_THE TERRIBLE MISHAP TO MR. FOGG'S BABY_.
Mr. and Mrs. Fogg have a young baby which was exceedingly restless and
troublesome at night while it was cutting its teeth. Mr. Fogg, devoted
and faithful father that he is, used to take a good deal more than his
share of the nursing of the infant, and often, when he would turn
out of bed for the fifteenth or sixteenth time and with fluttering
garments and unshod feet carry the baby to and fro, soothing it with
a little song, he would think how true it is, as Napoleon once said,
that "the only real courage is two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage."
Mr. Fogg thought he had a reasonable amount of genuine bravery, and
justly, for he performed the functions of a nurse with unsurpassed
patience and good humor.
One night, however, the baby was unusually wakeful and tempestuous,
and after struggling with it for several hours he called Mrs. Fogg and
suggested that it would be well to give the child some paregoric
to relieve it from the intense pain from which it was evidently
suffering. The medicine stood upon the bureau, but Mrs. Fogg had to go
down stairs to the dining-room to get some sugar; and while she was
fumbling about in the entry in the dark it occurred to Mr. Fogg that
he had heard of persons being relieved from pain by applications of
mesmerism. He had no notion that he could exercise such power; but
while musing upon the subject he rubbed the baby's eyebrows carelessly
with his fingers and made several passes with his hands upon its
forehead. As Mrs. Fogg began to feel her way up stairs, he was
surprised and pleased to find that the baby had become quiet and had
dropped off into sweet and peaceful slumber. Mrs. Fogg put the sugar
away as her husband placed the child in its crib and covered it up
carefully, and then they went to bed.
[Illustration: MR. FOGG AS A MESMERIST]
They were not disturbed again that night, and in the morning the baby
was still fast asleep. Mrs. Fogg said she guessed the poor little
darling must have gotten a tooth through, which made it feel easier.
Mr. Fogg said, "Maybe it has."
But he had a faint though very dark suspicion that something was
wrong.
After breakfast he went up to the bed-room to see if the baby was
awake. It still remained asleep; and Mr. Fogg, when he had leaned over
and listened to its breathing, shook it roughly three or four times
and cleared his throat in a somewhat boisterous manner. But it did not
wake, and Mr. Fogg went down stairs with a horrible dread upon him,
and assuming his hat prepared to go to the office. Mrs. Fogg called to
him,
"Don't slam the front door and wake the baby!"
And then Mr. Fogg did slam it with extraordinary violence; after which
he walked up the street with gloom in his soul and a wretched feeling
of apprehension that the baby would never waken.
"What on earth would we do if it should stay asleep for years?
S'pose'n it should sleep right straight ahead for half a century, and
grow to be an old man without knowing its pa and ma, and without ever
learning anything or seeing anything!"
The thought maddened him. He remembered Rip Van Winkle; he recalled
the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus; he thought of the afflicted woman whom
he saw once at a menagerie in a trance, in which she had been for
twenty years continuously, excepting when she awoke for a few moments
at long intervals to ask for something to eat. Perhaps when he and
Mrs. Fogg were dead the baby might be rented to a menagerie, and be
carried around the country as a spectacle. The idea haunted him. It
made him miserable. He tried for two or three hours to fix his mind
upon his office-duties, but it was impossible. He determined to
go back to the house to ascertain if the baby had returned to
consciousness. When he got there, Mrs. Fogg was beginning to feel very
uneasy. She said,
"Isn't it strange, Wilberforce, that the baby stays asleep? He is not
awake yet. I suppose it is nervous exhaustion, poor darling! but I am
a little worried about it."
Mr. Fogg felt awfully. He went up and jagged a pin into the baby's
leg quietly, so that his wife could not see him. Still it lay there
wrapped in slumber; and after repeating the experiment he abandoned
himself to despair and went back to his office, uncertain whether to
fly or to go home and confess the terrible truth to Mrs. Fogg.
In a couple of hours that lovely woman came in to see him. She was
scared and breathless:
"Mr. Fogg, the baby is actually asleep yet, and I can't rouse him.
I've shaken him, called to him and done _everything_, and he don't
stir. What _can_ be the matter with him? I'm afraid something dreadful
has happened to him."
"Maybe he is sleeping up a lot ahead, so's to stay awake at night some
more," said Mr. Fogg, with a feeble smile at his attempt at a joke.
"Wilberforce, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to trifle with such
a matter! S'pose the baby should die while it is in that condition? I
believe it _is_ going to die, and I want you to go straight for the
doctor."
