“Well, well, how time does get away with us. Yes, and oh, the changes
that——”
There was a sudden catch of her voice and a trembling of the lip, the
men waiting reverently for her to get command of herself and go on; but,
after a little struggle, she turned away with her apron to her eyes, and
softly disappeared.
“Seeing you made her think of the children, poor thing—dear, dear,
they’re all dead but the youngest. But banish care, it’s no time for it
now—on with the dance, let joy be unconfided, is my motto—whether
there’s any dance to dance or any joy to unconfide, you’ll be the
healthier for it every time—every time, Washington—it’s my experience,
and I’ve seen a good deal of this world. Come, where have you
disappeared to all these years, and are you from there now, or where are
you from?”
“I don’t quite think you would ever guess, Colonel. Cherokee Strip.”
“My land!”
“Sure as you live.”
“You can’t mean it. Actually _living_ out there?”
“Well, yes, if a body may call it that; though it’s a pretty strong term
for ’dobies and jackass rabbits, boiled beans and slap-jacks,
depression, withered hopes, poverty in all its varieties——”
“Louise out there?”
“Yes, and the children.”
“Out there now?”
“Yes, I couldn’t afford to bring them with me.”
“Oh, I see—you had to come—claim against the Government. Make yourself
perfectly easy—I’ll take care of that.”
“But it isn’t a claim against the Government.”
“No? Want to be a postmaster? _That’s_ all right. Leave it to me. I’ll
fix it.”
“But it isn’t postmaster—you’re all astray yet.”
“Well, good gracious, Washington, why don’t you come out and tell me
what it is? What do you want to be so reserved and distrustful with an
old friend like me for? Don’t you reckon I can keep a se——”
“There’s no secret about it—you merely don’t give me a chance to——”
“Now, look here, old friend, I know the human race; and I know that when
a man comes to Washington, I don’t care if it’s from heaven, let alone
Cherokee Strip, it’s because he _wants_ something. And I know that as a
rule he’s not going to get it; that he’ll stay and try for another thing
and won’t get that; the same luck with the next and the next and the
next; and keeps on till he strikes bottom, and is too poor and ashamed
to go back, even to Cherokee Strip; and at last his heart breaks and
they take up a collection and bury him. There—don’t interrupt me, I know
what I’m talking about. Happy and prosperous in the Far West, wasn’t I?
_You_ know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye, looked up to by
everybody, kind of an autocrat, actually a kind of an autocrat,
Washington. Well, nothing would do but I must go as Minister to St.
James’s, the Governor and everybody insisting, you know, and so at last
I consented—no getting out of it, _had_ to do it, so here I came. _A day
too late_, Washington. Think of that—what little things change the
world’s history—yes, sir, the place had been filled. Well, there I was,
you see. I offered to compromise and go to Paris. The President was very
sorry and all that, but that place, you see, didn’t belong to the West,
so there I was again. There was no help for it, so I had to stoop a
little—we all reach the day some time or other when we’ve got to do
that, Washington, and it’s not a bad thing for us, either, take it by
and large all around—I had to stoop a little and offer to take
Constantinople, Washington, consider this—for it’s perfectly true—within
a month I _asked_ for China; within another month I _begged_ for Japan;
one year later I was away down, down, down, supplicating with tears and
anguish for the bottom office in the gift of the Government of the
United States—Flint-picker in the cellars of the War Department. And by
George I didn’t get it.”
“Flint-picker?”
“Yes. Office established in the time of the Revolution, last century.
The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied from the capitol.
They do it yet; for although the flint-arm has gone out and the forts
have tumbled down, the decree hasn’t been repealed—been overlooked and
forgotten, you see—and so the vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others
used to stand still get their six quarts of gun-flints a year just the
same.”
Washington said musingly after a pause:
“How strange it seems—to start for Minister to England at twenty
thousand a year and fail for flint-picker at——”
“Three dollars a week. It’s human life, Washington—just an epitome of
human ambition, and struggle, and the outcome; you aim for the palace
and get drowned in the sewer.”
There was another meditative silence. Then Washington said, with earnest
compassion in his voice—
“And so, after coming here, against your inclination, to satisfy your
sense of patriotic duty and appease a selfish public clamour, you get
absolutely nothing for it.”
“Nothing?” The Colonel had to get up and stand, to get room for his
amazement to expand. “_Nothing_, Washington? I ask you this: to be a
Perpetual Member and the _only_ Perpetual Member of a Diplomatic Body
accredited to the greatest country on earth—do you call that nothing?”
