some very prolific potatoes--the real hippopotamus breed. Down went my
man, and what, with expenses of horse-hire, tavern bills, toll-gates,
and breaking a wagon, the hippopotami cost as much apiece as pineapples.
They were fine potatoes, though, with comely features, and large,
languishing eyes, that promised increase of family without delay. As I
worked my own garden (for which I hired a landscape gardener at two
dollars per day to give me instructions), I concluded that the object of
my first experiment in early rising should be the planting of the
hippopotamuses. I accordingly arose next morning at five, and it rained!
I rose next day at five, and it rained! The next, and it rained! It
rained for two weeks! We had splendid potatoes every day for dinner. "My
dear," said I to Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "where did you get these fine
potatoes?" "Why," said she, innocently, "out of that basket from Long
Island!" The last of the hippopotamuses were before me, peeled, and
boiled, and mashed, and baked, with a nice thin brown crust on the top.
I was more successful afterward. I did get some fine seed-potatoes in
the ground. But something was the matter; at the end of the season I did
not get as many out as I had put in.
Mrs. Sparrowgrass, who is a notable housewife, said to me one day, "Now,
my dear, we shall soon have plenty of eggs, for I have been buying a lot
of young chickens." There they were, each one with as many feathers as a
grasshopper, and a chirp not louder. Of course, we looked forward with
pleasant hopes to the period when the first cackle should announce the
milk-white egg, warmly deposited in the hay which we had provided
bountifully. They grew finely, and one day I ventured to remark that our
hens had remarkably large combs, to which Mrs. S. replied, "Yes, indeed,
she had observed that; but if I wanted to have a real treat I ought to
get up early in the morning and hear them crow." "Crow!" said I,
faintly, "our hens crowing! Then, by 'the cock that crowed in the morn,
to wake the priest all shaven and shorn,' we might as well give up all
hopes of having any eggs," said I; "for as sure as you live, Mrs. S.,
our hens are all roosters!" And so they were roosters! They grew up and
fought with the neighbors' chickens, until there was not a whole pair of
eyes on either side of the fence.
A _dog_ is a good thing to have in the country. I have one which I
raised from a pup. He is a good, stout fellow, and a hearty barker and
feeder. The man of whom I bought him said he was thoroughbred, but he
begins to have a mongrel look about him. He is a good watch-dog, though;
for the moment he sees any suspicious-looking person about the premises
he comes right into the kitchen and gets behind the stove. First, we
kept him in the house, and he scratched all night to get out. Then we
turned him out, and he scratched all night to get in. Then we tied him
up at the back of the garden, and he howled so that our neighbour shot
at him twice before daybreak. Finally we gave him away, and he came
back; and now he is just recovering from a fit, in which he has torn up
the patch that has been sown for our spring radishes.
A good, strong gate is a necessary article for your garden. A good,
strong, heavy gate, with a dislocated hinge, so that it will neither
open nor shut. Such a one have I. The grounds before my fence are in
common, and all the neighbors' cows pasture there. I remarked to Mrs.
S., as we stood at the window in a June sunset, how placid and
picturesque the cattle looked, as they strolled about, cropping the
green herbage. Next morning I found the innocent creatures in my
garden. They had not left a green thing in it. The corn in the milk, the
beans on the poles, the young cabbages, the tender lettuce, even the
thriving shoots on my young fruit trees had vanished. And there they
were, looking quietly on the ruin they had made. Our watch-dog, too, was
foregathering with them. It was too much; so I got a large stick and
drove them all out, except a young heifer, whom I chased all over the
flower-beds, breaking down my trellises, my woodbines and sweet-briers,
my roses and petunias, until I cornered her in the hotbed. I had to call
for assistance to extricate her from the sashes, and her owner has sued
me for damages. I believe I shall move in town.
* * * * *
Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I have concluded to try it once more; we are going
to give the country another chance. After all, birds in the spring are
lovely. First come little snowbirds, _avant-couriers_ of the feathered
army; then bluebirds in national uniforms, just graduated, perhaps, from
the ornithological corps of cadets with high honors in the topographical
class; then follows a detachment of flying artillery--swallows;
sand-martens, sappers and miners, begin their mines and countermines
under the sandy parapets; then cedar birds, in trim jackets faced with
yellow--aha, dragoons! And then the great rank and file of infantry,
robins, wrens, sparrows, chipping-birds; and lastly--the band!
From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring
The wild bird choirs--burst of the woodland band,
--who mid the blossoms sing;
Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall and grand,
Pillared with oaks, and roofed with Heaven's own hand.
There, there, that is Mario. Hear that magnificent chest note from the
chestnuts! then a crescendo, falling in silence--_à plomb!_
Hush! he begins again with a low, liquid monotone, mounting by degrees
and swelling into an infinitude of melody--the whole grove dilating, as
it were, with exquisite epithalamium.
Silence now--and how still!
Hush! the musical monologue begins anew; up, up into the tree-tops it
mounts, fairly lifting the leaves with its passionate effluence, it
trills through the upper branches--and then dripping down the listening
foliage, in a cadenza of matchless beauty, subsides into silence again.
"That's a he catbird," says my carpenter.
A catbird? Then Shakespeare and Shelley have wasted powder upon the
skylark; for never such "profuse strains of unpremeditated art" issued
from living bird before. Skylark! pooh! who would rise at dawn to hear
the skylark if a catbird were about after breakfast?
I have bought me a boat. A boat is a good thing to have in the country,
especially if there be any water near. There is a fine beach in front of
my house. When visitors come I usually propose to give them a row. I go
down--and find the boat full of water; then I send to the house for a
dipper and prepare to bail; and, what with bailing and swabbing her
with a mop and plugging up the cracks in her sides, and struggling to
get the rudder in its place, and unlocking the rusty padlock, my
strength is so much exhausted that it is almost impossible for me to
handle the oars. Meanwhile the poor guests sit on stones around the
beach with woe-begone faces.
"My dear," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "why don't you sell that boat?"
"Sell it? Ha! ha!"
One day a Quaker lady from Philadelphia paid us a visit. She was
uncommonly dignified, and walked down to the water in the most stately
manner, as is customary with Friends. It was just twilight, deepening
into darkness, when I set about preparing the boat. Meanwhile our Friend
seated herself upon _something_ on the beach. While I was engaged in
bailing, the wind shifted, and I became sensible of an unpleasant odor;
afraid that our Friend would perceive it, too, I whispered Mrs.
Sparrowgrass to coax her off and get her farther up the beach.
"Thank thee, no, Susan; I feel a smell hereabout and I am better where I
am."
Mrs. S. came back and whispered mysteriously that our Friend was sitting
on a dead dog, at which I redoubled the bailing and got her out in deep
water as soon as possible.
Dogs have a remarkable scent. A dead setter one morning found his way to
our beach, and I towed him out in the middle of the river; but the
faithful creature came back in less than an hour--that dog's smell was
remarkable indeed.
I have bought me a fyke! A fyke is a good thing to have in the country.
A fyke is a fishnet, with long wings on each side; in shape like a
nightcap with ear lappets; in mechanism like a rat-trap. You put a stake
at the tip end of the nightcap, a stake at each end of the outspread
lappets; there are large hoops to keep the nightcap distended, sinkers
to keep the lower sides of the lappets under water, and floats as large
as muskmelons to keep the upper sides above the water. The stupid fish
come downstream, and, rubbing their noses against the wings, follow the
curve toward the fyke and swim into the trap. When they get in they
cannot get out. That is the philosophy of a fyke. I bought one of
Conroy. "Now," said I to Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "we shall have fresh fish
to-morrow for breakfast," and went out to set it. I drove the stakes in
the mud, spread the fyke in the boat, tied the end of one wing to the
stake, and cast the whole into the water. The tide carried it out in a
straight line. I got the loose end fastened to the boat, and found it
impossible to row back against the tide with the fyke. I then untied it,
and it went downstream, stake and all. I got it into the boat, rowed up,
and set the stake again. Then I tied one end to the stake and got out of
the boat myself in shoal water. Then the boat got away in deep water;
then I had to swim for the boat. Then I rowed back and untied the fyke.
Then the fyke got away. Then I jumped out of the boat to save the fyke,
and the boat got away. Then I had to swim again after the boat and row
after the fyke, and finally was glad to get my net on dry land, where I
left it for a week in the sun. Then I hired a man to set it, and he did,
but he said it was "rotted." Nevertheless, in it I caught two small
flounders and an eel. At last a brace of Irishmen came down to my beach
for a swim at high tide. One of them, a stout, athletic fellow, after
performing sundry aquatic gymnastics, dived under and disappeared for a
fearful length of time. The truth is, he had dived into my net. After
much turmoil in the water, he rose to the surface with the filaments
hanging over his head, and cried out, as if he had found a bird's nest:
"I say, Jimmy! begorra, here's a foike!" That unfeeling exclamation to
Jimmy, who was not the owner of the net, made me almost wish that it had
not been "rotted."
