETY. -
said in the first place that we could get along better
and do more work without any organization."
" But not without a motto ? " interposed Mrs. Zenas
Skinner.
" No," replied Mrs. Bogwell, doubtfully. " I sup-
pose a motto is well enough, if we could only let it
rest now that we have got it."
" Order ! order, ladies ! " exclaimed the presi-
dent. "We really must get to business, or we
shan't have time to do a thing before refresh-
ments.
("Well, I'm glad she's got us something to eat,
anyway," whispered the practical Mrs. Bogwell to
her next neighbor. " I'm sick and tired of all this
intellectuality")
" Well, what business is there to be done ? " in*
quired the obstructionist, Mrs. Emory Watkins.
" Why, I suppose we must get fully organized,"
replied the president.
"I don't see but what we are fully organized,"
replied Mrs. Watkins. " We've got a motto and three
officers, and if that ain't enough intellectuality for
makin' a pair of pants, then I don't know anything
about pants."
Mrs. Skinner said in a low voice to Mrs. Deacon
Tucker, that she didn't believe Mrs. Watkins did
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 11
know anything about pants, if her husband's clothes
were anything to judge by.
Just then there was a great hullabaloo in the yard,
and the ladies distinctly heard Deacon Tucker call
Mr. Crane a " condemned horse jockey, anyway ! "
Whereupon Mr. Crane assured the deacon that his
character was not altogether without blemish, and
that it would afford him the greatest pleasure to met
him (the deacon) behind the barn, or anywhere else,
privately. The Deacon replied that if he were not
a pillar of the church, he would be most happy to ac-
commodate Mr. Crane, and had no doubt he should
be able to return any compliments of his in the most
satisfactory manner.
This little altercation woke up the Dorcas Society
like a mouse, and the worthy ladies rushed out to
quiet the'ir lords, and separate the irascible Deacon
Tucker and the wily Mr. Crane.
THE THIRD MEETING.
Mrs. Zenas Skinner entertained the Dorcas So-
ciety of Brownington, at its third meeting. Mrs.
Skinner had been petitioning for the honor ever
since the organization of the society, but it was only
by the utmost perseverance and importunity that she
12 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
obtained it at last ; for everybody feared that if the
good lady once secured a sort of purchase on the
Dorcas sisters, by virtue of her hospitality, she
would use it with a royal vengeance, and perhaps
inflict bushels of poetry and unlimited quantities of
parliamentary advice upon them. The precedent set
by Mrs. Dustin Enos who was unwilling to resign
the chair, you will remember, because the first meet-
ing of the society was held at her house lingered
in the minds of the sisterhood. It was, therefore,
with many misgivings, and no little apprehension,
that . the worthy ladies who composed this most use-
ful and benevolent body gathered on the afternoon of
the appointed day, at the trim little cottage of Mrs.
Skinner. That lady, resplendent in a new figured
gown, and a darling little cap with pink bows,
received them, all smiles and sweetness, and con-
ducted them into her parloi*. Like almost all liter-
ary ladies, however, she was so forgetful of the
gentlemen as not to have provided a single resource
for their entertainment ; and as Mr. Skinner had no
iiorse to race, or swap, and not even a barn to keep
a horse in, the lords of creation who brought their
wives to the meeting were obliged to drive home
again, without even an invitation to return in time
for refreshments. Mrs. Skinner, however, was not
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 13
at all annoyed by their remarks. She cared not a
fig for all the men and all masculine opinions,
this side of the garden of Eden. If she could but
get a choice company of female spirits together, it
was immaterial to her by what accessory means they
were assembled.
Promptly on the stroke of two o'clock, Mrs. D. K.
Crane called the meeting to order. Mi's. Skinner
was observed to nod approvingly. This was encour-
aging and discouraging, too. Mrs. Skinner had
never been observed to make such a demonstration
before ; it might mean good, it might bode evil.
" At the close of our last meeting, I believe," said
Mrs. President Crane, " tl\e question was before us,
whether or not we were sufficiently organized. I
presume it will be in order to make this question
our first business."
"Beg pardon, Mrs. President!" exclaimed the
secretary, starting up. " I have got those notes
written up at last, and "
" O sure enough ! sure enough ! " cried the presi-
dent, blushing. "I declare, I forgot all about the
minutes. Will the secretary please read them."
The secretary wiped her spectacles, hemmed and
hawed, and began to read. The minutes slipped by
five, ten, twelve, fifteen, slipped into the great
14 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
shoreless sea of the past. Still the secretary read
on. She had evidently concentrated all her energies
upon this literary performance. It was to be the
crowning achievement of her life. She had never
been a secretary before, and she did not know how
long it would be before she would cease to be a sec-
retary. She was bound to make the most of it while
it lasted.
Mrs. Skinner looked at the clock. Half an hour
since the meeting was called to order. Half an
hour ! and she had so much to say, to read, to
suggest, to propound, to criticise ! Besides, Mrs.
Skinner had always had a prejudice against the sec-
retary, because the latter did not fall down and wor-
ship the motto of the society. It was unendurable.
" Mrs. President ! " exclaimed Mrs. Skinner,
rising to her feet.
The secretary looked over her spectacles in amaze-
ment and vexation.
" The secretary has the floor, Mrs. Skinner," said
Mrs. President Crane, evasively.
"Yes, but hasn't she had it long enough?"
inquired Mrs. Skinner.
" Question ! question ! " called a lady in .the back
part of the room, who had heard her husband make
such a remark in a public meeting.
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BEOWNINGTON. 15
"There's no question about it," said Mrs. Presi-
dent Crane, decidedly. " The secretary has the
floor, and she is entitled to it till she gets through."
At this, the secretary, with great composure, re-
sumed reading. This drove Mrs. Skinner nearly
frantic. " Mrs. President ! " she screamed, " I'd
like to know whose house this is, anyway ? "
" Order ! order ! " cried Mrs. President Crane,
pounding her chair. " Go on, Mrs. Secretary."
" How near done are you, anyway ? " asked Mrs.
Skinner, stepping forward to look in the book.
16 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
" Goodness gracious, ladies ! she's got two pages
more of the stuff. I move that we elect a new
secretary."
" Second the motion ! " cried a voice from the rear
of the room.
Then arose such a hubbub as has not been heard
since the bricklayers on the tower of Babel struck.
It was undeniable that a motion had been made and
seconded; but whether it was parliamentary to
make a motion while somebody else had the floor
that was the question.
"I call for the question!" screamed Mrs. Skinner.
" Hold on ; it isn't parliamentary ! " hooted Mrs.
Watkins.
"Tis too!"
'Tisn't ! "
" Order ! " from the president.
" Question ! " from five or six voices.
" Order ! " from twice as many others.
The sentiment of the meeting finally restored
comparative quiet, in the midst of which it was
observed that the secretary was putting on her
things to leave, with an expression of mingled grief
and rage upon her countenance which was simply
heart-rending.
" Why, where are you going, Mrs. Secretary ? "
inquired the president, pathetically.
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BKOWHIKGTOtf. IT
The secretary made no reply, but picking up her
work-bag, full of personal stationery, and slamming
together the record book upon the desk, 'sailed
majestically out of the room.
" Now, see what you have done ! " exclaimed
Mrs. Bogwell.
" See what who has done ? " demanded Mrs.
Skinner.
" You," retorted half a dozen of the secretary's
private friends.
" Well, I'd like to know whose house this is, any-
way ? " exclaimed the insulted poetess, raising her
voice.
This was a poser. It seems to be a general
impression among the gentler sex that a woman can
do just about as she pleases in her own house. All
laws of order and priority have to give way before
the imperial rights of a woman under her own roof.
" I think all this sort of thing has gone about far
enough," said Mrs. Watkins, the obstructionist, ris-
ing and addressing her crestfallen sisters. " Four
weeks ago we started a benevolent society for the
simple purpose of making clothes for the suffering
poor in this town. That as I take it was our
sole and only object ; if it wasn't, it ought to have
been. Well, now, what have we accomplished?
18 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
"We have got a motto " (Mrs. Squires nodded
approvingly), "we have got a president, a vice-
president, and a well, no, I don't know as we
have either. So far so good but meanwhile as to
our avowed object. Have we made a single pair of
pants? Have we made a single shirt or coat?
much less reformed a single bloat? No? well, I
guess we haven't. Yesterday, a poor woman came
to me and asked me if our new Dorcas Society
couldn't let her have a few little frocks and coats
for her children, to keep 'em from freezing. What
did I have to tell her, ladies ? I had to tell her that
we weren't organized yet ! yes, I did. I told her
that if she would come around some time next June,
we might perhaps give her^a few warm frock^ and
coats yes, I did. And meanwhile I gave her
what I had in the house myself. Now, I submit
that this sort of thing is scandalous ridiculous,
ladies ! If we are going to have a debating or liter-
ary society, why not "
44 The taters and sassengers is done to a turn,
muin," interrupted Mrs. Skinner's hired girl, thrust-
ing her head in at the door.
" Very well ; ladies, we must adjourn," said Mrs.
Skinner. " Cold fried potatoes aren't fit for a cat to
eat."
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 19
THE FOURTH MEETING.
The fourth meeting of the Dorcas Society of
Brownington, at Mrs. Bogwell's house, was an occa-
sion of mingled joy and sorrow. The organization
had reached the fourth week of its existence, and
still lived to prosecute its noble work; but it had
lost its faithful secretary and also its vice-president.
The latter a personal friend of the retiring sec-
retary having taken umbrage at wha,t she con-
sidered the society's shameful treatment of her
coadjutor, had resigned her connection with the
organization, not formally, for a woman never
resigns or accepts an office formally, but by affirm-
ing to several of its members in private, that she
didn't want anything more to do with the nasty
thing, so there ! With its. ranks thus decimated,
and a depressing sense of trouble yet to come, the
Dorcas Society assembled on a bleak Thursday in
March, in the parlors of the hospitable Mrs.
Bogwell.
The hum of conversation was so low when Mrs.
President Crane struck the table with the under
side of her fist, that the crash of a large and valua -
ble sea-shell falling off upon the floor was distinctly
audible. So deep was the sense of apprehension
20 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
that the ladies came immediately to order, a thing
never heard of before in a meeting of the gentler
sex. Only the mournful click, click of the broken
pieces of sea-shell, as Mrs. Bogwell gathered them
into a plate, broke the silence.
" Ladies," said Mrs. President Crane, " this is a
solemn and important occasion. The deliberations
of the present meeting will probably decide whether
the Dorcas Society of Brownington shall continue
its stormy existence, hoping for a quiet port and
calm anchorage by and by, or shall founder here and
now in the mid-ocean of trial and disappointment.
We are still unorganized ; we have lost two of our
most trusty and faithful officers ; there is a spirit, I
am afraid, of dissatisfaction not to say mutiny
among some of our members. The winter is rapidly
passing, and we have not relieved the sufferings of
the thinly clad of this village to any very great
extent. I will admit that we have a motto and
and a president ; but that is all we have left "
At {his juncture Mrs. Skinner interrupted the
remarks of the president with a motion to the effect
that the motto of the society be read ; but the
motion was overruled by spontaneous signs of dis-
approbation on the part of the other ladies present,
and the president continued her remarks.
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 21
" As I was saying, ladies, we have nothing but a
motto and a president left. Now the question
which comes before us to-day, and which will decide
whether we sink or swim, survive or perish, is this,
shall we elect new officers to fill the places of our
departed sisters, or shall we forthwith adjourn sine
die, and give up the project of establishing a Dorcas
Society in Brownington ? "
" I move you, Mrs. President, that we elect a new
secretary ! " exclaimed Mrs. Zenas Skinner. There
was a moment's pause, and then somebody seconded
the motion.
" It's parliamentary, you know," whispered Mrs.
Skinner to her next neighbor, so loudly that she
could be heard in the remotest corner of the room,
" it's parliamentary to nominate first the one who
makes the motion."
"Is that so?" asked the president with an
expression of deep concern and alarm, glancing
around the circle of ladies.
"Seems to me it is," said Mrs. Watkins, sadly.
" I have a dim recollection of having read or heard
something of the sort."
Mrs. Skinner's face glowed like a Lake Cham-
plain sunset. " I call for the motion ! " she cried.
* 4 Well, ladies," said Mrs. President Crane, " it is.
22 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
moved and seconded that we elect a new secretary.
As many of you as will so order, please raise the
right hand." About two-thirds of the hands came
up. " It is so ordered. Now whom will you nomi-
nate for secretary ? "
Mrs. Skinner looked sharply and ominously
around the circle, as much as to say, " Now if you
don't nominate me, ladies, I'll raise such a row as
was never heard of in a parliamentary body be-
fore I"
"I nominate Mrs. Skinner," said a faint voice
from under the mantel-piece. " Second the nomina-
tion," said another faint voice from the corner.
" Mrs. Skinner is nominated to fill the place of
secretary in the society," said Mrs. President Crane.
" As many of you as will so order, please raise your
right hands." The same two-thirds' show of hands
came up again, Mrs. Zenas Skinner's quickest and
highest of all. < " Mrs. Zenas Skinner is elected."
Mrs. Zenas Skinner rose, her face beaming with
smiles, and, with little bows of acknowledgment
right and left, threaded her way to 'the secretary's
table. Here she proudly seated herself and drew
forth an extensive collection of hers, pencils and
paper, which showed that the result -of the election
h.ad not been altogether unexpected pi*, ker part.
-
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 23
Selecting a well-sharpened Faber, she laid a sheet of
foolscap before her, and proceeded to chronicle her
own election.
" It will now be in order to elect a new vice-presi-
dent," said Mrs. President Crane. "Whom will
you nominate ? "
" Mrs. President," said Mrs. Secretary Skinner,
laying down her pen, and rising with dignity; "I
would nominate a lady not present to-day, who, I
think, possesses more qualifications for a vice-presi-
dent than any other lady in this town, inasmuch as
she has been twice divorced, has had lots of scandal
attached to her name, and if there are any other
vices peculiar to our sex, is not, so far as T am
aware, destitute of any one of them."
" For shame ! " exclaimed the whole society with
one voice.
"I should just like to know why? " screamed Mrs.
Skinner, in the midst of the tumult. "Mrs. Presi-
dent, I appeal to you is not that the popular deri-
vation and meaning of the word vice-president? "
" No, it is not ! " replied Mrs. President Crane,
decidedly.
" Well, I should just like to know what it is de-
rived from, then ? " inquired the secretary. " Can
you tell me, Mrs. President?"
24 THE DOHCAS SOCIETY.
" Certainly, I well, let me see I think it
comes from no, it doesn't either Can any lady
present enlighten Mrs. Skinner with regard to the
derivation of the word vice-president ? "
Mrs. Skinner seized her pencil, and sat defiantly
waiting. No reply was vouchsafed to the presi-
dent's appeal. "Well, what does it come from?"
urged the secretary.
Silence was the only response.
u Very well," said the unassailable secretary.
"Nobody can tell what it comes from. How can
anybody deny that it comes from what I said it did
from itself, from the English word ' vice,' com-
pounded with 'president ? ' '
Nobody could deny it.
" Now Mrs. President," said Mrs. Zenas Skinner,
" I present the name of Mrs. Elihu-Jonas Babcock,
as the nominee for the office of vice-president of this
society.
" Second the nomination," said Mrs. Watkins, the
obstructionist, who was completely overawed by the
business capacity and tenacity of the new secretary.
The nomination was put to vote, and the singu-
larly suitable Mrs. Elihu-Jonas Babcock was elected
vice-president of the Society.
" Mrs. President," said Mrs. Watkins, rising, " J
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 25
have a long list of applications for clothing from the
suffering poor of Brownington, which I should like
to"
" Ladies ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bogwell, who had
stolen from the room a few moments previous, " I
do hate to interrupt you, but it is either cold corn-
cake or no more deliberation. Take your choice. "
The society immediately adjourned.
THE FIFTH AND LAST MEETING.
Mrs. Deacon Tucker's hospitable home received
the sisters of the Dorcas Society at their next meet-
ing, which, owing to unforeseen events, did not occur
until the first week in April. It was a beautiful
sunshiny day, and spears of green were thrusting up
everywhere amid the brown grass. The attendance,
however, was not as large as usual, and the ladies,
with the exception of Mrs. Skinner, seemed to be
despondent and non-committal.
The meeting was called to order by Mrs. President
Crane, at the usual hour, two o'clock. When the
minutes of last meeting were called for, Mrs. Skin-
ner, the new secretary, responded with alarming
promptness, and the ladies were horrified beyond
measure, to hear her launch into hexameters with
26 THE DOKCAS SOCIETY.
alternate rhymes, she having thrown her report into
the sublime form of poetry.
The reading of this metrical chronicle was, not
completed until twenty minutes of three, and when
the secretary at last sat down, a long-drawn sigh of
relief escaped the bosoms of all present.
Mrs. Watkins rose. " Mrs. President " she said,
" I endeavored to present, at the last meeting, a list
of applications for clothing from the suffering poor
of this town, but was prevented by the sudden ad-
journment of the society for refreshments. It was
very late in the season then, and I now' rejoice to
say that all necessity for extra clothing has been
mercifully removed by the advancing spring, so that,
as far as I can see, the mission of the Dorcas Society
of Brownington is accomplished. I have the list of
applications with me, but as it has now become obso-
lete I shall ask the society's permission to destroy it.'*
Mrs. President Crane blushed visibly. " We
were so long getting organized," she said, " and
attending to other necessary parliamentary matters,
that I am afraid we did not get to work with our
needles as early as we ought."
"No, and we haven't done any very remarkable
temperance work, either," said Mrs. Bogwell, more
in sorrow than in anger. " In fact, I may say we
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BRO WNINGTON. 27
have done none at all. And if I should tell the
whole truth, I am afraid I should be obliged to con-
fess, that we have done nothing at all, in any direc-
tion."
" I think we have accomplished something in the
literary line," remarked Mrs. Zenas Skinner, com-
placently.
"Well,/ don't!" exclaimed Mrs. Deacon Tucker,
sotto voce.
" I have done what I could during the winter to
keep up the credit of the society," resumed Mrs.
Bogwell, " and I must give Mrs. Watkins credit for
having done as much, if not more. Together, I
think we have given away at least a dozen pairs of
pants and seven or eight coats, not to mention frocks
for the children and underclothing. And this, too,
without interfering seriously with our literary duties
and privileges in this society. But we have not
done what we might have done, and ought to have
done, because we have allowed ourselves too many
parliamentary and intellectual distractions. As for
our temperance work, speaking for myself, I will say
that that, unlike my charity, has been home work.
I hesitate, of course, to speak of domestic matters in
a public place like this, and yet it may be some en-
couragement for the sisters to go and do likewise,
28 THE DOKCAS SOCIETY.
if I tell you that during the winter I have spilled
two barrels of cider and broken nine new bottles of
Granite and Rye Tonic Bitters. I have also given
my husband to understand that, if he does not wish
to begin the use of Dr. Grougham's Hair Restorer
before he is fifty years old, he must wear nothing
heavier than a handkerchief in his hat. I think he
understands me pretty well. And now, ladies, I
have told you the practical work I have been en-
gaged in during the winter. My only regret is that
I have allowed the Dorcas Society to hamper my
usefulness, and in order that it may do so in the
future no more, I hereby tender my resignation from
its membership, to take effect at the present moment.
I wish you all good afternoon, ladies, and a pleasant
parliamentary session."
So saying, Mrs. Bogwell marched out of the room,
got her shawl and bonnet, and went home.
" I should also like to resign," said Mrs. Watkins,
rising as Mrs. Bogwell left the room. "And me
too ! and me too ! " exclaimed six or seven
ladies in different parts of the room.
" I hope, ladies," said Mrs. Deacon Tucker, with
evident anxiety, "that you won't all leave before
refreshments." At this, several of the ladies, who
had risen to their feet, sat down again.
THE DORCAS SOCIETY OF BROWNINGTON. 29
" There seems to be a general desire on the part
of the members of the Dorcas Society," said Mrs.
President Crane, " to resign the benevolent work for
which we have organized ourselves, and pursue our
charities and philanthropies individually instead of
corporally." (Here Mrs. Skinner stopped writing,
and looked at the president with intense admira-
tion). "Such being the case, and the severe wea-
ther being now past "
"And house cleaning at hand," suggested Mrs.
Watkins.
. " True and house cleaning being at hand, I would
suggest that we not exactly break up, but adjourn
sine die."
" Second the motion ! " exclaimid ten or twelve
voices.
" It isn't a motion ! " cried the president, excit-
edly. " It would not be parliamentary for. the pre-
siding officer to make a motion."
"Well, then, /make it!" exclaimed one of the
malcontents.
"And I second it!" said Mrs. Watkins, with de-
cided emphasis.
"It is moved and seconded," said Mrs. President
Crane, "that the Dorcas Society of Brownington
adjourn sine die. All who will so order say aye."
30 THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
" Hold on a minute ! " cried Mrs. Deacon Tucker.
" What does sine die mean ? "
" Without a day," replied Mrs. President Crane.
" I move that the motion be amended to read 4 or
night either,' " said Mrs'. Watkins. " We want to fix
things so that we can't get together again on any
pretext."
" I accept the amendment ! " cried the lady who
had made the motion.
" Very well," said Mrs. President Crane. " It is
moved that the Dorcas Society of Brownington,
adjourn without day, or night either. All those in
favor will say aye."
"AYE!"
" Contrary minded, no."
" No ! " said Secretary Skinner.
"The ayes have it, and the society will adjourn
without day, or night."
"And now, ladies," cried Mrs. Deacon Tucker,
" if you will all adjourn to the dining-room "
" One moment, please ! " It was Secretary Skin-
ner, who had risen with a sheet of foolscap in her
hand. " My husband said he thought like as not
we would break up inside of two weeks, and one
evening, while I was writing up the records and he
was rocking the baby and mending his stockings, he
DOECAS SOCIETY 01* EKOWNItfGtOtf. 31
said that a little piece of poetry had popped into
his mind, which he would like to have me set down
and read to the society when it 'collapsed.' I
promised that I would, and here it is,
'EPITAPH FOB THE DORCAS SOCIETY.
'Here lies the Brownington Dorcas Society ;
It's life was a fraud, it's death a propriety.' ''
CAMPING.
SUMMER is the season of the year when people go
camping at least, some people do^ mostly those
who have never been before.
The typical camp is pretty familiar to the general
reader. It consists mainly of a tent, a couple of,
blankets, a hole in the ground and a dog. The tent
is used to swelter in until it rains, and then it is the
best place on the premises for anybody who wants
to get wet. The blankets are intended for slumber-
ing purposes; but after the first night they are
generally required to keep the rain out of the meal,
and the bugs out of the sugar.
The hole in the ground is the kitchen. The cook-
ing is done there. The cooking is a good deal like
the hole. No particular use has ever been discov-
ered for the dog. But he is always there. He
makes himself useful, mainly, in eating up the lard
and tipping over the milk-pail. These are the only
refreshments that he ever has. His favorite occupa-
tion in the night is to sit close by the tent door,
with his mouth open, and keep the moon off.
32
CAMPING. 33
We forgot to mention the campers. These are
usually male and female either or both. They
wear blue flannel day and night, and have sun-
burned noses. They are generally better fed than
the dog, and not quite so lean. They live on what-
ever the cook gets up for them. Sometimes, he only
gets up early in the morning. Then the campers
are very indignant because he did not let them
know that the provisions were out.
The cook can alwa} r s be distinguished from the
rest of the party by the crock on his nose and the
way he skulks about among the trees. He and
the dog are generally the most cordial enemies.
This is not healthy for the dog; but he can't
help it.
Camping parties usually remain out until the first
or second rain. Some of them stand it a week. A
good deal depends on the cook. Most cooks can
break up the longest-winded camping-party inside of
ten days. Some can-do it in a day.
The time in camp is usually spent in various
ways. Some go a-fishing. But as those who catch
the fish are expected to clean them, this sport is not
considered very exciting.
The best fun is boating without fishing, and
bathing. Most campers' boats furnish bathing and
84 CAMPING.
"' ^ % ''
boating facilities at the same time. This is very
convenient for those who are too lazy to undress.
The generality of campers are desperately lazy.
Their food has something to do with it. Where
there are males and females, the bathing has to
be done in bathing suits. This is very amusing,
because you can never tell whether a camper is
going bathing, or going out under the trees to write
poetry. The bathing-suit and the camping-suit are
just alike.
As a rule, nobody ever falls in love while out
camping. This is what makes mixed parties so safe.
It looks awfully dangerous in theory, but when it
comes to practice, there isn't anything dangerous
about it. A creature who is perfectly lovely in a
ball-dress, can't smite worth a cent in a blue flannel
blouse, with a man's big straw hat tied down over
her ears, and the skin peeling off the end of her
nose. She's just a jolly little insignificant camper
that's all. Nobody thinks of falling in love with
a camper.
And as for the males why, all you need is to
just see one of them. You would think they were
all looking for a job on the railroad. They wouldn't
be allowed to walk single file with a squad of
tramps. Camps are great places to cure love, too.
If thg young man who goes away to a foreign land
with a broken heart, trying to forget her trying in
vain, while his heart-strings ache^ and his appetite
dwindles down to a fine point if this poor love-
sick young man could only camp for a week in
a party with his dear idol, he would come home
with an enormous hankering for roast-beef, and a
big comfortable patch of contentment on his broken
heart. Lots of married people have come mighty
near curing their love in camp. It's a risky experi-
ment, and all true lovers will be wisely advised to
fight shy of it.
If there is any day in 'camp which stands out in
the memory of the happy tenters with peculiar
delightfulness and brightness, it is breaking-up day.
