makes a bargain, he ought to stick to it!” He paused for them—as many as
could—to take in the meaning of his English speech, and, it may be,
expecting some demonstration of approval; but dead silence reigned, all
eyes on him save Bonaventure’s and Sidonie’s. He began again: “A
bargain’s a bargain!” And Chat-oué nodded approvingly and began to say
audibly, “Yass;” but ’Mian thundered out—
“_Taise toi_, Chat-oué! Shot op!” And the silence was again complete,
while the stranger resumed—
[Illustration: “HE OPENED HIS ARMS, AND WITH ONE DASH ALL THE LESSER
ONES FILLED THEM.”]
“There was a plain bargain made.” He moved a step forward and laid the
matter off on the palm of his hand. “There was to be an examination! The
school was not to know; but if one scholar should make one mistake the
schoolhouse was to be closed and the schoolmaster sent away. Well,
there’s been a mistake made, and I say a bargain’s a bargain.” Dead
silence still. The speaker looked at ’Mian. “Do you think they
understand me?”
“Dey meck out,” said ’Mian, and shut his firm jaws.
“My friends,” said the stranger once more, “some people think
education’s a big thing, and some think it ain’t. Well, sometimes it is,
and sometimes it ain’t. Now, here’s this man”—he pointed down to where
Bonaventure’s dishevelled crown was drooping to his knees—“claims to
have taught over thirty of your children to read. Well, what of it? A
man can know how to read, and be just as no account as he was before. He
brags that he’s taught them to talk English. Well, what does that prove?
A man _might_ speak English and starve to death. He claims, I am told,
to have taught some of them to write. But I know a man in the
penitentiary that can write; he wrote too much.”
Bonaventure had lifted his head, and was sitting with his eyes upon the
speaker in close attention. At this last word he said—
“Ah! sir! too true, too true ah yo’ words; nevertheless, their cooelty!
’Tis not what is print’ _in_ the books, but what you learn _through_ the
books!”
“Yes; and so you hadn’t never ought to have made the bargain you made;
but, my friends, a bargain’s a bargain, and the teacher’s——” He paused
invitingly, and an answer came from the audience. It was Catou who rose
and said—
“Naw, sah. Naw; he don’t got to go!” But again ’Mian thundered—
“_Taise toi_, Catou. Shot op!”
“I say,” continued the stranger, “the mistake’s been made. _Three_
mistakes have been made!”
“Yass!” roared Chat-oué, leaping to his feet and turning upon the
assemblage a face fierce with triumph. Suspense and suspicions were past
now; he was to see his desire on his enemy. But instantly a dozen men
were on their feet—St. Pierre, Catou, Bonaventure himself, with a
countenance full of pleading deprecation, and even Claude, flushed with
anger.
“Naw, sah! Naw, sah! Waun meesteck?”
“Seet down, all han’!” yelled ’Mian; “all han’ seet dahoon!” Only
Chat-oué took his seat, glancing upon the rest with the exultant look of
one who can afford to yield ground.
“The first mistake,” resumed the stranger, addressing himself especially
to the risen men still standing, and pointing to Catou, “the first
mistake was in the kind of bargain you made.” He ceased, and passed his
eyes around from one to another until they rested for an instant on the
bewildered countenance of Chat-oué. Then he turned again upon the
people, who had sat down, and began to speak with the exultation of a
man that feels his subject lifting him above himself.
“I came out here to show up that man as a fraud. But what do I find?—A
poor, unpaid, half-starved man that loves his thankless work better than
his life, teaching what not one school-master in a thousand can teach:
teaching his whole school four better things than were ever printed in
any school-book—how to study, how to think, how to value knowledge, and
to love one another and mankind. What you’d ought to have done was to
agree that such a school should keep open, and such a teacher should
stay, if jest one, one lone child should answer one single book-question
right! But, as I said before, a bargain’s a bargain——Hold on, there! Sit
down! You shan’t interrupt me again!” Men were standing up on every
side; there was a confusion and a loud buzz of voices. “The second
mistake,” the stranger made haste to cry, “was thinking the teacher gave
out that last word right. He gave it wrong! And the third mistake,” he
shouted against the rising commotion, “was thinking it was spelt wrong.
