But here were classic meadows, blooming dales and downs
And here were grassy pastures, dewy as the leas
Trampled over by the trains of royal pageantries.
And here the winding highway loitered through the shade
Of the hazel-covert, where, in ambuscade,
Loomed the larch and linden, and the green-wood tree
Under which bold Robin Hood loud hallooed to me!
Here the stir and riot of the busy day,
Dwindled to the quiet of the breath of May;
Gurgling brooks, and ridges lily-marged, and spanned
By the rustic bridges found in Wonderland!
II.
From Delphi to Camden--from Camden back again!--
And now the night was on us, and the lightning and the rain;
And still the way was wondrous with the flash of hill and plain,--
The stars like printed asterisks--the moon a murky stain!
And I thought of tragic idyl, and of flight and hot pursuit,
And the jingle of the bridle, and cuirass, and spur on boot,
As our horses's hooves struck showers from the flinty bowlders set
In freshet ways with writhing reed and drowning violet.
And we passed beleaguered castles, with their battlements a-frown;
Where a tree fell in the forest was a turret toppled down;
While my master and commander--the brave knight I galloped with
On this reckless road to ruin or to fame, was--Dr. Smith!
[Illustration: The Grammatical Boy]
Sometimes a sad homesick feeling comes over me when I compare the
prevailing style of anecdote and school literature with the old McGuffey
brand, so well known thirty years ago. To-day our juvenile literature,
it seems to me, is so transparent, so easy to understand that I am not
surprised to learn that the rising generation shows signs of
lawlessness.
Boys to-day do not use the respectful language and large, luxuriant
words that they did when Mr. McGuffey used to stand around and report
their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is
disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I
think we should face the facts.
I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following
selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged
with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with
the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of
to-day.
One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing
through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite
direction along the highway.
"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we
here?"
"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do
you reside in this locality?"
"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder
cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children
dwell with me."
"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection.
"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor
mother is a widow."
"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on
the other foot awhile.
"Alas! sir," said George, as a large hot tear stole down his pale cheek,
and fell with a loud report on the warty surface of his bare foot, "he
was lost at sea in a bitter gale. The good ship foundered two years ago
last Christmastide, and father was foundered at the same time. No one
knew of the loss of the ship and that the crew was drowned until the
next spring, and it was then too late."
"And what is your age, my fine fellow?" quoth the stranger.
"If I live till next October," said the boy, in a declamatory tone of
voice suitable for a Second Reader. "I will be seven years of age."
"And who provides for your mother and her large family of children?"
queried the man.
"Indeed, I do, sir," replied George, in a shrill tone. "I toil, oh, so
hard, sir, for we are very, very poor, and since my elder sister, Ann,
was married and brought her husband home to live with us, I have to toil
more assiduously than heretofore."
"And by what means do you obtain a livelihood?" exclaimed the man, in
slowly measured and grammatical words.
"By digging wells, kind sir," replied George, picking up a tired ant as
he spoke and stroking it on the back. "I have a good education, and so I
am able to dig wells as well as a man. I do this day-times and take in
washing at night. In this way I am enabled barely to maintain our family
in a precarious manner; but, oh, sir, should my other sisters marry, I
fear that some of my brothers-in-law would have to suffer."
"And do you not fear the deadly fire-damp?" asked the stranger in an
earnest tone.
"Not by a damp sight," answered George, with a low gurgling laugh, for
he was a great wag.
"You are indeed a brave lad," exclaimed the stranger, as he repressed a
smile. "And do you not at times become very weary and wish for other
ways of passing your time?"
"Indeed, I do, sir," said the lad. "I would fain run and romp and be gay
like other boys, but I must engage in constant manual exercise, or we
will have no bread to eat, and I have not seen a pie since papa perished
in the moist and moaning sea."
"And what if I were to tell you that your papa did not perish at sea,
but was saved from a humid grave?" asked the stranger in pleasing tones.
"Ah, sir," exclaimed George, in a genteel manner, again doffing his cap,
"I am too polite to tell you what I would say, and beside, sir, you are
much larger than I am."
"But, my brave lad," said the man in low musical tones, "do you not know
me, Georgie? Oh, George!"
