_MR. BANGER'S AUNT_.
There are two families of Bangers in our neighborhood, the heads of
which have the same name--Henry Banger. The Henry who married the
widow, heretofore mentioned, is a lawyer in the village, while the
other, having no relationship to the former, is a "professor," and he
lives on the opposite side of the river, in a hamlet that has grown up
there. One day Henry Banger, the lawyer, received a telegram saying
that his aunt had died suddenly in Elmira, New York, and that the body
would be sent on at once by express. Mr. Banger made preparations for
the funeral, and upon the day that the remains were due he went down
to the express office to receive them.
They did not come, however; and when the agent telegraphed to ask
about them, he ascertained that Mr. Banger's aunt had been carried
through to Baltimore by mistake. Orders were sent at once to reship
the body with all possible speed; and accordingly, it was placed upon
the cars of the Northern Central Railroad. As the train was proceeding
north a collision occurred. The train was wrecked, and Mr. Banger's
aunt was tossed rudely out upon the roadside.
The people who were attending to things supposed that she was one of
the victims of the accident, and so the coroner held an inquest;
and as nobody knew who she was, she was sent back to Baltimore and
interred by the authorities. As she did not reach Mr. Banger, he
induced the express company to hunt her up; and when her resting-place
was discovered, they took her up, placed her in a casket and shipped
her again.
During that trip some thieves got into the express car and threw out
the iron money-chest and Mr. Banger's aunt, supposing that the casket
contained treasure. On the following morning a farmer discovered Mr.
Banger's aunt in the casket leaning up against a tree in the woods.
He sent for the coroner; and when another inquest had been held, they
were about to bury the remains, and would have done so had not a
telegram come from the express company instructing the authorities to
ship Mr. Banger's aunt back to Baltimore.
Mr. Banger, meantime, endured the most agonizing suspense, and began
to talk about suing the express company for damages. At last, however,
he received information that the departed one had been sent on upon
the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. So she had. But
as the train was crossing Gunpowder River the express car gave a
lurch, and the next moment Mr. Banger's aunt shot through the door
into the water. She sailed around in the bay for several days,
apparently uncertain whether to seek the ocean and move straight
across for Europe, or to go up into the interior. She chose the
latter course, and a week afterward she drifted ashore in the Lower
Susquehanna.
As soon as she was discovered the coroner held an inquest, and then
put her on the cars again. This time she came directly to Millburg,
and Mr. Banger was at the depot waiting for her with the funeral. By
some mistake, however, she was carried past and put out at the next
town above, and the agent said that the best thing he could do would
be to have her brought down in the morning. In the morning she came,
and Mr. Banger was there with the friends of the family to receive
her.
When they reached the cemetery, Rev. Dr. Dox delivered a most
affecting discourse; and when all was over, and Mr. and Mrs. Banger
had wiped away their tears, they went slowly home, sorrowful, of
course, but somewhat glad that the long suspense was ended.
As Mr. Banger entered his sitting-room he saw a lady reposing in front
of the fire, with her back toward him, toasting her toes. Before he
had time to speak she looked around, and he was amazed to perceive
that it was his dead-and-buried aunt. He was a little frightened at
first, but in a moment he summoned up courage enough to ask,
"Why, how did you get here?"
"I came on the train, of course."
"Yes, I know; but how did you get out of the cemetery?"
"Cemetery? What cemetery? I haven't been in any cemetery!"
"Not been in the cemetery! Why, either I buried you an hour ago, or I
am the worst mistaken man on earth."
"Mr. Banger, what do you mean? This is a curious sort of a jest."
Then Banger explained the situation to her; and as she solemnly
protested that she had not been in Elmira, Banger was about to
conclude that he had been the victim of a joke, when it suddenly
occurred to him that maybe it was the aunt of Professor Banger. He
sent out to investigate the matter, and found that the conjecture was
correct. And when Professor Banger heard about it, he became very
angry, and he entered suit against the lawyer Banger for embezzling
his aunt. Then Lawyer Banger sued the professor for the express
charges and the funeral expenses, and for a time it looked as if that
eccentric and roving old lady would be the cause of infinite trouble;
but the difficulty was finally compromised by the lawyer Banger
accepting half the amount of his expenses.
* * * * *
Professor Banger was originally a telegraph-operator, but some years
ago he saved up a small sum of money, with which he constructed a
balloon. Then he tacked "professor" to his name, and began to devote
himself to science and the show business. His account of one of his
recent excursions is not only entertaining, but it proves that he is
an ardent student of natural phenomena. He said to me,
"We went up at Easton, Pennsylvania; Conly, Jones and myself, and
it was the finest trip I ever took. Perfectly splendid! We got the
balloon full about twelve o'clock, and the crowd held her down until
we were ready. Then I gave the word and they let go, and we went
a-humming into the air. One man got caught in a twist of the rope as
she gave her first spurt upward, and it slammed him up against a fence
as if he'd been shot out of a gun. Smashed in three or four of his
ribs, I believe, and cracked his leg.
