“Hain’t anywhere near ye!”
“Gimme some cloze!”
“You’ve got more’n half now!”
“Come, children, do be good and go to sleep,” says the mother, entering
the room and arranging the clothes.
They doze off after a few muttered words, to preserve the peace until
morning, and it is popularly supposed that an angel sits on each
bed-post to sentinel either curly head during the long, dark hours.
“Ho-hum!” yawns Bill.
“Ho-hum!” yawns Henry.
It is morning, and they crawl out of bed. After four or five efforts
they get into their pants, and then reach out for stockings.
“I know I put mine right down here by this bed!” exclaims Bill.
“And I put mine right there by the end of the bureau!” adds Henry.
They wander around, growling and jawing, and the mother finally finds
the stockings. Then comes the jackets. They are positive that they hung
them on the hooks, and boldly charge that some maliciously wicked person
removed them. And so it goes until each one is finally dressed, washed,
and ready for breakfast, and the mother feels such a burden off her mind
that she can endure what follows their leaving the table—a good
half-hour’s hunt after their hats, which they “positively hung up,” but
which are at last found under some bed, or stowed away behind the
woodbox.
_C. B. Lewis (“M Quad”)._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_MR. DOTY MAD._
MR. HENRY K. DOTY, one of the most prominent citizens, and the leading
hide and pelt dealer in the North-West, has just returned from a
European tour. He has been absent about four months; and in that time he
has made a visit to every European country, and has become thoroughly
acquainted with the customs, manners, and languages of the different
people. He spent about seventy-five thousand dollars on the trip; but
this could not be called an extravagant sum when one takes into
consideration the superb paintings, statuary, and other works of virtue
that he brought back with him. In Paris, upon the Roo de Rivoly alone,
he purchased fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of pictures; and in
Brussels he bought several thousand dollars’ worth of those elegant
carpets from which that city derives its name. Mr. Doty says that he was
well treated everywhere except in England. He is specially bitter
against Mr. Phelps, our representative at the court of St. James.
“This man Phelps,” says he, “is a little, dried-up, snobbish Vermont
lawyer, with a soul no bigger than a huckleberry. I dyed my moustache,
and put on my dress-suit and my twenty-thousand-dollar diamond
bosom-pin, and called to see him. A fine specimen he is to represent our
wealth and culture! I don’t believe his clothes cost more than twenty
dollars a suit.
“‘I suppose I ought to call on the queen,’ says I.
“He didn’t say anything; and I continued, ‘Would you mind introducing
me?’
“‘Really, Mr. Doty,’ says he, ‘I do not feel like presenting an entire
stranger to her Majesty.’
“‘Oh! you needn’t be scared,’ says I, ‘for I carry as big a letter of
credit as any American in London; and when it comes to culture, and that
sort of thing, I can knock the socks off any of your lords and
marqueezies.’
“Well, will you believe it? he had the impudence to shove a printed list
of questions at me.
“‘You will have to answer these on oath before I can tell you whether I
can present you to her Majesty,’ says he.
“I was as mad as a Texas steer. Here are some of the questions: ‘Did you
ever have a grandfather? and if so, what was his vocation?’ ‘Have you
contracted the toothbrush habit?’ ‘Are you addicted to the use of the
double negative?’ ‘Spell phthisis, strychnine, pneumonia?’ Fine
questions these to put to a gentleman worth a cool million! I told him
to go to —— with his queen; and I’m going to have my private secretary
write a letter to the President, complaining of Phelps, and demanding
that he be discharged.”
_Eugene Field._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_OUR TWO OPINIONS._
US two wuz boys when we fell out,—
Nigh to the age uv my youngest now;
Don’t rec’lect what ’t wuz about,
Some small deeff’rence, I’ll allow.
Lived next neighbours twenty years,
A-hatin’ each other, me ’nd Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.
Grew up together ’nd wouldn’t speak,
Courted sisters, ’nd marr’d ’em, too;
’tended same meetin’-house oncet a week,
A-hatin’ each other through ’nd through!
But when Abe Linkern asked the West
F’r soldiers, we answered,—me ’nd Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.
But down in Tennessee one night
Ther wuz sound uv firin’ fur away,
’nd the sergeant allowed ther’d be a fight
With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex’ day;
’nd as I wuz thinkin’ uv Lizzie ’nd home
Jim stood afore me, long ’nd slim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.
[Illustration: “US TWO SHUCK HANDS.”]
Seemed like we knew ther wuz goin’ to be
Serious trouble f’r me ’nd him;
Us two shuck hands, did Jim ’nd me,
But never a word from me or Jim!
