There is much in the great field of astronomy that is discouraging to the
savant who hasn't the time nor means to rummage around through the
heavens. At times I am almost hopeless, and feel like saying to the great
yearnful, hungry world: “Grope on forever. Do not ask me for another
scientific fact. Find it out yourself. Hunt up your own new-laid planets,
and let me have a rest. Never ask me again to sit up all night and take
care of a newborn world, while you lie in bed and reck not.”
I get no salary for examining the trackless void night after night when I
ought to be in bed. I sacrifice my health in order that the public may
know at once of the presence of a red-hot comet, fresh from the factory.
And yet, what thanks do I get?
Is it surprising that every little while I contemplate withdrawing from
scientific research, to go and skin an eight-mule team down through the
dim vista of relentless years?
Then, again, you take a certain style of star, which you learn from
Professor Simon Newcomb is such a distance that it takes 50,000 years for
its light to reach Boston. Now, we will suppose that after looking over
the large stock of new and second-hand stars, and after examining the
spring catalogue and price list, I decide that one of the smaller size
will do me, and I buy it. How do I know that it was there when I bought
it? Its cold and silent rays may have ceased 49,000 years before I was
born and the intelligence be still on the way. There is too much margin
between sale and delivery. Every now and then another astronomer comes to
me and says: “Professor, I have discovered another new star and intend to
file it. Found it last night about a mile and a half south of the zenith,
running loose. Haven't heard of anybody who has lost a star of the
fifteenth magnitude, about thirteen hands high, with light mane and tail,
have you?” Now, how do I know that he has discovered a brand new star?
How can I discover whether he is or is not playing an old, threadbare star
on me for a new one?
We are told that there has been no perceptible growth or decay in the star
business since man began to roam around through space, in his mind, and
make figures on the barn door with red chalk showing the celestial time
table.
No serious accidents have occurred in the starry heavens since I began to
observe and study their habits. Not a star has waxed, not a star has
waned to my knowledge. Not a planet has season-cracked or shown any of
the injurious effects of our rigorous climate. Not a star has ripened
prematurely or fallen off the trees. The varnish on the very oldest stars
I find on close and critical examination to be in splendid condition.
They will all no doubt wear as long as we need them, and wink on long
after we have ceased to wink back.
In 1866 there appeared suddenly in the northern crown a star of about the
third magnitude and worth at least $250. It was generally conceded by
astronomers that this was a brand new star that had never been used, but
upon consulting Argelander's star catalogue and price list it was found
that this was not a new star at all, but an old, faded star of the ninth
magnitude, with the front breadths turned wrong side out and trimmed with
moonlight along the seams. After a few days of phenomenal brightness, it
gently ceased to draw a salary as a star of the third magnitude, and
walked home with an Uncle Tom's Cabin company.
[Illustration: A NIGHTLY VIGIL.]
It is such things as this that make the life of the astronomer one of
constant and discouraging toil. I have long contemplated, as I say, the
advisability of retiring from this field of science and allowing others to
light the northern lights, skim the milky way and do other celestial
chores. I would do it myself cheerfully if my health would permit, but for
years I have realized, and so has my wife, that my duties as an astronomer
kept me up too much at night, and my wife is certainly right about it when
she says if I insist on scanning the heavens night after night, coming
home late with the cork out of my telescope and my eyes red and swollen
with these exhausting night vigils, I will be cut down in my prime. So I
am liable to abandon the great labor to which I had intended to devote my
life, my dazzling genius and my princely income. I hope that other savants
will spare me the pain of another refusal, for my mind is fully made up
that unless another skimmist is at once secured, the milky way will
henceforth remain unskum.
A Thrilling Experience.
I had a very thrilling experience the other evening. I had just filled an
engagement in a strange city, and retired to my cozy room at the hotel.
The thunders of applause had died away, and the opera house had been
locked up to await the arrival of an Uncle Tom's Cabin Company. The last
loiterer had returned to his home, and the lights in the palace of the
pork packer were extinguished.
No sound was heard, save the low, tremulous swash of the sleet outside, or
the death-rattle in the throat of the bath-tub. Then all was still as the
bosom of a fried chicken when the spirit has departed.