We are worried about our cucumbers. Mrs. S. is fond of cucumbers, so I
planted enough for ten families. The more they are picked, the faster
they grow; and if you do not pick them, they turn yellow and look ugly.
Our neighbor has plenty, too. He sent us some one morning, by way of a
present. What to do with them we did not know, with so many of our own.
To give them away was not polite; to throw them away was sinful; to eat
them was impossible. Mrs. S. said, "Save them for seed." So we did. Next
day, our neighbor sent us a dozen more. We thanked the messenger grimly
and took them in. Next morning another dozen came. It was getting to be
a serious matter; so I rose betimes the following morning, and when my
neighbor's cucumbers came I filled his man's basket with some of my own,
by way of exchange. This bit of pleasantry was resented by my neighbor,
who told his man to throw them to the hogs. His man told our girl, and
our girl told Mrs. S., and, in consequence, all intimacy between the two
families has ceased; the ladies do not speak, even at church.
We have another neighbor, whose name is Bates; he keeps cows. This year
our gate has been fixed; but my young peach trees near the fences are
accessible from the road; and Bates's cows walk along that road morning
and evening. The sound of a cow-bell is pleasant in the twilight.
Sometimes, after dark, we hear the mysterious curfew tolling along the
road, and then with a louder peal it stops before our fence and again
tolls itself off in the distance. The result is, my peach trees are as
bare as bean-poles. One day I saw Mr. Bates walking along, and I hailed
him: "Bates, those are your cows there, I believe?" "Yes, sir; nice
ones, ain't they?" "Yes," I replied, "they are _nice_ ones. Do you see
that tree there?"--and I pointed to a thrifty peach, with about as many
leaves as an exploded sky-rocket. "Yes, sir." "Well, Bates, that
red-and-white cow of yours yonder ate the top off that tree; I saw her
do it." Then I thought I had made Bates ashamed of himself, and had
wounded his feelings, perhaps, too much. I was afraid he would offer me
money for the tree, which I made up my mind to decline at once.
"Sparrowgrass," said he, "it don't hurt a tree a single mossel to chaw
it if it's a young tree. For my part, I'd rather have my young trees
chawed than not. I think it makes them grow a leetle better. I can't do
it with mine, but you can, because you can wait to have good trees, and
the only way to have good trees is to have, 'em chawed."
* * * * *
We have put a dumb-waiter in our house. A dumb-waiter is a good thing to
have in the country, on account of its convenience. If you have company,
everything can be sent up from the kitchen without any trouble; and if
the baby gets to be unbearable, on account of his teeth, you can dismiss
the complainant by stuffing him in one of the shelves and letting him
down upon the help. To provide for contingencies, we had all our floors
deafened. In consequence, you cannot hear anything that is going on in
the story below; and when you are in the upper room of the house there
might be a democratic ratification meeting in the cellar and you would
not know it. Therefore, if any one should break into the basement it
would not disturb us; but to please Mrs. Sparrowgrass, I put stout iron
bars in all the lower windows. Besides, Mrs. Sparrowgrass had bought a
rattle when she was in Philadelphia; such a rattle as watchmen carry
there. This is to alarm our neighbor, who, upon the signal, is to come
to the rescue with his revolver. He is a rash man, prone to pull trigger
first and make inquiries afterward.
One evening Mrs. S. had retired and I was busy writing, when it struck
me a glass of ice-water would be palatable. So I took the candle and a
pitcher and went down to the pump. Our pump is in the kitchen. A country
pump in the kitchen is more convenient; but a well with buckets is
certainly more picturesque. Unfortunately, our well water has not been
sweet since it was cleaned out. First I had to open a bolted door that
lets you into the basement hall, and then I went to the kitchen door,
which proved to be locked. Then I remembered that our girl always
carried the key to bed with her and slept with it under her pillow. Then
I retraced my steps, bolted the basement door, and went up into the
dining-room. As is always the case, I found, when I could not get any
water, I was thirstier than I supposed I was. Then I thought I would
wake our girl up. Then I concluded not to do it. Then I thought of the
well, but I gave that up on account of its flavor. Then I opened the
closet doors: there was no water there; and then I thought of the
dumb-waiter! The novelty of the idea made me smile. I took out two of
the movable shelves, stood the pitcher on the bottom of the dumb-waiter,
got in myself with the lamp; let myself down, until I supposed I was
within a foot of the floor below, and then let go!
We came down so suddenly that I was shot out of the apparatus as if it
had been a catapult; it broke the pitcher, extinguished the lamp, and
landed me in the middle of the kitchen at midnight, with no fire and the
air not much above the zero point. The truth is, I had miscalculated the
distance of the descent--instead of falling one foot, I had fallen five.