"I must say," replied George, "that you have the advantage of me. Whilst
I may have met you before, I cannot at this moment place you, sir."
"My son! oh, my son!" murmured the man, at the same time taking a large
strawberry mark out of his valise and showing it to the lad. "Do you not
recognize your parent on your father's side? When our good ship went to
the bottom, all perished save me. I swam several miles through the
billows, and at last utterly exhausted, gave up all hope of life.
Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It was the United States.
"And now, my brave boy," exclaimed the man with great glee, "see what I
have brought for you." It was but the work of a moment to unclasp from a
shawl-strap which he held in his hand and present to George's astonished
gaze a large 40-cent water-melon, which until now had been concealed by
the shawl-strap.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Craqueodoom.]
The Crankadox leaned o'er the edge of the moon
And wistfully gazed on the sea
Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune
To the air of Ti-fol-de-ding-dee.
The quavering shriek of the Fliupthecreek
Was fitfully wafted afar
To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek
With the pulverized rays of a star.
The Gool closed his ear on the voice of the Grig,
And his heart it grew heavy as lead
As he marked the Baldekin adjusting his wig
On the opposite side of his head;
And the air it grew chill as the Gryxabodill
Raised his dank, dripping fins to the skies,
To plead with the Plunk for the use of her bill
To pick the tears out of his eyes.
The ghost of the Zhack flitted by in a trance;
And the Squidjum hid under a tub
As he heard the loud hooves of the Hooken advance
With a rub-a-dub-dub-a-dub dub!
And the Crankadox cried as he laid down and died,
"My fate there is none to bewail!"
While the Queen of the Wunks drifted over the tide
With a long piece of crape to her tail.
The Chemist of the Carolinas
Asheville, N. C., Dec. 13--Last week I went out into the mountains for
the purpose of securing a holly tree with red berries on it for
Yuletide. I had noticed in all my pictures of Christmas festivities in
England that the holly, with cranberries on it, constituted the
background of Yuletide. A Yuletide in England without a holly bough and
a little mistletoe in it wouldn't be worth half price. Here these
vegetables grow in great confusion, owing to the equable climate, and so
the holly tree is within the reach of all.
I resolved to secure one personally, so I sped away into the mountains
where, in less than the time it takes to tell it, I had succeeded in
finding a holly tree and losing myself. It is a very solemn sensation to
feel that you are lost, and that before you can be found something is
liable to happen to the universe.
I wandered aimlessly about for half an hour, hoping that I would be
missed in society and some one sent in search of me. I was just about to
give up in despair and sink down on a bed of moss with the idea of
shuffling off six or seven feet of mortal coil when, a few rods away, I
saw a blue smoke issuing from the side of the mountain and rising toward
the sky. I went rapidly towards it and found it to be a plain dugout
with a dirt floor. I entered and cast myself upon a rude nail keg,
allowing my feet to remain suspended at the lower end of my legs, an
attitude which I frequently affect when fatigued.
[Illustration]
The place was not occupied at the time I entered, though there was a
fire and things looked as though the owner had not been long absent. It
seemed to be a kind of laboratory, for I could see here and there the
earmarks of the chemist. I feared at first that it was a bomb factory,
but as I could not see any of these implements in a perfected state I
decided that it was safe and waited for the owner to arrive.
After a time I heard a low guttural footstep approaching up the hill. I
went to the door and exclaimed to the proprietor as he came, "Merry
Christmas, Colonel."
"Merry Christmas be d----d!" said he in the same bantering tone. "What
in three dashes, two hyphens and an astonisher do you want here, you
double-dashed and double-blanketed blank to dash and return!!"
The wording here is my own, but it gives an idea of the way the
conversation was drifting. You can see by his manner that literary
people are not alone in being surly, irritable and unreasonable.
So I humored him and spoke kindly to him and smoothed down his ruffled
plumage with my gay badinage, for he wore a shawl and you can never tell
whether a man wearing a shawl is armed or not. I give herewith a view of
this chemist as he appeared on the morning I met him.
It will be noticed that he was a man about medium height with clear-cut
features and hair and retreating brisket. His hair was dark and hung in
great waves which seemed to have caught the sunlight and retained it
together with a great many other atmospheric phenomena. He wore a straw
hat, such as I once saw Horace Greeley catch grasshoppers in, on the
banks of the Kinnickinnick, just before he caught a small trout.
I spent some time with him watching him as he made his various
experiments. Finally, he showed me a new beverage that he had been
engaged in perfecting. It was inclosed in a dark brown stone receptacle
and was held in place by a common corn-cob stopper. I took some of it
in order to show that I confided in him. I do not remember anything else
distinctly. The fumes of this drink went at once to my brain, where it
had what might be termed a complete walkover.
I now have no hesitation in saying that the fluid must have been
alcoholic in its nature, for when I regained my consciousness I was
extremely elsewhere. I found myself on a road which seemed to lead in
two opposite directions, and my mind was very much confused.
I hardly know how I got home, but I finally did get there, accompanied
by a strong leaning towards Prohibition. A few days ago I received the
following letter:
Sir:--I at first thought when I saw you at my laboratory the other day
that you was a low, inquisitive cuss and so I spoke to you in harsh
tones and reproached you and upbraided you by calling you everything I
could lay my tongue to, but since then I have concluded that you didn't
know any better.
You said to me that you found my place by seeing the smoke coming out of
the chimbley; that has given me an idea that you might know something
about what's called a smoke consumer of which I have heard. I am doing a
fair business, but I am a good deal pestered, as you might say, by
people who come in on me when I do not want to mingle in society. A man
in the chemist business cannot succeed if he is all the time
interrupted by Tom, Dick and Harry coming in on him when he is in the
middle of an experiment.
I am engaged in making a remedy for which there is a great demand, but
its manufacture is regarded with suspicion by United States officials
who want to be considered zealous. Rather than be drawn into any
difficulty with these people, I have always courted retirement and
avoided the busy haunts of men. Still some strolling idiot or other will
occasionally see the smoke from my little home and drop in on me.
Could you find out about this smoke consumer and see what the price
would be and let me known as soon as possible?
If you could do so I can be of great service to you. Leave the letter
under the big stone where you found yourself the other day when you came
out of your trance. I call it a trance because this letter might fall
into the hands of your family. If you will find out about this smoke
consumer and leave the information where I have told you you will find
on the following day a large jug of mountain dew in the same place that
will make your hair grow and give a roseate hue to your otherwise gloomy
life.
Do not try to come here again. It might compromise me. A man in your
position may not have anything to risk, but with me it is different. My
unsullied reputation is all I have to bequeath to my children. If you
come often there will not be enough left to go around, as I have a large
family.
If you hear of anybody that wants to trade a good double-barrel shotgun
for a small portable worm and retort that is too small for my business,
I can give him a good trade on it if he will let you know. This is a
good machine for experimental purposes, and being no larger than a
Babcock fire-extinguisher it can be readily conveyed to a place of
safety at a very rapid rate.
You might say to your friends that we shall try in the future as we have
in the past to keep up the standard of our goods, so as to merit a
continued patronage.
Citizens of the United States, or those who have declared their
intention to become such, will always be welcome at our works, provided
they are not office-holders in any capacity. We have no use for those
who are in any way connected with the public teat.
Dictated letter.
I. B. MOONSHINE.
I hope that any one will feel perfectly free to address me in relation
to anything referred to in the above letter. All communications
containing remittances will be regarded as strictly confidential.
[Illustration]
His Crazy-Bone
The man that struck his crazy-bone,
All suddenly jerked up one foot
And hopped three vivid hops, and put
His elbow straight before him--then
Flashed white as pallid Parian stone,
And clinched his eyes, and hopped again.
He spake no word--he made no moan--
He muttered no invective--but
Just gripped his eyelids tighter shut,
And as the world whizzed past him then,
He only knew his crazy-bone
Was stricken--so--he hopped again.
Prying Open the Future
[Illustration]
"Ring the bell and the door will open," is the remark made by a small
label over a bell-handle in Third avenue, near Eighteenth street, where
Mme. La Foy reads the past, present and future at so much per read.
