Project Gutenberg's The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X), by Various
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Title: The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X)
Author: Various
Editor: Marshall P. Wilder
Release Date: January 26, 2008 [EBook #24434]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR ***
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Transcriber's Note: To aid in finding items through
the index, the following list contains the page
numbers covered in each volume:
Volume 1 - 1 - 220
Volume 2 - 221 - 402
Volume 3 - 403 - 584
Volume 4 - 585 - 802
Volume 5 is not Library Edition and has
different page numbering
Volume 6 - 985 - 1216
Volume 7 - 1217 - 1398
Volume 8 - 1399 - 1634
Volume 9 - 1635 - 1800
Volume 10 - 1801 - 2042
**********************************************************
Library Edition
THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA
In Ten Volumes
VOL. X
[Illustration: FRANK L. STANTON]
THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA
EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER
_Volume X_
Funk & Wagnalls Company
New York and London
Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY
CONTENTS
PAGE
Araminta and the Automobile Charles Battell Loomis 1825
At Aunty's House James Whitcomb Riley 2007
Backsliding Brother, The Frank L. Stanton 1972
Biggs' Bar Howard D. Sutherland 1967
Bookworm's Plaint, A Clinton Scollard 1878
Breitmann in Politics Charles Godfrey Leland 1943
Concord Love Song, A James Jeffrey Roche 1913
Contentment Oliver Wendell Holmes 1952
Demon of the Study, The John Greenleaf Whittier 1869
Der Oak Und Der Vine Charles Follen Adams 1823
Double-Dyed Deceiver, A O. Henry 1927
Dum Vivimus Vigilamus John Paul 2005
Evidence in the Case of
Smith vs. Jones, The Samuel L. Clemens 1918
Fall Styles in Faces Wallace Irwin 1992
"Festina Lente" Robert J. Burdette 2016
Genial Idiot Discusses Leap
Year, The John Kendrick Bangs 2018
Great Prize Fight, The Samuel L. Clemens 1903
Had a Set of Double Teeth Holman F. Day 1994
Height of the Ridiculous, The Oliver Wendell Holmes 1832
Her Brother: Enfant Terrible Edmund L. Sabin 2001
Hezekiah Bedott's Opinion Frances M. Whicher 1893
His Grandmother's Way Frank L. Stanton 1901
Invisible Prince, The Henry Harland 1836
Jackpot, The Ironquill 2003
Jacob Phoebe Cary 1898
Johnny's Pa Wilbur D. Nesbit 1802
Lay of Ancient Rome, A Thomas Ybarra 2013
Little Bopeep and Little Boy Blue Samuel Minturn Peck 2015
Love Song Charles Godfrey Leland 1950
Maxims Benjamin Franklin 1804
Meeting, The S. E. Riser 1915
Mister Rabbit's Love Affair Frank L. Stanton 1887
Mother of Four, A Juliet Wilbor Tompkins 1976
Mothers' Meeting, A Madeline Bridges 1886
Nevada Sketches Samuel L. Clemens 1805
New Year Idyl, A Eugene Field 2011
Old-Time Singer, An Frank L. Stanton 1941
Oncl' Antoine on 'Change Wallace Bruce Amsbary 1891
Our Hired Girl James Whitcomb Riley 1888
Plain Language from Truthful James Bret Harte 1997
Poe-'em of Passion, A Charles F. Lummis 1879
Possession William J. Lampton 2000
Real Diary of a Real Boy, The Henry A. Shute 1881
Reason, The Ironquill 1890
Rubaiyat of Mathieu Lattellier Wallace Bruce Amsbary 1965
Settin' by the Fire Frank L. Stanton 1821
Shining Mark, A Ironquill 1877
"There's a Bower of Bean-Vines" Phoebe Cary 1916
To Bary Jade Charles Follen Adams 1899
Tom's Money Harriett Prescott Spofford 1955
Trial that Job Missed, The Kennett Harris 1917
Trouble-Proof Edwin L. Sabin 1801
Uncle Bentley and the Roosters Hayden Carruth 1873
Unsatisfied Yearning R. K. Munkittrick 1835
What Lack We Yet Robert J. Burdette 1897
When Lovely Woman Phoebe Cary 1834
Whisperer, The Ironquill 1822
Why Wait for Death and Time? Bert Leston Taylor 1866
Willy and the Lady Gelett Burgess 2009
Winter Dusk R. K. Munkittrick 1975
Winter Joys Eugene Field 1868
Ye Legende of Sir Yroncladde Wilbur D. Nesbitt 1973
COMPLETE INDEX AT THE END OF VOLUME X.
TROUBLE-PROOF[1]
BY EDWIN L. SABIN
Never rains where Jim is--
People kickin', whinin';
He goes round insistin',--
"Sun is _almost_ shinin'!"
Never's hot where Jim is--
When the town is sweatin';
He jes' sets and answers,--
"Well, _I_ ain't a-frettin'!"
Never's cold where Jim is--
None of _us_ misdoubt it,
Seein' we're nigh frozen!
_He_ "ain't _thought_ about it!"
Things that rile up others
Never seem to strike him!
"Trouble-proof," I call it,--
Wisht that I was like him!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lippincott's Magazine.
JOHNNY'S PA
BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
My pa--he always went to school,
He says, an' studied hard.
W'y, when he's just as big as me
He knew things by the yard!
Arithmetic? He knew it all
From dividend to sum;
But when he tells me how it was,
My grandma, she says "Hum!"
My pa--he always got the prize
For never bein' late;
An' when they studied joggerfy
He knew 'bout every state.
He says he knew the rivers, an'
Knew all their outs an' ins;
But when he tells me all o' that,
My grandma, she just grins.
My pa, he never missed a day
A-goin' to the school,
An' never played no hookey, nor
Forgot the teacher's rule;
An' every class he's ever in,
The rest he always led.
My grandma, when pa talks that way,
Just laughs an' shakes her head.
My grandma says 'at boys is boys,
The same as pas is pas,
An' when I ast her what she means
She says it is "because."
She says 'at little boys is best
When they grows up to men,
Because they know how good they was,
An' tell their children, then!
MAXIMS
BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Never spare the parson's wine, nor the baker's pudding.
A house without woman or firelight is like a body without soul or
spirit.
Kings and bears often worry their keepers.
Light purse, heavy heart.
He's a fool that makes his doctor his heir.
Ne'er take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in.
To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
He that drinks fast pays slow.
He is ill-clothed who is bare of virtue.
Beware of meat twice boil'd, and an old foe reconcil'd.
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in
his heart.
He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly
need not be rich.
He that waits upon fortune is never sure of a dinner.
NEVADA SKETCHES
BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
IN CARSON CITY
I feel very much as if I had just awakened out of a long sleep. I
attribute it to the fact that I have slept the greater part of the time
for the last two days and nights. On Wednesday, I sat up all night, in
Virginia, in order to be up early enough to take the five o'clock stage
on Thursday morning. I was on time. It was a great success. I had a
cheerful trip down to Carson, in company with that incessant talker,
Joseph T. Goodman. I never saw him flooded with such a flow of spirits
before. He restrained his conversation, though, until we had traveled
three or four miles, and were just crossing the divide between Silver
City and Spring Valley, when he thrust his head out of the dark stage,
and allowed a pallid light from the coach lamps to illuminate his
features for a moment, after which he returned to darkness again, and
sighed and said, "Damn it!" with some asperity. I asked him who he meant
it for, and he said, "The weather out there." As we approached Carson,
at about half past seven o'clock, he thrust his head out again, and
gazed earnestly in the direction of that city--after which he took it in
again, with his nose very much frosted. He propped the end of that organ
upon the end of his finger, and looked pensively upon it--which had the
effect of making him cross-eyed--and remarked, "O, damn it!" with great
bitterness. I asked him what was up this time, and he said, "The cold,
damp fog--it is worse than the weather." This was his last. He never
spoke again in my hearing. He went on over the mountains with a lady
fellow passenger from here. That will stop his chatter, you know, for he
seldom speaks in the presence of ladies.
In the evening I felt a mighty inclination to go to a party somewhere.
There was to be one at Governor J. Neely Johnson's, and I went there and
asked permission to stand around a while. This was granted in the most
hospitable manner, and the vision of plain quadrilles soothed my weary
soul. I felt particularly comfortable, for if there is one thing more
grateful to my feelings than another, it is a new house--a large house,
with its ceilings embellished with snowy mouldings; its floors glowing
with warm-tinted carpets, with cushioned chairs and sofas to sit on, and
a piano to listen to; with fires so arranged you can see them, and know
there is no humbug about it; with walls garnished with pictures, and
above all mirrors, wherein you may gaze and always find something to
admire, you know. I have a great regard for a good house, and a girlish
passion for mirrors. Horace Smith, Esq., is also very fond of mirrors.
He came and looked in the glass for an hour with me. Finally it
cracked--the night was pretty cold--and Horace Smith's reflection was
split right down the centre. But where his face had been the damage was
greatest--a hundred cracks converged to his reflected nose, like spokes
from the hub of a wagon wheel. It was the strangest freak the weather
has done this winter. And yet the parlor seemed warm and comfortable,
too.
About nine o'clock the Unreliable came and asked Gov. Johnson to let him
stand on the porch. The creature has got more impudence than any person
I ever saw in my life. Well, he stood and flattened his nose against the
parlor window, and looked hungry and vicious--he always looks that
way--until Colonel Musser arrived with some ladies, when he actually
fell in their wake and came swaggering in looking as if he thought he
had been anxiously expected. He had on my fine kid boots, my plug hat,
my white kid gloves (with slices of his prodigious hands grinning
through the bursted seams), and my heavy gold repeater, which I had been
offered thousands and thousands of dollars for many and many a time. He
took those articles out of my trunk, at Washoe City, about a month ago,
when we went there to report the proceedings of the convention. The
Unreliable intruded himself upon me in his cordial way, and said, "How
are you, Mark, old boy? When d'you come down? It's brilliant, ain't it?
Appear to enjoy themselves, don't they? Lend a fellow two bits, can't
you?" He always winds up his remarks that way. He appears to have an
insatiable craving for two bits.
The music struck up just then and saved me. The next moment I was far,
far at sea in the plain quadrille. We carried it through with
distinguished success; that is, we got as far as "balance around" and
"half-a-man-left," when I smelled hot whisky punch, or something of that
nature. I tracked the scent through several rooms, and finally
discovered a large bowl from which it emanated. I found the omnipresent
Unreliable there, also. He set down an empty goblet and remarked that he
was diligently seeking the gentlemen's dressing room. I would have shown
him where it was, but it occurred to him that the supper table and the
punch bowl ought not to be left unprotected; wherefore we stayed there
and watched them until the punch entirely evaporated. A servant came in
then, to replenish the bowl, and we left the refreshments in his charge.
We probably did wrong, but we were anxious to join the hazy dance. The
dance was hazier than usual, after that. Sixteen couples on the floor at
once, with a few dozen spectators scattered around, is calculated to
have its effect in a brilliantly lighted parlor, I believe. Everything
seemed to buzz, at any rate. After all the modern dances had been danced
several times, the people adjourned to the supper-room. I found my
wardrobe out there, as usual, with the Unreliable in it. His old
distemper was upon him: he was desperately hungry. I never saw a man eat
as much as he did in my life. I have various items of his supper here in
my note-book. First, he ate a plate of sandwiches; then he ate a
handsomely iced poundcake; then he gobbled a dish of chicken salad;
after which he ate a roast pig; after that, a quantity of blanc-mange;
then he threw in several dozen glasses of punch to fortify his appetite,
and finished his monstrous repast with a roast turkey. Dishes of
brandy-grapes, and jellies, and such things, and pyramids of fruits
melted away before him as shadows fly at the sun's approach. I am of the
opinion that none of his ancestors were present when the five thousand
were miraculously fed in the old Scriptural times. I base my opinion on
the twelve bushels of scraps and the little fishes that remained over
after that feast. If the Unreliable himself had been there, the
provisions would just about have held out, I think.
... At about two o'clock in the morning the pleasant party broke up and
the crowd of guests distributed themselves around town to their
respective homes; and after thinking the fun all over again, I went to
bed at four o'clock. So having been awake forty-eight hours, I slept
forty-eight, in order to get even again.
CITY MARSHAL PERRY
John Van Buren Perry, recently re-elected City Marshal of Virginia City,
was born a long time ago, in County Kerry, Ireland, of poor but honest
parents, who were descendants, beyond question, of a house of high
antiquity. The founder of it was distinguished for his eloquence; he was
the property of one Baalam, and received honorable mention in the Bible.
John Van Buren Perry removed to the United States in 1792--after having
achieved a high gastronomical reputation by creating the first famine in
his native land--and established himself at Kinderhook, New Jersey, as a
teacher of vocal and instrumental music. His eldest son, Martin Van
Buren, was educated there, and was afterwards elected President of the
United States; his grandson, of the same name, is now a prominent New
York politician, and is known in the East as "Prince John;" he keeps up
a constant and affectionate correspondence with his worthy grandfather,
who sells him feet in some of his richest wildcat claims from time to
time.
While residing at Kinderhook, Jack Perry was appointed Commodore of the
United States Navy, and he forthwith proceeded to Lake Erie and fought
the mighty marine conflict, which blazes upon the pages of history as
"Perry's Victory." In consequence of this exploit, he narrowly escaped
the Presidency.
Several years ago Commodore Perry was appointed Commissioner
Extraordinary to the Imperial Court of Japan, with unlimited power to
treat. It is hardly worth while to mention that he never exercised that
power; he never treated anybody in that country, although he patiently
submitted to a vast amount of that sort of thing when the opportunity
was afforded him at the expense of the Japanese officials. He returned
from his mission full of honors and foreign whisky, and was welcomed
home again by the plaudits of a grateful nation.
After the war was ended, Mr. Perry removed to Providence, Rhode Island,
where he produced a complete revolution in medical science by inventing
the celebrated "Pain Killer" which bears his name. He manufactured this
liniment by the ship-load, and spread it far and wide over the suffering
world; not a bottle left his establishment without his beneficent
portrait upon the label, whereby, in time, his features became as well
known unto burned and mutilated children as Jack the Giant Killer's.
When pain had ceased throughout the universe Mr. Perry fell to writing
for a livelihood, and for years and years he poured out his soul in
pleasing and effeminate poetry.... His very first effort, commencing:
"How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour," etc.--
gained him a splendid literary reputation, and from that time forward no
Sunday-school library was complete without a full edition of his
plaintive and sentimental "Perry-Gorics." After great research and
profound study of his subject, he produced that wonderful gem which is
known in every land as "The Young Mother's Apostrophe to Her Infant,"
beginning:
"Fie! fie! oo itty bitty pooty sing!
To poke oo footsy-tootsys into momma's eye!"
This inspired poem had a tremendous run, and carried Perry's fame into
every nursery in the civilized world. But he was not destined to wear
his laurels undisturbed: England, with monstrous perfidy, at once
claimed the "Apostrophe" for her favorite son, Martin Farquhar Tupper,
and sent up a howl of vindictive abuse from her polluted press against
our beloved Perry. With one accord, the American people rose up in his
defense, and a devastating war was only averted by a public denial of
the paternity of the poem by the great Proverbial over his own
signature. This noble act of Mr. Tupper gained him a high place in the
affection of this people, and his sweet platitudes have been read here
with an ever augmented spirit of tolerance since that day.
The conduct of England toward Mr. Perry told upon his constitution to
such an extent that at one time it was feared the gentle bard would fade
and flicker out altogether; wherefore, the solicitude of influential
officials was aroused in his behalf, and through their generosity he was
provided with an asylum in Sing Sing prison, a quiet retreat in the
state of New York. Here he wrote his last great poem, beginning:
"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so--
Your little hands were never made
To tear out each other's eyes with--"
and then proceeded to learn the shoemaker's trade in his new home, under
the distinguished masters employed by the commonwealth.
Ever since Mr. Perry arrived at man's estate his prodigious feet have
been a subject of complaint and annoyance to those communities which
have known the honor of his presence. In 1835, during a great leather
famine, many people were obliged to wear wooden shoes, and Mr. Perry,
for the sake of economy, transferred his bootmaking patronage from the
tan-yard which had before enjoyed his custom, to an undertaker's
establishment--that is to say, he wore coffins. At that time he was a
member of Congress from New Jersey, and occupied a seat in front of the
Speaker's throne. He had the uncouth habit of propping his feet upon his
desk during prayer by the chaplain, and thus completely hiding that
officer from every eye save that of Omnipotence alone. So long as the
Hon. Mr. Perry wore orthodox leather boots the clergyman submitted to
this infliction and prayed behind them in singular solitude, under mild
protest; but when he arose one morning to offer up his regular petition,
and beheld the cheerful apparition of Jack Perry's coffins confronting
him, "The jolly old bum went under the table like a sick porpus" (as Mr.
P. feelingly remarks), "and never shot off his mouth in that shanty
again."
Mr. Perry's first appearance on the Pacific Coast was upon the boards of
the San Francisco theaters in the character of "Old Pete" in Dion
Boucicault's "Octoroon." So excellent was his delineation of that
celebrated character that "Perry's Pete" was for a long time regarded as
the climax of histrionic perfection.
Since John Van Buren Perry has resided in Nevada Territory, he has
employed his talents in acting as City Marshal of Virginia, and in
abusing me because I am an orphan and a long way from home, and can
therefore be persecuted with impunity. He was re-elected day before
yesterday, and his first official act was an attempt to get me drunk on
champagne furnished to the Board of Aldermen by other successful
candidates, so that he might achieve the honor and glory of getting me
in the station-house for once in his life. Although he failed in his
object, he followed me down C street and handcuffed me in front of Tom
Peasley's, but officers Birdsall and Larkin and Brokaw rebelled against
this unwarranted assumption of authority, and released me--whereupon I
was about to punish Jack Perry severely, when he offered me six bits to
hand him down to posterity through the medium of this Biography, and I
closed the contract. But after all, I never expect to get the money.
A SUNDAY IN CARSON
I arrived in this noisy and bustling town of Carson at noon to-day, per
Layton's express. We made pretty good time from Virginia, and might have
made much better, but for Horace Smith, Esq., who rode on the box seat
and kept the stage so much by the head she wouldn't steer. I went to
church, of course,--I always go to church when I--when I go to
church--as it were. I got there just in time to hear the closing hymn,
and also to hear the Rev. Mr. White give out a long-metre doxology,
which the choir tried to sing to a short-metre tune. But there wasn't
music enough to go around: consequently, the effect was rather singular,
than otherwise. They sang the most interesting parts of each line,
though, and charged the balance to "profit and loss;" this rendered the
general intent and meaning of the doxology considerably mixed, as far as
the congregation were concerned, but inasmuch as it was not addressed to
them, anyhow, I thought it made no particular difference.
By an easy and pleasant transition, I went from church to jail. It was
only just down stairs--for they save men eternally in the second story
of the new court house, and damn them for life in the first. Sheriff
Gasheric has a handsome double office fronting on the street, and its
walls are gorgeously decorated with iron convict-jewelry. In the rear
are two rows of cells, built of bomb-proof masonry and furnished with
strong iron doors and resistless locks and bolts. There was but one
prisoner--Swazey, the murderer of Derrickson--and he was writing; I do
not know what his subject was, but he appeared to be handling it in a
way which gave him great satisfaction....
ADVICE TO THE UNRELIABLE ON CHURCH-GOING
In the first place, I must impress upon you that when you are dressing
for church, as a general thing, you mix your perfumes too much; your
fragrance is sometimes oppressive; you saturate yourself with cologne
and bergamot, until you make a sort of Hamlet's Ghost of yourself, and
no man can decide, with the first whiff, whether you bring with you air
from Heaven or from hell. Now, rectify this matter as soon as possible;
last Sunday you smelled like a secretary to a consolidated drug store
and barber shop. And you came and sat in the same pew with me; now don't
do that again.
In the next place when you design coming to church, don't lie in bed
until half past ten o'clock and then come in looking all swelled and
torpid, like a doughnut. Do reflect upon it, and show some respect for
your personal appearance hereafter.
There is another matter, also, which I wish to remonstrate with you
about. Generally, when the contribution box of the missionary department
is passing around, you begin to look anxious, and fumble in your vest
pockets, as if you felt a mighty desire to put all your worldly wealth
into it--yet when it reaches your pew, you are sure to be absorbed in
your prayer-book, or gazing pensively out of the window at far-off
mountains, or buried in meditation, with your sinful head supported by
the back of the pew before you. And after the box is gone again, you
usually start suddenly and gaze after it with a yearning look, mingled
with an expression of bitter disappointment (fumbling your cash again
meantime), as if you felt you had missed the one grand opportunity for
which you had been longing all your life. Now, to do this when you have
money in your pockets is mean. But I have seen you do a meaner thing. I
refer to your conduct last Sunday, when the contribution box arrived at
our pew--and the angry blood rises to my cheek when I remember with what
gravity and sweet serenity of countenance you put in fifty cents and
took out two dollars and a half....
THE UNRELIABLE
EDS. ENTERPRISE--I received the following atrocious document the morning
I arrived here. It was from that abandoned profligate, the Unreliable,
and I think it speaks for itself:
CARSON CITY, Thursday Morning.
_To the Unreliable:_
SIR--Observing the driver of the Virginia stage hunting after you this
morning, in order to collect his fare, I infer you are in town.
In the paper which you represent, I noticed an article which I took to
be an effusion from your muddled brain, stating that I had "cabbaged" a
number of valuable articles from you the night I took you out of the
streets of Washoe City and permitted you to occupy my bed.
I take this opportunity to inform you that I will compensate you at the
rate of $20 _per head_ for every one of these _valuable_ articles that I
received from you, providing you will relieve me of their presence. This
offer can be either accepted or rejected on your part: but providing you
don't see proper to accept it, you had better procure enough lumber to
make a box 4x8, and have it made as early as possible. Judge Dixon will
arrange the preliminaries if you don't accede. An early reply is
expected by RELIABLE.
Not satisfied with wounding my feelings by making the most extraordinary
reference to allusions in the above note, he even sent a challenge to
fight, in the same envelop with it, hoping to work upon my fears and
drive me from the country by intimidation. But I was not to be
frightened; I shall remain in the Territory. I guessed his object at
once, and determined to accept his challenge, choose weapons and things,
and scare him, instead of being scared myself. I wrote a stern reply to
him, and offered him mortal combat with boot-jacks at a hundred yards.
The effect was more agreeable than I could have hoped for. His hair
turned black in a single night, from excess of fear; then he went into a
fit of melancholy, and while it lasted he did nothing but sigh, and sob,
and snuffle, and slobber, and say "he wished he was in the quiet tomb;"
finally he said he would commit suicide--he would say farewell to the
cold, cold world, with its cares and troubles, and go to sleep with his
fathers, in perdition. Then rose up this young man, and threw his
demijohn out of the window, and took up a glass of pure water, and
drained it to the dregs. And then he fell to the floor in a swoon. Dr.
Tjader was called in, and as soon as he found that the cuss was
poisoned, he rushed down to the Magnolia Saloon and got the antidote,
and poured it down him. As he was drawing his last breath, he scented
the brandy and lingered yet a while on earth, to take a drink with the
boys. But for this he would have been no more--or possible a great deal
less--in a moment. So he survived; but he has been in a mighty
precarious condition ever since. I have been up to see how he was
getting along two or three times a day.... He is a very sick man; I was
up there a while ago, and I could see that his friends had begun to
entertain hopes that he would not get over it. As soon as I saw that,
all my enmity vanished; I even felt like doing the poor Unreliable a
kindness, and showing him, too, how my feelings toward him had changed.
So I went and bought him a beautiful coffin, and carried it up and set
it down on his bed and told him to climb in when his time was up. Well,
sir, you never saw a man so affected by a little act of kindness as he
was by that. He let off a sort of war-whoop, and went to kicking things
around like a crazy man; and he foamed at the mouth and went out of one
fit into another faster than I could take them down in my note-book....
I did not return to Virginia yesterday, on account of the wedding. The
parties were Hon. James H. Sturtevant, one of the first Pi-Utes of
Nevada, and Miss Emma Curry, daughter of the Hon. A. Curry, who also
claims that his is a Pi-Ute family of high antiquity.... I had heard it
reported that a marriage was threatened, so felt it my duty to go down
there and find out the facts of the case. They said I might stay, as it
was me.... I promised not to say anything about the wedding, and I
regard that promise as sacred--my word is as good as my bond.... Father
Bennett advanced and touched off the high contracting parties with the
hymeneal torch (married them, you know), and at the word of command from
Curry, the fiddle bows were set in motion, and the plain quadrilles
turned loose. Thereupon, some of the most responsible dancing ensued
that I ever saw in my life. The dance that Tam O'Shanter witnessed was
slow in comparison to it. They kept it up for six hours, and then
carried out the exhausted musicians on a shutter, and went down to
supper. I know they had a fine supper, and plenty of it, but I do not
know much else. They drank so much shampin around me that I got
confused, and lost the hang of things, as it were.... It was mighty
pleasant, jolly and sociable, and I wish to thunder I was married
myself. I took a large slice of bridal cake home with me to dream on,
and dreamt that I was still a single man, and likely to remain so, if I
live and nothing happens--which has given me a greater confidence in
dreams than I ever felt before. I cordially wish my newly-married couple
all kinds of happiness and prosperity, though.
YE SENTIMENTAL LAW STUDENT
EDS. ENTERPRISE--I found the following letter, or Valentine, or whatever
it is, lying on the summit, where it had been dropped unintentionally, I
think. It was written on a sheet of legal cap, and each line was duly
commenced within the red mark which traversed the sheet from top to
bottom. Solon appeared to have had some trouble getting his effusion
started to suit him. He had begun it, "Know all men by these presents,"
and scratched it out again; he had substituted, "Now at this day comes
the plaintiff, by his attorney," and scratched that out also; he had
tried other sentences of like character, and gone on obliterating them,
until, through much sorrow and tribulation, he achieved the dedication
which stands at the head of his letter, and to his entire satisfaction,
I do cheerfully hope. But what a villain a man must be to blend together
the beautiful language of love and the infernal phraseology of the law
in one and the same sentence! I know but one of God's creatures who
would be guilty of such depravity as this: I refer to the Unreliable. I
believe the Unreliable to be the very lawyer's-cub who sat upon the
solitary peak, all soaked in beer and sentiment, and concocted the
insipid literary hash I am talking about. The handwriting closely
resembles his semi-Chinese tarantula tracks.
SUGAR LOAF PEAK, February 14, 1863.
To the loveliness to whom these presents shall come, greeting:--This is
a lovely day, my own Mary; its unencumbered sunshine reminds me of your
happy face, and in the imagination the same doth now appear before me.
Such sights and scenes as this ever remind me, the party of the second
part, of you, my Mary, the peerless party of the first part. The view
from the lonely and segregated mountain peak, of this portion of what is
called and known as Creation, with all and singular the hereditaments
and appurtenances thereunto appertaining and belonging, is
inexpressively grand and inspiring; and I gaze, and gaze, while my soul
is filled with holy delight, and my heart expands to receive thy
spirit-presence, as aforesaid. Above me is the glory of the sun; around
him float the messenger clouds, ready alike to bless the earth with
gentle rain, or visit it with lightning, and thunder, and destruction;
far below the said sun and the messenger clouds aforesaid, lying prone
upon the earth in the verge of the distant horizon, like the burnished
shield of a giant, mine eyes behold a lake, which is described and set
forth in maps as the Sink of Carson; nearer, in the great plain, I see
the Desert, spread abroad like the mantle of a Colossus, glowing by
turns, with the warm light of the sun, hereinbefore mentioned, or darkly
shaded by the messenger clouds aforesaid; flowing at right angles with
said Desert, and adjacent thereto, I see the silver and sinuous thread
of the river, commonly called Carson, which winds its tortuous course
through the softly tinted valley, and disappears amid the gorges of the
bleak and snowy mountains--a simile of man!--leaving the pleasant valley
of Peace and Virtue to wander among the dark defiles of Sin, beyond the
jurisdiction of the kindly beaming sun aforesaid! And about said sun,
and the said clouds, and around the said mountains, and over the plain
and the river aforesaid, there floats a purple glory--a yellow mist--as
airy and beautiful as the bridal veil of a princess, about to be wedded
according to the rites and ceremonies pertaining to, and established by,
the laws or edicts of the kingdom or principality wherein she doth
reside, and whereof she hath been and doth continue to be, a lawful
sovereign or subject. Ah! my Mary, it is sublime! it is lovely! I have
declared and made known, and by these presents do declare and make known
unto you, that the view from Sugar Loaf Peak, as hereinbefore described
and set forth, is the loveliest picture with which the hand of the
Creator has adorned the earth, according to the best of my knowledge and
belief, so help me God.
Given under my hand, and in the spirit-presence of the bright being
whose love has restored the light of hope to a soul once groping in the
darkness of despair, on the day and year first above written.
(Signed)
SOLON LYCURGUS.
Law Student, and Notary Public in and for the said County of Storey, and
Territory of Nevada.
To Miss Mary Links, Virginia (and may the laws have her in their holy
keeping).
SETTIN' BY THE FIRE
BY FRANK L. STANTON
Never much on stirrin' roun'
(Sich warn't his desire),
Allers certain to be foun'
Settin' by the fire.
When the frost wuz comin' down--
Col' win' creepin' nigher,
Spent each day jest thataway--
Settin' by the fire.
When the dancin' shook the groun'--
Raised the ol' roof higher,
Never swung the gals eroun'--
Sot thar' by the fire.
Same ol' corner night an' day--
Never 'peared to tire;
Not a blessed word to say!
Jest sot by the fire.
When he died, by slow degrees,
Folks said: "He's gone higher;"
But it's my opinion he's
Settin' by the fire.
THE WHISPERER
BY IRONQUILL
He never tried to make a speech;
A speech was far beyond his reach.
He didn't even dare to try;
He did his work upon the sly.
He took the voter to the rear
And gently whispered in his ear.
He never wrote; he could not write;
He never tried that style of fight.
No argument of his was seen
In daily press or magazine.
He only tried to get up near
And whisper in the voter's ear.
It worked so well that he became
A person of abundant fame.
He couldn't write; he couldn't speak,
But still pursued his course unique.
He had a glorious career--
He whispered in the voter's ear.
DER OAK UND DER VINE
BY CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS
I don'd vas preaching voman's righdts,
Or anyding like dot,
Und I likes to see all beoples
Shust gondented mit dheir lot;
Budt I vants to gondradict dot shap
Dot made dis leedle shoke:
"A voman vas der glinging vine,
Und man, der shturdy oak."
Berhaps, somedimes, dot may be drue;
Budt, den dimes oudt off nine,
I find me oudt dot man himself
Vas peen der glinging vine;
Und ven hees friendts dhey all vas gone,
Und he vas shust "tead proke,"
Dot's ven der voman shteps righdt in,
Und peen der shturdy oak.
Shust go oup to der paseball groundts
Und see dhose "shturdy oaks"
All planted roundt ubon der seats--
Shust hear dheir laughs und shokes!
Dhen see dhose vomens at der tubs,
Mit glothes oudt on der lines;
Vhich vas der shturdy oaks, mine friendts,
Und vhich der glinging vines?
Vhen sickness in der householdt comes,
Und veeks und veeks he shtays,
Who vas id fighdts him mitoudt resdt,
Dhose veary nighdts und days?
Who beace und gomfort alvays prings,
Und cools dot fefered prow?
More like id vas der tender vine
Dot oak he glings to, now.
"Man vants budt leedle here below,"
Der boet von time said;
Dhere's leedle dot man he _don'd_ vant,
I dink id means, inshted;
Und ven der years keep rolling on,
Dheir cares und droubles pringing,
He vants to pe der shturdy oak,
Und, also, do der glinging.
Maype, vhen oaks dhey gling some more,
Und don'd so shturdy peen,
Der glinging vines dhey haf some shance
To helb run Life's masheen.
In helt und sickness, shoy und pain,
In calm or shtormy veddher,
'T was beddher dot dhose oaks und vines
Should alvays gling togeddher.
ARAMINTA AND THE AUTOMOBILE
BY CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS
Some persons spend their surplus on works of art; some spend it on
Italian gardens and pergolas; there are those who sink it in golf, and I
have heard of those who expended it on charity.
None of these forms of getting away with money appeal to Araminta and
myself. As soon as it was ascertained that the automobile was
practicable and would not cost a king's ransom, I determined to devote
my savings to the purchase of one.
Araminta and I lived in a suburban town; she because she loves Nature
and I because I love Araminta. We have been married for five years.
I am a bank clerk in New York, and morning and night I go through the
monotony of railway travel, and for one who is forbidden to use his eyes
on the train and who does not play cards it _is_ monotony, for in the
morning my friends are either playing cards or else reading their
papers, and one does not like to urge the claims of conversation on one
who is deep in politics or the next play of his antagonist; so my
getting to business and coming back are in the nature of purgatory. I
therefore hailed the automobile as a Heaven-sent means of swift motion
with an agreeable companion, and with no danger of encountering either
newspapers or cards. I have seen neither reading nor card-playing going
on in any automobile.
The community in which I live is not progressive, and when I said that I
expected to buy an automobile as soon as my ship came in I was frowned
upon by my neighbors. Several of them have horses, and all, or nearly
all, have feet. The horsemen were not more opposed to my proposed
ownership than the footmen--I should say pedestrians. They all thought
automobiles dangerous and a menace to public peace, but of course I
pooh-poohed their fears and, being a person of a good deal of stability
of purpose, I went on saving my money, and in course of time I bought an
automobile of the electric sort.
Araminta is plucky, and I am perfectly fearless. When the automobile was
brought home and housed in the little barn that is on our property, the
man who had backed it in told me that he had orders to stay and show me
how it worked, but I laughed at him--good-naturedly yet firmly. I said,
"Young man, experience teaches more in half an hour than books or
precepts do in a year. A would-be newspaper man does not go to a school
of journalism if he is wise; he gets a position on a newspaper and
learns for himself, and through his mistakes. I know that one of these
levers is to steer by, that another lets loose the power, and that there
is a foot-brake. I also know that the machine is charged, and I need to
know no more. Good day."