Oh, how glad they all are to start for home ! Not
that they haven't had a pleasant time far from
that ; but, after all, the chief charm of getting away
anywhere is getting back again, you know. And
then, think of a real cooked dinner, on a real table,
without bugs ! It is enough to make the most
bigoted camper lick his chops and relent. The
happiest member of the party, when the tent comes
down and goes into the bag, is the dog. The next
happiest is the cook.
Away goes the merry crowd in the lumber-wagon,
36 THE BABY IK THE CAB.
singing "Home, Sweet Home" as if their hearts
would burst. The dog gambols alongside ; the
driver shouts and cracks his whip; the children
laugh and whistle; and nothing appears to look
very sad, except the face of the farmer of whom they
have bought eggs and milk, and the big hole where
the cook has crocked his nose and vented his long-
dormant profanity.
THE BABY IN THE CAE.
" AH-AH-AH-AH w-a-g-h ! "
There is a baby in the car !
The old gentleman on the fifth seat, front, turns
around with the slow exasperation of age, arid fixes
his filmy eyes full upon the scarlet face of the
infant. His thin lips are slightly parted, and an
expression of the most intense disgust is stamped
upon his parchment-colored features.
" Uh-uh-uh-uh a-h a-h-h ! "
Two drummers spread out their overcoats,
satchels and newspapers over a section of six
seats on the pleasant side of the car, and dis-
appear across the platform, holding tightty to their
hats in the fierce wind.
THE BABY IN THE CAB. 37
Aha-aha-aha a-h-h I " .
" Drat the baby ! Can't you keep it still ? " asks
the man in the second seat, front, as he throws
down his paper in a badly-rumpled condition, and
paces nervously back and forth, with his hands in
his pockets, between his seat and that occupied by
the infant aiid its mother.
" Sh-sh there there ! " croons the poor woman,
holding the baby close to her bosom, and rocking
back arid forth : " There, there coo, coo."
" W-a-g-h w-a-g-h ! "
There is an old maid sitting eight seats in advance,
on the opposite side of the car. Until now she has
maintained a profile like a sphynx, as her stony eyes
ran to and fro across the lines of a railroad library
edition of the " History of the Nineteenth Century."
Suddenly, she drops the book in her lap, and, turn-
ing sharply about, fixes her cold, stern gaze, not
upon the infant's suffused puff-ball, but upon the
pale, weary face of the mother.
There are volumes in that gaze ! Were it to be
translated into full and adequate language, it could
not be contained in nine portly folios of solid agate
type. All the bitterness and the sweetness of single
blessedness ; all the phariseeism of self-righteous
irresponsibility ; all the indignation of comfort-
38 THE BABY IN THE CAB.
able independence disturbed by the what-might-
have-been-expected result of weak * sentimentality ;
all the chanticleer-like exultation of triumphant
Mary- Walker-ism ; all the meek mulishness of
smoo th-haired, I-told-you-so, got - the - mittenedness.
She looks straight at the faded-out little woman
with the blooming infant, and the steel bows of
her spectacles bristle with steel glances, like a
couple of quivers full of barbed arrows.
" That woman ought to be ashamed of herself ! "
Then one of the drummers returned with an
orange, which he put into the chubby hands of
the infant.
A look of utter astonishment passed into the
small face, transforming a woful grimace into an
expression half-way between a peach and a twinge
of the colic. A solitary tear, which had been evolved
during the spasm of lamentation, trickled down the
puffy cheek, and the little nose was already twisted
with the approach of another cyclone of grief. But
the orange prevailed. A gleam of unutterable satis-
faction fell upon the mournful territory of the tear
like a sunbeam on a rainy landscape and the
baby laughed !
Then there was great rejoicing in the car. The
old gentleman went peacefully to sleep ; the bust-
AMATEUR JUMPING. 39
ness man resumed his paper ; the old maid returned
to the "Nineteenth Century"; and the drummer took
the six reserved seats, with the blessings of all the
passengers on his head.
AMATEUR JUMPING.
ONE day last week I sat on the piazza of a small
summer hotel that stood within a few rods of the
railroad station. It was a very hot afternoon, and I
had almost dropped off to sleep, when I was aroused
by the shriek and rumble of the approaching
through express. I knew that the train would pass
the station like lightning, and would probably bring
with it a small but very grateful hurricane of cool
air ; so I straightened up in my chair, took off my
hat, and prepared to enjoy the momentary relief.
With a prolonged, ear-piercing scream, the loco-
motive dashed into sight, and behind it came the
rocking, dust-enveloped train. As the coaches
flashed by in front of me, I was amazed to see
through the cloud of dust, a man standing on the
lower step of one of the platforms, clinging with his
left hand to the iron railing, and with one foot
advanced, as though about to step off. Could it be
40 AMATEUR JUMPING.
possible that he was going to try to jump from a
train going at such terrific speed ?
What I beheld, and am about to relate, was all
transferred to my brain by nature's instantaneous
photography in about two shakes of a meteor's tail.
When the man reached the platform of the station,
he stepped off or at least he thought he did. It
was probably the longest step he ever took in his
life, unless he was a married man and I don't
believe a married man would be such a fool. The
place where this man intended to step was doubt*
less a very good place to do such a thing ; the only
objection to it was, it didn't come to time as
promptly as he expected. About ten yards farther
down the platform was another good place to step
which the man had not seen beforehand, and he
stepped there. The instant he touched the plat-
form and let go the train he seemed to be struck by
a sudden idea, and that idea seemed to be that he
had a very important engagement with a man, in the
direction in which he was going. I never saw any-
body in quite so much of a hurry in my life. He
was in such a hurry that he couldn't stop to go
afoot. The first thing that he did was to come
down slap on his face with a cold, clammy thud, like
a second-breakfast slapjack on a frozen plate. But
AMATEUR JUMPING. 41
before you could say Jack Robinson, he had taken a
couple of summersaults over a box of store crackers,
and knocked a pile of hides to Plutoville, and gone.
Then, leaving the hides to take care of themselves,
he slid for about fifteen feet on that portion of his
nether garments where the tailor wastes the most
cloth, went through one of the wheels of a horse-
rake, leaving four of his front teeth for the rent of
his coat, and imprinting a deep phrenological
impression upon a bale of hay, stood on his shoul-
ders against a barrel of pork long enough to let his
watch drop out and smash. He then rolled over
five or six times, scratched off all the pleasant
expression of his face on a lot of iron scraps, slid
over a set of scales without stopping to be
weighed, and brought up square against a shed at
the other end of the platform with a bang that
could be heard for a quarter of a mile.
I supposed, of course, that the man was dead, and
rushing into the hotel ordered, at the top of my
voice, "A coroner for one ! " As I came out again,
however, I was horrified to see the corpse sitting up,
rubbing its elbows, and spitting blood. I went over
as quick as I could, and asked the man if he felt bad
anywhere. He said he guessed he did, but couldn't
tell exactly where. Then I asked him if I coul$
42 AMATEUR JUMPING.
help him to hunt up his teeth, or be of assistance in
any other way. He said if I would tell him the
time of day, and where he was, he believed he could
dispense with my services without dying of grief.
Just then the landlord appeared upon the scene, and
he and I picked up the man and carried him over to
the hotel. He remarked on the way that he would
walk if it were not for the condition of his trousers,
but he was afraid he had been sitting down some-
where against the grain. He wanted to know if he
had been asleep, or what was the matter with him.
I told him I guessed he hadn't been asleep, for I
didn't see how a man could be as lively as he had
been for the past few seconds and get much rest.
We took the unfortunate creature into the hotel,
and the landlord wanted him to register, but I sug-
gested that we had better put him to bed, and give
him a chance to rest and reflect a little. I sat down
beside him, and was just getting him into a cheerful
frame of mind, when it transpired from a statement
of mine, that the station where he got off was
Jones ville. **>
" Good heavens ! " he exclaimed, " the place
where I wanted to stop was Robinsontown ? "
" That's four miles farther down the road," said
I, " and the train stops there for wood and water."
ABOUT WEATHER-PROPHETS.
THE prophet is not
an extinct bird,
neither is it one which
has but just chipped
the shell of evolution,
in these later days.
There have been
prophets in all ages.
As long ago as the
very venerable an-
cients wrote in pon-
derous prose and inter-
minable hexameters,
there were prophets oracles they called them
who sat on three-legged milking stools and delivered,
after much coaxing, such dark sayings that people
could never tell whether they came true or not.
(This, by the way, is the crowning attainment of
the accomplished prophet ? to say things in such
a way that nobody can tell, in the end, whether he
44 ABOUT WEATHER PROPHETS.
is right or not. This is where weather-prophets
fail.)
But what is a weather-prophet ?
A weather-prophet is a prophet who thinks that he
has got the bulge on the weather, vulgarly speaking.
He doesn't sit on a Jhree-legged stool, and he doesn't
deliver dark sayings; but nevertheless he is a prophet.
His way of doing things is somewhat like this : He
takes a little notebook and he makes a little record
of the weather for, say, six months this day
pleasant, this day beautiful, this day fair, this day
clouded, this day drizzly, this day rain, snow, slush,
blizzard, storm, red-hot, blazing, etc. Then he turnb
his pencil upside down, in the winter, and says,
" Well, here's a lot of spring days in this column.
Spring is coming. Now I will choose, say, the
the eleventh of next March for my key-day. I will
shut my eyes, swing my pencil in a circle three times,
and then jab down with it. Where the butt rests,
that is to be the weather for that day."
He shuts his eyes and jabs. When lifting the
reversed end of the pencil, he reads,
" Great storm to-day. Lots of clothes lines
stripped."
" Very good," he says ; " storm it is ; but it
mustn't be a local storm. That won't pay. I guess
ABOUT "VPEAfHER-PKOPHEl 1 S. 45
I will put it into the papers, ' Great, destructive
storm along the whole coast and inland. People
who have ships and clothes out will do well to buy
one of my almanacs, and then they will know exactly
when to take 'em in.' '
This is the way the weather-prophet gets the bulge
on the weather. It doesn't make any difference to him
whether the storm comes or not, he has sold just so
many almanacs, and his pockets stick out for fatness.
Well, now, suppose that the weather-prophet,
instead of being bogus, was a true prophet. Sup-
pose he sat on a three-legged stool ; suppose he said
things darkly, in this wise : " For the middle States
fair weather, with local rains, northwest to southeast
winds, and rising or falling barometer."
He would be a genuine oracle, but he wouldn't
sell many almanacs. No ; what the people want is
a man with a very large bump of veracity on the
same side with a very large cheek. They don't care
a shuck what the weather turns out to be they
want a man that knows all about it beforehand.
There is all the difference in the world > bet ween a
natural prognosticator of the weather and a profes-
sional weather-prophet. The former only guesses
what the weather is going to be to-morrow any-
body can do that ; the latter knows just what it is
46 AfcOtJT WEATflEB PKOPHETS.
going to be six weeks hence. The people will jpay
liberally for this kind of knowledge.
It is worth something to know when we are going
to have a big storm, whether it comes or not. Tut!
these little shotgun guessers aren't the fellows we
want to hear from.
Give us a long-range, infallible, rifle-barrelled
prophet, who scorns to scatter small conjectures over
large targets at short distances, but is always
ready to project a single, compact dictum over vast
meteorological ranges at barely distinguishable
possibilities.
Give us a Vennor or a Wiggins, and a small boy
to sit behind the target and put in fresh bull's-eyes
at every shot.
Your meteorological priests, seers, oracles, sitting
on their three-legged stools and delivering doubtful
opinions, are well enough ; but after all they are
pretty small fry compared with a pope of the weather
like Wiggins. O Wiggins ! thou dost understand
the meteorological mystery ! Thou hast the key of
the weather, and dost understand the combination
lock thereof.
Immortal Wiggins ! What was the oracle at
Delphi to thee? Thou dost not instruct by omens of
wings and entrails. Thou sayest point-blank,
ABOUT WEATHER-PROPHETS. 47
" TJiere will be a great storm," and' a great storm
is not.
Divine vaticination ! Would that all men were *
weather-prophets! Smith, Jones, Robinson pub-
lish an almanac. I have told you how the thing is
done. Go in, and lard those thin pockets of yours
with some fat buzzard dollars. You must go Wig-
gins one better, of course. You must announce that
on, well, say the sixteenth of June, there will come
a red-hot trade wind out of the south, trimmed on
the west edge with cyclones and on the northeast
corner with a Minnesota blizzard, and lay every crop
flatter than a fence-rail and shrivel it worse than a
mother-in-law's grandmother, while every lake and
pond and river in the United States will dry in its
bed, and the whole country will smell like one
perpetual Friday.
If Wiggins has made fifty thousand dollars out of
his almanacs, you will easily make a million. All it
needs is an old maid's diary, a sheet of foolscap
paper, and a stub pencil.
It is a shame that the little Dominion of Canada
should hold a monopoly on this lucrative recreation.
Let the Great American Weather-Prophet arise.
48 HOW SAM PENNELL BAN AWAY.
HOW SAM PENNELL EAN AWAY.
" SAM PENNELL, hold out your hand ! "
The pretty school ma'am was pale but firm, and
when Sam Pennell clutched his hands defiantly be-
hind him, she seized one arm in a quick, strong
grasp, drew the doubled-up fist toward her and
rapped the knuckles so sharply with the ruler that
Sam howled with pain and spread out his palm.
"That will do," said Miss Howe. "You may
take your seat."
Instead of taking his seat, Sam Pennell, with the
hot tears scorching his eyes and a flaming of soul
that seemed as though it would burn through his
jacket, bolted for the door, slammed it in the
teacher's face, and started hatless across the fields
toward the woods. It was his first punishment be-
fore the school, and it seemed more than he could
stand, "I'll never go back now," he sobbed con-
vulsively. " If they try to make me, I'll run away."
He lay down under the shade of the cool woods
and cried until his fountain of tears was dry. The
leaves made a pleasant sound in the wind, the birds
sang softly, and before Sam knew it, worn out by
his emotions, he had fallen asleep. It was nearly
HOW SAM fEKNELL RAtt AWAY. 43
mid-afternoon when he awoke. At first, he was
utterly bewildered. Then the circumstances of the
morning came rushing back in a bitter tide, and he
realized that he was in some sense an outlaw and a
fugitive from justice. " I'll go home, anyway," he
said to himself, " and see what the folks say. Per-
haps they haven't heard anything about it. Besides,
I'm awfully hungry."
A few minutes later, a hatless, tear-stainec? little
fellow crept into the shed of Farmer Pennell's
rambling old house. The kitchen door was open,
and Sam stuck in his head, and looked around.
" That you, Sam Pennell ? " came a sharp voice
from the "buttry." "It's good you've got home.
Your father's out in the medder back of the barn,
and wants to see you. No, sir, you don't get any
dinner to-day."
So Cousin Bets had told on him. Sam more
than half expected it. Bets didn't like Sam very
well. Big girl cousins seldom do like little boy
cousins and often with very good reason.
Poor, hungry Sam slinked out into the orchard.
The invitation to meet his father in the " medder"
he understood perfectly well. He had kept such
engagements before, and always regretted it. Be-
sides, pirouetting in front of a strap on an empty
60 HOW SAM PENMLL RAN AWAY.
stomach was too exhausting to be thought of. His
mind was made up in a moment. He would run
away from Woodsville and go to the city. There he
would rapidly become rich, would be nominated as
candidate for the Presidency of the United States
and be elected by a rousing majority. His first
official act \would be to banish the pretty school
teacher and order out the State militia to raze the
schoolhouse to the ground. He would then heap
coals of fire upon his father's head by making him
minister to England. Sam's programme was made
out in a flash. All that remained to do was to put
it into execution.
Stuffing his pockets with apples, he climbed the
fence and started for the railroad track, carefully
keeping a row of elms between himself and the
meadow back of the barn. '-The dear old house-dog,
half blind with age, came nosing along his track.
Sam hung around the old fellow's neck for a min-
ute, kissed him on the curly head, and then with an
aching heart drove him back to the house.
A freight train was just passing when Sam
reached the railroad. The locomotive was puffing-
up-grade very slowly, and Sam waited until the last
freight car came along, when he made a spurt as fast
as his short legs could carry him, caught hold of the
BOW SAM PEtf NELL flAN AWAY. 51
climbing-irons, and swuiig himself up. As the hat-
less yellow head appeared over the top of the car,
a brakeman sang out : "Hi, young man I The In-
ter-State Commerce law's gone into operation."
"What's that?" piped back Sam, breathlessly,
seating himself on the end of the car.
"No more free ri3.es for directors."
"But I ain't a director," objected Sam*
"Then you must be the president ?"
" No, not yet," replied Sam modestly, " but I ex-
pect to be. That's what I am going to the city
for."
" Well, I rather like your cheek ! " exclaimed the
brakeman, sitting down beside Sam, " and I guess I
won't put you off till we side-track, anyway. What
are you doing running away ?"
" I suppose I am," replied Sam, sadly.
"Where do you live?"
" In that house over yonder. That's father out in
the medder, on the load of hay."
"What's the difficulty between you arid the old
gentleman incompatibility of temperament?"
Sam looked up in astonishment. Even the pretty
schoolma'am had never used such big words. "No,"
he answered, respectfully, " It isn't so bad as that.
It's nothing but a strap.' '
52 SOW SAM%EtfKLL RAN AWA.
"Oh?" exclaimed the brakeman, laughing, "I
have heard of such cases before. Now, young man,
if my advice is worth anything, you will go back to
the strap just as soon as you can get off this train
Without breaking your neck. There's another up-
grade just beyond Perryville Station, where you
can drop off, apples and all, and I won't charge you
a cent for helping you. I'm one of the strap boys
myself, and I tell you it felt mighty nice after I had
been away from home for about six weeks."
" Did you run away ? " asked Sam, offering the
brakeman an apple.
" Yes> I did ; and I was better off than you are,
too for I had a hat."
" What did you do when you got to the city ? "
persisted Sam, with intense interest.
" I got a first-class job at starving, that lasted me
as long as I was willing to keep the place. Did you
ever try starving ? "
"I I begin to feel a little that way now,"
admitted Sam, seriously.
" Well, you will feel more so the further you
travel away from the strap take my word for
that. What did you expect to do in the city,
anyway ? "
Sam began to waver a little. "I I expected to
HOW SAM FENNEL EAN AWAY. 53
make lots of money, and get to be President of the
United States."
"That's all?"
" Y-e-s."
" You are too modest by half. Most fellows want
to be errand boys, at twenty -five cents a day, and
sleep in a box -that is, after they get to the city.
But very few of them succeed to that extent."
Sam. dropped his apple, and sat buried in deep
thought for several minutes. Finally, he looked
up and asked : " How far are we from the up-
grade ? "
" About a mile. Here's the station."
"Well," said Sam, "I've about made up my mind
to get off. You haven't got an old musty slice of
bread, or a hard doughnut, have you ? "
"No," laughed the brakeman, "but I've got some
boss sandwiches and gingerbread in my pail. Sit
still, and hang on tight." The brakeman ran for-
ward to the locomotive, and presently returned
with a big slice of gingerbread and two sandwiches.
" Give me your apples." he said, "and put these in
your pocket. Here is the up-grade. Good by.
Mind my word, and stick by the strap."
Late in the evening, Sam Pennell put in an ap-
pearance at the old farmhouse. As he stuck his
54 A MIXED AFFAIR.
curly head in at the kitchen door, a pair of warm,
motherly arms went around his neck, and a
trembling voice exclaimed : " Sam Pennell, you
don't know how you frightened me, and your
father's most wild. He's out in the woods with a
lantern, now. You poor, hungry child ! There, sit
down and eat, while I blow the horn."
A MIXED AFFAIR.
THE Vanderbilt Ball was a thing of the past, so
far as the ball itself was concerned ; but the papers
"were full of it, and everybody was talking about
it, and even the ministers were preaching about
it; so what wonder that it was the topic of con-
versation at the Foggett tea-table that Monday
evening? Mr. Foggett sat on one side of the
little snowy-covered table, and Mrs. Foggett sat
on the side, and the baby sat at the end if a
round table can be said to have an end.
They were eating and drinking very daintily out
of very dainty dishes, as young married people are
apt to ; and the baby, tied with a towel into his
high-chair, was beating the table with his rattle,
A MIXED AFFAIR. 55
and celebrating his own Barmecide feast in the
old immemorial way.
" Cuthbert, love," said Mrs. Foggett : don't you
think hush,- Cubbie, hush ! shh ! don't you
think it would be nice to celebrate the second
anniversary of our marriage by a little company
of some sort? For instance, we might invite all
our young married friends to come and spend
the evening with us a company of young mar-
ried people, exclusively."
"But what would they do with their babies?"
asked Mr. Foggett, dubiously. " You don't suppose
they'd go out for all of four hours, both of 'em,
do you, and leave their babies all alone with the
servants ? Not much ! eh, Cubbie ? "
" That's so," assented Mrs. Foggett, thoughtfully.
" But look here, Cuthbert ! why couldn't we have it
early, five o'clock, say, and invite them to bring
their babies with them ? Wouldn't that be nice. A
real young people's party, with their babies ; do let's
have it, Cuthbert!,"
" Well, my dear, we will, if you say so," replied
Mr. Foggett. " Let's see, Thursday's the day, isn't
it ? Well, you go to work and make out your invi-
tations to-day, and I'll deliver 'em to-morrow, and
see about the refreshments and things. Is it a
bargain ? "
56 A MIXED AFFAIB. -
: The bargain was made, and on Tuesday afternoon
Mr. Foggett took a small pasteboard box under his
arm, and walked briskly about town for two hours
and a half, delivering some forty invitations, which
read as follows :
" Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbert F. Foggett request the
presence of yourself and husband and baby, on the
occasion of the second anniversary of their mar-
riage, next Thursday eve, at five o'clock. Be sure
and bring the baby."
The cards, of course, were delivered only to those
young married people whom the italicized clauses
concerned. If it was to be a baby party in idea,
why of course it wouldn't do to have any couples
there unprovided with credentials. It would be
embarrassing for them.
The eventful evening came, and Mr. Foggett hur-
ried home early from business. He found the house
in a state of dazzling attractiveness and expectation.
The very statuettes seemed to lean forward eagerly
on their pedestals, to listen for the hesitating foot-
step of the first guest, and the hot-house flowers
seemed to throb and perspire with a sort of hot-
blooded fragrance, like a girl when she gives her
first ball, and waits, all on fire with eagerness, the
coming of the gay throng, At five o'clock, Mr,
A MIXED AFFAIR. 5T
Foggett and Mrs. Foggett and Cubbie were all down
in the parlor, dressed in holiday costume.
Cubbie sat up in his high chair, as usual, and
sucked his fist and pounded with his rattle, as
unconcernedly as though nothing in the world was
<going to happen. He was mightily tickled at the
display of flowers, and expressed himself to that
effect in a long infantile monologue, the burden of
which appeared to be the repetition of two favorite
adjectives, " goo-goo " and " gur-gur." His remarks
were also emphasized by hasty gestures with his
damp fist, and by forcible thumping of his high
chair with the rattle.
" Oh, dear ! here they come ! " exclaimed Mrs.
Foggett, all in a flutter, looking out at the window ;
"a lot of 'em, all together." Sure enough, some ten
couples were seen marching in at the gate and up the
walk, each gentleman with a baby in his arms.
They rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Foggett tripped
out to let them in. Such a merry outcry as arose
when the door opened, and they all trooped in with
their babies !
" Come right in this way, gentlemen, please, with
the babies ; ladies, upstairs, first door to the right."
The ladies went rustling and chattering upstairs,
and the gentlemen followed Mrs. Foggett into the
58 A MIXED AFFAIR.
spare room, where a great wide bed, with an immac-
ulate counterpane and no pillows, had been provided
for the reception of the infants.
" Put the babies on the bed," chirped Mrs. Fog-
gett, merrily ; " and step just across the hall into the
other room and lay off your hats and overshoes."
Now, if it had been a lot of women, do you sup-
pose they would unhesitatingly have placed those ten
similarly dressed and dangerously interchangeable
infants promiscuously upon one bed? I trow not.
But when did a man ever have any common sense
in strictly domestic matters, anyway ? Not one of
those men stopped to reflect that the infant he car-
ried in his arms had not yet reached the age when
the principle of variation begins to take effect in
the human 'species; and poor bewildered, excited
little Mrs. Foggett, how should she think of the
consequences which might ensue? Cubbie wasn't
there !
The ten men deposited their ten hopefuls on the
big bed, in the best of innocent faith, and then
stepped across the hall to lay aside their outer gar-
ments and prink up a little for the parlor. They
finished their toilets, and stood conversing in little
groups, waiting for the ladies to come downstairs.
Meanwhile the babies, of course, began to explore
A MIXED AFFAIR. 59
the bed, and in the course of their peregrinations
they, very naturally, changed positions all around;
so that, of two babies originally at the foot of the
bed, one might now be at the head and the other one
somewhere near the middle. In due time, also
as might have been expected these youthful ex-
plorers inconvenienced one another somewhat in
their wanderings, and it was not long before a
chorus of doleful wails disturbed the perfumed quiet
of the house. In rushed the fathers, with the same
precipitancy with which their sex responds to any
alarm, from a baby's cry to a fire signal, and each
one caught up the infant which he supposed was his
own, and proceeded to administer the usual mas-
culine dose of comfort, a vigorous tossing up and
down in the air, and a series of expostulatory ex-
clamations and whistles : " There, there ! " " Papa's
boy, don't cry!" " Sh ! sh ! " The infection of
grief had, however, spread through the entire
infantile company, and with one accord they lifted
up their voices and wept vociferously. In the
midst of the hubbub, in fluttered the mothers.
Each one indignantly snatched the small bundle of
humanity from her lord, and hastened to apply the
superior assuaging power of a woman's sympathy.
