CARLO AND THE FREEZER.
We had a jolly time at our tea-table this evening. We had not seen our old
friend for ten years. When I heard his voice in the hall, it seemed like a
snatch of "Auld Lang Syne." He came from Belleville, where was the first
home we ever set up for ourselves. It was a stormy evening, and we did not
expect company, but we soon made way for him at the table. Jennie was very
willing to stand up at the corner; and after a fair napkin had been thrown
over the place where she had dropped a speck of jelly, our friend and I
began the rehearsal of other days. While I was alluding to a circumstance
that occurred between me and one of my Belleville neighbors the children
cried out with stentorian voice, "Tell us about Carlo and the freezer;" and
they kicked the leg of the table, and beat with both hands, and clattered
the knives on the plate, until I was compelled to shout, "Silence! You act
like a band of Arabs! Frank, you had better swallow what you have in your
mouth before you attempt to talk." Order having been gained, I began:
We sat in the country parsonage, on a cold winter day, looking out of our
back window toward the house of a neighbor. She was a model of kindness,
and a most convenient neighbor to have. It was a rule between us that when
either house was in want of anything it should borrow of the other. The
rule worked well for the parsonage, but rather badly for the neighbor,
because on our side of the fence we had just begun to keep house, and
needed to borrow everything, while we had nothing to lend, except a few
sermons, which the neighbor never tried to borrow, from the fact that she
had enough of them on Sundays. There is no danger that your neighbor will
burn a hole in your new brass kettle if you have none to lend. It will
excite no surprise to say that we had an interest in all that happened on
the other side of the parsonage fence, and that any injury inflicted on so
kind a woman would rouse our sympathy.
On the wintry morning of which we speak our neighbor had been making
ice-cream; but there being some defect in the machinery, the cream had not
sufficiently congealed, and so she set the can of the freezer containing
the luxury on her back steps, expecting the cold air would completely
harden it. What was our dismay to see that our dog Carlo, on whose early
education we were expending great care, had taken upon himself the office
of ice-cream inspector, and was actually busy with the freezer! We hoisted
the window and shouted at him, but his mind was so absorbed in his
undertaking he did not stop to listen. Carlo was a greyhound, thin, gaunt
and long-nosed, and he was already making his way on down toward the bottom
of the can. His eyes and all his head had disappeared in the depths of the
freezer. Indeed, he was so far submerged that when he heard us, with quick
and infuriate pace, coming up close behind him, he could not get his head
out, and so started with the encumbrance on his head, in what direction he
knew not. No dog was ever in a more embarrassing position--freezer to the
right of him, freezer to the left of him, freezer on the top of him,
freezer under him.
So, thoroughly blinded, he rushed against the fence then against the side
of the house, then against a tree. He barked as though he thought he might
explode the nuisance with loud sound, but the sound was confined in so
strange a speaking-trumpet that he could not have known his own voice. His
way seemed hedged up. Fright and anger and remorse and shame whirled him
about without mercy.
A feeling of mirthfulness, which sometimes takes me on most inappropriate
occasions, seized me, and I sat down on the ground, powerless at the moment
when Carlo most needed help. If I only could have got near enough, I would
have put my foot on the freezer, and, taking hold of the dog's tail,
dislodged him instantly; but this I was not permitted to do. At this stage
of the disaster my neighbor appeared with a look of consternation, her
cap-strings flying in the cold wind. I tried to explain, but the aforesaid
untimely hilarity hindered me. All I could do was to point at the flying
freezer and the adjoining dog and ask her to call off her freezer, and,
with assumed indignation, demand what she meant by trying to kill my
greyhound.
The poor dog's every attempt at escape only wedged himself more thoroughly
fast. But after a while, in time to save the dog, though not to save the
ice-cream, my neighbor and myself effected a rescue. Edwin Landseer, the
great painter of dogs and their friends, missed his best chance by not
being there when the parishioner took hold of the freezer and the pastor
seized the dog's tail, and, pulling mightily in opposite directions, they
each got possession of their own property.
Carlo was cured of his love for luxuries, and the sight of the freezer on
the back steps till the day of his death would send him howling away.
Carlo found, as many people have found, that it is easier to get into
trouble than to get out. Nothing could be more delicious than while he was
eating his way in, but what must have been his feelings when he found it
impossible to get out! While he was stealing the freezer the freezer stole
him.
Lesson for dogs and men! "Come in!" says the gray spider to the house-fly;
"I have entertained a great many flies. I have plenty of room, fine meals
and a gay life. Walk on this suspension bridge. Give me your hand. Come in,
my sweet lady fly. These walls are covered with silk, and the tapestry is
gobelin. I am a wonderful creature. I have eight eyes, and of course can
see your best interest. Philosophers have written volumes about my antennae
and cephalothorax." House-fly walks gently in. The web rocks like a cradle
in the breeze. The house-fly feels honored to be the guest of such a big
spider. We all have regard for big bugs. "But what is this?" cries the fly,
pointing to a broken wing, "and this fragment of an insect's foot. There
must have been a murder here! Let me go back!" "Ha! ha!" says the spider,
"the gate is locked, the drawbridge is up. I only contracted to bring you
in. I cannot afford to let you out. Take a drop of this poison, and it will
quiet your nerves. I throw this hook of a fang over your neck to keep you
from falling off." Word went back to the house-fly's family, and a choir of
great green-bottled insects sang this psalm at the funeral:
"An unfortunate fly a-visiting went,
And in a gossamer web found himself pent."
The first five years of a dissipated life are comparatively easy, for it is
all down hill; but when the man wakes up and finds his tongue wound with
blasphemies, and his eyes swimming in rheum, and the antennae of vice
feeling along his nerves, and the spiderish poison eating through his very
life, and, he resolves to return, he finds it hard traveling, for it is up
hill, and the fortresses along the road open on him their batteries. We go
into sin, hop, skip and jump; we come out of it creeping on all fours.
Let flies and dogs and men keep out of mischief. It is smooth all the way
there, and rough all the way back. It is ice-cream for Carlo clear down to
the bottom of the can, but afterward it is blinded eyes and sore neck and
great fright. It is only eighteen inches to go into the freezer; it is
three miles out. For Robert Burns it is rich wine and clapping hands and
carnival all the way going to Edinburgh; but going back, it is worn-out
body, and lost estate, and stinging conscience, and broken heart, and a
drunkard's grave.
Better moderate our desires. Carlo had that morning as good a breakfast as
any dog need to have. It was a law of the household that he should be well
fed. Had he been satisfied with bread and meat, all would have been well.
But he sauntered out for luxuries. He wanted ice-cream. He got it, but
brought upon his head the perils and damages of which I have written. As
long as we have reasonable wants we get on comfortably, but it is the
struggle after luxuries that fills society with distress, and populates
prisons, and sends hundreds of people stark mad. Dissatisfied with a plain
house, and ordinary apparel, and respectable surroundings, they plunge
their head into enterprises and speculations from which they have to sneak
out in disgrace. Thousands of men have sacrificed honor and religion for
luxuries, and died with the freezer about their ears.
Young Catchem has one horse, but wants six. Lives in a nice house on
Thirtieth street, but wants one on Madison Square. Has one beautiful wife,
but wants four. Owns a hundred thousand dollars of Erie stock, but wants a
million. Plunges his head into schemes of all sorts, eats his way to the
bottom of the can till he cannot extricate himself, and constables, and
sheriffs, and indignant society, which would have said nothing had he been
successful, go to pounding him because he cannot get his head out.
Our poor old Carlo is dead now. We all cried when we found that he would
never frisk again at our coming, nor put up his paw against us. But he
lived long enough to preach the sermon about caution and contentment of
which I have been the stenographer.