Love, marriage, divorce, illness, speculation and sickness are there
handled with the utmost impunity by "Mme. La Foy, the famous scientific
astrologist," who has monkeyed with the planets for twenty years, and if
she wanted any information has "read it in the stars."
I rang the bell the other day to see if the door would open. It did so
after considerable delay, and a pimply boy in knee pants showed me
upstairs into the waiting-room. After a while I was removed to the
consultation-room, where Mme. La Foy, seated behind a small oil-cloth
covered table, rakes up old personalities and pries into the future at
cut rates.
Skirmishing about among the planets for twenty years involves a great
deal of fatigue and exposure, to say nothing of the night work, and so
Mme. La Foy has the air of one who has put in a very busy life. She is
as familiar with planets though as you or I might be with our own
family, and calls them by their first names. She would know Jupiter,
Venus, Saturn, Adonis or any of the other fixed stars the darkest night
that ever blew.
"Mme. La Foy De Graw," said I, bowing with the easy grace of a gentleman
of the old school, "would you mind peering into the future for me about
a half dollar's worth, not necessarily for publication, et cetera."
"Certainly not. What would you like to know?"
"Why, I want to know all I can for the money," I said in a bantering
tone. "Of course I do not wish to know what I already know. It is what I
do not know that I desire to know. Tell me what I do not know, Madame. I
will detain you but a moment."
She gave me back my large, round half dollar and told me that she was
already weary. She asked me to excuse her. She was willing to unveil the
future to me in her poor, weak way, but she could not guarantee to let a
large flood of light into the darkened basement of a benighted mind for
half a dollar.
"You can tell me what year and on what day of the month you were born,"
said Mme. La Foy, "and I will outline your life to you. I generally
require a lock of the hair, but in your case we will dispense with it."
I told her when I was born and the circumstances as well as I could
recall them.
"This brings you under Venus, Mercury and Mars. These three planets were
in conjunction at the time of your birth. You were born when the sign
was wrong and you have had more or less trouble ever since. Had you been
born when the sign was in the head or the heart, instead of the feet,
you would not have spread out over the ground so much.
"Your health is very good, as is the health of those generally who are
born under the same auspices that you were. People who are born under
the reign of the crab are apt to be cancerous. You, however, have great
lung power and wonderful gastric possibilities. Yet, at times, you would
be easily upset. A strong cyclone that would unroof a court-house or tip
over a through train would also upset you, in spite of your broad, firm
feet if the wind got behind one of your ears.
"You will be married early, and you will be very happy, though your wife
will not enjoy herself very much. Your wife will be much happier during
her second marriage.
"You will prosper better in business matters without forming any
partnerships. Do not go into partnership with a small, dark man who has
neuralgia and a fine yacht. He has abundant means, but he will go
through you like an electric shock.
"Tuesdays and Saturdays will be your most fortunate days on which to
borrow money of men with light hair. Mondays and Thursdays will be your
best days for approaching dark men.
"Look out for a low-set man accompanied by an office cat, both of whom
are engaged in the newspaper business. He is crafty and bald-headed on
his father's side. He prints the only paper that contains the full text
of his speeches at testimonials and dinners given to other people. Do
not loan him money on any account.
"You would succeed as well a musician or an inventor, but you would not
do well as a poet. You have all the keen sensibility and strong passion
of a poet, but you haven't the hair. Do not try poesy.
"In the future I see you very prosperous. You are on the lecture
platform speaking. Large crowds of people are jostling each other at the
box-office and trying to get their money back.
"Then I see you riding behind a flexible horse that must have cost a
large sum of money. You are smoking a cigar that has never been in use
before. Then Venus bisects the orbit of Mars and I see you going home
with your head tied up in the lap robe, you and your spirited horse in
the same ambulance."
"But do you see anything for me in the future, Mme. La Foy?" I asked,
taking my feet off the table, the better to watch her features,
"anything that would seem to indicate political preferment, a reward for
past services to my country, as it were?"
"No, not clearly. But wait a moment. Your horoscope begins to get a
little more intelligent. I see you at the door of the Senate Chamber.