Mr. Fogg started at once, and in half an hour he reached the house in
company with Dr. Gill. The doctor examined the child carefully and
said that it was a very queer case, but that, in his opinion, he must
be under the influence of opium.
"Did you give him any while I was asleep last night, Mr. Fogg?" asked
Mrs. Fogg, suspiciously and tearfully.
"Upon my word and honor I didn't," said Mr. Fogg, with the cold
perspiration standing upon his forehead.
"Are you _sure_ you didn't give him _anything_?" demanded the mother,
suddenly remembering that the baby became quiet while she was down
stairs upon the preceding night.
"Maria, do you think I would deceive you?" asked Mr. Fogg, in agony.
"I'll take my solemn oath that I did not give it a drop of medicine of
any kind."
"It is very remarkable--very," said the doctor. "I don't know that I
ever encountered precisely such a case before. I think I will call in
Dr. Brown and consult with him about it."
Then Mrs. Fogg began to sob; and while she fondled the baby, Mr. Fogg,
feeling like a murderer, followed the doctor down stairs. When they
reached the hall, Mr. Fogg drew the doctor aside and said, in a
confidential whisper:
"Doctor, I am going to tell you something, but I want you to promise
solemnly that you will keep it a secret."
"Very well; what is it?"
"You won't tell Mrs. Fogg?"
"No."
"Well, doctor, I--I--I--know what is the matter with that baby."
"You do! you know! Well, why didn't you--What _is_ the matter with
it?"
"The fact is, I mesmerized it last night."
"You did! Mesmerized it! And why don't you rouse it up again?"
"I don't know how; that's the mischief of it. I did it accidentally,
you know. I was sort of fingering around the child's forehead, and all
of a sudden it stopped crying and dropped off. Can't you find me a
professional mesmerizer to come and undo the baby?"
"I don't believe I can. The only one I know of lives in San Francisco,
and he couldn't get here in less than a week even if we should
telegraph for him."
"By that time," shrieked Mr. Fogg, "the baby'll be dead and Maria will
be insane! What, under Heaven, are we going to do about it?"
"Let's hunt up Brown; maybe he knows."
So they went around to Dr. Brown's office and revealed the secret to
him. Brown seemed to think that he might perhaps do something to rob
the situation of its horrors, and he accompanied Mr. Fogg and Dr.
Gill to the house. When they entered, Mrs. Fogg was rapidly becoming
hysterical. Dr. Brown placed the baby on the bed; he slapped its
little hands and rubbed its forehead and dashed cold water in its
face. In a few moments the baby opened its eyes, then it suddenly sat
up and began to cry. Mr. Fogg used to hate that noise, but now it
seemed to him sweeter than music. Mrs. Fogg was wild with joy. She
took the baby in her arms and kissed and hugged it, and then she said,
"What do you think was the matter with him, doctor?"
"Why, your husband says he mesmerized the child," replied the doctor,
incautiously letting the secret drop.
Then Mrs. Fogg looked at the culprit as if she wished to assassinate
him; but she merely ejaculated, "Monster!" and flew from the room; and
Mr. Fogg, as he went down with the physicians, put on an injured look
and said,
"If that baby wants to holloa now, I'm going to let him holloa, if he
holloas the top of his head off."
* * * * *
It was this offence, according to popular rumor, that brought things
to a crisis in Mr. Fogg's family and induced Mrs. Fogg to seek to
remove the heavy burden of woe imposed upon her by her husband. Only
a few days later Mr. and Mrs. Fogg knocked at the door of Colonel
Coffin's law office, and then filed in, Mrs. Fogg in advance. Mr.
Fogg, the reader may care to know, was a subdued, weak-eyed and timid
person. He had the air of a victim of perpetual tyranny--of a man who
had been ruthlessly and remorselessly sat upon until his spirit was
wholly gone. And Mrs. Fogg looked as if she might have been his
despot. She opened the conversation by addressing the lawyer:
"Colonel, I have called to engage you as my counsel in a divorce suit
against Mr. Fogg. I have resolved to separate from him--to sunder our
ties and henceforth to live apart."
"Indeed!" replied the colonel; "I'm sorry to hear that. What's the
matter? Has he been beating and ill-treating you?"
"Beating!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogg, disdainfully; "I should think not! I
should like him to try it."
"Maria, let me--" interposed Mr. Fogg, mildly.
"Now, Wilberforce," she exclaimed, interrupting him, "you remain
quiet; I will explain this matter to Colonel Coffin. You see, colonel,
Mr. Fogg is eccentric beyond endurance. He goes on continually in a
manner that will certainly drive me to distraction. I can stand it no
longer. We _must_ be cut asunder. For years, colonel, Wilberforce has
been attempting to learn to play upon the flute. He has no more
idea of music than a crow, but he _will_ try to learn. He has been
practicing upon the flute since 1862, and he has learned but a portion
of but one tune--'Nelly Bly.' He can play but four notes, 'Nelly Bly
shuts--' and there he stops. He has practiced these four notes for
fourteen years. He plays them upon the porch in the evening; he blows
them out from the garret; he stands out in the yard and puffs them;
he has frequently risen in the night and seized his flute and played
'Nel-ly Bly shuts' for hours, until I had to scream to relieve my
feelings."
"Now, Maria," said Mr. Fogg, "you know that I can play as far as
'shuts her eye'--six notes in all. I learned them in the early part of
June."
"Very well, now; it's of no consequence. Don't interrupt me. This is
bad enough. I submitted to it because I loved him. But on Tuesday,
while I was watching him through the crack of the parlor door, I saw
him wink twice at my chambermaid; I saw him distinctly."
"Maria," shrieked Fogg, "this is scandalous. You know very well that I
am suffering from a nervous affection of the eye-lids."
"Wilberforce, hush! In addition to this wickedness, colonel, Mr. Fogg
is becoming so absent-minded that he torments my life; he makes me
utterly wretched. Four times now has he brought his umbrella to bed
with him and scratched me by joggling it around with the sharp points
of the ribs toward me. What on earth he means I cannot imagine. He
said he thought somehow it was the baby, but that is so preposterous
that I can hardly believe him."
"Why can't you? Don't you remember perfectly well that I emptied a
bottle of milk into the umbrella twice? Would I have done that if I
hadn't thought it was the baby?"
"There, now, Wilberforce! that's enough from you. Do let me have a
chance to talk! And, colonel, the real baby he treats in the most
malignant manner. A few days ago he mesmerized it secretly, and scared
me so that I am ill from the effects of it yet. I thought the dear
child would sleep for ever. And in addition to this, I came in on
Thursday and found that he had laid the large family Bible on the
darling's stomach. It was at the last gasp. I thought it would never
recover."
"Maria, didn't I tell you I gave it to the child to play with to keep
him quiet?"
"Mr. Fogg, will you please let me get a word in edgeways? Our older
children, too, he is simply ruining. He teaches them the most
pernicious and hurtful doctrines. He told Johnny the other day that
Madagascar was an island in the Peruvian Ocean off the coast of
Illinois, and that a walrus was a kind of a race horse used by the
Caribbees. And our oldest girl told me that he instructed her that
Polycarp fought the battle of Waterloo for the purpose of defeating
the Saracens."
"Not the Saracens, Maria; Lucy misunderstood--"
[Illustration: A NOVEL MOUSETRAP]
"Wilberforce, I wish you would hush! His general treatment of me was
scandalous. He was constantly taking my teeth for the purpose of
knocking around the spigot in the bath-tub at night when the baby
wanted a drink, and only last week he took both sets after I had gone
to bed, propped them apart, baited them with cheese, and caught two
horrid mice before morning. I was so hurt by his behavior that I drank
some laudanum for the purpose of committing suicide, and then Mr. Fogg
borrowed a pump in at Knott's drug store and pumped me out twice in
such a rude manner that I have felt hollow ever since."
"I did it from kindness, Maria."
"Don't talk of kindness to me, Wilberforce, after your conduct. And,
colonel, one night last week, after I had retired, Mr. Fogg sat down
in the room below and determined to see if it were true that a candle
could be shot through a board from a gun. He dropped a lighted candle
in his gun, and of course it exploded. It came up through the floor
and made a large spot of grease upon the ceiling of my room, nearly
scaring me to death and filling my legs full of bird-shot."
"Maria, I asked you to believe that I forgot about the candle being
lighted. I did it in a fit of absent-mindedness."
"Do go into the other room, Wilberforce, or else hold your tongue. So,
colonel, I want to get a divorce. Existence is unendurable to me. The
lives of my children are in danger. I cannot remain in such slavery
any longer. Can you release me?"
Colonel Coffin said he would think it over and give her an answer in a
week. His idea was to give her time to think better of it. So then
she told Wilberforce to put on his hat; and when he had done so, he
followed her meekly out, and they went home. It is believed in the
neighborhood that she has concluded to stick to him for a while
longer.