He went _his_ way ’nd _I_ went _mine_,
’nd into the battle’s roar went we,—
_I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv Jim,
’nd _he_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me._
Jim never come back from the war again,
But I hain’t forgot that last, last night
When, waitin’ f’r orders, us two men
Made up ’nd shuck hands, afore the fight.
’nd after it all, it’s soothin’ to know
That here _I_ be ’nd yonder’s Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.
_Eugene Field._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_ONE OF MR. WARD’S BUSINESS LETTERS._
To the Editor of the ——.
SIR—I’m movin along—slowly along—down tords your place. I want you
should rite me a letter, sayin how is the show bizniss in your place. My
show at present consists of three moral Bares, a Kangaroo (a amoozin
little Raskal—’twould make you larf yerself to deth to see the little
cuss jump up and squeal) wax figgers of G. Washington Gen. Tayler, John
Bunyan Capt. Kidd and Dr. Webster in the act of killin Dr. Parkman,
besides several miscellanyus moral wax statoots of celebrated piruts &
murderers, &c., ekalled by few & exceld by none. Now Mr. Editor, scratch
orf a few lines sayin how is the show bizness down to your place. I
shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss. Depend upon it. I want you
should git my hanbills up in flamin stile. Also git up a tremenjus
excitemunt in yr. paper ’bowt my onparaleld Show. We must fetch the
public sumhow. We must wurk on their feelins. Cum the moral on ’em
strong. If its a temprance community tell ’em I sined the pledge fifteen
minits arter Ise born, but on the contery ef your peple take their tods,
say Mister Ward is as Jenial a feller as we ever met, full of
conwiviality, & the life an sole of the Soshul Bored. Take, don’t you?
If you say anythin abowt my show say my snaiks is as harmliss as the
new-born Babe. What a interestin study it is to see a zewological animal
like a snaik under perfeck subjecshun! My kangaroo is the most larfable
little cuss I ever saw. All for 15 cents. I am anxyus to skewer your
infloounce. I repeet in regard to them hanbills that I shall git ’em
struck orf up to your printin offiss. My perlitercal sentiments agree
with yourn exackly. I know thay do, becawz I never saw a man whoos
didn’t.
Respectively yures,
A. WARD.
P.S.—You scratch my back & Ile scratch your back.
_Artemus Ward._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE SHOWMAN’S COURTSHIP._
THARE was many affectin ties which made me hanker arter Betsy Jane. Her
father’s farm jined our’n; their cows and our’n squencht their thurst at
the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forrerds; the
measles broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our
parients (Betsy’s and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same
meetin house, and the nabers used to obsarve, “How thick the Wards and
Peasleys air!” It was a surblime site, in the Spring of the year, to see
our sevral mothers (Betsy’s and mine) with their gowns pin’d up so thay
couldn’t sile ’em, affecshunitly Bilin sope together & aboozin the
nabers.
Altho I hankerd intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I darsunt
tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly Buzzom. I’d try to do
it but my tung would kerwollup up agin the roof of my mowth & stick
thar, like deth to a deseast Afrikan, or a country postmaster to his
offiss, while my hart whanged agin my ribs like a old-fashioned wheat
Flale agin a barn door.
’Twas a carm still nite in Joon. All nater was husht and nary zeffer
disturbed the sereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on the fense of her
farther’s pastur. We’d bin rompin threw the woods, kullin flours &
drivin the woodchuck from his Native Lair (so to speak) with long
sticks. Wall we sot thar on the fense, a swingin our feet two and fro,
blushin as red as the Baldinsville skool house when it was fust painted,
and lookin very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm was ockepied in
ballunsin myself on the fense, while my rite was woundid luvinly round
her waste.
[Illustration: “I CLEARED MY THROAT AND TREMBLINLY SED, ‘BETSY, YOU’RE A
GAZELLE.’”]
I cleared my throat and tremblinly sed, “Betsy, you’re a Gazelle.”
I thought that air was putty fine. I waitid to see what effeck it would
hav upon her. It evidently didn’t fetch her, for she up and sed—
“You’re a sheep!”
Sez I, “Betsy, I think very muchly of you.”
“I don’t b’leeve a word you say—so there now cum!” with which
obsarvashun she hitched away from me.
“I wish thar was winders to my Sole,” said I, “so that you could see
some of my feelins. There’s fire enuff in here,” said I, strikin my
buzzum with my fist, “to bile all the corn beef and turnips in the
naberhood. Versoovius and the Critter ain’t a circumstans!”
She bowd her hed down and commenst chawin the strings to her sun bonnet.
“Ar could you know the sleeplis nites I worry threw with on your
account, how vittles has seized to be attractiv to me, & how my lims has
shrunk up, you wouldn’t dowt me. Gase on this wastin form and these ’ere
sunken cheeks——”
I should have continnered on in this strane probly for sum time, but
unfortnitly I lost my ballunse and fell over into the pastur kersmash,
tearin my close and seveerly damagin myself ginerally.