The swallow-tail coat hung limp and weary in the wardrobe, and the gross
receipts of the evening were under my pillow. I needed sleep, for I was
worn out with travel and anxiety, but the fear of being robbed kept me
from repose. I know how desperate a man becomes when he yearns for
another's gold. I know how cupidity drives a wicked man to mangle his
victim, that he may win precarious prosperity, and how he will often take
a short cut to wealth by means of murder, when, if he would enter
politics, he might accomplish his purpose as surely and much more safely.
Anon, however, tired nature succumbed. I know I had succumbed, for the
bell-boy afterward testified that he heard me do so.
The gentle warmth of the steam-heated room, and the comforting assurance
of duty well done and the approval of friends, at last lulled me into a
gentle repose.
Anyone who might have looked upon me, as I lay there in that innocent
slumber, with the winsome mouth slightly ajar and the playful limbs cast
wildly about, while a merry smile now and then flitted across the regular
features, would have said that no heart could be so hard as to harbor ill
for one so guileless and so simple.
I do not know what it was that caused me to wake. Some slight sound or
other, no doubt, broke my slumber, and I opened my eyes wildly. The room
was in semi-darkness.
Hark!
A slight movement in the corner, and the low, regular breathing of a human
being! I was now wide awake. Possibly I could have opened my eyes wider,
but not without spilling them out of their sockets.
Regularly came that soft, low breathing. Each time it seemed like a sigh
of relief, but it did not relieve me. Evidently it was not done for that
purpose. It sounded like a sigh of blessed relief, such as a woman might
heave after she has returned from church and transferred herself from the
embrace of her new Russia iron, black silk dress into a friendly wrapper.
Regularly, like the rise and fall of a wave on the summer sea, it rose and
fell, while my pale lambrequin of hair rose and fell fitfully with it.
I know that people who read this will laugh at it, but there was nothing
to laugh at. At first I feared that the sigh might be that of a woman who
had entered the room through a transom in order to see me, as I lay wrapt
in slumber, and then carry the picture away to gladden her whole life.
But no. That was hardly possible. It was cupidity that had driven some
cruel villain to enter my apartments and to crouch in the gloom till the
proper moment should come in which to spring upon me, throttle me, crowd a
hotel pillow into each lung, and, while I did the Desdemona act, rob me of
my hard-earned wealth.
Regularly still rose the soft breathing, as though the robber might be
trying to suppress it. I reached gently under the pillow, and securing the
money I put it in the pocket of my _robe de nuit_. Then, with great care,
I pulled out a copy of Smith & Wesson's great work on “How to Ventilate
the Human Form.” I said to myself that I would sell my life as dearly as
possible, so that whoever bought it would always regret the trade.
Then I opened the volume at the first chapter and addressed a thirty-eight
calibre remark in the direction of the breath in the corner.
When the echoes had died away a sigh of relief welled up from the dark
corner. Also another sigh of relief later on.
I then decided to light the gas and fight it out. You have no doubt seen a
man scratch a match on the leg of his pantaloons. Perhaps you have also
seen an absent-minded man undertake to do so, forgetting that his
pantaloons were hanging on a chair at the other end of the room.
However, I lit the gas with my left hand and kept my revolver pointed
toward the dark corner where the breath was still rising and falling.
People who had heard my lecture came rushing in, hoping to find that I had
suicided, but they found that, instead of humoring the public in that way,
I had shot the valve off the steam radiator.
It is humiliating to write the foregoing myself, but I would rather do so
than have the affair garbled by careless hands.
Catching a Buffalo.
A pleasing anecdote is being told through the press columns recently, of
an encounter on the South Platte, which occurred some years ago between a
Texan and a buffalo. The recital sets forth the fact that the Texans went
out to hunt buffalo, hoping to get enough for a mess during the day.
Toward evening they saw two gentlemen buffalo on a neighboring hill near
the Platte, and at once pursued their game, each selecting an animal. They
separated at once, Jack going one way galloping after his beast, while Sam
went in the other direction. Jack soon got a shot at his game, but the
bullet only tore a large hole in the fleshy shoulder of the bull and
buried itself in the neck, maddening the animal to such a degree that he
turned at once and charged upon horse and rider.
The astonished horse, with the wonderful courage, sagacity and _sang
froid_ peculiar to the broncho, whirled around two consecutive times,
tangled his feet in the tall grass and fell, throwing his rider about
fifty feet. He then rose and walked away to a quiet place, where he could
consider the matter and give the buffalo an opportunity to recover.
