_MR. FOGG AS A SPORTSMAN AND A SPOUSE_.
Game was so plenty about our neighborhood last fall that Mr. Fogg
determined to become a sportsman. He bought a double-barrel gun, and
after trying it a few times by firing it at a mark, he loaded it and
placed it behind the hall door until he should want it. A few days
later he made up his mind to go out and shoot a rabbit or two, so he
shouldered his gun and strode off toward the open country. A mile
or two from the town he saw a rabbit; and taking aim, he pulled the
trigger. The gun failed to go off. Then he pulled the other trigger,
and again the cap snapped. Mr. Fogg used a strong expression of
disgust, and then, taking a pin, he picked the nipples of the gun,
primed them with a little powder and made a fresh start. Presently
he saw another rabbit. He took good aim, but both caps snapped. The
rabbit did not see Mr. Fogg, so he put on more caps, and they snapped
too.
Then Mr. Fogg cleaned out the nipples again, primed them and leveled
the gun at a fence. The caps snapped again. Then Mr. Fogg became
furious, and in his rage he expended forty-two caps trying to make the
gun go off. When the forty-second cap missed also, Mr. Fogg thought,
perhaps, there might be something the matter with the inside of the
gun, and so he sounded the barrels with his ramrod. To his utter
dismay, he discovered that both barrels were empty. Mrs. Fogg, who is
nervous about firearms, had drawn the loads without telling Fogg. The
language used by Mr. Fogg when he made this discovery was extremely
disgraceful, and he felt sorry for it a moment afterward. As he grew
cooler he loaded both barrels and started afresh for the rabbits. He
saw one in a few moments and was about to fire, when he noticed that
there were no caps on the gun. He felt for one, and, to his dismay,
found that he had snapped the last one off. Then he ground his teeth
and walked home. On his way he saw a greater number of rabbits than he
ever saw before or is likely to see again, and as he looked at them
and thought of Mrs. Fogg he felt mad and murderous. He went gunning
eight or ten times afterward that autumn, always with a full supply of
ammunition, but he never once saw a rabbit or any other kind of game
within gun-shot.
[Illustration: AN INDIGNANT GUNNER]
But he forgave Mrs. Fogg, and for a while their domestic peace was
unruffled. One evening, however, while they were sitting together,
they got to talking about their married life and their past troubles
until both of them grew quite sympathetic. At last Mrs. Fogg suggested
that it might help to kindle afresh the fire of love in their hearts
if they would freely confess their faults to each other and promise to
amend them. Mr. Fogg said it struck him as being a good idea. For his
part, he was willing to make a clean breast of it, but he suggested
that perhaps his wife had better begin. She thought for a moment, and
this conversation ensued:
"Well, then," said Mrs. Fogg, "I am willing to acknowledge that I am
the worst-tempered woman in the world."
_Mr. Fogg_ (turning and looking at her). "Maria, that's about the only
time you ever told the square-toed truth in your life."
_Mrs. Fogg_ (indignantly). "Mr. Fogg, that's perfectly outrageous. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself."
_F_. "Well, you know it's so. You _have_ got the worst temper of any
woman I ever saw--the very worst; now haven't you?"
[Illustration: CONFESSING THEIR FAULTS]
_Mrs. F_. "No, I haven't, either. I'm just as good-tempered as you
are."
_F_. "That's not so. You're as cross as a bear If you were married to
a graven image, you'd quarrel with it."
_Mrs. F_. "That's an outrageous falsehood! There isn't any woman about
this neighborhood that puts up with as much as I do without getting
angry. You're a perfect brute."
_F_. "It's you that is the brute."
_Mrs. F_. "No, it isn't."
_F_. "Yes, it is. You're as snappish as a mad dog. It's few men that
could live with you."
_Mrs. F_. "If you say that again, I'll scratch your eyes out."
_F_. "I dare you to lay your hands on me, you vixen."
_Mrs. F_. "You do, eh? Well, take that! and that" (cuffing him on the
head).
_F_. "You let go of my hair, or I'll murder you."
_Mrs. F_. "I will; and I'll leave this house this very night; I won't
live any longer with such a monster."