_She spelt it right!_ And a bargain’s a bargain!—the school-master
stays!”
[Illustration: “SEIZING HER HANDS IN HIS AS SHE TURNED TO FLY.”]
He could say no more; the rumble of voices suddenly burst into a cheer.
The women and children laughed and clapped their hands,—Toutou his feet
also,—and Bonaventure, flirting the leaves of a spelling-book till he
found the place, looked, cried “In-com-pre-hen-_sibility_!” wheeled and
dashed upon Sidonie, seizing her hands in his as she turned to fly, and
gazed speechlessly upon her, with the tears running down his face.
Feeling a large hand upon his shoulder, he glanced around and saw ’Mian
pointing him to his platform and desk. Thither he went. The stranger had
partly restored order. Every one was in his place. But what a change!
What a gay flutter throughout the old shed! Bonaventure seemed to have
bathed in the fountain of youth. Sidonie, once more the school’s
queen-flower, sat calm, with just a trace of tears adding a subtle
something to her beauty.
“Chil’run, beloved chil’run,” said Bonaventure, standing once more by
his desk, “yo’ school-teacher has the blame of the sole mistake; and,
sir, gladly, oh, gladly, sir, would he always have the blame rather than
any of his beloved school-chil’run!”
_George Washington Cable._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“_WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?_”
[Illustration]
A MADRIGAL.
I KNOW a girl with teeth of pearl,
And shoulders white as snow;
She lives,—ah! well,
I must not tell,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
Her sunny hair is wondrous fair,
And wavy in its flow;
Who made it less
One little tress,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
Her eyes are blue (celestial hue!)
And dazzling in their glow;
On whom they beam
With melting gleam,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
Her lips are red and finely wed,
Like roses ere they blow;
What lover sips
Those dewy lips,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
Her fingers are like lilies fair,
When lilies fairest grow;
Whose hand they press
With fond caress,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
Her foot is small, and has a fall
Like snowflakes on the snow;
And where it goes
Beneath the rose,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
She has a name, the sweetest name
That language can bestow.
’Twould break the spell
If I should tell,—
Wouldn’t you like to know?
_John G. Saxe._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE ARTLESS PRATTLE OF CHILDHOOD._
[Illustration]
WE always did pity a man who does not love childhood. There is something
morally wrong with such a man. If his tenderest sympathies are not
awakened by their innocent prattle, if his heart does not echo their
merry laughter, if his whole nature does not reach out in ardent longing
after their pure thoughts and unselfish impulses, he is a sour, crusty,
crabbed old stick, and the world full of children has no use for him. In
every age and clime the best and noblest men loved children. Even wicked
men have a tender spot left in their hardened hearts for little
children. The great men of the earth love them. Dogs love them. Kamehame
Kemokimodahroah, the King of the Cannibal Islands, loves them. Rare and
no gravy. Ah, yes, we all love children.
And what a pleasure it is to talk with them! Who can chatter with a
bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, quick-witted little darling, anywhere from
three to five years, and not appreciate the pride which swells a
mother’s breast when she sees her little ones admired? Ah, yes, to be
sure.
One day—ah, can we ever cease to remember that dreamy, idle, summer
afternoon—a lady friend, who was down in the city on a shopping
excursion, came into the sanctum with her little son, a dear little
tid-toddler of five bright summers, and begged us to amuse him while she
pursued the duties which called her down town. Such a bright boy; so
delightful it was to talk to him. We can never forget the blissful
half-hour we spent booking that prodigy up in his centennial history.
“Now, listen, Clary,” we said—his name was Clarence Fitzherbert Alencon
de Marchemont Caruthers—“and learn about George Washington.”
“Who’s he?” inquired Clarence, etc.
“Listen,” we said; “he was the father of his country.”