Thus did I speak to the young man, and he saw that I was a person of
force and discretion, and he withdrew to the train and I never saw him
again.
Araminta had been to Passaic shopping, but she came back while I was out
in the barn looking at my new purchase, and she joined me there. I
looked at her lovingly, and she returned the look. Our joint ambition
was realized; we were the owners of an automobile, and we were going out
that afternoon.
Why is it that cheap barns are so flimsily built? I know that our barn
is cheap because the rent for house and barn is less than what many a
clerk, city pent, pays for a cramped flat, but again I ask, why are they
flimsily built? I have no complaint to make. If my barn had been built
of good stout oak I might to-day be in a hospital.
It happened this way. Araminta said, "Let me get in, and we will take
just a little ride to see how it goes," and I out of my love for her
said, "Wait just a few minutes, dearest, until I get the hang of the
thing. I want to see how much go she has and just how she works."
Araminta has learned to obey my slightest word, knowing that love is at
the bottom of all my commands, and she stepped to one side while I
entered the gayly-painted vehicle and tried to move out of the barn. I
moved out. But I backed. Oh, blessed, cheaply built barn. My way was not
restricted to any appreciable extent. I shot gayly through the barn into
the hen yard, and the sound of the ripping clapboards frightened the
silly hens who were enjoying a dust-bath, and they fled in more
directions than there were fowls.
I had not intended entering the hen yard, and I did not wish to stay
there, so I kept on out, the wire netting not being what an automobile
would call an obstruction. I never lose my head, and when I heard
Araminta screaming in the barn, I called out cheerily to her, "I'll be
back in a minute, dear, but I'm coming another way."
And I did come another way. I came all sorts of ways. I really don't
know what got into the machine, but she now turned to the left and made
for the road, and then she ran along on her two left wheels for a
moment, and then seemed about to turn a somersault, but changed her
mind, and, still veering to the left, kept on up the road, passing my
house at a furious speed, and making for the open country. With as much
calmness as I could summon I steered her, but I think I steered her a
little too much, for she turned toward my house.
I reached one end of the front piazza at the same time that Araminta
reached the other end of it. I had the right of way, and she deferred to
me just in time. I removed the vestibule storm door. It was late in
March, and I did not think we should have any more use for it that
season. And we didn't.
I had ordered a strongly-built machine, and I was now glad of it,
because a light and weak affair that was merely meant to run along on a
level and unobstructed road would not have stood the assault on my
piazza. Why, my piazza did not stand it. It caved in, and made work for
an already overworked local carpenter who was behind-hand with his
orders. After I had passed through the vestibule, I applied the brake,
and it worked. The path is not a cinder one, as I think them untidy, so
I was not more than muddied. I was up in an instant, and looked at the
still enthusiastic machine with admiration.
"Have you got the hang of it?" said Araminta.
Now that's one thing I like about Araminta. She does not waste words
over non-essentials. The point was not that I had damaged the piazza. I
needed a new one, anyway. The main thing was that I was trying to get
the hang of the machine, and she recognized that fact instantly.
I told her that I thought I had, and that if I had pushed the lever in
the right way at first, I should have come out of the barn in a more
conventional way.
She again asked me to let her ride, and as I now felt that I could
better cope with the curves of the machine I allowed her to get in.
"Don't lose your head," said I.
"I hope I shan't," said she dryly.
"Well, if you have occasion to leave me, drop over the back. Never jump
ahead. That is a fundamental rule in runaways of all kinds."
Then we started, and I ran the motor along for upward of half a mile
after I had reached the highway, which I did by a short cut through a
field at the side of our house. There is only a slight rail fence
surrounding it, and my machine made little of that. It really seemed to
delight in what some people would have called danger.
"Araminta, are you glad that I saved up for this?"
"I am mad with joy," said the dear thing, her face flushed with
excitement mixed with expectancy. Nor were her expectations to be
disappointed. We still had a good deal to do before we should have ended
our first ride.
So far I had damaged property to a certain extent, but I had no one but
myself to reckon with, and I was providing work for people. I always
have claimed that he who makes work for two men where there was only
work for one before, is a public benefactor, and that day I was the
friend of carpenters and other mechanics.
Along the highway we flew, our hearts beating high, but never in our
mouths, and at last we saw a team approaching us. By "a team" I mean a
horse and buggy. I was raised in Connecticut, where a team is anything
you choose to call one.
The teamster saw us. Well, perhaps I should not call him a teamster
(although he was one logically): he was our doctor, and, as I say, he
saw us.
Now I think it would have been friendly in him, seeing that I was more
or less of a novice at the art of automobiling, to have turned to the
left when he saw that I was inadvertently turning to the left, but the
practice of forty years added to a certain native obstinacy made him
turn to the right, and he met me at the same time that I met him.
The horse was not hurt, for which I am truly glad, and the doctor joined
us, and continued with us for a season, but his buggy was demolished.
Of course I am always prepared to pay for my pleasure, and though it was
not, strictly speaking, my pleasure to deprive my physician of his
turn-out, yet if he _had_ turned out it wouldn't have happened--and, as
I say, I was prepared to get him a new vehicle. But he was very
unreasonable; so much so that, as he was crowding us--for the seat was
not built for more than two, and he is stout--I at last told him that I
intended to turn around and carry him home, as we were out for pleasure,
and he was giving us pain.
I will confess that the events of the last few minutes had rattled me
somewhat, and I did not feel like turning just then, as the road was
narrow. I knew that the road turned of its own accord a half-mile
farther on, and so I determined to wait.
"I want to get out," said the doctor tartly, and just as he said so
Araminta stepped on the brake, accidentally. The doctor got out--in
front. With great presence of mind I reversed, and so we did not run
over him. But he was furious and sulphurous, and that is why I have
changed to homeopathy. He was the only allopathic doctor in Brantford.
I suppose that if I had stopped and apologized, he would have made up
with me, and I would not have got angry with him, but I couldn't stop.
The machine was now going as she had done when I left the barn, and we
were backing into town.
Through it all I did not lose my coolness. I said: "Araminta, look out
behind, which is ahead of us, and if you have occasion to jump now, do
it in front, which is behind," and Araminta understood me.
She sat sideways, so that she could see what was going on, but that
might have been seen from any point of view, for we were the only things
going on--or backing.
Pretty soon we passed the wreck of the buggy, and then we saw the horse
grazing on dead grass by the roadside, and at last we came on a few of
our townfolk who had seen us start, and were now come out to welcome us
home. But I did not go home just then. I should have done so if the
machine had minded me and turned in at our driveway, but it did not.
Across the way from us there is a fine lawn leading up to a beautiful
greenhouse full of rare orchids and other plants. It is the pride of my
very good neighbor, Jacob Rawlinson.
The machine, as if moved by _malice prépense_, turned just as we came to
the lawn, and began to back at railroad speed.
I told Araminta that if she was tired of riding, now was the best time
to stop; that she ought not to overdo it, and that I was going to get
out myself as soon as I had seen her off.
I saw her off.
Then after one ineffectual jab at the brake, I left the machine
hurriedly, and as I sat down on the sposhy lawn I heard a tremendous but
not unmusical sound of falling glass----
I tell Araminta that it isn't the running of an automobile that is
expensive. It is the stopping of it.
THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.
I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!
"These to the printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
"There'll be the devil to pay."
He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.
He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.
The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
WHEN LOVELY WOMAN
BY PHOEBE CARY
When lovely woman wants a favor,
And finds, too late, that man won't bend,
What earthly circumstance can save her
From disappointment in the end?
The only way to bring him over,
The last experiment to try,
Whether a husband or a lover,
If he have feeling is--to cry.
UNSATISFIED YEARNING
BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK
Down in the silent hallway
Scampers the dog about,
And whines, and barks, and scratches,
In order to get out.
Once in the glittering starlight,
He straightway doth begin
To set up a doleful howling
In order to get in.
THE INVISIBLE PRINCE[2]
BY HENRY HARLAND
At a masked ball given by the Countess Wohenhoffen, in Vienna, during
carnival week, a year ago, a man draped in the embroidered silks of a
Chinese mandarin, his features entirely concealed by an enormous Chinese
head in cardboard, was standing in the Wintergarten, the big,
dimly-lighted conservatory, near the door of one of the gilt-and-white
reception-rooms, rather a stolid-seeming witness of the multi-coloured
romp within, when a voice behind him said, "How do you do, Mr.
Field?"--a woman's voice, an English voice.
The mandarin turned round.
From a black mask, a pair of blue-gray eyes looked into his broad, bland
Chinese face; and a black domino dropped him an extravagant little
curtsey.
"How do you do?" he responded. "I'm afraid I'm not Mr. Field; but I'll
gladly pretend I am, if you'll stop and talk with me. I was dying for a
little human conversation."
"Oh you're afraid you're not Mr. Field, are you?" the mask replied
derisively. "Then why did you turn when I called his name?"
"You mustn't hope to disconcert me with questions like that," said he.
"I turned because I liked your voice."
He might quite reasonably have liked her voice, a delicate, clear, soft
voice, somewhat high in register, with an accent, crisp, chiselled,
concise, that suggested wit as well as distinction. She was rather
tall, for a woman; one could divine her slender and graceful, under the
voluminous folds of her domino.
She moved a little away from the door, deeper into the conservatory. The
mandarin kept beside her. There, amongst the palms, a _fontaine
lumineuse_ was playing, rhythmically changing colour. Now it was a
shower of rubies; now of emeralds or amethysts, of sapphires, topazes,
or opals.
"How pretty," she said, "and how frightfully ingenious. I am wondering
whether this wouldn't be a good place to sit down. What do _you_ think?"
And she pointed with a fan to a rustic bench.
So they sat down on the rustic bench, by the _fontaine lumineuse_.
"In view of your fear that you're not Mr. Field, it's rather a
coincidence that at a masked ball in Vienna you should just happen to be
English, isn't it?" she asked.
"Oh, everybody's more or less English, in these days, you know," said
he.
"There's some truth in that," she admitted, with a laugh. "What a
diverting piece of artifice this Wintergarten is, to be sure. Fancy
arranging the electric lights to shine through a dome of purple glass,
and look like stars. They do look like stars, don't they? Slightly
overdressed, showy stars, indeed; stars in the German taste; but stars,
all the same. Then, by day, you know, the purple glass is removed, and
you get the sun--the real sun. Do you notice the delicious fragrance of
lilac? If one hadn't too exacting an imagination, one might almost
persuade oneself that one was in a proper open-air garden, on a night in
May--Yes, everybody is more or less English, in these days. That's
precisely the sort of thing I should have expected Victor Field to
say."
"By-the-bye," questioned the mandarin, "if you don't mind increasing my
stores of knowledge, who _is_ this fellow Field?"
"This fellow Field? Ah, who indeed?" said she. "That's just what I wish
you'd tell me."
"I'll tell you with pleasure, after you've supplied me with the
necessary data," he promised cheerfully.
"Well, by some accounts, he's a little literary man in London," she
remarked.
"Oh, come! You never imagined that I was a little literary man in
London," protested he.
"You might be worse," she retorted. "However, if the phrase offends you,
I'll say a rising young literary man, instead. He writes things, you
know."
"Poor chap, does he? But then, that's a way they have, sizing up
literary persons?" His tone was interrogative.
"Doubtless," she agreed. "Poems and stories and things. And book
reviews, I suspect. And even, perhaps, leading articles in the
newspapers."
"_Toute la lyre enfin?_ What they call a penny-a-liner?"
"I'm sure I don't know what he's paid. I should think he'd get rather
more than a penny. He's fairly successful. The things he does aren't
bad," she said.
"I must look 'em up," said he. "But meantime, will you tell me how you
came to mistake me for him? Has he the Chinese type? Besides, what on
earth should a little London literary man be doing at the Countess
Wohenhoffen's?"
"He was standing near the door, over there," she told him, sweetly,
"dying for a little human conversation, till I took pity on him. No, he
hasn't exactly the Chinese type, but he's wearing a Chinese costume, and
I should suppose he'd feel uncommonly hot in that exasperatingly placid
Chinese head. _I'm_ nearly suffocated, and I'm only wearing a _loup_.
For the rest, why _shouldn't_ he be here?"
"If your _loup_ bothers you, pray take it off. Don't mind me," he urged
gallantly.
"You're extremely good," she responded. "But if I should take off my
_loup_, you'd be sorry. Of course, manlike, you're hoping that I'm young
and pretty."
"Well, and aren't you?"
"I'm a perfect fright. I'm an old maid."
"Thank you. Manlike, I confess I _was_ hoping you'd be young and pretty.
Now my hope has received the strongest confirmation. I'm sure you are,"
he declared triumphantly.
"Your argument, with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile and
superficial. Don't pin your faith to it. Why _shouldn't_ Victor Field be
here?" she persisted.
"The Countess only receives tremendous swells. It's the most exclusive
house in Europe."
"Are you a tremendous swell?" she wondered.
"Rather!" he asseverated. "Aren't you?"
She laughed a little, and stroked her fan, a big fan, a big fan of
fluffy black feathers.
"That's very jolly," said he.
"What?" said she.
"That thing in your lap."
"My fan?"
"I expect you'd call it a fan."
"For goodness' sake, what would _you_ call it?" cried she.
"I should call it a fan."
She gave another little laugh. "You have a nice instinct for the _mot
juste_," she informed him.
"Oh, no," he disclaimed, modestly. "But I can call a fan a fan, when I
think it won't shock the sensibilities of my hearer."
"If the Countess only receives tremendous swells," said she, "you must
remember that Victor Field belongs to the Aristocracy of Talent."
"Oh, _quant à ça_, so, from the Wohenhoffens' point of view, do the
barber and the horse-leech. In this house, the Aristocracy of Talent
dines with the butler."
"Is the Countess such a snob?" she asked.
"No; she's an Austrian. They draw the line so absurdly tight in
Austria."
"Well, then, you leave me no alternative," she argued, "but to conclude
that Victor Field is a tremendous swell. Didn't you notice, I bobbed him
a curtsey?"
"I took the curtsey as a tribute to my Oriental magnificence," he
confessed. "Field doesn't sound like an especially patrician name. I'd
give anything to discover who you are. Can't you be induced to tell me?
I'll bribe, entreat, threaten--I'll do anything you think might persuade
you."
"I'll tell you at once, if you'll own up that you're Victor Field," said
she.
"Oh, I'll own up that I'm Queen Elizabeth if you'll tell me who you are.
The end justifies the means."
"Then you _are_ Victor Field?" she pursued him eagerly.
"If you don't mind suborning perjury, why should I mind committing it?"
he reflected. "Yes. And now, who are you?"
"No; I must have an unequivocal avowal," she stipulated. "Are you or are
you not Victor Field?"
"Let us put it at this," he proposed, "that I'm a good serviceable
imitation; an excellent substitute when the genuine article is not
procurable."
"Of course, your real name isn't anything like Victor Field," she
declared, pensively.
"I never said it was. But I admire the way in which you give with one
hand and take back with the other."
"Your real name--" she began. "Wait a moment--Yes, now I have it. Your
real name--It's rather long. You don't think it will bore you?"
"Oh, if it's really my real name, I daresay I'm hardened to it," said
he.
"Your real name is Louis Charles Ferdinand Stanislas John Joseph
Emmanuel Maria Anna."
"Mercy upon me," he cried, "what a name! You ought to have broken it to
me in instalments. And it's all Christian name at that. Can't you spare
me just a little rag of a surname, for decency's sake?" he pleaded.
"The surnames of royalties don't matter, Monseigneur," she said, with a
flourish.
"Royalties? What? Dear me, here's rapid promotion! I am royal now! And a
moment ago I was a little penny-a-liner in London."
"_L'un n'empêche pas l'autre._ Have you never heard the story of the
Invisible Prince?" she asked.
"I adore irrelevancy," said he. "I seem to have read something about an
invisible prince, when I was young. A fairy tale, wasn't it?"
"The irrelevancy is only apparent. The story I mean is a story of real
life. Have you ever heard of the Duke of Zeln?"
"Zeln? Zeln?" he repeated, reflectively. "No, I don't think so."
She clapped her hands. "Really, you do it admirably. If I weren't
perfectly sure of my facts, I believe I should be taken in. Zeln, as any
history would tell you, as any old atlas would show you, was a little
independent duchy in the center of Germany."
"Poor dear thing! Like Jonah in the center of the whale," he murmured,
sympathetically.
"Hush. Don't interrupt. Zeln was a little independent German duchy, and
the Duke of Zeln was its sovereign. After the war with France it was
absorbed by Prussia. But the ducal family still rank as royal highness.
Of course, you've heard of the Leczinskis?"
"Lecz--what?" said he.
"Leczinski," she repeated.
"How do you spell it?"
"L-e-c-z-i-n-s-k-i."
"Good. Capital. You have a real gift for spelling," he exclaimed.
"Will you be quiet," she said, severely, "and answer my question? Are
you familiar with the name?"
"I should never venture to be familiar with a name I didn't know," he
asserted.
"Ah, you don't know it? You have never heard of Stanislas Leczinska, who
was king of Poland? Of Marie Leczinska, who married Louis VI?"
"Oh, to be sure. I remember. The lady whose portrait one sees at
Versailles."
"Quite so. Very well," she continued, "the last representative of the
Leczinskis, in the elder line, was the Princess Anna Leczinska, who, in
1858, married the Duke of Zeln. She was the daughter of John Leczinski,
Duke of Grodnia and Governor of Galicia, and of the Archduchess
Henrietta d'Este, a cousin of the Emperor of Austria. She was also a
great heiress, and an extremely handsome woman. But the Duke of Zeln was
a bad lot, a viveur, a gambler, a spendthrift. His wife, like a fool,
made her entire fortune over to him, and he proceeded to play ducks and
drakes with it. By the time their son was born he'd got rid of the last
farthing. Their son wasn't born till '63, five years after their
marriage. Well, and then, what do you suppose the Duke did?"
"Reformed, of course. The wicked husband always reforms when a child is
born, and there's no more money," he generalized.
"You know perfectly well what he did," said she. "He petitioned the
German Diet to annul the marriage. You see, having exhausted the dowry
of the Princess Anna, it occurred to him that if she could only be got
out of the way, he might marry another heiress, and have the spending of
another fortune."
"Clever dodge," he observed. "Did it come off?"
"It came off, all too well. He based his petition on the ground that the
marriage had never been--I forget what the technical term is. Anyhow, he
pretended that the princess had never been his wife except in name, and
that the child couldn't possibly be his. The Emperor of Austria stood by
his connection, like the royal gentleman he is; used every scrap of
influence he possessed to help her. But the duke, who was a Protestant
(the princess was of course a Catholic), the duke persuaded all the
Protestant States in the Diet to vote in his favour. The Emperor of
Austria was powerless, the Pope was powerless. And the Diet annulled the
marriage."
"Ah," said the mandarin.
"Yes," she went on. "The marriage was annulled, and the child declared
illegitimate. Ernest Augustus, as the duke was somewhat inconsequently
named, married again, and had other children, the eldest of whom is the
present bearer of the title--the same Duke of Zeln one hears of,
quarreling with the croupiers at Monte Carlo. The Princess Anna, with
her baby, came to Austria. The Emperor gave her a pension, and lent her
one of his country houses to live in--Schloss Sanct--Andreas. Our
hostess, by-the-by, the Countess Wohenhoffen, was her intimate friend
and her _première dame d'honneur_."
"Ah," said the mandarin.
"But the poor princess had suffered more than she could bear. She died
when her child was four years old. The Countess Wohenhoffen took the
infant, by the Emperor's desire, and brought him up with her own son
Peter. He was called Prince Louis Leczinski. Of course, in all moral
right, he was the Hereditary Prince of Zeln. His legitimacy, for the
rest, and his mother's innocence, are perfectly well established, in
every sense but a legal sense, by the fact that he has all the physical
characteristics of the Zeln stock. He has the Zeln nose and the Zeln
chin, which are as distinctive as the Hapsburg lip."
"I hope, for the poor young man's sake, though, that they're not so
unbecoming?" questioned the mandarin.
"They're not exactly pretty," answered the mask. "The nose is a thought
too long, the chin is a trifle too short. However, I daresay the poor
young man is satisfied. As I was about to tell you, the Countess
Wohenhoffen brought him up, and the Emperor destined him for the Church.
He even went to Rome and entered the Austrian College. He'd have been on
the high road to a cardinalate by this time if he'd stuck to the
priesthood, for he had strong interest. But, lo and behold, when he was
about twenty, he chucked the whole thing up."
"Ah? _Histoire de femme?_"
"Very likely," she assented, "though I've never heard any one say so. At
all events, he left Rome, and started upon his travels. He had no money
of his own, but the Emperor made him an allowance. He started upon his
travels, and he went to India, and he went to America, and he went to
South Africa, and then, finally, in '87 or '88, he went--no one knows
where. He totally disappeared, vanished into space. He's not been heard
of since. Some people think he's dead. But the greater number suppose
that he tired of his false position in the world, and one fine day
determined to escape from it, by sinking his identity, changing his
name, and going in for a new life under new conditions. They call him
the Invisible Prince. His position _was_ rather an ambiguous one, wasn't
it? You see, he was neither one thing nor the other. He has no
_état-civil_. In the eyes of the law he was a bastard, yet he knew
himself to be the legitimate son of the Duke of Zeln. He was a citizen
of no country, yet he was the rightful heir to a throne. He was the last
descendant of Stanislas Leczinski, yet it was without authority that he
bore his name. And then, of course, the rights and wrongs of the matter
were only known to a few. The majority of people simply remembered that
there had been a scandal. And (as a wag once said of him) wherever he
went, he left his mother's reputation behind him. No wonder he found the
situation irksome. Well, there is the story of the Invisible Prince."
"And a very exciting, melodramatic little story, too. For my part, I
suspect your Prince met a boojum. I love to listen to stories. Won't you
tell me another? Do, please," he pressed her.
"No, he didn't meet a boojum," she returned. "He went to England, and
set up for an author. The Invisible Prince and Victor Field are one and
the same person."
"Oh, I say! Not really!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, really."
"What makes you think so?" he wondered.
"I'm sure of it," said she. "To begin with, I must confide to you that
Victor Field is a man I've never met."
"Never met--?" he gasped. "But, by the blithe way in which you were
laying his sins at my door, a little while ago, I supposed you were
sworn confederates."
"What's the good of masked balls, if you can't talk to people you've
never met?" she submitted. "I've never met him, but I'm one of his
admirers. I like his little poems. And I'm the happy possessor of a
portrait of him. It's a print after a photograph. I cut it from an
illustrated paper."
"I really almost wish I _was_ Victor Field," he sighed. "I should feel
such a glow of gratified vanity."
"And the Countess Wohenhoffen," she added, "has at least twenty
portraits of the Invisible Prince--photographs, miniatures, life-size
paintings, taken from the time he was born, almost, to the time of his
disappearance. Victor Field and Louis Leczinski have countenances as
like each other as two halfpence."
"An accidental resemblance, doubtless."
"No, it isn't an accidental resemblance," she affirmed.
"Oh, then you think it's intentional?" he quizzed.
"Don't be absurd. I might have thought it accidental, except for one or
two odd little circumstances. _Primo_, Victor Field is a guest at the
Wohenhoffens' ball."
"Oh, he _is_ a guest here?"
"Yes, he is," she said. "You are wondering how I know. Nothing simpler.
The same _costumier_ who made my domino, supplied his Chinese dress. I
noticed it at his shop. It struck me as rather nice, and I asked whom it
was for. The _costumier_ said, for an Englishman at the Hôtel de Bade.
Then he looked in his book, and told me the Englishman's name. It was
Victor Field. So, when I saw the same Chinese dress here to-night, I
knew it covered the person of one of my favorite authors. But I own,
like you, I was a good deal surprised. What on earth should a little
London literary man be doing at the Countess Wohenhoffen's? And then I
remembered the astonishing resemblance between Victor Field and Louis
Leczinski; and I remembered that to Louis Leczinski the Countess
Wohenhoffen had been a second mother; and I reflected that though he
chose to be as one dead and buried for the rest of the world, Louis
Leczinski might very probably keep up private relations with the
Countess. He might very probably come to her ball, incognito, and safely
masked. I observed also that the Countess's rooms were decorated
throughout with _white lilac_. But the white lilac is the emblematic
flower of the Leczinskis; green and white are their family colours.
Wasn't the choice of white lilac on this occasion perhaps designed as a
secret compliment to the Prince? I was taught in the schoolroom that two
and two make four."
"Oh, one can see that you've enjoyed a liberal education," he apprised
her. "But where were you taught to jump to conclusions? You do it with a
grace, an assurance. I too have heard that two and two make four; but
first you must catch your two and two. Really, as if there couldn't be
more than one Chinese costume knocking about Vienna, during carnival
week! Dear, good, sweet lady, it's of all disguises the disguise they're
driving hardest, this particular season. And then to build up an
elaborate theory of identities upon the mere chance resemblance of a
pair of photographs! Photographs indeed! Photographs don't give the
complexion. Say that your Invisible Prince is dark, what's to prevent
your literary man from being fair or sandy? Or _vice versâ_? And then,
how is a little German Polish princeling to write poems and things in
English? No, no, no; your reasoning hasn't a leg to stand on."
"Oh, I don't mind its not having legs," she laughed, "so long as it
convinces me. As for writing poems and things in English, you yourself
said that everybody is more or less English, in these days. German
princes are especially so. They all learn English, as a second
mother-tongue. You see, like Circassian beauties, they are mostly bred
up for the marriage market; and nothing is a greater help towards a good
sound remunerative English marriage, than a knowledge of the language.
However, don't be frightened. I must take it for granted that Victor
Field would prefer not to let the world know who he is. I happen to have
discovered his secret. He may trust to my discretion."
"You still persist in imagining that I'm Victor Field?" he murmured
sadly.
"I should have to be extremely simple-minded," she announced, "to
imagine anything else. You wouldn't be a male human being if you had sat
here for half an hour patiently talking about another man."
"Your argument," said he, "with a meretricious air of subtlety, is
facile and superficial. I thank you for teaching me that word. I'd sit
here till doomsday talking about my worst enemy, for the pleasure of
talking with you."
"Perhaps we have been talking of your worst enemy. Whom do the moralists
pretend a man's worst enemy is wont to be?" she asked.
"I wish you would tell me the name of the person the moralists would
consider _your_ worst enemy," he replied.
"I'll tell you directly, as I said before, if you'll own up," she
offered.
"Your price is prohibitive. I've nothing to own up to."
"Well then--good night," she said.
Lightly, swiftly, she fled from the conservatory, and was soon
irrecoverable in the crowd.
The next morning Victor Field left Vienna for London; but before he left
he wrote a letter to Peter Wohenhoffen. In the course of it he said:
"There was an Englishwoman at your ball last night with the reasoning
powers of a detective in a novel. By divers processes of elimination and
induction, she had formed all sorts of theories about no end of things.
Among others, for instance, she was willing to bet her halidome that a
certain Prince Louis Leczinski, who seems to have gone on the spree some
years ago, and never to have come home again--she was willing to bet
anything you like that Leczinski and I--_moi qui vous parle_--were to
all intents and purposes the same. Who was she, please? Rather a tall
woman, in a black domino, with gray eyes, or grayish-blue, and a nice
voice."
In the answer which he received from Peter Wohenhoffen towards the end
of the week, Peter said: "There were nineteen Englishwomen at my
mother's party, all of them rather tall, with nice voices, and gray or
blue-gray eyes. I don't know what colours their dominoes were. Here is a
list of them."
The names that followed were names of people whom Victor Field almost
certainly would never meet. The people Victor knew in London were the
sort of people a little literary man might be expected to know. Most of
them were respectable; some of them even deemed themselves rather smart,
and patronized him right Britishly. But the nineteen names in Peter
Wohenhoffen's list ("Oh, me! Oh, my!" cried Victor) were names to make
you gasp.
All the same, he went a good deal to Hyde Park during the season, and
watched the driving.
"Which of all those haughty high-born beauties is she?" he wondered
futilely.
And then the season passed, and then the year; and little by little, of
course, he ceased to think about her.
* * * * *
One afternoon last May, a man, habited in accordance with the fashion of
the period, stopped before a hairdresser's shop in Knightsbridge
somewhere, and, raising his hat, bowed to the three waxen ladies who
simpered from the window.
"Oh! It's Mr. Field!" a voice behind him cried. "What are those cryptic
rites that you're performing? What on earth are you bowing into a
hairdresser's window for?"--a smooth, melodious voice, tinged by an
inflection that was half ironical, half bewildered.
"I was saluting the type of English beauty," he answered, turning.
"Fortunately, there are divergencies from it," he added, as he met the
puzzled smile of his interlocutrice; a puzzled smile, indeed, but, like
the voice, by no means without its touch of irony.
She gave a little laugh; and then, examining the models critically,
"Oh?" she questioned. "Would you call that the type? You place the type
high. Their features are quite faultless, and who ever saw such
complexions?"
"It's the type, all the same," said he. "Just as the imitation
marionette is the type of English breeding."
"The imitation marionette? I'm afraid I don't follow," she confessed.
"The imitation marionettes. You've seen them at little theatres in
Italy. They're actors who imitate puppets. Men and women who try to
behave as if they weren't human, as if they were made of starch and
whalebone, instead of flesh and blood."
"Ah, yes," she assented, with another little laugh. "That _would_ be
rather typical of our insular methods. But do you know what an engaging,
what a reviving spectacle you presented, as you stood there flourishing
your hat? What do you imagine people thought? And what would have
happened to you if I had just chanced to be a policeman instead of a
friend?"
"Would you have clapped your handcuffs on me?" he inquired. "I suppose
my conduct did seem rather suspicious. I was in the deepest depths of
dejection. One must give some expression to one's sorrow."
"Are you going towards Kensington?" she asked, preparing to move on.
"Before I commit myself, I should like to be sure whether you are," he
replied.
"You can easily discover with a little perseverance."
He placed himself beside her, and together they walked towards
Kensington.
She was rather taller than the usual woman, and slender. She was
exceedingly well-dressed; smartly, becomingly; a jaunty little hat of
strangely twisted straw, with an aigrette springing defiantly from it; a
jacket covered with mazes and labyrinths of embroidery; at her throat a
big knot of white lace, the ends of which fell winding in a creamy
cascade to her waist (do they call the thing a _jabot_?); and then....
But what can a man trust himself to write of these esoteric matters? She
carried herself extremely well, too: with grace, with distinction, her
head held high, even thrown back a little, superciliously. She had an
immense quantity of very lovely hair. Red hair? Yellow hair? Red hair
with yellow lights burning in it? Yellow hair with red fires shimmering
through it? In a single loose, full billow it swept away from her
forehead, and then flowed into a half-a-thousand rippling, crinkling,
capricious undulations. And her skin had the sensitive colouring, the
fineness of texture, that are apt to accompany red hair when it's
yellow, yellow hair when it's red. Her face, with its pensive,
quizzical eyes, its tip-tilted nose, its rather large mouth, and the
little mocking quirks and curves the lips took, with an alert, arch,
witty face; a delicate high-bred face; and withal a somewhat sensuous,
emotional face; the face of a woman with a vast deal of humour in her
soul; a vast deal of mischief; of a woman who would love to tease you,
and mystify you, and lead you on, and put you off; and yet who, in her
own way, at her own time, would know supremely well how to be kind.
But it was mischief rather than kindness that glimmered in her eyes at
present, as she asked, "You were in the deepest depths of dejection?
Poor man! Why?"
"I can't precisely determine," said he, "whether the sympathy that seems
to vibrate in your voice is genuine or counterfeit."
"Perhaps it's half and half," she suggested. "But my curiosity is
unmixed. Tell me your troubles."
"The catalogue is long. I've sixteen hundred million. The weather, for
example. The shameless beauty of this radiant spring day. It's enough to
stir all manner of wild pangs and longings in the heart of an
octogenarian. But, anyhow, when one's life is passed in a dungeon, one
can't perpetually be singing and dancing from mere exuberance of joy,
can one?"
"Is your life passed in a dungeon?" she exclaimed.
"Indeed, indeed, it is. Isn't yours?"
"It had never occurred to me that it was."
"You're lucky. Mine is passed in the dungeons of Castle Ennui," he said.
"Oh, Castle Ennui. Ah, yes. You mean you're bored?"
"At this particular moment I'm savouring the most exquisite excitement,"
he professed. "But in general, when I am not working or sleeping, I'm
bored to extermination--incomparably bored. If only one could work and
sleep alternately, twenty-four hours a day, the year round! There's no
use trying to play in London. It's so hard to find a playmate. The
English people take their pleasures without salt."
"The dungeons of Castle Ennui," she repeated meditatively. "Yes, we are
fellow-prisoners. I'm bored to extermination too. Still," she added,
"one is allowed out on parole, now and again. And sometimes one has
really quite delightful little experiences."
"It would ill become me, in the present circumstances, to dispute that,"
he answered, bowing.
"But the castle waits to reclaim us afterwards, doesn't it?" she mused.
"That's rather a happy image, Castle Ennui."
"I'm extremely glad you approve of it. Castle Ennui is the bastile of
modern life. It is built of prunes and prisms; it has its outer court of
convention, and its inner court of propriety; it is moated round by
respectability, and the shackles its inmates wear are forged of dull
little duties and arbitrary little rules. You can only escape from it at
the risk of breaking your social neck, or remaining a fugitive from
social justice to the end of your days. Yes, it _is_ a fairly decent
little image."
"A bit out of something you're preparing for the press?" she hinted.
"Oh, how unkind of you!" he cried. "It was absolutely extemporaneous."
"One can never tell, with _vous autres gens-de-lettres_," she laughed.