But suddenly there was consternation.
60 A MIXED AFFAIR.
" This isn't my baby ! " exclaimed a little blonde
mother, holding out an unfortunate infant at arms'
length : " My baby had a little red ribbon and a
locket around its neck. Who's got my baby ? "
If a thunderbolt had fallen into the chimney of
the Foggett house, there couldn't have been more
ado! A baby with a ribbon around its neck was
finally passed up to the anxious little blonde, and
the unappropriated child was placed upon .the bed
for general inspection.
"I don't know whether this baby is mine or not!"
sobbed one poor little lady, fumbling the dress of
the infant she held: "It's crying so I can't tell.
All babies look alike when they're crying."
"I don't believe I've got the right one, either,"
faltered a girlish little mother, in a,broken voice:
"You look, Henry, and see."
Henry took the infant to the window, looked
down its throat, (which was about all there was to
be seen) pinched its cheek, and then remarked that
he'd be blamed if he could tell, but he guessed it
was all right. Meanwhile, all the babies kept up a
most doleful hullabaloo, increased, no doubt, by the
confusion and hubbub amongst their parents. Their
little red faces were all contorted past possible
recognition, and their little scarlet fists were beating
A MIXED AFFAIR. 61
and punching the heads of those who held them,
and were attempting to identify them, in the most
exasperating manner. To add to the confusion,
Master Cubbie, in the other room, must needs
contribute somewhat to the general hubbub ; and
finally that young gentleman wrought himself up to
such a pitch of frenzy, and kicked and squirmed so
vigorously, that he upset his frail basket-work tene-
ment, and " down came high-chair, Cubbie, and all,"
with a commotion that rose high above that of the
rest of the company, and drew poor little Mrs.
Foggett and big bewildered Mr. Foggett in haste to
his relief.
It would be simply impossible to describe ade-
quately the anguish of these unfortunate young
married people as the mystery deepened, and the
infants continued to masquerade under the facial
contortions of grief. One by one the doubting and
sobbing mothers placed the infant in their arms
among the "unidentified" on the bed, and buried
their faces on their husbands' bosoms.
New guests, meanwhile, arrived, bearing their
passports in their arms, and the confusion was in no
wise lessened by their frantic endeavors to find out
what the matter was. As fast as they were apprised,
however, it was Instructive to note how convulsively
62 A MIXED AFFAIR.
they clasped their own progeny to their bosoms, and
how assiduously they kept aloof from the chamber
of confusion.
Finally, when the tumult became unbearable, and
everybody present, including the babies, seemed to
be just trembling upon the verge of insanity, Mr.
Foggett mounted a chair and cried,
"Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen!
As this little post-Vanderbilt ball seems to be hardly
a success, except in one sense of the word, I shall
take the liberty of declaring you all excused. Let
each couple take a baby and carry it home. When
the babies all calm down, we shall, perhaps, be able
to tell to whom they belong, and then we will change
about, as we did with our college diplomas ! "
This little speech was iiot greeted with applause
heaven knows it 'was no time for that ! But,
what is more to the point, its sentiment was imme-
diately adopted. Each gentleman, under the tearful
direction of his wife, selected one of the assorted
infants, and sadly, two by two, the anniversary
guests took their departure in an incredibly brief
space of time. A succession of infantile wails was
heard, growing fainter and fainter as it passed down
the village street ; and finally the mournful sound
died away, and left the house to silence and to
Cubbie.
A MIXED AFFAIR. 63
Next day a provisional and secret exchange of
infants was made, and the day following there was
still another sifting of the sifted, until a measurable
degree of satisfaction was attained. Everything
was done by all concerned to keep the matter dark,
but, of course, it leaked out and became the town's
talk. But the worst of it is, that so many young
mothers should wet their pillows by night, and
yearn for the days of Solomon !
ON LUCK.
JOHNNY'S father told him to choose an abstract
subject for his next composition, and see if he
couldn't work in something original. Johnny chose
the theme " Luck," as being somewhat in the line of
his own reflection, and withal a word of only four
letters, which made it seem comparatively easy to
write upon. The following is the result of his
lucubrations. (We will say that Johnny is not
responsible for the spelling, which has been emended
for the convenience of the printer. Johnny himself
uses the J. Billings system).
" LUCK is of a great many different kinds, and I
never saw a fellow' yet that didn't have his share.
64 A MIXED AFFAIR.
Such as good luck, bad luck, hard luck, just-my4uck,
and several others, which I have not time to mention.
" Good luck is not very plenty. A fellow some-
times has a great streak of it, though, as when he gets
typhoid fever or pneumonia, and can't go to school.
" Bad luck grows everywhere, and a fellow doesn't
have to get over the fence to steal all he wants.
The worst luck I know anything about is to invite
your girl to go to a picnic, and then have to stay
home and take care of the baby. Besides, it is
tough on the baby.
" Hard luck is a good deal like bad luck, only
there is more of it lying around loose. It is hard
luck for a fellow to walk five miles to go skating,
and find that some other fellow has sawed it all up
to keep meat cold in summer with. But it is a good
deal harder luck still, to find this out after you have
got into the pond. I don't know as there is any
harder work than walking in frozen trousers.
"A good example of just-my-luck is having to
write this composition. Every fellow inust expect
to have a good deal of just-my-luck in life. That is
one of the things I don't understand why people
never have any luck except just their own. Nobody
ever gets a hold of anybody else's luck; and yet
every fellow is clean disgusted with what he, has.
Seems as though there is a great chance for black
swaps here.
"Please excuse my bow. I have got on a dude
collar."
SEASIDE LIFE.
FEOM A DECIDEDLY DISGRUNTLED STANDPOINT.
HIS is the seaside.
These animated barber-
poles, which you observe
laboring among the bil-
lows, or stretched ex-
hausted at full length
upon the sand, are bathers.
Yonder you see two of
them bobbing up and down
at the end of a long rope.
They are a male and a female bather. Presently
the female bather will give a terrible scream, throw
up her hands, and drift out to. sea. She will be try-
ing to play off the " Save me ! save me ! " dodge on
the young man with the variegated suit.
But she will have reckoned rashly, for the young
man is not the inheritor of Captain Webb's mantle ;
neither is he very eager to marry the companion of
his watery gambols. He will straightway strike out
for shore, via the rope, yelling lustily for " help ! "
65
66 SEASIDE LIFE.
And by the time he is pulled up on the beack by
half-a-hundred of his brother and sister barber-poles,
and pounded and pumped and rolled in the sand,
and half-smothered in blankets, the unfortunate
female who trusted too fondly to his prowess and
devotion will be down among the fishes unless she
keeps on to Liverpool.
This? oh, no, this is not a rabbit-hutch ; it is a
bathing-house.
This is the bathing-house which was occupied by
the young lady who went out to sea.
You may enter the mournful place if you can.
It will be a long time before she will need it again.
It seems almost like sacrilege to invade the silent
precincts.
These are her shoes. They are built very low in
front and very high behind, like a Dutch merchant-
man. They will never pain her more, nor cause her
little corns to throb, poor girl !
Those long pouches suspended from the eaves are
her stockings. They are silk, man black silk, and
cost seventy -five dollars.
The padding is of downiest cashmere wool, the em-
broidery is of old gold thread, the bindings are of satin.
Put them in your pocket. They will bring enough
to pay a day's board at the Grand Pavilion.
SEASIDE LIFE. 67
Alas, for the uncertainty of life and all its frail
possessions !
This large mound in the corner is her dress. Her
diamond rings are in the pocket ; but time flies and
search would be vain.
No man could find their hiding-pla<3e inside of
fifty-six hours.
What are you looking for ?
The mate to that whopper of a boxing-glove ?
Why, man ! that is not a boxing-glove. That is
her bustle.
Come away ! I hear her mother calling. Presently
she will have us >treed, unless we dust.
This is the hotel. Stand here at the corner of the
piazza and look down its long vista. What a show
of little ankles and dainty slippers ! You must know
that fashion culminates in foot-wear this season, or
else the dear creatures would not be so delightfully
vain.
The four hundred and ninety-eight odd slip-
pers which we at this moment gaze upon, should
their aggregate cost be computed, would probably
reach the pretty sum of sixty thousand dollars,
and the accompanying hose would not fall far
short.
Let us enter the large hall.
68
SEASIDE LIFE.
No, that is not an electric-light. It is the Alaska
diamond on the shirt-front of the urbane clerk.
He is expected to smoke fifty-cent cigars and look
grand. Occasionally he condescends to answer a
THE BABY AT THE TABLE. 69
question, if it comes from a millionaire or a member
of the presidential party. We may look at him,
but not long. Splendor is not good for the eyes.
Ah ! there is the gong for dinner.
We must not get caught inside the hotel after the
dining-room doors are opened, or we shall lose all
our money. Let us depart. Take care ! do not step
on those long-pointed things !
What are they ?
They are the toes of a dude's shoes. You will see
him coming in at the door presently. I declare ! it
is the young man who did not rescue the drowning
maiden.
How ruddy his cheeks are, after his sea-bath, and
he has got " a beastly appetite, y'knaouw." After
dinner he will smoke a prime cigar and flirt with one
of the owners of the pretty ankles on the front piazza.
Such is seaside life it would almost make me
willing to be a dude.
THE BABY AT THE TABLE.
The meeting was called to order at eight o'clock
A. M., with the baby in the chair. After rapping
the table violently to secure the attention of those
present, the chairman made a motion to upset the
70 THE BABY AT THE TABLE.
butter. The motion was seconded, but not in time,
and the butter was carried.
The minutes of the last meeting were then read
and disapproved. During the recital, the chairman
emphasized his displeasure by throwing a muffin at
the secretary. The report, however, was completed,
and the muffin laid on the table.
The regular business of the meeting was then
taken up. It was voted to allow the chairman a
glass of milk, a muffin, and a small piece of steak.
Exception being taken to the latter, it was allowed
to take the floor in its own defence". The chairman
demanded a larger piece, and, after fa brief consulta-
tion, the demand was granted.
The matter of a bib for the chairman having been
brought up by the discovery that that article had
been surreptitiously removed and deposited under
the table, the nurse was requested to replace the
same. The chairman objected, on the ground that
bibs were unnecessary and undignified. Objection
overruled, and bib replaced.
At this point the chairman called attention to a
large existing deficit in the supply of milk, and sug-
gested an assessment on the cream-pjtcher. It was
thought best, however, to supply the deficiency from
the diurnal endowment in the pantry, and the mat-
THE ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY. 71
ter was discussed in a very animated manner by the
chairman and several members of the convention.
The chairman's objection was finally overruled as a
veto for cream only, and the bill was passed.
On motion of the nurse, the chairman was tied
into his chair, to prevent his taking the floor a
very unparliamentary proceeding. Upon discover-
ing this piece of strategy on the part of the opposi-
tion, the chairman was very indignant, and objected
with such force and vehemence that his countenance
became fairly florid. While emphasizing his remarks
by successive gestures, he removed the cutlery, crock-
ery, and glassware from his immediate vicinity, and
drew a large section of the tablecloth into his lap.
A motion to adjourn was hastily made by the
nurse, and was participated in by the chairman.
The meeting, being thus left without a quorum, was
declared adjourned by the secretary, subject to the
call of the chairman.
THE ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY.
FEW people seem to appreciate the advantages of
poverty. Perhaps this is because so many people
are poor. At all events, you seldom see a man who
really enjoys dodging his creditors, or wearing old
72 THE ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY.
clothes, or eating corned-beef. Occasionally you do
meet such a man, but it is generally in jail.
Poverty is not a beautiful thing to look at that
is, close to. But a man can stand a good way off
from it, with his hands in his pockets, and discover
a great many attractive features about the thing.
In the first place, poverty makes a man industrious
very industrious, sometimes and, according to
the great majority of people who write essays on in-
dustry, there are few things more desirable in this
world.
I must admit that nothing makes a more pleasing
impression upon my mind than to see a fellow-being
engaged in labor. It is a beautiful sight, I can sit
for hours wondering why blind prejudice prevents
that man from seeing that he is one of the most
highly blessed and fortunate of human creatures.
Ah, industry is a great virtue, a great blessing, an
inestimable privilege ! It is one of the shining ad-
vantages of poverty, without which the state of the
impecunious would be pitiful indeed.
A tramp asleep in an orchard, with his pockets full
of pears, and the soft light of the summer afternoon
dancing, with the breeze-stirred leaves, upon his
somewhat bronzed and peaceful countenance, may be
more ideally picturesque than the horny-handed far-
THE ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY. 73
m<er bending over and gathering potato-bugs in a
four-quart pail ; but he is not half so beautiful in the
eyes of the moralist and the political economist.
Yes, my friends, industry is a great virtue and a
great advantage, which can only be enjoyed and ex-
emplified to the full by the man who is so poor that
he can't help it.
Then, again, poverty makes a man brave. This is
a great advantage, when provisions are scarce and
the way to the hen-roost lies through the jaws of the
bull-dog. The negro exemplifies this virtue, per-
haps, better than any other chronic pauper. Many
generations of poverty have bred bravery in him, as
patriotism bred fortitude in the Spartans. Talk
about courage nothing makes a man so thoroughly
brave as hunger, and nothing makes a man so hungry
as poverty.
Note, also, as one of the advantages of poverty,
the tendency to economy. Economy is a big thing.
The man who saves two dollars a year by picking up
his own cigar-stubs and smoking them, instead of
buying cigars at the drug-store, is a great man, and
if he lives long enough he will probably make his
mark in the world, with the help of the sexton. I
do admire economy ; it is a manly virtue, and
nothing fosters its growth like poverty.
74 THE ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY.
It is economy which prompts the poor man to get
along without a doctor ; and then, you see, he only
has to pay the undertaker. Economy encourages
the manufacture of paper-collars, and helps to keep
the misguided Chinamen out of this country. It is
economy which enables one pair of trousers to ac-
commodate two generations, and inspires women to be
barbers in their own families, thus embittering the
spirit of childhood and ruining love's fair young
dream in the green-apple season of life.
But the greatest of all the advantages of poverty
is that it inspires a man to be ambitious. It makes
him long for something better. Aspiration is the
noblest virtue to which the race is heir, and poverty
makes us all aspire to be rich. There are always
rounds upon which the poor man may climb ; but,
alas ! they are generally the rounds of the tax-collec-
tor. There is always room for him at the top in
the gallery of life's flitting show, as it were. On-
ward and upward is his motto an excellent motto
for a powder-mill, but a very poor one for a tread-
mill. And yet, so long as it helps the wheel around,
the world applauds, and the moralists and the
economists cry, " Well done ! "
THE SNOW-SHOE. 75
THE SNOW-SHOE.
THE snow-shoe has came to stay. I have a pair
of them in my closet now, that will stay there until
I get a chance to sell them. They cost me four
dollars and fifty cents, and I am in receipt of just
about twenty cents' worth of fun from them in-
three seasons. To be sure, that isn't the snow-
shoes' fault. Last year we had six inches of snow,
and the year before we didn't have any to speak
of. This year, I think, we shall have some along in
March perhaps enough to start the maple sap
running. *
I took my first tramp on snow-shoes when there
were six inches of snow on the ground. That was
last winter. I tramped down to the end of the gar-
den, and was transported with delight. I had no-
idea snow-shoeing was so easy. Before I started
back, being somewhat out of breath and a little lame
in the calves, I took off the snow-shoes and carried
them on my shoulder. If I was delighted at first, I
was enraptured then. I never realized before how
easy walking was.
I have experimented somewhat with snow-shoes,
and find that the best places to use them are on the
76 THE SNOW-SHOE.
solid ice, and in the middle of the road. I once be-
longed to our town snow-shoe club. When the boys
used to start out for a tramp, they always walked in
the hollow beside the road rather than climb fences.
One moonlight night I noticed it was pretty smooth
and nice up in the road, so I got up there. I was
surprised to find what an improvement it was, and I
called all the fellows up. We walked for quite a
distance there, and finally, I took my snow-shoes off,
and discovered that it was a great relief. I walked
along comfortably in my moccasins, and got about
two miles ahead of the club. Then I sat down
to wait. When the boys came up, they challenged
me to a race across the fields, home. I said : " All
right. Wait until I leave my snow-shoes in this
barn." I then got over the fence and ran through
the snow, reaching home about an hour and a quar-
ter ahead of the club. The next day I said:
" Boys, I must resign, unless you will let me join in
your tramps without the formality of snow-shoes."
They wouldn't do it ; so I resigned.
I have seen some races on snow-shoes, but I never
saw any such contest on the actual, unbeaten snow.
They always take place on the ice, or on a hard
track. I have often wondered why it would not do
just as well to tie a half-pound weight to each
THE SNOW-SHOE. 7T
man's foot, or else call it an obstruction race to
begin with?
I like to see a man with a pair of snow-shoes on,
getting over a fence. He approaches it as one-
would a long-lost friend, with arms outstretched, and
face wreathed in smiles. He grasps the top board
or rail, as the case may be, and elevates one of his
beautiful Chicago flats to the second board or rail
from the bottom. Then he tucks his snow-shoe as
far in as he can, pulls himself laboriously up, and
inserts C. flat number two. Now comes the tug-of-
war the grand pas de fascination. He is to get C.
flat number one over the top of the fence. He
nerves himself, sidles along a little, disengages flat
number one, turns the toe in, Indian fashion, exe-
cutes a grand upward flourish, misses his aim ! The
unwieldy snow-shoe comes back with a rush, snatches
the man from the fence, catches its tail in the snow,
involves man, Chicagos number two, snow-bank,
portions of fence, red mittens, and several other
things in a grand meUe of confusion, and finally
becomes the only prominent feature in the land-
scape, sticking up pathetically out of the snow. By
and by a hand comes up, a red mitten comes off,
there is a frantic struggle with the fastenings of the-
snow-shoe, and at last it drops off, and the victim
78 THE SNOW-SHOE.
rises from his snowy couch, very red in the face,
very white in the garments, and very blue in the
surrounding atmosphere. He then takes off the
other snow-shoe, and climbs over the fence in a civ-
ilized manner. This is a beautiful and very effect-
ive scene, when properly carried out.
But the snow-shoe is doubtless of practical value
on experienced feet. Some men get so that they
can walk three or four miles a day with these
impediments, and I once saw a hunter returning
from the woods, with no evidences on his person
of having fallen down, and carrying three rabbits in
his left hand. I approached to get a nearer view of
this prodigy, and discovered that he had a large
tin pan fastened to each foot.
A SWALLOW TALE.
THE HISTORY OF A TOPER.
HE toper is born,
not made. In this
respect he is a
good deal like
everybody else.
And yet, the fact
remains that not
everybody can be
a toper. This is
what is called a
paradox. Life is
a paradox.
I once knew a
toper. He was both born and made had been
completed for a good while when I first made his
acquaintance. He was serving, at the time, as
headlight on a freight engine. His nose could
be seen a mile and a half away, on a dark
night, and when newly kindled by a smoking hot
Scotch, would outshine the most powerful electric
79
80 A SWALLOW TALE.
light ever invented. His duty was to sit a-straddle
of the cowcatcher, just in front of the smokestack,
on engine No. 9, Boston night freight, and shine.
Thus he went flying through Vermont every night,
facing, sometimes, the balmy breezes from the mos-
quito swamps, and again the icy butt of the north
wind, as it came whistling back over the snowy fields ;
and thus I first saw him, on a chill November night,
as the freight stopped at a way station for wood and
water. I was astonished to see the dazzling head-
light suddenly develop a pair of legs and a couple of
arms, encased in a frosted ulster ; with which appen-
dages the aforesaid light made its way down to the
platform, and stamped into the waiting-room, yelling
at the top of an extraordinary pair of lungs,
" Hotter'n blazes V lemon-peel'ii' red pepper ! "
Whereupon a great bowl of steaming grog emerged
from an inner room in the hands of a very small and
very sleepy boy, and was promptly put under shelter
by the animated headlight. While I was recovering
from my intense amazement, the bell of the engine
rang, and my friend with the glowing nose mounted
again to his icy perch, illuminating the dreary land-
scape, as the train pulled out into the fields, scatter-
ing the palest of sparks at every puff.
My curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and I made
A SWALLOW TALE. 81
inquiries where this strange individual might be met
with during his hours of release from the strange and
arduous task which nature and his habits of life had
imposed upon him. I was told that he occupied a
corner of the baggage-car on the returning Montreal
express during the day; that his hours of slumber
were from eight A. M. until twelve, noon, and that if I
should board the train at one of the southern Vermont
stations, I might have an opportunity to converse with
this champion toper of the nineteenth century.
I did as suggested, but it was more than a week
before I could creep into the confidence of my friend
with the luminous nose sufficiently to inquire of him
the particulars of his remarkable career. At last,
after I had nearly used up a brand-new mileage
ticket, I so far won his regard by my persistency and
the gourd-like qualities of my pocket-flask, that he
confided to me the following marvellous tale,
" I was born, when just entering upon my first year,
at Winooski, Vermont, on the first day of August,
1849. The first thing which exerted a shaping in-
fluence upon my career occurred about two weeks
after my appearance in this world, when I was put
upon the ^bottle an event which I have never ceased
to deplore, as I am confident that it was the means of
early forming in me the bad habits which have
82 A SWALLOW TALE.
fc.
brought me to my present condition. At all events,
I subsisted upon the bottle until I was about a year
old being continually in such a state of intoxica-
tion that not only was I unable to stand upon my
feet, but reliable witnesses have said that my lan-
guage was exceedingly incoherent, also that I hic-
coughed a great deal, and that large portions of my
time were spent in the emission of the most bacchana-
lian howls and outcries.
"At the age of one year I began to take a little
solid food and to emerge from my state of chronic in-
ebriety. I might even have become a temperance re-
former, for aught I know, if Fortune had not been
still against me. In an evil hour I was taken with
colic, and in order to ease my pangs the well-mean-
ing but incautious physician prescribed a stiff dose
of ginger-tea, with a stick in it. That stick was the
twig which inclined me to the bent which I have
hitherto, followed. From that hour forth, I was in a
state of protracted imaginary colic.
"My dawning intelligence informed me that in
order to be warmed and cheered within I must yell
and howl without, not omitting to clap my baby fists
with a tragic air upon that portion of my anatomy
whence the yearning seemed to proceed. If the
stick was not sufficient to satisfy the aching void
A SWALLOW TALE. 83
within, it needed but louder and more vociferous
howls to increase the amount of timber in the gin-
ger-tea. Alas ! how little my too-indulgent parents
dreamed that in so doing they were not only con-
tributing to the profits of the corner drug-store, but
also snatching their beloved child from the joys and
advantages of the local Good Templars' Lodge.
" Still, there might have been a chance for me.
When I passed the age of colic, and could no longer
impose upon my friends as I had been wont, there
was a brief period when the plastic materials of my
being might have been moulded in a different
fashion. But, as cruel Fate would have it, the
Sunday-school to which I belonged attended in a
body a temperance picnic. I went, I tasted, I was
conquered. A mince-pie, which some good deacon's
wife had smuggled into the general provisions, went
straight to the old yearning vacuity, and sealed,
once and forever, my destiny. I stole the pie. I
feasted upon it in hollows in the rocks. I came
forth like a ravening wolf, and searched among the
boodle until I found two others worse than the first.
That night I had the colic in dead earnest, but I felt
that I deserved it and not a whisper escaped my
pallid lips. I bore it like a hero, and the very next
temperance picnic found me on deck among the first
84
A SWALLOW TALE.
arrivals. So matters went on, until I discovered the
nature of the ' stick ' which had made the ginger-tea
and the temperance mince-pie so pleasant to my
palate. Then, farewell, virtue ! farewell, ambition !
farewell, hope !
" I was a bright scholar at least, so they said
who saw, even in those earlier years, the complexion
A SWALLOW TALE. 85
of my nose. My parents fondly imagined that it
came from weeping ; but ah ! they little suspected
that it came from smiles. Why should I continue
the sad, sad story ? You know how it is yourself.
I took the pledge in fact, I took it a number of
times ; but I never made any use of it. I wore the
blue ribbon, that I might be tempted and fall. I
made resolves and vows not to be counted that
time. I was labored with by Bands of Hope and
bands of despair. I reformed always until the
next time. My nose became brighter and brighter
as my character lost its shining qualities. They say
that the strength always goes out of the weakest
part of a man into the strongest.
" One day, when I was in the lowest depths of
degradation, too poor to be drunk, and too drunk to
be anything but poor, I lay down somewhere on the
railroad track and went to sleep. In the middle of
the night down thundered the Boston freight upon
me. I woke up just enough to see the glimmer of
the great headlight, half a mile away, and lay stupidly
staring at it. Suddenly it seemed to grow paler and
paler, the engineer whistled down brakes, and the
great train came to a standstill about twenty rods
from where I lay. The engineer and fireman came
running down the track.
A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR.
" 4 Well, I declare ! It's a man ! ' cried one of them,
shielding his eyes : ' What a nose, ! '
" ' Do you want a job ? ' asked the other.
" 4 Does it involve the use of spiritus f rumenti ? ' I
inquired.
" 4 Necessarily, it does,' was the reply.
"'Then I want the job.'
" So I came to be a locomotive headlight."
A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR.
JUST think what a terribly destructive affair a
war at this stage of the world's progress would be !
What with improved magazine guns, dynamite
bombs, cannons almost big enough to bring down
the moon, and all the diabolical machinery which
modern science has devised for the destruction of
mankind, a person patriotically inclined might just .
as well put an end to himself in some decent private
manner, beforehand, as to go to war and get blown
into three or four thousand pieces. And, really, I
cannot see how a soldier, under such circumstances,
could possibly be collected (though he might un-
doubtedly succeed in keeping cool).