The infuriated bull then gave chase to Jack, who kept out of the way for a
few yards only, when, getting his legs entangled in the grass, he fell so
suddenly that his pursuer dashed over him without doing him any bodily
injury. However, as the animal went over his prostrate form, Jack felt the
buffalo's tail brush across his face, and, rising suddenly, he caught it
with a terrific grip and hung to it, thus keeping out of the reach of his
enemy's horns, till his strength was just giving out, when Sam hove in
sight and put a large bullet through the bull's heart.
This tale is told, apparently, by an old plainsman and scout, who reels it
off as though he might be telling his own experience.
Now, I do not wish to seem captious and always sticking my nose into what
is none of my business, but as a logical and zoological fact, I desire, in
my cursory way, to coolly take up the subject of the buffalo tail. Those
who have been in the habit of killing buffaloes, instead of running an
account at the butcher shop, will remember that this noble animal has a
genuine camel's hair tail about eight inches long, with a chenille tassel
at the end, which he throws up into the rarified atmosphere of the far
west, whenever he is surprised or agitated.
In passing over a prostrate man, therefore, I apprehend that in order to
brush his face with the average buffalo tail, it would be necessary for
him to sit down on the bosom of the prostrate scout and fan his features
with the miniature caudal bud.
The buffalo does not gallop an hundred miles a day, dragging his tail
across the bunch grass and alkali of the boundless plains.
[Illustration: AN UNEQUAL MATCH.]
He snorts a little, turns his bloodshot eyes toward the enemy a moment and
then, throwing his cunning little taillet over the dash-boardlet, he wings
away in an opposite direction.
The man who could lie on his back and grab that vision by the tail would
have to be moderately active. If he succeeded, however, it would be a
question of the sixteenth part of a second only, whether he had his arms
jerked out by the roots and scattered through space or whether he had
strength of will sufficient to yank out the withered little frizz and told
the quivering ornament in his hands. Few people have the moral courage to
follow a buffalo around over half a day holding on by the tail. It is
said that a Sioux brave once tried it, and they say his tracks were
thirteen miles apart. After merrily sauntering around with the buffalo one
hour, during which time he crossed the territories of Wyoming and Dakota
twice and surrounded the regular army three times, he became discouraged
and died fiom the injuries he had received. Perhaps, however, it may have
been fatigue.
It might be possible for a man to catch hold of the meager tail of a
meteor and let it snatch him through the coming years.
It might be, that a man with a strong constitution could catch a cyclone
and ride it bareback across the United States and then have a fresh one
ready to ride back again, but to catch a buffalo bull in the full flush of
manhood, as it were, and retain his tail while he crossed three
reservations and two mountain ranges, requires great tenacity of purpose
and unusual mental equipoise.
Remember, I do not regard the story I refer to as false, at least I do not
wish to be so understood. I simply say that it recounts an incident that
is rather out of the ordinary. Let the gentle reader lie down and have a
Jackrabbit driven across his face, for instance. The J. Rabbit is as
likely to brush your face with his brief and erect tail as the buffalo
would be. Then carefully note how rapidly and promptly instantaneous you
must be. Then closely attend to the manner in which you abruptly and
almost simultaneously, have not retained the tail in your memory.
A few people may have successfully seized the grieved and startled buffalo
by the tail, but they are not here to testify to the circumstances. They
are dead, abnormally and extremely dead.
John Adams.
After viewing the birthplace of the Adamses out at Quincy I felt more
reconciled to my own birthplace. Comparing the house in which I was born
with those in which other eminent philanthropists and high-priced
statesmen originated, I find that I have no reason to complain. Neither of
the Adamses were born in a larger house than I was, and for general tone
and eclat of front yard and cook-room on behind, I am led to believe that
I have the advantage.
John Adams was born before John Quincy Adams. A popular idea seems to
prevail in some sections of the Union that inasmuch as John Q. was
bald-headed, he was the eider of the two; but I inquired about that while
on the ground where they were both born, and ascertained from people who
were familiar with the circumstances, that John was born first.
[Illustration: PRESIDENTIAL SIMPLICITY.]
John Adams was the second president of the United States. He was a lawyer
by profession, but his attention was called to politics by the passage of
the stamp act in 1765. He was one of the delegates who represented
Massachusetts in the first Continental Congress, and about that time he
wrote a letter in which he said: “The die is now cast; I have passed the
rubicon. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country is
my unalterable determination.” Some have expressed the opinion that “the
rubicon” alluded to by Mr. Adams in this letter was a law which he had
succeeded in getting passed; but this is not true. The idea of passing the
rubicon first originated with Julius Caesar, a foreigner of some note who
flourished a good deal B.C.
In June, 1776, Mr. Adams seconded a resolution, moved by Richard Henry
Lee, that the United States “are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent.” Whenever Mr. Adams could get a chance to whoop for liberty
now and forever, one and inseparable, he invariably did so.
In 1796, Mr. Adams ran for president. In the convention it was nip and
tuck between Thomas Jefferson and himself, but Jefferson was understood to
be a Universalist, or an Universalist, whichever would look the best in
print, and so he only got 68 votes out of a possible 139. In 1800,
however, Jefferson turned the tables on him, and Mr. Adams only received
65 to Jefferson's 73 votes.
Mr. Adams made a good president and earned his salary, though it wasn't so
much of a job as it is now. When there was no Indian war in those days the
president could put on an old blue flannel shirt and such other clothes as
he might feel disposed to adopt, and fish for bull heads in the Potomac
till his nose peeled in the full glare of the fervid sun.
Now it is far different. By the time we get through with a president
nowadays he isn't good for much. Mr. Hayes stood the fatigue of being
president better, perhaps, than any other man since the republic became so
large a machine. Mr. Hayes went home to Fremont with his mind just as
fresh and his brain as cool as when he pulled up his coat tails to sit
down in the presidential chair. The reason why Mr. Hayes saved his mind,
his brain and his salary, was plain enough when we stop to consider that
he did not use them much during his administration.
John Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States and the
eldest son of John Adams. He was one of the most eloquent of orators, and
shines in history as one of the most polished of our eminent and
bald-headed Americans. When he began to speak, his round, smooth head, to
look down upon it from the gallery, resembled a nice new billiard ball,
but as he warmed up and became more thoroughly stirred, his intellectual
dome changed to a delicate pink. Then, when he rose to the full height of
his eloquent flight, and prepared to swoop down upon his adversaries and
carry them into camp, it is said that his smooth intellectual rink was as
red as the flush of rosy dawn on the 5th day of July.
He was educated both at home and abroad. That is the reason he was so
polished. After he got so that he could readily spell and pronounce the
most difficult words to be found in the large stores of Boston, he was
sent to Europe, where he acquired several foreign tongues, and got so that
he could converse with the people of Europe very fluently, if they were
familiar with English as she is spoke.
John Quincy Adams was chosen president by the House of Representatives,
there being no choice in the electoral contest, Adams receiving 84 votes,
Andrew Jackson 99, William H. Crawford 41, and Henry Clay 37. Clay stood
in with Mr. Adams in the House of Representatives deal, it was said, and
was appointed secretary of state under Mr. Adams as a result. This may not
be true, but a party told me about it who got it straight from Washington,
and he also told me in confidence that he made it a rule never to
prevaricate.
Mr. Adams was opposed to American slavery, and on several occasions in
Congress alluded to his convictions.
He was in Congress seventeen years, and during that time he was frequently
on his feet attending to little matters in which he felt an interest, and
when he began to make allusions, and blush all over the top of his head,
and kick the desk, and throw ink-bottles at the presiding officer, they
say that John Q. made them pay attention. Seward says, “with unwavering
firmness, against a bitter and unscrupulous opposition, exasperated to the
highest pitch by his pertinacity--amidst a perfect tempest of vituperation
and abuse--he persevered in presenting his anti-slavery petitions, one by
one, to the amount sometimes of 200 in one day.” As one of his eminent
biographers has truly said: “John Quincy Adams was indeed no slouch.”
The Wail Of A Wife.
“Ethel” has written a letter to me and asked for a printed reply. Leaving
off the opening sentences, which I would not care to have fall into the
hands of my wife, her note is about as follows:
“---- Vt., Feb. 28, 1885.
My Dear Sir:
[Tender part of letter omitted for obvious reasons.] Would it be asking
too much for me to request a brief reply to one or two questions which
many other married women as well as myself would like to have answered?
I have been married now for five years. To-day is the anniversary of my
marriage. When I was single I was a teacher and supported myself in
comfort. I had more pocket-money and dressed fully as well if not better
than I do now. Why should girls who are abundantly able to earn their own
livelihood struggle to become the slave of a husband and children, and tie
themselves to a man when they might be free and happy?