"But we went up beautifully about fifteen hundred feet, and while we
were looking at the charming scenery we ran into a cloud, and I told
Conly to throw out some ballast. He heaved over a couple of sand-bags,
and one of them accidentally fell on Major Wiggins' hired girl, who
was hanging clothes in the garden, and the other went into his chimney
and choked it up. He was mad as fury about it when we came down. No
enthusiasm for science. Some men don't care a cent whether the world
progresses or not.
[Illustration: BALLAST]
"Well, sir, we shot up about a thousand feet more, and then Jones
dropped the lunch-basket overboard by accident, and we went up nearly
four miles Conly got blue in the face, Jones fainted, and I came near
going under myself. A minute more we'd all've been dead men; but I
gave the valve a jerk, and we came down like a rocket-stick. When the
boys came to, Jones said he wanted to get out; and as we were only a
little distance from the ground, I threw out the grapnel.
"That minute a breeze struck her, and she went along at about ninety
miles an hour over some man's garden, and the grapnel caught his
grape-arbor snatched it up, and pretty soon got it tangled with the
weathercock on the Presbyterian church-steeple. I cut the rope and
left it there, and I understand that the deacons sued the owner
because he wouldn't take it down. Raised an awful fuss and sent the
sheriff after me. Trying to make scientific investigation seem like a
crime, and I working all the time like a horse to unfold the phenomena
of nature! If they had loved knowledge, they wouldn't've cared if
I'd've ripped off their old steeple and dropped it down like an
extinguisher on top of some factory chimney.
"So, when we left the grape-arbor, we went up again, and Jones got
sicker and said he must get out. So I rigged up another grapnel and
threw it over. We were just passing a farm near the river; and as the
wind was high, the grapnel tore through two fences and pulled the roof
off of a smoke-house, and then, as nothing would hold her, we swooped
into the woods, when we ran against a tree. The branches skinned
Conly's face and nearly put out my right eye, and knocked four teeth
out of Jones' mouth. It was the most exciting and interesting voyage
I ever made in my life; and I was just beginning to get some
satisfaction from it--just getting warmed up and preparing to take
some meteorological observations--when Jones became so very anxious to
quit that I didn't like to refuse, although it went fearfully against
the grain for the reason that I hated to give up and abandon my
scientific investigations.
"So I threw out my coat and boots, and made the other fellows do the
same, and we rose above the trees and sailed along splendidly until we
struck the river. Then she suddenly dodged down, and the edge of the
car caught in the water; so the wind took her, and we went scudding
along like lightning, nearly drowned. Conly was washed overboard, and
that lightened her, so she went up again. I was for staying up, but
Jones said he'd die if he didn't get out soon; and besides, he thought
we ought to look after Conly. But I said Conly was probably drowned,
anyhow, so it was hardly worth while to sacrifice our experiments on
that account; and I told Jones that a man of his intelligence ought to
be willing to endure something for the sake of scientific truth. And
Jones said, 'Hang scientific truth!'--actually made that remark; and
he said that if I didn't let him out he'd jump out. He was sick, you
know. The man was not himself, or he would never have talked in that
way about a voyage that was so full of interest and so likely to
reveal important secrets of nature.
"But to oblige him I at last got her down on the other side of the
river, and a farmer ran out and seized the rope. While we were talking
to him I was just telling him that, as the gas was running out of the
neck of the balloon, maybe he'd better put out his cigar, when all of
a sudden there was a terrific bang. The gas exploded and wrapped us in
a sheet of flame, and the next minute some of the neighbors picked up
me and Jones. Jones was roasted nearly to a crisp. Exciting, wasn't
it?
"And they took him over to the farmhouse, where we found that they had
fished out Conly and were bringing him to. When he revived, they sent
the invalid corps back to town in a wagon, Jones groaning all the way
and I arguing with him to show that science requires her votaries to
give up a little of their personal comfort for the benefit it does the
human race, and Conly saying he wished he was well enough to go out
and bang the inventor of balloons with a gun.
"As soon as we got back to Easton a constable arrested me for chucking
that ignorant opponent of scientific inquiry up against the fence
and wrecking him. When I was let off on bail, I began to build a new
balloon. She's nearly done now, and I'm going to make an ascension
early next month in search of the ozone belt. Won't you go up with me?
The day is going to come when everybody will travel that way. It's the
most exhilarating motion in the world. Come on up and help me make
scientific observations on the ozone belt."
But the invitation was declined. The _Patriot_, however, will have a
good obituary notice of the professor all ready, in type.