Such being the state of affairs, it is very plain
A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 87
that the old-fashioned military style o_ arguing
international questions has had its day. War has
become altogether too destructive to suit the de-
structionists. Like the genius that escaped the
fisherman's opened jug, or the sprite that would not
go back into the box to please Pandora, the power
which military science has evoked is greater than it
can manage. Now, then, what is going to be done
about it? Of course, governments will.continue to
quarrel until the millenium comes along and pro-
vides some better source of amusement. And there
must be some other way of settling their disputes
than arbitration. Talk is well enough in congresses
and such bodies, where it never provokes anything
like bad feeling, but talk is never going to settle
national quarrels. One party or the other is going
to get on its ear and kick furiously.
Yes, there will have to be some fighting done still.
The question is, how are we going to tie this great
iron military hand behind our backs ? The pressing
demand of the age is a substitute for war; some-
thing which shall be decisive without being too
much so ; something which shall produce conviction
without going to the length of annihilation.
As a humble contribution to this subject, permit
rne to make a suggestion. What's the good of kill-
88 A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR.
ing men, anyhow? Why use instruments of destruc-
tion at all ? Why kill a man when a good, sound
drubbing will just as effectually convince him that
he is in the wrong, and yet leave him in a condition
to raise a few more bushels of potatoes for his
family? 'This brings me to my practical proposi-
tion, which is this. That, instead of the usual
military conflict, with its horrors of cannonading
and musketry, and blood, and death shrieks, there
should be a free fight between the opposing armies,
in which the only weapons used should be such as
Nature has seen fit to bestow upon every individual,
or which man can stoop and pluck from the bosom
of mother earth. Let each side be distinguished by
some very characteristic uniform, so that a man's
foes shall not be those of his own household. Let
the battle wage, if necessary, from the dewy morn
until rosy evening the longer, the merrier. Let
every man have free course upon his enemy's person.
Suspend every law except the habeas corpus law.
To be sure, the field would be strewn with the dis-
abled and sorely inconvenienced. Yet the majority
would survive for future usefulness at the ballot box
and elsewhere. There would be no question as to
which side wins the day or the week, if need be, for
the fight would be continued until every warrior
A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 89
either took to his heels or lay flat upon his back.
The generals (which should be such persons as
John L. Sullivan, Jake Kilrain, Dempsey, the light
weight, and others of equal brawn and skill) would
engage with those of like powers on the other side,
while every subordinate would be expected to apply
his fist where it would do the most good.
If a man must needs bleed for his country, let
him bleed at the nose.
Why not ? Such a substitute for the old-fashioned
style of war would be picturesque and thoroughly
enjoyable, besides practically effective. If I will
travel in the interest of this reform, what wealthy
individual will pay my expenses? Speak all at
once, please.
THE ENCORE FIEND.
LAP, clap, clap, clap !
thump-thump.
It is the encore fiend.
He is engaged in a lauda-
ble endeavor to get his
money's worth at a con-
cert.
Thus far he has stamped,
thumped,'" clapped, and
pounded every number on
the programme, without
respect to the age, sex, or
previous condition of the
performers. And he has
been pretty generally successful in his efforts, too.
The audience is well peppered with idiots who only
need the trip-hammer signal of the encore fiend to
raise their aesthetic sensibilities to the demonstrative
point.
Miss Skeags has been out four times already,
whereas the program entitles her to only two
90
A BRAVE DEED. 91
appearances. Mr. Brown has warbled so often that
he is getting noticeably weak in the knees, and his
acknowledgments are becoming somewhat erratic.
Still the encore fiend survives, and his enthusiasm
abates not. The performers regard him with terri-
fied and supplicating glances, as he sits on the edge
of his seat, craning his body forward, with his cane
between his knees. As the last note is in process of
wailing, the cane conies up about four inches from
the floor. The instant the performer starts to re-
treat from the stage, the cane comes down with a
whack that would have stripped all of the seven
sleepers of the last rag of bed-clothes. The audi-
ence settles back in mute despair. I wonder what
a concert would be without the encore fiend ? But
it is useless to overtax the imagination. He will
always be there.
A BRAVE DEED.
" TALKING about the bravery of engineers," said
a conductor on the X. Y. and Z. road, " the most
remarkable incident of the kind that ever fell
under my observation was in '79, when I was in
charge of the fast express between W and
C . One afternoon, just before we pulled out
92 A BRAVE DEED.
of the station at W , a lady came up to me
and handed me a card. The card bore the name
of one of the prominent officials of another well-
known road. ' I am his wife,' said the lady, ' and
I want to ask you if you would permit my little
'boys, here, to ride on the engine for a couple of
hours. They are very anxious to know what the
experience is, and have been teasing me all the
morning ? '
" I hesitated for several minutes. Then I looked
at the eager, bright, expectant faces of the two little
boys, and made my decision. 'Madam,' I said, 'it
is against the rules, but if my engineer will con-
sent to take charge of the little fellows, I will
transgress the regulations for once.'
" The lady thanked me, and we walked up to
the engine, where Dan was sitting with his hand
on the throttle valve. ' Dan,' said I, ' can you
take two inside passengers for a couple of hours ? '
The lady smiled bewitchingly, and Dan, after squirm-
Ing around for half a minute, pulled off his cap and
replied : ' I'll try to take care of 'em. But they
must sit right still, ma'am.'
" ' Oh they shall ! ' cried the lady. ' Boys, you
must sit perfectly still and do just what;-the gen-
tleman tells you.'
A BRAVE DEED. 9$
44 4 Yes, mamma, we will,' promised the boys. I
lifted them up into the cab, and promising their
mother that I would bring them back to her at
the first convenient stop after a two-hours ride r
went into the office to see that all was right,,
and then boarded my train as the last bell
sounded.
44 1 couldn't help feeling considerably anxious-
about the boys on the engine ; and yet I was
unable to say why. Dan was a very careful man,,
and if the boys followed his directions and sat per-
fectly still there really couldn't be any danger. I
went forward three or four times, to see that all
was right. The boys seemed to be enjoying them-
selves immensely, and waved their hats to me when
I came out on the -platform of the front coach.
44 The last time I went out " Here the con-
ductor stopped, and shuddered. -
44 Well well ? " we all asked, breathlessly.
44 1 saw Dan pick up one of the boys and pitch him
out of the cab ! " hissed the conductor, in an italicized
whisper.
There was a moment's horrified silence, and then
the conductor continued,
44 Before my hair had time to stiffen up, Dan had
grabbed the other little fellow, and sent him flying.
94 A BRAVE DEED.
too. It was all done in the whisk of a lamb's tail.
Then Dan reversed the engine like a flash and
screeched, for the brakes. Heavens and earth!
WJiat did I see a freight train sailing down up-
on us, not a hundred rods up the grade ! "
We all gave a great sigh of relief. Noble Dan !
He stuck to his post and saved the lives of the
little fellows in his charge. " And then," we all
cried, " came the crash, and Dan perished like a
hero ! "
" No, no ! " exclaimed the conductor, shrugging
his shoulders, and smiling a ghastly smile. "It
was rougher on Dan than that. Iri fact, it was
the worst grind on a man I ever saw."
" How what do you mean ? " vociferated every
man in the audience, fairly wild with suspense.
" Why, the new brakes worked so well that the
two trains stopped more than fifty yards apart,
and it took the fireman of the freight three
minutes to come over and swear at us."
" Thunderation ! and what became of the
boys?"
" Oh, one of them fell into a culvert and broke
his leg in two places, and the other one landed
in a swamp up to his neck. But 'twas an awful
grind on Dan, wasn't it ? "
JOURNALISTIC PARTNERSHIPS. 95
JOUKNALISTIC PARTNERSHIPS.
WHEN I first started out on my wild journalistic
career, it was in partnership with a long-haired
young man from St. Louis. He said he knew of
a village in the northwestern part of Missouri where
he thought it would be quite safe to start a large
daily paper, something like the New York Tribune,
only not quite so heavy. The village was away
from any line of railroad, and the stage passed
through it only twice a week, so we would not be
likely to be much disturbed by noise, etc. My long-
haired friend said that he could not write if there
was any noise in the vicinity, but that in perfect
stillness he could compose enough to fill a paper like
the Tribune, easily, in four hours. He offered to put
in his brains against my money. Enough 'twas
done. I suspected that he had no brains, and I
knew I had no money.
The paper was started at least, the first number
of it was. It was not a monumental success. We
bought ten pounds of second-hand type and a chase ;
then my money gave out. The long-haired young
man from St. Louis sat down and wrote a poem on
*' Freedom." it took him two days, and then his
96 JOURNALISTIC PARTNERSHIPS.
brains gave out. We sold the type to an old trap-
per, to melt over into bullets, divided the chase
between us, and parted. Now that I look back on
the transaction, I think I see where we made our
mistake. The long-haired young man ought to have
put the money into the concern, and I ought to
have put in the brains. Curious we didn't think of
it at the time.
My second venture was even more discouraging.
I ran across an " old practical printer," who was out
6f a job. He wasn't very old, though, come to think,
but I didn't notice it at the time. He said he could
set eight thousand ems of type in an hour. I told
him I didn't know what an " em " was, but I was
ready to sail into any project, short of suicide, pro-
vided he would let me keep hold of his hand. He
suggested that we buy out a country printing-office
somewhere, and start a weekly. I told him I had
never had any experience except with a daily paper,
but I thought I could soon learn the ropes.
As good luck would have it, we found an amateur
editor with a hand-press and a font of brevier, which
he was willing to sell for $3.85, because he had
jammed his fingers and was mad. Our joint funds
amounted to $3.40 ; but the editor said he would let
us have the outfit for that if we would give a three
WtfRNALIjTIC PARTNERSHIPS. 9?
ftlon ths' ndt6 for the remainder. I borrowed a piece
of paper and made out the note. With some diffi-
culty we succeeded in renting a* room in the loft of a
barn, after having encumbered our press and outfit
with a large chattel-mortgage.
The next morning we began work. After rum-
maging around in all the corners of my capacious
brain, I finally decided on a name for our paper
the Perkinsville Cyclone and carried it over to my
experienced practical printer to set up. Then I
spent a couple of hours writing an editorial on " The
Issues of the Age." My printer was still at work on
the heading when I carried him my copy. He
seemed to be puzzled. I suggested that he take a
proof and see what the trouble was. As he seemed
somewhat embarrassed, I retired to my desk and
awaited developments. Presently he handed me the
following imprint, ^enolcyC ellivsnikreP ehT." I
turned it upside down, and wrong end to, and then
squinted along it as I would along a gun-barrel : but
still it refused to be luminous with meaning.
" I think you must have made a mistake and set
this up in Greek," I suggested, gently. " While I
am a great admirer of the dead languages, and am
delighted to meet a man whose classic culture crops
out so unconsciously, still, if I may be pardoned for
98
intimating as much, it seems to me that the inhabi-
tants of this rural community would much prefer to
have their weekly chronicle of events captioned in
the prevailing dialect doesn't it strike you so ? "
My partner admitted that the suggestion contained
a modicum of sense.
" Well, then," I continued, " suppose you set up
the heading as I have written it, and "then we will
proceed to get this editorial in type and strike off the
first column of the paper."
The old practical printer went back to his case,
and I caught up my pen and dashed off a few spicy
editorial paragraphs and funny sayings, to help fill
up when the columns were too short. I then went
over to see how he was getting on.
" Hello ! " I exclaimed. " You have got th6se
types all upside down."
" I know it," he replied, " but I can't seem to
make 'em read straight, and I didn't know but what
if I set 'em in upside down and then turned 'em
over they might come out right."
" How long have you practised the art of type-
setting ? " I asked, stepping off a few feet and gazing
at him.
" About two hours and fifty-five minutes," he re-
plied, glancing at the clock.
JOURNALISTIC PARTNERSHIPS. 99
" Great Jehosliaphat ! I thought you told me
you were an old practical printer."
" So I am."
" How so, may I ask ? "
The metamorphosed disciple of Guttenberg turned
his vacant countenance toward me and laid the tip
of his finger on his nose.
" I have been engaged all my life," he said, " on a
little job of color-printing. Here it it."
We parted, and the Cyclone fell into the hands of a
receiver, the man who received the chattel- mortgage.
Since then I have engaged in many newspaper
speculations, and have had more partners than a
good-looking girl at a country dance ; but none of
them was quite so unique and interesting as the
long-haired young man from St. Louis, and the old
practical printer. I often wonder where they are
now. I think I know, but don't like to tell. It
wouldn't be polite.
L THE PROFESSOR'S WINDOW.
i
ARLY every winter evening between
four and five o'clock, when the days are
very brief the Professor's window,
over the way, with its cosy red cur-
tain, blossoms out, like a great rose, with
such a warmth and cheerihess of color, that it almost
makes me glad to look at it. Then I know that the
Professor is at his books, and something almost like
a very comfortable sort of envy comes over me, so
that I can do nothing but sit and watch the rosy
curtain, and think of the great and good little man,
with that clean-shaven, calm face of his bending
over the table, and shining with the thoughts of
Plato and ^Eschylus.
For my Professor is a Greek, born out of time, and
ten centuries behind his day. He has no part in
these rude, irreverential times except to turn and
look back upon the temples of the past, and point
them out to those who are hurrying by him. He
draws a moderate salary for this guide-post duty in
one of the dignified older colleges of the land; but
100
THE PROFESSOR'S WINDOW. 101
I fancy that the good man often sighs at the thank-
less, humdrum task, and devoutly wishes the text-
book and the class-room at the bottom of the Styx.
What satisfaction can it be to his high soul to exact
the parts of gigeneto from a score of unwilling
spirits twice a day, to explain the luminous syntax
of Xenophon, or pilot a stammering Junior through
half a page of grand old ^Eschylus ?
I do not blame my friend for the light on his face
as he comes home in the gray winter afternoon, and
shakes off the snow from his feet at his study door.
I love to watch for the blossoming of that red
curtain in the Professor's window, for I know it is
the signal and the symbol of a light in that cozy
rpom that never was on land or sea. I fancy that I
can see through and through the quiet, unpretentious
privacy of the little red curtain ; and, as I sit at my
own dark window, I -watch the books coming down
out of the cases around the wall coming down
like so many pet birds into the Professor's hands,
under his sleeves, into the big pockets of his dress-
ing-gown, and then they all flutter over to the
table and nestle down together under the mellow
light of the student-lamp. Bless the little Pro-
fessor ! how I envy him !
For two long hours the curtain glows, growing
102 THE PROFESSOR'S WINDOW.
redder and redder as the night settles down ; and
for two long hours I sit opposite the splendor, and
covet it with a wonderful comfort ! There is some-
thing strangely delightful about this same anomalous
sympathy. I do not suppose I should have half
the pleasure if the Professor should invite me in to
spend the evening with him. I could not tell him
half so truly as I feel it now, that I love to think of
him poring over his precious books, and far out
of all sight and hearing in his own untrespassed-
upon wonderland. Nor could he, I fancy, be him-
self with an alien at his elbow. He might tell
me of his studies, but he could not study. He
, might, in the long silences, bend over his book, but
the light would not be in his face. No, I can see
him better on this side the little red curtain than on
the other. I can sympathize far more closely for
.him than I can with him. Some day, perhaps, I
shall get acquainted with the Professor ; I only
know him now. ^
In two hours there comes a sudden change over
the Professor's window. The very red little curtain
suddenly gets very black in the face, and I am ter-
ribly startled to see it growing blacker and blacker,
until it is scarcely more than a blot across the way.
But I presently assure myself that the Professor has
THE PROFESSOR'S WINDOW. 103
not knocked the lamp off upon the floor, or hung his
hat over it, in a fit of abstraction, by seeing a num-
ber of shadows appear upon a large white curtain in
another larger window, and among them one which
I take to be the Professor's, in his voluminous
dressing-gown. The Professor is at supper with his
family, and being an economical sort of a man, as a
professor should be, he has turned down his study
lamp very low, so low that I fear there will be a
very disagreeable and unclassic odor in the little
study when he returns.
The white curtain in the Professor's dining-room
window is far more confidential than the dense red-
cloth shade in tjie study window. The Professor
sits between the lamp and the curtain, and if good
fortune denies me a sight of him at his books, she
atones by disclosing the entire privacy of his board.
I can see him as he sits over against his very good
and very practical little wife, and dispenses the
toothsome things which she has provided for the
evening meal. Every now and then he looks up,
and suspends his meditative knife and fork in mid-
air as he speaks to her. I wonder what this modern
Greek has to say to this little household woman.
Nothing of Plato, doubtless; very little, I imagine,
of the orators or the bema ; still less of Greek roots
104 THE PROFESSOR'S WINDOW.
and the rules of prosody. What then? Can it
be can it be hash? Perish the thought ! a man
of his sensibilities talking about hash? And yet
the professor, doubtless, is a great admirer of his
wife's hash. I shouldn't wonder if he were at
it now. And if a man may eat and relish hash, why
may he not speak of it ? I can't see the slightest
inconsistency in that.
But, for the sake of the little romance which we
have been weaving about the Professor, let us
assume that that pause in his gastronomical panto-
mime, so vividly recorded by the white curtain, was
for the purpose of communicating to his wife and
the children the fact that when Demosthenes was
young he accustomed himself to talking plainly and
gracefully with his mouth full, by running up and
down the seashore and apostrophizing the ocean
while his cheeks were stuffed with pebbles. (Some-
thing tells me that the Professor himself is one
of those men who make it a point never to speak
until the} 7 swallow what they have in their mouth at
the time.) Be that as it may, it cannot be denied,
in the face of that tell-tale white curtain, that,
however reticent the Professor may be in general
society, he is no Sphinx in the bosom of his family.
Such men, I have noticed, always do let themselves
THE PROFESSOR'S WINDOW. . 105
out at home. They have to have an escape-pipe
somewhere, and the pent-up steam of their social
instincts fairly hisses when it does get a chance
to reach the air. Some of the most voluble men
that the world ever saw,' provided they have for
an audience a little circle of chosen spirits, are
dumb as mutes in a promiscuous assemblage. They
will not open their lips except in monosyllables,
and their very presence throws a wet sheet over a
whole merry company.
But the Professor has laid down his knife and
fork, and the little Grecians have done likewise;
and now we have another brief processional pano-
rama on the curtain, followed by a dreary blank. I
turn to the study window, but it still wears its
aspect of non-committal gloom. Five, ten, fifteen
minutes pass, and still the student-lamp burns, with
its shortened wick, and the red cyrtain grows
thicker and blacker in the deepening night. Evi-
dently, the Professor is a family man, albeit so great
a student, and I doubt not, he is enjo} r ing his
quiet hour in the penetralia of his home, with the
children gathered about his knee, and the good wife
sitting on the other side of the light and delving
in a great basketful of things from the wash for
the stockings which are to grace the Professor's
106 HOW THINGS HAPPENED.
classic feet next Sunday morning. I am sorry that
the Professor's sitting-room window does not open
on the street, but then there are some domestic
privacies, you know, which even old bachelors are
bound to respect.
HOW THINGS HAPPENED.
AN ENTERPRISING PAIR OF EDITORS, WHOSE PA-
PER WAS PRONOUNCED "SLOW," DELIBERATELY
EVOLVE A LITTLE SPEED.
IN the editorial rooms of the Spratville Skullcap
sat two individuals the managing editor and his
assistant.' Both had their feet upon the same
table ; both were smoking, both meditating.
" I say, Spilkins," exclaimed the managing editor,
" something has got to be done ! "
Spilkins assented with a nod of the head. He
had a short neck and wore a stand-up collar ; conse-
quently, it required a great effort on his part to nod.
He only did it when a very decided affirmation was
necessary. Such he evidently considered the pres-
ent emergency..
"We are undoubtedly 'slow,'" continued the
managing editor ; " the great public has said it, and
HOW THINGS HAPPENED. 107
we have no opinions aside from those of the great
public. Now, what shall be done to increase our
speed? Speed we must have, if it costs us a new
spring suit."
Spilkins nodded again ; this time with still
greater effort. He had just left his measure at the
tailor's.
"The matter stands just this way: The great
public demands that things shall happen. Things
do not happen, to any alarming extent. The col-
umns of the Skullcap do not bristle with social
sensations. Whose fault is it? Why ours, of
course. If things don't happen, we should make
them happen. It is the editor's business to see that
the world wags properly. When it gets tired, we
must put a little red pepper on its tail is not that
so?"
' For the third time, Mr. Spilkins nodded ; and
; this time the button gave way at the back of his
neck, and his collar flew up about his ears. It was
a good omen. Something had already begun to
happen.
At. eleven o'clock, A. M., Mr. Spilkins might have
been seen trudging 'cross lots, leading a mangy-
looking cur by a string. Let us follow him. The
108 HOW THINGS HAPPENED.
far-off stroke of the town clock announces the
empty hour of noon as he reaches a rickety old
bridge spanning a dark, deep gorge in the river.
All is silent and lonely, save for the rushing of the
foaming water far below, and the voice of a hermit
thrush in the cedars. Mr. Spilkins ties the dog to a
tree, and walks up the road a few rods to the right.
No human being is anywhere in sight. He crosses
the bridge, and surveys the dusty highway in the
opposite direction. The coast is equally clear.
Mr. Spilkins returns to the dog, leads the poor
brute to the centre of the bridge, picks him up
quickly and slings him into the yawning abyss.
Over and over turns the sprawling black mass, as it
descends swifter and swifter through the awful
ninety feet of whistling air. Then it strikes the
swift waters^with a thud that echoes dismally from
the damp walls of the gorge.
All these very important particulars, Mr. Spilkins
coolly notes on a small pad of paper. He then puts
his tablets in his pocket, and goes home to dinner.
In the meanwhile the managing editor of the
Skullcap has not been idle. In the early morning
his steps were bent toward the lake shore. An old
fisherman was about setting sail upon the laughing
waters of the bay ; but a small vial of laughing
SOW MltfGS fiAPPENEt).
Water of a stronger test of hilarity induced him to
forego his piscatorial excursion ; and the following
conversation ensued,
Editor. " Your boat leaks pretty badly ? "
Fisherman. " Leak like de ole Harry."
Editor. " How far will she go without sink-
ing?"
Fisherman. "If I don't bail him, she go about
quarter mile."
Editor. " How far can you swim ? "
Fisherman. " Fur as from me to you, in the
wind."
Editor. " What is your boat worth ? "
Fisherman. "I let him go for two dollars and
quarter."
Editor. " Look here ; I'll give you two dollars
and a half if }^ou'll let her sink outside the docks,
and let me pick you up with another boat."
Visions of unlimited bottles of bait rose before
the eyes of the ancient flinger of the line, and he
caved.
Coming home, Mr. Spilkins incidentally omitted
to replace a pair of bars by the railroad. The edi-
tor-in chief after saving a poor old fisherman from
a watery grave dropped a match in a pile of shav-
110 HOW THINGS HAPPENED.
ings ; but, as it was cast down in full blaze, and
intended to burn, it, of course, went out. (An
Irishman will probably be hired at an early date to
drop a charred match in the same heap.)
The next morning the Spratville Skullcap came
out bristling with head-lines and fairly alive with
local sensations. In the first column was a thrilling
account of the old fisherman's watery bath :
" Saved ! Saved ! A Boat Founders in the Bay
Help! Help! An Old Man Struggling with the
Tide Almost Exhausted An Unknown Rescuer
Particulars of the Affair."
The next column was Mr. Spilkin's effort :
" Ninety Feet at a Leap ! A Dog Falls from the
High Bridge A Wild Howl "of Anguish The
Dog t Dwindles Over and Over Strikes the
Water with a Dull Thud His Remains Found on
the Island." (Mr. Spilkins omitted to state that
the " remains " were discovered feasting content-
edly on an old dead horse.)
" Killed on the Rail ! " appeared next : " Ten Val-
uable Cows Hurled into Eternity How did it hap-
pen ? The Locomotive Spattered with Gore ' One
Cow on Top of the Smokestack $10,000 Damages
Demanded."
Fifteen hundred copies of ' the Skullcap were
SOW THINGS ttAttENED. Ill
printed, and they were all gone before breakfast.
Twenty-five hundred were struck off before noon,
and still the great public clamored for more. The
editor-in-chief and -Mr. Spilkins sat in the sanctum,
and looked down upon the suffering throng below.
" I think we have struck it," said the E. I. C.
Mr. Spilkins nodded his head.
" Do you think you could burn a barn this after-
noon, Spilkins ? "
" I will try."
" Very well. I will take one of my cousin's chil-
dren and lose him in the woods. To-morrow we
will get up something new."
THE DIALOGUE OF THE CLOTHES.
FULL suit of masculine clothes
lay tumbled in confusion upon
a chair, where the various arti-
cles had been thrown by their
whilom occupant, who was now
snoring in the embrace of that
mythical personage known as
Morpheus.
A pale moonbeam stole in at the window, and the
heap of clothes^ upon which it fell, seemed to grow
uneasy under the mysterious light.
" This isn't morning, is it ? " asked the coat, of the
pants.
" No, thank goodness ! " replied the pants, with a
grateful sigh. " Morning is a long way off yet. We
shall have time for a good refreshing rest. What
a busy fellow our master is, to be sure, when he is
awake ! One would hardly think it possible that
he could lie as still as he is lying now."
At this the shoes, which .stood under the chair,
moved painfully, and gave utterance to an audible
groan.
112
THE DIALOGUE OF THE CLOTHES. 113
" You look worn," said the pants, gently, to the
shoes.
" Alas, we feel so ! " answered the shoes. " We
are so tired that we can hardly keep sole and body
together."
