or if _you_ couldn't, your theory's done for. Try! I can stand it as
long as you can.'
"'Well, then,' said Hollins, 'I think you are a very ordinary man. I
derive no intellectual benefit from my intercourse with you, but your
house is convenient to me. I'm under no obligations for your
hospitality, however, because my company is an advantage to you. Indeed,
if I were treated according to my deserts, you couldn't do enough for
me.'
"Mrs. Shelldrake was up in arms.
"'Indeed,' she exclaimed, I think you get as good as you deserve, and
more, too.'
"'Elvira,' said he, with a benevolent condescension, I have no doubt you
think so, for your mind belongs to the lowest and most material sphere.
You have your place in Nature, and you fill it; but it is not for you to
judge of intelligences which move only on the upper planes.'
"'Hollins,' said Shelldrake, 'Elviry's a good wife and a sensible woman,
and I won't allow you to turn up your nose at her.'
"'I am not surprised,' he answered, 'that you should fail to stand the
test. I didn't expect it.'
"'Let me try it on _you_!' cried Shelldrake. 'You, now, have some
intellect,--I don't deny that,--but not so much, by a long shot, as you
think you have. Besides that, you're awfully selfish in your opinions.
You won't admit that anybody can be right who differs from you. You've
sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned something
from you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call
acting according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own
laziness.'
"'Gosh! that's it!' interrupted Perkins, jumping up; then, recollecting
himself, he sank down on the steps again, and shook with a suppressed
'Ho! ho! ho!'
"Hollins, however, drew himself up with an exasperated air.
"'Shelldrake,' said he, 'I pity you. I always knew your ignorance, but I
thought you honest in your human character. I never suspected you of
envy and malice. However, the true Reformer must expect to be
misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds. That love which I bear
to all creatures teaches me to forgive you. Without such love, all plans
of progress must fail. Is it not so, Abel?'"
"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, 'Pity!' 'Forgive!' in his
most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking violently in her
chair, gave utterance to the peculiar clucking '_ts, ts, ts, ts_,'
whereby certain women express emotions too deep for words.
"Abel, roused by Hollins' question, answered, with a sudden energy:
"'Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me,
and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were
like mine, we might have an Arcadia: but most men have no hearts. The
world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy.
No: let us give up. We were born before our time: this age is not worthy
of us.'
"Hollins stared at the speaker in utter amazement. Shelldrake gave a
long whistle, and finally gasped out:
"'Well, what next?'
"None of us were prepared for such a sudden and complete wreck of our
Arcadian scheme. The foundations had been sapped before, it is true; but
we had not perceived it; and now, in two short days, the whole edifice
tumbled about our ears. Though it was inevitable, we felt a shock of
sorrow, and a silence fell upon us. Only that scamp of a Perkins Brown,
chuckling and rubbing his boot, really rejoiced. I could have kicked
him.
"We all went to bed, feeling that the charm of our Arcadian life was
over.... In the first revulsion of feeling, I was perhaps unjust to my
associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries, which
originated in a genuine aspiration, and failed from an ignorance of the
true nature of Man, quite as much as from the egotism of the
individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society were made about the
same time by men of culture and experience, but in the A.C. we had
neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their
minds, were speedily warped into errors." ...
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Guvener B. is a sensible man;
He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.
My! ain't it terrible? Wut shall we du?
We can't never choose him, o' course,--thet's flat;
Guess we shall hev to come round (don't you?)
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that;
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:
He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still was a part of his plan,--
He's ben true to _one_ party,--an' thet is himself;--
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.
Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;
He don't vally principle more'n an old cud;
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote for Gineral C.
We were gettin' on nicely up here to our village,
With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't,
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee.
The side of our country must ollers be took,
An' Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country,
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book
Puts the _debit_ to him, an' to us the _per contry_;
An' John P.
Robinson he
Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.
Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;
Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest _fee, faw, fum_;
An' thet all this big talk of our destinies
Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez it ain't no sech thing; an', of course, so must we.
Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life
Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,
An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife,
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.
Wall, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us
The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,--
God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers,
To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough;
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!
THE DAY WE DO NOT CELEBRATE
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
One famous day in great July
John Adams said, long years gone by,
"This day that makes a people free
Shall be the people's jubilee,
With games, guns, sports, and shows displayed,
With bells, pomp, bonfires, and parade,
Throughout this land, from shore to shore,
From this time forth, forevermore."
