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_HUMOUR SERIES_
-------------------------------------------
EDITED BY W. H. DIRCKS
THE HUMOUR OF AMERICA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALREADY ISSUED
_FRENCH HUMOUR_
_GERMAN HUMOUR_
_ITALIAN HUMOUR_
_AMERICAN HUMOUR_
_DUTCH HUMOUR_
_IRISH HUMOUR_
_SPANISH HUMOUR_
_RUSSIAN HUMOUR_
[Illustration: “SHE SHRILLY OBSERVES ‘THOMAS JEFFERSON, COME RIGHT INTO
THE HOUSE THIS MINIT.’” _See page 130._]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
HUMOUR OF AMERICA
SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION
AND INDEX OF
AMERICAN HUMORISTS, BY
JAMES BARR. ILLUSTRATIONS
BY C. E. BROCK
[Illustration: decoration]
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
1909.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
-------
PAGE
NOTE xi
MY DOG—_Bill Nye_ 1
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE—_James Whitcomb Riley_ 4
BAKED BEANS AND CULTURE—_Eugene Field_ 8
THE NICE PEOPLE—_H. C. Bunner_ 12
THE EUREKY RAT-TRAP—C. B. Lewis (“_M Quad_”) 24
THE SCHOOL EXAMINATION—_George Washington 28
Cable_
“WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?”—_John G. Saxe_ 35
THE ARTLESS PRATTLE OF CHILDHOOD—_Robert 38
Jones Burdette_
SPEECH ON THE BABIES—_Samuel L. Clemens_ 44
(“_Mark Twain_”)
ON CYCLONES—_Bill Nye_ 49
OUR CORRESPONDENT HAS THE HONOUR TO BE—_R. H. 51
Newell_ (“_Orpheus C. Kerr_”)
YAWCOB STRAUSS—_Charles Follen Adams_ 61
THE MINISTER’S WOOING—_Harriet Beecher Stowe_ 63
ALBINA MCLUSH—_Nathaniel Parker Willis_ 73
A LONG TIME AGO—_John Barr_ 77
THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM—_Oliver 82
Wendell Holmes_
OUR TRAVELLED PARSON—_Will Carleton_ 85
A RAILROAD “RECUSSANT”—_L. Gaylord Clark_ 91
AN UNMARRIED FEMALE—_Marietta Holley_ 93
THE COURTIN’—_James Russell Lowell_ 103
THE WONDERFUL TAR-BABY STORY—_Joel Chandler 108
Harris_
POMONA’S NOVEL—_Frank R. Stockton_ 111
TEMPEST IN A TUB—_J. M. Bailey_ 128
THE STOUT GENTLEMAN—_Washington Irving_ 131
MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN—_Charles Dudley Warner_ 144
THE QUAKER COQUETTE—_Charles Graham Halpine_ 156
CAT-FISHING—_W. L. Alden_ 158
CAPTAIN STICK AND TONY—_Johnson T. Hooper_ 162
“ITEMS” FROM THE PRESS OF INTERIOR 166
CALIFORNIA—_Ambrose Bierce_ (“_Dod Grile_”)
AN AVALANCHE OF DRUGS 168
MUSIC—_Ambrose Bierce_ (“_Dod Grile_”) 174
MAXIMS—_Benjamin Franklin_ 175
MODEL OF A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION OF A 176
PERSON YOU ARE UNACQUAINTED WITH—_Benjamin
Franklin_
ECHO-SONG—_Thos. Bailey Aldrich_ 176
COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS—_Samuel L. Clemens_ 179
(“_Mark Twain_”)
THE OWL-CRITIC—_Jas. T. Fields_ 187
ANNIHILATES AN OBERLINITE—_Petroleum V. 191
Nasby_
AN ECONOMICAL PROJECT—_Benjamin Franklin_ 193
MISS MEHETABEL’S SON—_Thos. Bailey Aldrich_ 199
PECK’S BAD BOY—_George W. Peck_ 216
THE BRITISH KNOCK—_William Austin_ 221
A CAPTIVE MAIDEN 225
MRS. PARTINGTON IN COURT—_Benjamin Penhallon 227
Shillaber_ (“_Mrs. Partington_”)
THE MUSIC-GRINDERS—_Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 228
MISS CRUMP’S SONG—_Augustus Baldwin 232
Longstreet_
A POLYGLOT BARBER—_Samuel S. Cox_ 238
AT THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY—_Robert Barr_ (“_Luke 243
Sharp_”)
HANS BREITMANN’S BARTY—_Charles Godfrey 250
Leland_
OUR NEW BEDSTEAD—_Frederick Swartout Cozzens_ 253
A QUILTING—_Sam Slick_ 259
A PATENTED CHILD—_W. L. Alden_ 265
A TALK ABOUT TEA—_Frederick S. Cozzens_ 269
OLD AUNT MARY’S—_James Whitcomb Riley_ 273
A PETITION OF THE LEFT HAND—_Benjamin 275
Franklin_
WOMEN’S FASHIONS—_Nathaniel Ward_ 277
THE NEWSBOY—_Joseph C. Neal_ 281
THE BOYS AROUND THE HOUSE—_C. B. Lewis_ (“_M 285
Quad_”)
MR. DOTY MAD—_Eugene Field_ 287
OUR TWO OPINIONS—_Eugene Field_ 289
ONE OF MR. WARD’S BUSINESS LETTERS—_Artemus 291
Ward_
THE SHOWMAN’S COURTSHIP—_Artemus Ward_ 292
YE PEDAGOGUE—_John Godfrey Saxe_ 295
SETTLING UNDER DIFFICULTIES—_Robert J. 298
Burdette_
MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE—_Nathaniel 300
Hawthorne_
GOING TO CALIFORNIA—_Benjamin Penhallow 316
Shillaber_ (“_Mrs. Partington_”)
“ROUGHING IT”—_Samuel L. Clemens_ (“_Mark 318
Twain_”)
THE HEAD-WRITER—_C. B. Lewis_ (“_M Quad_”) 322
PELEG W. PONDER; OR, THE POLITICIAN WITHOUT A 326
SIDE—_Joseph C. Neal_
THE SHAKERS—_Artemus Ward_ 332
“EARLY RISING”—_John G. Saxe_ 340
HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON’S BAR—_Bret 342
Harte_
THE BREACH OF PROMISE CASE—_Ralph Keeler_ 362
EPITAPH FOR HIMSELF—_Benjamin Franklin_ 373
THE DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER—_Samuel L. Clemens_ 373
(“_Mark Twain_”)
A VISIT TO BRIGHAM YOUNG—_Artemus Ward_ 380
DUET FOR THE BREAKFAST-TABLE—_Charles Graham 385
Halpine_
KITTY ANSWERS—_William Dean Howells_ 387
PUCK—_James Whitcomb Riley_ 395
THE REVENGE OF ST. NICHOLAS—_James K. 396
Paulding_
AN APHORISM AND A LECTURE—_Oliver Wendell 412
Holmes_
APHORISMS—_Thoreau_ 419
AN ENGLISH FUNERAL—_William Austin_ 420
A LOST CHILD 420
AMONG THE SPIRITS—_Artemus Ward_ 422
POETRY AND THE POET—_H. C. Bunner_ 426
A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR—“_John 427
Phœnix_”
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF AMERICAN HUMORISTS 437
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE.