"It would be friendlier to say _nous autres gens d'esprit_," he
submitted.
"Aren't we proving to what degree _nous autres gens d'esprit sont
bêtes_," she remarked, "by continuing to walk along this narrow
pavement, when we can get into Kensington Gardens by merely crossing the
street. Would it take you out of your way?"
"I have no way. I was sauntering for pleasure, if you can believe me. I
wish I could hope that you have no way either. Then we could stop here,
and crack little jokes together the livelong afternoon," he said, as
they entered the Gardens.
"Alas, my way leads straight back to the Castle. I've promised to call
on an old woman in Campden Hill," said she.
"Disappoint her. It's good for old women to be disappointed. It whips up
their circulation."
"I shouldn't much regret disappointing the old woman," she admitted,
"and I should rather like an hour or two of stolen freedom. I don't mind
owning that I've generally found you, as men go, a moderately
interesting man to talk with. But the deuce of it is--You permit the
expression?"
"I'm devoted to the expression."
"The deuce of it is, I'm supposed to be driving," she explained.
"Oh, that doesn't matter. So many suppositions in this world are
baseless," he reminded her.
"But there's the prison van," she said. "It's one of the tiresome rules
in the female wing of Castle Ennui that you're always supposed, more or
less, to be driving. And though you may cheat the authorities by
slipping out of the prison van directly it's turned the corner, and
sending it on ahead, there it remains, a factor that can't be
eliminated. The prison van will relentlessly await my arrival in the old
woman's street."
"That only adds to the sport. Let it wait. When a factor can't be
eliminated, it should be haughtily ignored. Besides, there are higher
considerations. If you leave me, what shall I do with the rest of this
weary day?"
"You can go to your club."
He threw up his hand. "Merciful lady! What sin have I committed? I never
go to my club, except when I've been wicked, as a penance. If you will
permit me to employ a metaphor--oh, but a tried and trusty
metaphor--when one ship on the sea meets another in distress, it stops
and comforts it, and forgets all about its previous engagements and the
prison van and everything. Shall we cross to the north, and see whether
the Serpentine is in its place? Or would you prefer to inspect the
eastern front of the Palace? Or may I offer you a penny chair?"
"I think a penny chair would be the maddest of the three dissipations,"
she decided.
And they sat down in penny chairs.
"It's rather jolly here, isn't it?" said he. "The trees, with their
black trunks, and their leaves, and things. Have you ever seen such
sumptuous foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the
sunlight, and the atmosphere, and the mistiness--isn't it like
pearl-dust and gold-dust floating in the air? It's all got up to imitate
the background of a Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous and
ribald, and supply a proper foreground. How big and fleecy and white the
clouds are. Do you think they're made of cotton-wood? And what do you
suppose they paint the sky with? There never was such a brilliant,
breath-taking blue. It's much too nice to be natural. And they've
sprinkled the whole place with scent, haven't they? You notice how fresh
and sweet it smells. If only one could get rid of the sparrows--the
cynical little beasts! hear how they're chortling--and the people, and
the nursemaids and children. I have never been able to understand why
they admit the public to the parks."
"Go on," she encouraged him. "You're succeeding admirably in your effort
to be ribald."
"But that last remark wasn't ribald in the least--it was desperately
sincere. I do think it's inconsiderate of them to admit the public to
the parks. They ought to exclude all the lower classes, the people, at
one fell swoop, and then to discriminate tremendously amongst the
others."
"Mercy, what undemocratic sentiments!" she cried. "The People, the poor
dear People--what have they done?"
"Everything. What haven't they done? One could forgive their being dirty
and stupid and noisy and rude; one could forgive their ugliness, the
ineffable banality of their faces, their goggle-eyes, their protruding
teeth, their ungainly motions; but the trait one can't forgive is their
venality. They're so mercenary. They're always thinking how much they
can get out of you--everlastingly touching their hats and expecting you
to put your hand in your pocket. Oh, no, believe me, there's no health
in the People. Ground down under the iron heel of despotism, reduced to
a condition of hopeless serfdom, I don't say that they might not develop
redeeming virtues. But free, but sovereign, as they are in these days,
they're everything that is squalid and sordid and offensive. Besides,
they read such abominably bad literature."
"In that particular they're curiously like the aristocracy, aren't
they?" said she. "By-the-bye, when are you going to publish another book
of poems?"
"Apropos of bad literature?"
"Not altogether bad. I rather like your poems."
"So do I," said he. "It's useless to pretend that we haven't tastes in
common."
They were both silent for a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable
little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a
merry trill of laughter.
"What are you laughing at?" he demanded.
"I'm hugely amused," she answered.
"I wasn't I aware that I'd said anything especially good."
"You're building better than you know. But if I am amused, _you_ look
ripe for tears. What is the matter?"
"Every heart knows its own bitterness," he answered. "Don't pay the
least attention to me. You mustn't let moodiness of mine cast a blight
upon your high spirits."
"No fear," she assured him. "There are pleasures that nothing can rob of
their sweetness. Life is not all dust and ashes. There are bright
spots."
"Yes, I've no doubt there are," he said.
"And thrilling little adventures--no?" she questioned.
"For the bold, I dare say."
"None but the bold deserve them. Sometimes it's one thing, and sometimes
it's another."
"That's very certain," he agreed.
"Sometimes, for instance," she went on, "one meets a man one knows, and
speaks to him. And he answers with a glibness! And then, almost
directly, what do you suppose one discovers?"
"What?" he asked.
"One discovers that the wretch hasn't a ghost of a notion who one
is--that he's totally and absolutely forgotten one!"
"Oh, I say! Really?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, really. You can't deny that _that's_ an exhilarating little
adventure."
"I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man's embarrassment,"
he reflected.
"Or his lack of embarrassment. Some men are of an assurance, of a _sang
froid_! They'll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and talk
with you, and even propose that you should pass the livelong afternoon
cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint of their
perplexity. They'll brazen it out."
"That's distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don't you think?" he said.
"Intentionally, poor dears, they're very likely suffering agonies of
discomfiture."
"We'll hope they are. Could they decently do less?" said she.
"And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,"
he urged. "If I were a man in such a situation I'd throw myself upon the
woman's mercy. I'd say, 'Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your
name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the
tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a
memory chooses to play the fool. If you've a spark of Christian kindness
in your soul, you'll come to my rescue with a little clue."
"If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I
fear you'd throw yourself on her mercy in vain," she warned.
"What _is_ the good of tantalizing people?"
"Besides," she continued, "the woman might reasonably feel slightly
humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner."
"The humiliation would be surely all the man's. Have you heard from the
Wohenhoffens lately?"
"The--what? The--who?" She raised her eyebrows.
"The Wohenhoffens," he repeated.
"What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?"
"Oh, nothing. My inquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for knowledge.
It occurred to me that you might have won a black domino at the masked
ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you didn't?"
"I've a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I
did," she teased.
"She was rather tall, like you, and she had gray eyes, and a nice voice,
and a laugh that was sweeter than the singing of nightingales. She was
monstrously clever, too, with a flow of language that would have made
her a leader in any sphere. She was also a perfect fiend. I have always
been anxious to meet her again, in order that I might ask her to marry
me. I'm strongly disposed to believe that she was you. Was she?" he
pleaded.
"If I say yes, will you at once proceed to ask me to marry you?" she
asked.
"Try it and see."
"_Ce n'est pas la peine._ It occasionally happens that a woman's already
got a husband."
"She said she was an old maid."
"Do you dare to insinuate that I look like an old maid?" she cried.
"Yes."
"Upon my word!"
"Would you wish me to insinuate that you look like anything so insipid
as a young girl? _Were_ you the woman of the black domino?" he
persisted.
"I should need further information, before being able to make up my
mind. Are the--what's their name?--Wohenheimer?--are the Wohenheimers
people one can safely confess to knowing? Oh, you're a man, and don't
count. But a woman? It sounds a trifle Jewish, Wohenheimer. But of
course there are Jews and Jews."
"You're playing with me like the cat in the adage," he sighed. "It's
too cruel. No one is responsible for his memory."
"And to think that this man took me down to dinner not two months ago!"
she murmured in her veil.
"You're as hard as nails. In whose house? Or--stay. Prompt me a little.
Tell me the first syllable of your name. Then the rest will come with a
rush."
"My name is Matilda Muggins."
"I've a great mind to punish your untruthfulness by pretending to
believe you," said he. "Have you really got a husband?"
"Why do you doubt it?" said she.
"I don't doubt it. Have you?"
"I don't know what to answer."
"Don't you know whether you've got a husband?" he protested.
"I don't know what I'd better let you believe. Yes, on the whole, I
think you may as well assume that I've got a husband," she concluded.
"And a lover, too?" he asked.
"Really! I like your impertinence!" she bridled.
"I only asked to show a polite interest. I knew the answer would be an
indignant negative. You're an Englishwoman, and you're _nice_. Oh, one
can see with half an eye that you're _nice_. But that a nice
Englishwoman should have a lover is as inconceivable as that she should
have side-whiskers. It's only the reg'lar bad-uns in England who have
lovers. There's nothing between the family pew and the divorce court.
One nice Englishwoman is a match for the whole Eleven Thousand Virgins
of Cologne."
"To hear you talk, one might fancy you were not English yourself. For a
man of the name of Field, you're uncommonly foreign. You _look_ rather
foreign, too, you know, by-the-bye. You haven't at all an English cast
of countenance," she considered.
"I've enjoyed the advantages of a foreign education. I was brought up
abroad," he explained.
"Where your features unconsciously assimilated themselves to a foreign
type? Where you learned a hundred thousand strange little foreign
things, no doubt? And imbibed a hundred thousand unprincipled little
foreign notions? And all the ingenuous little foreign prejudices and
misconceptions concerning England?" she questioned.
"Most of them," he assented.
"_Perfide Albion?_ English hypocrisy?" she pursued.
"Oh, yes, the English are consummate hypocrites. But there's only one
objection to their hypocrisy--it so rarely covers any wickedness. It's
such a disappointment to see a creature stalking toward you, laboriously
draped in sheep's clothing, and then to discover that it's only a sheep.
You, for instance, as I took the liberty of intimating a moment ago, in
spite of your perfectly respectable appearance, are a perfectly
respectable woman. If you weren't, wouldn't I be making furious love to
you, though!"
"As I am, I can see no reason why you shouldn't make furious love to me,
if it would amuse you. There's no harm in firing your pistol at a person
who's bullet-proof," she laughed.
"No; it's merely a wanton waste of powder and shot," said he. "However,
I shouldn't stick at that. The deuce of it is--You permit the
expression?"
"I'm devoted to the expression."
"The deuce of it is, you profess to be married."
"Do you mean to say that you, with your unprincipled foreign notions,
would be restrained by any such consideration as that?" she wondered.
"I shouldn't be for an instant--if I weren't in love with you."
"_Comment donc? Déjà?_" she cried with a laugh.
"Oh, _déjà_! Why not? Consider the weather--consider the scene. Is the
air soft, is it fragrant? Look at the sky--good heavens!--and the
clouds, and the shadows on the grass, and the sunshine between the
trees. The world is made of light to-day, of light and color, and
perfume and music. _Tutt 'intorno canta amor, amor, amor!_ What would
you have? One recognises one's affinity. One doesn't need a lifetime.
You began the business at the Wohenhoffens' ball. To-day you've merely
put on the finishing touches."
"Oh, then I _am_ the woman you met at the masked ball?" she cried.
"Look me in the eye, and tell me you're not," he defied her.
"I haven't the faintest interest in telling you I'm not. On the
contrary, it rather pleases me to let you imagine that I am."
"She owed me a grudge, you know. I hoodwinked her like everything," he
confided.
"Oh, did you? Then, as a sister woman, I should be glad to serve as her
instrument of vengeance. Do you happen to have such a thing as a watch
about you?" she inquired.
"Yes," he said.
"Will you be good enough to tell me what o'clock it is?"
"What are your motives for asking?"
"I'm expected at home at five."
"Where do you live?"
"What are the motives for asking?"
"I want to call upon you."
"You might wait till you're invited."
"Well, invite me--quick!"
"Never."
"Never?"
"Never, never, never," she asseverated. "A man who's forgotten me as you
have!"
"But if I've only met you once at a masked ball--"
"Can't you be brought to realise that every time you mistake me for that
woman of the masked ball you turn the dagger in the wound?" she
demanded.
"But if you won't invite me to call upon you, how and when am I to see
you again?"
"I haven't an idea," she answered, cheerfully. "I must go now. Good-by."
She rose.
"One moment," he interposed. "Before you go will you allow me to look at
the palm of your left hand?"
"What for?"
"I can tell fortunes. I'm extremely good at it," he boasted. "I'll tell
you yours."
"Oh, very well," she assented, sitting down again: and guilelessly she
pulled off her glove.
He took her hand, a beautifully slender, nervous hand, warm and soft,
with rosy, tapering fingers.
"Oho! you _are_ an old maid after all," he cried. "There's no wedding
ring."
"You villain!" she gasped, snatching the hand away.
"I promised to tell your fortune. Haven't I told it correctly?"
"You needn't rub it in, though. Eccentric old maids don't like to be
reminded of their condition."
"Will you marry _me_?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Partly for curiosity. Partly because it's the only way I can think of,
to make sure of seeing you again. And then, I like your hair. Will you?"
"I can't," she said.
"Why not?"
"The stars forbid. And I'm ambitious. In my horoscope it is written that
I shall either never marry at all, or--marry royalty."
"Oh, bother ambition! Cheat your horoscope. Marry me. Will you?"
"If you care to follow me," she said, rising again, "you can come and
help me to commit a little theft."
He followed her to an obscure and sheltered corner of a flowery path,
where she stopped before a bush of white lilac.
"There are no keepers in sight, are there? she questioned.
"I don't see any," he said.
"Then allow me to make you a receiver of stolen goods," said she,
breaking off a spray, and handing it to him.
"Thank you. But I'd rather have an answer to my question."
"Isn't that an answer?"
"Is it?"
"White lilac--to the Invisible Prince?"
"The Invisible Prince--Then you _are the black_ domino!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, I suppose so," she consented.
"And you _will_ marry me?"
"I'll tell the aunt I live with to ask you to dinner."
"But will you marry me?"
"I thought you wished me to cheat my horoscope?"
"How could you find a better means of doing so?"
"What! if I should marry Louis Leczinski--?"
"Oh, to be sure. You will have it that I was Louis Leczinski. But, on
that subject, I must warn you seriously--"
"One instant," she interrupted. "People must look other people straight
in the face when they're giving serious warnings. Look straight into my
eyes, and continue your serious warning."
"I must really warn you seriously," said he, biting his lip, "that if
you persist in that preposterous delusion about my being Louis
Leczinski, you'll be most awfully sold. I have nothing on earth to do
with Louis Leczinski. Your ingenious little theories, as I tried to
convince you at the time, were absolute romance."
Her eyebrows raised a little, she kept her eyes fixed steadily on
his--oh, in the drollest fashion, with a gaze that seemed to say "How
admirably you do it! I wonder whether you imagine I believe you. Oh, you
fibber! Aren't you ashamed to tell me such abominable fibs--?"
They stood still, eyeing each other thus, for something like twenty
seconds, and then they both laughed and walked on.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] From _Comedies and Errors_. Reprinted by permission of the John Lane
Company.
WHY WAIT FOR DEATH AND TIME?
BY BERT LESTON TAYLOR
I hold it truth with him who weekly sings
Brave songs of hope,--the music of "The Sphere,"--
That deathless tomes the living present brings:
Great literature is with us year on year.
Books of the mighty dead, whom men revere,
Remind me I can make _my_ books sublime.
But, prithee, bay my brow while I am here:
Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?
Shakespeare, great spirit, beat his mighty wings,
As I beat mine, for the occasion near.
He knew, as I, the worth of present things:
Great literature is with us year on year.
Methinks I meet across the gulf his clear
And tranquil eye; his calm reflections chime
With mine: "Why do we at the present fleer?
Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?"
The reading world with acclamation rings
For my last book. It led the list at Weir,
Altoona, Rahway, Painted Post, Hot Springs:
Great literature is with us year on year.
"The Bookman" gives me a vociferous cheer.
Howells approves. I can no higher climb.
Bring, then, the laurel: crown my bright career--
Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?
Critics, who pastward, ever pastward peer,
Great literature is with us year on year.
Trumpet my fame while I am in my prime:
Why do we ever wait for Death and Time?
WINTER JOYS
BY EUGENE FIELD
A man stood on the bathroom floor,
While raged the storm without,
One hand was on the water valve,
The other on the spout.
He fiercely tried to turn the plug,
But all in vain he tried,
"I see it all, I am betrayed,
The water's froze," he cried.
Down to the kitchen then he rushed,
And in the basement dove,
Long strived he for to turn the plugs,
But all in vain he strove.
"The hydrant may be running yet,"
He cried in hopeful tone,
Alas, the hydrant too, was froze,
As stiff as any stone.
There came a burst, the water pipes
And plugs, oh, where were they?
Ask of the soulless plumber man
Who called around next day.
THE DEMON OF THE STUDY
BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
The Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room,
And eats his meat and drinks his ale,
And beats the maid with her unused broom,
And the lazy lout with his idle flail;
But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn,
And hies him away ere the break of dawn.
The shade of Denmark fled from the sun,
And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer,
The fiend of Faust was a faithful one,
Agrippa's demon wrought in fear,
And the devil of Martin Luther sat
By the stout monk's side in social chat.
The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him
Who seven times crossed the deep,
Twined closely each lean and withered limb,
Like the nightmare in one's sleep.
But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast
The evil weight from his back at last.
But the demon that cometh day by day
To my quiet room and fireside nook,
Where the casement light falls dim and gray
On faded painting and ancient book,
Is a sorrier one than any whose names
Are chronicled well by good King James.
No bearer of burdens like Caliban,
No runner of errands like Ariel,
He comes in the shape of a fat old man,
Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell;
And whence he comes, or whither he goes,
I know as I do of the wind which blows.
A stout old man with a greasy hat
Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose,
And two gray eyes enveloped in fat,
Looking through glasses with iron bows.
Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can,
Guard well your doors from that old man!
He comes with a careless "How d'ye do?"
And seats himself in my elbow-chair;
And my morning paper and pamphlet new
Fall forthwith under his special care,
And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat,
And, button by button, unfolds his coat.
And then he reads from paper and book,
In a low and husky asthmatic tone,
With the stolid sameness of posture and look
Of one who reads to himself alone;
And hour after hour on my senses come
That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum.
The price of stocks, the auction sales,
The poet's song and the lover's glee,
The horrible murders, the sea-board gales,
The marriage list, and the _jeu d'esprit_,
All reach my ear in the self-same tone,--
I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on!
Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon
O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree,
The sigh of the wind in the woods of June,
Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea,
Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems
To float through the slumbering singer's dreams.
So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone,
Of her in whose features I sometimes look,
As I sit at eve by her side alone,
And we read by turns, from the self-same book,
Some tale perhaps of the olden time,
Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme.
Then when the story is one of woe,--
Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar,
Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low,
Her voice sinks down like a moan afar;
And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail,
And his face looks on me worn and pale.
And when she reads some merrier song,
Her voice is glad as an April bird's,
And when the tale is of war and wrong,
A trumpet's summons is in her words,
And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear,
And see the tossing of plume and spear!
Oh, pity me then, when, day by day,
The stout fiend darkens my parlor door;
And reads me perchance the self-same lay
Which melted in music, the night before,
From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet,
And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet!
I cross my floor with a nervous tread,
I whistle and laugh and sing and shout,
I flourish my cane above his head,
And stir up the fire to roast him out;
I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane,
And press my hands on my ears, in vain!
I've studied Glanville and James the wise.
And wizard black-letter tomes which treat
Of demons of every name and size
Which a Christian man is presumed to meet,
But never a hint and never a line
Can I find of a reading fiend like mine.
I've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate,
And laid the Primer above them all,
I've nailed a horseshoe over the grate,
And hung a wig to my parlor wall
Once worn by a learned Judge, they say,
At Salem court in the witchcraft day!
"_Conjuro te, sceleratissime_,
_Abire ad tuum locum!_"--still
Like a visible nightmare he sits by me,--
The exorcism has lost its skill;
And I hear again in my haunted room
The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum!
Ah! commend me to Mary Magdalen
With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew,
To the terrors which haunted Orestes when
The furies his midnight curtains drew,
But charm him off, ye who charm him can,
That reading demon, that fat old man!
UNCLE BENTLEY AND THE ROOSTERS
BY HAYDEN CARRUTH
The burden of Uncle Bentley has always rested heavily on our town.
Having not a shadow of business to attend to he has made other people's
business his own, and looked after it in season and out--especially out.
If there is a thing which nobody wants done, to this Uncle Bentley
applies his busy hand.
One warm summer Sunday we were all at church. Our pastor had taken the
passage on turning the other cheek, or one akin to it, for his text, and
was preaching on peace and quiet and non-resistance. He soon had us in a
devout mood which must have been beautiful to see and encouraging to the
good man.
Of course, Uncle Bentley was there--he always was, and forever in a
front pew, with his neck craned up looking backward to see if there was
anything that didn't need doing which he could do. He always tinkered
with the fires in the winter and fussed with the windows in the summer,
and did his worst with each. His strongest church point was ushering.
Not content to usher the stranger within our gates, he would usher all
of us, and always thrust us into pews with just the people we didn't
want to sit with. If you failed to follow him when he took you in tow,
he would stop and look back reproachfully, describing mighty indrawing
curves with his arm; and if you pretended not to see him, he would give
a low whistle to attract your attention, the arm working right along,
like a Holland windmill.
On this particular warm summer Sunday Uncle Bentley was in place wearing
his long, full-skirted coat, a queer, dark, bottle-green, purplish blue.
He had ushered to his own exceeding joy, and got two men in one pew, and
given them a single hymn-book, who wouldn't on week-days speak to each
other. I ought to mention that we had long before made a verb of Uncle
Bentley. To unclebentley was to do the wrong thing. It was a regular
verb, unclebentley, unclebentleyed, unclebentleying. Those two rampant
enemies in the same pew had been unclebentleyed.
The minister was floating along smoothly on the subject of peace when
Uncle Bentley was observed to throw up his head. He had heard a sound
outside. It was really nothing but one of Deacon Plummer's young
roosters crowing. The Deacon lived near, and vocal offerings from his
poultry were frequent and had ceased to interest any one except Uncle
Bentley. Then in the pauses between the preacher's periods we heard the
flapping of wings, with sudden stoppings and startings. Those
unregenerate fowls, unable to understand the good man's words, were
fighting. Even this didn't interest us--we were committed to peace. But
Uncle Bentley shot up like a jack-in-a-box and cantered down the aisle.
Of course, his notion was that the roosters were disturbing the
services, and that it was his duty to go out and stop them. We heard
vigorous "Shoos!" and "Take thats!" and "Consairn yous!" and then Uncle
Bentley came back looking very important, and as he stalked up the aisle
he glanced around and nodded his head, saying as clearly as words,
"There, where would you be without me?" Another defiant crow floated in
at the window.
The next moment the rushing and beating of wings began again, and down
the aisle went Uncle Bentley, the long tails of that coat fairly
floating like a cloud behind him. There was further uproar outside, and
Uncle Bentley was back in his place, this time turning around and
whispering hoarsely, "I fixed 'em!" But such was not the case, for twice
more the very same thing was repeated. The last time Uncle Bentley came
back he wore a calm, snug expression, as who should say, "Now I _have_
fixed 'em!" We should have liked it better if the roosters had fixed
Uncle Bentley. But nobody paid much attention except Deacon Plummer. The
thought occurred to him that perhaps Uncle Bentley had killed the fowls.
But he hadn't.
However, there was no more disturbance without, and after a time the
sermon closed. There was some sort of a special collection to be taken
up. Of course, Uncle Bentley always insisted on taking up all the
collections. He hopped up on this occasion and seized the plate with
more than usual vigor. His struggles with the roosters had evidently
stimulated him. He soon made the rounds and approached the table in
front of the pulpit to deposit his harvest. As he did so we saw to our
horror that the long tails of that ridiculous coat were violently
agitated. A sickening suspicion came over us. The next moment one of
those belligerent young roosters thrust a head out of either of those
coat-tail pockets. One uttered a raucous crow, the other made a vicious
dab. Uncle Bentley dropped the plate with a scattering of coin, seized a
coat skirt in each hand, and drew it front. This dumped both fowls out
on the floor, where they went at it hammer and tongs. What happened
after this is a blur in most of our memories. All that is certain is
that there was an uproar in the congregation, especially the younger
portion; that the Deacon began making unsuccessful dives for his
poultry; that the organist struck up "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and
that the minister waved us away without a benediction amid loud shouts
of, "Shoo!" "I swanny!" and, "Drat the pesky critters!" from your Uncle
Bentley.
Did it serve to subdue Uncle Bentley? Not in the least; he survived to
do worse things.
A SHINING MARK
BY IRONQUILL
A man came here from Idaho,
With lots of mining stock.
He brought along as specimens
A lot of mining rock.
The stock was worth a cent a pound
If stacked up in a pile.
The rock was worth a dollar and
A half per cubic mile.
We planted him at eventide,
'Mid shadows dim and dark;
We fixed him up an epitaph,--
"Death loves a mining shark."
A BOOKWORM'S PLAINT[3]
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD
To-day, when I had dined my fill
Upon a Caxton,--you know Will,--
I crawled forth o'er the colophon
To bask awhile within the sun;
And having coiled my sated length,
I felt anon my whilom strength
Slip from me gradually, till deep
I dropped away in dreamful sleep,
Wherein I walked an endless maze,
And dined on Caxtons all my days.
Then I woke suddenly. Alas!
What in my sleep had come to pass?
That priceless first edition row,--
Squat quarto and tall folio,--
Had, in my slumber, vanished quite;
Instead, on my astonished sight
The newest novels burst,--a gay
And most unpalatable array!
I, that have battened on the best,
Why should I thus be dispossessed
And with starvation, or the worst
Of diets, cruelly be curst?
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Lippincott's Magazine.
A POE-'EM OF PASSION
BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS
It was many and many a year ago,
On an island near the sea,
That a maiden lived whom you mightn't know
By the name of Cannibalee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than a passionate fondness for me.
I was a child, and she was a child--
Tho' her tastes were adult Feejee--
But she loved with a love that was more than love,
My yearning Cannibalee;
With a love that could take me roast or fried
Or raw, as the case might be.
And that is the reason that long ago,
In that island near the sea,
I had to turn the tables and eat
My ardent Cannibalee--
Not really because I was fond of her,
But to check her fondness for me.
But the stars never rise but I think of the size
Of my hot-potted Cannibalee,
And the moon never stares but it brings me nightmares
Of my spare-rib Cannibalee;
And all the night-tide she is restless inside,
Is my still indigestible dinner-belle bride,
In her pallid tomb, which is Me,
In her solemn sepulcher, Me.
THE REAL DIARY OF A REAL BOY
BY HENRY A. SHUTE
Mar. 11, 186----Went to church in the morning. the fernace was all
write. Mister Lennard preeched about loving our ennymies, and told every
one if he had any angry feelings towards ennyone to go to him and shake
hands and see how much better you wood feel. i know how it is becaus
when me and Beany are mad we dont have eny fun and when we make up the
one who is to blam always wants to treet. why when Beany was mad with me
becaus i went home from Gil Steels surprise party with Lizzie Towle, Ed
Towles sister, he woodent speak to me for 2 days, and when we made up he
treated me to ice cream with 2 spoons and he let me dip twice to his
once. he took pretty big dips to make up. Beany is mad if enny of the
fellers go with Lizzie Towle. she likes Beany better than she does enny
of the fellers and Beany ought to be satisfied, but sometimes he acks
mad when i go down there to fite roosters with Ed. i gess he needent
worry much, no feller isnt going to leave of fiting roosters to go with
no girls. well i most forgot that i was going to say, but after church i
went up to Micky Gould who was going to fite me behind the school house,
and said Micky lets be friends and Micky said, huh old Skinny, i can
lick you in 2 minits and i said you aint man enuf and he called me a
nockneed puke, and i called him a wall eyed lummix and he give me a
paist in the eye and i gave him a good one in the mouth, and then we
rassled and Micky threw me and i turned him, and he got hold of my new
false bosom and i got hold of his hair, and the fellers all hollered hit
him Micky, paist him Skinny, and Mister Purington, Pewts father pulled
us apart and i had Mickys paper collar and necktie and some of his hair
and he had my false bosom and when i got home father made me go to bed
and stay there all the afternoon for fiting, but i guess he didnt like
my losing my false bosom. ennyway he asked me how many times i hit Micky
and which licked. he let me get up at supper time. next time i try to
love my ennymy i am a going to lick him first.
Went to a sunday school concert in the evening. Keene and Cele sung now
i lay me down to sleep. they was a lot of people sung together and
Mister Gale beat time. Charlie Gerish played the violin and Miss Packard
sung. i was scart when Keene and Cele sung for i was afraid they would
break down, but they dident, and people said they sung like night harks.
i gess if they knowed how night harks sung they woodent say much. father
felt pretty big and to hear him talk you wood think he did the singing.
he give them ten cents apeace. i dident get none. you gest wait, old man
till i git my cornet.
Went to a corcus last night. me and Beany were in the hall in the
afternoon helping Bob Carter sprinkle the floor and put on the sordust.
the floor was all shiny with wax and aufully slipery. so Bob got us to
put on some water to take off the shiny wax. well write in front of the
platform there is a low platform where they get up to put in their votes
and then step down and Beany said, dont put any water there only jest
dry sordust. so i dident. well that night we went erly to see the fun.
Gim Luverin got up and said there was one man which was the oldest voter
in town and he ought to vote the first, the name of this destinkuished
sitizen was John Quincy Ann Pollard. then old mister Pollard got up and
put in his vote and when he stepped down his heels flew up and he went
down whak on the back of his head and 2 men lifted him up and lugged him
to a seat, and then Ed Derborn, him that rings the town bell, stepped up
pretty lively and went flat and swort terrible, and me and Beany nearly
died we laffed so. well it kept on, people dident know what made them
fall, and Gim Odlin sat write down in his new umbrella and then they
sent me down stairs for a pail of wet sordust and when i was coming up i
heard an awful whang, and when i got up in the hall they were lugging
old mister Stickney off to die and they put water on his head and lugged
him home in a hack. me and Beany dont know what to do. if we dont tell,
Bob will lose his place and if we do we will get licked.
Mar. 31. April fool day tomorrow. i am laying for Beany. old Francis
licked 5 fellers today becaus they sung rong when we was singing speek
kindly it is better for to rule by luv than feer.
June 14. Rashe Belnap and Horris Cobbs go in swimming every morning at
six o'clock. i got a licking today that beat the one Beany got. last
summer me and Tomtit Tomson and Cawcaw Harding and Whack and Poz and
Boog Chadwick went in swimming in May and all thru the summer until
October. one day i went in 10 times. well i dident say anything about it
to father so as not to scare him. well today he dident go to Boston and
he said i am going to teech you to swim. when i was as old as you i cood
swim said he, and you must lern, i said i have been wanting to lern to
swim, for all the other boys can swim. so we went down to the gravil and
i peeled off my close and got ready, now said he, you jest wade in up to
your waste and squat down and duck your head under. i said the water
will get in my nose. he said no it wont jest squat rite down. i cood
see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter.
so i waded out a little ways and then div in and swam under water most
across, and when i came up i looked to see if father was surprised. gosh
you aught to have seen him. he had pulled off his coat and vest and
there he stood up to his waste in the water with his eyes jest bugging
rite out as big as hens eggs, and he was jest a going to dive for my
dead body. then i turned over on my back and waved my hand at him. he
dident say anything for a minute, only he drawed in a long breth. then
he began to look foolish, and then mad, and then he turned and started
to slosh back to the bank where he slipped and went in all over. When he
got to the bank he was pretty mad and yelled for me to come out. when i
came out he cut a stick and whaled me, and as soon as i got home he sent
me to bed for lying, but i gess he was mad becaus i about scart the life
out of him. but that nite i heard him telling mother about it and he
said that he div 3 times for me in about thirty feet of water. but he
braged about my swimming and said i cood swim like a striped frog. i
shall never forget how his boots went kerslosh kerslosh kerslosh when we
were skinning home thru croslots. i shall never forget how that old
stick hurt either. ennyhow he dident say ennything about not going in
again, so i gess i am all rite.
June 15, 186----Johnny Heeld, a student, came to me and wanted me to carry
some tickets to a dance round to the girls in the town. there was about
1 hundred of them. he read the names over to me and i said i knew them
all. so after school me and Beany started out and walked all over town
and give out the tickets. i had a long string of names and every time i
wood leave one i wood mark out the name. i dident give the Head girls
any because they told father about some things that me and Beany and
Pewt did and the Parmer girls and the Cilley girls lived way up on the
plains and i dident want to walk up there, so when i went over to
Hemlock side to give one, i went over to the factory boarding house and
give some to them. they was auful glad to get them too and said they
would go to the dance. some people was not at home and so i gave their
tickets to the next house. it took me till 8 o'clock and i got 1 dollar
for it. i dont believe those girls that dident get their tickets will
care much about going ennyway. i gess the Head girls wont want to tell
on me another time.
June 23. there is a dead rat in the wall in my room. it smells auful.
A MOTHERS' MEETING[4]
BY MADELINE BRIDGES
"Where's the maternal parent of
This boy that stands in need of beating,
And of this babe that pines for love?"
"Oh, she is at a Mothers' Meeting!"
"Fair daughter, why these young tears shed,
For passion's tale, too sweet and fleeting,
Lonely and mute, uncomforted?"
"My mother's at a Mothers' Meeting."
"Man, whom misfortunes jeer and taunt,
Whom frauds forsake, and hope is cheating,
Fly to your mother's arms." "I can't--
You see, she's at a Mothers' Meeting."