The years passed on, and by and by,
Men's hearts grew cold in hot July.
And Mayor Hawarden Cholmondely said
"Hof rockets Hi ham sore hafraid;
Hand hif you send one hup hablaze,
Hi'll send you hup for sixty days."
Then said the Mayor O'Shay McQuade,
"Thayre uz no nade fur no perade."
And Mayor Hans Von Schwartzenmeyer
Proclaimed, "I'll haf me no bonfier!"
Said Mayor Baptiste Raphael
"No make-a ring-a dat-a bell!"
"By gar!" cried Mayor Jean Crapaud,
"Zis July games vill has to go!"
And Mayor Knud Christofferrssonn
Said, "Djeath to hjjim who fjjres a gjjunn!"
At last, cried Mayor Wun Lung Lee--
"Too muchee hoop-la boberee!"
And so the Yankee holiday,
Of proclamations passed away.
THE YANKEE DUDE'LL DO
BY S.E. KISER
When Cholly swung his golf-stick on the links,
Or knocked the tennis-ball across the net,
With his bangs done up in cunning little kinks--
When he wore the tallest collar he could get,
Oh, it was the fashion then
To impale him on the pen--
To regard him as a being made of putty through and through;
But his racquet's laid away,
He is roughing it to-day,
And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do.
When Algy, as some knight of old arrayed,
Was the leading figure at the "fawncy ball,"
We loathed him for the silly part he played,
He was set down as a monkey--that was all!
Oh, we looked upon him then
As unfit to class with men,
As one whose heart was putty, and whose brains were made of glue;
But he's thrown his cane away,
And he grasps a gun to-day,
While the world beholds him, knowing that the Yankee dude'll do.
When Clarence cruised about upon his yacht,
Or drove out with his footman through the park,
His mamma, it was generally thought,
Ought to have him in her keeping after dark!
Oh, we ridiculed him then,
We impaled him on the pen,
We thought he was effeminate, we dubbed him "Sissy," too;
But he nobly marched away,
He is eating pork to-day,
And heroically proving that the Yankee dude'll do.
How they hurled themselves against the angry foe,
In the jungle and the trenches on the hill!
When the word to charge was given, every dude was on the go--
He was there to die, to capture, or to kill!
Oh, he struck his level when
Men were called upon again
To preserve the ancient glory of the old red, white, and blue!
He has thrown his spats away,
He is wearing spurs to-day,
And the world will please take notice that the Yankee dude'll do!
SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER
BY EDWARD EGGLESTON
"I 'low," said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco into her cob pipe
after supper on that eventful Wednesday evening: "I 'low they'll app'int
the Squire to gin out the words to-night. They mos' always do, you see,
kase he's the peartest _ole_ man in this deestrick; and I 'low some of
the young fellers would have to git up and dust ef they would keep up to
him. And he uses sech remarkable smart words. He speaks so polite, too.
But laws! don't I remember when he was poarer nor Job's turkey? Twenty
year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggin's, that air Squire Hawkins
was a poar Yankee school-master, that said 'pail' instid of bucket, and
that called a cow a 'caow,' and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard
what we meant by _'low_ and by _right smart_. But he's larnt our ways
now, an' he's jest as civilized as the rest of us. You would-n know he'd
ever been a Yankee. He didn't stay poar long. Not he. He jest married a
right rich girl! He! he!" And the old woman grinned at Ralph, and then
at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until Ralph shuddered. Nothing was so
frightful to him as to be fawned on by this grinning ogre, whose few
lonesome, blackish teeth seemed ready to devour him. "He didn't stay
poar, you bet a hoss!" and with this the coal was deposited on the pipe,
and the lips began to crack like parchment as each puff of smoke
escaped. "He married rich, you see," and here another significant look
at the young master, and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed
away reflectively. "His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through
the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity' on it a second
time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married, and never
could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law
allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, besides,
book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never
knowed but one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and she
was so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a
apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the
tablecloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos' clean too.
Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But I was goin' fer to say
that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny Gray he got a heap o' money,
or, what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's
better'n book-larnin', says I. Ef a gal had gone clean through all
eddication, and got to the rule of three itself, that would-n buy a
feather-bed. Squire Hawkins jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and
traded even, an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd no
complaints."
And here she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face splintering into
the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy cast a blushing, gushing,
all-imploring, and all-confiding look on the young master.