_F_. "Well, quit; get out. The sooner, the better. Good riddance to
bad rubbish; and take your clothes with you."
_Mrs. F_. "I'm sorry I ever married you. You ain't fit to be yoked
with any decent woman, you wretch you!"
_F_. "Well, you ain't half as sorry as I am. Good-bye. Don't come back
soon."
Then Mrs. Fogg put on her bonnet and went around to her mother's, but
she came back in the morning. Mr. Fogg hasn't yet confessed what his
principal failing is.
* * * * *
Mr. Fogg's life has been very troublous. He told me that he had a fit
of sleeplessness one night lately, and after vainly trying to lose
himself in slumber he happened to remember that he once read in an
almanac that a man could put himself to sleep by imagining that he
saw a lot of sheep jumping over a fence, and by counting them as they
jumped. He determined to try the experiment; and closing his eyes, he
fancied the sheep jumping and began to count. He had reached his one
hundred and fortieth sheep, and was beginning to doze off, when Mrs.
Fogg suddenly said,
"Wilberforce!"
"Oh, what?"
"I believe that yellow hen of ours wants to set."
"Oh, don't bother me with such nonsense as that now! Do keep quiet and
go to sleep."
Then Mr. Fogg started his sheep again and commenced to count. He got
up to one hundred and twenty, and was feeling as if he would drop off
at any moment, when, just as his one hundred and twenty-first sheep
was about to take that fence, the baby began to cry.
"Hang that child!" he shouted at Mrs. Fogg. "Why don't you tend to it
and put it to sleep? Hush, you little imp, or I'll spank you!"
When Mrs. Fogg had quieted it, Mr. Fogg, although a little nervous and
excited, concluded to try it again. Turning on the imaginary mutton,
he began. Only sixty-four sheep had slid over the fence, when Fogg's
aunt knocked at the door and asked if he was awake. When she learned
that he was, she said she believed he had forgotten to close the back
shutters, and she thought she heard burglars in the yard.
Then Mr. Fogg arose in wrath and went down to see about it. He
ascertained that the shutters were closed, as usual, and as he
returned to bed he resolved that his aunt should leave the house for
good in the morning, or he would. However, he thought he might as well
give the almanac-plan another trial; and setting the sheep in motion,
he began to count. This time he reached two hundred and forty, and
would probably have got to sleep before the three hundredth sheep
jumped, had not Mix's new dog, in the next yard, suddenly become
home-sick and begun to express his feelings in a series of prolonged
and exasperating howls.
Mr. Fogg was indignant. Neglecting the sheep, he leaped from bed and
began to bombard Mix's new dog with boots, soap-cups and every loose
object he could lay his hands on. He hit the animal at last with a
plaster bust of Daniel Webster, and induced the dog to retreat to the
stable and think about home in silence.
It seemed almost ridiculous to resume those sheep again, but he
determined to give the almanac-man one more chance, and soon as they
began to jump the fence he began to count, and after seeing the
eighty-second sheep safely over he was gliding gently in the land of
dreams, when Mrs. Fogg rolled out of bed and fell on the floor with
such violence that she waked the baby and started it crying, while Mr.
Fogg's aunt came down stairs four steps at a time to ask if they felt
that earthquake.
The situation was too awful for words. Mr. Fogg regarded it for a
minute with speechless indignation, and then, seizing a pillow, he
went over to the sofa in the back sitting-room and lay down.
He fell asleep in ten minutes without the assistance of the almanac,
but he dreamed all night that he was being butted around the equator
by a Cotswold ram, and he woke in the morning with a terrific headache
and a conviction that sheep are good enough for wool and chops, but
not worth anything as a narcotic.
* * * * *
Mr. Fogg has a strong tendency to exaggeration in conversation, and he
gave a striking illustration of this in a story that he related one
day when I called at his house. Fogg was telling me about an incident
that occurred in a neighboring town a few days before, and this is the
way he related it:
"You see old Bradley over here is perfectly crazy on the subject of
gases and the atmosphere and such things--absolutely wild; and one day
he was disputing with Green about how high up in the air life could be
sustained, and Bradley said an animal could live about forty million
miles above the earth if--"
"Not forty millions, my dear," interposed Mrs. Fogg; "only forty
miles, he said."
"Forty, was it? Thank you. Well, sir, old Green, you know, said that
was ridiculous; and he said he'd bet Bradley a couple of hundred
thousand dollars that life couldn't be sustained half that way up, and
so--"
"Wilberforce, you are wrong; he only offered to bet fifty dollars,"
said Mrs. Fogg.
"Well, anyhow, Bradley took him up quicker'n a wink, and they agreed
to send up a cat in a balloon to decide the bet. So what does Bradley
do but buy a balloon about twice as big as our barn and begin to--"
"It was only about ten feet in diameter, Mr. Adeler; Wilberforce
forgets."
"--Begin to inflate her. When she was filled, it took eighty men to
hold her; and--"
"Eighty men, Mr. Fogg!" said Mrs. F. "Why, you know Mr. Bradley held
the balloon himself."
"He did, did he? Oh, very well; what's the odds? And when everything
was ready, they brought out Bradley's tomcat and put it in the basket
and tied it in, so it couldn't jump, you know. There were about one
hundred thousand people looking on; and when they let go, you never
heard such--"
"There was not one more than two hundred people there," said Mrs.
Fogg; "I counted them myself."
"Oh, don't bother me!--I say, you never heard such a yell as the
balloon went scooting up into the sky, pretty near out of sight.
Bradley said she went up about one thousand miles, and--now, don't
interrupt me, Maria; I know what the man said--and that cat, mind you,
howling like a hundred fog-horns, so's you could a heard her from here
to Peru. Well, sir, when she was up so's she looked as small as a
pin-head something or other burst. I dunno know how it was, but pretty
soon down came that balloon, a-hurtling toward the earth at the rate
of fifty miles a minute, and old--"
"Mr. Fogg, you know that the balloon came down as gently as--"
"Oh, do hush up! Women don't know anything about such things.--And old
Bradley, he had a kind of registering thermometer fixed in the basket
along with that cat--some sort of a patent machine; cost thousands of
dollars--and he was expecting to examine it; and Green had an idea
he'd lift out a dead cat and take in the stakes. When all of a sudden,
as she came pelting down, a tornado struck her--now, Maria, what in
the thunder are you staring at me in that way for? It was a tornado--a
regular cyclone--and it struck her and jammed her against the
lightning-rod on the Baptist church-steeple; and there she
stuck--stuck on that spire about eight hundred feet up in the air, and
looked as if she had come there to stay."
"You may get just as mad as you like," said Mrs. Fogg, "but I am
positively certain that steeple's not an inch over ninety-five feet."
"Maria, I wish to _gracious_ you'd go up stairs and look after the
children.--Well, about half a minute after she struck out stepped that
tomcat onto the weathercock. It made Green sick. And just then the
hurricane reached the weathercock, and it began to revolve six hundred
or seven hundred times a minute, the cat howling until you couldn't
hear yourself speak.--Now, Maria, you've had your put; you keep
quiet.--That cat stayed on the weathercock about two months--"
"Mr. Fogg, that's an awful story; it only happened last Tuesday."
"Never mind her," said Mr. Fogg, confidentially.--And on Sunday the
way that cat carried on and yowled, with its tail pointing due east,
was so awful that they couldn't have church. And Sunday afternoon the
preacher told Bradley if he didn't get that cat down he'd sue him for
one million dollars damages. So Bradley got a gun and shot at the
cat fourteen hundred times.--Now you didn't count 'em, Maria, and I
did.--And he banged the top of the steeple all to splinters, and at
last fetched down the cat, shot to rags; and in her stomach he found
his thermometer. She'd ate it on her way up, and it stood at eleven
hundred degrees, so old--"
"No thermometer ever stood at such a figure as that," exclaimed Mrs.
Fogg.
"Oh, well," shouted Mr. Fogg, indignantly, "if you think you can tell
the story better than I can, why don't you tell it? You're enough to
worry the life out of a man."
Then Fogg slammed the door and went out, and I left. I don't know
whether Bradley got the stakes or not.