Alas, what next will woman do?
Love, duty, children, home, maltreating,
The while she, smiling, rallies to
The roll-call of a Mothers' Meeting!
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Lippincott's Magazine.
MISTER RABBIT'S LOVE AFFAIR
BY FRANK L. STANTON
One day w'en Mister Rabbit wuz a-settin' in de grass
He see Miss Mary comin', en he wouldn't let her pass,
Kaze he know she lookin' purty in de river lookin'glass,
O Mister Rabbit, in de mawnin'!
But de Mockin'bird wuz singin' in de blossom en de dew,
En he know 'bout Mister Rabbit, en he watchin' er 'im,
too;
En Miss Mary heah his music, en she tell 'im "Howdy-do!"
O Mister Rabbit, in de mawnin'!
Mister Rabbit 'low he beat 'im, en he say he'll l'arn ter sing,
En he tried it all de winter, en he kep' it up in spring;
But he wuzn't buil' fer singin', kaze he lack de voice en wing,--
Good-by, Mister Rabbit, in de mawnin'!
OUR HIRED GIRL
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Our hired girl, she's 'Lizabuth Ann;
An' she can cook best things to eat!
She ist puts dough in our pie-pan,
An' pours in somepin' 'at's good and sweet,
An' nen she salts it all on top
With cinnamon; an' nen she'll stop
An' stoop an' slide it, ist as slow,
In th' old cook-stove, so's 'twon't slop
An' git all spilled; nen bakes it, so
It's custard pie, first thing you know!
An' nen she'll say:
"Clear out o' my way!
They's time fer work, an' time fer play!--
Take yer dough, an' run, Child; run!
Er I cain't git no cookin' done!"
When our hired girl 'tends like she's mad,
An' says folks got to walk the chalk
When _she's_ around, er wisht they had,
I play out on our porch an' talk
To th' Raggedy Man 'at mows our lawn;
An' he says "_Whew!_" an' nen leans on
His old crook-scythe, and blinks his eyes
An' sniffs all round an' says,--"I swawn!
Ef my old nose don't tell me lies,
It 'pears like I smell custard-pies!"
An' nen _he'll_ say,--
"'Clear out o' my way!
They's time fer work an' time fer play!
Take yer dough, an' run, Child; run!
Er _she_ cain't git no cookin' done!'"
Wunst our hired girl, one time when she
Got the supper, an' we all et,
An' it was night, an' Ma an' me
An' Pa went wher' the "Social" met,--
An' nen when we come home, an' see
A light in the kitchen-door, an' we
Heerd a maccordeum, Pa says "Lan'-
O'-Gracious! who can _her_ beau be?"
An' I marched in, an' 'Lizabuth Ann
Wuz parchin' corn fer the Raggedy Man!
_Better_ say
"Clear out o' the way!
They's time fer work, an' time fer play!
Take the hint, an' run, Child; run!
Er we cain't git no _courtin'_ done!"
THE REASON
BY IRONQUILL
Says John last night:
"William, by grab! I'm beat
To know why stolen kisses
Taste so sweet."
Says William: "Sho!
That's easily explained--
It's 'cause they're _syrup_-
titiously obtained."
* * * * *
O cruel thought!
O words of cruel might!
The coroner
He sat on John that night.
ONCL' ANTOINE ON 'CHANGE
BY WALLACE BRUCE AMSBARY
(_Antoine Boisvert, Raconteur._)
I've jus' com' from Chicago town,
A seein' all de sights
From stockyard to de ballet gairl,
All drass' in spangled tights.
But all de worstes' nonsens'
T'roo vich I got to wade,
I t'ink de t'ing dat gats de cake
Ees place called Board of Trade.
I heard moch talk about dem chap
Dey call de Bull an' Bear,
Dat play aroun' with price of stock
An' get you unaware.
Who'll tell you w'at your wheat
Will bring in Fevuary nex',
In jus' so smood an' quiet vay
De curé read his tex'.
An' dere dey vere out on de floor,
De mans who mak' de price
Of all de country produce,
A lookin' smood an' nice.
But dey had vink opon dere eye
Dat look you t'roo an' t'roo,
Like tricky bunko steerer ven
He's hunting after you.
Dey got de ball to roll ver' swif'
An' firs' fall from de dock
Vas bottom off on July pork;
An' heem dat held de stock
Commence to hiss an' wriggle
Lak' a yellow rattlesnake;
De res' buzz jus' lak' bumblebee
Stirred op vit hayin' rake.
Dis bottom off on July pork
Is strike me kin' of queer,
I's t'ink dat hogs is good for eat
Mos' all of de 'hole year.
Dose feller on Chicago town
Is mak' such fonny phrase
Dat--_entre nous_--I sometimes t'ink
Dat som' of dem ees craz'.
Den dere ees somet'ing happen
Dat mak' 'em more excite',
W'en news ees com' overe de vires
Dat Boer an' Britain fight,
I nevere saw such meex-op yet,
In days since I be born,
Dey scowl an' call wan nodder names,
Dere faces show moch scorn.
Wan man grow wild an' mos'ly craz',
De tears stream off his eyes,
Dere's nodder man dat's laf an' shout,
It's mak' me mos' surprise.
I guess it mak' som' diffe_rance_
Vich side you're on de fence,
But in dis Bear an' Bull meex-op
I see not ver' moch sense.
HEZEKIAH BEDOTT'S OPINION
BY FRANCES M. WHICHER
He was a wonderful hand to moralize, husband was, 'specially after he
begun to enjoy poor health. He made an observation once when he was in
one of his poor turns, that I never shall forget the longest day I live.
He says to me one winter evenin' as we was a settin' by the fire,--I was
a knittin' (I was always a wonderful great knitter) and he was a smokin'
(he was a master hand to smoke, though the doctor used to tell him he'd
be better off to let tobacker alone; when he was well he used to take
his pipe and smoke a spell after he'd got the chores done up, and when
he wa'n't well, used to smoke the biggest part of the time). Well, he
took his pipe out of his mouth and turned toward me, and I knowed
something was comin', for he had a pertikkeler way of lookin' round when
he was gwine to say anything oncommon. Well, he says to me, says he,
"Silly" (my name was Prissilly naterally, but he ginerally called me
"Silly," cause 'twas handier, you know). Well, he says to me, says he,
"Silly," and he looked pretty sollem, I tell you--he had a sollem
countenance naterally--and after he got to be deacon 'twas more so, but
since he'd lost his health he looked sollemer than ever, and certainly
you wouldent wonder at it if you knowed how much he underwent. He was
troubled with a wonderful pain in his chest, and amazin' weakness in the
spine of his back, besides the pleurissy in the side, and having the
ager a considerable part of the time, and bein' broke of his rest o'
nights 'cause he was so put to 't for breath when he laid down. Why it's
an onaccountable fact that when that man died he hadent seen a well day
in fifteen year, though when he was married and for five or six years
after I shouldent desire to see a ruggeder man that he was. But the time
I'm speakin' of he'd been out o' health nigh upon ten year, and O dear
sakes! how he had altered since the first time I ever see him! That was
to a quiltin' to Squire Smith's a spell afore Sally was married. I'd no
idee then that Sal Smith was a gwine to be married to Sam Pendergrass.
She'd ben keepin' company with Mose Hewlitt, for better'n a year, and
everybody said _that_ was a settled thing, and lo and behold! all of a
sudding she up and took Sam Pendergrass. Well, that was the first time I
ever see my husband, and if anybody'd a told me then that I should ever
marry him, I should a said--but lawful sakes! I most forgot, I was gwine
to tell you what he said to me that evenin', and when a body begins to
tell a thing I believe in finishin' on't some time or other. Some folks
have a way of talkin' round and round and round forevermore, and never
come to the pint. Now there's Miss Jinkins, she that was Poll Bingham
afore she was married, she is the tejusest individooal to tell a story
that ever I see in all my born days. But I was a gwine to tell you what
husband said. He says to me, says he, "Silly"; says I, "What?" I dident
say, "What, Hezekier?" for I dident like his name. The first time I ever
heard it I near killed myself a laffin. "Hezekier Bedott," says I,
"well, I would give up if I had sich a name," but then you know I had no
more idee o' marryin' the feller than you had this minnit o' marryin'
the governor. I s'pose you think it's curus we should a named our oldest
son Hezekiah. Well, we done it to please father and mother Bedott; it's
father Bedott's name, and he and mother Bedott both used to think that
names had ought to go down from gineration to gineration. But we always
called him Kier, you know. Speakin' o' Kier, he is a blessin', ain't he?
and I ain't the only one that thinks so, I guess. Now don't you never
tell nobody that I said so, but between you and me I rather guess that
if Kezier Winkle thinks she is a gwine to ketch Kier Bedott she is a
_leetle_ out of her reckonin'. But I was going to tell what husband
said. He says to me, says he, "Silly"; I says, says I, "What?" If I
dident say "what" when he said "Silly" he'd a kept on saying "Silly,"
from time to eternity. He always did, because you know, he wanted me to
pay pertikkeler attention, and I ginerally did; no woman was ever more
attentive to her husband than what I was. Well, he says to me, says he,
"Silly." Says I, "What?" though I'd no idee what he was gwine to say,
dident know but what 'twas something about his sufferings, though he
wa'n't apt to complain, but he frequently used to remark that he
wouldent wish his worst enemy to suffer one minnit as he did all the
time; but that can't be called grumblin'--think it can? Why I've seen
him in sitivation when you'd a thought no mortal could a helped
grumblin'; but _he_ dident. He and me went once in the dead of winter in
a one-hoss shay out to Boonville to see a sister o' hisen. You know the
snow is amazin' deep in that section o' the kentry. Well, the hoss got
stuck in one o' them are flambergasted snow-banks, and there we sot,
onable to stir, and to cap all, while we was a sittin' there, husband
was took with a dretful crik in his back. Now _that_ was what I call a
_perdickerment_, don't you? Most men would a swore, but husband dident.
He only said, says he, "Consarn it." How did we get out, did you ask?
Why we might a benn sittin' there to this day fur as _I_ know, if there
hadent a happened to come along a mess o' men in a double team, and
they hysted us out. But I was gwine to tell you that observation of
hisen. Says he to me, says he, "Silly" (I could see by the light o' the
fire, there dident happen to be no candle burnin', if I don't
disremember, though my memory is sometimes ruther forgitful, but I know
we wa'n't apt to burn candles exceptin' when we had company)--I could
see by the light of the fire that his mind was oncommon solemnized. Says
he to me, says he. "Silly." I says to him, says I, "What?" He says to
me, "_We're all poor critters!_"
WHAT LACK WE YET?
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
When Washington was president
He was a mortal icicle;
He never on a railroad went,
And never rode a bicycle.
He read by no electric lamp,
Ne'er heard about the Yellowstone;
He never licked a postage stamp,
And never saw a telephone.
His trousers ended at his knees;
By wire he could not snatch dispatch;
He filled his lamp with whale-oil grease,
And never had a match to scratch.
But in these days it's come to pass,
All work is with such dashing done,
We've all these things, but then, alas--
We seem to have no Washington!
JACOB
BY PHOEBE CARY
He dwelt among "Apartments let,"
About five stories high;
A man, I thought, that none would get,
And very few would try.
A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.
He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;
But he has got a wife--and O!
The difference to me!
TO BARY JADE
BY CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS
The bood is beabig brighdly, love;
The sdars are shidig too;
While I ab gazig dreabily,
Add thigkig, love, of you.
You caddot, oh! you caddot kdow,
By darlig, how I biss you--
(Oh, whadt a fearful cold I've got!--
Ck-_tish_-u! Ck-ck-_tish_-u!)
I'b sittig id the arbor, love,
Where you sat by by side,
Whed od that calb, autubdal dight
You said you'd be by bride.
Oh! for wud bobedt to caress
Add tederly to kiss you;
Budt do! we're beddy biles apart--
(Ho-_rash_-o! Ck-ck-_tish_-u!)
This charbig evedig brigs to bide
The tibe whed first we bet:
It seebs budt odly yesterday;
I thigk I see you yet.
Oh! tell be, ab I sdill your owd?
By hopes--oh, do dot dash theb!
(Codfoud by cold, 'tis gettig worse--
_Ck-tish-u!_ Ch-ck-_thrash_-eb!)
Good-by, by darlig Bary Jade!
The bid-dight hour is dear;
Add it is hardly wise, by love,
For be to ligger here.
The heavy dews are fallig fast:
A fod good-dight I wish you.
(Ho-_rash_-o!--there it is agaid--
Ck-_thrash_-ub! Ck-ck-_tish_-u!)
HIS GRANDMOTHER'S WAY
BY FRANK L. STANTON
Tell you, gran'mother's a queer one, shore--
Makes your heart go pitty-pat!
If the wind just happens to open a door,
She'll say there's "a sign" in that!
An' if no one ain't in a rockin'-chair
An' it rocks itself, she'll say: "Oh, dear!
Oh, dear! Oh, my!
I'm afeared 'at somebody is goin' to die!"
An' she makes me cry--
She makes me cry!
Once wuz a owl 'at happened to light
On our tall chimney-top,
An' screamed an' screamed in the dead o' night,
An' nuthin' could make it stop!
An' gran'ma--she uncovered her head
An' almos' frightened me out of the bed;
"Oh, dear; Oh, my!
I'm certain 'at some one is goin' to die!"
An' she made me cry--
She made me cry!
Just let a cow lean over the gate
An' bellow, an' gran'ma--she
Will say her prayers, if it's soon or late,
An' shake her finger at me!
An' then, an' then you'll hear her say:
"It's a sign w'en the cattle act that way!
Oh, dear! Oh, my!
I'm certain 'at somebody's goin' to die!"
Oh, she makes me cry--
She makes me cry!
Skeeriest person you ever seen!
Always a-huntin' fer "signs";
Says it's "spirits" 'at's good, or mean,
If the wind jest shakes the vines!
I always feel skeery w'en gran'ma's aroun'--
An' think 'at I see things, an' jump at each soun':
"Oh, dear! Oh, my!
I'm certain 'at somebody's goin' to die!"
Oh, she makes me cry--
She makes me cry!
_The Only True and Reliable Account of_
THE GREAT PRIZE FIGHT,
_For $100,000, at
Seal Rock Point, on Sunday Last,
Between His Excellency Gov. Stanford and Hon.
F. F. Low, Governor Elect of California._
REPORTED BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
For the past month the sporting world has been in a state of feverish
excitement on account of the grand prize fight set for last Sunday
between the two most distinguished citizens of California, for a purse
of one hundred thousand dollars. The high social standing of the
competitors, their exalted position in the arena of politics, together
with the princely sum of money staked upon the issue of the combat, all
conspired to render the proposed prize fight a subject of extraordinary
importance, and to give it an éclat never before vouchsafed to such a
circumstance since the world began. Additional lustre was shed upon the
coming contest by the lofty character of the seconds or bottle-holders
chosen by the two champions, these being no other than Judge Field (on
the part of Gov. Low), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States, and Hon. Wm. M. Stewart (commonly called "Bill Stewart,"
or "Bullyragging Bill Stewart"), of the city of Virginia, the most
popular as well as the most distinguished lawyer in Nevada Territory,
member of the Constitutional Convention, and future U. S. Senator for
the state of Washoe, as I hope and believe--on the part of Gov.
Stanford. Principals and seconds together, it is fair to presume that
such an array of talent was never entered for a combat of this
description upon any previous occasion.
Stewart and Field had their men in constant training at the Mission
during the six weeks preceding the contest, and such was the interest
taken in the matter that thousands visited that sacred locality daily to
pick up such morsels of information as they might, concerning the
physical and scientific improvement being made by the gubernatorial
acrobats. The anxiety manifested by the populace was intense. When it
was learned that Stanford had smashed a barrel of flour to atoms with a
single blow of his fist, the voice of the people was at his side. But
when the news came that Low had caved in the head of a tubular boiler
with one stroke of his powerful "mawley" (which term is in strict
accordance with the language of the ring) the tide of opinion changed
again. These changes were frequent, and they kept the minds of the
public in such a state of continual vibration that I fear the habit thus
acquired is confirmed, and that they will never more cease to oscillate.
The fight was to take place on last Sunday morning at ten o'clock. By
nine every wheeled vehicle and every species of animal capable of
bearing burthens, were in active service, and the avenues leading to the
Seal Rock swarmed with them in mighty processions whose numbers no man
might hope to estimate.
I determined to be upon the ground at an early hour. Now I dislike to be
exploded, as it were, out of my balmy slumbers, by a sudden, stormy
assault upon my door, and an imperative order to "Get up!"--wherefore I
requested one of the intelligent porters of the Lick House to call at
my palatial apartments, and murmur gently through the key-hole the magic
monosyllable "Hash!" That "fetched me."
The urbane livery-stable keeper furnished me with a solemn,
short-bodied, long-legged animal--a sort of animated counting-house
stool, as it were--which he called a "Morgan" horse. He told me who the
brute was "sired" by, and was proceeding to tell me who he was "dammed"
by, but I gave him to understand that I was competent to damn the horse
myself, and should probably do it very effectually before I got to the
battle-ground. I mentioned to him, however, that I was not proposing to
attend a funeral; it was hardly necessary to furnish me an animal gifted
with such oppressive solemnity of bearing as distinguished his "Morgan."
He said in reply, that Morgan was only pensive when in the stable, but
that on the road I would find him one of the liveliest horses in the
world.
He enunciated the truth.
The brute "bucked" with me from the foot of Montgomery street to the
Occidental Hotel. The laughter which he provoked from the crowds of
citizens along the sidewalks he took for applause, and honestly made
every effort in his power to deserve it, regardless of consequences.
He was very playful, but so suddenly were the creations of his fancy
conceived and executed, and so much ground did he take up with them,
that it was safest to behold them from a distance. In the self-same
moment of time, he shot his heels through the side of a street-car, and
then backed himself into Barry and Patten's and sat down on the
free-lunch table.
Such was the length of this Morgan's legs.
Between the Occidental and the Lick House, having become thoroughly
interested in his work, he planned and carried out a series of the most
extraordinary maneuvres ever suggested by the brain of any horse. He
arched his neck and went tripping daintily across the street sideways,
"rairing up" on his hind legs occasionally, in a very disagreeable way,
and looking into the second-story windows. He finally waltzed into the
large ice cream saloon opposite the Lick House, and--
But the memory of that perilous voyage hath caused me to digress from
the proper subject of this paper, which is the great prize fight between
Governors Low and Stanford. I will resume.
After an infinitude of fearful adventures, the history of which would
fill many columns of this newspaper, I finally arrived at the Seal Rock
Point at a quarter to ten--two hours and a half out from San Francisco,
and not less gratified than surprised that I ever got there at all--and
anchored my noble Morgan to a boulder on the hillside. I had to swathe
his head in blankets also, because, while my back was turned for a
single moment, he developed another atrocious trait of his most
remarkable character. He tried to eat little Augustus Maltravers
Jackson, the "humble" but interesting offspring of Hon. J. Belvidere
Jackson, a wealthy barber from San Jose. It would have been a comfort to
me to leave the infant to his fate, but I did not feel able to pay for
him.
When I reached the battle-ground, the great champions were already
stripped and prepared for the "mill." Both were in splendid condition,
and displayed a redundancy of muscle about the breast and arms which was
delightful to the eye of the sportive connoisseur. They were well
matched. Adepts said that Stanford's "heft" and tall stature were fairly
offset by Low's superior litheness and activity. From their heads to the
Union colors around their waists, their costumes were similar to that
of the Greek slave; from thence down they were clad in flesh-colored
tights and grenadier boots.
The ring was formed upon the beautiful level sandy beach above the Cliff
House, and within twenty paces of the snowy surf of the broad Pacific
Ocean, which was spotted here and there with monstrous sea-lions
attracted shoreward by curiosity concerning the vast multitude of people
collected in the vicinity.
At five minutes past ten, Brigadier-General Wright, the Referee,
notified the seconds to bring their men "up to the scratch." They did
so, amid the shouts of the populace, the noise whereof rose high above
the roar of the sea.
First Round.--The pugilists advanced to the centre of the ring, shook
hands, retired to their respective corners, and at the call of the
time-keeper, came forward and went at it. Low dashed out handsomely with
his left and gave Stanford a paster in the eye, and at the same moment
his adversary mashed him in the ear. (These singular phrases are
entirely proper, Mr. Editor--I find them in the copy of "Bell's Life in
London" now lying before me.) After some beautiful sparring, both
parties went down--that is to say, they went down to the bottle-holders,
Stewart and Field, and took a drink.
Second Round.--Stanford launched out a well intended plunger, but Low
parried it admirably and instantly busted him in the snoot. (Cries of
"Bully for the Marysville Infant!") After some lively fibbing (both of
them are used to it in political life,) the combatants went to grass.
(See "Bell's Life.")
Third Round.--Both came up panting considerably. Low let go a terrific
side-winder, but Stanford stopped it handsomely and replied with an
earthquake on Low's bread-basket. (Enthusiastic shouts of "Sock it to
him, my Sacramento Pet!") More fibbing--both down.
Fourth Round.--The men advanced and sparred warily for a few moments,
when Stanford exposed his cocoa-nut an instant, and Low struck out from
the shoulder and split him in the mug. (Cries of "Bully for the Fat
Boy!")
Fifth Round.--Stanford came up looking wicked, and let drive a heavy
blow with his larboard flipper which caved in the side of his
adversary's head. (Exclamations of "Hi! at him again Old Rusty!")
From this time until the end of the conflict, there was nothing regular
in the proceedings. The two champions got furiously angry, and used up
each other thus:
No sooner did Low realize that the side of his head was crushed in like
a dent in a plug hat, than he "went after" Stanford in the most
desperate manner. With one blow of his fist he mashed his nose so far
into his face that a cavity was left in its place the size and shape of
an ordinary soup-bowl. It is scarcely necessary to mention that in
making room for so much nose, Gov. Stanford's eyes were crowded to such
a degree as to cause them to "bug out" like a grasshopper's. His face
was so altered that he scarcely looked like himself at all.
I never saw such a murderous expression as Stanford's countenance now
assumed; you see it was so concentrated--it had such a small number of
features to spread around over. He let fly one of his battering rams and
caved in the other side of Low's head. Ah me, the latter was a ghastly
sight to contemplate after that--one of the boys said it looked "like a
beet which somebody had trod on it."
Low was "grit" though. He dashed out with his right and stove Stanford's
chin clear back even with his ears. Oh, what a horrible sight he was,
gasping and reaching after his tobacco, which was away back among his
under-jaw teeth.
Stanford was unsettled for a while, but he soon rallied, and watching
his chance, aimed a tremendous blow at his favorite mark, which crushed
in the rear of Gov. Low's head in such a way that the crown thereof
projected over his spinal column like a shed.
He came up to the scratch like a man, though, and sent one of his
ponderous fists crashing through his opponent's ribs and in among his
vitals, and instantly afterward he hauled out poor Stanford's left lung
and smacked him in the face with it.
If I ever saw an angry man in my life it was Leland Stanford. He fairly
raved. He jumped at his old speciality, Gov. Low's head; he tore it
loose from his body and knocked him down with it. (Sensation in the
crowd.)
Staggered by his extraordinary exertion, Gov. Stanford reeled, and
before he could recover himself the headless but indomitable Low sprang
forward, pulled one of his legs out by the roots, and dealt him a
smashing paster over the eye with the end of it. The ever watchful Bill
Stewart sallied out to the assistance of his crippled principal with a
pair of crutches, and the battle went on again as fiercely as ever.
At this stage of the game the battle ground was strewn with a
sufficiency of human remains to furnish material for the construction of
three or four men of ordinary size, and good sound brains enough to
stock a whole county like the one I came from in the noble old state of
Missouri. And so dyed were the combatants in their own gore that they
looked like shapeless, mutilated, red-shirted firemen.
The moment a chance offered, Low grabbed Stanford by the hair of the
head, swung him thrice round and round in the air like a lasso, and
then slammed him on the ground with such mighty force that he quivered
all over, and squirmed painfully, like a worm; and behold, his body and
such of his limbs as he had left, shortly assumed a swollen aspect like
unto those of a rag doll-baby stuffed with saw-dust.
He rallied again, however, and the two desperadoes clinched and never
let up until they had minced each other into such insignificant odds and
ends that neither was able to distinguish his own remnants from those of
his antagonist. It was awful.
Bill Stewart and Judge Field issued from their corners and gazed upon
the sanguinary reminiscences in silence during several minutes. At the
end of that time, having failed to discover that either champion had got
the best of the fight, they threw up their sponges simultaneously, and
Gen. Wright proclaimed in a loud voice that the battle was "drawn." May
my ears never again be rent asunder with a burst of sound similar to
that which greeted this announcement, from the multitudes. Amen.
By order of Gen. Wright, baskets were procured, and Bill Stewart and
Judge Field proceeded to gather up the fragments of their late
principals, while I gathered up my notes and went after my infernal
horse, who had slipped his blankets and was foraging among the
neighboring children. I--
P. S.--Messrs. Editors, I have been the victim of an infamous hoax. I
have been imposed upon by that ponderous miscreant, Mr. Frank Lawler, of
the Lick House. I left my room a moment ago, and the first man I met on
the stairs was Gov. Stanford, alive and well, and as free from
mutilation as you or I. I was speechless. Before I reached the street, I
actually met Gov. Low also, with his own head on his own shoulders, his
limbs intact, his inner mechanism in its proper place, and his cheeks
blooming with gorgeous robustitude. I was amazed. But a word of
explanation from him convinced me that I had been swindled by Mr. Lawler
with a detail account of a fight which had never occurred, and was never
likely to occur; that I had believed him so implicitly as to sit down
and write it out (as other reporters have done before me) in language
calculated to deceive the public into the conviction that I was present
at it myself, and to embellish it with a string of falsehoods intended
to render that deception as plausible as possible. I ruminated upon my
singular position for many minutes, arrived at no conclusion--that is to
say, no satisfactory conclusion, except that Lawler was an accomplished
knave and I was a consummate ass. I had suspected the first before,
though, and been acquainted with the latter fact for nearly a quarter of
a century.
In conclusion, permit me to apologize in the most abject manner to the
present Governor of California, to Hon. Mr. Low, the Governor elect, to
Judge Field and to Hon. Wm. M. Stewart, for the great wrong which my
natural imbecility has impelled me to do them in penning and publishing
the foregoing sanguinary absurdity. If it were to do over again, I don't
really know that I would do it. It is not possible for me to say how I
ever managed to believe that refined and educated gentlemen like these
could stoop to engage in the loathsome and degrading pastime of
prize-fighting. It was just Lawler's work, you understand--the lubberly,
swelled up effigy of a nine-days drowned man! But I shall get even with
him for this. The only excuse he offers is that he got the story from
John B. Winters, and thought of course it must be just so--as if a
future Congressman for the state of Washoe could by any possibility tell
the truth! Do you know that if either of these miserable scoundrels
were to cross my path while I am in this mood I would scalp him in a
minute? That's me--that's my style.
A CONCORD LOVE-SONG
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
Shall we meet again, love,
In the distant When, love,
When the Now is Then, love,
And the Present Past?
Shall the mystic Yonder,
On which I ponder,
I sadly wonder,
With thee be cast?
Ah, the joyless fleeting
Of our primal meeting,
And the fateful greeting
Of the How and Why!
Ah, the Thingness flying
From the Hereness, sighing
For a love undying
That fain would die!
Ah, the Ifness sadd'ning,
The Whichness madd'ning,
And the But ungladd'ning,
That lie behind!
When the signless token
Of love is broken
In the speech unspoken
Of mind to mind!
But the mind perceiveth
When the spirit grieveth,
And the heart relieveth
Itself of woe;
And the doubt-mists lifted
From the eyes love-gifted
Are rent and rifted
In the warmer glow.
In the inner Me, love,
As I turn to thee, love,
I seem to see, love,
No Ego there.
But the Meness dead, love,
The Theeness fled, love,
And born instead, love,
An Usness rare!
THE MEETING
BY S. E. KISER
One day, in Paradise,
Two angels, beaming, strolled
Along the amber walk that lies
Beside the street of gold.
At last they met and gazed
Into each other's eyes,
Then dropped their harps, amazed,
And stood in mute surprise.
And other angels came,
And, as they lingered near,
Heard both at once exclaim:
"Say, how did you get here?"
"THERE'S A BOWER OF BEAN-VINES"
BY PHOEBE CARY
There's a bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard,
And the cabbages grow round it, planted for greens;
In the time of my childhood 'twas terribly hard
To bend down the bean-poles, and pick off the beans.
That bower and its products I never forget,
But oft, when my landlady presses me hard,
I think, are the cabbages growing there yet,
Are the bean-vines still bearing in Benjamin's yard?
No, the bean-vines soon withered that once used to wave,
But some beans had been gathered, the last that hung on;
And a soup was distilled in a kettle, that gave
All the fragrance of summer when summer was gone.
Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,
An essence that breathes of it awfully hard;
As thus good to my taste as 'twas then to my eyes,
Is that bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard.
THE TRIAL THAT JOB MISSED
BY KENNETT HARRIS
Job had troubles, I admit;
Clearly was his patience shown,
Yet he never had to sit
Waiting at the telephone--
Waiting, waiting to connect,
The receiver at his lobe.
That's a trial, I expect,
Would have been too much for Job!
After minutes of delay,
While the cramps attacked his knees,
Then to hear Miss Central say
Innocently: "Number, please!"
When the same he'd shouted out
Twenty times--he'd rend his robe,
Tear his hair, I've little doubt;
'Twould have been too much for Job.
Job, with all the woes he bore,
Never got the "busy" buzz
When he tempted was of yore
In the ancient land of Uz.
Satan missed it when he sought
His one tender spot to probe;
If of "central" he had thought,
She'd have been too much for Job!
THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE OF SMITH VS. JONES
BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
I reported this trial simply for my own amusement, one idle day last
week, and without expecting to publish any portion of it--but I have
seen the facts in the case so distorted and misrepresented in the daily
papers that I feel it my duty to come forward and do what I can to set
the plaintiff and defendant right before the public. This can best be
done by submitting the plain, unembellished statements of the witnesses
as given under oath before his Honor Judge Sheperd, in the Police Court,
and leaving the people to form their own judgment of the matters
involved, unbiased by argument or suggestion of any kind from me.
There is that nice sense of justice and that ability to discriminate
between right and wrong, among the masses, which will enable them, after
carefully reading the testimony I am about to set down here, to decide
without hesitation which is the innocent party and which the guilty in
the remarkable case of Smith vs. Jones, and I have every confidence that
before this paper shall have been out of the printing-press twenty-four
hours, the high court of The People, from whose decision there is no
appeal, will have swept from the innocent man all taint of blame or
suspicion, and cast upon the guilty one a deathless infamy.
To such as are not used to visiting the Police Court, I will observe
that there is nothing inviting about the place, there being no rich
carpets, no mirrors, no pictures, no elegant sofa or arm-chairs to
lounge in, no free lunch--and, in fact, nothing to make a man who has
been there once desire to go again--except in cases where his bail is
heavier than his fine is likely to be, under which circumstances he
naturally has a tendency in that direction again, of course, in order to
recover the difference.
There is a pulpit at the head of the hall, occupied by a handsome
gray-haired judge, with a faculty of appearing pleasant and impartial to
the disinterested spectator, and prejudiced and frosty to the last
degree to the prisoner at the bar.
To the left of the pulpit is a long table for reporters; in front of the
pulpit the clerks are stationed, and in the centre of the hall a nest of
lawyers. On the left again are pine benches behind a railing, occupied
by seedy white men, negroes, Chinamen, Kanakas--in a word, by the seedy
and dejected of all nations--and in a corner is a box where more can be
had when they are wanted.
On the right are more pine benches, for the use of prisoners, and their
friends and witnesses.
An officer, in a gray uniform, and with a star upon his breast, guards
the door.
A holy calm pervades the scene.
The case of Smith vs. Jones being called, each of these parties
(stepping out from among the other seedy ones) gave the court a
particular and circumstantial account of how the whole thing occurred,
and then sat down.
The two narratives differed from each other.
In reality, I was half persuaded that these men were talking about two
separate and distinct affairs altogether, inasmuch as no single
circumstance mentioned by one was even remotely hinted at by the other.
Mr. Alfred Sowerby was then called to the witness-stand, and testified
as follows:
"I was in the saloon at the time, your Honor, and I see this man Smith
come up all of a sudden to Jones, who warn't saying a word, and split
him in the snoot--"
LAWYER.--"Did what, sir?"
WITNESS.--"Busted him in the snoot."
LAWYER.--"What do you mean by such language as that? When you say that
the plaintiff suddenly approached the defendant, who was silent at the
time, and 'busted him in the snoot,' do you mean that the plaintiff
struck the defendant?"
WITNESS.--"That's me--I'm swearing to that very circumstance--yes, your
Honor, that was just the way of it. Now, for instance, as if you was
Jones and I was Smith. Well, I comes up all of a sudden and says I to
your Honor, says I, 'D--n your old tripe--'"
(Suppressed laughter in the lobbies.)
THE COURT.--"Order in the court! Witness, you will confine yourself to a
plain statement of the facts in this case, and refrain from the
embellishments of metaphor and allegory as far as possible."
WITNESS.--(Considerably subdued.)--"I beg your Honor's pardon--I didn't
mean to be so brash. Well, Smith comes up to Jones all of a sudden and
mashed him in the bugle--"
LAWYER.--"Stop! Witness, this kind of language will not do. I will ask
you a plain question, and I require you to answer it simply, yes or no.
Did--the--plaintiff--strike--the defendant? Did he strike him?"
WITNESS.--"You bet your sweet life he did. Gad! he gave him a paster in
the trumpet--"
LAWYER.--"Take the witness! take the witness! take the witness! I have
no further use for him."
The lawyer on the other side said he would endeavor to worry along
without more assistance from Mr. Sowerby, and the witness retired to a
neighboring bench.