My first impulse was to ascend by the way I came down, but I found that
impracticable. Then I tried the kitchen door; it was locked. I tried to
force it open; it was made of two-inch stuff, and held its own. Then I
hoisted a window, and there were the rigid iron bars. If ever I felt
angry at anybody it was at myself for putting up those bars to please
Mrs. Sparrowgrass. I put them up, not to keep people in, but to keep
people out.
I laid my cheek against the ice-cold barriers and looked out at the sky;
not a star was visible; it was as black as ink overhead. Then I thought
of Baron Trenck and the prisoner of Chillon. Then I made a noise. I
shouted until I was hoarse, and ruined our preserving kettle with the
poker. That brought our dogs out in full bark, and between us we made
night hideous. Then I thought I heard a voice and listened--it was Mrs.
Sparrowgrass calling to me from the top of the staircase. I tried to
make her hear me, but the infernal dogs united with howl, and growl, and
bark, so as to drown my voice, which is naturally plaintive and tender.
Besides, there were two bolted doors and double-deafened floors between
us; how could she recognize my voice, even if she did hear it? Mrs.
Sparrowgrass called once or twice and then got frightened; the next
thing I heard was a sound as if the roof had fallen in, by which I
understood that Mrs. Sparrowgrass was springing the rattle! That called
out our neighbor, already wide awake; he came to the rescue with a
bull-terrier, a Newfoundland pup, a lantern, and a revolver. The moment
he saw me at the window he shot at me, but fortunately just missed me. I
threw myself under the kitchen table and ventured to expostulate with
him, but he would not listen to reason. In the excitement I had
forgotten his name, and that made matters worse. It was not until he had
roused up everybody around, broken in the basement door with an ax,
gotten into the kitchen with his cursed savage dogs and shooting-iron,
and seized me by the collar, that he recognized me--and then he wanted
me to explain it! But what kind of an explanation could I make to him? I
told him he would have to wait until my mind was composed, and then I
would let him understand the whole matter fully. But he never would have
had the particulars from me, for I do not approve of neighbors that
shoot at you, break in your door, and treat you, in your own house, as
if you were a jailbird. He knows all about it, however--somebody has
told him--_somebody_ tells everybody everything in our village.--_The
Sparrowgrass Papers._
LOVE IN A COTTAGE
They may talk of love in a cottage,
And bowers of trellised vine----
Of nature bewitchingly simple,
And milkmaids half divine;
They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping
In the shade of a spreading tree,
And a walk in the fields at morning,
By the side of a footstep free!
But give me a sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier----
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody very near;
Or a seat on a silken sofa,
With a glass of pure old wine,
And mamma too blind to discover
The small white hand in mine.
Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies----
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.
True love is at home on a carpet,
And mightily likes his ease----
And true love has an eye for a dinner,
And starves beneath shady trees.
His wing is the fan of a lady,
His foot's an invisible thing,
And his arrow is tipp'd with a jewel
And shot from a silver string.
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS
* * * * *
A CASE OF CONSCIENCE
_Uncle Jack:_ It is very good lemonade, I am sure; but tell me, Bonnie,
why do you sell yours for three cents a glass when Charley gets five for
his?
_Miss Bonnie:_ Well, you mustn't tell anybody, Uncle Jack, but the puppy
fell in mine and I thought it ought to be cheaper.
A Hingham, Massachusetts, woman is said to have hit upon a happy idea
when she was puzzled what to do in order to tell her mince and apple
pies apart. She was advised to mark them, and did so, and complacently
announced: "This I've marked 'T. M.'--'Tis mince; an' that I've marked
'T. M.'--'Taint mince."
Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes used to be an amateur photographer. When he
presented a picture to a friend, he wrote on the back of it, "Taken by
O. W. Holmes & Sun."
HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
Dey had biano-blayin':
I felled in lofe mit a 'Merican frau,
Her name was Madilda Yane,
She hat haar as prown as a pretzel,
Her eyes vas himmel-plue,
Und ven dey looket indo mine,
Dey shplit mine heart in two.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
I vent dere, you'll be pound.
I valtzet mit Madilda Yane
Und vent shpinnen round and round.
De pootiest Fräulein in de house,
She veyed 'pout dwo hoondred pound,
Und efery dime she gife a shoomp
She make de vindows sound.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
I dells you it cost him dear.
Dey rolled in more ash sefen kecks
Of foost rate Lager Beer,
Und venefer dey knocks de shpicket in
De Deutschers gifes a cheer.