Hereupon the stockings peered out at the tops of
the shoes, and murmured : " Ah, if you could
only see our heels, you wouldn't say anything
more about being worn ! By and by we shall be
pretty much all hole, and then we shall be whole
no longer."
At this doleful pun the clothes groaned and
hissed in unison, and the necktie became so ex-
cited that it fell from the back of the chair to
the floor.
"Hark!" cried the shoes. "We thought we
heard something drop."
" It was only me," said the necktie, meekly.
" You should say, ' only I,' " remarked the collar,
with its usual stiff propriety.
At this point of the conversation, the vest, which
had hitherto kept silence, remarked that, if any
article of apparel was to be pitied, it was itself;
for no other garment had to carry such an enor-
mous and ill-assorted collection of personal prop-
erty. " But, fortunately," added the vest, " though
114 THE DIALOGUE OF THE CLOTHES.
you must admit that it is pretty poor consolation
three of my four pockets have been completely torn
out by screws, nails, knives, scissors, silver coins, and
the like, and I now have to support only our friend,
the watch, who, as everybody knows, has always
been obliged to live on tick and beat his way."
The clothes all admitted that the vest had a
pretty hard time of it. "But," added the pants,
"if your pockets were emptied into mine, and
mine into yours, I think you would have even
more reason to complain than you now have."
" That's so ! " exclaimed the suspenders (which
were so frayed, stretched, and patched that they
hardly had energy enough left to speak out loud).
" The pants do have a hard time of it, as I can tes-
tify ; for whatever adds to their burden adds also
to mine. Sometimes I feel as though I must give
out foe, very weariness with the load I have to
carry. For consider, my friends, that, although
the pants support their own pockets, I support
the pants, and so carry the whole load."
" Yes, and think of me, under the whole of you ! "
fairly screamed the shirt, its bosom heaving with
excitement, " under coat, vest, pants, suspenders,
all of you. Think, if you please, what I have to
bear ! "
THE DIALOGUE OF THE CLOTHES. 115
"Yes, but you don't have to carry anything,"
replied the collar, in the same deliberate and
haughty manner as befere.
" Don't, eh ? " cried the shirt, rustling with indig-
nation. " I carry you, anyway, you great, stuck-up,
lazy, good-for-nothing encumbrance ! What would
you do, I should like to know, if you didn't have
me to hang to ? Ha, ha ! how quickly you would
fly up about our master's ears, and what a pretty
looking object you would be, wouldn't you ! Bah !
before I'd be a mere figure-head, a useless ornament,
like a collar, I'd "
But just at this moment, the owner of the clothes,
waking up and suddenly recollecting that he had
forgotten to wind his watch when he went to
bed, made a bound for the shadowy heap on the
chair, and seizing the pants by the waistband,
pulled coat, vest and shirt with them into the
middle of the floor, where the shifting moonlight
now shone brightly. There he subjected to a most
painful and protracted search, all the pockets of all
the garments, until at last he discovered his watch
key and wound his watch by the light of the moon.
Having performed this important duty, he flung
himself into bed again.
" Alas, alas ! " sighed the pants, after all was
116 FREAKS OF LIGHTNING.
quiet once more. " What a dreadful shock that
was ! I don't know as my nerves will ever quiet
down again. I am all out of breath. Hear me p "
But 'the clothes raised their voices in horror at
the mere suggestion of such an execrable pun, and
the pants were obliged to leave the sentence unfin-
ished. Just then the clock struck one, and the gar-
ments all agreed that it was time to subside and
snatch what sleep they could, preparatory to the
labors of another day.
FREAKS OF LIGHTNING.
NEXT to the newspaper mule, there is probably no
element which plays so many destructive freaks
with human life and property as lightning. Light-
ning is said to be very quick much more rapid,
indeed, in its effects than banana peel, though not
quite so sure. When a man happens to be in the
same ten-acre lot with a flash of lightning, he is not
going to have very much time to run for the fence.
Lightning is also thorough a sort of double-bar-
relled edition of investigating committee. Unlike
the average newspaper reporter, it seldom has' occa-
sion to interview a man twice. There is a brand of
lightning, peculiar to New Jersey, which is espe-
FREAKS OF LIGHTNING. 117
cially searching in its nature, and it differs from all
other kinds in the persistency and frequency with
which it strikes more than once in the same place.
The writer has collected a large number of choice
specimens of newspaper literature, illustrating the
very remarkable freaks of particular flashes of light-
ning ; and, if there is no objection, he would like to
open his budget and display a few of his wares.
Here they are,
A dog in Tuckerville, Maine, was standing under
an apple tree in a thunderstorm, panting. A flash
of lightning struck the tree, and a perfect picture of
Jt was transferred to the dog's tongue. The dog was
unharmed, and lived for many years with the photo-
graph of the apple tree in his mouth. As it was a
good year for apples, he has been well supplied with
fruit.
A thunderbolt entered the house of Mr. Jonas
Bixby, of Fairhaven, Connecticut, drew a nail from
the wall, took a powder flask from Mr. Bixby's
drawer, loaded a gun which stood in the corner,
rammed down the nail, and shot Mr. Bixby through
the trousers, just as he was escaping at the shed
door. As proof of this story, Mr. Bixby will show
any one who wishes to call the gun.
118 FREAKS OF LIGHTNING.
A baby belonging to Mrs. Hathaway, of Sutherland
Centre, Pennsylvania, was taken from its mother's
breast, during a thunderstorm, by a flash of light-
ning, and carried upstairs into the attic. When
found again, it was cooing contentedly, and playing
with a large iron nut supposed to have become
loosened from the thunderbolt.
At the house of Edgar Dane of Newport, Rhode
Island, a strange freak of lightning occurred the
other day. Mr. Dane had hung his coat against -the
wall, and was just sitting down to put on his slip-
pers, when a blinding light filled the room, and as
soon as he recovered his senses he saw the tail of his
coat sticking out of a stove-pipe hole in the wall.
He climbed up and pulled the garment out, when a
note fluttered to his feet. He picked it up and
read as follows, "Thanks, will call again." Mr.
Dane does not remember whether there was any
such note in his pocket at the time, but thinks it
was a freak of lightning,
A flash of lightning struck in the road, in front of
a bay horse, at Kirby, Kentucky, and the horse sud-
denly changed in color from bay to black. His
master also changed color a little.
WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 119
Jemima Washington, of Thompson's Flat, New
Hampshire, was cooking pork in a thunderstorm, and
had just started to take it from the spider, with the
platter and fork in her hands, when a flash of light-
ning came down the chimney, took the platter out
of her hands, dumped the contents of the spider into
it, and went back up the chimney. Mrs. Washing-
ton was somewhat startled, but thinks there will be
a shower of pork somewhere in the country yet.
She don't believe that the folks where the lightning
came from will eat pork.
WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY.
MANY persons are simply at their wits' end in
case of a sudden emergency, and know no more
what to do than so many children. For the benefit
of such as are in this deplorable state of ignorance, I
have written out a few simple directions for the
most frequent kinds of accidents, which cannot fail
to be easily understood, and which, I trust, will
prove of very great value if followed out at once and
according to letter.
1. Fora Cut. Carefully wipe the knife-blade,
especially if the knife is new and bright, as other-
120 WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY.
wise it will be likely to rust. Close the knife and
put it in your pocket, especially if it belongs to
somebody else. Then go tearing around the house
yelling for a rag. The louder you yell, tfc.3 more
rag you will get. Everybody will be so frightened
that they will offer you their handkerchiefs. Do
not stop to discriminate take them all. They will
never be wanted back. Tie your hand up till it
looks like an Egyptian mummy. Do not forget to
howl all the while. After you have thoroughly
upset the whole house and driven everybody almost
crazy, take the handkerchief off and stick a piece of
court-planter over the spot where you thought you
cut yourself. Then nobody will know that it is
only a scratch, and by and by you will begin to feel
better yourself.
2. For Fainting. If the patient is a female
as is most likely to be the case catch her in your
arms as she falls, and if reasonably good-looking,
hold her there for several moments. Perhaps she
will recover without further treatment. If rather
plain, and not so young as she used to be, you may
convey her at once to the sofa. Place her upon her
back, with her head lower than her feet, if possible ;
if not, turn her feet sideways and put weights on
them. Be sure and give the patient plenty of air.
WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 121
If a pair of bellows are handy, use them vigorously
no matter if it blows her bangs off. If no bellows
are to be had, talk yourself. Dash cold water in the
patient's face, if it is a house where you can get
water. In some you can't. Do not administer any
stimulants. The patient is not in a condition to
appreciate them. Give camphor or hartshorn to
smell. If you do not know where to find them, ask
the patient. Keep up a cheerful conversation, being
careful, however, to avoid the subject of the weather,
which is always depressing. When the patient has
recovered sufficiently 'to call you a "hateful brute"
and a " mean, immodest wretch," her restoration to
health may be considered imminent. If in addition
she feels to see if her bangs and back hair are all
right, it is high time for you to retire and call the
family. The rest of your duty is plain enough. Go
home without delay and keep your mouth shut.
3. In case of Poison. We will suppose, for con-
venience sake, that it is yourself who are poisoned,
although we would not advise you to go and poison
yourself for that reason, not even for the sake of
science or your friends. At any rate, hypothetically
speaking, you are poisoned. The question is, how
to save your funeral expenses. The first thing to
do is to take an emetic. Now, although this may
122 WHAT TO DO IK AN EMERGENCY.
seem the simplest thing in the world in theory, it is
nevertheless, decidedly difficult in practice, for it is
said to be the hardest thing in the world to keep an
emetic on the stomach. Still, it is a last resort, and
must be tried. Suppose you treat yourself to mus-
tard and tepid water, which is said to be very effectual
in exciting the emotions of the diaphragm, and also
possesses the desirable merit of being cheap. , Ipecac
and water is also good, or, in fact, anything which
you do not particularly crave. But whatever you
take, take it in a hurry, and be sure that you take
enough of it. After all, it isn't so much the emetic
you want as it is the results. These, it is presumed,
will follow-in good time, and without need of further
directions. When the stomach has been turned
inside out about six times, drink a little chalk and
water, or, if you can't get chalk and water, use milk-
man's milk, anything weak and mild. If the doctor
should come in about this time, as he will be likely
to, and inquire after your welfare, tell him that you
are in bounding health and vigor, thank you, and
pay him his fee. In a few minutes you will be your-
self again, and in a physical condition not to have
your nerves startled by the ringing of the dinner-bell.
4. Burns. If the clothing takes fire, the
victim will, of course, at once start and run at
"WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY. 123
the top of his or her speed, in order to provide a
suitable draught. Start at once in pursuit, yelling
"fire!" at every stride. This will bring out the
fire department, and attract a large crowd of specta-
tors. Should you succeed in overtaking the burning
person, throw him at once to the ground and roll
him rapidly over and over for about half a block, on
the same principle that a cook turns over and bastes a
fowl to cook him more equally on every side.
This having been done, take off your overcoat you
should always wear an overcoat on such occasions
and wrap the victim tightly in it. He will naturally
be cold and in need of some such protection. Keep
the flames from the face and head as much as possi-
ble ; induce them to burn further down. As soon
as the fire department comes up, have them direct
three or four streams into the nearest dry-goods
store. They will not be satisfied without inundating
something. While the crowd are busying themselves,
carrying out the more valuable portions of the pro-
prietor's stock, call a cab, and get the burned person
away to the nearest hospital. Here your responsi-
bility ceases, and if the doctors kill him it won't be
your fault.
5. Drowning. The body should be recovered as
quickly as possible. If the drowning should occur
124 WHAT TO DO IN AN EMERGENCY.
at noon, it will hardly be safe to leave the subject in
the water until after you have been to dinner. Save
him at once. Then having laid the victim out upon
the sand, proceed to strip him of every vestige of
clothing. Never mind if he kicks like a mule. Take
a coarse crash towel you can get them at almost
any grocery-store with every bar of " Peck's Sand-
stone Soap" and give him a genuine Irishman's
bath. , Scour him until the pores of the skin are
thoroughly open. Nothing conduces to good health
like an active skin. Now turn the person over upon
his face with the neck and shoulders a little raised,
and press firmly on the back. This will cause the
victim to spit out any water which may have been
taken into the mouth, and exchange it for sand.
Friction, meanwhile, should be applied to the ex-
tremities. Secure the services of any passer-by, and
have him rub the "bottoms of the feet with a piece of
sandpaper. Alternate the pressure on the back with
equally firm pressure on the side, under the arm. If
the person refuses to breathe under these circum-
stances, he is certainly dead; but it will be a very
defunct person who will refuse. The patient may
be allowed to dress himself in about twenty minutes ;
and if the prescribed treatment has been faithfully
carried out, he will be very cautious about drowning
himself a second time.
ELIPHALET'S WOOING.
IHERE was no mis-
taking it Elipha-
let Babbitt was in
love. He had all
the general symp-
toms of that species*
of heart disease,
and some that were
peculiar to himself.
He lost his appetite,
and that was no small loss to Eliphalet, though it was
a great gain to the family. He grew moody and
absent-minded, and was falling into a habit of steal-
ing away to the woods at noon and evening, and lying
on his back under the trees. These, of course, were
only general symptoms, but Eliphalet developed
others characteristic of himself. For instance, when
he went to work in the west meadow he invariably
put on his Sunday clothes, even to the black gloves
and stiff bell-crowned hat. Thus equipped, he would
seize his scythe or his rake and work steadily toward
125
126
the little white cottage with the brown barns and
patent fire-gilt lightning-rods, where the Perrivales
-father and daughter lived. It was a rare sight
to see that gaunt, clerical figure in black, stalking
by industrial degrees across the meadow, and every
now and then raising a pair of shy, half-frightened
^yes in the direction of the leaf-embowered cottage,
as though he suspected that he was being watched,
and would like desperately well to be visibly assured
of the fact. The extraordinary attraction of the
Perrivale homestead to Eliphalet Babbitt, it might
not take an oracle to divine, was none other than the
fair mistress of the place Miss Clorinda Perrivale.
In fact, it was whispered abroad, in rural vernacu-
lar, that Eliphalet Babbitt was " smit " with " Clo-
rindy" Perrivale. What wonder if it were so?
Olorinda Perrivale was as trim and pretty a lass as
one sees in a year's wanderings. She was as plump
and well-turned as a ball of her own golden butter,
and had a face and a pair of eyes that raised the
mischief with every young fellow she looked at.
And then she had a way the pretty minx of
letting her long lashes droop upon her cheeks, when
the shy youth caught her glance, and actually blush-
ing in sympathy with his confusion. Clorinda was
an incorrigible flirt. Unfortunately, she had lost her
ELIPHALET'S WOOING. 127
mother when a mere child, and, without the restrain-
ing influence of womanhood upon her girlish play-
fulness and love of admiration, had involved herself
in a life of ^excitement and pleasure, which had
gradually become the very breath of existence to
her.
Eliphalet Babbitt was among the latest of her
admirers. He had been at school for six years,
vainly attempting to polish his rough but honest wit
on the classical grindstone ; and now, but little
changed the same awkward, good-natured, bashful,
blundering but capable fellow he had returned
home, to displace the Greek verbs in his hair with
hayseed, and get rid of the crude mass of philo-
sophies and sciences which he had gorged, by a judi-
cious regimen of plain home duties, and complete
subsidence into the local vernacular. He had met
Clorinda Perrivale frequently since his return, at
church, at picnics, and at home, and had fallen irre-
trievably in love with the village belle.
Fourth-of-July night there was to be a great and
glorious celebration, with speeches and cannon and
fireworks, in the little city of Marbray, six miles
down the river. Every man and boy in Newville
had shaped his affairs during the previous six weeks
to the one special end of attending the grand
128 ELIPHALET'S WOOING.
demonstration on that night. Now Clorinda Perri-
vale, merry and mischievous always, conceived the
idea of testing her devoted swains upon that mem-
orable occasion, and choosing him whose love for
her should prove paramount to his love for Chinese
fireworks and scintillating eloquence. So she man-
aged to convey to each of her suitors singly the
information that she would be at home on Fourth-
of-July night, and should very much like the
pleasure of his company at that time. Something,
too, in the manner of the invitation seemed to hint
that it was of especial interest to the recipient.
Among the rest, Eliphalet Babbitt received the
message of the fair Clorinda, and instantly all
visions of pyrotechnic display and soul-stirring
oratory vanished from his mind, and his heart went
pit-a-pat with love's alternate hope and fear. Now
Eliphalet was a shrewd fellow, and by dint of con-
siderable prying about, and keeping his eyes and ears
open, he found out that he was not the only one
invited to meet the bewitching Clorinda upon the
evening of the celebration. Some half-score rivals
evaded his questions about going to Marbray in such
a manner that he was sure they were intending to
keep some very important engagement. Eliphalet
went home and pondered upon the matter. He
ELIPHALET'S WOOING. 129
reflected that, if Clorinda were intending to make
her choice from a superficial examination of some
ten or twelve young men dressed in their Sunday
clothes and gotten up to " kill," he would stand a
pretty poor chance. If there were only some way
of getting rid of his rivals ! If he could think of
some plan to keep them away on the eventful night,
and make it appear to Clorinda that they cared less
about her than they did about a night's fun in Mar-
bray, why, his suit would be as good as won, for a
girl of her .spirit wouldn't stand snubbing by the
handsomest and most agreeable young man that ever
walked. Eliphalet put on his thinking-cap, and
drew it tighter than he ever did before. He con-
cocted all sorts of schemes, but rejected them one
after another as impracticable. All of a sudden he
started up as if he had been sitting on a box of
dynamite. " By the great horn spoon ! " he ex-
claimed, striking his leg with the palm of his hand.
" I've got it now ! " He nodded so emphatically
that his hair tumbled down over his forehead, and
gave him the appearance of a very much exaggerated
sky terrier, " I've got it, sir ! I've got it ! " he re-
peated, in louder tones. He then danced all around
the room on one foot, and ended up by taking a
running jump on to the bed and bringing down the
130 ELIPHALET'S WOOING.
whole structure in one confused mass of slats, pil-
lows, blankets, and bed-posts.
Anyone loitering around the Babbitt farmhouse
at about eight o'clock on the evening of the Fourth
of July, 18 , might have seen a tall, gaunt figure,
neatly arrayed in black, emerging from the shed
door with a tin pail in one hand and a short-handled
brush in the other. That figure belonged to Elipha-
let Babbitt, and that pail to his mother, and in that
pail was lard. Now it happened that the regular
path of Clorinda Perrivale's suitors lay across the
east meadow aforesaid, over the fence and across a
good-sized and very deep brook, by means of a single
log. They took this path because it brought them
to the rear of the house, and relieved them of the
disagreeable necessity of saying good-evening to Mr.
Perrivale, who usually sat on the front . porch at the
evening hour, smoking his pipe.
Eliphalet Babbitt was aware of the custom of his
rivals, because it was one that he himself habitually
practised, and to-night a grim smile sat upon his
lips, as he pursued his way across the fields in the
soft summer twilight, lard pail in hand, and with his
love-speech already made out in his heart. The
shadows of early night were just closing round, as
he climbed the fence and approached the log bridge
ELIPHALET'S WOOING. 131
over the brook. Looking carefully about him to see
that no one was witness to his deed, he flung himself
astride of the log, with his back to the Perrivale
cottage, opened his pail, dipped the brush in the
lard, and proceeded to apply a liberal coating of it
to the already smooth-worn log, as lie hitched along
backward toward the opposite bank. When his
task was completed, he hid pail and brush under the
bank and hastened up the path to the cottage.
Clorinda was sitting in her little workroom at the
vine-covered window as he drew "near, and she
merrily bade him come in without knocking. Oh,
how beautiful she looked, rocking back and forth in
the dusk light, against the background of the vine,
her pure white dress of muslin but half concealing
her round white arms and marble shoulders ! Eliph-
alet shyly sat down on the edge of a chair, and
turned his bell-crowned hat round and round in his
nervous hands. They talked or rather, she talked
pleasantly and quietly for a little while, listening
in the pauses to the monotonous chirp, chirp of the
cricket and the croaking of the frogs on the banks
of the brook. Deeper and deeper grew the shadows,
till the figure in white seemed like a substanceless
thing seen dimly in a vision, and the figure in black
had almost melted away into the darkness of the
132 EMPHALET'S- WOOING.
room. The girl had ceased to talk much. Her face
was turned away from Eliphalet, and she seemed to
be looking out anxiously, as she rocked, through the
narrow spaces of the vine. At length a dead silence
prevailed. Eliphalet's tongue was so. dry that he
could not speak, and his wits were drier still of
words to speak to the beautiful girl, with her
thoughts apparently so far away from him. Sud-
denly there was a heavy splash from the brook
below. " Oh my ! " cried Clorinda, starting, as if
suddenly awakened from a dream. " That rock has
fallen out of the bank I knew it would."
"What rock, Clorindy?" asked Eliphalet, hitch-
ing his chair a little closer to the girl. " Do you
mean the big rock by the bridge ? "
"Yes," answered Clorinda. "Did you notice it?"
"I guess I did," exclaimed Eliphalet, glad to get
upon a subject of conversation in that trying mo-
ment. " I ' lowed that rock was going to fall one of
these days. I told father so. Did it frighten you,
Clorindy?" (Here he started to hitch a little
nearer, but his chair creaked, and he forebore).
"Yes, it did," admitted the girl. "I must have
been thinking "
Splash !
"Gosh, what a mushrat!" exclaimed Eliphalet,
ELIPHALET'S WOOING. 133
the cold sweat starting out all over him. " Wish
I'd a been there with a gun ! "
" Was it a muskrat ? v asked Clorinda, curiously.
" It didn't sound like a stone."
"Yes, it was," asseverated Eliphalet, roundly.
"I know a mushrat splash, every time. Did you
ever see a mushrat, Clorindy?" (Creak, creak,
from the chair).
"No, I never did," exclaimed Clorinda; "but I
have seen their holes."
" So've I, so've I ! " exclaimed Eliphalet, im-
mensely pleased at the coincidence. "When the
brook gets down real low and hayin's over, so there
won't be anybody round to bother us, I'll show you
more'n fifteen or sixteen of 'em, all in a "
Splash ! v
" That was a fish I " cried Clorinda, positively.
"So 'twas! so 'twas!" assented Eliphalet, and
his chair made a long, scraping noise on the floor.
"Say, Clorindy, do you like to fish?"
" Yes, I do ever so much."
"So do I! ahem. So do I." Eliphalet was
sucking the rim of his bell-crowned hat, and bend-
ing forward, and looking up sidewise through the
darkness at the figure in white. " Clorindy will
you go fishing with me, some time ? "
134 ELIPHALET'S WOOING.
"Perhaps so, Elipli Mr. Babbitt."
" He, he, he ! " from Eliphalet. Scrape, creak,
creak ! from the chair.
"Say, Clorindy I'm glad I didn't go to the
fireworks to-night."
"Why, Eliph-- alet?"
"Becuz becuz, all the other boys went, you
know, and hee, hee, hee ! "
Splash ! splash !
"Bull-frogs!" exclaimed Eliphalet. ("Two of
'em together, by. the great horn spoon ! " )
" How do you know they were bull-frogs, Elipha-
let?"
" I heard 'em croak, didn't you ? "
"I thought I heard some noise more like a
man's voice."
" Oh, no ! that was me. I was just going to say
something."
" What was it, Eliphalet ? "
" I I like you putty well. Clorindy " scrape,
scrape, from the chair. Eliphalet was very close
now. He put out his arm ; it slipped around Clo-
rinda's waist, and the chair stopped rocking. " Clo-
rindy I "
Something precluded the use of further words,
and when Eliphalet went home that night he was
A SEAT IN A BARREL. 135
so elated that he forgot all about the larded bridge,
and Clorinda, in her little room over the porch,
thought she faintly heard
Splash !
A SEAT IN A BARREL.
DIOGENES was wholly domiciled in a tub ; why
should not the wise man of modern times be content
with a seat in a barrel ?
Such was my reflection as I ensconced myself com-
fortably in a softly cushioned divan, whose frame-
work, twenty-four hours previous had been nothing
more nor less than a very floury flour barrel. The
gentle wife of my bosom had conceived the idea (or
did she abstract it from one of her many excellent
household journals ?); I was appointed engineer of the
project ; the flour barrel was produced from the cellar,
and the sound of saw and hammer and the swish of
thread had not ceased until the finished creation stood
before us in all the perfection of its actualized ideality
(save the mark ! the phrase is not mine ; it was sug-
gested by the cook).
The modus operandi is not even now perfectly clear
in my own mind. I think we began to saw about
the middle of the barrel and sawed half way through;
Then we removed the hoop from the upper half of
136 A SEAT IN A BARREL.
the barrel (the half without any head), and forcibly
took away the severed staves thereof, leaving the
lower half of the barrel intact. If I understand my-
self, we now had a semicircular section of flour
barrel above, and a circular section below. I know
it looked like a very simple operation at the time,
but, not being accustomed to mechanical processes
of the sort, the details have not impressed them-
selves upon my memory as definitely as I wish they
had. At all events, I trust the reader has in mind a
tolerably exact picture of the result.
The next step was to stuff the cylindrical portion
of the divan very generously with that sort of uphol-
sterer's vermicelli known as " excelsior." The stuff-
ing was not only packed down with all the artfulness
and energy supposed to characterize feminine trunk
packing, but was allowed to overflow, if I may be
permitted the degenerate simile, as foam overflows a
tankard of beer on a brewer's sign. The semi-cylin-
drical portion of the barrel was then treated in the
same way, except that in this instance the excelsior
had to be confined in place by pieces of small string.