It was Washington’s turn to be amazed. He was stricken dumb; but the
wide-eyed wonder, the reverent admiration expressed in his face, were
more eloquent than any words could have been. The Colonel’s wounded
spirit was healed, and he resumed his seat, pleased and content. He
leaned forward and said, impressively—
“What was due to a man who had become for ever conspicuous by an
experience without precedent in the history of the world?—a man made
permanently and diplomatically sacred, so to speak, by having been
connected, temporarily, through solicitation, with every single
diplomatic post in the roster of this government, from Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James all
the way down to Consul to a guano rock in the Straits of Sunda—salary
payable in guano—which disappeared by volcanic convulsion the day before
they got down to my name in the list of applicants. Certainly something
august enough to be answerable to the size of this unique and memorable
experience was my due, and I got it. By the common voice of this
community, by acclamation of the people, that mighty utterance which
brushes aside laws and legislation, and from whose decrees there is no
appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the Diplomatic Body,
representing the multifarious sovereignties and civilisations of the
globe near the republican court of the United States of America. And
they brought me home with a torchlight procession.”
“It is wonderful, Colonel—simply wonderful.”
“It’s the loftiest official position in the whole earth.”
“I should think so—and the most commanding.”
“You have named the word. Think of it. I frown, and there is war; I
smile, and contending nations lay down their arms.”
“It is awful. The responsibility, I mean.”
“It is nothing. Responsibility is no burden to me; I am used to it; have
always been used to it.”
“And the work—the work! Do you have to attend all the sittings?”
“Who, I? Does the Emperor of Russia attend the conclaves of the
governors of the provinces? He sits at home and indicates his pleasure.”
Washington was silent a moment, then a deep sigh escaped him.
“How proud I was an hour ago; how paltry seems my little promotion now!
Colonel, the reason I came to Washington is—I am Congressional Delegate
from Cherokee Strip!”
The Colonel sprang to his feet and broke out with prodigious enthusiasm—
“Give me your hand, my boy—this is immense news! I congratulate you with
all my heart. My prophecies stand confirmed. I always said it was in
you. I always said you were born for high distinction and would achieve
it. You ask Polly if I didn’t.”
Washington was dazed by this most unexpected demonstration.
“Why, Colonel, there’s nothing _to_ it. That little, narrow, desolate,
unpeopled, oblong streak of grass and gravel, lost in the remote wastes
of the vast continent—why, it’s like representing a billiard table—a
discarded one.”
“Tut-tut, it’s a great, it’s a staving preferment, and just opulent with
influence here.”
“Shucks, Colonel, I haven’t even a vote.”
“That’s nothing, you can make speeches.”
“No, I can’t. The population only two hundred——”
“That’s all right, that’s all right——”
“And they hadn’t any right to elect me; we’re not even a territory,
there’s no Organic Act, the government hasn’t any official knowledge of
us whatever.”
“Never mind about that; I’ll fix that. I’ll rush the thing through, I’ll
get you organised in no time.”
“_Will_ you, Colonel?—it’s _too_ good of you; but it’s just your old
sterling self, the same old, ever-faithful friend,” and the grateful
tears welled up in Washington’s eyes.
“It’s just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done. Shake hands.
We’ll hitch teams together, you and I, and we’ll make things hum!”
_Samuel L. Clemens_ (“_Mark Twain_”).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE OWL-CRITIC._
A LESSON TO FAULT-FINDERS.
“WHO stuffed that white owl?” No one spoke in the shop:
The barber was busy, and he couldn’t stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The _Daily_, the _Herald_, the _Post_, little heeding.
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.
“Don’t you see, Mister Brown,”
Cried the youth, with a frown,
“How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is—
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck ’tis?
I make no apology;
I’ve learned owl-eology.
I’ve passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskilful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you’ll soon be the laughing-stock all over the town!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
“I’ve _studied_ owls,
And other night fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true:
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can’t do it, because
’Tis against all bird-laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches
An owl has a toe
That _can’t_ turn out so!
I’ve made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears.
Mister Brown, I’m amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To _look_ at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed _him_ don’t half know his business!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
“Examine those eyes.
I’m filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They’d make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down;
Have him stuffed again, Brown!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
“With some sawdust and bark
I would stuff in the dark
An owl better than that,
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about _him_ there’s not one natural feather.”
[Illustration: “THE OWL, VERY GRAVELY, GOT DOWN FROM HIS PERCH.”]
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
“Your learning’s at fault _this_ time, any way;
Don’t waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I’m an owl; you’re another. Sir critic, good-day!”
And the barber kept on shaving.
_Jas. T. Fields._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_ANNIHILATES AN OBERLINITE._
[Illustration]
COLUMBUS, O.,
_June the 21, ’62_.