"I say, ole woman," broke in old Jack, "I say, wot is all this 'ere
spoutin' about the Square fer?" and old Jack, having bit off an ounce of
"pigtail," returned the plug to his pocket.
As for Ralph, he fell into a sort of terror. He had a guilty feeling
that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him beyond
recall to Mirandy. He did not see visions of breach-of-promise suits.
But he trembled at the thought of an avenging big brother.
"Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when you git the
dishes washed," said Mrs. Means to the bound girl, as she shut and
latched the back door. The Means family had built a new house in front
of the old one, as a sort of advertisement of bettered circumstances, an
eruption of shoddy feeling; but when the new building was completed,
they found themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a
lumber room, and so, except a parlor which Mirandy had made an effort to
furnish a little (in hope of the blissful time when somebody should "set
up" with her of evenings), the new building was almost unoccupied, and
the family went in and out through the back door, which, indeed, was the
front door also, for, according to a curious custom, the "front" of the
house was placed toward the south, though the "big road" (Hoosier for
_highway_) ran along the northwest side, or, rather, past the northwest
corner of it.
When the old woman had spoken thus to Hannah and had latched the door,
she muttered, "That gal don't never show no gratitude fer favors;" to
which Bud rejoined that he didn't think she had no great sight to be
pertickler thankful fer. To which Mrs. Means made no reply, thinking it
best, perhaps, not to wake up her dutiful son on so interesting a theme
as her treatment of Hannah. Ralph felt glad that he was this evening to
go to another boarding place. He should not hear the rest of the
controversy.
Ralph walked to the school-house with Bill. They were friends again. For
when Hank Banta's ducking and his dogged obstinacy in sitting in his wet
clothes had brought on a serious fever, Ralph had called together the
big boys, and had said: "We must take care of one another, boys. Who
will volunteer to take turns sitting up with Henry?" He put his own name
down, and all the rest followed.
"William Means and myself will sit up to-night," said Ralph. And poor
Bill had been from that moment the teacher's friend. He was chosen to be
Ralph's companion. He was Puppy Means no longer! Hank could not be
conquered by kindness, and the teacher was made to feel the bitterness
of his resentment long after. But Bill Means was for the time entirely
placated, and he and Ralph went to spelling-school together.
Every family furnished a candle. There were yellow dips and white dips,
burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing, and talking, and
giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a
full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole
County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this
legend: "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole
County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society
who love dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were
those who loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the battle
from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping to
freshen the laurels they had won in their school days.
"I 'low," said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal school trustee, "I
'low our friend the Square is jest the man to boss this 'ere consarn
to-night. Ef nobody objects, I'll app'int him. Come, Square, don't be
bashful. Walk up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the man said to
his donkey."
There was a general giggle at this, and many of the young swains took
occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly for the purpose
of making them see the joke, but really for the pure pleasure of
nudging. The Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably because he wears
so many disguises that they could not select a costume for him.
The Squire came to the front. Ralph made an inventory of the
agglomeration which bore the name of Squire Hawkins, as follows:
1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state occasions,
when its owner was called to figure in his public capacity. Either the
Squire had grown too large or the coat too small.
2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnormal and unexpected
apparition conceivable in Flat Creek district, where the preachers wore
no coats in the summer, and where a black glove was never seen except on
the hands of the Squire.
3. A wig of that dirty, waxen color so common to wigs. This one showed a
continual inclination to slip off the owner's smooth, bald pate, and the
Squire had frequently to adjust it. As his hair had been red, the wig
did not accord with his face, and the hair ungrayed was doubly
discordant with a countenance shriveled by age.
4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge of the jaw and chin.
These were dyed a frightful dead-black, such a color as belonged to no
natural hair or beard that ever existed. At the roots there was a
quarter of an inch of white, giving the whiskers the appearance of
having been stuck on.
5. A pair of spectacles "with tortoise-shell rim." Wont to slip off.
6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in color from its
natural mate, perpetually getting out of focus by turning in or out.
7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing up and
down.
8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were loosely attached.
It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father begging him to
come West, because "mighty mean men get into office out here." But Ralph
concluded that some Yankees had taught school in Hoopole County who
would not have held a high place in the educational institutions of
Massachusetts. Hawkins had some New England idioms, but they were well
overlaid by a Western pronunciation.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, shoving up his spectacles, and sucking
his lips over his white teeth to keep them in place, "ladies and
gentlemen, young men and maidens, raley I'm obleeged to Mr. Means fer
this honor," and the Squire took both hands and turned the top of his
head round half an inch. Then he adjusted his spectacles. Whether he was
obliged to Mr. Means for the honor of being compared to a donkey was not
clear. "I feel in the inmost compartments of my animal spirits a most
happifying sense of the success and futility of all my endeavors to
sarve the people of Flat Creek deestrick, and the people of Tomkins
township, in my weak way and manner." This burst of eloquence was
delivered with a constrained air and an apparent sense of a danger that
he, Squire Hawkins, might fall to pieces in his weak way and manner, and
of the success and futility of all attempts at reconstruction. For by
this time the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was
looking away round to the left, while the little blue one on the right
twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The front teeth would drop down so
that the Squire's mouth was kept nearly closed, and his words whistled
through.
"I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion,"
twisting his scalp round, "but raley I must forego any such exertions.
It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand,
underlying subterfuge, of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-book
prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do, raley. I
think I may put it ahead of the Bible. Fer if it wurn't fer
spellin'-books and sich occasions as these, where would the Bible be? I
should like to know. The man who got up, who compounded this work of
inextricable valoo was a benufactor to the whole human race or any
other." Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire replaced them in some
confusion, gave the top of his head another twist, and felt of his glass
eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder, and Betsey Short rolled from
side to side in the effort to suppress her giggle. Mrs. Means and the
other old ladies looked the applause they could not speak.
"I app'int Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fer captings," said the
Squire. And the two young men thus named took a stick and tossed it from
hand to hand to decide which should have the "first choice." One tossed
the stick to the other, who held it fast just where he happened to catch
it. Then the first placed his hand above the second, and so the hands
were alternately changed to the top. The one who held the stick last
without room for the other to take hold had gained the lot. This was
tried three times. As Larkin held the stick twice out of three times, he
had the choice. He hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim
Phillips. But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown seas, and so he
said, "I take the master," while a buzz of surprise ran round the room,
and the captain of the other side, as if afraid his opponent would
withdraw the choice, retorted quickly, and with a little smack of
exultation and defiance in his voice, "And _I_ take Jeems Phillips."
And soon all present, except a few of the old folks, found themselves
ranged in opposing hosts, the poor spellers lagging in, with what grace
they could, at the foot of the two divisions. The Squire opened his
spelling-book and began to give out the words to the two captains, who
stood up and spelled against each other. It was not long until Larkin
spelled "really" with one _l_, and had to sit down in confusion, while a
murmur of satisfaction ran through the ranks of the opposing forces. His
own side bit their lips. The slender figure of the young teacher took
the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement made the house very
quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of prestige he would suffer if he should
be easily spelled down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the
darkest corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting in the
shadow. Why should his evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he
turned his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully to the
words which the Squire did not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them
with extreme deliberation. This gave him an air of hesitation which
disappointed those on his own side. They wanted him to spell with a
dashing assurance. But he did not begin a word until he had mentally
felt his way through it. After ten minutes of spelling hard words Jeems
Buchanan, the captain on the other side, spelled "atrocious" with an _s_
instead of a _c_, and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming
up against the teacher. This brought the excitement to fever-heat. For
though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely on trust, and most of the
company were disappointed. The champion who now stood up against the
school-master was a famous speller.
Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered fellow who had never
distinguished himself in any other pursuit than spelling. Except in
this one art of spelling he was of no account. He could not catch well
or bat well in ball. He could not throw well enough to make his mark in
that famous Western game of bull-pen. He did not succeed well in any
study but that of Webster's Elementary. But in that he was--to use the
usual Flat Creek locution--in that he was "a hoss." This genius for
spelling is in some people a sixth sense, a matter of intuition. Some
spellers are born, and not made, and their facility reminds one of the
mathematical prodigies that crop out every now and then to bewilder the
world. Bud Means, foreseeing that Ralph would be pitted against Jim
Phillips, had warned his friend that Jim could "spell like thunder and
lightning," and that it "took a powerful smart speller" to beat him, for
he knew "a heap of spelling-book." To have "spelled down the master" is
next thing to having whipped the biggest bully in Hoopole County, and
Jim had "spelled down" the last three masters. He divided the
hero-worship of the district with Bud Means.