“Whose country?”
“Ours—yours and mine; the confederated union of the American people,
cemented with the life-blood of the men of ’76 poured out upon the
altars of our country as the dearest libation to liberty that her
votaries can offer.”
“Who did?” asked Clarence.
There is a peculiar tact in talking to children that very few people
possess. Now most people would have grown impatient, and lost their
temper, when little Clarence asked so many irrelevant questions, but we
did not. We knew that, however careless he might appear at first, we
could soon interest him in the story, and he would be all eyes and ears.
So we smiled sweetly—that same sweet smile which you may have noticed on
our photographs. Just the faintest ripple of a smile breaking across the
face like a ray of sunlight, and checked by lines of tender sadness,
just before the two ends of it pass each other at the back of the neck.
And so, smiling, we went on.
“Well, one day George’s father——”
“George who?” asked Clarence.
“George Washington. He was a little boy then, just like you. One day his
father——”
“Whose father?” demanded Clarence, with an encouraging expression of
interest.
“George Washington’s—this great man we were telling you of. One day
George Washington’s father gave him a little hatchet for a——”
“Gave who a little hatchet?” the dear child interrupted with a gleam of
bewitching intelligence. Most men would have betrayed signs of
impatience, but we didn’t. We know how to talk to children, so we went
on.
“George Washington. His——”
“Who gave him the little hatchet?”
“His father. And his father——”
“Whose father?”
“George Washington’s.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, George Washington. And his father told him——”
“Told who?”
“Told George.”
“Oh, yes, George.”
And we went on, just as patient and as pleasant as you could imagine. We
took up the story right where the boy interrupted; for we could see that
he was just crazy to hear the end of it. We said—
“And he told him that——”
“Who told him what?” Clarence broke in.
“Why, George’s father told George.”
“What did he tell him?”
“Why, that’s just what I’m going to tell you. He told him——”
“Who told him?”
“George’s father. He——”
“What for?”
“Why, so he wouldn’t do what he told him not to do. He told him——”
“George told him?” queried Clarence.
“No, his father told George——”
“Oh!”
“Yes; told him that he must be careful with the hatchet——”
“Who must be careful?”
“George must.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; must be careful with the hatchet——”
“What hatchet?”
“Why, George’s.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; with the hatchet, and not cut himself with it, or drop it in the
cistern, or leave it out in the grass all night. So George went round
cutting everything he could reach with his hatchet. At last he came to a
splendid apple tree, his father’s favourite, and cut it down and——”
“Who cut it down?”
“George did.”
“Oh!”
“——but his father came home and saw it the first thing, and——”
“Saw the hatchet?”
“No; saw the apple tree. And he said, ‘Who has cut down my favourite
apple tree?’”
“What apple tree?”
“George’s father’s. And everybody said they didn’t know anything about
it, and——”
“Anything about what?”
“The apple tree.”
“Oh!”
“——and George came up and heard them talking about it——”
“Heard who talking about it?”
“Heard his father and the men.”
“What was they talking about?”
“About this apple tree.”
“What apple tree?”
“The favourite apple tree that George cut down.”
“George who?”
“George Washington.”
“Oh!”
“So George came up and heard them talking about it, and he——”
“What did he cut it down for?”
“Just to try his little hatchet.”
“Whose little hatchet?”
“Why, his own; the one his father gave him.”
“Gave who?”
“Why, George Washington.”
“Who gave it to him?”
“His father did.”
“Oh!”
“So George came up and he said, ‘Father, I cannot tell a lie. I——’”
“Who couldn’t tell a lie?”
“Why, George Washington. He said, ‘Father, I cannot tell a lie. It
was——’”
“His father couldn’t?”
“Why, no; George couldn’t.”
“Oh, George? Oh yes.”
“‘—it was I cut down your apple tree. I did——’”
“His father did?”
“No, no. It was George said this.”
“Said he cut his father?”
“No, no, no; said he cut down his apple tree.”
“George’s apple tree?”
“No, no; his father’s.”
“Oh!”
“He said——”
“His father said?”
“No, no, no; George said, ‘Father, I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my
little hatchet.’ And his father said, ‘Noble boy, I would rather lose a
thousand trees than have you tell a lie.’”
“George did?”
“No; his father said that.”
“Said he’d rather have a thousand apple trees?”
“No, no, no; said he’d rather lose a thousand apple trees than——”
“Said he’d rather George would?”
“No; said he’d rather he would than have him lie.”
“Oh, George would rather have his father lie?”
We are patient, and we love children, but if Mrs. Caruthers, of Arch
Street, hadn’t come and got her prodigy at this critical juncture, we
don’t believe all Burlington could have pulled us out of that snarl. And
as Clarence Fitzherbert Alencon de Marchemont Caruthers pattered down
the stairs, we heard him telling his ma about a boy who had a father
named George, and he told him to cut down an apple tree, and he said
he’d rather tell a thousand lies than cut down one apple tree.
_Robert Jones Burdette._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_SPEECH ON THE BABIES._
[At the banquet, in Chicago, given by the army of the Tennessee to
their first commander, General U. S. Grant, November 1879. The
fifteenth regular toast was “The Babies—as they comfort us in our
sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities.”]
I LIKE that. We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have
not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works
down to the babies, we stand on common ground. It is a shame that for a
thousand years the world’s banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if
he didn’t amount to anything. If you will stop and think a minute—if you
will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life, and
recontemplate your first baby—you will remember that he amounted to a
good deal, and even something over. You soldiers all know that when that
little fellow arrived at family headquarters you had to hand in your
resignation. He took entire command. You became his lackey, his mere
body-servant, and you had to stand around too. He was not a commander
who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything else. You
had to execute his orders whether it was possible or not. And there was
only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that was the
double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and
disrespect, and the bravest of you didn’t dare say a word. You could
face the death-storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for
blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and
twisted your nose, you had to take it. When the thunders of war were
sounding in your ears, you set your faces toward the batteries and
advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his
war-whoop, you advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the
chance too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw
out any side remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer
and a gentleman? No. You got up and _got_ it. When he ordered his
pap-bottle, and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to
work and _warmed_ it. You even descended so far in your menial office as
to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was
right—three parts water to one of milk, and a touch of sugar to modify
the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs. I
can taste the stuff yet. And how many things you learned as you went
along! Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old
saying, that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels
are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin—simply wind on the
stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual
hour, two o’clock in the morning, didn’t you rise up promptly and
remark, with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school
book _much_, that that was the very thing you were about to propose
yourself?
[Illustration: “ROCK-A-BY BABY IN THE TREE-TOP.”]
Oh! you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and
down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified
baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to
_sing_!—“Rock-a-by baby in the tree-top,” for instance. What a spectacle
for an army of the Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbours,
too; for it is not everybody within a mile around that likes military
music at three in the morning. And when you had been keeping this sort
of thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet-head intimated
that nothing suited him like exercise and noise, what did you do? (“Go
on!”) You simply _went_ on until you dropped in the last ditch. The idea
that a _baby_ doesn’t _amount_ to anything! Why, _one_ baby is just a
house and a front yard full by itself. _One_ baby can furnish more
business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He
is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do what
you please, you can’t make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto
the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don’t you
ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot, and there ain’t
any real difference between triplets and an insurrection.
Yes, it was high time for a toast-master to recognise the importance of
the babies. Think what is in store for the present crop! Fifty years
from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag, if it still
survive (and let us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic
numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our
increase. Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political
leviathan—a _Great Eastern_. The cradled babies of to-day will be on
deck. Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big contract
on their hands.
Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some
which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could
know which ones they are. In one of these cradles the unconscious
Farragut of the future is at this moment teething—think of it!—and
putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly
justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future renowned
astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid
interest—poor little chap!—and wondering what has become of that other
one they call the wet-nurse. In another the future great historian is
lying—and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is
ended. In another the future president is busying himself with no
profounder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his
hair so early; and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some
60,000 future office-seekers, getting ready to furnish him occasion to
grapple with that same old problem a second time. And in still one more
cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious
commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his
approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole
strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his
big toe into his mouth—an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the
illustrious guest of this evening turned _his_ entire attention to some
fifty-six years ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man,
there are mighty few who will doubt that he _succeeded_.
_Samuel L. Clemens_ (“_Mark Twain_”).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Cyclones]
_ON CYCLONES._
I DESIRE to state that my position as United States cyclonist for this
judicial district is now vacant. I resigned on the 9th day of September,
A.D. 1884.
I have not the necessary personal magnetism to look a cyclone in the eye
and make it quail. I am stern and even haughty in my intercourse with
men, but when a Manitoba simoon takes me by the brow of my pantaloons
and throws me across township 28, range 18, west of the 5th principal
meridian, I lose my mental reserve and become anxious and even taciturn.
For thirty years I had yearned to see a grown-up cyclone, of the
ring-tail-puller variety, mop up the green earth with huge forest trees
and make the landscape look tired. On the 9th day of September, A.D.
1884, my morbid curiosity was gratified.
As the people came out into the forest with lanterns and pulled me out
of the crotch of a basswood tree with a “tackle and fall,” I remember I
told them I didn’t yearn for any more atmospheric phenomena.
The old desire for a hurricane that could blow a cow through a
penitentiary was satiated. I remember when the doctor pried the bones of
my leg together, in order to kind of draw my attention away from the
limb, he asked me how I liked the fall style of zephyr in that locality.
I said it was all right, what there was of it. I said this in a tone of
bitter irony.
Cyclones are of two kinds—viz., the dark maroon cyclone, and the iron
grey cyclone with pale green mane and tail. It was the latter kind I
frolicked with on the above-named date.
My brother and I were riding along in the grand old forest, and I had
just been singing a few bars from the opera of “Whoop ’em up, Lizzie
Jane,” when I noticed that the wind was beginning to sough through the
trees. Soon after that I noticed that I was soughing through the trees
also, and I am really no slouch of a sougher either when I get started.
The horse was hanging by the breeching from the bough of a large
butternut tree, waiting for some one to come and pick him.
I did not see my brother at first, but after a while he disengaged
himself from a rail fence, and came where I was hanging, wrong end up,
with my personal effects spilling out of my pockets. I told him that as
soon as the wind kind of softened down, I wished he would go and pick
the horse. He did so, and at midnight a party of friends carried me into
town on a stretcher. It was quite an ovation. To think of a torchlight
procession coming out way out there into the woods at midnight, and
carrying me into town on their shoulders in triumph! And yet I was once
a poor boy!
It shows what may be accomplished by any one if he will persevere and
insist on living a different life.
The cyclone is a natural phenomenon, enjoying the most robust health. It
may be a pleasure for a man with great will power and an iron
constitution to study more carefully into the habits of the cyclone, but
as far as I am concerned, individually, I could worry along some way if
we didn’t have a phenomenon in the house from one year’s end to another.
As I sit here, with my leg in a silicate of soda corset, and watch the
merry throng promenading down the street, or mingling in the giddy
torchlight procession, I cannot repress a feeling toward a cyclone that
almost amounts to disgust.
_Bill Nye._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_OUR CORRESPONDENT HAS THE HONOUR TO BE._
WASHINGTON, D.C., _March 20, 1861_.
JUDGE not by appearances, for appearances are very deceptive,—as the old
lady cholerically remarked when one, who was really a virgin unto forty,
blushingly informed her that she was “just twenty-five this month.”
Though you find me in Washington now, I was born of respectable parents,
and gave every indication, in my satchel and apron days, of coming to
something better than this.
Slightly northward of the Connecticut river, where a pleasant little
conservative village mediates between two opposition hills, you may
behold the landscape on which my infantile New England eyes first traced
the courses of future railroads.