WHEN the unfortunate man standing on the scaffold was asked by a
spectator to make a speech, he said that, considering the interesting
programme which had been prepared by their good friend the Sheriff, he
could not hope to say anything likely to amuse them. The compiler of a
book of humour may recognise a like anxiety on the part of the public to
push on to the principal attraction. There arises on his mental vision
the eager face of the book-buyer, as he hurriedly skims over the leaves
at the commencement of the volume, to find the end of the introduction
and the beginning of the humour.
Once upon a time when I was young—in fact, more than eighteen months
ago—I wrote an introduction to a volume of American humorous verse. It
didn’t say much, but it covered a great deal of space, and looked
imposing. The few statements made, however, have risen up and smitten me
night and day, and I have never to this moment been able to get away
from them. After the volume had been before the public for a few months,
I made an everlasting resolve to abstain from all theories, deductions,
speculations, prophecies, warnings, and prognostications in regard to
any and every humour, whether American or British, new or old, known or
unknown. It occurred to me that a new and delightful feature might be
added to a book of humour if the reader were permitted the privilege of
forming his own conclusions and choosing for himself his favourite among
the authors. No doubt many a man has been forced, sorely against his
will, to acknowledge, theoretically, the irresistibility of certain
writers’ humour, and to spend the best part of his life in trying to see
something funny in the writers’ work. No such hopeless task will be
imposed by this volume. The different authors included between the
covers of this book will speak for themselves. They need no bush.
But instead of writing an introduction for no one to read I have thought
it better to arrange a biographical index of American and Canadian
humorous writers, giving such pertinent particulars of each author’s
life and work as may be of value to the student of American literature.
This index will be found at the end of the volume. It comes, it is
hoped, within reasonable distance of completeness, and although in the
majority of cases the data given is of a broad and general kind, still
it is sufficiently explicit to set the student in the way of finding for
himself the chief characteristics and work of the different authors.
This index, to the best of my knowledge, is the first of its kind that
has been arranged, and should at least prove of benefit to any
unfortunate compiler who in future ages is asked to prepare a volume of
humorous extracts from American authors. The job is a big one now. What
it will be if America continues to produce “funny” men at the rate she
has done for the past hundred years it is impossible to imagine.
In conclusion, I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness for particulars of
the works of many writers to Mr. Oscar Fay Adams’ valuable little work,
_Handbook of American Authors_. The dates which appear in this book are
chiefly taken from Appleton’s _Dictionary of American Biography_.
J. B.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HUMOUR OF AMERICA.
----------
_MY DOG._
[Illustration: “KOSCIUSKO AND I FROLICKED AROUND.”]
I HAVE owned quite a number of dogs in my life, but they are all dead
now. Last evening I visited my dog cemetery—just between the gloaming
and the shank of the evening. On the biscuit-box cover that stands at
the head of a little mound fringed with golden rod and pickle bottles,
the idler may still read these lines, etched in red chalk by a trembling
hand—
LITTLE KOSCIUSKO,
.........NOT DEAD.........
BUT JERKED HENCE
BY REQUEST.
S. Y. L.
(SEE YOU LATER.)
I do not know why he was called Kosciusko. I do not care. I only know
that his little grave stands out there while the gloaming gloams and the
soughing winds are soughing.
Do you ask why I am alone here and dogless in this weary world?
I will tell you, anyhow. It will not take long, and it may do me good:
Kosciusko came to me one night in winter, with no baggage, and
unidentified.
When I opened the door he came in as though he had left something in
there by mistake and had returned for it.
He stayed with us two years as a watch-dog. In a desultory way, he was a
good watch-dog. If he had watched other people with the same unrelenting
scrutiny with which he watched me, I might have felt his death more
keenly than I do now.
The second year that little Kosciusko was with us, I shaved off a full
beard one day while down town, put on a clean collar and otherwise
disguised myself, intending to surprise my wife.
Kosciusko sat on the front porch when I returned. He looked at me as a
cashier of a bank does when a newspaper man goes in to get a
suspiciously large cheque cashed. He did not know me. I said,
“Kosciusko, have you forgotten your master’s voice?”
He smiled sarcastically, showing his glorious wealth of mouth, but still
sat there as though he had stuck his tail into the door-steps and
couldn’t get it out.
So I waived the formality of going in at the front door, and went around
to the portcullis, on the off side of the house, but Kosciusko was there
when I arrived. The cook, seeing a stranger lurking around the
manor-house, encouraged Kosciusko to come and gorge himself with a part
of my leg, which he did. Acting on this hint I went to the barn.