I WUZ onto my way to Columbus to attend the annooal gatherin uv the
fatheful at that city, a dooty I hev religusly performed fer over 30
yeres. Ther wuz but wun seet vakent in the car, and onto that I sot
down. Presently a gentleman carryin uv a karpit bag, sot down beside me,
and we towunst commenst conversashen. After discussin the crops, the
wether, et settry, I askt wher he resided.
“In Oberlin,” sez he.
“Oberlin!” shreekt I. “Oberlin! wher Ablishnism runs rampant—wher a
nigger is 100 per cent. better ner a white man—wher a mulatto is a obgik
uv pitty on account uv hevin white blood. Oberlin! that stonest the
Dimekratik prophets, and woodent be gathered under Vallandygum’s wings
as a hen hawk gathereth chickens, at no price—Oberlin, that gives all
the profits uv her college to the support uv the underground ralerode——”
“But,” sez he.
“Oberlin,” continyood I, “that reskoos niggers, and sets at defians the
benifisent laws fer takin on em back to their kind and hevenly-minded
masters—Oberlin——”
“My jentle frend,” sez he, “Oberlin don’t do nuthin uv the kind. Yoo’ve
bin misinformed. Oberlin respex the laws, and hez now a body uv her
galyent sons in the feeld a fightin to manetane the Constooshn.”
“A fightin to manetane the Constooshn,” retordid I. “My frend” (and I
spoke impressively), “no Oberlin man is a doin any sich thing. Oberlin
never fit for no Constooshn. Oberlin commenst this war, Oberlin wuz the
prime cause uv all the trubble. Wat wuz the beginnin uv it. Our Suthrin
brethrin wantid the territories—Oberlin objectid. They wantid Kansas fer
ther blessid instooshn—Oberlin agin objecks. They sent colonies with
muskits and sich, to hold the terrytory—Oberlin sent 2 thowsand armed
with Bibles and Sharp’s rifles—two instooshns Dimocrisy cood never stand
afore—and druv em out. They wantid Breckinridge fer President—Oberlin
refused and elektid Linkin. Then they seceded, and why is it that they
still hold out?”
He made no anser.
“Becoz,” continyood I, transfixin him with my penetratin gaze, “Oberlin
won’t submit. We mite 2-day hev peese, ef Oberlin wood say to Linkin,
‘Resine!’ and to Geff Davis, ‘Come up higher!’ When I say Oberlin,
understand it ez figgerative fer the entire Ablishn party, uv wich
Oberlin is the fountin hed. There’s wher the trubble is. Our Suthern
brethren wuz reasonable. So long ez the dimocrisy controld things, and
they got all they wanted, they wuz peeceable. Oberlin ariz—the dimocrisy
wuz beet down, and they riz up agin it.”
Jest eggsactly 80-six yeres ago, akordin to Jayneses almanac, a work
wich I perooz annually with grate delite, the Amerykin Eagle (whose
portrate any wun who possessis a 5 cent peece kin behold) wuz born, the
Goddis uv Liberty bein its muther, the Spirit uv Freedom its sire, Tomas
Gefferson actin ez physician on the occasion. The proud bird growd ez
tho it slept on guano—its left wing dipt into the Pasific, its rite into
the Atlantic, its beek thretened Kanady, while his magestik tale cast a
shadder ore the Gulf. Sich wuz the Eagle up to March, ’61. Wat is his
condishn now? His hed hangs, his tale droops, ther’s no strength in his
talons. Wat’s the trubble? Oberlin. He hed bin fed on nigger fer yeres,
and hed thrived on the diet. Oberlin got the keepin uv him—she withholds
his nateral food—and onless Oberlin is whaled this fall, down goes the
Eagle.
_Petroleum V. Nasby._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_AN ECONOMICAL PROJECT._
_To the Authors of the Journal of Paris._
MESSIEURS,—You often entertain us with accounts of new discoveries.
Permit me to communicate to the public, through your paper, one that has
lately been made by myself, and which I conceive may be of great
utility.
I was the other evening in a grand company, where the new lamp of
Messrs. Quinquet and Lange was introduced and much admired for its
splendour; but a general inquiry was made, whether the oil it consumed
was not in proportion to the light it afforded, in which case there
would be no saving in the use of it. No one present could satisfy us in
that point, which all agreed ought to be known, it being a very
desirable thing to lessen, if possible, the expense of lighting our
apartments, when every other article of family expense was so much
augmented.
I was pleased to see this general concern for economy, for I love
economy exceedingly.