You are counting over your money and looking sadly at a schedule of
prices. Then you turn sorrowfully away and decide to buy a seat in the
House instead. Many years after I see you in the Senate. You are there
day after day attending to your duties. You are there early, before any
one else, and I see you pacing back and forth, up and down the aisles,
sweeping out the Senate Chamber and dusting off the seats and
rejuvenating the cuspidors."
"Does this horoscope which you are using this season give you any idea
as to whether money matters will be scarce with me next week or
otherwise, and if so what I had better do about it?"
"Towards the last of the week you will experience considerable monetary
prostration, but just as you have become despondent, at the very tail
end of the week, the horizon will clear up and a slight, dark gentleman,
with wide trousers, who is a total stranger to you, will loan you quite
a sum of money, with the understanding that it is to be repaid on
Monday."
"Then you would not advise me to go to Coney Island until the week after
next?"
"Certainly not."
"Would it be etiquette in dancing a quadrille to swing a young person of
the opposite sex twice round at a select party when you are but slightly
acquainted, but feel quite confident that her partner is unarmed?"
"Yes."
"Does your horoscope tell a person what to do with raspberry jelly that
will not jell?"
"No, not at the present prices."
"So you predict an early marriage, with threatening weather and strong
prevailing easterly winds along the Gulf States?"
"Yes, sir."
"And is there no way that this early marriage may be evaded?"
"No, not unless you put it off till later in life."
"Thank you," I said, rising and looking out the window over a broad
sweep of undulating alley and wind-swept roofing, "and now, how much are
you out on this?"
"Sir!"
"What's the damage?"
"Oh, one dollar."
"But don't you advertise to read the past, present and future for fifty
cents?"
"Well, that is where a person has had other information before in his
life and has some knowledge to begin with; but where I fill up a vacant
mind entirely and store it with facts of all kinds and stock it up so
that it can do business for itself, I charge a dollar. I cannot
thoroughly refit and refurnish a mental tenement from the ground up for
fifty cents."
I do not think we have as good "Astrologists" now as we used to have.
Astrologists cannot crawl under the tent and pry into the future as they
could three or four thousand years ago.
Mr. Silberberg
[Illustration]
I like me yet dot leedle chile
Vich climb my lap up in to-day,
Unt took my cheap cigair avay,
Unt laugh and kiss me purty whvile,--
Possescially I like dose mout'
Vich taste his moder's like--unt so,
Off my cigair it gone glean out
--Yust let it go!
Vat I caire den for anyding?
Der paper schlip out fon my hand,
And all my odvairtizement stand,
Mitout new changements boddering;
I only dink--I have me dis
Von leedle boy to pet unt love
Unt play me vit, unt hug unt kiss--
Unt dot's enough!
Der plans unt pairposes I vear
Out in der vorld all fades avay;
Unt vit der beeznid of der day
I got me den no time to spare;
Der caires of trade vas caires no more--
Dem cash accounds dey dodge me by,
Unt vit my chile I roll der floor,
Unt laugh unt gry!
Ah! frient! dem childens is der ones
Dot got some happy times--you bet!--
Dot's vy ven I been grooved up yet
I vish I vould been leedle vonce!
Unt ven dot leetle roozter tries
Dem baby-tricks I used to do,
My mout it vater, unt my eyes
Dey vater too!
Unt all der summertime unt spring
Of childhood it come back to me,
So dot it vas a dream I see
Ven I yust look at anyding,
Unt ven dot leedle boy run by,
I dink "dot's me," fon hour to hour
Schtill chasing yet dose butterfly
Fon flower to flower!
Oxpose I vas lots money vairt,
Mit blenty schtone-front schtore to rent
Unt mor'gages at twelf per-cent,
Unt diamonds in my ruffled shairt,--
I make a'signment of all dot,
Unt tairn it over mit a schmile,
Obber you please--but don'd forgot
I keep dot chile!
[Illustration]
Spirits at Home
(THE FAMILY)
There was Father, and Mother, and Emmy, and Jane
And Lou, and Ellen, and John and me--
And father was killed in the war, and Lou
She died of consumption, and John did too,
And Emmy she went with the pleurisy.
(THE SPIRITS)