I do not know why I went to the barn, but somehow there was nothing in
the house that I wanted. When a man wants to be by himself there is no
place like a good, quiet barn for thought. So I went into the barn,
about three feet prior to Kosciusko.
Noticing the stairway, I ascended it in an aimless kind of way, about
four steps at a time. What happened when we got into the haymow I do not
now recall, only that Kosciusko and I frolicked around there in the hay
for some time. Occasionally I would be on the top, and then he would
have all the delegates, until finally I got hold of a pitchfork, and
freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell. I wrapped myself up in an old
horse-net and went into the house. Some of my clothes were afterwards
found in the hay, and the doctor pried a part of my person out of
Kosciusko’s jaws, but not enough to do me any good.
I have owned, in all, eleven dogs, and they all died violent deaths, and
went out of the world totally unprepared to die.
_Bill Nye._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE._
[Illustration: Knee-Deep in June._ “LAY OUT THERE AND TRY TO SEE JES’
HOW LAZY YOU KIN BE!”]
I.
TELL you what I like the best—
’Long about knee-deep in June,
’Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vines—some afternoon
Like to jes’ git out and rest,
And not work at nothin’ else!
II.
Orchard’s where I’d ruther be—
Needn’t fence it in fer me!
Jes’ the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath—
Sorto’ so’s a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kindo’ has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len’thways on the grass,
Where the shadders thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they’s company!
III.
Jes’ a sorto’ lazein’ there—
S’ lazy, ’at you peek and peer
Through the wavin’ leaves above,
Like a feller ’ats in love
And don’t know it, ner don’t keer.
Ever’thing you hear and see
Got some sort o’ interest—
Maybe find a bluebird’s nest
Tucked up there conveenently
Fer the boys ’ats apt to be
Up some other apple tree!
Watch the swallers skootin’ past
’bout as peert as you could ast;
Er the Bobwhite raise and whiz
Where some other’s whistle is.
IV.
Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow;
Er a hawk away up there,
’Pearantly froze in the air!—
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over every chick she’s got,
Suddent-like!—And she knows where
That air hawk is, well as you!—
You jes’ bet yer life she do!—
Eyes a-glittering like glass
Waitin’ till he makes a pass!
V.
Pee-wees’ singin’, to express
My opinion, ’s second class,
Yit you’ll hear ’em more er less;
Sapsucks gettin’ down to biz,
Weedin’ out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o’ sass,
In those base-ball clothes o’ his,
Sportin’ ’round the orchard jes’
Like he owned the premises!
Sun out in the field kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade’s where glory is!
That’s jes’ what I’d like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two!
VI.
Plague! ef they aint sompin’ in
Work ’at kindo’ goes agin
My convictions!—’long about
Here in June especially!—
Under some old apple tree
Jes’ a-restin’ through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin’ else at all to do
Only jes’ a-wishin’ you
Was a-gettin’ there like me,
And June was eternity!
VII.
Lay out there and try to see
Jes’ how lazy you kin be!—
Tumble round and souse yer head
In the clover-bloom, er pull
Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes,
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin’ of old chums ’ats dead,
Maybe, smilin’ back at you
In betwixt the beautiful
Clouds o’ gold and white and blue!—
Month a man kin railly love—
June, you know, I’m talkin’ of!
VIII.
March ain’t never nothin’ new!—
Aprile’s altogether too
Brash fer me! and May—I jes’
’Bominate its promises,—
Little hints o’ sunshine and
Green around the timber-land—
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two—
Drap asleep, and it turns in
’Fore daylight and snows agin!—
But when June comes—Clear my throat
With wild honey! Rench my hair
In the dew! and hold my coat!
Whoop out loud! and throw my hat!—
June wants me and I’m to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I’ll git down and waller there,
And obleeged to you at that!
_James Whitcomb Riley._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_BAKED BEANS AND CULTURE_.
THE members of the Boston Commercial Club are charming gentlemen. They
are now the guests of the Chicago Commercial Club, and are being shown
every attention that our market affords. They are a fine-looking lot,
well-dressed and well-mannered, with just enough whiskers to be
impressive without being imposing.
“This is a darned likely village,” said Seth Adams last evening.
“Everybody is rushin’ ’round an’ doin’ business as if his life depended
on it. Should think they’d git all tuckered out ’fore night, but I’ll be
darned if there ain’t just as many folks on the street after nightfall
as afore. We’re stoppin’ at the Palmer tavern; an’ my chamber is up so
all-fired high, that I can count all your meetin’-house steeples from
the winder.”
Last night five or six of these Boston merchants sat around the office
of the hotel, and discussed matters and things. Pretty soon they got to
talking about beans: this was the subject which they dwelt on with
evident pleasure.
“Waal, sir,” said Ephraim Taft, a wholesale dealer in maple-sugar and
flavoured lozenges, “you kin talk ’bout your new-fashioned dishes an’
high-falutin’ vittles; but, when you come right down to it, there ain’t
no better eatin’ than a dish o’ baked pork ’n’ beans.”
“That’s so, b’ gosh!” chorussed the others.
“The truth o’ the matter is,” continued Mr. Taft, “that beans is good
for everybody,—’t don’t make no difference whether he’s well or sick.
Why, I’ve known a thousand folks—waal, mebbe not quite a thousand;
but,—waal, now, jest to show, take the case of Bill Holbrook: you
remember Bill, don’t ye?”
“Bill Holbrook?” said Mr. Ezra Eastman; “why, of course I do! Used to
live down to Brimfield, next to the Moses Howard farm.”
“That’s the man,” resumed Mr. Taft. “Waal, Bill fell sick,—kinder moped
round, tired like, for a week or two, an’ then tuck to his bed. His
folks sent for Dock Smith,—ol’ Dock Smith that used to carry round a
pair o’ leather saddlebags,—gosh, they don’t have no sech doctors
nowadays! Waal, the dock, he come; an’ he looked at Bill’s tongue, an’
felt uv his pulse, an’ said that Bill had typhus fever. Ol’ Dock Smith
was a very careful, conserv’tive man, an’ he never said nothin’ unless
he knowed he was right.