I went home, and to bed, three or four hours after midnight, with my
head full of the subject. An accidental sudden noise waked me about six
in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light;
and I imagined at first that a number of those lamps had been brought
into it; but, rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light came in at the
windows. I got up and looked out to see what might be the occasion of
it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horizon, from whence he
poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having
negligently omitted, the preceding evening, to close the shutters.
I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but
six o’clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun
should rise so early, I looked into the almanac, where I found it to be
the hour given for his rising on that day. I looked forward, too, and
found he was to rise still earlier every day till towards the end of
June; and that at no time in the year he retarded his rising so long as
till eight o’clock. Your readers who, with me, have never seen any signs
of sunshine before noon, and seldom regarded the astronomical part of
the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his
rising so early, and especially when I assure them, _that he gives light
as soon as he rises_. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact.
One cannot be more certain of any fact. I saw it with my own eyes. And,
having repeated this observation the three following mornings, I found
always precisely the same result.
[Illustration: “WHEN I SPEAK OF THIS DISCOVERY TO OTHERS.”]
Yet so it happens that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can
easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it
in words, that they do not quite believe me. One, indeed, who is a
learned natural philosopher, has assured me that I must certainly be
mistaken as to the circumstance of the light coming into my room; for it
being well known, as he says, that there could be no light abroad at
that hour, it follows that none could enter from without, and that of
consequence, my windows being accidentally left open, instead of letting
in the light, had only served to let out the darkness; and he used many
ingenious arguments to show me how I might, by that means, have been
deceived. I owned that he puzzled me a little, but he did not satisfy
me; and the subsequent observations I made, as above mentioned,
confirmed me in my first opinion.
This event has given rise in my mind to several serious and important
reflections. I consider that if I had not been awakened so early in the
morning I should have slept six hours longer by the light of the sun,
and in exchange have lived six hours the following night by
candle-light; and the latter being a much more expensive light than the
former, my love of economy induced me to muster up what little
arithmetic I was master of, and to make some calculations, which I shall
give you, after observing that utility is, in my opinion, the test of
value in matters of invention, and that a discovery which can be applied
to no use, or is not good for something, is good for nothing.
I took for the basis of my calculation the supposition that there are
100,000 families in Paris, and that these families consume in the night
half a pound of _bougies_, or candles, per hour. I think this is a
moderate allowance, taking one family with another; for though I believe
some consume less, I know that many consume a great deal more. Then
estimating seven hours per day, as the medium quantity between the time
of the sun’s rising and ours, he rising during the six following months
from six to eight hours before noon, and there being seven hours of
course per night in which we burn candles, the account will stand thus:—
In the six months between the 20th of March and the 20th of
September there are—
Nights 183
Hours of each night in which we burn candles 7
——
Multiplication gives for the total number of hours 1281
These 1281 hours multiplied by 100,000, the
number of inhabitants, give 128,100,000
One hundred twenty-eight millions and one
hundred thousand hours, spent at Paris by
candle-light, which, at half a pound of wax 64,050,000
and tallow per hour, gives the weight of
Sixty-four millions and fifty thousand of pounds,
which, estimating the whole at the medium
price of thirty sols the pound, makes the sum
of ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand 96,075,000
_livres tournois_
An immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the
economy of using sunshine instead of candles.
If it should be said that people are apt to be obstinately attached to
old customs, and that it will be difficult to induce them to rise before
noon, consequently my discovery can be of little use; I answer, _Nil
desperandum_. I believe all who have common sense, as soon as they have
learned from this paper that it is daylight when the sun rises, will
contrive to rise with him; and to compel the rest, I would propose the
following regulations:—
First. Let a tax be laid of a louis per window on every window that is
provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun.
Second. Let the same salutary operation of police be made use of, to
prevent our burning candles, that inclined us last winter to be more
economical in burning wood; that is, let guards be placed in the shops
of the wax and tallow chandlers, and no family be permitted to be
supplied with more than one pound of candles per week.
Third. Let guards also be posted to stop all the coaches, etc., that
would pass the street after sunset, except those of physicians,
surgeons, and midwives.
Fourth. Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in
every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient, let cannon
be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make
them open their eyes to see their true interest.
All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days, after which
the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity,
for _ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte_. Oblige a man to rise at
four in the morning, and it is more than probable he will go willingly
to bed at eight in the evening; and, having had eight hours sleep, he
will rise more willingly at four in the morning following. But this sum
of ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres is not the whole
of what may be saved by my economical project. You may observe that I
have calculated upon only one-half of the year, and much may be saved in
the other, though the days are shorter. Besides, the immense stock of
wax and tallow left unconsumed during the summer will probably make
candles much cheaper for the ensuing winter, and continue them cheaper
as long as the proposed reformation shall be supported.