I think too much is said by the men in a light and flippant manner about
the anxiety of young ladies to secure a home and a husband, and still they
do deserve a part of it, as I feel that I do now for assuming a great
burden when I was comparatively independent and comfortable.
Now, will you suggest any advice that you think would benefit the yet
unmarried and self-supporting girls who are liable to make the same
mistake that I did, and thus warn them in a manner that would be so much
more universal in its range, and reach so many more people than I could if
I should raise my voice? Do this and you will be gratefully remembered by
Ethel.”
It would indeed be a tough, tough man who could ignore thy gentle plea,
Ethel; tougher far than the pale, intellectual hired man who now addresses
you in this private and underhanded manner, unknown to your husband.
Please destroy this letter, Ethel, as soon as you see it in print, so that
it will not fall into the hands of Mr. Ethel, for if it should, I am gone.
If your husband were to run across this letter in the public press I could
never look him in the eye again.
You say that you had more pocket-money before you were married than you
have since, Ethel, and you regret your rash step. I am sorry to hear it.
You also say that you wore better clothes when you were single than you do
now. You are also pained over that. It seems that marriage with you has
not paid any cash dividends. So that if you married Mr. Ethel as a
financial venture, it was a mistake. You do not state how it has affected
your husband. Perhaps he had more pocket-money and better clothes before
he married than he has since. Sometimes two people do well in business by
themselves, but when they go into partnership they bust higher than a
kite, if you will allow me the free, English translation of a Roman
expression which you might not fully understand if I should give it to you
in the original Roman.
Lots of self-supporting young ladies have married and had to go very light
on pin-money after that, and still they did not squeal, as you, dear
Ethel. They did not marry for revenue only. They married for protection.
(This is a little political bon mot which I thought of myself. Some of my
best jokes this spring are jokes that I thought of myself.)
No, Ethel, if you married expecting to be a dormant partner during the day
and then to go through Mr. Ethel's pantaloons pocket at night and declare
a dividend, of course life is full of bitter, bitter regret and
disappointment. Perhaps it is also for Mr. Ethel. Anyhow, I can't help
feeling a pang of sympathy for him. You do not say that he is unkind or
that he so far forgets himself as to wake you up in the morning with a
harsh tone of voice and a yearling club. You do not say that he asks you
for pocket-money, or, if so, whether you give it to him or not.
[Illustration: FOR REVENUE ONLY.]
Of course I want to do what is right in the solemn warning business, so I
will give notice to all simple young women who are now self-supporting and
happy, that there is no statute requiring them to assume the burdens of
wifehood and motherhood unless they prefer to do so. If they now have
abundance of pin-money and new clothes, they may remain single if they
wish without violating the laws of the land. This rule is also good when
applied to young and self-supporting young men who wear good clothes and
have funds in their pockets. No young man who is free, happy and
independent, need invest his money in a family or carry a colicky child
twenty-seven miles and two laps in one night unless he prefers it. But
those who go into it with the right spirit, Ethel, do not regret it.
I would just as soon tell you, Ethel, if you will promise that it shall go
no farther, that I do not wear as good clothes as I did before I was
married. I don't have to. My good clothes have accomplished what I got
them for. I played them for all they were worth, and since I got married
the idea of wearing clothes as a vocation has not occurred to me.
Please give my kind regards to Mr. Ethel, and tell him that although I do
not know him personally, I cannot help feeling sorry for him.
[Illustration]
Bunker Hill.
Last week for the first time I visited the granite obelisk known all over
the civilized world as Bunker Hill monument. Sixty years ago, if my memory
serves me correctly. General La Fayette, since deceased, laid the
corner-stone, and Daniel Webster made a few desultory remarks which I
cannot now recall. Eighteen years later it was formally dedicated, and
Daniel spoke a good piece, composed mostly of things that he had thought
up himself. There has never been a feature of the early history and
unceasing struggle for American freedom which has so roused my admiration
as this custom, quite prevalent among congressmen in those days, of
writing their own speeches.
Many of Webster's most powerful speeches were written by himself or at his
suggestion. He was a plain, unassuming man, and did not feel above writing
his speeches. I have always had the greatest respect and admiration for
Mr. Webster as a citizen, as a scholar and as an extemporaneous speaker,
and had he not allowed his portrait to appear last year in the _Century_,
wearing an air of intense gloom and a plug hat entirely out of style, my
respect and admiration would have continued indefinitely.
Bunker Hill monument is a great success as a monument, and the view from
its summit is said to be well worth the price of admission. I did not
ascend the obelisk, because the inner staircase was closed to visitors on
the day of my visit and the lightning rod on the outside looked to me as
though it had been recently oiled.
On the following day, however, I engaged a man to ascend the monument and
tell me his sensations. He assured me that they were first-rate. At the
feet of the spectator Boston and its environments are spread out in the
glad sunshine. Every day Boston spreads out her environments just that
way.
Bunker Hill monument is 221 feet in height, and has been entirely paid
for. The spectator may look at the monument with perfect impunity, without
being solicited to buy some of its mortgage bonds. This adds much to the
genuine thrill of pleasure while gazing at it.
There is a Bunker Hill in Macoupin County, Illinois, also in Ingham
County, Michigan, and in Russell County, Kansas, but General Warren was
not killed at either of these points.
One hundred and ten years ago, on the 17th day of the present month, one
of America's most noted battles with the British was fought near where
Bunker Hill monument now stands. In that battle the British lost 1,050 in
killed and wounded, while the American loss numbered but 450. While the
people of this country are showing such an interest in our war history, I
am surprised that something has not been said about Bunker Hill. The
Federal forces from Roxbury to Cambridge were under command of General
Artemus Ward, the great American humorist. When the American humorist
really puts on his war paint and sounds the tocsin, he can organize a
great deal of mourning.
General Ward was assisted by Putnam, Starke, Prescott, Gridley and
Pomeroy. Colonel William Prescott was sent over from Cambridge to
Charlestown for the purpose of fortifying Bunker Hill. At a council of war
it was decided to fortify Breeds Hill, not so high but nearer to Boston
than Bunker Hill. So a redoubt was thrown up during the night on the
ground where the monument now stands.
The British landed a large force under Generals Howe and Pigot, and at 2
P.M. the Americans were reinforced by Generals Warren and Pomeroy. General
Warren was of a literary turn of mind and during the battle took his hat
off and recited a little poem beginning:
“Stand, the ground's your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?”
A man who could deliver an impromptu and extemporaneous address like that
in public, and while there was such a bitter feeling of hostility on the
part of the audience, must have been a good scholar. In our great
fratricidal strife twenty years ago, the inferiority of our generals in
this respect was painfully noticeable. We did not have a commander who
could address his troops in rhyme to save his neck. Several of them were
pretty good in blank verse, but it was so blank that it was not just the
thing to fork over to posterity and speak in school afterward.
Colonel Prescott's statue now stands where he is supposed to have stood
when he told his men to reserve their fire till they saw the whites of the
enemy's eyes. Those who have examined the cast-iron flint-lock weapon used
in those days will admit that this order was wise. Those guns were in
union to health, of course, when used to excess, but not necessarily or
immediately fatal.
At the time of the third attack by the British, the Americans were out of
ammunition, but they met the enemy with clubbed muskets, and it was found
that one end of the rebel flint-lock was about as fatal as the other, if
not more so.
Boston still meets the invader with its club. The mayor says to the
citizens of Boston: “Wait till you can see the whites of the visitor's
eyes, and then go for him with your clubs.” Then the visitor surrenders.
I hope that many years may pass before it will again be necessary for us
to soak this fair land in British blood. The boundaries of our land are
now more extended, and so it would take more blood to soak it.
Boston has just reason to be proud of Bunker Hill, and it was certainly a
great stroke of enterprise to have the battle located there. Bunker Hill
is dear to every American heart, and there are none of us who would not
have cheerfully gone into the battle then if we had known about it in
time.
A Lumber Camp.
I have just returned from a little impromptu farewell tour in the lumber
camps toward Lake Superior. It was my idea to wade around in the snow for
a few weeks and swallow baked beans and ozone on the 1/2 shell. The affair
was a success. I put up at Bootjack camp on the raging Willow River, where
the gay-plumaged chipmunk and the spruce gum have their home.
Winter in the pine woods is fraught with fun and frolic. It is more
fraught with fatigue than funds, however. This winter a man in the
Michigan and Wisconsin lumber camps could arise at 4:30 A.M., eat a
patent pail full of dried apples soaked with Young Hyson and sweetened
with Persian glucose, go out to the timber with a lantern, hew down the
giants of the forest, with the snow up to the pit of his stomach, till the
gray owl in the gathering gloom whooped and hooted in derision, and all
for $12 per month and stewed prunes.