As the reader- must perceive, we now had a divan in
embryo, nicely cushioned in both seat and back. All
that remained to do was to complete the upholster-
ing by adding a cover of the brightly flowered print
A SEAT IN A BARREL. 137
which my thrifty helpmate had provided. At this
point of the proceedings I was, of course, honorably
retired ; and as I thereupon left the room, and did
not see our new piece of furniture again until it was
completed, I can hardly speak with understanding of
those delicate and mysterious feminine touches which
are to home-made furniture what the elegancies of
the higher education are to a man. Suffice it to say
that I should not have recognized my own handi-
work thus embellished had I not been assured it was
the very same. Everything about that whilom flour
barrel was so idealized ! The woody suggestion, the
remembrance of a persistent and prosaic coating
within, the aspect as of an inquisitorial chair of
torture none of these things remained. Instead,
I saw inviting me, literally, a lap of luxury. Every
line of stiffness had disappeared : the line of beauty,
the flowing curve was predominant.
I sat down in the barrel with a profound and
grateful sigh. It clasped me in its padded embrace.
Wherever my person touched its environment, it
touched the softness of a couch.
" How do you like it ? " asked the Designer, with
a beaming smile.
" Like it, my dear ! " I replied. " Have you no
stronger term to supply, in the evident speechless-
ness of my admiration ? "
138 A SEAT IN A BARREL.
Here, I am happy to say, I touched just the right
chord, and was rewarded by the Designer's seating
herself in the barrel with me, and sifting several
shreds of excelsior down the back of my neck, in the
usual feminine way.
" Isn't it perfectly lovely ! "
" That comes nearer the mark," I replied. " Any
other superlatives which you may have in reserve
will be thankfully received."
All this transpired six months ago. Lest the
admiring reader should go and do likewise, I will
state that the transformed flour barrel is now up
garret. Indeed, I cannot for the life of me account
for its popularity at the first. Wife is very good, and
thinks it was because I sawed it out. I am as firmly
convinced that it was because she sewed it in. At
all events, after the first two days it became intoler-
able to the spinal processes of both of us. It creaked
most horribly. It gave one a constant sensation like
that of sitting on the edge of a buggy seat between
two other persons. It sagged forward. It pinned
one laterally. It began to emit excelsior and flour.
It played me a most contemptible trick, when, in a fit
of abstraction, I attempted to lean backwards against
the wall in it. On the whole, it turned out to be a
monumental failure. So it went up garret.
BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE
SLIPPERS.
OU could almost hide Little Slippers in
the toes of Big Slippers, because Little
Slippers are very, very small for the size
of foot they pinch, and Big Slippers are
ridiculously, luxuriously large for the
man who wears them.
Big Slippers- are mine, and Little Slippers are
her's ; and we are each other's : that is to say, we
are married.
The other evening I came home from a hard day's
work, and found Big Slippers and Little Slippers,
standing side by side in front of an open fire in the
grate ; for it was a cold evening, and the wind was
brisk. The owner of Little Slippers was out ; but
with her customary thoughtfulness, she had prepared
all the accessories of a cheerful welcome for me.
The fire was burning its brightest ; my evening
paper lay on the table, under the softly-glowing
student lamp, and a cigar yes, a cigar, for my
little wife loves to watch the curling smoke as well
139 >:;< r
140 BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE SLIPPEES.
as I do tempted me, standing upright in a dainty
glass vase.
However, I touched neither cigar nor paper ; but
sat down in my easy chair before the fire, and, fixing
my eyes on Big Slippers and Little Slippers, began
to muse, and, finally, to talk out loud.
" Let me see, Big Slippers," said I ; " how old are
you? that is, how long have you kept company
with Little Slippers?"
Big Slippers moved uneasily on the rug, and pres-
ently, with a very shame-faced expression, replied :
" 1 don't remember."
"Oh, don't remember, eh? Well, that's a pretty
admission for a fellow of your apparent affection and
devotion to make. How long has it been, Little
Slippers ? "
The red rosettes on Little Slippers blushed all
over. The blush made them all the rosier in the
firelight, as she answered, sweetly,
" It is just four years to-day since Big Slippers
and Little Slippers were married."
" The deuce it is ! " I exclaimed, jumping up, and
hitting the table a savage rap. Then I sat down
again, and said, softly : " I had forgotten it, Little
Slippers yes, I had forgotten it, selfish fellow that
I am." Just then I looked at Big Slippers, and he
was laughing.
BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE SLIPPERSv 141
" You rascal, what do you mean by laughing ? " I
shouted, in a terrible rage : " This is a fine time for
you to laugh ! "
" I was just thinking," said Big Slippers,, respect-
fully, "concerning what you have just said, that it
was a ' pretty admission for a fellow of your appar-
ent affection and devotion to make.' ."
" Big Slippers ! " I cried, with considerable emo-
tion, "you are a person of a great deal of discretion,
and some brains. Suppose we never mention this,
matter outside of Little Slippers's hearing ? "
"Agreed!" said Big Slippers.
I leaned back in my easy-chair with a sigh of
relief, and was much gratified to see that, in spite of
the ragged old fellow's brief and treacherous mem-
ory, Little Slippers snuggled all the closer to Big-
Slippers on the rug.
"Well," said I, complacently, after lighting the^
cigar that stood in the vase, and puffing a few rings
of smoke toward the* ceiling, "you two people seem
to be pretty well satisfied with each other, although
you have been married four years."
Little Slippers blushed again, perceiving that my
remark was (naturally enough) addressed to her.
Looking very modestly down at her toes, she replied,
in tones that made; the; blood, pour in floods of wine-
142 BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE SLIPPERS.
and music through all my veins, " I think Big Slip-
pers is the dearest, sweetest, kindest, handsomest
husband there is in the whole world ! "
I choked a little, and my eyes were a trifle damp,
as I turned to Big Slippers, and cried, " Now, sir,
what have you to say to that? "
"It is very pretty and very nice," said Big Slip-
pers, complacently.
"Sirrah!" I exclaimed, starting forward, as
though to trample him in my wrath, "is that all
you have to offer in return for sweet Little Slippers's
love, you ingrate, you selfish, egotistical, unsympa-
thetic, puffed-up, meagre-souled brute? "
" Oh, don't ! " cried Little Slippers, beginning to
cry. " Big Slippers is just as noble and good and
warm-hearted and unselfish and sympathetic as he
can be, and he loves me dearly ; only, perhaps, he
doesn't like to show it before others."
" Well, if he doesn't like to show it before oth-
ers," I replied, still with some warmth, "he doesn't
deserve to enjoy such an experience. Now, if he
was my husband, I'd I'd "
But just at this point I suddenly became aware
that my cigar was going out, and it ^ became neces-
sary for me to stop and puff vigorously for quite a
while. Once or twice I thought I caught Big
BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE SLIPPERS. 143
Slippers looking at me with a significant and some-
what annoying expression ; but I said nothing, for I
had no breath to spare. When my cigar was burn-
ing again, I threw myself back in my chair, and
puffed thoughtfully for some minutes without looking
at Big Slippers and Little Slippers. At length I
resumed the talk, asking, with some vexation, "Big
Slippers, why is it that you look so much more
shabby than Little Slippers out at the toes, and
rusty along the sides, and ragged at the edges, and
all that? You have been married no longer than
she has."
Big Slippers sulked at this, and would not answer ;
but Little Slippers exclaimed, quite hotly for her:
44 1 do think you are too bad ! Big Slippers doesn't
look that way. He is as spruce as any gentleman,
and twice as handsome as most of them. As for
being worn more than I am, he might be (for he
does such a lot of work !), but he isn't. If you will
be so good as to examine me very closely, you will
see that I am as thin as a wafer in a good many
places, and my heels are beginning to turn side-
ways."
" You dear Little Slippers ! " I cried : " you aren't
getting worn a bit nonsense ! You are as fresh,
and handsome, and straight, and strong as the day
144 BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE SLIPPERS.
you left the shop to get married; and you can pinch
just as tightly as ever you did. But as for Big Slip-
pers, look how he has spread out what a great,
ungainly, sprawling fellow he is ! He doesn't de-
serve to stand on the same rug with a neat, trim
little beauty, like his wife. I declare, I have
half "
" Now, now, now ! " came a merry voice from
behind my chair, while a soft hand was laid upon
my lips, and peals of happy laughter filled all the
house : " What is this nonsense that my ridiculous,
foolish, delightfully inconsistent, dear, funny, old,
worn-out husband has been talking to himself all
this time ? How long do you suppose I have been
standing behind your chair, holding my poor sides
with all my might and main ? Oh, dear, dear
dear! Oh! my!"
I did not jump up. I did not even rise. I did
not know what to do. Little wife was bending
over the top of the chair, laughing, sobbing I
could not tell which. Pretty soon a tear came
plashing down on my hand. I couldn't stand it
any longer. I just held out my arms, and some-
thing or, rather, somebody stole into them,
and nestled there.
" Little Slippers," I asked, in as severe a tone
BIG SLIPPERS AND LITTLE SLIPPERS. 145
as I could : " how much did you hear of my foolish
talk ? I thought you were out."
"I was out, but I came directly after you did,
Big Slippers."
" Then you heard it all ? "
" I'm afraid so."
" Did I say anything I ought not to have said,
Little Slippers ? "
Ye s."
"What was it?"
" You said that you at least, you said that Big
Slippers was a selfish, forgetful, shabby, unsympa-
thetic, ungainly brute ! "
" And isn't he ? "
44 No ! " (prolonged and accompanied with an em-
phatic hug.)
" What is he, then ? "
" He is noble, and good, and warm-hearted, and
unselfish, and sympathetic. He is the dearest,
sweetest, kindest, handsomest husband there is in
the whole world ! "
(Instead of stars^ slip in kisses /)
" Little Slippers, what shall it be ? "
44 A sealskin sacque and a new muff for
Christmas ! "
44 And what am I to have now ? "
146 , JOHNNY DUMPSEY'S KTTSE.
Without a word, Little Slippers reached down,
took something from beneath the chair, and laid
it in my hands. I unwrapped the parcel. It was
a new pair of Big Slippers.
JOHNNY DUMPSEY'S KTJSE.
Now that the sun rises so early in the morning,
Johnny Dumpsey has developed a baleful habit of
deserting his downy couch long before the rest of
the family have finished their peaceful morning
slumbers.
For several days it was a great grief to the young
man to have to wander about the house in loneliness
and quiet, waiting for the god of slumber to finish
his session with the folks ; but a few mornings ago
he made a discovery, and put into execution a plan
which temporarily filled his youthful soul with
rapture.
He found that when the cook seized the cleaver,
and with thick-raining and re-echoing blows, like
the anvil solo of old Vulcan, assailed the elastic
steak which was destined to tax the Dumpseyan
digestive apparatus at breakfast, the various mem-
JOHNNY DUMPSEY'S RUSE. 147
bers of the family, with, sighs and yawns, stirred in
their respective couches, and presently, with infinite
reluctance, arose.
Johnny's fertile brain conceived a scheme.
The next morning at six o'clock he crept from the
bosom of Morpheus, donned his garments, and secur-
ing a rubber blanket and a hatchet, went down into
the shed and began to pound. Drowsy snorts and
groans presently arose from the Dumpseyan bowers
of sleep, and as Johnny ceased from his labors, and
went outside to lay a banana skin in the place where
the milkman was wont to come running round the
corner of the house, can in hand, he saw a glimmer
of white in the window of the parental chamber,
and his cup of joy was full.
How pleasant it was to have company in the dole-
ful hours of early morn, while the house still reeked
with the penetrating odor of kerosene, and the cook
wept for very smoke !
Johnny hung around in the shed until he saw the
milkman step oh the banana peel, sprawl frantically
forward, sling four gallons of milk into the wood
pile, and mop up a mud puddle with the front of his
overcoat..
The little Samaritan then came out, wiped the poor
man's blinded eyes with a handkerchief, snapped the
148 JOHNNY DUMPSEY'S RUSE.
bell-crowned hat back into shape, and brought the
battered and empty milk can from the wood pile.
The milkman thanked him tenderly and gave him
five cents; and Johnny went upstairs, his bosom
almost bursting with a sense of his own goodness.
"Johnny," cried Mr. Dumpsey, from the bed-
room ; " how near is breakfast ready ? Have I got
time for a shave ? "
"Yes if you hurry like lightning," replied
Johnny.
And then he sat down on a trunk by the door to
watch the blood flow.
Mr. Dumpsey flew around and concocted a lather,
honed his razor a few times, and laid on. All went
well for a few strokes, and then Johnny kicked
one of his father's slippers under the bed and
remarked,
" Golly ! the steak smells good, don't it? "
This upset Mr. Dumpsey's nerves, and he gave
himself a slash under the right ear.
" Get out of the room, you ! What are you
looking at me so for ? " yelled Mr. Dumpsey.
Johnny slid quickly off the trunk and went into
the sitting-room. Presently his mother, clad in 'her
role de nuit, with her hair falling down her back,
poked her head into the room.
JOHNNY DUMPSEY'S RUSE. 149
" You there, Johnny ? "
"Yes, 'm."
" Well, I guess you can tell Julia to bring up my
breakfast this morning. I don't believe I shall have
time to dress."
This tickled Johnny immensely; but he only
giggled and kept his secret to himself.
Pretty soon Mr. Dumpsey came paddling around,
looking for his odd slipper, and Johnny became
intensely absorbed in a cook book. Mr. Dumpsey's
face was gory, and his clean shirt-bosom was disfig-
ured by two or three large spots of sanguinary
lather. He scowled at Johnny, and went poking
his slipperless foot under the lounge and the table
and the bookcase ; and in the course of his peregri-
nations his eyes fell upon the clock.
" Well, I declare ! " he exclaimed: "she ran down
last night, didn't she ? First time in three years."
He went back into the bedroom to get his watch
and see what time it was, and Johnny rose, whist-
ling unconcernedly, and went downstairs.
" What be all the folks up at this time of day for,
I'd like , to know?" inquired the cook, wiping her
red eyes and nose on her apron.
" Oh, they are going to get up earlier right along
now," explained Johnny : " I guess pa's come to the
150 JOHNNY DUMPSEY'S KUSE.
conclusion that he can't afford to be so lazy. Say,
Mary, what makes the wood so wet this morning?
Has it been rainin' ? "
The cook looked sharply at Johnny, but said
nothing; and the young man concluded that his
benefactor of the morning had imposed a vow of
eternal secrecy upon that voluble domestic.
" Well, when Julia gets up, you tell her that ma
wants her breakfast brought to her, will you? " he
said, and was going out into the shed, when his
father entered the kitchen.
" Is John here ? John come with me ! "
It passes Johnny Dumpsey's comprehension the
divining power of a parent.
An hour later, when the actual steak was pounded,
J. Dumpsey, Jr., cringed. His mother's breakfast
was not carried up ; Johnny's was three slices of
bread and a small glass of water.
PIANO PLAYING.
T
[HERE seems
to be a differ-
ence of opinion
> /"about pianos. I
know a poet who
thinks he gets his
inspirations from
the tones of a grand
square, and I also know an editor who is unable to
write a puff for the grocery man, if he hears a cer-
tain young lady in the apartments across the street
strike the premonitory chords of a waltz.
Some men just adore the cadence of the diamond-
ringed fingers of the fair sex upon the ivory keys,
while others, in .the language of the immortal para-
graphist, " curse and howl and swear."
It seems to be altogether a matter of individual
taste. One cannot tell beforehand how this magic
instrument is going to affect the listener.
Some one suggests that it can be determined by
knowing in advance whether the listener is a musi-
cian or not. The writer begs leave to doubt. The
151
152 PIANO PLAYING.
best musician he ever knew made up the most awful
faces, and squirmed the most atrociously of all, in a
little circle of music lovers invited by a certain rich
papa to come and hear his boarding-school daughter
play. I was charmed,, of course ; but then the girl
had a remarkably pretty profile, and was worth,
prospectively, a few millions. It became me to be
charmed.
I really do not think that the effect of piano
playing can be determined, definitely, until the
subject has been experimented upon. I once was
told of a most ferociously brave Indian, who had
captured an innumerable number of scalps, and was
well known to all the hair-dealers west of Chicago
I heard that he one day crept into a Montana
settler's cabin, while the folks were all away except
the daughter of the house, with the laudable- inten-
tion of increasing his stock-in-trade by inducing the
said young lady to part with her luxuriant tresses.
He discovered her seated at what he supposed to be
a new-fangled kind of a meat chopper, and stealing
softly up behind her, was just reaching out his
sanguinary fist to grasp her long scalp-lock, when,
with all the energy of a Western girl, she brought
down her floury fingers upon the first chord of
" Johnny Comes Marching Home Again."
PIANO PLAYING. 153
This was too much for the unsuspecting red man.
With a wild yell of terror, he dropped his butcher-
knife, and sprang through the window, carrying
sash and all with him. The belle of the prairie
jumped up just in time to see Ochewochee (which,
being translated, signifies " Fundamental Barber " )
disappearing over the crest of a neighboring swell,
with the sash dangling down his back and slapping
his legs at every spring.
It will be readily admitted that the young lady
could not have foreseen this enthusiastic reception
of her musical effort; neither could she with cer-
tainty have counted upon an opposite effect. There
are Indians, no doubt, who would have just sunk
into a chair and permitted their ravished souls to
melt in tears of rapture and sympathy.
On the other hand, we may safely assume that
had the male relatives of the young lady been com-
pelled to listen to the same palpitating strains, they
would indignantly have called for the frying-pan
and assuaged their souls with the more seductive
andante of frying pork.
It will be seen, therefore, that piano playing is
one of the things which the sage Josh Billings
would call " onsartin," There are those whose
souls yearn for it, as the soul of the youthful artist
154 PIANO PLAYING.
yearns for a paiirt pot and a square yard of board
fence. There are thbse who can sit by the hour
listening to the strains beg pardon, the endeavors
of a young lady in a pink satin waist and a pearl
necklace, as she hammers away at the divine har-
monies of a Mendelssohn or a Beethoven. But
there are others who would rather not. Tastes
certainly do differ. It is with music as it is with
onions some like 'em and some don't.
Occasionally, there will rise upon the horizon of
art a being whose very presence breathes the soul
of light and beauty a divine, unapproachable,
foreordained genius. And when such an one ex-
pends the energies of youth and the devotion of
maturity upon the n^steries of the many-keyed
instrument, practising early and late, and inflicting
untold agonies upon innumerable brain-workers, at
last at last, mind you when the wrinkles of
toil and care begin to seam the fresh young brow,
and the days of youth are floating out into the
shadowy past like a sunset cloud in the gathering
dusk then it will be said of that one, by those
who have true artist souls, that he or she knows
how to play the piano.
But as for the much-enduring editor, and the
money-making citizen, and the man of prosaic tend-
ON DOGS. 155
encies in general will he be able to detect the
difference? Not much! All piano playing is alike
to him, a vexation of soul, and a vain reaching after
the unattainable.
ON DOGS.
THE man who has never owned a dog is not fit
to die. He has not had his legitimate share of fun
in this present life. He may have run through the
whole catalogue of mortal pleasures besides ; but
if he has neglected this one supreme privilege of
man, he has left at least one-half of the contents of
the cup of human happiness untasted.
And why ?
Because, in the first place, a dog is funny in-
trinsically and necessarily funny. He can't help it ;
he is born so. He has just enough of human nature
in him to make him delightfully and irresistibly
ridiculous. If monkeys were as intelligent as dogs,
we should be sending them to school and buying
their votes at the poles. But, unfortunately, the
intelligence of the dog is in such a form that he
doesn't get the advantage of it. A dog can be im-
mensely pleased, as well as anybody ; but what a
misfortune to have to hi ugh or applaud with a tail I
156 ON DOGS.
Again, nobody can enjoy companionship better
than a dog; and yet, what a whimsical perplexity
he has in trying to convince you of it ! His finest
expression of the joys of good fellowship consists in
planting his muddy feet on the most sacred portion
of your raiment, and attacking your face with the
moist caresses of his tongue.
Can any one, I ask, who has a soul for humor, fail
to find inexhaustible merriment in this embryotic
humanity of the dog ? He is most irresistibly funny
when you try to interpret him, to settle down and
have a conversation with him, and get a peep into
that curious inner nature of his, which one really
does not know whether to call a soul or a nerve-
centre. He is vastly obliged to you for your con-
descension, and yet, I fancy, he suspects all the
time that you are making game of him. There !
did you catch that quick, subtle, whimsical side-
glance from the corner of his eye? That means
that he understands you pretty well, but thinks so
much of you and your sense of delicacy that he
wouldn't have you suspect it for the world.
There is vastly more fun in talking to a dog than
in talking to a fool because a dog is no fool. He
appreciates everything you say, and would give a
precious year or two of his brief earthly existence to
6tf DOGS. 157
be able to put his own sentiments into words. But
as he cannot do this, he gets along the best way he
can with those wonderfully expressive eyes of his
and the eloquence of that ecstatic tail. Scold him,
and he wilts; praise him, and he. is too delighted to
keep still ; talk to him, and I warrant you will have
no better listener, whether the subject be within the
range of his comprehension or not. Only, do not
laugh out rudely at his interest, because that grieves
him, and the best and most delightful sort of laugh-
ter never breaks from the lips. One can be im-
mensely amused with a dog, and yet never let him
suspect it.
And then there is another reason why no man is
fit to die who has never owned a dog. A dog tests
a man's saintliness very thoroughly. I always have
my doubts about a person's getting to heaven, be he
ever so good, who has not become acquainted with
the propensities of the canine race. I look upon it
as the supreme indorsement of character to be good
and own a dog. For let it not be supposed that the
ordinary dog, however amiable his disposition may
be, is altogether blameless and without fault. On
the contrary, he has several faults, and it is seldom
that they are all dormant at the same time. And,
strange as it may seem, the dog's chief fault grows
158 ON DOGS.
out of the superabundance of his chief grace viz.,
affection.
It is not always amusing, for instance, to have the
pet of the household track the family to church, and
come bounding up the aisle just as the minister is
folding his hands over the velvet desk for the long
prayer. Nor is it altogether conducive to the growth
of personal piety to have your dog meet you at the
door when you are arrayed for a grand party, and
bedaub your doeskins or silks with loving impres-
sions of his muddy paws.
And there are other faults peculiar to the dog. If
he is a dog of impulsive temperament as most
dogs are he will bark vociferously, and oftentimes
spitefully, at everybody who comes near the house,
from the butcher or the milkman, to the fine lady
who calls in a carriage, or the reverend gentleman
who comes to pay his ministerial respects. A dog is
verily no respecter of persons. He is also no re-
spector of neighbors' rights. He will pursue, and,
if possible, annihilate a cat or chicken on the other
side of the fence just as readily as on this side.
If there is a fresh garden-bed anywhere in the
vicinity, he will be almost sure to bury his bones
and other victims therein, to the great detriment of
the various germinal bodies previously interred upon
the spot. He is sometimes pettish where he does
not fancy, thievish where he does, and indolent
where he doesn't care. And yet, in spite of all
these faults, the dog is one of the most lovable
creatures under the sun. You must know him to
appreciate him, and in order to know him you must
own him.
You can't get much fun out of somebody else's
dog. He won't give himself away to you worth a
cent. But the beauty of it is, poverty is no barrier
to the possession of a dog. In fact, the more ex-
treme a man's poverty is, the more dogs he can afford
to keep. This seems to be the general rule. It is
one of the compensations for being poor. A dog
may cost six hundred dollars, and yet be no more of
a dog than one you may have for the asking. A
little curly-tailed fyke is just as good for companion-
able purposes as a high-bred setter or pug. No man
need hang back on the score of expense.
Then let me advise every reader who is in search
of genuine unadulterated, lasting fun, to invest in
a dog. It is an investment which will yield him
one hundred and ten per cent, annually, besides
dividends on the profits, and plenty of chances to
speculate on margins.
160 THE. FISHING SEASON.
THE FISHING SEASON.
IT is the first of May. The fishing "season is now
in full blast, and the immodest prevarication appears
in public in low neck and short sleeves. Two
essential qualifications are necessary for a man to
be a good fisherman. He must have a sublime
disregard for exact moral distinctions, and a sun-
burned nose. Any piscatorial sportsman who does
not possess these qualifications is a dude and a
Pharisee.
The best time to fish is early in the morning, just
before sunrise. This is the time of day when a
man feels hilarious and full of energy. Later in
the day he may be just as hilarious, but he is gener-
ally full of something else which is apt to interfere
with his success. As for bait, the fly of commerce
undoubtedly holds the palm for beauty, but the
humble angle-worm can crawl all around it in point
of effectiveness.
"The only objection to the latter is, that it some-
times has a tendency to develop in proportions most
astonishingly before the day is over, and it often
happens that a mere pepper-box full of this plebeian
bait will fill the entire bottom of a boat, in the
THE FISHING SEASOtf. 161
course of a few hours, with reptiles the size of a
man's arm. But as this never happens except when
a man has ceased to care whether the fish bite or
not, the sudden development of -his bait is a matter
of little consequence.
The man who has an insane idea that the only
proper way to fish is with a fly, is to be pitied. He
is a good deal like the man who abstains from hug-
ging while making love, for fear that he may get too
much fun out of life. The Barmecide idea robs
men of a good deal of legitimate enjoyment in this
world. The fly-fisherman is a very honorable, high-
minded person, but that does not prevent his buying
a string of fish from the small boy with the bent pin
and the angle-worm, and palming them off for
his own. He would not condescend to capture
a trout with a common earthworm that would
be dishonorable but his conscience does not shrink
from letting somebody else capture the prize in this
contemptible way, and selling it to him to make false
representations with. Fly-fishing is undoubtedly a
very beautiful pastime, but it is mostly all fly.