“Bill began to git wuss, an’ he kep’ a-gittin’ wuss every day. One
mornin’ ol’ Dock Smith sez, ‘Look a-here, Bill, I guess you’re a goner:
as I figger it, you can’t hol’ out till nightfall.’
“Bill’s mother insisted on a con-sul-tation bein’ held; so ol’ Dock
Smith sent over for young Dock Brainerd. I calc’late that, next _to_ ol’
Dock Smith, young Dock Brainerd was the smartest doctor that ever lived.
“Waal, pretty soon along come Dock Brainerd; an’ he an’ Dock Smith went
all over Bill, an’ looked at his tongue, an’ felt uv his pulse, an’ told
him it was a gone case, an’ that he had got to die. Then they went off
into the spare chamber to hold their con-sul-tation.
[Illustration: “SARY SAT DOWN BY THE BED, AN’ FED THEM BEANS INTO
BILL.”]
“Wall, Bill he lay there in the front room a-pantin’ an’ a-gaspin’, an’
a wond’rin’ whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin’, up comes the girl
to git a clean tablecloth out of the clothes-press, an’ she left the
door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an’ his eyes grew more
natural like: he gathered together all the strength he had, and he
raised himself up on one elbow, and sniffed again.
“‘Sary,’ says he, ‘wot’s that a-cookin’?’
“‘Beans,’ says she; ‘beans for dinner.’
“‘Sary,’ says the dyin’ man, ‘I must hev a plate uv them beans!’
“‘Sakes alive, Mr. Holbrook!’ says she; ‘if you wuz to eat any o’ them
beans, it’d kill ye!’
“‘If I’ve got to die,’ says he, ‘I’m goin’ to die happy: fetch me a
plate uv them beans.’
“Wall, Sary she pikes off to the doctors.
“‘Look a-here,’ says she; ‘Mr. Holbrook smelt the beans cookin’, an’ he
says he’s got to have a plate uv ’em. Now, what shall I do about it?’
“‘Waal, doctor,’ says Dock Smith, ‘what do you think ’bout it?’
“‘He’s got to die anyhow,’ says Dock Brainerd; ‘an’ I don’t suppose the
beans’ll make any diff’rence.’
“‘That’s the way I figger it,’ says Dock Smith; ‘in all my practice I
never knew of beans hurtin’ anybody.’
“So Sary went down to the kitchen, an’ brought up a plateful of hot
baked beans. Dock Smith raised Bill up in bed, an’ Dock Brainerd put a
piller under the small of Bill’s back. Then Sary sat down by the bed,
an’ fed them beans into Bill until Bill couldn’t hold any more.
“‘How air you feelin’ now?’ asked Dock Smith.
“Bill didn’t say nuthin’: he jest smiled sort uv peaceful like, an’
closed his eyes.
“‘The end hez come,’ said Dock Brainerd sof’ly; ‘Bill is dyin’.’
“Then Bill murmured kind o’ far-away like (as if he was dreamin’), ‘I
ain’t dyin’: I’m dead an’ in heaven.’
“Next mornin’ Bill got out uv bed, an’ done a big day’s work on the
farm, an’ he hain’t hed a sick spell since. Them beans cured him! I tell
you, sir, that beans is,” etc.
_Eugene Field._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE NICE PEOPLE._
“THEY certainly are nice people,” I assented to my wife’s observation,
using the colloquial phrase with a consciousness that it was anything
but “nice” English, “and I’ll bet that their three children are better
brought up than most of——”
“_Two_ children,” corrected my wife.
“Three, he told me.”
“My dear, she said there were _two_.”
“He said three.”
“You’ve simply forgotten. I’m _sure_ she told me they had only two—a boy
and a girl.”
“Well, I didn’t enter into particulars.”
“No dear, and you couldn’t have understood him. Two children.”
“All right,” I said; but I did not think it was all right. As a
near-sighted man learns by enforced observation to recognise persons at
a distance when the face is not visible to the normal eye, so the man
with a bad memory learns, almost unconsciously, to listen carefully and
report accurately. My memory is bad; but I had not had time to forget
that Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon that he had three
children, at present left in the care of his mother-in-law, while he and
Mrs. Brede took their summer vacation.
“Two children,” repeated my wife; “and they are staying with his aunt
Jenny.”
“He told me with his mother-in-law,” I put in. My wife looked at me with
a serious expression. Men may not remember much of what they are told
about children; but any man knows the difference between an aunt and a
mother-in-law.
“But don’t you think they’re nice people?” asked my wife.
“Oh, certainly,” I replied; “only they seem to be a little mixed up
about their children.”
[Illustration: “SEATED THEMSELVES OPPOSITE US AT TABLE.”]
“That isn’t a nice thing to say,” returned my wife.
I could not deny it.
* * * * *
And yet the next morning, when the Bredes came down and seated
themselves opposite us at table, beaming and smiling in their natural,
pleasant, well-bred fashion, I knew, to a social certainty, that they
_were_ “nice” people. He was a fine-looking fellow in his neat
tennis-flannels, slim, graceful, twenty-eight or thirty years old, with
a Frenchy-pointed beard. She was “nice” in all her pretty clothes, and
she herself was pretty with that type of prettiness which out-wears most
other types—the prettiness that lies in a rounded figure, a dusky skin,
plump, rosy cheeks, white teeth, and black eyes. She might have been
twenty-five; you guessed that she was prettier than she was at twenty,
and that she would be prettier still at forty.
And nice people were all we wanted to make us happy in Mr. Jacobus’s
summer boarding-house on the top of Orange Mountain. For a week we had
come down to breakfast each morning, wondering why we wasted the
precious days of idleness with the company gathered around the Jacobus
board. What joy of human companionship was to be had out of Mrs. Tabb
and Miss Hoogencamp, the two middle-aged gossips from Scranton, Pa.,—out
of Mr. and Mrs. Biggle, an indurated head-bookkeeper and his prim and
censorious wife,—out of old Major Halkit, a retired business man, who,
having once sold a few shares on commission, wrote for circulars of
every stock company that was started, and tried to induce every one to
invest who would listen to him? We looked around at those dull faces,
the truthful indices of mean and barren minds, and decided that we would
leave that morning. Then we ate Mrs. Jacobus’s biscuits, light as
Aurora’s cloudlets, drank her honest coffee, inhaled the perfume of the
late azaleas with which she decked her table, and decided to postpone
our departure one more day. And then we wandered out to take our morning
glance at what we called “our view”; and it seemed to us as if Tabb and
Hoogencamp, and Halkit and the Biggles could not drive us away in a
year.
I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited the Bredes to
walk with us to “our view.” The Hoogencamp-Biggle-Tabb-Halkit contingent
never stirred off Jacobus’s verandah; but we both felt that the Bredes
would not profane that sacred scene. We strolled slowly across the
fields, passed through the little belt of wood, and as I heard Mrs.
Brede’s little cry of startled rapture, I motioned to Brede to look up.
“By Jove!” he cried; “heavenly!”
We looked off from the brow of the mountain over fifteen miles of
billowing green, to where, far across a far stretch of pale blue, lay a
dim purple line that we knew was Staten Island. Towns and villages lay
before us and under us; there were ridges and hills, uplands and
lowlands, woods and plains, all massed and mingled in that great silent
sea of sunlit green. For silent it was to us, standing in the silence of
a high place—silent with a Sunday stillness that made us listen, without
taking thought, for the sound of bells coming up from the spires that
rose above the tree-tops—the tree-tops that lay as far beneath us as the
light clouds were above us that dropped great shadows upon our heads and
faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep of land at the mountain’s
foot.
“And so that is _your_ view?” asked Mrs. Brede, after a moment; “you are
very generous to make it ours too.”
Then we lay down on the grass, and Brede began to talk in a gentle
voice, as if he felt the influence of the place. He had paddled a canoe,
in his earlier days, he said, and he knew every river and creek in that
vast stretch of landscape. He found his landmarks, and pointed out to us
where the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed, invisible to us, hidden
behind great ridges that in our sight were but combings of the green
waves upon which we looked down, and yet on the further side of those
broad ridges and rises were scores of villages—a little world of country
life, lying unseen under our eyes.
“A good deal like looking at humanity,” he said; “there is such a thing
as getting so far above our fellow-men that we see only one side of
them.”
Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than the chatter and gossip of
the Tabb and the Hoogencamp—than the Major’s dissertations upon his
everlasting circulars! My wife and I exchanged glances.
“Now, when I went up the Matterhorn,” Mr. Brede began.
“Why, dear,” interrupted his wife; “I didn’t know you ever went up the
Matterhorn.”
“It—it was five years ago,” said Mr. Brede hurriedly; “I—I didn’t tell
you—when I was on the other side, you know—it was rather dangerous—well,
as I was saying—it looked—oh, it didn’t look at all like this.”
A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great shadow over the field where
we lay. The shadow passed over the mountain’s brow, and reappeared far
below, a rapidly decreasing blot; flying eastward over the golden green.
My wife and I exchanged glances once more.
Somehow the shadow lingered over us all. As we went home, the Bredes
went side by side along the narrow path, and my wife and I walked
together.
“_Should you think_,” she asked me, “that a man would climb the
Matterhorn the very first year he was married?”
“I don’t know, my dear,” I answered evasively; “this isn’t the first
year I have been married, not by a good many, and I wouldn’t climb
it—for a farm.”
“You know what I mean?” she said.
I did.
* * * * *
When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.
“You know,” he began his discourse, “my wife, she used to live in N’
York!”
I didn’t know; but I said, “Yes.”
“She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross like.
Thirty-four’s on one side o’ the street, an’ thirty-five’s on t’other.
How’s that?”
“That is the invariable rule, I believe.”
“Then—I say—these here new folk that you ’n’ your wife seems so mighty
taken up with—d’ye know anything about ’em?”
“I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus,” I
replied, conscious of some irritability. “If I choose to associate with
any of them——”
“Jess so—jess so!” broke in Jacobus. “I hain’t nothin’ to say ag’inst
yer sosherbil’ty. But do ye _know_ them?”
“Why, certainly not,” I replied.
“Well—that was all I wuz askin’ ye. Ye see, when _he_ come here to take
the rooms—you wasn’t here then—he told my wife that he lived at number
thirty-four in his street. An’ yistiddy _she_ told her that they lived
at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an apartment-house. Now,
there can’t be no apartment-house on two sides of the same street, kin
they?”
“What street was it?” I inquired wearily.
“Hunderd’n’ twenty-first street.”
“Maybe,” I replied, still more wearily. “That’s Harlem. Nobody knows
what people will do in Harlem.”
I went up to my wife’s room.
“Don’t you think it queer?” she asked me.
“I think I’ll have a talk with that young man to-night,” I said, “and
see if he can give some account of himself.”
“But, my dear,” my wife said gravely, “_she_ doesn’t know whether
they’ve had the measles or not.”
“Why, Great Scott!” I exclaimed, “they must have had them when they were
children.”
“Please don’t be stupid,” said my wife. “I meant _their_ children.”
* * * * *
After dinner that night—or rather after supper, for we had dinner in the
middle of the day at Jacobus’s—I walked down the long verandah to ask
Brede, who was placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me on a
twilight stroll. Half-way down I met Major Halkit.
“That friend of yours,” he said, indicating the unconscious figure at
the further end of the house, “seems to be a queer sort of a Dick. He
told me that he was out of business, and just looking round for a chance
to invest his capital. And I’ve been telling him what an everlasting big
show he had to take stock in the Capitoline Trust Company—starts next
month—four million capital; I told you all about it. ‘Oh, well,’ he
says, ‘let’s wait and think about it.’ ‘Wait!’ says I; ‘the Capitoline
Trust Company won’t wait for _you_, my boy. This is letting you in on
the ground floor,’ says I; ‘and it’s now or never.’ ‘Oh, let it wait,’
says he. I don’t know what’s in-_to_ the man.”
“I don’t know how well he knows his own business, Major,” I said as I
started again for Brede’s end of the verandah. But I was troubled none
the less. The Major could not have influenced the sale of one share of
stock in the Capitoline Company. But that stock was a great investment;
a rare chance for a purchaser with a few thousand dollars. Perhaps it
was no more remarkable that Brede should not invest than that I should
not; and yet it seemed to add one circumstance more to the other
suspicious circumstances.
* * * * *
When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife putting her hair to
bed—I don’t know how I can better describe an operation familiar to
every married man. I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and then
I spoke.
“I’ve talked with Brede,” I said, “and I didn’t have to catechise him.
He seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he
was very outspoken. You were right about the children—that is, I must
have misunderstood him. There are only two; but the Matterhorn episode
was simple enough. He didn’t realise how dangerous it was until he had
got so far into it that he couldn’t back out; and he didn’t tell her,
because he’d left her here, you see; and under the circumstances——”
“Left her here!” cried my wife. “I’ve been sitting with her the whole
afternoon, sewing, and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and came
back and took her to Basle, and the baby was born there. Now I’m sure,
dear, because I asked her.”
“Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of
the water,” I suggested with bitter, biting irony.
“You poor dear, did I abuse you?” said my wife. “But do you know Mrs.
Tabb said that _she_ didn’t know how many lumps of sugar he took in his
coffee. Now that seems queer, doesn’t it?”
It did. It was a small thing; but it looked queer, very queer.
* * * * *
The next morning it was clear that war was declared against the Bredes.
They came down to breakfast somewhat late, and as soon as they arrived
the Biggles swooped up the last fragments that remained on their plates,
and made a stately march out of the dining-room. Then Miss Hoogencamp
arose and departed, leaving a whole fish-ball on her plate. Even as
Atalanta might have dropped an apple behind her to tempt her pursuer to
check his speed, so Miss Hoogencamp left that fish-ball behind her, and
between her maiden self and Contamination.
We had finished our breakfast, my wife and I, before the Bredes
appeared. We talked it over, and agreed that we were glad that we had
not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony.
After breakfast it was the custom of the male half of the Jacobus
household to go around the corner of the building and smoke their pipes
and cigars, where they would not annoy the ladies. We sat under a
trellis covered with a grape vine that had borne no grapes in the memory
of man. This vine, however, bore leaves, and these, on that pleasant
summer morning, shielded from us two persons who were in earnest
conversation in the straggling, half-dead flower-garden at the side of
the house.
“I don’t want,” we heard Mr. Jacobus say, “to enter in no man’s
_pry_-vacy; but I do want to know who it may be, like, that I hev in my
house. Now what I ask of _you_—and I don’t want you to take it as in no
ways _personal_—is, hev you your merridge-licence with you?”
“No,” we heard the voice of Mr. Brede reply. “Have you yours?”
I think it was a chance shot, but it told all the same. The Major (he
was a widower), and Mr. Biggle and I looked at each other; and Mr.
Jacobus, on the other side of the grape-trellis, looked at—I don’t know
what—and was as silent as we were.
Where is _your_ marriage-licence, married reader? Do you know? Four men,
not including Mr. Brede, stood or sat on one side or the other of that
grape-trellis, and not one of them knew where his marriage-licence was.
Each of us had had one—the Major had had three. But where were they?
Where is _yours_? Tucked in your best-man’s pocket; deposited in his
desk, or washed to a pulp in his white waistcoat (if white waistcoats be
the fashion of the hour), washed out of existence—can you tell where it
is? Can you—unless you are one of those people who frame that
interesting document and hang it upon their drawing-room walls?
Mr. Brede’s voice arose, after an awful stillness of what seemed like
five minutes, and was, probably, thirty seconds—
“Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at once, and let me pay it? I
shall leave by the six o’clock train. And will you also send the waggon
for my trunks?”
“I hain’t said I wanted to hev ye leave——” began Mr. Jacobus; but Brede
cut him short.
“Bring me your bill.”
“But,” remonstrated Jacobus, “ef ye ain’t——”
“Bring me your bill!” said Mr. Brede.
* * * * *
My wife and I went out for our morning’s walk. But it seemed to us, when
we looked at “our view,” as if we could only see those invisible
villages of which Brede had told us—that other side of the ridges and
rises of which we catch no glimpse from lofty hills or from the heights
of human self-esteem. We meant to stay out until the Bredes had taken
their departure; but we returned just in time to see Pete, the Jacobus
darkey, the blacker of boots, the brusher of coats, the general
handy-man of the house, loading the Bredes’ trunks on the Jacobus
waggon.
And, as we stepped upon the verandah, down came Mrs. Brede, leaning on
Mr. Brede’s arm as though she were ill; and it was clear that she had
been crying—there were heavy rings about her pretty black eyes.
My wife took a step towards her.
“Look at that dress, dear,” she whispered; “she never thought anything
like this was going to happen when she put _that_ on.”
It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow-striped
affair. Her hat was trimmed with a narrow-striped silk of the same
colour—maroon and white; and in her hand she held a parasol that matched
her dress.
“She’s had a new dress on twice a day,” said my wife; “but that’s the
prettiest yet. Oh, somehow—I’m _awfully_ sorry they’re going!”
But going they were. They moved towards the steps. Mrs. Brede looked
towards my wife, and my wife moved towards Mrs. Brede. But the
ostracised woman, as though she felt the deep humiliation of her
position, turned sharply away, and opened her parasol to shield her eyes
from the sun. A shower of rice—a half-pound shower of rice—fell down
over her pretty hat and her pretty dress, and fell in a splattering
circle on the floor, outlining her skirts, and there it lay in a broad,
uneven band, and bright in the morning sun.
[Illustration: “MRS. BREDE WAS IN MY WIFE’S ARMS.”]
Mrs. Brede was in my wife’s arms, sobbing as if her young heart would
break.
“Oh, you poor, dear, silly children!” my wife cried, as Mrs. Brede
sobbed on her shoulder; “why _didn’t_ you tell us?”
“W-w-we didn’t want to be t-t-taken for a b-b-b-b-bridal couple,” sobbed
Mrs. Brede; “and we d-d-didn’t _dream_ what awful lies we’d have to
tell, and all the aw-aw-ful mixed-up mess of it. Oh, dear, dear, dear!”
* * * * *
“Pete!” commanded Mr. Jacobus, “put back them trunks. These folks stays
here’s long’s they wants ter. Mr. Brede”—he held out a large, hard
hand—“I’d orter ’ve known better,” he said; and my last doubt of Mr.
Brede vanished as he shook that grimy hand in manly fashion.
The two women were walking off toward “our view,” each with an arm about
the other’s waist—touched by a sudden sisterhood of sympathy.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Brede, addressing Jacobus, Biggle, the Major, and
me, “there is a hostelry down the street where they sell honest New
Jersey beer. I recognise the obligations of the situation.”
We five men filed down the street, and the two women went toward the
pleasant slope where the sunlight gilded the forehead of the great hill.
On Mr. Jacobus’s verandah lay a spattered circle of shining grains of
rice. Two of Mr. Jacobus’s pigeons flew down and picked up the shining
grains, making grateful noises far down in their throats.
_H. C. Bunner._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE EUREKY RAT-TRAP._
[Illustration: “I TAKE GREAT PLEASURE IN PRESENTING TO YOUR ATTENTION
THE EUREKY RAT-TRAP.”]
HE boarded the boat at a landing about a hundred miles above Vicksburg,
having two dilapidated but bulky-looking satchels as luggage. He said he
was bound to “Orleans,” and when the clerk told him what the fare would
be he uttered a long whistle of amazement, and inquired—
“Isn’t that pooty steep?”
“Regular figure, sir,” replied the clerk.
“Seems like a big price for just riding on a boat,” continued the
stranger.
“Come, I’m in a hurry,” said the clerk.
“That’s the lowest figure, eh?” inquired the stranger.
“Yes—that’s the regular fare.”
“No discount to a regular traveller?”
“We make no discount from that figure.”
“Ye wouldn’t take half of it in trade?”
“I want your fare at once, or we will have to land you!”
“Don’t want a nice rat-trap, do ye, stranger?” inquired the passenger.
“One which sets herself, works on scientific principles, allus ready,
painted a nice green, wanted by every family, warranted to knock the
socks off’n any other trap ever invented by mortal man?”
“No, sir; I want the money!” replied the clerk in emphatic tones.
“Oh, wall, I’ll pay; of course I will,” said the rat-trap man; “but
that’s an awful figger for a ride to Orleans, and cash is cash these
days.”
He counted out the fare in ragged shin-plasters, wound a shoe-string
around his wallet and replaced it, and then unlocked one of the satchels
and took out a wire rat-trap. Proceeding to the cabin, he looked the
ground over, and then waltzing up to a young lady who sat on a sofa
reading, he began—
“I take great pleasure in presenting to your attention the Eureky
rat-trap, the best trap ever invented. It sets——”
“Sir!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet.
“Name’s Harrington Baker,” he went on, turning the trap around on his
outstretched hand, “and I guarantee this trap to do more square killing
among rats than——”
She gave him a look of scorn and contempt, and swept grandly away; and
without being the least put out he walked over to a bald-headed man who
had tilted his chair back and fallen asleep.
“Fellow-mortal, awakest and gaze upon the Eureky rat-trap,” said the
stranger, as he laid his hand on the shiny pate of the sleeper.
“Wh—who—what!” exclaimed the Bald-head, opening his eyes and flinging
his arms around.
“I take this opportunity to call your attention to my Eureky rat-trap,”
continued the new passenger; “the noblest Roman of them all. Try one,
and you will use no other. It is constructed on——”
“Who in thunder do you take me for?” exclaimed the bald-headed man at
this point. “What in blazes do I want of your rat-trap?”
“To ketch rats!” humbly replied the stranger; “to clear yer premises of
one of the most obnoxious pests known to man. I believe I am safe in
saying that this ’ere——”
“Go away, sir—go away; or I’ll knock your blamed head off!” roared the
Bald-head. “When I want a rat-trap I shan’t patronise travelling
vagabonds! Your audacity in daring to put your hand on my head and wake
me up deserves a caning!”
“Then you don’t want a rat-trap?”
“No, SIR!” yelled Bald-head.
“I’ll make you one mighty cheap.”
“I’ll knock you down, sir!” roared Bald-head, looking around for his
cane.
“Oh, wall, I ain’t a starvin’, and it won’t make much difference if I
don’t sell to you!” remarked the stranger, and he backed off and left
the cabin for the promenade deck.
An old maid sat in the shadow of the Texas, embroidering a slipper, and
the rat-trap man drew a stool up beside her and remarked—
“Madam, my name is Baker, and I am the inventor of the Eureky rat-trap,
a sample copy of which I hold here on my left hand, and I think I can
safely say that——”
“Sir, this is unpardonable!” she exclaimed, pushing back.
“I didn’t have an introduction to ye, of course,” he replied, holding
the trap up higher: “but business is business, you know. Let me sell you
a Eureky trap, and make ye happy for life; I warrant this trap to——”
“Sir, I shall call the captain!” she interrupted, turning pale with
rage.
“Does _he_ want a trap?” eagerly inquired the man.
“Such impudence deserves the horsewhip!” screamed the old maid, backing
away.
The rat-trap man went forward and found a northern invalid, who was so
far gone that he could hardly speak above a whisper.
“Ailing, eh?” queried the trapper.
The invalid nodded.