I did not try to accumulate wealth while I was in camp. I just allowed
others to enter into the mad rush and wrench a fortune from the hand of
fate while I studied human nature and the cook. I had a good many pleasant
days there, too. I read such literary works as I could find around the
camp, and smoked the royal Havana smoking tobacco of the cookee. Those who
have not lumbered much do not know much of true joy and sylvan smoking
tobacco.
They are not using a very good grade of the weed in the lumber regions
this winter. When I say lumber regions I do not refer entirely to the
circumstances of a weak back. (Monkey-wrench, oil can and screwdriver sent
with this joke; also rules for working it in all kinds of goods.) The
tobacco used by the pine choppers of the northern forest is called the
Scandihoovian. I do not know why they call it that, unless it is because
you can smoke it in Wisconsin and smell it in Scandihoovia.
When night came we would gather around the blazing fire and talk over old
times and smoke this tobacco. I smoked it till last week, then I bought a
new mouth and resolved to lead a different life.
I shall never forget the evenings we spent together in that log shack in
the heart of the forest. They are graven on my memory where time's
effacing fingers can not monkey with them. We would most always converse.
The crew talked the Norwegian language and I am using the English language
mostly this winter. So each enjoyed himself in his own quiet way. This
seemed to throw the Norwegians a good deal together. It also threw me a
good deal together. The Scandinavians soon learn our ways and our
language, but prior to that they are quite clannish.
[Illustration: I TOOK A PIE.]
The cook, however, was an Ohio man. He spoke the Sandusky dialect with a
rich, nut brown flavor that did me much good, so that after I talked with
the crew a few hours in English, and received their harsh, corduroy
replies in Norske, I gladly fled to the cook shanty. There I could rapidly
change to the smoothly flowing sentences peculiar to the Ohio tongue, and
while I ate the common twisted doughnut of commerce, we would talk on and
on of the pleasant days we had spent in our native land. I don't know how
many hours I have thus spent, bringing the glad light into the eye of the
cook as I spoke to him of Mrs. Hayes, an estimable lady, partially
married, and now living at Fremont, Ohio.
I talked to him of his old home till the tears would unbidden start, as he
rolled out the dough with a common Budweiser beer bottle, and shed the
scalding into the flour barrel. Tears are always unavailing, but sometimes
I think they are more so when they are shed into a barrel of flour. He was
an easy weeper. He would shed tears on the slightest provocation, or
anything else. Once I told him something so touchful that his eyes were
blinded with tears for the nonce. Then I took a pie, and stole away so
that he could be alone with his sorrow.
He used to grind the coffee at 2 A.M. The coffee mill was nailed up
against a partition on the opposite side from my bed. That is one reason I
did not stay any longer at the camp. It takes about an hour to grind
coffee enough for thirty men, and as my ear was generally against the pine
boards when the cook began, it ruffled my slumbers and made me a morose
man.
We had three men at the camp who snored. If they had snored in my own
language I could have endured it, but it was entirely unintelligible to me
as it was. Still, it wasn't bad either. They snored on different keys, and
still there was harmony in it--a kind of chime of imported snore as it
were. I used to lie and listen to it for hours. Then the cook would begin
his coffee mill overture and I would arise.
When I got home I slept from Monday morning till Washington's Birthday,
without food or water.
My Lecture Abroad.
Having at last yielded to the entreaties of Great Britain, I have decided
to make a professional farewell tour of England with my new and thrilling
lecture, entitled “Jerked Across the Jordan, or the Sudden and Deserved
Elevation of an American Citizen.”
I have, therefore, already written some of the cablegrams which will be
sent to the Associated Press, in order to open the campaign in good shape
in America on my return.
Though I have been supplicated for some time by the people of England to
come over there and thrill them with my eloquence, my thriller has been
out of order lately, so that I did not dare venture abroad.
This lecture treats incidentally of the ease with which an American
citizen may rise in the Territories, when he has a string tied around his
neck, with a few personal friends at the other end of the string. It also
treats of the various styles of oratory peculiar to America, with
specimens of American oratory that have been pressed and dried especially
for this lecture. It is a good lecture, and the few straggling facts
scattered along through it don't interfere with the lecture itself in any
way.