The chief pleasure of going fishing comes before
and afterward. A man can have lots of fun getting
his tackle cready and attending to the putting-up of
his own luncheon. He can also take great pride
162 THE FISHING SEASON.
and satisfaction in, relating his exploits after lie gets
home provided no eyewitness is present. But
while he is actually engaged in depleting the finny
tribe, a man generally looks upon himself with less
self-complacency than at any other time. And when
the sun gets low enough to take him full in the nose,
he is sure that he is a fool.
THE AMATEUR CARPENTER.
I
. j
T is great fun to watch an amateur car-
penter. He usually knows how to use
tools just about as well as a hen turkey
knows how to paint a rose. He may be
a good, honest, and even virtuous citizen
in other respects, but when he retires to his work-
room, and strips off his coat and vest for a little
recreation with edged tools, it is just as well not to
have any of the women folks or children within-
hearing. The dog may come in, if he wants to, but
it must be with the understanding that it is at his
own risk. It is said that dogs are intelligent.
Some dogs are ; but the dog that persists in hang-
ing around an amateur carpenter isn't worth the
leather it takes to make his collar.
The amateur carpenter always wants to make
something, right off. He is never content to go
through with a course of experimental processes in
wood. If he saws a board, it is not to see how well
or how straight he can learn to do it, but to make it
fit into some mechanical creation of his fertile brain.
163
164 THE AMATEUR CARPENTER.
If he drives a nail, it is not to discover the mystery
of doing it without splitting either of the surfaces
which it joins, or how to keep it from staggering
around like a lamp-post on a club night. He, drives
it, of course, to make the sides of a box stick on, or
to seal up. a crack in a pine bootjack. It is this
insatiable constructive passion which gets the ama-
teur carpenter into trouble. If he would be con-
tent with using his tools, at first, to find out how to
use them, and afterward to find out what to use
them for, he would get along much better. But no ;
he must make something right away. He has an
ideal in his head,'and he immediately sets to work to
carve it out in cold pine and nails.
By and by, after a great deal of sweating and
internal profanity, he gets the pieces, the constituent
parts, of the thing blocked out ; 'and here he takes a
rest, and contemplates his blistered palms with con-
siderable self-satisfaction. It looks as though the
chief difficulty had been conquered, and all that
remains to do is to put the pieces together, and the
thing will be done. But alas for his short-lived con-
fidence ! The trials of the amateur carpenter have
but just begun.
When he buckles to work again, he is astonished
to find that the constituent parts of his conception
THE AMATEUR, CARPENTER. 165
don't harmonize, as you may say, worth a cent.
This was surely the end of the thing, but it doesn't
match the beginning, opposite, any more than a bad
egg matches the complexion of a delicate appetite.
One slants to the north, and the other to the south;
one is bigger at the top, and the other at the bottom.
Change them around, and it works just the other
way, but for the life of him he can't fix them so that
they will come out even. He tries the sides, and
they are four times as bad. One laps over the two
ends about an inch each way, and the other one is
about an inch too short each way. The top and
bottom of the concern are away off from the ideal
as much as four miles. The top is so small that
it falls in, and the bottom is so big that it won't fit
in. It would take an architectural genius greater
than that of Sir Christopher 'Wren to make the six
parts of that ideal box coalesce.
Then the amateur carpenter pours out the vials
of his wrath. With one mighty kick he sends the
ingredients of his first masterpiece flying across the
room. The dog gets the piece that is full of half-
driven nails just in that portion of his anatomy most
vitalty connected with his howling apparatus, and the
chorus of curses and yells that ascends from that
small back chamber is something awful. To add
166 THE AMATEUR CARPENTER.
to his boiling rage, the amateur carpenter has
severely sprained and otherwise inconvenienced his
two most efficient toes, from having forgotten the
fact that he had his slippers on, instead of his
boots, when his emotions got the better of him.
On the whole, his first effort cannot be set down
as an unqualified success. Still, he does not wish to
give up so easily ; so, after hobbling around and
kicking the dog three or four times with his well
foot, to even things up, he sits down and tries
to think of something simple to make.
How, for instance, would a doll table for the
little girl do? A square bit of board, with four
holes bored at the four corners, and rounded
sticks driven into them, would be the general plan
of it. Simple enough, surely. He can do that
without any trouble. So up he gets, selects his
board, and proceeds to saw off the requisite portion
of it. When about half way through the board the
saw sticks, and will not move either way. The ama-
teur carpenter tugs away for a few moments, and
then his choler begins to rise not his paper collar ;
that was up about his ears a good while ago. He
jumps up on the bench, plants both feet on the
board, grabs the saw-handle, and jerks backward
with all his might.
THE AMATEUR CARPENTER. 167
The saw comes out with a rush, and the amateur
carpenter swoops down off the bench and plunges
the back of his head into the nail box. Fortunately,
his collar protects his scalp somewhat, and he escapes
with a vision of two .billion stars and a long, raw
scratch on the neck. Again the poor dog howls in
sympathy with his afflicted master, and vainly seeks
an exit from the chamber of horrors.
The saw, however, is now out of the board,
and a brilliant thought occurs to the amateur car-
penter. He has heard that lard or tallow rubbed on
a refractory saw will cause it to glide with the most
charming smoothness through the tightest kind of a
btfard. So he goes and hunts up the servant, and
persuades her to let him take the lard pail. Armed
with this, he returns to his stronghold, and the dog
like a thick-headed fool returns with him. The
amateur carpenter besmears the saw, for its entire
length, on both sides, with lard, an inch deep, and
then goes for the board again.
The saw runs easier ; but the lard covers up his
guiding-mark, and he works off on a sort of tangent,
so that when the board end at last drops off, its shape
reminds him of the drawings he used to make on his
slate when he was a schoolboy. It will do, however,
for such "a rude and simple affair as a home-made doll
168 THE AMATEUR CARPENTER.
table. Now he must bore the holes in the four
corners.
He selects a bit of about the right size, screws it
into the bit-brace, put his block over a hole in the
bench, weights it, and proceeds to bore. For a few
moments the chips fly right lively ; then there is* an
ominous cracking sound, the bit goes through with
a rush, and the amateur carpenter, unable to recover
himself, comes down slap on the bench, knocking all
the wind out of him, and giving himself a sanguin-
ary nose, by banging that member against the
tool-chest.
This ends his recreation for the first day. With
a howl of anguish and rage he darts from the room,
holding his nose in his hand and yelling for a hand-
kerchief. Finally, after his devoted wife has dropped
half a dozen bunches of cold keys down his back,
and has cut up a quire of note-paper for him to
hold under his tongue, and gone through the whole
list of superstitious remedies for nose-bleed, he re-
covers, bathes, clothes himself, and returns to his
right mind.
Then he goes back to his business, thanking
Heaven that the hour for recreation comes but once
a day.
THE INTELLIGENCE OF CATS.
MUCH has been said and written about the in-
telligence of cats. From personal observa-
tion I am enabled to offer, as an humble contribution
to this great subject, the following instances of re-
markable feline intelligence.
I once knew a cat which would invariably come
into the house every time it rained. No matter how
suddenly the shower might come up, or how con-
fusing might be the flash and crash and commotion
of the elements, this sagacious animal, instead of
standing with its tail between its legs, and allowing
the raindrops to percolate through its silken fur,
would actually select an open door or window and
this, too, when there were closed doors and windows
in its immediate vicinity and bound through it
with the intelligence and presence of mind of a
much superior being. k
Nor was this wonderful exhibition of reason and
sagacity a semi-occasional occurrence. On the con-
trary, this intelligent cat would pursue the same
course of action with almost as much regularity as
the rain itself, so that it was always possible to tell
169
170 THE INTELLIGENCE OF CATS.
when it was damp weather outside, by the presence
of a draggled form in the best parlor chair, or on the
whitest bedspread ; and the family which owned the
cat, to my certain knowledge, never owned, and
never cared to own, any other barometer. And they
did not own this one above the space of six weeks.
Next in order, I recall the case of a cat which I
once owned myself, and which I attempted to shoot.
The first time I shot at it was when it was a kitten.
I laid it down on the trunk of a fallen tree, took
long and deliberate aim, and fired. When the
smoke cleared away, the kitten was seen placidly
crawling along on the tree trunk, looking for a place
to get down. I examined it carefully all over, but
could not find the mark of a single shot. This
instance of remarkable sagacity so overpowered me
for the time being that I was unable to reload my
gun, and I respectfully carried the kitten into the
house and set up the milk half a pint warm.
Two years afterward I again attempted to shoot
the same cat with another gun. When the cat
saw the muzzle of the gun pointed at her she sat
down and began to lick her paws. This piece of
strategy completely unmanned me, and I was obliged
to lay down my gun, so greatly were my nerves
affected. The wise cat lived on for six months
THE INTELLIGENCE OF CATS.
171
longer, when some instance of intellectual suprem-
acy on her part made me jealous, and I determined
to shoot her yet once more. I took her out by the
barn and set her down.
An ordinary cat would have sat still until after I
shot; but this extraordinarily gifted animal no
sooner observed that I had nothing further to offer
in the way of caresses, than she made a bolt for a
hole under the barn, and escaped a tremendous
charge of number two shot by about three feet and
172 THE INTELLIGENCE OF CATS.
four inches. A neat and commodious grave was dug
very expeditiously on the spot where she ought
to have been, but it is unnecessary to add that she
did not occupy it. That cat finally died of old age,
aggravated by mental overwork. Her brain is
preserved in alcohol.
The third cat was one of the Thomas variety. He
belonged to four or five different feline minstrel
troops, and had by all odds^ the largest and most
carefully polished voice in the neighborhood. It
was really amusing to see how intelligent this
Thomas cat was. When rudely knocked from the
ridgepole of a shed, or the top-board of a back fence,
by a well-aimed bootjack, he never used to crawl
meekly back in the same spot, as & cat with a one-
horse brain would be expected to do.
On the contrary, he would sling all his musical
soul into his tail, and cavort around the neighborhood
like a materialized streak of blue profanity, until he
had collected a whole orchestra of Thomases, and
then they would all go and sit behind some row of
barrels, or in the shadow of the woodpile, and lift up
their united voices in unpremeditated derision. And
yet what an oily hypocrite this same Thomas was by
daylight ! Oh, but he was wise!
He would go purring around the very bootleg that
SPRING OK THE FAKM. 173
had whistled past his ears early in the morning, and
leave great, affectionate clots of gray hair on the
pantaloons of his would-be destroyer. And all this
while he was planning the jubilee of the succeeding
P. M., and calculating how long a stream of yells
would be equivalent to the parabola of a descending,
bootjack.
And yet some people say that cats are not intelli-
gent. They are nothing if they aren't intelligent
and goodness knows they are not the former. Shoot
the cat I
SPRING ON THE FAEM.
THE season has again arrived when the cheerful
granger hies him afield to commune with Nature in
her more genial moods,' and to consign to the loamy
embraces of the soil, the prolific potato and the long-
eared maize. As he looks abroad upon the smiling
expanse of woodland and meadow, and suffers his
eye to follow the fleecy clouds sailing in the ocean of
sunlight above, his spirit swells with joy, and he
enters upon a mental calculation as to the com-
parative producing powers of the Early Rose and
Burbank's seedling.
The latter, he concludes, is of too retiring a dis-
174 SPRING ON THE FARM.
position, and produces too few to the hill, to compare
with its exuberant and watery rival. He smiles as
he calculates the profits which will accrue from
every bushel of the neatly sliced tubers, which he
has so carefully prepared for the ministry of Nature.
The voice of the turtle's next-door neighbor, the
bullfrog, wakes no poetical response within his soul,
as he whacks the off-horse with the hoe, and goes
bouncing across the field with the potato baskets
dancing about his feet.
All the morning long the gladsome granger labors
with planter and hoe. The smell of the soil is in
his nostrils and upon his garments, and his feet
grow heavy with the voluntary contributions of
mother earth. At noon he starts like the war-horse
at the bray of the trumpet, as the hoarse toot of the
dinner horn is wafted across the fields, and, dropping
the instruments of agriculture, t as Cincinnatus
dropped the plough-handles when summoned by
the couriers from Rome, he claps his steeds to his
chariot, and sniffs the battle from afar. Nature in
vain appeals to him with her myriad voices; he
lingers not. Arrived at the back porch, with his
"hired help/' the tin wash-dish is dug out from
behind the woodpile, where it has lain all winter, a
tub of soft soap is broached, and in turn the stalwart
ON THE FAKM. 175
sons of the soil divest themselves of the evidences
of their family relationship.
Meanwhile, the fragrant pork has been acquiring
that rich brown tinge which marks the top-notch of
its palatable ness, and the milk-gravy, mottled with
streaks. of grease, swims in the earthenware bowl.
Now to the feast. Fill high the foaming tankard
with the acidulated cider, and let joy and the potato
dish go round. The good housewife, with cheeks
flushed red as the coals over which she has been
bending, slices the huge loaf of bread in sections
that would crush an ordinary stomach, and deals
them right and left with unstinted hand. The
balmy air of spring steals in at the open window,
and gently dallying with the farmer's fluttering shirt
sleeves, sows the seeds of rheumatism broadcast
through his stalwart frame.
There is a wealth of poetry in country life in the
springtime of the year. Besides the allurements of
the field, there are a thousand and one inferior
charms which cluster about the granger's home life.
There is the setting hen to be branded with the tra-
ditional red rag, and five or six litters of kittens to
be drowned. There are the young pigs to be ten-
derly watched, and rescued from the rolling pro-
clivities of the sow-mother. There are the calves to
176 THE COLLEGE STtTDENT.
be fed, and the lambs to be nursed, and the hens'
eggs to be hunted up in all sorts of inaccessible
places ; and any quantity of poetical tasks of a
kindred nature, which sound a great deal better in
rhyme than they do in prose.
And yet, after all, the farmer's life is not one
unending heydey at least, not until July comes.
He has his cares and troubles, like all other mortals;
and one of the chief of these is that he did not leave
the farm while too young not to know better, and
apprentice himself to a grocer at fifty cents a week.
THE COLLEGE STUDENT.
IN some respects the college student is the eighth
wonder of the world. While of merely ordinary
proportions in a miscellaneous crowd, in his own
proper domain and sphere he overtops the great
statue at Rhodes. There is probably only one occa-
sion upon which the college student realizes his
normal size, and that is when he finds himself in the
grip of a little Milesian policeman with an abnor-
mally developed brogue, and chin-whiskers twice the,
length of his wits. Culture is then obliged to take
THE COLLEGE STUDENT. 177
a back seat, while the embodied majesty of the law
sits up with the driver and carries the whip.
Besides his magnified opinion of himself, the col-
lege student is also remarkable for his microscopic
distinctions between right and wrong. The first
injunction of his decalogue is, " Thou shalt not pre-
vent my doing what I want to " ; and the last is,
" Thou shalt not make a fool of thyself." It is hardly
necessary to say that the student seldom reads as far
down the page as the tenth commandment.
The college student's idea of doing what he wants
to is very broad very nearly as comprehensive as^
his self-esteem. It is rather dangerous to oppose
the young man in this matter, because he is so
thoroughly and heartily convinced of the moral
rectitude of his own inclinations. A rose by any
other name would not smell -as sweet, this is the
principle upon which the college student's lark is
conducted. Neither the ethical nor the sesthetical
propriety of placing an undertaker's sign over a
doctor's office seems to .enter into the calculation
at all.
It would be far from my purpose, however, to
insinuate that the college student exists solely to
perpetrate mischief. Ah, no ; that were a sad mis-
conception he exists also to devise it. Enter the
178 ME COLLEGE STtJDEOT.
dormitory of the student at any time before the
witching hour of midnight, and you will fin'd him
with an open volume spread out 'neath the glimmer-
ing light of his eighty-five-cent lamp, laboriously
soiling the margins with his heels, while tilted 'back
in his easy-chair blowing contemplative clouds of
smoke to the ceiling. This is the student's hour for
study. Deep within that busy brain, what mighty
thoughts are moving ! Plato's theories, the philoso-
phy of quaint old Socrates, apothegms from Plautus,
pastoral visions from the odes of Horace not one
of these ! He is studying the intricate problem how
to conceal a wad of shoemaker's wax in the presi-
dent's chair, so that that dignitary shall be obliged
to preside at chapel exercises handicapped by the
intimate confidence existing between the *seat of
his trousers and the baize cushion of his chair of
%
state.
But, after all, what were the college without the
college student ? To be sure, the institution would
have a better standing in the community where it is
located were there no undergraduates connected
with it, and it is highly probable that the learned
faculty could do more good in the world by writing
books and helping their wives with the baby, than
by distributing diplomas ; but still, such an institu-
MBS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR. 179
tion would not be a real live college. What we want
in this country are real live colleges. We lose half
our time sleeping nights.
MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR.
SCENE I. The Popinjay's Kitchen. Cook, Maid, and Man-of-
all-Work. Hour, 9 P. M.
COOK [yawning]* Oh, now! will yez shtop pa-
laverin' thegither behind the clooz-bars and go to
wurr.uk ? I'm shure I'm tired to death of yer whilly-
wallyin's and smackings. Jinny, come and help me
to iron these shirt collars, ye lazy thing. Hinery, go
and fetch me in some kindlin's, and tind to yer
chores. Here it is, nine o'clock, and ye haven't
done a blissid thing but sit and howld Jinny on yer
lap since tay. Bad cess to the both of yez !
JENNY. Oh, Henery ! let go my hand, let go !
You're squeezing all my fingers out of joint. Le'
g-o-o ! I . >,
HENRY. Toopsy-woopsy tiddle-de
{Enter MR. POPINJAY.]
MR. POPINJAY. What does all this noise mean ?
Henry, have you attended to the furnace ?
HENRY. No, sir; I was just ,.,,,..
ISO MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR.
MR. POPINJAY. Have you bedded down the
horse ?
HENRY. Not just yet, sir ; but
MR. POPINJAY. Did you shake out that hay for
the cow that I told you to ?
HENRY. I was going to the barn, sir, this
MR. POPINJAY. No! You were going to the
furnace. Now, mind ; if I ever catch you like this
again, you get your walking-ticket. D'ye hear.
HENRY [sheepishly]. Yes, sir.
MR. POPINJAY [severely]. Well!
[Exit MR. POPINJAY.]
COOK [with immense satisfaction']. How are yez,
Hinery ?
[Exit HENRY, slamming the door] *
JENNY. Oh, now, Bridget !
BRIDGET. Well, Miss Jinny, didn't I warrun yez
long ago ? '/ \ ,
JENNY. No, you didn't ; it wasn't five minutes ago.
BRIDGET. Well, anyways, I was a-gapin' and
makin' a noise wid my fut for two hours.
JENNY [ironing]. Oh, Biddy, you are a queer,
old girl ! [Sings] Hi-did-a-tiddy-hit-a-diddy !
Bridget looks up, uncertainly, and resumes her ironing with a
thoughtful expression. Jenny suddenly drops her iron, and starts *
from the table.
MBS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR. 181
JENNY. Mercy ! I forgot to bring down the
beans to soak !
BRIDGET [somewhat bewildered]. Whatsook?
JENNY. The beans ; for breakfast.
BRIDGET. Oh, the banes, ye mane ! Run up in
the storeroom, like a good gurrul, and bring down a
quart av 'em.
[Exit JENNY; but presently returns with headlong
haste, and no beans.
BRIDGET. Jinny, what is the matter av ye ?
JENNY. Oh ! oh ! there was a mouse a great
big O-o-h o-o-h !
BRIDGET. A mouse? Ugh! ugh! Did he get
up your skirruts, darlin' ?
JENNY. Oh! don't speak of it. He ran one
way, and I ran the other. Oh, Henery, how you
scairt me !
[HENRY passes sullenly through the room, and goes
down cellar. ~\
Biddy, dear, won't you go up with me for the
beans ?
BRIDGET. Hinery
JENNY. Oh, Henery won't do anything. He's
mad.
BRIDGET. Well, darlin', I will go up wid yez,
182 MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR.
and carry the cat under me arrum. Kitty, kitty ;
come, kitty! Now, be jabers, we'll see if the
mouse '11 go up our skirruts, Jinny !
Jenny and Bridget go upstairs to the storeroom. Bridget
marches in first, with the cat; Jenny tiptoes to the bag of beans,
holding up her skirts with one hand.
BRIDGET. Have ye got the banes, Jinny ?
JENNY. Yes, I've got 'em ; come I
BRIDGET. Did }^e see the mouse, Jinny ?
JENNY. No, not yet. Come !
BRIDGET. Well, now, that's too- bad ! Jinny ^
sh'pose we la've the cat here all night to catch the
thafe? Would the misthriss be displased, think yez?
JENNY. Oh, I guess not. Come !
BRIDGET. Kitty, bedad, now kape still and catch
the thafe o' the wurruld.
Bridget places the purring cat on the floor; the girls go silently
out, closing the door, and return to the kitchen.
SCENE II. Sleeping apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Popinjay, at
the end of the hall leading to the storeroom. Hour, midnight.
Snoring. Suddenly a terrible crash echoes through the house.
Mrs. Popinjay jumps from her pillow with a scream. Mr.
Popinjay emits a gurgling snort, and turns over.
MRS. POPINJAY. Socrates ! /Socrates ! t
MR. POPINJAY [indistinctly']. Whajewa
\The sound blends with a snore.^
MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR. 183
*
MRS. POPINJAY. Socrates ! Socrates ! wake up !
[She punches him.']
MR. POPINJAY. Whasmatter? whajewant?
MRS. POPINJAY. Sh ! sh ! There's a 'burglar in
the house. Didn't you hear him break through the
window ?
MR. POPINJAY. Burglar, eh? Whajeburgl-wa
[MR. POPINJAY resumes his dream.']
MRS. POPINJAY [shaking him"}. Socrates, didn't
you hear that awful crash ?
MR. POPINJAY. Awful crash, eh? Heardsumf-
tumblecatsumf [Snores.]
MRS. POPINJAY [in a terrible whisper]. Socrates
K. Popinjay !
MR. POPINJAY. Oh, hum whajewant, anyway?
MRS. POPINJAY. Are you a man, or are you a
log, Socrates Popinjay ? I tell you there is a burglar
in the house ! I heard him break through the win-
dow. I can hear him prowling around now. There
listen !
Some rustling sounds are beard from the direction of the store-
room.
MRS. POPINJAY. Quick, Socrates !' Get up and
speak to him. He will steal all our new silver, and
murder every one of us !
184 MES. POPINJAY AND THE BUBGLAB.
MB. POPINJAY [now thoroughly awake] . I I
guess it'll be just as well for us to stay in bed. I
I guess he won't find the silver.
MBS. POPINJAY. Socrates Popinjay! are you
afraid ?
MB. POPINJAY. Keep still keep still, can't you!
He's coming this way.
MBS. POPINJAY. Socrates Popinjay, I'm ashamed
of you, I am. [Aloud.] Ahem ! ahem! I'll let him
know that somebody's awake here, anyway. [A
dead silence prevails."] There, now, I know he's
gone downstairs after the silver. Oh, Socrates, are
you a man ?
MB. POPINJAY [reassured]. Pshaw! I tell you
it's only the cat. Lie down, and go to sleep.
MBS. POPINJAY. The cat! Mr. Popinjay, the
cat is shut down cellar every night.
MB. POPINJAY. Well, then, it was a mouse.
MBS. POPINJAY. A mouse ! How could a mouse
make such a crash as that ? There hark ! I
know that is the silver rattling. Mr. Popinjay, if
you don't get up and put on your trousers and go
downstairs, /shall do it, mind you !
MB. POPINJAY. Oh, come now ; don't be foolish.
MBS. POPINJAY. Mr. Popinjay, are you going to
get up, or are you not ?
MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR. 185
MB. POPINJAY. I am not, Mrs. Popinjay. I
don't propose to traipse around the house in my
night clothes and catch my death of cold because
the cat is loose, mind you that !
MRS. POPINJAY. Well, then, Mr. Popinjay, you
may stay in bed. I have my opinion of you.
Mrs. Popinjay crawls out of bed, and gropes around for the
matches. Finds them, and lights a small hand lamp. Goes out
into the hall, and creeps slowly to the head of the stairs. The
carpet makes aii intolerable rustling under her bare feet.
MRS. POPINJAY. Ahem ! ahem !
MR. POPINJAY. Better come back to bed !
No answer. Presently the sound of the cautious feet is heard on
the stairs. In a few moments there is silence, and then another
ahem ! this time very much feebler, and less aggressive. Soon
the rustling steps are heard again, returning.
MRS. POPINJAY. Socrates, he's down there !
MR. POPINJAY. Well, why didn't you go ahead,
then?
MRS. POPINJAY. Go ahead, you great cowardly
man ! Let's see you get up and go as far as the
head of the stairs.
MR. POPINJAY. I don't propose to get up at all,
Mrs. Popinjay. I ain't quite so big a fool as you
are. Coming back to bed ?
MRS. POPINJAY. Yes, sir, I am coming back to
bed. The burglar can have all the silver in the
186 MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR.
house for aught of me. / haven't got to pay for a
new set. Huh ! tell me you aren't frightened !
Your face is as white as the pillow.
Mr. Popinjay quickly turns his back to his wife, with a con-
temptuous sneer. She sets her lamp down on a chair near the
door, turns it, as she supposes, quite out, and then crawls into bed
and covers up her head. Both lie and listen intently for some
minutes. Finally a board creaks out in the hall as boards will
after they have been trodden on in the night. Mrs. Popinjay can-
not resist the horrible fascination. She uncovers her head, and
looks out. There, right in the doorway, appears to her distended
eyes a slender gleam of light, like that escaping from a dark-
lantern." A terrific scream causes Mr. Popinjay's blood to freeze
in his veins.
MRS. POPINJAY. Oh, Socrates, Socrates ! help
He is coming into the room !
Mr. Popinjay tears himself from his wife's grasp, rolls out
upon the floor, and crawls precipitately under the bed.
MRS. POPINJAY. Oh, Mr. Burglar ! Mr. Burglar !
Please go away ! You can have all the silver in the
house, and there's lots of money in the desk in. the
library. .Only please, please spare our lives ! Oh,
please, dear Mr. Burglar. Oh, c?o, now. Don't kill
us, Mr. Burglar !
The faint flicker of light continues immovable; sullenly, re-
flectively immovable. Mrs. Popinjay renews her supplications,
and keeps them up for several minutes. Then she subsides, and
wonders why the light doesn't move. Finally, it seems to her
that it is rather low down for a burglar to carry a dark-lantern-
Could it be can it be the thought is heavenly! A sickening
MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR. 187
smell of charred wick fills the room. Mrs. Popinjay puts one foot
out of bed the light does not stir; she puts two out it is still
stationary. Then she rises, gropes toward it, puts her hand
upon it.
MRS. POPINJAY. It is it is my own lamp,
Socrates !
SCENE III The kitchen. Very early in the morning. The Cook
pouring kerosene oil on the kindlings in the stove. Enter MRS.
POPINJAY, very pale, in a wrapper.
MRS. POPINJAY. Oh, Bridget, you don't know
what a scare I had last night !
BRIDGET. A scare, ma'm? Who scared yez,
ma'm ?
MRS. POPINJAY. Why, a burglar broke a win-
dow and got into the house, and such a racket you
never heard in your life. But he didn't take a
thing. I've been all around, and can't find a thing
missing. I must have frightened him away. I got
up in the night, Bridget, and went half way down-
stairs after him !
BRIDGET. Oh, ma'm, how brave ! But did yez
foind the broken windy?
MRS. POPINJAY. I declare ! I didn't think to
look. 33 ut I will go now, Bridget.
[Returns presently.]
MRS. POPINJAY. There isn't a broken window
in the house !
188 MRS. POPINJAY AND THE BURGLAR.
BRIDGET \fromforce of habit"]. It must have been
the' cat, ma'm.
MRS. POPINJAY. The cat? I thought the cat
was shut down cellar every night?
[Bridget regrets exceedingly having spoken."]
BRIDGET. Oh, ma'm, I must be afther makin' a
little opology, ma'm. It was mesilf and Jinny shut
the cat into the stoorroom lasht night, to catch a
great big thafe of a mouse, ma'm ; and, be the howly
prophets, I niver thought of her again till this very
minute, ma'm !
MRS. POPINJAY. The cat in the storeroom?
How dared you, without my permission ! Oh, that
accounts for it that accounts for it.
i
Mrs. Popinjay runs hastily upstairs, followed by Bridget, im-
precating and wringing her hands. They open the door, and out
walks the cat, purring, with upright tail and every indication of
extreme satisfaction. Under one of the shelves lies a large platter,
smashed into a dozen bits, and near it the broken pieces of a
student-lamp shade.
MRS. POPINJAY. Oh, kitty, kitty! you little
realize the cost of what you have done this night.
It has shortened my life by many years, I know, and
sprinkled your dear master's head with gray !
BRIDGET [weeping'] . Oh, ye thafe of the wurruld,
ye thafe of the wurruld !
THE GREAT RALLY.
ME. POPINJAY ASTONISHES HIS FELLOW-CITIZENS
BY HIS REMARKABLE ORATORICAL GIFTS.
ONE morning, when Mr. Popinjay came down to
breakfast, it was observed that his stand-up
collar was adorned with two neckties underneath,
a black cravat tied in a double bow, and over that
a yellow tailor-made scarf. A ripple of amusement
ran around the assembled family, but Mr. Popinjay
was so absorbed in thought that he did not seem to
notice it. At last Mrs. Popinjay slyly remarked,
" Socrates, it seems to me that you are rather
overdressed, this morning."
Mr. Popinjay looked up in surprise. " How so ? "
he asked, surveying his apparel with a hasty glance.
" I'm wearing my ordinary business suit." , "
" Yes," tittered Angelina, " but you've got on
two neckties Tie, he, he ! "
A sheepish smile stole across Mr. Popinjay's face,
as he put up his hand and found that it was indeed
as his daughter said.
" What makes you so absent-minded lately, Soc-
190 THE CHEAT 1 RALLY.
rates?" asked Mrs. Popinjay, as her husband removed
the yellow scarf and dropped it under the table.
" Only yesterday I sent you out to fix up the
clothes-lines, and you walked half a mile to Mrs.
Rollins's and borrowed some butter. There must
be something on your mind."
"Well, yes, there is," confessed Mr. Popinjay.
"I have been invited by the Republican Club of
Buttonville to deliver an address at the big rally,
next week. This is election year, you know, and
the campaign is going to be a hot one. I have
been thinking over my speech for the past fort-
night, and guess I shall begin to write it out to-
night. So you must all keep away from the library
and not disturb me in any way. And, Angelina/'
added Mr. Popinjay, " if your young man comes to-
night, I wish you would tell him that your father
is engaged upon a literary matter of deep impor-
tance, and if he would be willing to keep off that
creaky sofa for a few evenings, it would be a great
accommodation." Mr. Popinjay spoke seriously, but
Angelina's face was suffused with blushes, and she
made no audible reply.
It was remarkable how quiet the house kept
during the week while Mr. Popinjay was compos-
ing his great speech. Everybody walked on tiptoe
THE GREAT RALLY?.
191
and closed the doors as softly as though it was a
case of life and death. Angelina's young man came
as usual th,e first evening, but his stay was quiet and
brief, and after that his visits were discontinued
entirely for about- ten days (which shows that
the average young lady in love is not so selfish
a creature as some people suppose).
At last the speech was completed, and Mr. Popin-
jay began to look and act more like himself. A
. THE GfcEAT RALLY.
large ink spot on the left side of his nose gradually
faded out, and the far-away expression in his eyes
slid down to a focus not more than a thousand miles
distant. The family began to brighten up and talk
in their natural voices again ; and one day Ange-
lina's young man walked four times past the house,
as though looking for a signal.
On the morning of the great day when the rally
was to come off, Mr. Popinjay was so agitated that
he could not go down to the office. He accordingly
despatched Tom with a note to Mr. Hopstock, stat-
ing that his speech would require his undivided
attention that day, and retired to the library,
where he alternately paced up and down, reciting
passages from the oration, and smoking cigars to
quiet his nerves.
" Do you think we had better attend the rally,
Socrates ? " asked Mrs. Popinjay, at dinner.
" Certainly," replied the orator. " It would not
look well for you to stay away. I want every mem-
ber of the family to be there early ; and it would be
best, I think, for all of you to sit together in one of
the front seats."
" But wouldn't it emb ." Tom Popinjay con-
cluded not to finish the sentence.
Promptly at half -past seven o'clock, the Popinjays*
GKEAT RALLY. 193
With the exception of the orator who had started
an hour previously, without eating a bit of supper
appeared at the door of the Town Hall. After
looking over the ground, Augustus spied an unoc-
cupied seat very near the front, and they all filed
into it. At a quarter of eight the Buttonville Brass
Band marched on the stage, taking seats at the ex-
treme left. Then from the anteroom came the offi-
cers of the Republican Club, the orators of the
evening, and " distinguished citizens," all of whom
took seats at the centre and rear of the stage.
When all were comfortably settled, the band
struck up, " Hail Columbia," and a very serious
matter they made of it, nearly every musician, be-
ing bathed in perspiration at the completion of
the piece. The trombone player, who came out
about half a bar behind the others, was so ex-
hausted with the manipulation of his long instru-
ment that he could hardly swallow the glass of
water which was hastily procured for him by the
leader of the band.
The president of the Club then stepped forward
to the table and said: "Ladies and gentlemen of
Buttonville (Mrs. Popinjay and Angelina were
the only ladies present) : I thank you, in behalf
of the organization, of which I am the honored
194
THE GREAT BALLY.
representative I should say, which I N have the
honor to represent, for your attendance here this
evening. As you all know, we are on the verge
of a great struggle. (Here Mr. Popinjay mopped
his brow.) In a few months the momentous ques-
tion is -to be decided, as to which of the two leading
parties shall control the offices and 'distribute the
patronage of this great and glorious republic. We
believe that the Republican party is the party of
great ideas, the party of reform and of progress.
GREAT BALLY. 195
Consequently, we should like to see a Republican
president in the White House at Washington - "
(Voice : " And a Republican postmaster in But-
tonville ! " Loud applause.)
"Yes, and a Republican postmaster in Button-
ville. We should like to see the public service
purged and reconstructed. The Democratic ad-
ministration has been a disgrace to the country.
We have been steadily going down hill for the
past four years, and unless something is done
about it this fall, the whole country is sure to
plunge into the gulf of ruin. The crisis approaches.
The battle will be a terrific one, but if every Repub-
lican in the country does his duty, victory must
perch upon our banner. It is the object of the But-
tonville Republican Club to kindle and keep alive,
the fire of of party spirit in the bosoms of the
Republican voters of this town. We trust that the
distinguished gentlemen who have consented to
address you to-night will inflame you all with zeal
for the great cause represented by the Republi-
can party in this campaign. And now I will not
longer detain you with preliminary remarks, but will
introduce to you the Honorable I beg pardon !
The leader of the band calls my attention to the
fact that a cornet solo is next on the programme.
196 THE GHEAO? EALLY.
Mr. Colby, the leader of our excellent brass band,
will now favor the audience with a cornet solo."
Mr. Colby stepped forward, with his cornet in his
left hand, bowed to the audience, and then, turning
to his fellow-musicians, beat time while they strug-
gled through the preliminary measures of the com-
position and approached the comparatively easy ac-
companiment. Suddenly the leader wheeled around,
clapped the cornet to his mouth, expanded his
bosom, and blew a note which made the very
rafters vibrate. After clinging to this note until
his face was as red as a beet, Mr. Colby gradually
began to reel off from it, as from a spool, the melody
of " Home, Sweet Home." First he performed^ the
simple air from beginning to end. Then he took it
up again and began to decorate it with a few grace
notes, trills, and other modest adornments. Then he
snatched a longer breath and began to deliver the
text in its classical simplicity with a running dis-
quisition and foot-notes, almost as elaborate as. the
accompaniment of the entire band. Finally, he con-
centrated all his energies, distended his cheeks to
their utmost capacity, gripped his instrument with
the grip of desperation, and commenced to weave
all the melodic web and woof which had gone
before into a most bewilderingly complicated tex-
THE GREAT RALLY. 197
ture of sound so complicated, in fact, that not
only the chief musician, but also the band and the
audience, became entangled in its meshes and lost
track of the theme altogether. After tum-tumming
discordantly for a few minutes longer, the band
stopped playing, and presently, the soloist himself
came down like a stick, leaving the air full of demi-
semi quavers, grace notes, trills, forty-second notes,
and other pyrotechnic musical phenomena. Never-
theless, Mr. Colby was applauded to the echo, and
retired to his seat covered with smiles, and beads of
perspiration.
As soon as the sound of clapping and stamping
had ceased, the president of the Club again advanced
to the table, and succeeded in introducing to the
audience " The Honorable Mr. Partridge, member of
the State Legislature from Hucklebury, who will
now address you."
The Hon. Mr. Partridge, who was a tall, spare
man, with a clean-shaven face, and whose voice
appeared to be drawn up by hydraulic suction from
his boot heels, addressed the assembly for an hour
and fifteen minutes; and as what he didn't say
about the future of this republic, the politics of this
nation, and the great underlying principles of human
society would hardly be worth repeating here, no
198 THE GREAT KALLY.
attempt will be made to do so. When the orator
finally did sit down, the building fairly rocked with
acclamation, and the president of the Club himself
stamped with such enthusiasm that for half an hour
afterward it was plain to see, by the expression
of his face, that he felt like a victim of the chill-
blains. *
The next speaker was Colonel Connor, of Paines-
borough. The colonel was one of those quiet, inof-
fensive, intensely civilian-looking persons whom a
military title fits about as well as a Winchester rifle
would fit a Quaker. Nobody knew where he had
obtained the title of colonel, and it is doubtful if
Mr. Connor himself did. It was probably conferred
upon him by some sarcastic newspaper reporter, and
ever afterwards clung to his reputation, as a sort of
burr, which he did not know whether to pick off
or not.
Colonel Connor made a much better speech than
the Honorable Mr. Partridge ; but as he did not seem
to think so himself, the audience politely accepted
his own estimate of the effort, and did not enthuse.
He sat down, in the midst of some feeble and inter-
mittent clapping, and the president again started
forward.
" I now have the pleasure," he said, " of intro-
THE GREAT KALLY. 199
ducing to the audience a gentleman who needs no
introduction in this community, one of our most
distinguished and honored citizens; a man of the
highest business ability, combined with the most
ardent patriotism. I have the great pleasure of pre-
senting to you Mr. Socrates Popinjay, Esq., of the
firm of Popinjay & Hopstock."
Mr. Popinjay, who was by this time in such a
whirl of excitement and perturbation that he could
hardly remember the initials of his own name,
disengaged himself from his chair, and came for-
ward. Again the building tottered with applause,
and Mr. Popinjay was obliged to bow twice before
the uproar ceased ; and even then Augustus Pop^
in jay came very near starting it up again.
The orator looked down upon the sea of expectant,
upturned faces, out of which stood, like animated
exclamation points, the countenances of the mem-
bers of hi's own family. It seemed to Mr. Popinjay
that he had never before beheld, with so clear and
penetrating vision, the various editions of himself
there represented.
As her husband came forward, Mrs. Popinjay's
first thought was, " Is it possible that Socrates has
on his own boots? " And her second, "I declare, he
has forgotten one of his cuffs ! "
200 THE GEEAT KALLY.
" Doesn't he logk scared, though ! " was Tom's
mental comment. " Who would have thought it?"
" Fellow citizens, and loyal Republicans of Button-
ville," began Mr. Popinjay, in a voice which he
hardly recognized himself. It was his first appear-
ance as an orator, upon any stage, and he felt as
agitated and out of place as a potato-bug on a hot
shovel. "We are assembled here to-night for the
purpose of in order that We are assembled, I
say, to "
Here Mr. Popinjay stopped, and looked with an
agonized expression at his family.
Augustus couldn't stand the appealing glance,
and almost before he knew it he had suggested,
aloud,
" To talk politics."
An expression of profound relief and gratitude
came into Mr. Popinjay's face, and he resumed :
" Yes, fellow-citizens, we are assembled here to-night
to talk politics. The American eagle, which you see
perched above yonder furled flags, represents rep-
resents ah er the the "
" The work of the taxidermist Hovey," interpo-
lated a voice in the audience, which only those in
the immediate vicinity knew proceeded from that
enterprising and thrifty artist himself.
THE GREAT RALLY. 201
"Represents," continued Mr. Popinjay, with a
mechanical flourish, " the work of the taxidermist
Hovey. No loftier cause could inspire the patriot
and the lover of his country than the purification of
the public service and the protection of the ballot
against against And the protection of the
ballot, I say, against "
" Against women ? " queried the president of the
club, in an agitated whisper.
"Against women. We, the members of the Re-
publican party, have a sublime mission to perform in
this respect. We stand directly in line with that
long succession of statesmen, soldiers, and patriots
whose names have in past times adorned our our
adorned our "
"Tax lists," murmured the town clerk, who sat
within a few feet of the orator.
"Whose names have in past times adorned our
tax lists. Therefore it behooves us to acquit our-
selves like men in the approaching struggle. The
great principles of national unity, civil service re-
form, protection of infant industries, and temperance
must be supported if if must be supported
if"
" If it takes a leg ! " yelled a small boy on the
back seat.
202 THE GKEAT RALLY.
" If it takes a leg," repeated Mr. Popinjay. " Fel-
low citizens, we are to determine by our ballots
whether or not the Constitution of these United
States stands or falls within the next twenty-five
years. If the Democratic party remains in power,
our doom is certain. But I trust that the glo-
rious old Republican party will rise from her ashes
like the -- like the fabled sphinx, and resume her
and resume her will rise from her the glorious
old Republican party will rise from her I trust,
I say, that the "
Here Mr. Popinjay gave up the struggle, and
retired to his seat amidst thunders of applause,
which did not cease until the orator had risen
and bowed his acknowledgments. The exercises of
the evening then closed with another severe ordeal
for the band, and the audience dispersed.
Mr. Popinjay joined his family at the door, and
they all walked together in silence until they had
nearly reached the corner, when Mr. Popinjay
suddenly said,
" I would give a hundred-dollar bill to be kicked
into the middle of next Christmas ! "
No one answered a word, for Mr. Popinjay's feel-
ings were such as deserved respect. As they
reached the front gate of their home, Mr. Popinjay's
COURTING. 203
anguished spirit again broke forth, and he exclaimed,
fiercely,
"If anybody ever comes to ask me to make
a speech again, I will make him wish that he
had been born a wooden Indian ! "
" Hush ! hush ! " said Mrs. Popinjay, soothingly.
" I don't believe that any one will ever come."
COURTING.
IT happened in this wise. Feeling in a very
sociable mood on a certain evening, I arrayed myself
in doeskin and stiff linen, and set out to make a
call upon a lady who, by-the-way, is about twenty-
two years my senior.
Now, I did not know, of course, that Wednesday
was the very evening when this dear lady's sweet
daughter entertained her adorable admirer, so I
was not to blame for what followed. Well, I was
directed to take a seat in the front parlor which
was as dark as Tophet, by-the-way while the maid
bore my card upstairs to her mistress.
Just as I subsided into a dark-colored easy-chair
in the extremest twilight corner of the apartment, I
distinctly heard a twitch at the door-bell a pecu-
204 COURTING.
liar twitch, with a sort of personal inflection to it,
as you might say a " Duckie-this-is-I-come-to-the-
door-yourself " kind of twitch. I knew in a minute
that it was Bessie's young man; for, don't you
know, I had been there myself when I was yes,
when /was in love with Bessie !
A sort of prophetic tremor ran through all my
bones, and my heart began to drum against' my
sounding shirt-bosom till it made the diamond stud
rattle. My first impulse, was to dodge out into the
hall, and get behind an overcoat on the hat-rack.
But hark ! the quick, palpitating rustle of a girl's
summer evening drapery fell upon my ear, and pres-
ently the patter of little feet on the rugs in the hall ;
and then a swift, gauzy vision glided by the half-
open door, and a moment later the red gaslight
glared upon the rugs in the hall, and
Smack ! s-m-a-c-k ! c-1-i-i-i-n-g !
Talk about peaches and cream ! talk about honey !
talk about anything you please that kiss would
make sawdust of ambrosia ! I actually caught
myself smacking my lips in the dark for very sym-
pathy, the deliciousness of it was so superabundant
and all-pervading.
" Oh, I'm so glad you've come, Charlie ! "
" Are you, duckie ? Well, so am I."
COURTING. 205
(Gurgle-gurgle smack !)
" Come, now come right into the parlor. I've
got so much to tell you. Don't stop to fix your hair.
You're just as nice as you can be, and besides, I'm not
going to light the gas, and mamma has gone out un-
expectedly to spend the evening."
Horrors !
The door was pushed open, and they came in.
Her little arm, bare to the elbow, was doubled up
and reposed gracefully on his shoulder ; his arm was
around her waist. (My eyes, you see, were getting
accustomed to the twilight.) I shrank back as far
behind the window drapery as I could, and they
brushed by me and sat down on the big sofa in the
opposite corner.
For a moment or two there was a blissful silence,
as they nestled down together in the hollow where
the springs had given out. When all was nicely
settled, and he had got a good staying grip on the
small part of her corsets, she began,
" Charlie, have you got rid of it ? "
" What, darling ? "
" That pimple on the left side of your nose."
" Oh, yes, that's gone."
" Goody, goody ! You can go to the party to-
morrow night, then, can't you ? "
206 COUKTING.
"Well, yes, I might, I suppose but "
"But what, dearie?"
" Why, dang it all, I haven't got a bid ! "
(Drawing back.) " Not been invited, Charlie I
you not invited? Why, I wouldn't go to her
hateful, nasty party for anything ! "
" Wouldn't you, duckie, really ? Then take that
and that and th-a-a-t ! "
More spasmodic action of my lips behind the cur-
tains, and a frantic desire to steal up behind and
punch Charlie's head.
"Whose party is it, anyway, Bess?"
" Why, Mrs. Prentiss's. Everybody's going to be
there. I wonder how in the world she happened to
leave you out, the hateful thing ! "
" Oh" (with a sigh), " I suppose she don't think
I'm nice enough. I measure cloth, you know, and "
" Why, what if you do, poor fellow ! " (There are
tears in Bessie's eyes, and her little bare arms steal
up around the young man's neck, and her soft cheek
is pressed against his in the most exasperating man-
ner, to me.) " It isn't anything bad to measure
cloth. Why," with a sudden burst of logic "I
wear cloth, and so does Mrs. Prentiss, and so does
everybody. The idea of being so stuck up bah ! "
In my sympathetic indignation, I must have
207
stirred the window hangings, for the girl suddenly
withdrew her arms and looked around.
" Hark ! Let go, Charlie. Didn't you hear some-
thing ? Do you suppose anybody is watching us ? "
" Oh, pshaw, pet, pshaw ! It was the wind in the
curtains. Sit still."
" Well, I'm going to go and look, anyway."
(Endeavors to rise, but Charlie holds her back.)
" Fudge, fudge ! Sit down. I'll kiss you six
times if you don't."
" Well, I won't then, anyway."
" I shall kiss, if you don't behave."
" Kiss away ! "
The danger passed. By the time the six kisses
were given, with interest, simple and compound, and
the principal added to the bank account, and some-
thing more with it, Bessie had forgotten all about
the noise in the curtains. She subsided, panting
and flushed, in the cavity of the sofa and brushed
down her disordered bangs. Silence for a few
moments.
" What was it that you were so anxious to tell me
when I first came ? " asked Charlie.
" Oh, I don't know about the party, I suppose.
But I wouldn't speak of the hateful thing again for
five dollars. Oh, say, Charlie, Bob . Smith is going
208 COURTING.
to be there the fellow I met at the seaside, you
know. Oh, he's so nice. I do wish you knew him."
Stern silence on the part of Charles. He loosens
his arm, and draws it painfully out between her
back and the back of the sofa.
" Why, Charlie, what is the matter ? Are you
going?"
"Oh, nothing yes, I guess-I must be going."
" Oh, don't ; it isn't nine o'clock. Tell me what
it is, Charlie,* won't you, please ? "
They had advanced into the middle of the hall.
It was quite dark iiow, and their figures only made
a confused blur to my eyes. But I could hear the
young man twirling his hat in his hand, sullenly,
defiantly.
" Dear Charlie, won't you tell me what is the
matter ? Do ! "
Again the soft cheek, this time on his shoulder.
A moment's glum silence, and then,
" Dang Bob Smith ! "
Only three short words ; but if I should write all
day I could not convey one tithe of the volume of
red-hot meaning that was thrown into them.
" Why, you aren't jealous, are you, Charlie ? "
" No ! I ain't ! "
Silence.
COURTING. 209
Charlie. " Well, I'm going."
Bessie. " I'm sorry."
Charlie. " You won't take back what you said ? "
Bessie. " Why I didn't say anything ! "
Charlie. " Good-night."
Bessie. " Good-night."
I heard Bessie crying as she went upstairs, and I
stole softly out at the front door.
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only. The leading Financial Institutions of New England are
among its stockholders.
Guaranteed Farm and City First Mortgages,
The Company offers for investment 6 per cent First Mort-
gages on Real Estate with its guaranty, covering principal and
interest, in amounts from $200 upwards, running from three to
five years.
-:SIX PER CENT BONDS:-
Also its otvn 6 per cent Bonds running 10 years, coupons
payable semi-annually, amounts from $100 to $1000 each. These
bonds besides being the direct obligation of the Company are
'further secured by First Mortgages on real estate, pledged with
the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company as Trustee for the
payment of these bonds, and for no other purpose. The bonds
are listed on the Boston Stock Exchange ; they can be registered
in the owner's name if desired ; can be held without publicity
and transferred without trouble ; they are as safe as any security
can be and combine a good rate of interest without the risk at-
tending the ordinary Western investments. . '- j
Call or Write for Circular.
HIRAM D. UPTON, Treasurer,
City Hall Building, Manchester, N. H.
LEONARD P. FOSTER, Secretary.
201 Washington St., Boston, Mass.
ELEGANT AND USEFUL
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The Johnson Revolving Book Ca$e.
With Independent Shelves Adjustable to Books of
Any Height.
.A. STJFEKLB FE-ESEISTT.
Invaluable to Lawyers, Clergymen, Physicians, Editors, Bankers,
Teachers, Merchants, Students, and all who read Books.
Olo.o*V3oosst ! JSti-oixsosit 2 ZOost !
Made of Iron, finished in black, with beautiful gilt ornamenta-
tion, it cannot warp, check or split, get out of order or wear out.
Each shelf, 16 in. square, will hold 16 volumes size of Appleton's
Cyclopaedia. Holds more books in less space than any other
device.
No. 1, For Table, -to hold i tier of books $ 7 50
" 2x, " " " 2tiers " 9 OO
" 2, " Floor, 2 " " 10 OO
" 3, " " " 3 " " 1200
" 4, " " " 4 " " 1400
The best size for general use is No. 3.
Shipped, carefully packed, on receipt of price. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.
Descriptive price list containing testimonials Free. Illustrated Catalogue
of Stationery and Novelties, nearly 200 pages, sent on receipt of 25c.
AKDERSON & KKUM STATIONERY CO.,
667 BROADWAY, - - NEW YORK, N. Y.