“Wall, I won’t say that my Eureky rat-trap will cure ye,” continued the
man; “but this much I do say, and will swear to on a million Bibles,
that it climbs the ridge-pole over any immortal vermin-booster ever yet
set before——”
The captain came up at this juncture, and informed the inventor that he
must quit annoying passengers.
“But some of ’em may want one o’ my Eureky traps,” protested the man.
“Can’t help it; this is no place to sell traps.”
“But this is no scrub trap—none o’ your humbugs, got up to swindle the
hair right off of an innocent and confiding public.”
“You hear me—put that trap up!”
“I’ll put it up, of course; but then I’ll leave it to yerself if it
isn’t rather Shylocky in a steamboat to charge me the reg’lar figger to
Orleans, and then stop me from passing my Eureky rat-trap out to the
hankerin’ public?”
_C. B. Lewis_ (“_M. Quad._”)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE SCHOOL EXAMINATION._
THE bell tapped, and they came forth to battle. There was the line,
there was the leader. The great juncture of the day was on him. Was not
here the State’s official eye? Did not victory hover overhead? His
reserve, the darling regiment, the flower of his army, was dressing for
the final charge. There was Claude. Next him, Sidonie!—and Étienne, and
Madelaine, Henri and Marcelline,—all waiting for the word—the words—of
eight syllables! Supreme moment! Would any betray? Banish the thought!
Would any fail?
He waited an instant while two or three mothers bore out great armfuls
of slumbering or fretting infancy, and a number of young men sank down
into the vacated chairs. Then he stepped down from the platform, drew
back four or five yards from the class, opened the spelling-book,
scanned the first word, closed the book with his finger at the place,
lifted it high above his head, and cried—
“Claude! Claude, my brave scholar, always perfect, ah you ready?” He
gave the little book a half whirl round, and dashed forward towards the
chosen scholar, crying as he came—
“In-e-rad-i-ca-bility!”
Claude’s face suddenly set in a stony vacancy, and with his eyes staring
straight before him he responded—
“I-n, in-, e, inerad-, r-a-d, rad-, inerad-, ineraddy-, ineradica-, c-a,
ca, ineradica-, ineradicabili-, b-i-elly- billy, ineradicabili-,
ineradicabili-, t-y, ty, ineradicability.”
“Right! Claude, my boy! my always good scholar, right!” The master drew
back to his starting-place as he spoke, re-opened the book, shut it
again, lifted it high in the air, cried, “Madelaine, my dear chile,
prepare!” whirled the book and rushed upon her with—
“In-de-fat-i-ga-bil-ly-ty!”
Madelaine turned to stone, and began—
“I-n, een, d-e, de-, inde-, indefat-, indefat—fat—f-a-t, fat, indefat,
indefatty, i, ty, indefati-, indefatiga-, g-a, ga, indefatiga-,
indefatigabilly, b-i-elly, billy, indefatigabili-, t-y, ty,
indefatigability.”
“O, Madelaine, my chile, you make yo’ teacher proud! prah-ood, my
chile!” Bonaventure’s hand rested a moment tenderly on her head as he
looked first towards the audience and then towards the stranger. Then he
drew off for the third word. He looked at it twice before he called it.
Then—
“Sidonie! ah! Sidonie, be ready! be prepared! fail not yo’ humble
school-teacher! In-com——” He looked at the word a third time, and then
swept down upon her; “In-com-pre-hen-si-ca-_bility_!”
Sidonie flinched not nor looked upon him, as he hung over her with the
spelling-book at arm’s reach above them; yet the pause that followed
seemed to speak dismay, and throughout the class there was a silent
recoil from something undiscovered by the master. But an instant later
Sidonie had chosen between the two horns of her agonising dilemma, and
began—
“I-n, een, c-o-m, cawm, eencawm, eencawmpre, p-r-e, pre, eencawmpre,
eencawmprehen, prehen, haich-e-n, hen, hen, eencawmprehensi, s-i, si,
eencawmprehensi-, bil——”
“Ah! Sidonie! stop! _Arretez!_ Si-do-nie-e-e-e! Oh!
listen—_écoutez_—Sidonie, my dear!” The master threw his arms up and
down in distraction, then suddenly faced the visitor. “Sir, it was my
blame! I spoke the word without adequate distinction!
Sidonie—_maintenant_—now!” But a voice in the audience interrupted with—
“_Assoiez-vous la_, Chat-oué! seet down yondeh!” And at the potent voice
of Maximian Roussel the offender was pushed silently into the seat he
had risen from, and Bonaventure gave the word again.
“In-com-pre-hen-si-ca-bil-i-ty!” And Sidonie, blushing like fire,
returned to the task.
“I-n, een——” She bit her lips and trembled.
“Right! _Right!_ Tremble not, my Sidonie! fear naught! yo’ loving
school-teacher is at thy side!” But she trembled like a red leaf as she
spelled on—“Haich-e-n, hen, eencawmprehen, eencawmprehensi, s-i, si,
eencawmprehensi-, eencawmprehensi-billy-t-y, ty, incomprehensibility!”
The master dropped his hands and lifted his eyes in speechless despair.
As they fell again upon Sidonie her own met them. She moaned, covered
her face with her hands, burst into tears, ran to her desk, and threw
her hands and face upon it, shaking with noiseless sobs and burning red
to the nape of her perfect neck. All Grande Pointe rose to its feet.
“Lost!” cried Bonaventure in a heart-broken voice. “Every thing lost!
Farewell, chil’run!” He opened his arms towards them, and with one dash
all the lesser ones filled them. They wept. Tears welled from
Bonaventure’s eyes; and the mothers of Grande Pointe dropped again into
their seats and silently added theirs.
The next moment all eyes were on Maximian. His strong figure was mounted
on a chair, and he was making a gentle, commanding gesture with one hand
as he called: “Seet down! Seet down, all han’!” and all sank down,
Bonaventure in a mass of weeping and clinging children. ’Mian too
resumed his seat, at the same time waving to the stranger to speak.