I dinks dat so vine a barty
Nefer coom to a het dis year.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
Dere all vas Souse und Brouse;
Ven de sooper comed in, de gompany
Did make demselfs to house.
Dey ate das Brot und Gensy broost,
De Bratwurst und Braten fine,
Und vash der Abendessen down
Mit four parrels of Neckarwein.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty:
We all cot troonk ash pigs.
I poot mine mout to a parrel of beer,
Und emptied it oop mit a schwigs.
Und denn I gissed Madilda Yane
Und she shlog me on the kop,
Und de gompany fited mit dable-lecks
Dill de coonsthable made oos shtop.
Hans Breitmann gife a barty----
Where ish dat barty now!
Where ish de lofely golden cloud
Dat float on de mountain's prow?
Where ish de himmelstrahlende Stern----
De shtar of de shpirit's light?
All goned afay mit de Lager Beer----
Afay in de Ewigkeit!
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.
FRANCES M. WHICHER
TIM CRANE AND THE WIDOW
"O, no, Mr. Crane, by no manner o' means, 'tain't a minnit tow soon for
you to begin to talk about gittin' married agin. I am amazed you should
be afeerd I'd think so. See--how long's Miss Crane ben dead? Six
months!--land o' Goshen!--why, I've know'd a number of individdiwals get
married in less time than that. There's Phil Bennett's widder 't I was
a-talkin' about jest now--she 't was Louisy Perce--her husband hadent
been dead but _three_ months, you know. I don't think it looks well for
a _woman_ to be in such a hurry--but for a _man_ it's a different
thing--circumstances alters cases, you know. And then, sittiwated as you
be, Mr. Crane, it's a turrible thing for your family to be without a
head to superintend the domestic consarns and tend to the children--to
say nothin' o' yerself, Mr. Crane. You dew need a companion, and no
mistake. Six months! Good grievous! Why, Squire Titus dident wait but
six _weeks_ arter he buried his fust wife afore he married his second. I
thought ther wa'n't no partickler need o' his hurryin' so, seein' his
family was all grow'd up. Such a critter as he pickt out, tew! 'twas
very onsuitable--but every man to his taste--I hain't no dispersition
to meddle with nobody's consarns. There's old farmer Dawson, tew--his
pardner hain't ben dead but ten months. To be sure, he ain't married
yet--but he would a-ben long enough ago if somebody I know on'd gin him
any incurridgement. But 'tain't for me to speak o' that matter. He's a
clever old critter and as rich as a Jew--but--lawful sakes! he's old
enough to be my father. And there's Mr. Smith--Jubiter Smith; you know
him, Mr. Crane--his wife (she 'twas Aurory Pike) she died last summer,
and he's ben squintin' round among the wimmin ever since, and he _may_
squint for all the good it'll dew him so far as I'm consarned--tho' Mr.
Smith's a respectable man--quite young and hain't no family--very well
off, tew, and quite intellectible--but I'm purty partickler. O, Mr.
Crane! it's ten year come Jinniwary sence I witnessed the expiration o'
my belovid companion--an oncommon long time to wait, to be sure--but
'tain't easy to find anybody to fill the place o' Hezekier Bedott. I
think _you're_ the most like husband of ary individdiwal I ever see, Mr.
Crane. Six months Murderation! Curus you should be afeered I'd think't
was tew soon--why, I've know'd----"
MR. CRANE. "Well, widder--I've been thinking about taking
another companion--and I thought I'd ask you----"
WIDOW. "O, Mr. Crane, egscuse my commotion, it's so onexpected.
Jest hand me that are bottle of camfire off the mantletry shelf--I'm
ruther faint--dew put a little mite on my handkercher and hold it to my
nuz. There--that'll dew--I'm obleeged tew ye--now I'm ruther more
composed--you may perceed, Mr. Crane."
MR. CRANE. "Well, widder, I was a-going to ask you
whether--whether----"
WIDOW. "Continner, Mr. Crane--dew--I knew it's turrible
embarrissin'. I remember when my dezeased husband made his suppositions
to me he stammered and stuttered, and was so awfully flustered it did
seems as if he'd never git it out in the world, and I s'pose it's
ginnerally the case, at least it has been with all them that's made
suppositions to me--you see they're ginerally oncerting about what kind
of an answer they're a-gwine to git, and it kind o' makes 'em narvous.
But when an individdiwal has reason to suppose his attachment's
reperated, I don't see what need there is o' his bein' flustrated--tho'
I must say it's quite embarrassin' to me--pray continner."
MR. C. "Well, then, I want to know if yu're willing I should
have Melissy?"
WIDOW. "The dragon!"