Betsy Jane sprung to my assistance in dubble quick time and dragged me
4th. Then drawin herself up to her full hite, she said:
“I won’t listen to your noncents no longer. Jes say rite strate out what
you’re drivin at. If you mean gettin hitched, I’M IN!”
I considered that air enuff for all practical purpusses, and we
proceeded immejitly to the parson’s, and was made 1 that very nite.
(Notiss to the Printer. Put some stars here.)
* * * * *
I’ve parst threw many tryin ordeels sins then, but Betsy Jane has bin
troo as steel. By attendin strickly to bizniss I’ve amarsed a handsum
Pittance. No man on this footstool can rise & git up & say I ever
knowinly injered no man or wimmin folks, while all agree that my Show is
ekalled by few and exceld by none, embracin as it does a wonderful
colleckshun of livin wild Beests of Pray, snaix in grate profushun, a
endliss variety of life-size wax figgers, & the only traned kangaroo in
Ameriky—the most amoozin little cuss ever introjuced to a discriminatin
public.
_Artemus Ward._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_YE PEDAGOGUE._
A BALLAD
[Illustration: “AND STRAP YE URCHINS WELLE.”]
I.
RIGHTE learnéd is ye Pedagogue,
Fulle apt to reade and spelle,
And eke to teache ye parts of speeche,
And strap ye urchins welle.
II.
For as ’tis meete to soake ye feete,
Ye ailinge heade to mende;
Ye younker’s pate to stimulate,
He beats ye other ende!
III.
Righte lordlie is ye Pedagogue,
As any turbaned Turke;
For welle to rule ye District Schoole,
It is no idle worke.
IV.
For oft Rebellion lurketh there,
In breaste of secrete foes,
Of malice fulle, in waite to pulle
Ye Pedagogue his nose!
V.
Sometimes he heares with trembling feares
Of ye ungodlie rogue
On mischiefe bent, with felle intent
To licke ye Pedagogue!
VI.
And if ye Pedagogue be smalle,
When to ye battell led,
In such a plighte, God sende him mighte
To break ye rogue his heade!
VII.
Daye after daye, for little paye,
He teacheth what he can,
And bears ye yoke, to please ye folke,
And ye committee-man.
VIII.
Ah! many crosses hath he borne,
And many trials founde,
Ye while he trudged ye district through,
And boarded rounde and rounde!
IX.
Ah! many a steake hath he devoured,
That, by ye taste and sighte,
Was in disdaine, ’twas very plaine,
Of Daye his patent righte!
X.
Fulle solemn is ye Pedagogue,
Amonge ye noisy churls,
Yet other while he hath a smile
To give ye handsome girls;
XI.
And one,—ye fayrest mayde of all,—
To cheere his wayninge life,
Shall be, when Springe ye flowers shall bringe,
Ye Pedagogue his wife!
_John Godfrey Saxe._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_SETTLING UNDER DIFFICULTIES._
STRANGERS visiting the beautiful city of Burlington have not failed to
notice that one of the handsomest young men they meet is very bald, and
they fall into the usual error of attributing this premature baldness to
dissipation. But such is not the case. This young man, one of the most
exemplary Bible-class scholars in the city, went to a Baptist sociable
out in West Hill one night about two years ago. He escorted three
charming girls, with angelic countenances and human appetites, out to
the refreshment table, let them eat all they wanted, and then found he
had left his pocket-book at home, and a deaf man that he had never seen
before at the cashier’s desk. The young man with his face aflame, bent
down, and said softly—
“I am ashamed to say I have no change with——”
“Hey——?” shouted the cashier.
“I regret to say,” the young man repeated in a little louder key, “that
I have unfortunately come away without any change to——”
“Change two?” chirped the old man. “Oh, yes; I can change five if you
want it.”
“No,” the young man explained in a terrible penetrating whisper, for
half-a-dozen people were crowding up behind him, impatient to pay their
bills and get away, “I don’t want any change, because——”
“Oh, don’t want no change?” the deaf man cried gleefully. “’Bleeged to
ye, ’bleeged to ye. ’Taint often we get such generous donations. Pass
over your bill.”
“No, no,” the young man explained, “I have no funds——”
“Oh, yes, plenty of fun,” the deaf man replied, growing tired of the
conversation, and noticing the long line of people waiting with money in
their hands; “but I haven’t got time to talk about it now. Settle, and
move on.”
“But,” the young man gasped out, “I have no money——”
“Go Monday?” queried the deaf cashier. “I don’t care when you go; you
must pay, and let these other people come up.”
“I have no money!” the mortified young man shouted, ready to sink into
the earth, while the people all around him, and especially the three
girls he had treated, were giggling and chuckling audibly.