Mr. McWilliamson was next called, and deposed as follows:
"I was a-standing as close to Mr. Smith as I am to this pulpit,
a-chaffing with one of the lager beer girls--Sophronia by name, being
from summers in Germany, so she says, but as to that, I--"
LAWYER.--"Well, now, never mind the nativity of the lager beer girl, but
state, as concisely as possible, what you know of the assault and
battery."
WITNESS.--"Certainly--certainly. Well, German or no German,--which I'll
take my oath I don't believe she is, being of a red-headed disposition,
with long, bony fingers, and no more hankering after Limberger cheese
than--"
LAWYER.--"Stop that driveling nonsense and stick to the assault and
battery. Go on with your story."
WITNESS.--"Well, sir, she--that is, Jones--he sidled up and drawed his
revolver and tried to shoot the top of Smith's head off, and Smith run,
and Sophronia she walloped herself down in the saw-dust and screamed
twice, just as loud as she could yell. I never see a poor creature in
such distress--and then she sung out: 'O, H--ll's fire! What are they up
to now? Ah, my poor dear mother, I shall never see you more!'--saying
which, she jerked another yell and fainted away as dead as a wax figger.
Thinks I to myself, I'll be danged if this ain't gettin' rather dusty,
and I'll--"
THE COURT.--"We have no desire to know what you thought; we only wish to
know what you saw. Are you sure Mr. Jones endeavored to shoot the top of
Mr. Smith's head off?"
WITNESS.--"Yes, your Honor."
THE COURT.--"How many times did he shoot?"
WITNESS.--"Well, sir, I couldn't say exactly as to the number--but I
should think--well, say seven or eight times--as many as that, anyway."
THE COURT.--"Be careful now, and remember you are under oath. What kind
of a pistol was it?"
WITNESS.--"It was a Durringer, your Honor."
THE COURT.--"A derringer! You must not trifle here, sir. A derringer
only shoots once--how then could Jones have fired seven or eight times?"
(The witness is evidently as stunned by that last proposition as if a
brick had struck him.)
WITNESS.--"Well, your Honor--he--that is, she--Jones, I mean--Soph--"
THE COURT.--"Are you sure he fired more than one shot? Are you sure he
fired at all?"
WITNESS.--"I--I well, perhaps he didn't--and--and your Honor may be
right. But you see, that girl, with her dratted yowling--altogether, it
might be that he did only shoot once."
LAWYER.--"And about his attempting to shoot the top of Smith's head
off--didn't he aim at his body, or his legs? Come now."
WITNESS.--(Entirely confused)--"Yes, sir--I think he did--I--I'm pretty
certain of it. Yes, sir, he must a fired at his legs."
(Nothing was elicited on the cross-examination, except that the weapon
used by Mr. Jones was a bowie knife instead of a derringer, and that he
made a number of desperate attempts to scalp the plaintiff instead of
trying to shoot him. It also came out that Sophronia, of doubtful
nativity, did not faint, and was not present during the affray, she
having been discharged from her situation on the previous evening.)
Washington Billings, sworn, said: "I see the row, and it warn't in no
saloon--it was in the street. Both of 'em was drunk, and one was a
comin' up the street, and t'other was a goin' down. Both of 'em was
close to the houses when they fust see each other, and both of 'em made
their calculations to miss each other, but the second time they tacked
across the pavement--driftin'-like, diagonal--they come together, down
by curb--al-mighty soggy, they did--which staggered 'em a moment, and
then, over they went, into the gutter. Smith was up fust, and he made a
dive for a cobble and fell on Jones; Jones dug out and made a dive for a
cobble, and slipped his hold and jammed his head into Smith's stomach.
They each done that over again, twice more, just the same way. After
that, neither of 'em could get up any more, and so they just laid there
in the slush and clawed mud and cussed each other."
(On the cross-examination, the witness could not say whether the parties
continued the fight afterward in the saloon or not--he only knew they
began it in the gutter, and to the best of his knowledge and belief they
were too drunk to get into a saloon, and too drunk to stay in it after
they got there if there were any orifice about it that they could fall
out again. As to weapons, he saw none used except the cobble-stones, and
to the best of his knowledge and belief they missed fire every time
while he was present.)
Jeremiah Driscoll came forward, was sworn, and testified as follows:--"I
saw the fight, your Honor, and it wasn't in a saloon, nor in the street,
nor in a hotel, nor in--"
THE COURT.--"Was it in the city and county of San Francisco!"
WITNESS.--"Yes, your Honor, I--I think it was."
THE COURT.--"Well, then, go on."
WITNESS.--"It was up in the Square. Jones meets Smith, and they both go
at it--that is, blackguarding each other. One called the other a thief,
and the other said he was a liar, and then they got to swearing
backwards and forwards pretty generally, as you might say, and finally
one struck the other over the head with a cane, and then they closed and
fell, and after that they made such a dust and the gravel flew so thick
that I couldn't rightly tell which was getting the best of it. When it
cleared away, one of them was after the other with a pine bench, and the
other was prospecting for rocks, and--"
LAWYER.--"There, there, there--that will do--that--will--do! How in the
world is any one to make head or tail out of such a string of nonsense
as that? Who struck the first blow?"
WITNESS.--"I can not rightly say, sir, but I think--"
LAWYER.--"You think!--don't you know?"
WITNESS.--"No, sir, it was all so sudden, and--"
LAWYER.--"Well, then, state, if you can, who struck the last."
WITNESS.--"I can't, sir, because--"
LAWYER.--"Because what?"
WITNESS.--"Because, sir, you see toward the last they clinched and went
down, and got to kicking up the gravel again, and--"
LAWYER.--(Resignedly)--"Take the witness--take the witness."
(The testimony on the cross-examination went to show that during the
fight, one of the parties drew a slung-shot and cocked it, but to the
best of the witness' knowledge and belief, he did not fire; and at the
same time, the other discharged a hand-grenade at his antagonist, which
missed him and did no damage, except blowing up a bonnet store on the
other side of the street, and creating a momentary diversion among the
milliners.) He could not say, however, which drew the slung-shot or
which threw the grenade. (It was generally remarked by those in the
court room, that the evidence of the witness was obscure and
unsatisfactory. Upon questioning him further, and confronting him with
the parties to the case before the court, it transpired that the faces
of Jones and Smith were unknown to him, and that he had been talking
about an entirely different fight all the time.)
Other witnesses were examined, some of whom swore that Smith was the
aggressor, and others that Jones began the row; some said they fought
with their fists, others that they fought with knives, others tomahawks,
others revolvers, others clubs, others axes, others beer mugs and
chairs, and others swore there had been no fight at all. However, fight
or no fight, the testimony was straightforward and uniform on one point,
at any rate, and that was, that the fuss was about two dollars and forty
cents, which one party owed the other, but after all, it was impossible
to find out which was the debtor and which the creditor.
After the witnesses had all been heard, his Honor, Judge Sheperd,
observed that the evidence in this case resembled, in a great many
points, the evidence before him in some thirty-five cases every day, on
an average. He then said he would continue the case, to afford the
parties an opportunity of procuring more testimony.
(I have been keeping an eye on the Police Court for the last few days.
Two friends of mine had business there, on account of assault and
battery concerning Washoe stocks, and I felt interested, of course.) I
never knew their names were James Johnson and John Ward, though, until I
heard them answer to them in that court. When James Johnson was called,
one of these young men said to the other: "That's you, my boy." "No,"
was the reply, "it's you--my name's John Ward--see, I've got it written
here on a card." Consequently, the first speaker sung out, "Here!" and
it was all right. As I was saying, I have been keeping an eye on that
court, and I have arrived at the conclusion that the office of Police
Judge is a profitable and a comfortable thing to have, but then, as the
English hunter said about fighting tigers in India under a shortness of
ammunition, "It has its little drawbacks." Hearing testimony must be
worrying to a Police Judge sometimes, when he is in his right mind. I
would rather be secretary to a wealthy mining company, and have nothing
to do but advertise the assessments and collect them in carefully, and
go along quiet and upright, and be one of the noblest works of God, and
never gobble a dollar that didn't belong to me--all just as those
fellows do, you know. (Oh, I have no talent for sarcasm, it isn't
likely.) But I trespass.
Now, with every confidence in the instinctive candor and fair dealing of
my race, I submit the testimony in the case of Smith vs. Jones to the
people, without comment or argument, well satisfied that after a perusal
of it, their judgment will be as righteous as it is final and impartial,
and that whether Smith be cast out and Jones exalted, or Jones cast out
and Smith exalted, the decision will be a holy and a just one.
I leave the accused and the accuser before the bar of the world--let
their fate be pronounced.
A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
BY O. HENRY
The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he should
have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the Kid was
past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at twenty is to
blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.
It happened in old Justo Valdos's gambling house. There was a poker game
at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often where
men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops. There was a row
over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the smoke had
cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed an indiscretion,
and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder. For, the unfortunate
combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a high-blooded youth from the
cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age and possessed of friends and
champions. His blunder in missing the Kid's right ear only a sixteenth
of an inch when he pulled his gun did not lessen the indiscretion of the
better marksman.
The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied
with personal admirers and supporters--on account of a rather umbrageous
reputation even for the border--considered it not incompatible with his
indisputable gameness to perform that judicious tractional act known as
"pulling his freight."
Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him. Three of them overtook him
within a rod of the station. The Kid turned and showed his teeth in that
brilliant but mirthless smile that usually preceded his deeds of
insolence and violence, and his pursuers fell back without making it
necessary for him even to reach for his weapon.
But in this affair the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for encounter
that usually urged him on to battle. It had been a purely chance row,
born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for a gentleman to
brook, that had passed between the two. The Kid had rather liked the
slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his bullet had cut off in the
first pride of manhood. And now he wanted no more blood. He wanted to
get away and have a good long sleep somewhere in the sun on the mesquit
grass with his handkerchief over his face. Even a Mexican might have
crossed his path in safety while he was in this mood.
The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger-train that departed
five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was flagged
to take on a traveler, he abandoned that manner of escape. There were
telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at electricity and
steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks of safety.
The man whom he had shot was a stranger to him. But the Kid knew that he
was of the Corralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the punchers from
that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than Kentucky feudists when
wrong or harm was done to one of them. So, with the wisdom that has
characterized many great fighters, the Kid decided to pile up as many
leagues as possible of chaparral and pear between himself and the
retaliation of the Corralitos bunch.
Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among the
mesquits and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers. Most of
them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping heads. But
one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and pawed the turf.
Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and slapped gently with the
owner's own quirt.
If the slaying of the temerarious card-player had cast a cloud over the
Kid's standing as a good and true citizen, this last act of his veiled
his figure in the darkest shadows of disrepute. On the Rio Grande
border, if you take a man's life you sometimes take trash; but if you
take his horse, you take a thing the loss of which renders him poor,
indeed, and which enriches you not--if you are caught. For the Kid there
was no turning back now.
With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness.
After a five-mile gallop he drew in to the plainsman's jogging trot, and
rode northeastward toward the Nueces River bottoms. He knew the country
well--its most tortuous and obscure trails through the great wilderness
of brush and pear, and its camps and lonesome ranches where one might
find safe entertainment. Always he bore to the east; for the Kid had
never seen the ocean, and he had a fancy to lay his hand upon the mane
of the great Gulf, the gamesome colt of the greater waters.
So after three days he stood on the shore at Corpus Christi, and looked
out across the gentle ripples of a quiet sea.
Captain Boone, of the schooner Flyaway, stood near his skiff, which
one of his crew was guarding in the surf. When ready to sail he
had discovered that one of the necessaries of life, in the
parallelogrammatic shape of plug tobacco, had been forgotten. A sailor
had been despatched for the missing cargo. Meanwhile the captain paced
the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.
A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's edge.
His face was boyish but with a premature severity that hinted at a man's
experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the sun and wind of
an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His hair was as black
and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet been upturned to the
humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold and steady blue. He carried
his left arm somewhat away from his body, for pearl-handled .45s are
frowned upon by town marshals, and are a little bulky when packed in the
left armhole of one's vest. He looked beyond Captain Boone at the gulf
with the impersonal and expressionless dignity of a Chinese emperor.
"Thinkin' of buyin' that 'ar gulf, buddy?" asked the captain, made
sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage.
"Why, no," said the Kid gently, "I reckon not. I never saw it before. I
was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?"
"Not this trip," said the captain. "I'll send it to you C. O. D. when I
get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstan-footed lubber with
the chewin'. I ought to've weighed anchor an hour ago."
"Is that your ship out there?" asked the Kid.
"Why, yes," answered the captain, "if you want to call a schooner a
ship, and I don't mind lyin'. But you better say Miller and Gonzales,
owners, and ordinary, plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone,
skipper."
"Where are you going to?" asked the refugee.
"Buenas Tierras, coast of South America--I forget what they called the
country the last time I was there. Cargo--lumber, corrugated iron, and
machetes."
"What kind of a country is it?" asked the Kid--"hot or cold?"
"Warmish, buddy," said the captain. "But a regular Paradise Lost for
elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography. Ye're wakened every
morning by the sweet singin' of red birds with seven purple tails, and
the sighin' of breezes in the posies and roses. And the inhabitants
never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer baskets of the
choicest hothouse fruit without gettin' out of bed. And there's no
Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no use and no nothin'.
It's a great country for a man to go to sleep with, and wait for
somethin' to turn up. The bananys and oranges and hurricanes and
pineapples that ye eat comes from there."
"That sounds to me!" said the Kid, at last betraying interest. "What'll
the expressage be to take me out there with you?"
"Twenty-four dollars," said Captain Boone; "grub and transportation.
Second cabin. I haven't got a first cabin."
"You've got my company," said the Kid, pulling out a buckskin bag.
With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular
"blowout." The duel in Valdo's had cut short his season of hilarity, but
it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight that it had made
necessary.
"All right, buddy," said the captain. "I hope your ma won't blame me for
this little childish escapade of yours." He beckoned to one of the
boat's crew. "Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won't get
your feet wet."
II
Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet drunk.
It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his desired state
of beatitude--a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville songs
and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels--until the middle of
the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the sound of a
slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the consulate, he
was still in a condition to extend the hospitality and courtesy due from
the representative of a great nation.
"Don't disturb yourself," said the Kid easily. "I just dropped in. They
told me it was customary to light at your camp before starting in to
round up the town. I just came in on a ship from Texas."
"Glad to see you, Mr. ----," said the consul.
The Kid laughed.
"Sprague Dalton," he said. "It sounds funny to me to hear it. I'm called
the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country."
"I'm Thacker," said the consul. "Take that cane-bottom chair. Now if
you've come to invest, you want somebody to advise you. These dingies
will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don't understand
their ways. Try a cigar?"
"Much obliged," said the Kid, "but if it wasn't for my corn shucks and
the little bag in my back pocket, I couldn't live a minute." He took out
his "makings," and rolled a cigarette.
"They speak Spanish here," said the consul. "You'll need an interpreter.
If there's anything I can do, why, I'd be delighted. If you're buying
fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort, you'll want
somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you."
"I speak Spanish," said the Kid, "about nine times better than I do
English. Everybody speaks it on the range where I come from. And I'm
not in the market for anything."
"You speak Spanish?" said Thacker thoughtfully. He regarded the Kid
absorbedly.
"You look like a Spaniard, too," he continued. "And you're from Texas.
And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. I wonder if you've got
any nerve."
"You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with
unexpected shrewdness.
"Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker.
"What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid. "I got into a little gun
frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any Mexican
handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just for to smell
the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you _sabe_?"
Thacker got up and closed the door.
"Let me see your hand," he said.
He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.
"I can do it," he said excitedly. "Your flesh is as hard as wood and as
healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week."
"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't put
your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company. But no
barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."
"It's easier than that," said Thacker. "Just step here, will you?"
Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house with
wide galleries rising amid the deep green tropical foliage on a wooded
hill that sloped gently from the sea.
"In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and his
wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your pockets
with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the gold-mines
in the country."
"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.
"Sit down again," said Thacker, "and I'll tell you. Twelve years ago
they lost a kid. No, he didn't die--although most of 'em here do from
drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even if he
wasn't but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some Americans who
were through here prospecting for gold had letters to Señor Urique, and
the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his head with big stories
about the States; and about a month after they left, the kid
disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed himself away among the
banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to New Orleans. He was seen
once afterward in Texas, it was thought, but they never heard anything
more of him. Old Urique has spent thousands of dollars having him looked
for. The madam was broken up worst of all. The kid was her life. She
wears mourning yet. But they say she believes he'll come back to her
some day, and never gives up hope. On the back of the boy's left hand
was tattooed a flying eagle carrying a spear in his claws. That's old
Urique's coat of arms or something that he inherited in Spain."
The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.
"That's it," said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his
bottle of smuggled brandy. "You're not so slow. I can do it. What was I
consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I'll have the
eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you'd think you were
born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because I was
sure you'd drop in some day, Mr. Dalton."
"Oh, hell," said the Kid. "I thought I told you."
"All right, 'Kid,' then. It won't be that long. How does Señorito Urique
sound, for a change?"
"I never played son any that I remember of," said the Kid. "If I had any
parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave my
first bleat. What is the plan of your round-up?"
Thacker leaned back against the wall and held his glass up to the light.
"We've come now," said he, "to the question of how far you're willing to
go in a little matter of the sort."
"I told you why I came down here," said the Kid simply.
"A good answer," said the consul. "But you won't have to go that far.
Here's the scheme. After I get the trade-mark tattooed on your hand I'll
notify old Urique. In the meantime I'll furnish you with all of the
family history I can find out, so you can be studying up points to talk
about. You've got the looks, you speak the Spanish, you know the facts,
you can tell about Texas, you've got the tattoo mark. When I notify them
that the rightful heir has returned and is waiting to know whether he
will be received and pardoned, what will happen? They'll simply rush
down here and fall on your neck, and the curtain goes down for
refreshments and a stroll in the lobby."
"I'm waiting," said the Kid. "I haven't had my saddle off in your camp
long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to let it
go at a parental blessing, why, I'm mistaken in my man, that's all."
"Thanks," said the consul. "I haven't met anybody in a long time that
keeps up with an argument as well as you do. The rest of it is simple.
If they take you in only for a while it's long enough. Don't give 'em
time to hunt up the strawberry mark on your left shoulder. Old Urique
keeps anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in his house all the time in a
little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill
as a tattooer is worth half the boodle. We go halves and catch a tramp
steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it can't
get along without my services. _Que dice, señor?_"
"It sounds to me!" said the Kid, nodding his head. "I'm out for the
dust."
"All right, then," said Thacker. "You'll have to keep close until we get
the bird on you. You can live in the back room here. I do my own
cooking, and I'll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious Government
will allow me."
Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the
design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid's hand was to his notion.
And then Thacker called a _muchacho_, and despatched this note to the
intended victim:
EL SEÑOR DON SANTOS URIQUE,
LA CASA BLANCA.
_My Dear Sir:_ I beg permission to inform you that there is in my
house as a temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas
Tierras from the United States some days ago. Without wishing to
excite any hopes that may not be realized, I think there is a
possibility of his being your long-absent son. It might be well for
you to call and see him. If he is, it is my opinion that his
intention was to return to his home, but upon arriving here, his
courage failed him from doubts as to how he would be received.
Your true servant,
THOMPSON THACKER.
Half an hour afterward--quick time for Buenas Tierras--Señor Urique's
ancient landau drove to the consul's door, with the barefooted coachman
beating and shouting at the team of fat, awkward horses.
A tall man with a white mustache alighted, and assisted to the ground a
lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.
The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best
diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with clear-cut,
sun-browned features and smoothly brushed black hair.
Señora Urique threw back her heavy veil with a quick gesture. She was
past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her full,
proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty peculiar
to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her eyes, and
comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their deep shadows
and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived only in some
memory.
She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized
questioning. Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze rested upon
his left hand. And then with a sob, not loud, but seeming to shake the
room, she cried "_Hijo mio!_" and caught the Llano Kid to her heart.
III
A month afterward the Kid came to the consulate in response to a message
sent by Thacker.
He looked the young Spanish _caballero_. His clothes were imported, and
the wiles of the jewelers had not been spent upon him in vain. A more
than respectable diamond shone on his finger as he rolled a shuck
cigarette.
"What's doing?" asked Thacker.
"Nothing much," said the Kid calmly. "I eat my first iguana steak
to-day. They're them big lizards, you _sabe_? I reckon, though, that
frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for
iguanas, Thacker?"
"No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles," said Thacker.
It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his
state of beatitude.
"It's time you were making good, sonny," he went on, with an ugly look
on his reddened face. "You're not playing up to me square. You've been
the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for
every meal on a gold dish if you'd wanted it. Now, Mr. Kid, do you think
it's right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What's the trouble?
Don't you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like cash in the
Casa Blanca? Don't tell me you don't. Everybody knows where old Urique
keeps his stuff. It's U. S. currency, too; he don't accept anything
else. What's doing? Don't say 'nothing' this time."
"Why, sure," said the Kid, admiring his diamond, "there's plenty of
money up there. I'm no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will
undertake for to say that I've seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in
that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets me
carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I'm the real
little Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Thacker angrily. "Don't you
forget that I can upset your apple cart any day I want to. If old Urique
knew you were an impostor, what sort of things would happen to you? Oh,
you don't know this country, Mr. Texas Kid. The laws here have got
mustard spread between 'em. These people here'd stretch you out like a
frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty sticks at every
corner of the plaza. And they'd wear every stick out, too. What was left
of you they'd feed to alligators."
"I might as well tell you now, pardner," said the Kid, sliding down low
on his steamer chair, "that things are going to stay just as they are.
They're about right now."
"What do you mean?" asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass on
his desk.
"The scheme's off," said the Kid. "And whenever you have the pleasure of
speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique. I'll guarantee I'll
answer to it. We'll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little tin
safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of Laredo
as far as you and me are concerned."
"You're going to throw me down, then, are you?" said the consul.
"Sure," said the Kid cheerfully. "Throw you down. That's it. And now
I'll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel's house they
introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor--a real room, with
a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes this
artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers. 'Panchito,' she says,
'my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless his name
forever.' It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down comes
a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that stuck by me,
Mr. Thacker. And it's been that way ever since. And it's got to stay
that way. Don't you think that it's for what's in it for me, either,
that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep 'em to yourself. I
haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no mothers to speak
of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled. Once she stood it;
twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on
this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to the end. And now, don't
forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my
name."
"I'll expose you to-day, you--you double-dyed traitor," stammered
Thacker.
The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a
hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from
under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of it
against the consul's mouth.
"I told you why I come here," he said, with his old freezing smile. "If
I leave here, you'll be the reason. Never forget it, pardner. Now, what
is my name?"
"Er--Don Francisco Urique," gasped Thacker.
From outside came a sound of wheels, and the shouting of some one, and
the sharp thwacks of a wooden whipstock upon the backs of fat horses.
The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door. But he turned again
and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left hand with
its back toward the consul.
"There's one more reason," he said slowly, "why things have got to stand
as they are. The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them same pictures
on his left hand."
Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the door.
The coachman ceased his bellowing. Señora Urique, in a voluminous gay
gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward with a happy look
in her great soft eyes.
"Are you within, dear son?" she called, in the rippling Castilian.
"_Madre mio, yo vengo_ [mother, I come]," answered the young Don
Francisco Urique.
AN OLD-TIME SINGER
BY FRANK L. STANTON
I don't want any hymnbook when the Methodists is nigh,
A-linin' out the ol' ones that went thrillin' to the sky
In the ol' campmeetin' seasons, when 'twuz "Glory hallelu!"
An' "Brother, rise an' tell us what the Lord has done fer you!"
Fer I know them songs so perfect that when I git the swing
O' the tune they want to go to I kin shet my eyes an' sing!
"On Jordan's stormy banks," an' ol' "Amazin' Grace"--they seem
So nat'ral, I'm like some one that's singin' in a dream!
Oh, when it comes to them ol' songs I allus does my part;
An' I've got the ol'-time Bible down, as you might say, "by heart!"
When the preacher says the fust word in the givin' of his text
I smile with satisfaction, kaze I know what's comin' next!
The wife says: "That's amazin'!" an' the preacher says--says he,
With lots o' meanin' in his voice, an' lookin' queer at me "Sence
you know more o' the Bible than the best o' us kin teach,
Don't you think you orter practice what you're payin' us to preach?"
Well, _that_ gits me in a _corner_--an' I sorter raise my eyes
An' the tune about them titles to the "mansions in the skies"!
I want the benediction then--I'm ready to depart!
But when it comes to singin'--well, I've got the hymns by heart!
BREITMANN IN POLITICS
SHOWING HOW MR. HIRAM TWINE "PLAYED OFF" ON SMITH
BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
VIDE LICET: Dere vas a fillage
Whose vode alone vouldt pe
Apout enoof to elegdt a man,
Und gife a mayority;
So de von who couldt scoop dis seddlement
Vould make a pully hit;
Boot dough dey vere Deutschers, von und all,
Dey all go von on Schmit.
Now it happenet to gome to bass
Dat in dis liddle town
De Deutsch vas all exshpegdin
Dat Mishder Schmit coom down,
His brinciples to fore-setzen
Und his ideés to deach,
(Dat is, fix oop de brifate pargains)
Und telifer a pooblic sbeech.
Now Twine vas a gyrotwistive cuss,
Ash blainly ish peen shown,
Und vas alfays an out-findin
Votefer might pe known;
Und mit some of his circumswindles
He fix de matter so
Dat he'd pe himself at dis meetin
And see how dings vas go.
Oh shtrangely in dis leben
De dings kits vorked apout!
Oh voonderly Fortuna
Makes toorn us insite out!
Oh sinkular de luck-wheel rolls!
Dis liddle meeding dere
Fixt Twine _ad perpendiculum_--
Shoost suit him to a hair!
Now it hoppenit on dis efenin
De Deutschers, von und all,
Vere avaitin mit impatience
De openin of de ball;
Und de shates of nite vere fallin
Und de shdars begin to plink,
Und dey vish dat Schmit vouldt hoorry,
For 'dvas dime to dake a trink.
Dey hear some hoofs a-dramplin,
Und dey saw, und dinked dey knowed,
Der bretty greature coomin,
On his horse along de road;
Und ash he ride town in-ward
De likeness vas so plain
Dey donnered out, "Hooray for Schmit!"
Enough to make it rain.
Der Twine vas shtart like plazes;
Boot oopshtarted too his wit,
Und he dinks, "Great Turnips! what if I
Could bass for Colonel Schmit?
Gaul dern my heels! _I'll do it_,
Und go the total swine!
Oh, Soap-balls! what a chance!" said dis
Dissembulatin Twine.
Den 'twas "Willkomm! willkomm, Mishder Schmit!"
Ringsroom on efery site;
Und "First-rate! How dy-do yourself?"
Der Hiram Twine replied.
Dey ashk him, "Come und dake a trink?"
But dey find it mighdy queer
Ven Twine informs dem none boot hogs
Vould trink dat shtinkin bier;
Dat all lager vas nodings boot boison;
Und ash for Sherman wein,
He dinks it vas erfounden
Exshbressly for Sherman schwein;
Dat he himself vas a demperanceler--
Dat he gloria in de name;
Und atfise dem all, for tecency's sake,
To go und do de same.
Dese bemarks among de Deutschers
Vere apout ash vell receife
Ash a cats in a game of den-bins,
Ash you may of coorse peliefe:
De heat of de reception
Vent down a dootzen tegrees,
Und in place of hurraws dere vas only heardt
De rooslin of de drees.
Und so in solemn stille
Dey scorched him to de hall,
Vhere he maket de oradion
Vitch vas so moosh to blease dem all;
Und dis vay he pegin it:
"Pefore I furder go,
I vish dat my obinions
You puddin-het Dootch should know.
"Und ere I norate to you,
I think it only fair
We should oonderstand each other
Prezactly, chunk and square.
Dere are boints on vhich ve tisagree,
And I will plank de facts--
I don't go round slanganderin
My friendts pehind deir packs.
"So I beg you dake it easy
If on de raw I touch,
Vhen I say I can't apide de sound
Of your groontin, shi-shing Dutch.
Should I in the Legisladure
As your slumgullion shtand,
I'll have a bill forbidding Dutch
Troo all dis 'versal land.
"Should a husband talk it to his frau,
To deat' he should pe led;
If a mutter breat' it to her shild,
I'd bunch her in de head;
Und I'm sure dat none vill atfocate
Ids use in public schools,
Oonless dey're peastly, nashdy, prutal,
Sauerkraut-eaten vools."
Here Mishder Twine, to gadder breat,
Shoost make a liddle pause,
Und see sechs hundert gapin eyes,
Sechs hundert shdarin chaws,
Dey shtanden erstarrt like frozen;
Von faindly dried to hiss;
Und von set: "Ish it shleeps I'm treamin?
Gottausend! vat ish dis?"
Twine keptet von eye on de vindow,
Boot poldly went ahet:
"Of your oder shtinkin hobits
No vordt needt hier pe set.
Shtop goozlin bier--shtop shmokin bipes--
Shtop rootin in de mire;
Und shoost _un-Dutchify_ yourselfs:
Dat's all dat I require."
Und _denn_ dere coomed a shindy,
Ash if de shky hat trop:
"Trow him mit ecks, py doonder!
Go shlog him on de kop!
Hei! Shoot him mit a powie-knifes;
Go for him, ganz and gar!
Shoost tar him mit some fedders!
Led's fedder him mit tar!"
Sooch a teufel's row of furie
Vas nefer oop-kickt before:
Soom roosh to on-climb de blatform--
Soom hoory to fasten te toor:
Von veller vired his refolfer,
Boot de pullet missed her mark:
She coot de cort of de shandelier:
It vell, und de hall vas tark!
Oh, vell was it for Hiram Twine
Dat nimply he couldt shoomp;
Und vell dat he light on a misthauf,
Und nefer feel de boomp;
Und vell for him dat his goot cray horse
Shtood sattled shoost outside;
Und vell dat in an augenblick
He vas off on a teufel's ride.
Bang! bang! de sharp pistolen shots
Vent pipin py his ear,
Boot he tortled oop de barrick road
Like any mountain deer:
Dey trowed der Hiram Twine mit shteins,
But dey only could be-mark
Von climpse of his vhite obercoadt,
Und a clotterin in de tark.
So dey all versembled togeder,
Ein ander to sprechen mit,
Und allow dat sooch a rede
Dey nefer exshpegd from Schmit--
Dat he vas a foorst-glass plackguard,
And so pig a Lump ash ran;
So, _nemine contradicente_,
Dey vented for Breitmann.
Und 'twas annerthalb yar dereafter
Before der Schmit vas know
Vot maket dis rural fillage
Go pack oopon him so;
Und he schvored at de Dootch more schlimmer
Ash Hiram Twine had tone.
_Nota bene_: He tid it in earnesht,
Vhile der Hiram's vas pusiness fun.
Boot vhen Breitmann heard de shdory,
How de fillage hat peen dricked,
He shvore bei Leib und Leben
He'd rader hafe been licked
Dan be helped bei sooch shumgoozlin;
Und 'twas petter to pe a schwein
Dan a schwindlin honeyfooglin shnake,
Like dat lyin Yankee Twine.
Und pegot so heafy disgoosted
Mit de boledicks of dis land,
Dat his friendts couldn't barely keep him
From trowin oop his hand,
Vhen he helt shtraidt flush, mit an ace in his poot;
Vich phrase ish all de same,
In de science of de pokerology,
Ash if he got de game.
So Breitmann cot elegtet,
Py vollowin de vay
Dey manage de elegdions
Unto dis fery day;
Vitch shows de Deutsch _Dummehrlichkeit_,
Also de Yankee "wit":
Das ist Abenteuer
How Breitmann lick der Schmit.
LOVE SONG
BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
Overe mine lofe a sugar-powl,
De fery shmallest loomp
Vouldt shveet de seas from bole to bole,
Und make de shildren shoomp.
Und if she vere a clofer-fieldt,
I'd bet mine only pence,
It vouldn't pe no dime at all
Pefore I'd shoomp de fence.
Her heafenly foice it drill me so,
It really seems to hoort;
She ish de holiest anamile
Dat roons oopon de dirt.
De re'nbow rises ven she sings,
De sonn shine ven she dalk,
De angels crow und flop deir vings
Ven she goes out to valk.
So livin vhite--so carnadine--
Mine lofe's gomblexion glow;
It's shoost like abendcarmosine
Rich gleamin on de shnow.
Her soul makes plooshes in her sheek,
As sommer reds de wein,
Or sonlight sends a fire-life troo
An blank karfunkelstein.
De ueberschwengliche idées
Dis lofe put in my mind,
Vould make a foostrate philosoph
Of any human kind.
'Tis shuderned sweet on eart' to meet
An himmlisch-hoellisch qual,
Und treat mit whiles to kümmel schnapps
De Shoenheitsideál.
CONTENTMENT
"_Man wants but little here below_"
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Little I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A _very plain_ brownstone will do,)
That I may call my own;--
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.
Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;--
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank Heaven for three. Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice;--
My _choice_ would be vanilla-ice.
I care not much for gold or land;--
Give me a mortgage here and there,--
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share,--
I only ask that Fortune send
A _little_ more than I shall spend.
Honors are silly toys, I know,
And titles are but empty names;
I would, _perhaps_, be Plenipo,--
But only near St. James;
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.
Jewels are bawbles; 'tis a sin
To care for such unfruitful things;--
One good-sized diamond in a pin,--
Some, _not so large_, in rings,--
A ruby, and a pearl, or so,
Will do for me;--I laugh at show.
My dame should dress in cheap attire;
(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)--
I own perhaps I _might_ desire
Some shawls of true Cashmere,--
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.
I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait--two, forty-five--
Suits me; I do not care;--
Perhaps, for just a _single spurt_,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.
Of pictures, I should like to own
Titians and Raphaels three or four,--
I love so much their style and tone,--
One Turner, and no more,
(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt,--
The sunshine painted with a squirt.)
Of books but few,--some fifty score
For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor;--
Some _little_ luxury _there_
Of red morocco's gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.
Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these,
Which others often show for pride,
_I_ value for their power to please,
And selfish churls deride;--
_One_ Stradivarius, I confess,
_Two_ Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;--
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But _all_ must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,--
I ask but _one_ recumbent chair.
Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them _much_,--
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!
TOM'S MONEY
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD
Mrs. Laughton had found what she had been looking for all her life--the
man under her bed.
Every night of her nearly thirty years of existence this pretty little
person had stooped on her knees, before saying her prayers, and had
investigated the space beneath her bed, a light brass affair, hung with
a chintz valance; had then peered beneath the dark recess of the
dressing-case, and having looked in the deep drawer of the bureau and
into the closet, she fastened her door and felt as secure as a snail in
a shell. As she never, in this particular business, seemed to have any
confidence in Mr. Laughton, in spite of the fact that she admired him
and adored him, neither his presence nor his absence ever made any
variation in the performance. She had gone through the motions, however,
for so long a time that they had come to be in a manner perfunctory, and
the start she received on this night of which I speak made her prayers
quite impossible.
What was she to do? She, a coward _par eminence_, known to be the most
timorous of the whole family; her tremors at all sorts of imagined
dangers affording laughter to the flock of sisters and brothers. Should
she stay on her knees after having seen that dark shape, as if going on
with her prayers, while revolving some plan of procedure? That was out
of the question. Scream? She couldn't have screamed to save her life.
Run? She could no more have set one foot before the other, than if her
body had melted from the waist down. She was deadly faint and cold and
shaking, and all in a second, in the fraction of a second, before she
had risen from her stooping posture.
Oh, why wasn't it Virginia instead? Virginia had always had such heroic
plans of making the man come out of his hiding-place at the point of her
pistol; and Virginia could cock a pistol and wasn't covered with cold
shivers at the sight of one, as she was. If it had only been Francie,
whose shrill voice could have been heard over the side of the earth, or
Juliet, whose long legs would have left burglar, and house, too, in the
background between the opening and slamming of a door. Either of them
was so much more fit than she, the chicken-hearted one of the family, to
cope with this creature. And they were all gone to the wedding with
Fred, and would not be at home till to-morrow; and Tom had just returned
from the town and handed her his roll of bills, and told her to take
care of it till he came back from galloping down to the works with
Jules; and she had tucked it into her belt, and had asked him, a little
quakingly, what if any of the men of the Dead Line that they had heard
of or Red Dan or an Apache came along; and he had laughed, and said she
had better ask them in and reproach them for making such strangers of
themselves as not to have called in the two years she had been in this
part of the country; and she had the two maids with her, and he should
be back directly. And she had looked out after him a moment over the
wide prairie to the hills, all bathed in moonlight, and felt as if she
were a spirit alone in a dead world. And here she was now, the two maids
away in the little wing, locked out by the main house, alone with a
burglar, and not another being nearer than the works, a half-mile off.
How did this man know that she was without any help here? How did he
know that Tom was coming back with the money to pay the men that night?
How did he happen to be aware that Tom's money was all in the house?
Evidently he was one of the men. No one else could have known anything
about it. If that money was taken, nobody would believe the story; Tom
would be cashiered; he never could live through the disgrace; he would
die of a broken heart, and she of another. They had come out to this
remote and lonesome country to build up a home and a fortune; and so
many people would be stricken with them! What a mischance for her to be
left with the whole thing in her hands, her little, weak, trembling
hands--Tom's honor, his good name and his success, their fortune, the
welfare of the whole family, the livelihood of all the men, the safety
of the enterprise! What made Tom risk things so! How could he put her in
such jeopardy? To be sure, he thought the dogs would be safeguard
enough, but they had gone scouring after him. And if they hadn't, how
could dogs help her with a man under the bed?
It was worse than any loss of money to have such a wretch as this so
near one, so shudderingly, so awfully near, to be so close as this to
the bottomless pit itself! What was she to do? Escape? The possibility
did not cross her mind. Not once did she think of letting Tom's money
go. All but annihilated by terror in that heartbeat, she herself was the
last thing she thought of.
Light and electricity are swift, but thought is swifter. As I said, this
was all in the fraction of a second. Then Mrs. Laughton was on her feet
again and before a pendulum could have more than swung backward. The man
must know she saw him. She took the light brass bedstead and sent it
rolling away from her with all her might and main leaving the creature
uncovered. He lay easily on one side, a stout little club like a
policeman's billy in his hand, some weapons gleaming in his belt,
putting up the other hand to grasp the bedstead as it rolled away.
"You look pretty, don't you?" said she.
Perhaps this was as much of a shock to the man as his appearance had
been to her. He was not acquainted with the saying that it is only the
unexpected that happens.
"Get up," said she. "I'd _be_ a man if I _was_ a man. Get up. I'm not
going to hurt you."
If the intruder had any sense of humor, this might have touched it; the
idea of this little fairy-queen of a woman, almost small enough to have
stepped out of a rain-lily, hurting him! But it was so different from
what he had been awaiting that it startled him; and then, perhaps, he
had some of the superstition that usually haunts the evil and ignorant,
and felt that such small women were uncanny. He was on his feet now,
towering over her.
"No," said he, gruffly; "I don't suppose you're going to hurt me. And
I'm not going to hurt you, if you hand over that money."
"What money?" opening her eyes with a wide sort of astonishment.
"Come! None of your lip. I want that money!"
"Why, I haven't any money! Oh, yes, I have, to be sure, but--"
"I thought you'd remember it," said the man, with a grin.
"But I want it!" she exclaimed.
"I want it, too!" said he.
"Oh, it wouldn't do you any good," she reasoned. "Fifteen dollars. And
it's all the money I've got in the world!"
"I don't want no fifteen dollars," said the man; "and I don't want none
of your chinning. I want the money your husband's going to pay off
with--"
"Oh, Tom's money!" in quite a tone of relief. "Oh! I haven't anything to
do with Tom's money. If you can get any money out of Tom it's more than
_I_ can do. And I wouldn't advise you to try, either; for he always
carries a pistol in the same pocket with it, and he's covered all over
with knives and derringers and bull-dogs, so that sometimes _I_ don't
like to go near him till he's unloaded. You have to, in this country of
desperadoes. You see--"
"Yes, I see, you little hen-sparrer," his eyes coming back to her from a
survey of the room, "that you've got Tom's money in the house here, and
would like to throw me off the scent!"
"If I had," said she, "you'd only get it across my dead body! Hadn't you
better look for it, and have me tell you when you're hot and when you're
cold?"
"Come!" said he, again; "I've had enough of your slack--"
"You're not very polite," she said, with something like a pout.
"People in my line ain't," he answered, grimly. "I want that money! and
I want it now! I've no time to lose. I'd rather come by it peaceable,"
he growled, "but if--"
"Well, you can take it; of course, you're the stronger. But I told you
before, it's all I have, and I've very particular use for it. You just
sit down!" she cried, indicating a chair, with the air of really having
been alone so long in these desolate regions as to be glad of having
some one to talk to, and throwing herself into the big one opposite,
because in truth she could not stand up another moment. And perhaps
feeling as if a wren were expostulating with him about robbing her
nest, the man dropped the angry arm with which he had threatened her,
and leaned over the back of the chair.
"There it is," said she, "right under your hand all the time. You won't
have to rip up the mattress for it, or rummage the clothes-press, or
hunt through the broken crockery on the top shelves of the kitchen
cupboard," she ran on, as if she were delighted to hear the sound of her
own voice, and couldn't talk fast enough. "I always leave my purse on
the dressing-case, though Tom has told me, time and again, it wasn't
safe. But out here--"
"Stop!" thundered the man. "If you know enough to stop. Stop! or I'll
cut your cursed tongue out and make you stop. And then, I suppose, you'd
gurgle. That's not what I want--though I'll take it. I've told _you_,
time and again, that I want the paymaster's money. That isn't right
under my hand--and where is it? I'll put daylight through that little
false heart of yours if you don't give it to me without five more
words--"
"And I've told you just as often that I've nothing to do with the
paymaster's money, and I wish you would put daylight _anywhere_, for
then my husband would come home and make an end of you!" And with the
great limpid tears overflowing her blue eyes, Rose Laughton knew that
the face she turned up at him was enough to melt the sternest heart
going.
"Do you mean to tell me--" said he, evidently wavering, and possibly
inclining to doubt if, after all, she were not telling the truth, as no
man in his senses would leave such a sum of money in the keeping of such
a simpleton.
"I don't mean to tell you anything!" she cried. "You won't believe a
word I say, and I never had any one doubt my word before. I _hate_ to
have you take that fifteen dollars, though. You never would in the
world, if you knew how much self-denial it stands for. Every time I
think I would like an ice-cream, out in this wilderness, where you might
as well ask for an iceberg, I've made Tom give me the _price_ of one.
You won't find anything but ribbons _there_. And when I've felt as if I
should go wild if I couldn't have a box of Huyler's candy, I've made Tom
give me the price of _that_. There's only powder and tweezers and
frizzes in those boxes," as he went over the top of the dressing-case,
still keeping a lookout on her. "And when we were all out of lager and
apollinaris, and Tom couldn't--that's my laces, and I wish you wouldn't
finger them; I don't believe your hands are clean--and Tom couldn't get
anything to drink, I've made him put in the price of a drink, and lots
of ten-cent pieces came that way, and--But I don't imagine you care to
hear about all that. What makes you look at me so?" For the man had left
his search again, and his glance was piercing her through and through.
"Oh, your eyes are like augers turning to live coals!" she cried. "Is
that the way you look at your wife? Do you look at your children the
same way?"
"That lay won't work," said he, with another grin. "I ain't got no
feelings to work on. I ain't got no wife or kids."
"I'm sure that's fortunate," said Mrs. Laughton. "A family wouldn't have
any peace of their lives with you following such a dangerous business.
And they couldn't see much of you either. I must say I think you'd be a
great deal happier if you reformed--I mean--well, if you left this
business, and took up a quarter-section, and had a wife and--"
"Look here!" cried the man, his patience gone. "Are you a fool, or are
you bluffing me? I've half a mind to knock your head in," he cried,
"and hunt the house over for myself! I would, if there was time."
"You wouldn't find anything if you did," she returned, leaning back in
her chair. "I've looked often enough, when I thought Tom had some money.
I never found any. What are you going to do now?" with a cry of alarm at
his movement.
"I'm going to tie you hand and foot first--"
"Oh, I wouldn't! I'd rather you wouldn't--really! I promise you I won't
leave this chair--"
"I don't mean you shall."
"Oh, how can you treat me so!" she exclaimed, lifting up her streaming
face. "You don't look like a person to treat a woman so. I don't like to
be tied; it makes me feel so helpless."
"What kind of a dumb fool be you, anyway?" said the man, stopping a
moment to stare at her. And he made a step then toward the high chest of
drawers, half bureau, half writing-desk, for a ball of tape he saw lying
there.
"Oh!" she cried, remembering the tar-baby. "Don't! Don't go there! For
mercy's sake, don't go there!" raising her voice till it was like the
wind in the chimney. "Oh, please don't go there!" At which, as if
feeling morally, or rather immorally, sure that what he had come for was
in that spot, he seized the handles of the drawer, and down fell the lid
upon his head with a whack that jammed his hat over his eyes and blinded
him with pain and fury for an instant. And in that instant she had
whipped the roll of money from her belt, and had dropped it underneath
her chair. "I knew it!" she cried. "I knew it would! It always does. I
told you not to go."
"You shet your mouth quick!" roared the man, with a splutter of oaths
between each word.
"That's right," she said, leaning over the arm of the chair, her face
like a pitying saint's. "Don't mind me, I always tell Tom to swear, when
he jams his thumb. I know how it is myself when I'm driving a nail. It's
a great relief. I'd put some cold water on your head, but I promised you
I wouldn't stir out of the chair--"
The man went and sat down in the chair on whose back he had been
leaning.
"I swear, I don't know what to make of you," said he, rubbing his head
ruefully.
"You can make friends with me," said she. "That's what you can do. I'm
sure I've shown you that I'm friendly enough. I never believe any harm
of any one till I see it myself. I don't blame you for wanting the
money. I'm always in want of money. I've told you you might take mine,
though I don't want you to. But I shouldn't give you Tom's money, even
if I knew where it was. Tom would kill me if I did, and I might as well
be killed by you as by Tom--and better. You can make friends with me,
and be some protection to me till my husband comes. I'm expecting him
and Jules every moment."
The man started to his feet.
"Do you see that?" he cried, holding his revolver under her nose. "Look
right into that gun! We'll have no more fooling. It'll be your last look
if you don't tell me where that money is before I count three."
She put out her hand and calmly moved it aside.
"I've looked into those things ever since I've lived on the prairie,"
said she. "And I dare say it won't go off--mine won't. Besides, I know
very well you wouldn't shoot a woman, and you can't make bricks without
straw; and then I've told you I don't know anything about that money."
"You are a game one," said he.
"No, I'm not," she replied. "I'm the most tremendous coward. I've come
out here in this wild country to live, and I'm alone a great deal, and I
quake at every sound, every creak of a timber, every rustle of the
grass. And you don't know anything about what it is to have your heart
stand still with horror of a wild beast or a wild Indian or a
deserter--a deserting soldier. There's a great Apache down there now,
stretched out in his blanket on the floor, before the fire in the
kitchen. And I came up here as quick as I could, to lock the door behind
us and sit up till Tom came home, and I declare, I never was so thankful
in all my life as I was just now to see a white face when I looked at
you!"
"Well, I'll be--! Apache!" cried the visitor. "See here, little one,
you've saved your husband's money for him. You're a double-handful of
pluck. I haven't any idea but you know where it's hid--but I've got to
be making tracks. If it wasn't for waking that Apache I'd leave Red
Dan's handwriting on the wall."
And almost while he was speaking he had swung himself out of the window
to the roof of the porch and had dropped to the ground and made off.
Mrs. Laughton waited till she thought he must be out of hearing, leaning
out as if she were gazing at the moon. Then she softly shut and fastened
the sash, and crept with shaking limbs to the door and unlocked it, and
fell in a dead faint across the threshold. And there, when he returned
some three-quarters of an hour later, Tom found her.
"Oh, Tom!" she sobbed, when she became conscious that she was lying in
his arms, his heart beating like a trip-hammer, his voice hoarse with
fright as he implored her to open her eyes; "_is_ there an Apache in the
kitchen?"
RUBAIYAT OF MATHIEU LETTELLIER
BY WALLACE BRUCE AMSBARY
Dere's six chil_dren_ in our fam'lee,
Dey's mos'ly girls an' boys;
'Toinette an' me wos t'ankful sure
For all de happy joys;
Dere's Pierre, an' little Rosalie,
Antoine, Marie an' Jeanne,
An' Paul he's com' now soon twelf year,
Mos' close to be a man.
I's lof' all of _la petite femme_,
De garçon mak' me proud,
I haf gr'ad aspiratione
For all dat little crowd;
My Pierre shall be wan doctor mans,
Rosalie will teach school,
Antoine an' Jeanne shall rone de farm,
Marie som' man will rule.
An' Paul shall be a _curé_ sure,
I'll haf heem educate',
I work it all out on my head,
Oh, I am moch elate;
Dis all of course w'en dey grow op;
But I t'ink 'bout it now;
So w'en de tam' was com' for ac',
I'll know de way an' how.
Long tam' ago, w'en Paul firs' com',
He mak' a lot of noise;
He's keep me trot, bot' day an' night,
He was wan naughty boys;
At wan o'clock, at two o'clock,
Annee ol' tam' suit heem,
He's mak' us geeve de gran' parade
Jus' as he tak' de w'im.
Sooding molass' an' peragork,
On heem ve pour it down,
An' soon he let his music op,
An' don' ac' more lak' clown,
An' den _ma femme_ an' me lay down
To get a little doze,
For w'en you are wan fam'lee man
You don' gat moch repose.
But w'at's de use to mak' de kick,
Dees fellows boss de place;
I'd radder hear de healt'y lung
An' see de ruddy face
Dan run a gr'ad big doctor's bill,
An' geeve de ol' sex_tone_
De job, for bury all my kids,
An' leave me all alone.
An' so our hands is quite ver' full,
Will be, for som' tam' long,
But ven old age is dreeft our vay
An' rest is our belong,
It's den ve'll miss de gran' rac_quette_,--
May want again de noise
Of six more little children
An' mos'ly girls and boys.
BIGGS' BAR
BY HOWARD V. SUTHERLAND
'Twas a sultry afternoon, about the middle of July,
And the men who loafed in Dawson were feeling very dry.
Of liquor there had long been none except a barrel or two,
And that was kept by Major Walsh for himself and a lucky few.
Now, the men who loaf in Dawson are loafers to the bone,
And take it easy in a way peculiarly their own;
They sit upon the sidewalks and smoke and spit and chew,
And watch the other loafers, and wonder who is who.
They only work in winter, when the days are short and cold,
And then they heat their cabins, and talk and talk of gold;
They talk about provisions, and sometimes take a walk,
But then they hurry back again and talk, and talk, and talk.
And the men who loaf in Dawson are superior to style,
For the man who wears a coat _and_ vest is apt to cause a smile;
While he who sports suspenders or a belt would be a butt,
And cause ironic comment, and end by being cut.
The afternoon was sultry, as I said some time before;
'Twas fully ninety in the shade (in the sun a darn sight more),
And the men who sat on the sidewalks were, one and all, so dry
That only one perspired, though every one did try.
Six men were sitting in a line and praying God for air;
They were Joaquin Miller and "Lumber" Lynch and "Stogey" Jack
Ver Mehr,
"Swift-water" Bill and "Caribou" Bill and a sick man from the hills,
Who came to town to swap his dust for a box of liver pills.
I said they prayed for air, and yet perhaps I tell a lie,
For none of them are holy men, and all of them were dry;
And so I guess 'tis best for me to say just what I think--
They prayed the Lord to pity them and send them all a drink.
Then up spoke Joaquin Miller, as he shook his golden locks,
And picked the Dawson splinters from his moccasins and socks
(The others paid attention, for when times are out of joint
What Joaquin Miller utters is always to the point):
"A foot-sore, weary traveler," the Poet then began,
"Did tell me many moons ago,--and oh! I loved the man,--
That Biggs who owns the claim next mine had started up a bar.
Let's wander there and quench our thirst." All answered, "Right
you are."
Now, Biggs is on Bonanza Creek, claim ninety-six, below;
There may be millions in it, and there may not; none will know
Until he gets to bedrock or till bedrock comes to him--
For Arthur takes it easy and is strictly in the swim.
It is true, behind his cabin he has sunk a mighty shaft
(When the husky miners saw it they turned aside and laughed);
But Biggs enjoys his bacon, and smokes his pipe and sings,
Content to be enrolled among the great Bonanza Kings.
'Tis full three miles from Dawson town to Biggs' little claim;
The miners' curses on the trail would make you blush with shame
The while they slip, or stub their toes against the roots, or sink
Twelve inches in the mud and slime before their eyes can wink.
But little cared our gallant six for roots, or slime, or mud,
For they were out for liquor as a soldier is for blood;
They hustled through the forest, nor stopped until they saw
Biggs, wrapt in contemplation, beside his cabin door.
He rose to greet his visitors, and ask them for the news,
And said he was so lonesome that he always had the blues;
He hadn't seen a paper for eighteen months, he said,
And that had been in Japanese--a language worse than dead.
They satisfied his thirst for news, then thought they of their own,
And Miller looked him in the eye and gave a little groan,
And all six men across their mouths did pass a sun-burnt hand
In a manner most deliberate, which all can understand.
"We heard you keep a bar, good Biggs," the gentle Poet said!
"And so we thought we'd hold you up, and we are almost dead!"
He said no more. Biggs understood, and thusly spoke to them
In accents somewhat British and prefixed with a "Hem!"
"The bar you'll find a few yards hence as up that trail you go;
I never keep my liquor in the blooming 'ouse, you know.
Just mush along and take a drink, and when you are content
Come back and tell me, if you can, who now is President."
They mushed along, those weary men, nor looked to left or right,
But thought of how each cooling drink would trickle out of sight;
And very soon they found the goal they came for from afar--
_A keg, half full of water, in a good old gravel bar!_
THE BACKSLIDING BROTHER
BY FRANK L. STANTON
De screech owl screech f'um de ol' barn lof';
"You drinked yo' dram sence you done swear off;
En you gwine de way
Whar' de sinners stay,
En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day!"
Den de ol' ha'nt say, f'um de ol' chu'ch wall:
"You des so triflin' dat you _had_ ter fall!
En you gwine de way
Whar' de brimstone stay,
En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day!"
Den I shake en shiver,
En I hunt fer kiver,
En I cry ter de good Lawd, "Please deliver!"
I tell 'im plain
Dat my hopes is vain,
En I drinked my dram fer ter ease my pain!
Den de screech owl screech f'um de north ter south
"You drinked yo' dram, en you _smacked_ yo' _mouth_!
En you gwine de way
Whar' de brimstone stay,
En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day!"
YE LEGEND OF SIR YRONCLADDE
BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
Now, whenne ye goode knyghte Yroncladde
Hadde dwelte in Paradyse
A matter of a thousand yeares,
He syghed some grievous syghes,
And went unto the entrance gate
To speake hym in thys wyse:
"Beholde, I do not wysh to make
A rackette, nor a fuss,
And yet I fayne wolde hie awaye
And cease from livyng thus;
For it is moste too peaceful here,
And sore monotonous."
"Oh, verie welle," ye keeper sayde,
"You shall have your desyre:
Go downe uponne ye earth agayne
To see whatte you admyre--
But take goode heede that you shall keepe
Your trolley on ye wyre."
Ryghte gladde was goode Sir Yroncladde
To see ye gates unsealed.
He toke a jumpe strayghte through ye cloudes
To what was there revealed,
And strayghtwaye lit uponne ye grounde
Whych was a footeball field!
"Gadzookes!" he sayde; "now, here is sporte!
Thys is a goodlie syghte.
For joustynges soche as here abound
I have an appetyte;
So I will amble to ye scrappe,
For that is my delyghte."
He strode into ye hurtlynge mass,
Whence rose a thrillynge sounde
Of class yelles, sygnalles, breakynge bones,
And moanynges all arounde;
And thenne ye footeballe menne tooke hym
And pushed hym in ye grounde!
They brake hys breastplayte into bits,
And shattered all hys greaves;
They fractured bothe hys myghtie armes
Withynne hys chaynemayle sleeves,
And wounde hys massyve legges ynto
Some oryentalle weaves.
Uppe rose ye brave Sir Yroncladde
And groaned, "I hadde no wrong!
I'll hustle back to Paradyse,
And ryng ye entraunce gong;
For thys new croppe of earthlie knyghtes
At joustynge is too strong;
And henceforth thys is my resolve:
To staye where I belong!"
WINTER DUSK
BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK
The prospect is bare and white,
And the air is crisp and chill;
While the ebon wings of night
Are spread on the distant hill.
The roar of the stormy sea
Seem the dirges shrill and sharp
That winter plays on the tree--
His wild Æolian harp.
In the pool that darkly creeps
In ripples before the gale,
A star like a lily sleeps
And wiggles its silver tail.
A MOTHER OF FOUR
BY JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS
"You are fortunate to find us alone, Mrs. Merritt. With four girls, it
is simply terrible--callers underfoot wherever you stir. You must know
something about it, with two daughters; so you can fancy it multiplied
by two. Really, sometimes I get out of all patience--I haven't a corner
of my house to myself on Sundays! But I realize it is the penalty for
having four lively daughters, and I have to put up with it."
Mrs. Merritt, the visitor, had a gently worried air as she glanced from
the twins, thin and big-boned, reading by the fire, to pretty, affected
Amélie at the tea-table, and the apathetic Enid furtively watching the
front steps from the bay window. Something in her expression seemed to
imply a humble wonder as to what might constitute the elements of high
popularity, since her two dear girls--
"Of course, mine have their friends," she asserted; it was an admission
that perhaps the door-bell was not overworked. "I enjoy young life," she
added.
"Oh, yes, in moderation!" Mrs. Baldwin laughed from the depths of the
complacent prosperity that irradiated her handsome white hair and active
brown eyes, her pleasant rosiness, and even her compact stoutness,
suggesting strength rather than weight. "But since Enid became engaged,
that means Harry all the time--there's my library gone; and with the
other three filling both drawing-rooms and the reception-room, I have
to take to the dining-room, myself! There they begin," she added, as
Enid left the window and slipped out into the hall, closing the door
after her. "Now we shall have no peace until Monday morning. You know
how it is!"
Mrs. Merritt seemed depressed, and soon took her leave.
The twins, when they were left alone in the drawing-room, lifted their
heads and exchanged long and solemn looks; then returned to their
reading in silence. When it grew too dark by the fire, they carried
their books to the bay window, but drew back as they saw a pale and puny
youth with a retreating chin coming up the front steps.
"The rush has begun," murmured Cora.
"Amélie can have him," Dora returned. "Let's fly."
They retreated up-stairs and read peacefully until tea-time. The bell
did not ring again. When they came down, Mrs. Baldwin eyed them
irritably.
"Why don't you ask the Carryl boys in to Sunday tea some time? They will
think you have forgotten them. And Mr. White and that nice Mr. Morton
who lives with him--I am afraid you have offended them in some way. They
used to be here all the time."
"They only came twice, and those were party calls," said Dora bluntly.
"My dear, you have forgotten," was the firm answer. "They were here
constantly. I shall send them a line; I don't like to have them think we
have gone back on them."
"Oh, I--I wouldn't," began Cora, but was put down with decision:
"When I need your advice, Cora, I will ask for it. Amélie, dear, you
look tired; I am afraid you have had too much gaiety this afternoon."
"Oh, I love it! It's the breath of life to me," said Amélie
rapturously. The twins again exchanged solemn looks and sat down to
their tea in silence. Mrs. Baldwin attacked them peevishly at intervals;
she was cross at Enid also, who had not kept Harry to supper, and
preserved an indifferent silence under questioning. "When I was your
age--!" was the burden of her speech.
"I must give a dance for you young people," she decided. "You need
livening up."
"Oh, lovely!" exclaimed Amélie.
"We have not had one this winter--I don't know what I have been thinking
about," Mrs. Baldwin went on with returning cheerfulness. "We won't ask
more than a hundred. You must have a new frock, Amélie. Enid, how is
your blue one?"
"Oh, all right," said Enid indifferently. Mrs. Baldwin turned to the
twins, and found them looking frankly dismayed.
"Well, what is it now?" she exclaimed. "I am sure I try to give you as
good times as any girls in town; not many mothers on my income would do
half so much. And you sit looking as if you were going to execution!"
"We--we do appreciate it, mother," urged Cora, unhappily.
"But we aren't howling successes at parties," Dora added.
"Nonsense! You have partners to spare." Mrs. Baldwin was plainly angry.
"No child of mine was ever a wallflower, nor ever will be. Never let me
hear you say such a thing again. You would have twice the attention if
you weren't always poking off by yourselves; and as it is, you have more
than most girls. You frighten the men--they think you are proud. Show a
little interest in them and see how pleased they will be!"
The twins looked dubious, and seized the first chance to escape. In
their own room they confronted each other dismally.
"Of course they will ask us, in our own house; we won't have to sit and
sit," said Cora with a sigh.
"But it's almost worse when they ask you for that reason," objected
Dora.
"I know! I feel so sorry for them, and so apologetic. If mother would
_only_ let us go and teach at Miss Browne's; then we could show we were
really good for something. We shouldn't have to shine at parties."
"We shouldn't have to go to them! Come on, let's do some Latin. I want
to forget the hateful thing."
Cora got down the books and drew their chairs up to the student-lamp. "I
know I shouldn't be such a stick if I didn't have to wear low neck," she
said. "I am always thinking about those awful collar-bones, and trying
to hold my shoulders so as not to make them worse."
"Oh, don't I know!" Dora had slipped on a soft red wrapper, and threw a
blue one to her sister. When they were curled up in their big, cushioned
chairs, they smiled appreciatively at each other.
"Isn't this nicer than any party ever invented?" they exclaimed. Dora
opened her books with energy, but Cora sat musing.
"I dare say that somewhere there are parties for our kind," she said,
finally. "Not with silly little chinless boys or popular men who are
always trying to get away, but men who study and care about things--who
go to Greece and dig ruins, for instance, or study sociology, and think
more about one's mind than one's collar-bones."
Dora shook her head. "But they don't go to parties!"
"Both Mr. Morton and Mr. White do, sometimes," Cora suggested. "They
aren't like the rest. I thought that tenement-house work they told us
about was most interesting. But they would call if they wanted to," she
added.
The twins in wrappers, bending over their books, had a certain
comeliness. There was even an austere beauty in their wide, high
foreheads, their fine, straight dark hair, their serious gray eyes and
sensitive mouths, pensive but not without humor and sweetness. But the
twins in evening dress, their unwilling hair flower-crowned and
bolstered into pompadours, their big-boned thinness contrasted with
Amélie's plump curves, their elbows betraying the red disks of serious
application, were quite another matter, and they knew it. The night of
the dance they came down-stairs with solemn, dutiful faces, and lifted
submissive eyes to their mother for judgment. She was looking charmingly
pretty herself, carrying her thick white hair with a humorous boldness,
and her smiling brown eyes were younger than their gray ones.
"Very well, twinnies! Now you look something like human girls," she said
gaily. "Run and have a beautiful time. Ah, Amélie, you little fairy!
They will all be on their knees to you to-night. Where is Enid?"
"Nowhere near dressed, and she won't hurry," Amélie explained. "Oh, I am
so excited, I shall die! What if no one asks me to dance!"
"Silly!" Mrs. Baldwin laughed. "I am only afraid of your dancing
yourself to death. Ah, Mrs. Merritt, how good of you to come with your
dear girls! And Mr. Merritt--this is better than I dared hope."
The rooms filled rapidly. Enid, after one languid waltz, disappeared
with Harry and was not seen again till supper. Amélie flew from partner
to partner, pouring streams of vivacious talk into patient masculine
ears. The twins were dutifully taken out in turn and unfailingly brought
back. Both Mr. White and Mr. Morton came, serious young men who danced
little, and looked on more as if the affair were a problem in sociology
than an entertainment. There were plenty of men, for Mrs. Baldwin's
entertainments had a reputation in the matter of supper, music, and
floors.
"After you've worked through the family, you can have a ripping old
time," Cora heard one youth explain to another; a moment later he stood
in front of her, begging the honor of a waltz. She felt no resentment;
her sympathies were all with him. She looked up with gentle seriousness.
"You needn't, you know," she said. "Dora and I don't really expect
it--we understand." He looked so puzzled that she added: "I overheard
you just now, about 'working through the family.'"
He grew distressfully red and stammered wildly. Cora came at once to his
rescue.
"Really, it's all right. We don't like parties, ourselves; only it is
hard on mother to have such sticks of daughters, so we do our best. But
we never mind when people don't ask us. Sometimes we almost wish they
wouldn't."
The youth was trying desperately to collect himself. "What _do_ you
like, then?" he managed to ask.
"Oh, books, and the country, and not having to be introduced to people."
She was trying to put him at his ease. "We really do like dancing: we do
it better than you'd think, for mother made us keep at it. If only we
didn't have to have partners and think of things to say to them!" She
held out her hand, "Thank you ever so much for asking me, but I'd truly
rather not." He wrung her hand, muttered something about "later, then,"
and fled, still red about the ears. Cora returned to her mother.
"Well, my dear, you seemed to be having a tremendous flirtation with
that youth," laughed Mrs. Baldwin. "Such a hand-clasp at parting! Don't
dance too hard, child." She turned to the half-dozen parents supporting
her. "These crazy girls of mine will dance themselves to death if I
don't keep an eye on them," she explained. "Amélie says, 'Mother, how
can I help splitting my dances, when they beg me to?' I am always
relieved when the dance is over and they are safe in bed--then I know
they aren't killing themselves. The men have no mercy--they never let
them rest an instant."
"I don't see Miss Enid about," suggested Mr. Merritt. "I suppose she and
her Harry--!"
"Oh, I suppose so!" Mrs. Baldwin shook her head resignedly. "The bad
child insists on being married in the spring, but I simply can not face
the idea. What can I do to prevent it, Mrs. Merritt?"
"I am afraid you can't," smiled Mrs. Merritt. "We mothers all have to
face that."
"Ah, but not so soon! It is dreadful to have one's girls taken away. I
watch the others like a hawk; the instant a man looks too
serious--pouf!--I whisk him away!"
Cora stood looking down, with set lips; a flush had risen in her usually
pale cheeks. Dora, setting free an impatient partner, joined her and
they drew aside.
"It does make me so ashamed!" said Cora, impulsively.
"I think mother really makes herself believe it," said Dora, with
instant understanding.
They watched Amélie flutter up to their mother to have a bow retied, and
stand radiant under the raillery, though she made a decent pretense of
pouting. Her partner vanished, and Mrs. Baldwin insisted on her resting
"for one minute," which ended when another partner appeared.
"Amélie is asked much more than we are, always," Cora suggested. Dora
nodded at the implication.
"I know. I wonder why it never seems quite real. Perhaps because the
devoted ones are such silly little men."
"Or seem to us so," Cora amended conscientiously. "Don't you wish we
might creep up-stairs? Oh, me, here comes a man, just hating it! Which
do you suppose he will--Oh, thank you, with pleasure, Mr. Dorr!" Cora
was led away, and Dora slipped into the next room, that her mother might
not be vexed at her partnerless state.
Mrs. Baldwin saw to it that the twins had partners for supper, and
seated them at a table with half a dozen lively spirits, where they ate
in submissive silence while the talk flowed over and about them. No one
seemed to remember that they were there, yet they felt big and awkward,
conspicuous with neglect, thoroughly forlorn. When they rose, the others
moved off in a group, leaving them stranded. Mrs. Baldwin beckoned them
to her table with her fan.
"Well, twinnies, yours was the noisiest table in the room," she laughed.
"I was quite ashamed of you! When these quiet girls get going--!" she
added expressively to her group. The twins flushed, standing with shamed
eyes averted. In the rooms above the music had started, and the bright
procession moved up the stairs with laughter and the shine of lights on
white shoulders; they all seemed to belong together, to be glad of one
another. "Well, run along and dance your little feet off," said Mrs.
Baldwin gaily.
They hurried away, and without a word mounted by the back stairs to
their own room. When their eyes met, a flash of anger kindled, grew to a
blaze.
"Oh, I won't stand it, I won't!" exclaimed Dora, jerking the wreath of
forget-me-nots out of her hair and throwing it on the dressing-table.
"We have been humiliated long enough. Cora, we're twenty-four; it is
time we had our own way."
Cora was breathing hard. "Dora, I will never go to another party as long
as I live," she said.
"Nor I," declared Dora.
They sat down side by side on the couch to discuss ways and means. A
weight seemed to be lifted off their lives. In the midst of their eager
planning the door opened and Mrs. Baldwin looked in at them with a
displeased frown.
"Girls, what does this mean?" she exclaimed. "Come down at once. What
are you thinking of, to leave your guests like this!"
The twins felt that the moment had come, and instinctively clasped hands
as they rose to meet it.
"Mother," said Dora firmly, "we have done with parties forever and ever.
No one likes us nor wants to dance with us, and we can't stand it any
more."
"Miss Browne still wants us to come there and teach," Cora added, her
voice husky but her eyes bright. "So we can be self-supporting, if--if
you don't approve. We are twenty-four, and we have to live our own
lives."
They stood bravely for annihilation. Mrs. Baldwin laughed.
"You foolish twinnies! I know--some one has been hurting your feelings.
Believe me, my dears, even I did not always get just the partner my
heart was set on! And I cried over it in secret, just like any other
little girl. That is life, you know--we can't give up before it. Now
smooth yourselves and come down, for some of them are leaving."
She blew them a kiss and went off smiling. After a dejected silence Dora
took up the forget-me-not wreath and replaced it.
"I suppose we might as well finish out this evening," she said. "But the
revolution has begun, Cora!"
"The revolution has begun," Cora echoed.
In the drawing-room they found Mrs. Baldwin talking with Mr. Morton and
Mr. White. They were evidently trying to say good night, but she was
holding them as inexorably as if she had laid hands on their coats; or
so it seemed to the troubled twins. She summoned her daughters with her
bright, amused glance.
"My dears," she said, "these two good friends were going to run away
just because they do not dance the cotillion. We can't allow that.
Suppose you take them to the library and make them wholly comfortable.
Indeed, they have danced enough, Mr. White; I am thankful to have them
stop. I will take the blame if their partners are angry."
She nodded a smiling dismissal. Disconcerted, wholly ill at ease, the
four went obediently to the library, deserted now that the cotillion was
beginning. The two men struggled valiantly with the conversation, but
the twins sat stricken to shamed dumbness: no topic could thrive in the
face of their mute rigidity. Silences stalked the failing efforts. Mr.
White's eyes clung to the clock while his throat dilated with secret
yawns; Mr. Morton twisted restlessly and finally let a nervous sigh
escape. Dora suddenly clasped her hands tightly together.
"We hate it just as much as you do," she said distinctly.
They turned startled faces toward her. Cora paled, but flew to her
sister's aid.
"We knew you didn't want to come," she added with tremulous frankness.
"We would have let you off if we could. If you want to go now, we won't
be--hurt."
They rose, and so did the bewildered visitors.
"I am afraid you have--misunderstood," began Mr. White.
"No; we have always understood--everybody," said Dora, "but we pretended
not to, because mother--But now we have done with society. It is a
revolution, and this is our last party. Good night." She held out her
hand.
"Good night," repeated Cora, offering hers. The guests took them with
the air of culprits; relief was evidently drowned in astonishment.
"Well, good night--if we must," they said awkwardly.
Mrs. Baldwin, looking into the library half an hour later, found the
twins sitting there alone.
"Where are your cavaliers?" she demanded.
"They left long ago," Dora explained sleepily. "Mayn't we go to bed?"
"Oh, for pity's sake--go!" was the exasperated answer.
In the morning the twins appeared braced for revolution. When a
reception for that afternoon was mentioned, they announced firmly that
they were not going.
"I think you are wise," said Mrs. Baldwin amiably. "You both look
tired."
They were conscious of disappointment as well as relief; it was the
establishment of a principle they wanted, not coddling. Three weeks went
by in the same debilitating peace. The twins were smiled on and left
wholly free. They had almost come to believe in a bloodless victory,
when Mrs. Baldwin struck--a masterly attack where they were weakest. Her
weapon was--not welcome temper, but restrained pathos.
"A mere fourteen at dinner and a few coming in to dance afterward, and
I do want you twinnies to be there. Now I have not asked one thing of
you for three weeks; don't you think you owe Mother some little return?"
"But--!" began the twins, with a rush of the well-known arguments. Mrs.
Baldwin would not combat.
"I ask it as a favor, dear girls," she said gently. They clung to their
refusal, but were obviously weakening when she rose to her climax: "Mr.
White and Mr. Morton have accepted!" She left them with that, confident
and humming to herself.
The twins stared at each other in open misery. Reappear now, after the
solemn declaration they had made to those two! Their cheeks burned at
the thought. They mounted to their room to formulate their resistance,
and found two exquisite new gowns, suitable for fairy princesses, spread
out like snares. "To please Mother" seemed to be written on every artful
fold. And Mrs. Baldwin was not a rich woman, for her way of life; such
gowns meant self-denial somewhere. The twins had tears in their eyes.
"But if we give in now, we're lost!" they cried.
Nothing more was said about the dinner, Mrs. Baldwin gaily assuming
success, but avoiding the topic. The twins wore a depressed and furtive
air. On the fatal day they had a long interview with Miss Browne, of the
Browne School, and came away solemn with excitement, to shut themselves
in their room for the rest of the afternoon.
A few minutes before the dinner-hour Mrs. Baldwin, triumphant in satin
and lace, paused at their door.
"Ready, twinnies?" she began, then stared as though disbelieving her
eyes. In the glow of the student-lamp sat the twins, books in their
hands and piled high on the table beside them; their smooth, dark hair
was unpompadoured, their shoulders were lost in the dark blouses of
every day.
"What does this mean?" Mrs. Baldwin asked shortly, fire in her eyes.
"Mother, we told you we could not go to any more parties, and why," Cora
answered, a note of pleading in her voice.
"We begin teaching on Monday in Miss Browne's school," added Dora more
stoutly. "We have tried your way for years and years, mother. Now we
have to try ours."
Mrs. Baldwin's lace bertha rose and fell sharply.
"Indeed. I am sorry to disappoint you, but so long as you live under my
roof, you will have to conform to the ways of my household."
"Then, mother, we can not stay under your roof."
"As you please! I leave the choice entirely to you." She swept out,
leaving them breathless but resolute.
"I am glad of it!" said Dora with trembling lips.
In explaining their absence at dinner, Mrs. Baldwin was lightly humorous
about the twins' devotion: one could not weather a headache without the
other. Mr. White and Mr. Morton exchanged glances, and showed interest
in the topic, as if they were on the track of some new sociological
fact.
Later in the evening, the twins, their spirits restored, stole to the
top of the stairs and peered down at the whirling couples, exultant not
to be among them. Mr. White was standing just below, and he glanced up,
as if he might have been listening. His face brightened.
"May I come up?" he signaled, and mounted two steps at a time, keen
interest in his thin, intellectual face.
"Is it really headache, or is it revolution?" he asked without preface.
"Morton and I have been longing to know, all the evening."
"Revolution," said the twins.
"How very interesting! Do you know, we came to-night just to see if you
would be there. You--you staggered us, the other evening. We were glad
when you didn't appear--if you won't misunderstand. It is so unexpected,
in this environment. I shall be curious to see how far you can carry it
out." He was leaning against the banister, looking at them as if they
were abstract propositions rather than young girls, and they felt
unwontedly at ease.
"To the very end," Dora asserted. "We begin teaching Monday, and--and we
have to find a place to board." Her color rose a little, but she smiled.
"That _is_ plucky," he commented. "We can help you there; I know a
number of places. When do you want to move?"
"To-morrow," they answered in unison.
He consulted an engagement-book, reflected a few moments, then made a
note.
"Morton or I will call for you to-morrow at three," he announced with
business-like brevity. "I think I know just the place, but we will give
you a choice. If you really wish to move in at once, you could have your
things packed, ready to be sent for."
"Oh, we do!" said Cora. He glanced meditatively at their fine and
glowing faces.
"Of course you won't be comfortable, luxurious, as you are here," he
warned them, with a nod toward the great paneled hall. Mrs. Baldwin
passed the drawing-room door below with the stately tread of a reviewing
officer.
"Oh, we don't care!" they exclaimed eagerly.
The next day their mother treated the twins as if they were not. She
spoke no word to them and did not seem to hear their husky little
efforts at reconciliation. They found it hard to remember persistently
that they were revolutionists rather than children in disgrace. She was
unapproachable in her own room when Mr. White and Mr. Morton came for
them.
"Well, we can't help it," they said sadly as they locked their two
trunks and went down the stairs.
Three hours later the twins had entered a new world and were rapturously
making an omelet in a kitchen that had begun life as a closet, while Mr.
Morton put up shelves and hooks and Mr. White tacked green burlap over
gloomy wall-paper. Groceries and kitchen utensils and amusing make-shift
furniture kept arriving in exciting profusion. They had not dreamed that
there was such happiness in the world.
"If only mother will forgive us, it will be simply perfect!" they told
each other when they settled down for the night in their hard little
cots. They said that many times in the days that followed. The utter joy
of work and freedom and simplicity had no other blemish.
For five weeks Mrs. Baldwin remained obdurate. Then, one Sunday
afternoon, she appeared, cold, critical, resentful still; lifted her
eyebrows at the devices of their light housekeeping; looked disgusted
when they pointed out from the window the little cafe where they
sometimes dined; and offered to consent to their social retirement if
they would give up the teaching and come home. The twins were troubled
and apologetic, but inflexible. They had found the life they were meant
for; they could not give it up. If she knew how happy they were!
"How, with your bringing up, you can enjoy this!" she marveled. "It
isn't respectable--eating in nasty little holes alone at night!"
"But it is a nice, clean place, and Mr. White and Mr. Morton are nearly
always with us," Dora began, then broke off at an expression of pleased
enlightenment that flashed across her mother's face. "They are just very
good friends," she explained gravely; "they don't take us as girls at
all--that is why we have such nice times with them. We are simply
comrades, and interested in the same books and problems."
"And they bother about us chiefly because we are a sort of sociological
demonstration to them," Cora added. "They like experiments of every
kind."
"Ah, yes, I understand," assented Mrs. Baldwin. "Well, you certainly are
fixed up very nicely here. If you want anything from home, let me know.
After all, it is a piquant little adventure. If you are happy in it, I
suppose I ought not to complain."
She was all complacence and compliment the rest of her visit. When she
went away, the girls glanced uneasily at each other.
"She took a wrong idea in her head," said Dora. "I do hope we undeceived
her. It would be hard for her to understand how wholly mental and
impersonal our friendship is with those two."
"Well, she will see in time, when nothing comes of it," said Cora
confidently. "That's their ring, now. Oh, Dora, isn't our life nice!"
Mrs. Baldwin, passing down the shabby front steps, might have seen the
two men approaching, one with an armful of books and the other with a
potted plant; but she apparently did not recognize them, for she stepped
into her carriage without a sign. The visit seemed to have left a
pleasant memory with her, however; her bland serenity, as she drove
away, was not unlike that of the cat which has just swallowed the
canary.
FALL STYLES IN FACES[5]
BY WALLACE IRWIN
Faces this Fall will lead the styles
More than in former years
With something very neat in smiles
Well trimmed with eyes and ears.
The Gayer Set, so rumor hints,
Will have their noses made
In all the famous Highball Tints--
A bright carnation shade.
For morning wear in club and lobby,
The Dark Brown Taste will be the hobby.
In Wall Street they will wear a gaze
To match the paving-stones.
(This kind, Miss Ida Tarbell says,
John Rockefeller owns.)
Loud mouths, sharp glances, furtive looks
Will be displayed upon
The faces of the best-groomed crooks
Convened in Washington.
Among the Saints of doubtful morals
Some will wear halos, others laurels.
Checkered careers will be displayed
On faces neatly lined,
And vanity will still parade
In smirks--the cheaper kind.
Chins will appear in Utah's zone
Adorned with lace-like frizzes,
And something striking will be shown
In union-labor phizzes.
The gentry who have done the races
Show something new in Poker Faces.
Cheek will supplant Stiff Upper Lips
And take the place of Chin;
The waiters will wear ostrich tips
When tipping days begin.
The Wilhelm Moustache, curled with scorn,
Will show the jaw beneath,
And the Roosevelt Smile will still be worn
Cut wide around the teeth.
If Frenzied Finance waxes stronger
Stocks will be "short" and faces longer.
But if you have a well-made face
That's durable and firm,
Its features you need not replace--
'Twill wear another term.
Two eyes, a nose, a pair of ears,
A chin that's clean and strong
Will serve their owner many years
And never go far wrong.
But if your face is shoddy, Brother,
Run to the store and buy another!
FOOTNOTES:
[5] From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1905,
by Fox, Duffield & Co.
HAD A SET OF DOUBLE TEETH
BY HOLMAN F. DAY
Oh, listen while I tell you a truthful little tale
Of a man whose teeth were double all the solid way around;
He could jest as slick as preachin' bite in two a shingle-nail,
Or squonch a molded bullet, sah, and ev'ry tooth was sound.
I've seen him lift a keg of pork, a-bitin' on the chine,
And he'd clench a rope and hang there like a puppy to a root;
And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank up on the line,
But he couldn't do no business with that double-toothed galoot.
He was luggin' up some shingles,--bunch, sah, underneath each arm,--
The time that he was shinglin' of the Baptist meetin'-house;
The ladder cracked and buckled, but he didn't think no harm,
When all at once she busted, and he started down kersouse.
His head, sah, when she busted, it was jest abreast the eaves;
And he nipped, sah, quicker 'n lightnin', and he gripped there with
his teeth,
And he never dropped the shingles, but he hung to both the sheaves,
Though the solid ground was suttenly more 'n thirty feet beneath.
He held there and he kicked there and he squirmed, but no one come;
He was workin' on the roof alone--there war'n't no folks around--
He hung like death to niggers till his jaw was set and numb,
And he reely thought he'd have to drop them shingles on the ground.
But all at once old Skillins come a-toddlin' down the street;
Old Skil is sort of hump-backed, and he allus looks straight down;
So he never seed the motions of them number 'leven feet,
And he went a-amblin' by him--the goramded blind old clown!
Now this ere part is truthful--ain't a-stretchin' it a mite,--
When the feller seed that Skillins was a-walkin' past the place,
Let go his teeth and hollered, but he grabbed back quick and tight,
'Fore he had a chance to tumble, and he hung there by the face.
And he never dropped the shingles, and he never missed his grip,
And he stepped out on the ladder when they raised it underneath;
And up he went a-flukin' with them shingles on his hip,
And there's the satisfaction of a havin' double teeth.
PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES
BY BRET HARTE
Which I wish to remark--
And my language is plain--
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name,
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
It was euchre--the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat at the table
With the smile that was childlike and bland.
Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made
Were quite frightful to see,
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor;"
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding
In the game "he did not understand."
In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers--that's wax.
Which is why I remark--
And my language is plain--
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain.
POSSESSION
BY WILLIAM J. LAMPTON
Oh, give me whatever I do not possess,
No matter whatever it be;
So long as I haven't it that is enough,
I fancy, to satisfy me.
No matter whatever I happen to have,
I have it; and what I have not
Seems all that is good of the good things of earth
To lighten the lack of my lot.
No covetous spirit incites the desire
To have what I haven't, I'm sure;
Because when I have what I haven't, I want
What I haven't, the same as before.
So, give me whatever I do not possess,
No matter whatever it be;
And yet--
To have what I haven't is having, and that
Destroys all the pleasure for me.
HER BROTHER: ENFANT TERRIBLE[6]
BY EDWIN L. SABIN
This is Her brother; angel-faced,--
Barring freckles and turned-up nose,--
Demon-minded--a word well based,
As nearer acquaintance will disclose.
From outward guise the most sage of men
Would never guess what within lies hid!
If years we reckon, in age scant ten;
If cunning, old as a pyramid.
This is Her brother, who sticks and sticks
Tighter than even a brother should;
Brimming over with teasing tricks,
Hardened to bribe and "_please_ be good";
And who, when at last afar we deem,
In some sly recess but lurks in wait
To note the progress of love's young dream--
And we learn of his presence too late, too late!
This is Her brother, with watchful eyes,
Piercing, shameless, and indiscreet,
With ears wide open for soft replies
And sounds that are sibilant and sweet!
With light approach (not a lynx so still),
With figure meanly invisible,
With threatening voice and iron will,
And shrill demands or he'll "go and tell!"
This is Her brother--and I submit
To paying out quarters and sundry dimes;
This is Her brother--whose urchin wit
Moves me to wrath a thousand times;
This is Her brother--and hence I smile
And jest and cringe at his tyranny,
And call him "smart"! But just wait a while
Till he's _my_ brother--and then we'll see!
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Lippincott's Magazine.
THE JACKPOT
BY IRONQUILL
I sauntered down through Europe,
I wandered up the Nile,
I sought the mausoleums where the mummied Pharaohs lay;
I found the sculptured tunnel
Where quietly in style
Imperial sarcophagi concealed the royal clay.
Above the vault was graven deep the motto of the crown:
"Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."
It's strange what deep impressions
Are made by little things.
Within the granite tunneling I saw a dingy cleft;
It was a cryptic chamber.
I drew, and got four kings.
But on a brief comparison I laid them down and left,
Because upon the granite stood that sentence bold and brown:
"Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."
I make this observation:
A man with such a hand
Has psychologic feelings that perhaps he should not feel,
But I was somewhat rattled
And in a foreign land,
And had some dim suspicions, as I had not watched the deal.
And there was that inscription, too, in words that seemed to frown:
"Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."
These letters were not graven
In Anglo-Saxon tongue;
Perhaps if you had seen them you had idly passed them by.
I studied erudition
When I was somewhat young;
I recognized the language when it struck my classic eye;
I saw a maxim suitable for monarch or for clown:
"Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."
Detesting metaphysics,
I can not help but put
A philosophic moral where I think it ought to hang;
I've seen a "boom" for office
Grow feeble at the root,
Then change into a boomlet--then to a boomerang.
In caucus or convention, in village or in town:
"Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."
DUM VIVIMUS VIGILAMUS
BY JOHN PAUL
Turn out more ale, turn up the light;
I will not go to bed to-night.
Of all the foes that man should dread
The first and worst one is a bed.
Friends I have had both old and young,
And ale we drank and songs we sung:
Enough you know when this is said,
That, one and all,--they died in bed.
In bed they died and I'll not go
Where all my friends have perished so.
Go you who glad would buried be,
But not to-night a bed for me.
For me to-night no bed prepare,
But set me out my oaken chair.
And bid no other guests beside
The ghosts that shall around me glide;
In curling smoke-wreaths I shall see
A fair and gentle company.
Though silent all, rare revelers they,
Who leave you not till break of day.
Go you who would not daylight see,
But not to-night a bed for me:
For I've been born and I've been wed--
All of man's peril comes of bed.
And I'll not seek--whate'er befall--
Him who unbidden comes to all.
A grewsome guest, a lean-jawed wight--
God send he do not come to-night!
But if he do, to claim his own,
He shall not find me lying prone;
But blithely, bravely, sitting up,
And raising high the stirrup-cup.
Then if you find a pipe unfilled,
An empty chair, the brown ale spilled;
Well may you know, though naught be said,
That I've been borne away to bed.
AT AUNTY'S HOUSE
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
One time, when we'z at Aunty's house--
'Way in the country!--where
They's ist but woods--an' pigs, an' cows--
An' all's out-doors an' air!--
An' orchurd-swing; an' churry-trees--
An' _churries_ in 'em!--Yes, an' these-
Here red-head birds steals all they please,
An' tetch 'em ef you dare!--
W'y, wunst, one time, when we wuz there,
_We et out on the porch_!
Wite where the cellar-door wuz shut
The table wuz; an' I
Let Aunty set by me an' cut
My vittuls up--an' pie.
'Tuz awful funny!--I could see
The red-heads in the churry-tree;
An' bee-hives, where you got to be
So keerful, goin' by;--
An' "Comp'ny" there an' all!--an' we--
_We et out on the porch_!
An' I ist et _p'surves_ an' things
'At Ma don't 'low me to--
An' _chickun-gizzurds_--(don't like _wings_
Like _Parunts_ does! do _you_?)
An' all the time, the wind blowed there,
An' I could feel it in my hair,
An' ist smell clover _ever'_where!--
An' a' old red-head flew
Purt' nigh wite over my high-chair,
_When we et on the porch_!
WILLY AND THE LADY
BY GELETT BURGESS
Leave the lady, Willy, let the racket rip,
She is going to fool you, you have lost your grip,
Your brain is in a muddle and your heart is in a whirl,
Come along with me, Willy, never mind the girl!
Come and have a man-talk;
Come with those who _can_ talk;
Light your pipe and listen, and the boys will see you through;
Love is only chatter,
Friends are all that matter;
Come and talk the man-talk; that's the cure for you!
Leave the lady, Willy, let her letter wait,
You'll forget your troubles when you get it straight,
The world is full of women, and the women full of wile;
Come along with me, Willy, we can make you smile!
Come and have a man-talk,
A rousing black-and-tan talk,
There are plenty there to teach you; there's a lot for you to do;
Your head must stop its whirling
Before you go a-girling;
Come and talk the man-talk; that's the cure for you
Leave the lady, Willy, the night is good and long,
Time for beer and 'baccy, time to have a song;
Where the smoke is swirling, sorrow if you can--
Come along with me, Willy, come and be a man!
Come and have a man-talk,
Come with those who _can_ talk,
Light your pipe and listen, and the boys will see you through;
Love is only chatter,
Friends are all that matter;
Come and talk the man-talk; that's the cure for you!
Leave the lady, Willy, you are rather young;
When the tales are over, when the songs are sung,
When the men have made you, try the girl again;
Come along with me, Willy, you'll be better then!
Come and have a man-talk,
Forget your girl-divan talk;
You've got to get acquainted with another point of view!
Girls will only fool you;
We're the ones to school you;
Come and talk the man-talk; that's the cure for you!
A NEW YEAR IDYL
BY EUGENE FIELD
Upon this happy New Year night,
A roach crawls up my pot of paste,
And begs me for a tiny taste.
Aye, eat thy fill, for it is right
That while the rest of earth is glad,
And bells are ringing wild and free,
Thou shouldst not, gentle roachling, be
Forlorn and gaunt and weak and sad.
This paste to-night especially
For thee and all thy kind I fixed,
You'll find some whiskey in it mixed,
For which you have to thank but me.
So freely of the banquet take,
And if you chance to find a drop
Of liquor, prithee do not stop
But quaff it for thy stomach's sake.
Why dost thou stand upon thy head,
All etiquette requirements scorning,
And sing "You won't go home till morning"
And "Put me in my little bed"?
Your tongue, fair roach, is very thick,
Your eyes are red, your cheeks are pale,
Your underpinning seems to fail,
You are, I wot, full as a tick.
ENVOI
I think I see that roach's home,
That roach's wife, with broom in hand,
That roach come staggering homeward and
Then all is glum and gloom and gloam.
A LAY OF ANCIENT ROME
BY THOMAS YBARRA
Oh! the Roman was a rogue,
He erat, was, you bettum;
He ran his automobilis
And smoked his cigarettum;
He wore a diamond studibus,
An elegant cravattum,
A maxima cum laude shirt,
And _such_ a stylish hattum!
He loved the luscious hic-hæc-hock,
And bet on games and equi;
At times he won; at others, though,
He got it in the nequi;
He winked (quo usque tandem?)
At puellas on the Forum,
And sometimes even made
Those goo-goo oculorum!
He frequently was seen
At combats gladiatorial,
And ate enough to feed
Ten boarders at Memorial;
He often went on sprees
And said, on starting homus,
"Hic labor--opus est,
Oh, where's my hic--hic--domus?"
Although he lived in Rome--
Of all the arts the middle--
He was (excuse the phrase)
A horrid individ'l;
Ah! what a diff'rent thing
Was the homo (dative, hominy)
Of far-away B. C.
From us of Anno Domini.
LITTLE BOPEEP AND LITTLE BOY BLUE
BY SAMUEL MINTURN PECK
It happened one morning that Little Bopeep,
While watching her frolicsome, mischievous sheep
Out in the meadow, fell fast asleep.
By her wind-blown tresses and rose-leaf pout,
And her dimpling smile, you'd have guessed, no doubt,
'Twas love, love, love she was dreaming about.
As she lay there asleep, came little Boy Blue,
Right over the stile where the daisies grew;
Entranced by the picture, he stopped in the dew.
So wildly bewitching that beautiful morn
Was Little Bopeep that he dropped his horn
And thought no more of the cows in the corn.
Our sorrows are many, our pleasures are few;
O moment propitious! What could a man do?
He kissed the wee lassie, that Little Boy Blue!
At the smack the woolies stood all in a row,
And whispered each other, "We're clearly _de trop_;
Such conduct is perfectly shocking--let's go!"
"FESTINA LENTE"
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
Blessings on thee, little man,
Hasten slowly as you can;
Loiter nimbly on your tramp
With the ten-cent speedy stamp.
Thou art "boss"; the business man
Postals writes for thee to scan;
And the man who writes, "With speed,"
Gets it--in his mind--indeed.
Lo, the man who penned the note
Wasted ten cents when he wrote;
And the maid for it will wait
At the window, by the gate,
In the doorway, down the street,
List'ning for thy footsteps fleet.
But her cheek will flush and pale,
Till it comes next day by mail,
With thine own indorsement neat--
"No such number on the street."
Oh, if words could but destroy,
Thou wouldst perish, truthful boy!
Oh, for boyhood's easy way--
Messenger who sleeps all day,
Or, from rise to set of sun,
Reads "The Terror" on the run.
For your sport, the band goes by;
For your perch, the lamp post high;
For your pleasure, on the street
Dogs are fighting, drums are beat;
For your sake, the boyish fray,
Organ grinder, run-away;
Trucks for your convenience are;
For your ease, the bob-tail car;
Every time and everywhere
You're not wanted, you are there.
Dawdling, whistling, loit'ring scamp,
Seest thou this ten-cent stamp?
Stay thou not for book or toy--
Vamos! Fly! Skedaddle, boy!
THE GENIAL IDIOT DISCUSSES LEAP YEAR
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
"If I were a woman," said the Idiot, "I think that unless I had an
affidavit from the man, sworn to before a notary and duly signed and
sealed, stating that he did the proposing, I should decline to marry, or
announce my engagement to be married in Leap Year. It is one of the
drawbacks which the special privilege of Leap Year confers upon women
that it puts them under suspicion of having done the courting if the
thing comes out during the year."
"Don't you worry about that," laughed Mrs. Pedagog. "You can go through
this country with a fine tooth comb and I'll wager you you won't find a
woman anywhere who avails herself of the privilege who wouldn't have
done the same thing in any old year if she wanted to. Of all the funny
old superstitions, the quaintest of the lot is that Leap Year proposal
business."
"How you talk," cried the Idiot. "Such iconoclasm. I had always supposed
that Leap Year was a sort of matrimonial safety valve for old maids, and
here in a trice you overthrow all the cherished notions of a lifetime.
Why, Mrs. Pedagog, I know men who take to the woods every Leap Year just
to escape the possibilities."
"Courageous souls," said the landlady. "Facing the unknown perils of the
forest, rather than manfully meeting a proposal of marriage."
"It is hard to say no to a woman," said the Idiot. "I'd hate like time
to have one of 'em come to me and ask me to be hers. Just imagine it.
Some dainty little damsel of a soulful nature, with deep blue eyes, and
golden curls, and pearly teeth, and cherry lips, a cheek like the soft
and ripening peach and a smile that would bewitch even a Saint Anthony,
getting down on her knees and saying, 'O Idiot--dearest Idiot--be
mine--I love you, devotedly, tenderly, all through the Roget's
Thesaurusly, and have from the moment I first saw you. With you to share
it my lot in life will be heaven itself. Without you a Saharan waste of
Arctic frigidity. Wilt thou?' I think I'd wilt. I couldn't bring myself
to say 'No, Ethelinda, I can not be yours because my heart is set on a
strengthful damsel with raven locks and eyes of coal, with lips a shade
less cherry than thine, and a cheek more like the apple than the peach,
who can go out on the links and play golf with me. But if you ever need
a brother in your business I am the floor-walker that will direct you to
the bargain-counter where you'll find the latest thing in brothers at
cost.' I'd simply cave in on the instant and say, 'All right, Ethelinda,
call a cab and we'll trot around to the Little Church Around the Corner
and tie the knot; that is, my love, if you think you can support me in
the style to which I am accustomed."
Mr. Brief laughed. "I wouldn't bother if I were you, Mr. Idiot," said
he. "Women don't tie up very strongly to Idiots."
"Oh don't they," retorted the Idiot. "Well, do you know I had a sort of
notion that they did. The men that some of the nice girls I have known
in my day have tied up to have somehow or other given me the impression
that a woman has a special leaning toward Idiots. There was my old
sweetheart, Sallie Wiggins, for instance--that wasn't her real name, of
course, but she was one of the finest girls that ever attended a
bargain sale. She had a mind far above the ordinary. She could read
Schopenhauer at sight; understand Browning in a minute; her soul was as
big as her heart and her heart was two and a half sizes larger than the
universe. She was so strong-minded that although she could write poetry
she wouldn't, and in the last year of her single blessedness she was the
Queen-pin among the girls of her set. What she said was law, and
emancipation of her sex was her only vice. Well, what do you think
happened to Sallie Wiggins? After refusing every fine man in town,
including myself,--I must say I only asked her five times; no telling
what a sixth would have brought forth--she succumbed to the
blandishments of the first sapheaded young Lochinvar that came out of
the west, married him, and is now the smiling mother of nine children,
does all the family sewing, makes her own parlor bric-a-brac out of the
discarded utensils of the kitchen, dresses herself on ninety dollars a
decade, and is happy."
"But if she loved him--" began the Lawyer.
"Impossible," said the Idiot. "She pitied him. She knew that if she
didn't marry him, and take charge of him, another woman would, and that
the chances were ten to one that the other woman wouldn't do the thing
right and that Saphead's life would be ruined forever."
"But you say she is happy," persisted the Lawyer.
"Certainly she is," said the Idiot. "Because her life is an eternal
sacrifice to Saphead's needs, and if there is a luxury in this mundane
sphere that woman essentially craves it is the luxury of sacrifice.
There is something fanatic about it. Sallie Wiggins voluntarily turned
her back on seven men that I know of, one of whom is a Governor of his
state; two of whom are now in Congress; one of whom is a judge of a
state court; two of whom have become millionaire merchants; and the
seventh of whom is to-day, probably, the most brilliant ornament of the
penitentiary. Everyone of 'em turned down for Saphead, a man who parted
his hair in the middle, couldn't earn seven dollars a century on his
wits, is destined to remain hopelessly nothing, keeps her busy sewing
buttons on his clothes, and to save his life couldn't tell the
difference between Matthew Arnold and an automobile, and yet you tell me
that women don't care for idiots."
"Miss Wiggins--or Mrs. Saphead, to be more precise," said Mr. Brief, "is
only one instance."
"Well--there was Margaret Perkins--same town--same experience,"
said the Idiot. "Lovely girl--sought after by everybody--proposed
to her myself five times--President of the Mental Culture Society
of Baggville--graduate of Smythe--woman-member of Board of
Education--Director of Young Girls' Institute--danced like a dream--had
a sense of humor--laughed at my jokes--and married--what?"
"Well, what?" demanded the Lawyer.
"Prof. Omega Nit Zero, teacher of Cingalese in the University of
Oklawaha, founded by a millionaire from Geneseo, New Jersey, who owned a
hotel on the Oklawaha River that didn't pay, and hoped to brace up a bad
investment by the establishment in the vicinity of a centre of culture.
Prof. Zero receives ten dollars a week, and with his wife and three
pupils constitutes the whole faculty, board of trustees, janitor, and
student body of the University," said the Idiot. "Mrs. Zero dresses on
nothing a year; cares for her five children on the same basis, and is
happy. They are the principal patrons of the Oklawaha Hotel."
"Well--if she is happy?" said the Bibliomaniac. "What business is it of
anybody else? I think if Prof. Zero makes her happy he's the right kind
of a man."
"You couldn't make Zero the right kind of a man," said the Idiot. "He
isn't built that way. He wears men's clothes and he has sweet manners,
and a dulcet voice, and the learning of the serpent; but when it comes
to manhood he has the initiative of the turtle, lacking the cash value
of the terrapin, or the turtle's mock brother; he wears a beard, but it
is the beard of the bearded lady who up-to-date appears to be a useless
appanage of the strenuous life; and when you try to get at his
Americanism, if he has any, he flies off into stilted periods having to
do with the superior virtues of the Cingalese. And Margaret Perkins that
was hangs on his utterances as though he were a very archangel."
"Good," ejaculated Mr. Brief. "I am glad to hear that she is happy."
"So am I," said the Idiot. "But such happiness."
"Well, what's it all got to do with Leap Year, anyhow?" asked the
Bibliomaniac.
"Nothing at all, except that it proves that girls aren't fitted really
to choose their own husbands, and that therefore the special privilege
conferred upon them by the recurrence of Leap Year should be rescinded
by law," said the Idiot. "That privilege, owing to woman's incapacity to
choose correctly, and man's weakness in the use of negatives, is a
standing menace to the future happiness of the people."
"Hoity-toity," cried Mrs. Pedagog. "What a proposition. Tell me, Mr.
Idiot, if a woman is not capable of selecting her own husband, who on
earth is? Man himself--that embodiment of all the wisdom and all the
sagacity of the ages?"
"I didn't say so," said the Idiot. "And I don't really think so," he
added. "The whole institution of getting engaged to be married should be
regulated by the public authorities. Every county should have its
Matrimonial Bureau, whose duty it should be to pair off all the eligible
candidates in the matrimonial market, and in pairing them off it should
be done on a basis of mutual fitness. Bachelors and old maids should be
legislated out of existence, and nobody should be allowed to marry a
second time until everybody else had been provided for. It is perfectly
scandalous to me to read in the newspapers that a prominent widow in a
certain town has married her third husband, when it is known that that
same city contains 25,000 old maids who haven't the ghost of a show
unless the State steps in and helps them out. What business has any
woman to work up a corner in husbands, with so many of her sisters
absolutely starving matrimonially?"
"And the young people are to have nothing to say about it, eh?" asked
Mr. Brief.
"Oh yes--they can put in an application to the Bureau stating that they
want to wed, and the Board of Managers can consider the desirability of
issuing a permit," said the Idiot. "And they should be compelled to show
cause why they should not be restrained from getting married. It is only
in such a way that the state can reasonably guarantee the permanence of
a contract to which it is in a sense a party. The State, by the
establishment of certain laws, demands that the marriage contract shall
practically be a life affair. It should therefore take it upon itself to
see to it that there is a tolerable prospect at least that the contract
is a just one. Many a poor woman has been bound to a life-long
obligation of misery in which no consideration whatever has been paid by
the party of the second part. If a contract without consideration will
not stand in commerce, why should it in matrimony?"
"What you ought to go in for is Mormonism," snapped Mrs. Pedagog. "Keep
on getting married until you've found just the right one and then get
rid of all the others."
"That is a pleasing alternative," said the Idiot. "But expensive. I'd
hate to pay a milliner's bill for a Mormon household--but anyhow we
needn't grow acrimonious over the subject, for whatever I may think of
matrimony as she exists to-day, all the injustices, inequalities,
miseries of it, and all that, I prefer it to acrimony, and I haven't the
slightest idea that my dream of perfect conditions will ever be
realized. Only, Mary--"
"Yessir?" said the Maid.
"If between this and the first of January, 1905, any young ladies, or
old ones either, call here and ask for me--"
"Yessir," said the Maid.
"Tell 'em I've gone to Nidjni-Novgorod and am not expected back for
eleven years," said the Idiot. "I'm not going to take any chances."
COMPLETE INDEX
ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED BY AUTHORS
ADAMS, CHARLES FOLLEN
Bary Jade, To, 1899
Der Oak und der Vine, 1823
Shonny Schwartz, 1206
Yawcob Strauss, 370
ADE, GEORGE
Hon. Ransom Peabody, 1429
ADELER, MAX (see CHARLES HEBER CLARK)
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY
Our New Neighbors at Ponkapog, 403
ALLEN, NINA R.
Women and Bargains, 1352
AMSBARY, WALLACE BRUCE
Anatole Dubois at de Horse Show, 152
De Gradual Commence, 1164
Oncl' Antoine on 'Change, 1891
Rubaiyat of Mathieu Lettellier, 1965
Tim Flanagan's Mistake, 1673
Verre Definite, 1183
ANONYMOUS
Book-Canvasser, The, 1113
Country School, The, 1734
Merchant and the Book-Agent, The, 1124
APPLETON, JACK
Modern Farmer, The, 1083
ARP, BILL (see CHARLES H. SMITH)
BAGBY, GEORGE W.
How "Ruby" Played, 311
BAILEY, JAMES MONTGOMERY ("The Danbury News Man")
After the Funeral, 1146
Mr. Stiver's Horse, 464
BALDWIN, JOSEPH G.
Assault and Battery, 1391
BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK
By Bay and Sea, 1367
Genial Idiot Discusses Leap Year, The, 2018
Genial Idiot Discusses the Music Cure, The, 1105
Genial Idiot Suggests a Comic Opera, The, 504
Gentle Art of Boosting, The, 1575
University Intelligence Office, The, 1727
BATCHELDER, FRANK ROE
Happy Land, The, 1389
Wicked Zebra, The, 1322
BAXTER, BILLY (see WILLIAM J. KOUNTZ, JR.)
BECKER, CHARLOTTE
Modern Advantage, A, 642
BEDOTT, WIDOW (see FRANCES M. WHICHER)
BEECHER, HENRY WARD
Deacon's Trout, The, 212
Organ, The, 217
BELDEN, J. V. Z.
A Committee from Kelly's, 929
BILLINGS, JOSH (see HENRY W. SHAW)
BOYNTON, H. W.
The Golfer's Rubaiyat, 319
BRIDGES, MADELINE
A Mothers' Meeting, 1886
BROWNE, CHARLES FARRAR ("Artemus Ward")
Tower of London, The, 528
Uncle Simon and Uncle Jim, 539
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN
The Mosquito, 1199
BURDETTE, ROBERT J.
Archæological Congress, An, 390
Brakeman at Church, The, 1323
Day We Do Not Celebrate, The, 134
"Festina Lente", 2016
Margins, 1297
My First Cigar, 1204
Plaint of Jonah, The, 485
Rollo Learning to Play, 912
Rollo Learning to Read, 448
Soldier, Rest, 1796
Songs Without Words, 1261
Strike at Hinman's, The, 342
What Lack We Yet, 1897
BURGESS, GELETT
Bohemians of Boston, The, 519
Nonsense Verses, 1244
Purple Cow, The, 13
Vive la Bagatelle, 280
Willy and the Lady, 2009
BUTLER, ELLIS PARKER
The Crimson Cord, 470
BUTLER, WILLIAM ALLEN
Nothing to Wear, 1435
CARLETON, HENRY GUY
The Thompson Street Poker Club, 1140
CARMAN, BLISS
Modern Eclogue, A, 645
In Philistia, 567
Sceptics, The, 1626
Spring Feeling, A, 1129
Staccato to O Le Lupe, A, 1499
CARRUTH, HAYDEN
Familiar Authors at Work, 289
Uncle Bentley and the Roosters, 1873
CARRYL, CHARLES E.
Nautical Ballad, A, 348
CARY, PHOEBE
"Day Is Done, The", 1628
I Remember, I Remember, 652
Jacob, 1898
Marriage of Sir John Smith, The, 803
Psalm of Life, A, 207
Samuel Brown, 259
"There's a Bower of Bean-Vines", 1916
When Lovely Woman, 1834
CHALLING, JOHN
Rhyme for Christmas, A, 1290
CHAMBERS, ROBERT W.
Recruit, The, 230
CHESTER, GEORGE RANDOLPH
Especially Men, 937
CLARK, CHARLES HEBER ("Max Adeler")
Millionaires, The, 1675
CLARKE, JOSEPH I. C.
Fighting Race, The, 214
CLEMENS, SAMUEL L.
Evidence in the Case of Smith vs. Jones, The, 1918
Great Prize Fight, The, 1903
Nevada Sketches, 1805
CONE, HELEN AVERY
Spring Beauties, The, 805
COOKE, EDMUND VANCE
Daniel Come to Judgment, A, 1399
Final Choice, The, 1427
CORTISSOZ, ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON
Praise-God Barebones, 765
COX, KENYON
Bumblebeaver, The, 1145
Octopussycat, The, 1112
Paintermine, The, 1100
Welsh Rabbittern, The, 1120
Wild Boarder, The, 1163
COZZENS, FREDERICK S.
Family Horse, The, 715
CRANE, FRANK
Wamsley's Automatic Pastor, 511
CRAYON, PORTE (see B. F. STROTHER)
Culbertson, Anne Virginia
Comin' Thu, 333
Go Lightly, Gal (The Cake-Walk), 317
How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Beard, 1328
How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Plumage and Whistle, 1360
Mr. Hare Tries to Get a Wife, 921
Quit Yo' Worryin, 934
Whar Dem Sinful Apples Grow, 903
Why Moles Have Hands, 202
Woman Who Married an Owl, The, 838
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM
Our Best Society, 233
CUTTING, MARY STEWART
Not According to Schedule, 1448
DALE, ALAN
Wanted--A Cook, 35
DAVIES, JOHN JAMES
Ballade of the "How To" Books, A, 416
DAY, HOLMAN F.
Had a Set of Double Teeth, 1994
When the Allegash Drive Goes Through, 1214
DERBY, GEORGE H. ("John Phoenix")
Lectures on Astronomy, 847
Musical Review Extraordinary, 824
DEVERE, WILLIAM
Walk, 300
DODGE, MARY ABIGAIL ("Gail Hamilton")
Complaint of Friends, A, 604
DOOLEY, MR. (see FINLEY PETER DUNNE)
DOWNING, MAJOR JACK (see SEBA SMITH)
DRUMMOND, WILLIAM HENRY
De Stove Pipe Hole, 774
Natural Philosophy, 1722
When Albani Sang, 92
DUNNE, FINLEY PETER ("Mr. Dooley")
Mr. Dooley on Expert Testimony, 844
Mr. Dooley on the Game of Football, 1059
Mr. Dooley on Gold-Seeking, 304
Mr. Dooley on Golf, 1630
Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates, 321
EGGLESTON, EDWARD
Spelling Down the Master, 138
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO
Fable, 1358
FIELD, EUGENE
Advertiser, The, 1101
James and Reginald, 1171
Lost Chords, 1080
New Year Idyl, A, 2011
Story of the Two Friars, The, 588
Utah, 1305
Warrior, The, 1708
Winter Joys, 1868
FIELD, KATE
Night in a Rocking-Chair, A, 905
Rival Entertainment, A, 362
FIELDS, JAMES T.
Cæsar's Quiet Lunch with Cicero, 760
Owl-Critic, The, 1196
Pettibone Lineage, The, 196
FINN, HENRY J.
Curse of the Competent, The, 14
FISK, MAY ISABEL
Evening Musicale, An, 325
FLAGG, JAMES MONTGOMERY
Branch Library, A, 1446
Table Manners, 1400
FLOWER, ELLIOTT
Co-operative Housekeepers, The, 927
Her "Angel" Father, 936
Strike of One, The, 870
FOLEY, J. W.
Sonnets of the Lovable Lass and the Plethoric Dad, 723
FORD, JAMES L.
Dying Gag, The, 569
FORD, SEWELL
In Defence of an Offering, 1248
FOSS, SAM WALTER
Cable-Car Preacher, A, 647
He Wanted to Know, 1794
"Hullo", 1706
Prayer of Cyrus Brown, The, 1398
She Talked, 264
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN
Maxims, 1804
Paper: A Poem, 1548
FRENCH, ALICE ("Octave Thanet")
Fairport Art Museum, The, 1062
FRENCH, ANNE WARNER ("Anne Warner")
So Wags the World, 1092
Wolf at Susan's Door, The, 626
GILLILAN, STRICKLAND W.
Mammy's Lullaby, 542
GILMAN, CAROLINE HOWARD
Colonel's Clothes, The, 396
GILMAN, CHARLOTTE PERKINS
Similar Cases, 56
GRAY, DAVID
Mr. Carteret and His Fellow Americans Abroad, 1462
GREENE, ALBERT GORTON
Old Grimes, 818
GREENE, ROY FARRELL
Educational Project, An, 1264
Wasted Opportunities, 1132
Woman-Hater Reformed, The, 1359
GREENE, SARAH P. MCLEAN
Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready for Sunday-School 266
HABBERTON, JOHN
Budge and Toddie, 1692
HALE, EDWARD EVERETT
Skeleton in the Closet, The, 1371
HALE, LUCRETIA P.
Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper, 454
HALIBURTON, T. C. ("Sam Slick")
Road to a Woman's Heart, The, 1487
HALL, BAYNARD RUST
Camp-Meeting, The, 1265
Selecting the Faculty, 437
HAMILTON, GAIL (see MARY ABIGAIL DODGE)
HARLAND, HENRY
Invisible Prince, The,1836
HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER
My Honey, My Love, 691
HARRIS, KENNETT
Trial that Job Missed, The, 1917
HARTE, FRANCIS BRET
Melons, 1
Plain Language from Truthful James, 1997
Society upon the Stanislaus, The, 1078
HARTSWICK, JENNIE BETTS
Weddin', The, 1134
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL
British Matron, The, 192
HAY, JOHN
Banty Tim, 1173
Distichs, 65
Mystery of Gilgal, The, 1654
HENRY, O. (see SYDNEY PORTER)
HERFORD, OLIVER
Alphabet of Celebrities, 1243
HOBART, GEORGE V. ("Hugh McHugh")
John Henry in a Street Car, 177
HOLLEY, MARIETTA ("Josiah Allen's Wife")
How We Bought a Sewin' Machine and Organ, 729
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, The, 753
Contentment, 1952
Deacon's Masterpiece, or, The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay," The, 9
Dislikes, 536
Evening, 1175
Height of the Ridiculous, The, 1832
Latter-Day Warnings, 1168
HONEYWOOD, ST. JOHN
Darby and Joan, 166
HOOPER, J. J.
Simon Starts in the World, 881
HOUGH, EMERSON
Girl and the Julep, The, 1401
HOVEY, RICHARD
Barney McGee, 223
Her Valentine, 1117
HOWE, E. W.
Letter from Mr. Biggs, A, 69
HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN
Mrs. Johnson, 74
IRONQUILL (see EUGENE F. WARE)
IRVIN, WALLACE
Ballad of Grizzly Gulch, The, 1073
Boat that Ain't, The, 1764
Crankidoxology, 688
Dutiful Mariner, The, 973
Fall Styles in Faces, 1992
Forbearance of the Admiral, The, 1553
Letter from Home, A, 522
Lost Inventor, The, 1385
Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, 307
Meditations of a Mariner, 713
Niagara Be Dammed, 1551
Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark, The, 483
IRVING, WASHINGTON
Wouter Van Twiller, 109
JOHNSON, CHARLES F.
Greco-Trojan Game, The, 595
JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE (see MARIETTA HOLLEY)
KAUFFMAN, REGINALD WRIGHT
Auto Rubaiyat, The, 546
KELLEY, J. F.
Desperate Race, A, 742
KELLY, MYRA
Morris and the Honorable Tim, 488
KISER, S. E.
Budd Wilkins at the Show, 352
Love Sonnets of an Office Boy, 1056
Meeting, The, 1915
Quarrel, The, 68
When Doctors Disagree, 1762
Yankee Dude'll Do, The, 136
KNOTT, J. PROCTOR
Duluth Speech, The, 1606
KOUNTZ, WILLIAM J., JR. ("Billy Baxter")
Grand Opera, The, 693
LAIDLAW, A. H.
It Is Time to Begin to Conclude, 1294
LAMPTON, WILLIAM J.
Critic, The, 1336
New Version, The, 574
Possession, 2000
LANIGAN, GEORGE THOMAS
Threnody, A, 1754
LAUGHLIN, E. O.
Hired Hand and "Ha'nts", The, 419
LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY
Ballad, 355
Breitmann and the Turners, 1217
Breitmann in Politics, 1943
Hans Breitmann's Party, 446
Love Song, 1950
LELAND, HENRY P.
Dutchman Who Had the "Small Pox", The, 295
LESLIE, ELIZA
Set of China, The, 808
LEWIS, ALFRED HENRY
Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt, 98
LEWIS, CHARLES B. ("M. Quad")
Two Cases of Grip, 1239
LOCKE, DAVID ROSS ("Petroleum V. Nasby")
Letter, A, 282
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH
Notary of Perigueux, The, 1251
LONG, JOHN LUTHER
Seffy and Sally, 372
LONGSTREET, A. B.
Shooting-Match, The, 666
LOOMIS, CHARLES BATTELL
Araminta and the Automobile, 1825
Gusher, The, 1656
LORIMER, GEORGE HORACE
Letter from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, A, 961
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL
Chief Mate, The, 1482
Courtin', The, 524
What Mr. Robinson Thinks, 131
LUMMIS, CHARLES F.
My Cigarette, 1292
Poe-'em of Passion, A, 1879
LYNDE, FRANCIS
How Jimaboy Found Himself, 1765
MCHENRY, MAY
Melinda's Humorous Story, 975
MCHUGH, HUGH (see George V. Hobart)
MCINTYRE, JOHN T.
Talking Horse, The, 1185
MACGOWAN, ALICE
Columbia and the Cowboy, 1582
MACGRATH, HAROLD
Enchanted Hat, The, 1510
MACAULEY, CHARLES RAYMOND
Itinerant Tinker, The, 861
MARBLE, DANFORTH
Hoosier and the Salt Pile, The, 357
MASSON, TOM
Desolation, 686
Enough, 213
Hard, 1625
It Pays to Be Happy, 1170
Victory, 714
MOODY, WILLIAM VAUGHN
Menagerie, The, 24
MORRIS, GEORGE P.
Retort, The, 584
MOTT, ED
Old Settler, The, 1177
MUNKITTRICK, R. K.
April Aria, An, 711
Fate, 1554
Goat, The, 1247
Unsatisfied Yearning, 1835
Winter Dusk, 1975
Winter Fancy, A, 1308
M., C. W.
Triolets, 1262
NASBY, PETROLEUM V. (see DAVID ROSS LOCKE)
NAYLOR, JAMES BALL
Comin' Home Thanksgivin, 763
NEFF, ELIZABETH HYER
Life Elixir of Marthy, The, 1555
NESBIT, WILBUR D.
Cry from the Consumer, A, 190
Johnny's Pa, 1802
Odyssey of K's, An, 209
Tale of the Tangled Telegram, The, 1709
"Tiddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-Bum! Bum!", 1202
Ye Legend of Sir Yroncladde, 1973
NICHOLSON, MEREDITH
Jack Balcomb's Pleasant Ways, 1300
NOBLE, ALDEN CHARLES
Ballade of Ping-Pong, A, 1690
Tragedy of It, The, 194
NYE, EDGAR WILSON ("Bill Nye")
Dubious Future, The, 1298
Grains of Truth, 985
Grammatical Boy, The, 16
Great Cerebrator, A, 1784
Guest at the Ludlow, A, 1503
Medieval Discoverer, A, 31
O'CONNELL, DANIEL
Drayman, The, 834
O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE
Disappointment, A, 191
Yes, 222
OSBOURNE, LLOYD
Jones, 1007
PARTINGTON, MRS. (see B. P. SHILLABER)
PAUL, JOHN (see CHARLES HENRY WEBB)
PECK, SAMUEL MINTURN
Little Bopeep and Little Boy Blue, 2015
My Grandmother's Turkey-Tail Fan, 219
My Sweetheart, 544
PHELPS, ELIZABETH STUART (see ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD)
PHOENIX, JOHN (see GEORGE H. DERBY)
PORTER, SYDNEY ("O. Henry")
Double-Dyed Deceiver, A, 1927
PRICE, WARWICK S.
Is It I, 1447
QUAD, M. (see CHARLES B. LEWIS)
QUICK, HERBERT
Martyrdom of Mr. Stevens, The, 1151
RANKIN, CARROLL WATSON
Johnny's Lessons, 1570
READ, OPIE
Arkansas Planter, An, 556
RICE, WALLACE
In Elizabeth's Day, 572
Myopia, 151
Rule of Three, A, 1779
RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB
At Aunty's House, 2007
Bear Story, The, 1047
Champion Checker-Player of Ameriky, The, 156
Dos't o' Blues, 486
Down Around the River, 29
Funny Little Fellow, The, 822
Grandfather Squeers, 1571
Hoss, The, 1759
Little Mock-Man, The, 540
Little Orphant Annie, 444
Lugubrious Whing-Whang, The, 1669
My Philosofy, 1076
My Ruthers, 971
Natural Perversities, 350
Nine Little Goblins, The, 1635
Our Hired Girl, 1888
Ponchus Pilut, 624
Raggedy Man, The, 643
"_Ringworm Frank_", 395
Runaway Boy, The, 832
Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer, 1081
Tree-Toad, The, 418
Up and Down Old Brandywine, 1003
Way It Wuz, The, 261
When the Frost Is on the Punkin, 169
ROBINSON, DOANE
One of the Palls, 1601
ROCHE, JAMES JEFFREY
Concord Love-Song, A, 1913
V-A-S-E, The, 1603
ROOF, KATHARINE M.
Associated Widows, The, 1338
ROSE, RAY CLARKE
Simple English, 19
ROSE, WILLIAM RUSSELL
Conscientious Curate and the Beauteous Ballet Girl, The, 1756
SABIN, EDWIN L.
Her Brother: Enfant Terrible, 2001
Trouble-Proof, 1801
SAXE, JOHN G.
Briefless Barrister, The, 585
Comic Miseries, 1121
Coquette, The, 1127
How the Money Goes, 1780
Icarus, 1493
Reflective Retrospect, A, 1703
Teaching by Example, 91
SCOLLARD, CLINTON
Bookworm's Plaint, A, 1878
Cavalier's Valentine, A, 1782
Holly Song, 1260
Vive La Bagatelle, 1497
SCUDDER, HORACE E.
"As Good as a Play", 749
SHAW, HENRY W. ("Josh Billings")
Laffing, 171
Muskeeter, The, 181
SHILLABER, B. P. ("Mrs. Partington")
Partingtonian Patchwork, 20
SHUTE, HENRY A.
Real Diary of a Real Boy, The, 1881
SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND
Eve's Daughter, 1605
SLICK, SAM (see THOMAS C. HALIBURTON)
SMILEY, MAURICE
Love Sonnets of a Husband, The, 725
SMITH, CHARLES H. ("Bill Arp")
Bill Nations, 1368
Few Reflections, A, 1799
Litigation, 1533
Southern Sketches, 575
SMITH, F. HOPKINSON
Chad's Story of the Goose, 993
Colonel Carter's Story of the Postmaster, 1052
SMITH, SEBA ("Major Jack Downing")
My First Visit to Portland, 409
SMITH, SOL
Bully Boat and a Brag Captain, A, 1208
SOUSA, JOHN PHILIP
Feast of the Monkeys, The, 183
Have You Seen the Lady? 821
SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT
Our Very Wishes, 1637
Tom's Money, 1955
STANTON, FRANK L.
Backsliding Brother, The, 1972
Bill's Courtship, 836
Billville Spirit Meeting, The, 188
Boy's View of It, A, 393
Famous Mulligan Ball, The, 1103
His Grandmother's Way, 1901
How I Spoke the Word, 1725
Mister Rabbit's Love Affair, 1887
Old Deacon's Version of the Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus,
The, 227
Old-Time Singer, An, 1941
Runaway Toys, The, 1671
Settin' by the Fire, 1821
When the Little Boy Ran Away, 1792
STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE
Diamond Wedding, The, 549
STEVENSON, BENJAMIN
Evan Anderson's Poker Party, 1737
STINSON, SAM S.
Nothin' Done, 1296
STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER
Aunt Dinah's Kitchen, 335
STROTHER, B. F. ("Porte Crayon")
Loafer and the Squire, The, 767
SUTHERLAND, HOWARD V.
Biggs' Bar, 1967
Omar in the Klondyke, 1387
TABB, JOHN B.
Beecher Beached, The, 232
Fascination, 222
Plagiarism, 316
TAYLOR, BAYARD
Experiences of the A. C., The, 116
TAYLOR, BENJAMIN F.
Old-Fashioned Choir, The, 1790
TAYLOR, BERT LESTON
Farewell, 969
Kaiser's Farewell to Prince Henry, The, 1568
Miss Legion, 820
Traveled Donkey, A, 428
When the Sirup's on the Flapjack, 1634
Why Wait for Death and Time, 1866
THANET, OCTAVE (see ALICE FRENCH)
THAYER, ERNEST LAWRENCE
Casey at the Bat, 1148
THORPE, THOMAS BANGS
Piano in Arkansas, A, 895
TOMPKINS, JULIET WILBOR
Mother of Four, A, 1976
TOWNSEND, EDWARD W.
Cupid, A Crook, 1220
TROWBRIDGE, J. T.
Coupon Bonds, The, 654
Darius Green and His Flying-Machine, 1539
TUCKER, MARY F.
Going Up and Coming Down, 806
VIELÉ, HERMAN KNICKERBOCKER
Girl from Mercury, The, 779
WARD, ARTEMUS (see CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE)
WARD, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS
Old Maid's House: In Plan, The, 60
WARE, EUGENE F. ("Ironquill")
Grizzly-Gru, 174
He and She, 1250
Jackpot, The, 2003
Pass, 91
Reason, The, 1890
Shining Mark, A, 1877
Siege of Djklxprwbz, 1246
Whisperer, The, 1822
WARNER, ANNE (see ANNE WARNER FRENCH)
WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY
Garden Ethics, 425
WATERLOO, STANLEY
Apostasy of William Dodge, The, 1084
WATERMAN, NIXON
Cheer for the Consumer 740
WEBB, CHARLES HENRY ("John Paul")
Abou Ben Butler, 1167
Dictum Sapienti, 1624
Dum Vivimus Vigilamus, 2005
Lost Word, The, 293
Talk, 1307
What She Said About It, 1263
WELLS, CAROLYN
Economical Pair, The, 602
Experiences of Gentle Jane, 1797
How to Know the Wild Animals, 650
Maxioms, 424
Our Polite Parents, 1688
Stage Whispers, 195
Suppressed Chapters, 817
Turnings of a Bookworm, The, 182
Two Automobilists, The, 573
Two Brothers, The, 281
Two Business Men, The, 583
Two Farmers, The, 258
Two Housewives, The, 566
Two Husbands, The, 587
Two Ladies, The, 548
Two New Houses, The, 221
Two Pedestrians, The, 603
Two Prisoners, The, 641
Two Suitors, The, 229
Two Young Men, The, 565
Wild Animals I Have Met, 414
WETHERILL, J. K.
Unconscious Humor, 998
WHICHER, FRANCES M. ("Widow Bedott")
Hezekiah Bedott's Opinion. 1893
Widow Bedott's Visitor, The, 1660
WHITMAN, WALT
Boston Ballad, A, 1479
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF
Demon of the Study, The, 1869
WISTER, OWEN
In a State of Sin, 696
YBARRA, THOMAS
Lay of Ancient Rome, A, 2013
Breezy Glimpses into the Heart of Bohemia
"The author gets at the intimate secrets, the subtle charm of the
Quarter. A spirit of gaiety runs through the book."--_Phila.
Press._
By F. BERKELEY SMITH
Author of "How Paris Amuses Itself"
The Real Latin Quarter
In these captivating and realistic sketches, the reader is taken into
the very heart of Bohemia and shown the innermost life and characters in
this little world of art and amusement. The author pictures with brush,
pen, and camera every nook and corner of the Quarter with such light and
vivid touches that the reader is made to feel the very spirit, breathe
the very atmosphere within these fascinating precincts. We look down
upon the giddy whirl of the "Bal Bullier," enjoy a cozy breakfast at
"Lavenue's," stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens, peep into studios
and little corners known only to the initiated, mingle with the throng
of models, grisettes, students, and artists on "Boul Miche" and in a
hundred other ways see and enjoy this unconventional center.
"A True Picture," Say the Artists
_Charles Dana Gibson:_ "It is like a trip to Paris."
_John W. Alexander:_ "It is the real thing."
_Frederic Remington:_ "You have left nothing undone."
_Ernest Thompson Seton:_ "A true picture of the Latin Quarter as I knew
it."
A Richly Made Book
_Watcrcolor Frontispiece by F. Hopkinson Smith. About 100 original
drawings and camera snap shots by the Author, and two caricatures in
color by the celebrated French caricaturist Sancha. 12mo, Cloth. Price,
$1.20, post-paid._
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, PUBS., NEW YORK
Within the Gates of the Kingdom of Fun
"If you wish to thoroughly soak yourself with the concentrated
essence of enjoyment, read this book quickly. It is too good to
miss."--_The Philadelphia Item._
How Paris Amuses Itself
By F. BERKELEY SMITH
Author of "The Real Latin Quarter"
This jolly, handsome book is the very incarnation of that spirit of
amusement which reigns supreme in the capital of the world's fun. The
author unites the graphic skill of the artist, the infectious enthusiasm
of the lover of fun and gaiety, and the intimate personal knowledge of
the long-time resident in this great playground of the world. In spirit
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known only to the initiated, enjoy all the sparkle and glitter of the
ever-moving panorama of gaiety, and become a part of the merry throng.
"It is the gayest book of the season and is as handsome mechanically as
it is interesting as a narrative. The sparkle, the glow, the charm of
the risque, the shimmer of silks, and the glint of jewels--are all so
real and apparent."--_Buffalo Courier._
"The very spirit of modern Paris is prisoned in its text."--_Life._
"There is about the whole book that air of light-heartedness and frolic
which is essentially Parisian. This book is a book for everybody--those
who know Paris and those who do not know it."--_North American_,
Philadelphia.
135 Captivating Pictures
Six in colors, 16 full-page half-tone inserts, 58 full-page text
drawings, 55 half-page and smaller text drawings by the author and
several French artists, including _Galaniz_, _Sancha_, _Cardona_,
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_12mo, Cloth, Handsome Cover Design, $1.50, Post-paid._
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Parisians Out of Doors
By F. BERKELEY SMITH
Author of "How Paris Amuses Itself" and "The Real
Latin Quarter"
"It is a kaleidoscopic miscellany of anecdote, grave and gay; brief bits
of biography and impressionistic portrayal of types, charming glimpses
into Parisian life and character, and, above all, descriptions of the
city's chief, and, to outward view, sole occupation--the art of enjoying
oneself. Tourists have learned that Mr. Smith is able to initiate them
into many mysteries uncatalogued or only guardedly hinted at by more
staidly respectable and professional guides."--_The Globe_, New York.
"Smith's delightfully sympathetic Paris [Parisians Out of Doors] would
make a wooden Indian part with his cigars."--_Frederic Remington._
"Naturally, these scenes and places and the persons who add the living
touches to the pictures are described from the viewpoint of one who
knows them well, for Mr. Smith holds the world of Paris in the hollow of
his hand. This is an ideal book for summer reading."--_New York Press._
_12mo, cloth, handsome binding, illustrated with drawings by the
author and several French artists, and water-color frontispiece by
F. Hopkinson Smith $1.50 post-paid._
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, PUBS., NEW YORK
"Mr. Smith does not go sightseeing in the accepted sense of the word. It
is not the museums and historical places in which he is interested, but
_the people themselves_, and he gets many a view of which the hurried
_tourist_ is altogether ignorant."--_Brooklyn Citizen._
In London Town
By F. BERKELEY SMITH
Illustrated by the Author and other Artists
"The charm of this book lies in its breezy talk, its naive descriptions
and its plenitude of atmosphere. It certainly is a most charming book
and the reader will have a good time 'In London Town' if he goes with
the author."--_Philadelphia Inquirer._
"Everyday life and the living of it after British standards are what Mr.
Smith sought and here reveals. He could not write an unreadable book,
this American artist. It is all interesting that he has to tell of
London Town."--_San Francisco Bulletin._
"The author conscientiously looks for the picturesque and he does much
to show the brighter side of English life, for he writes in a light,
bright, gay style that catches and holds the attention wherever one may
open the book. Indeed he gives a true idea of the real life of the
Londoner as few travellers would be apt to obtain unaided."--_Columbus
(O.) State Journal._
"Candor is the prevailing note in this beautiful volume. There is
nothing of the guide book spirit about it. It is bright, replete with
anecdotes and a moving picture of wonderful London. London's labors, its
pictures and its characteristics are shown in breezy fashion and even
English cooking and London's kitchens come in for cheery comment. It is
a refreshing book charmingly exhilarating."--_Philadelphia Record._
London Sketched with Brush and Pen: "He has studied London with a
trained intelligence, observed it with an artist's eye, and then gives
us a traveller's impression in a graceful, literary way."--_Chicago
Tribune._
"It is brilliantly written. The glimpses of London which he gives are
not at all like anything we are accustomed to in descriptions of
London--herein lies the charm of Mr. Smith's book. He knows London quite
as well as any American. It is a thoroughly delightful narrative--a
pleasant and entertaining story, gracefully written, picturesque, and
wholly original in inspiration and treatment."--_Brooklyn Eagle._
_12 mo. Cloth, Illustrated, $1.50, Post-paid._
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
_ALONG THE BEAUTIFUL ADRIATIC JUST
BEFORE THE WAR BEGAN_
Delightful Dalmatia
By ALICE LEE MOQUE
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The book is timely for its descriptions of places already in the wake of
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_Cloth bound, 362 pages. Profusely illustrated in color
and half-tone. $2.00, net; by mail, $2.16_
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers
NEW YORK and LONDON
THE STORY OF OUR PEOPLE AND
LANDS IN THE NEAR PACIFIC
From the descriptions and beautiful illustrations one seems to be
transported to the shores of sweet breezes and lofty peaks--the paradise
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HAWAII:
Our New Possessions
_By John R. Musick_
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Elegantly and Profusely Illustrated
with many beautiful half-tone illustrations, adorned with tasteful
border decorations by PHILIP E. FLINTOFF, besides thirty-four artistic
pen sketches by FREELAND A. CARTER.
_HIGHLY COMMENDED_
"A perusal of the book, next to a personal visit, will best afford one a
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Louis Globe-Democrat._
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_8vo, 546 pages. 56 full-page half-tone plates. Also
with map. Cloth, $2.75. Half-Morocco,
gilt edges, $4.00_
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers
NEW YORK and LONDON
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