“Owe money?” the cashier said; “of course you do; 2.75 dollars.”
“I can’t pay!” the youth screamed, and by turning his pockets inside
out, and yelling his poverty to the heavens, he finally made the deaf
man understand. And then he had to shriek his full name three times,
while his ears fairly rung with the half-stifled laughter that was
breaking out all around him; and he had to scream out where he worked,
and roar when he would pay, and he couldn’t get the deaf man to
understand him until some of the church members came up to see what the
uproar was, and, recognising their young friend, made it all right with
the cashier. And the young man went out into the night and clubbed
himself, and shred his locks away ontil he was as bald as an egg.
_Robert J. Burdette._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE._
A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco pedler by trade, was on his way from
Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker
settlement, to the village of Parker’s Falls, on Salmon River. He had a
neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each
side-panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden
tobacco-stalk, on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare, and
was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the
worse liked by the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather
be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved
by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favour he used to court
by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that
the country lassies of New England are generally great performers on
pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler
was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the
news and anxious to tell it again.
After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name
was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece
of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little
grey mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a
morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to reach the morning paper. An
opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a
sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of a
hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart.
Dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a
bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a
weary, yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the
freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do
the same all day.
“Good morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when within speaking distance.
“You go a pretty good jog. What’s the latest news at Parker’s Falls?”
The man pulled the broad brim of a grey hat over his eyes, and answered
rather sullenly that he did not come from Parker’s Falls, which, as
being the limit of his own day’s journey, the pedler had naturally
mentioned in his inquiry.
“Well, then,” rejoined Dominicus Pike, “let’s have the latest news where
you did come from. I’m not particular about Parker’s Falls. Any place
will answer.”
[Illustration: “AT LAST MOUNTING ON THE STEP OF THE CART, HE WHISPERED
IN THE EAR OF DOMINICUS.”]
Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as
one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to
hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or
weighing the expediency of telling it. At last mounting on the step of
the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have
shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him—
“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr.
Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight
o’clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to a
branch of a St. Michael’s pear-tree, where nobody would find him till
the morning.”
As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the stranger
betook himself to his journey again with more speed than ever, not even
turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and
relate all the particulars. The pedler whistled to his mare and went up
the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had
known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long-nines,
and a great deal of pig-tail, ladies’ twist, and fig tobacco. He was
rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread.
Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder
had been perpetrated only at eight o’clock the preceding night; and yet
Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when in all
probability poor Mr. Higginbotham’s own family had just discovered his
corpse hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. The stranger on foot must
have worn seven-league boots to travel at such a rate.
“Ill news flies fast, they say,” thought Dominicus Pike; “but this beats
railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the
President’s message.”
The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made a
mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did
not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country store
along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among at
least twenty horrified audiences. He found himself invariably the first
bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he
could not avoid filling up the outline, till it became quite a
respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence.
Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom
Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was
accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall with the
money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. The clerk
manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe, hinting,
what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was
a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property would descend to a
pretty niece, who was now keeping school in Kimballton.
What with telling the news for the public good and driving bargains for
his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put
up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker’s Falls. After supper,
lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room, and
went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it
took him half-an-hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in
the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth
was an elderly farmer, who had arrived on horseback a short time before,
and was now seated in a corner smoking his pipe. When the story was
concluded he rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front
of Dominicus, and stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest
tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt.
“Will you make affidavit,” demanded he in the tone of a country justice
taking an examination, “that old Squire Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was
murdered in his orchard the night before last, and found hanging on his
great pear-tree yesterday morning?”
“I tell the story as I heard it,” answered Dominicus, dropping his
half-burnt cigar. “I don’t say that I saw the thing done, so I can’t
take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way.”
“But I can take mine,” said the farmer, “that if Squire Higginbotham was
murdered the night before last, I drank a bottle of bitters with his
ghost this morning. Being a neighbour of mine he called me into his
store as I was riding by and treated me, and then asked me to do a
little business for him on the road. He didn’t seem to know any more
about his own murder than I did.”
“Why, then, it can’t be a fact!” exclaimed Dominicus Pike.
“I guess he’d have mentioned if it was,” said the old farmer, and he
removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in
the mouth.
Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no
heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with
a glass of gin and water and went to bed, where, all night long, he
dreamt of hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. To avoid the old
farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would have pleased him
better than Mr. Higginbotham’s), Dominicus rose in the grey of the
morning, put the little mare into the green cart, and trotted swiftly
away towards Parker’s Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the
pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him
to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to hear it. But he
met neither ox-team, light waggon, chaise, horseman, nor foot-traveller,
till just as he crossed Salmon River a man came trudging down to the
bridge with a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick.