rily. “Tell Mister Revelashun,” sed I, drawin myself up to my full hite
and lookin round upon the ornery krowd with a prowd & defiant mean,
“tell Mister Revelashun to mind his own bizness, subject only to the
Konstitushun of the United States!”
“Oh now let us in, that’s a sweet man,” sed several femailes, puttin
thare arms rownd me in lovin stile. “Becum 1 of us. Becum a Preest & hav
wives Sealed to you.”
“Not a Seal!” sez I, startin back in horror at the idee.
“Oh stay, Sir, stay,” sed a tall gawnt femaile, ore whoos hed 37 summirs
must hev parsd, “stay, & I’ll be your Jentle Gazelle.”
“Not ef I know it, you won’t,” sez I. “Awa, you skanderlus femaile, awa!
Go & be a Nunnery!” That’s what I sed, jes so.
“& I,” sed a fat chunky femaile, who must hev wade more than too hundred
lbs., “I will be your sweet gidin Star!”
Sez I, “Ile bet two dollers and a half you won’t!” Whare ear I may Rome
Ile still be troo 2 thee, Oh Betsy Jane! [N.B. Betsy Jane is my wife’s
Sir naime.]
“Wiltist thou not tarry hear in the Promist Land?” sed several of the
miserabil critters.
“Ile see you all essenshally cussed be 4 I wiltist!” roared I, as mad as
I cood be at thare infernul noncents. I girded up my Lions & fled the
Seen. I packt up my duds & left Salt Lake, which is a 2nd Soddum and
Germorrer, inhabitid by as theavin & onprincipled a set of retchis as
ever drew Breth in any spot on the Globe.
_Artemus Ward._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_DUET FOR THE BREAKFAST-TABLE._
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
THOU art my love! I have none other,
But only thee—but only thee.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
Now, Charles, do stop this silly bother,
And drink your tea—your cooling tea.
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
Your eyes are diamonds, gems refined,
Your teeth are pearl, your hair is gold.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
Oh, nonsense now! I know you’ll find
Your cutlets cold—exceeding cold.
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
Where’er thou art, my passions burn;
I envy not the monarch’s crown.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
Put some hot water in the urn,
And toast this bread, and toast it brown.
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
Had I Golconda’s wealth, I say
’Twere thine at will—’twere thine at will.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
Then let me have a cheque to pay
The dry-goods bill—that tedious bill!
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
Oh, heed it not, my trembling flower;
If want should press us, let it come.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
And, apropos, the bill for flour;
Is quite a sum—an unpaid sum.
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
So rich in love, so rich in joy,
No change our cup of bliss can spill.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
Now do be quiet! You destroy
My cambric frill—my well-starched frill.
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
Ha! senseless, soulless, loveless girl,
To sympathy and passion dead!
SENSIBLE WIFE.
A moment since I was your “pearl,”
Your “only love”—at least you said.
ROMANTIC HUSBAND.
I spoke it in the bitter jest
Of one his own deep sadness scorning.
SENSIBLE WIFE.
Well, candour is at all times best;
I wish you, sir, a fair good morning!
_Charles Graham Halpine._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_KITTY ANSWERS._
IT was dimmest twilight when Kitty entered Mrs. Ellison’s room, and sank
down on the first chair in silence.
“The Colonel met a friend at the St. Louis, and forgot about the
expedition, Kitty,” said Fanny, “and he only came in half-an-hour ago.
But it’s just as well; I know you’ve had a splendid time. Where’s Mr.
Arbuton?”
Kitty burst into tears.
“Why, has anything happened to him?” cried Mrs. Ellison, springing
towards her.
“To him? No! What should happen to _him_?” Kitty demanded, with an
indignant accent.
“Well, then, has anything happened to _you_?”
“I don’t know if you can call it _happening_. But I suppose you’ll be
satisfied now, Fanny. He’s offered himself to me.”
Kitty uttered the last words with a sort of violence, as if, since the
fact must be stated, she wished it to appear in the sharpest relief.
“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Ellison, not so well satisfied as the successful
match-maker ought to be. So long as it was a marriage in the abstract,
she had never ceased to desire it; but as the actual union of Kitty and
this Mr. Arbuton, of whom, really, they knew so little, and of whom, if
she searched her heart, she had as little liking as knowledge, it was
another affair. Mrs. Ellison trembled at her triumph, and began to think
that failure would have been easier to bear. Were they in the least
suited to each other? Would she like to see poor Kitty chained for life
to that impassive egotist, whose very merits were repellent, and whose
modesty even seemed to convict and snub you? Mrs. Ellison was not able
to put the matter to herself with moderation, either way; doubtless she
did Mr. Arbuton injustice now.
“Did you accept him?” she whispered feebly.
“Accept him?” repeated Kitty. “No!”
“Oh, dear!” again sighed Mrs. Ellison, feeling that this was scarcely
better, and not daring to ask further.
“I’m dreadfully perplexed, Fanny,” said Kitty, after waiting for the
questions which did not come, “and I wish you’d help me think.”
“I will, darling. But I don’t know that I’ll be of much use. I begin to
think I’m not very good at thinking.”
Kitty, who longed chiefly to get the situation more distinctly before
herself, gave no heed to this confession, but went on to rehearse the
whole affair. The twilight lent her its veil; and in the kindly
obscurity she gathered courage to face all the facts, and even to find
what was droll in them.
“It was very solemn, of course, and I was frightened; but I tried to
keep my wits about me, and _not_ to say yes, simply because that was the
easiest thing. I told him that I didn’t know,—and I don’t; and that I
must have time to think,—and I must. He was very ungenerous, and said he
had hoped I had already had time to think; and he couldn’t seem to
understand, or else I couldn’t very well explain, how it had been with
me all along.”
“He might certainly say you had encouraged him,” Mrs. Ellison remarked,
thoughtfully.
“Encouraged him, Fanny? How can you accuse me of such indelicacy?”
“Encouraging isn’t indelicacy. The gentlemen _have_ to be encouraged, or
of course they’d never have any courage. They’re so timid, naturally.”
“I don’t think Mr. Arbuton is very timid. He seemed to think that he had
only to ask as a matter of form, and I had no business to say anything.
What has he ever done for me? And hasn’t he often been intensely
disagreeable? He oughtn’t to have spoken just after overhearing what he
did. It was horrid to do so. He was very obtuse, too, not to see that
girls can’t always be so certain of themselves as men, or, if they are,
don’t know they are as soon as they’re asked.”
“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Ellison, “that’s the way with girls. I do
believe that most of them—when they’re young like you, Kitty—never think
of marriage as the end of their flirtations. They’d just like the
attentions and the romance to go on for ever, and never turn into
anything more serious; and they’re not to blame for that, though they
_do_ get blamed for it.”
“Certainly,” assented Kitty eagerly, “that’s it; that’s just what I was
saying; that’s the very reason why girls must have time to make up their
minds. _You_ had, I suppose.”
“Yes, two minutes. Poor Dick was going back to his regiment, and stood
with his watch in his hand. I said no, and called after him to correct
myself. But, Kitty, if the romance had happened to stop without his
saying anything, you wouldn’t have liked that either, would you?”
“No,” faltered Kitty; “I suppose not.”
“Well, then, don’t you see? That’s a great point in his favour. How much
time did you want, or did he give you?”
“I said I should answer before we left Quebec,” answered Kitty, with a
heavy sigh.
“Don’t you know what to say now?”
“I can’t tell. That’s what I want you to help me think out.”
Mrs. Ellison was silent for a moment before she said, “Well, then, I
suppose we shall have to go back to the very beginning.”
“Yes,” assented Kitty, faintly.
“You did have a sort of fancy for him the first time you saw him, didn’t
you?” asked Mrs. Ellison coaxingly, while forcing herself to be
systematic and coherent, by a mental strain of which no idea can be
given.
“Yes,” said Kitty, yet more faintly, adding, “but I can’t tell just what
sort of a fancy it was. I suppose I admired him for being handsome and
stylish, and for having such exquisite manners.”
“Go on,” said Mrs. Ellison; “and after you got acquainted with him?”
“Why, you know we’ve talked that over once already, Fanny.”
“Yes, but we oughtn’t to skip anything now,” replied Mrs. Ellison, in a
tone of judicial accuracy, which made Kitty smile.
But she quickly became serious again, and said, “Afterwards I couldn’t
tell whether to like him or not, or whether he wanted me to. I think he
acted very strangely for a person in—love. I used to feel so troubled
and oppressed when I was with him. He seemed always to be making himself
agreeable under protest.”
“Perhaps that was just your imagination, Kitty.”
“Perhaps it was; but it troubled me just the same.”
“Well, and then?”
“Well, and then after that day of the Montgomery expedition he seemed to
change altogether, and to try always to be pleasant, and to do
everything he could to make me like him. I don’t know how to account for
it. Ever since then he’s been extremely careful of me, and behaved—of
course without knowing it—as if I belonged to him already. Or maybe I’ve
imagined that too. It’s very hard to tell what has really happened the
last two weeks.”
Kitty was silent, and Mrs. Ellison did not speak at once. Presently she
asked, “Was his acting as if you belonged to him disagreeable?”
“I can’t tell. I think it was rather presuming. I don’t know why he did
it.”
“Do you respect him?” demanded Mrs. Ellison.
“Why, Fanny, I’ve always told you that I did respect some things in
him.”
Mrs. Ellison had the facts before her, and it rested upon her to sum
them up, and do something with them. She rose to a sitting posture, and
confronted her task.
“Well, Kitty, I’ll tell you. I don’t really know what to think. But I
can say this: if you liked him at first, and then didn’t like him, and
afterwards he made himself more agreeable, and you didn’t mind his
behaving as if you belonged to him, and you respected him, but after all
didn’t think him fascinating——”
“He _is_ fascinating—in a kind of way. He was, from the beginning. In a
story his cold, snubbing, putting-down ways would have been perfectly
fascinating.”
“Then why didn’t you take him?”
“Because,” answered Kitty, between laughing and crying, “it isn’t a
story, and I don’t know whether I like him.”
“But do you think you might get to like him?”
“I don’t know. His asking brings all the doubts I ever had of him, and
that I’ve been forgetting the past two weeks. I can’t tell whether I
like him or not. If I did, shouldn’t I trust him more?”
“Well, whether you are in love or not, I’ll tell you what you _are_,
Kitty,” cried Mrs. Ellison, provoked with her indecision, and yet
relieved that the worst, whatever it was, was postponed thereby for a
day or two.
“What?”
“You’re——”
But at this important juncture the colonel came lounging in, and Kitty
glided out of the room.
“Richard,” said Mrs. Ellison, seriously, and in a tone implying that it
was the colonel’s fault, as usual, “you know what has happened, I
suppose?”
“No, my dear, I don’t; but no matter: I will presently, I daresay.”
“Oh, I wish for once you wouldn’t be so flippant. Mr. Arbuton has
offered himself to Kitty.”
Colonel Ellison gave a quick, sharp whistle of amazement, but trusted
himself to nothing more articulate.
“Yes,” said his wife, responding to the whistle, “and it makes me
perfectly wretched.”
“Why, I thought you liked him.”
“I didn’t _like_ him; but I thought it would be an excellent thing for
Kitty.”
“And won’t it?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know?”
“No.”
The colonel was silent, while Mrs. Ellison stated the case in full, and
its pending uncertainty. Then he exclaimed vehemently as if his
amazement had been growing upon him. “This is the most astonishing thing
in the world! Who would ever have dreamt of that young iceberg being in
love?”
“Haven’t I _told_ you all along he was?”
“Oh yes, certainly! but that might be taken either way, you know. You
would discover the tender passion in the eye of a potato.”
“Colonel Ellison,” said Fanny, with sternness, “why do you suppose he’s
been hanging about us for the last four weeks? Why should he have stayed
in Quebec? Do you think he pitied _me_, or found _you_ so very
agreeable?”
“Well, I thought he found us just tolerable, and was interested in the
place.”
Mrs. Ellison made no direct reply to this pitiable speech, but looked a
scorn which, happily for the colonel, the darkness hid. Presently she
said that bats did not express the blindness of men, for any bat could
have seen what was going on.
“Why,” remarked the colonel, “I did have a momentary suspicion that day
of the Montgomery business; they both looked very confused when I saw
them at the end of that street, and neither of them had anything to say;
but that was accounted for by what you told me afterwards about his
adventure. At the time I didn’t pay much attention to the matter. The
idea of his being in love seemed too ridiculous.”
“Was it ridiculous for you to be in love with me?”
“No; and yet I can’t praise my condition for its wisdom, Fanny.”
“Yes! that’s _like_ men. As soon as one of them is safely married, he
thinks all the love-making in the world has been done for ever, and he
can’t conceive of two young people taking a fancy to each other.”
“That’s something so, Fanny. But granting—for the sake of argument
merely—that Boston has been asking Kitty to marry him, and she doesn’t
know whether she wants him, what are we to do about it? _I_ don’t like
him well enough to plead his cause; do you? When does Kitty think she’ll
be able to make up her mind?”
“She’s to let him know before we leave.”
The colonel laughed. “And so he’s to hang about here on uncertainties
for two whole days! That _is_ rather rough on him. Fanny, what made you
so eager for this business?”
“Eager? I _wasn’t_ eager.”
“Well, then,—reluctantly acquiescent?”
“Why, she’s so literary and that.”
“And what?”
“How insulting! Intellectual, and so on; and I thought she would be just
fit to live in a place where everybody is literary and intellectual.
That is, I thought that, if I thought anything.”
“Well,” said the colonel, “you may have been right on the whole, but I
don’t think Kitty is showing any particular force of mind, just now,
that would fit her to live in Boston. My opinion is, that it’s
ridiculous for her to keep him in suspense. She might as well answer him
first as last. She’s putting herself under a kind of obligation by her
delay. I’ll talk to her——”
“If you do, you’ll kill her. You don’t know how she’s wrought up about
it.”
“Oh, well, I’ll be careful of her sensibilities. It’s my duty to speak
with her. I’m here in the place of a parent. Besides, don’t I know
Kitty? I’ve almost brought her up.”
“Maybe you’re right. You’re all so queer that perhaps you’re right. Only
do be careful, Richard. You must approach the matter very delicately,
indirectly, you know. Girls are different, remember, from young men, and
you mustn’t be blunt. Do manœuvre a little, for once in your life.”
“All right, Fanny; you needn’t be afraid of my doing anything awkward or
sudden. I’ll go to her room pretty soon, after she is quieted down, and
have a good, calm, old, fatherly conversation with her.”
The colonel was spared this errand; for Kitty had left some of her
things on Fanny’s table, and now came back for them with a lamp in her
hand. Her averted face showed the marks of weeping; the corners of her
firm-set lips were downward bent, as if some resolutions which she had
taken were very painful. This the anxious Fanny saw; and she made a
gesture to the colonel which any woman would have understood to enjoin
silence, or, at least, the utmost caution and tenderness of speech. The
colonel summoned his _finesse_ and said, cheerily, “Well, Kitty, what’s
Boston been saying to you?”
Mrs. Ellison fell back upon her sofa as if shot, and placed her hands
over her face.
Kitty seemed not to hear her cousin. Having gathered up her things, she
bent an unmoved face and an unseeing gaze full upon him, and glided from
the room without a word.
“Well, upon my soul,” cried the colonel, “this is a pleasant,
nightmarist, sleep-walking, Lady-Macbethish, little transaction.
Confound it, Fanny! this comes of your wanting me to manœuvre. If you’d
let me come straight _at_ the subject, like a _man_——”
“_Please_, Richard, don’t say anything more now,” pleaded Mrs. Ellison
in a broken voice. “You can’t help it, I know; and I must do the best I
can, under the circumstances. Do go away for a little while, darling! Oh
dear!”
_William Dean Howells._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_PUCK_.
OH, it was Puck! I saw him yesternight
Swung up betwixt a phlox-top and the rim
Of a low crescent moon that cradled him,
Whirring his rakish wings with all his might,
And pursing his wee mouth, that dimpled white
And red, as though some dagger keen and slim
Had stung him there, while ever faint and dim
His eerie warblings piped his high delight;
Till I, grown jubilant, shrill answer made,
At which, all suddenly, he dropped from view;
And peering after, ’neath the everglade,
What was it, do you think, I saw him do?
I saw him peeling dewdrops with a blade
Of starshine sharpened on his bat-wing shoe.
_James Whitcomb Riley_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_THE REVENGE OF ST. NICHOLAS._
A TALE FOR THE HOLYDAYS.
EVERYBODY knows that in the famous city of New York, whose proper name
is New Amsterdam, the excellent St. Nicholas—who is worth a dozen St.
George’s and dragons to boot, and who, if every tub stood on its right
bottom, would be at the head of the seven champions of Christendom—I
say, everybody knows the excellent St. Nicholas, in holyday times, goes
about among the people in the middle of the night, distributing all
sorts of toothsome and becoming gifts to the good boys and girls in this
his favourite city. Some say that he comes down the chimneys in a little
Jersey waggon; others, that he wears a pair of Holland skates, with
which he travels like the wind; and others, who pretend to have seen
him, maintain that he has lately adopted a locomotive, and was once
actually detected on the _Albany_ railroad. But this last assertion is
looked upon to be entirely fabulous, because St. Nicholas has too much
discretion to trust himself in such a new-fangled jarvie; and so I leave
this matter to be settled by whomsoever will take the trouble. My own
opinion is that his favourite mode of travelling is on a canal, the
motion and speed of which aptly comport with the philosophic dignity of
his character. But this is not material, and I will no longer detain my
readers with extraneous and irrelevant matters, as is too much the
fashion with our statesmen, orators, biographers, and story-tellers.
It was in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty, or sixty-one,
for the most orthodox chronicles differ in this respect; but it was a
very remarkable year, and it was called _annus mirabilis_ on that
account. It was said that several people were detected in speaking the
truth about that time; that nine staid, sober, and discreet widows, who
had sworn on an anti-masonic almanac never to enter a second time into
the holy state, were snapped up by young husbands before they knew what
they were about; that six venerable bachelors wedded as many buxom young
belles, and, it is reported, were afterwards sorry for what they had
done; that many people actually went to church from motives of piety;
and that a great scholar, who had written a book in support of certain
opinions, was not only convinced of his error, but acknowledged it
publicly afterwards. No wonder the year one thousand seven hundred and
sixty, if that was the year, was called _annus mirabilis_!
What contributed to render this year still more remarkable was the
building of six new three-storey brick houses in the city, and three
persons setting up equipages, who, I cannot find, ever failed in
business afterwards or compounded with their creditors at a pestareen in
the pound. It is, moreover, recorded in the annals of the horticultural
society of that day, which were written on a cabbage leaf, as is said,
that a member produced a forked radish of such vast dimensions that,
being dressed up in fashionable male attire at the exhibition, it was
actually mistaken for a travelled beau by several inexperienced young
ladies, who pined away for love of its beautiful complexion, and were
changed into daffadowndillies. Some maintain it was a mandrake, but it
was finally detected by an inquest of experienced matrons. No wonder the
year seventeen hundred and sixty was called _annus mirabilis_!
But the most extraordinary thing of all was the confident assertion that
there was but one _grey mare_ within the bill of mortality; and,
incredible as it may appear, she was the wife of a responsible citizen,
who, it was affirmed, had grown rich by weaving velvet purses out of
sows’ ears. But this was looked upon as being somewhat of the character
of the predictions of almanac-makers. Certain it is, however, that Amos
Shuttle possessed the treasure of a wife who was shrewdly suspected of
having established within doors a system of government not laid down in
Aristotle or the Abbe Sieyès, who made a constitution for every day in
the year, and two for the first of April.
Amos Shuttle, though a mighty pompous little man out of doors, was the
meekest of human creatures within. He belonged to that class of people
who pass for great among the little, and little among the great; and he
would certainly have been master in his own house had it not been for a
woman! We have read somewhere that no wise woman ever thinks her husband
a demigod. If so, it is a blessing that there are so few wise women in
the world.
Amos had grown rich, Heaven knows how—he did not know himself; but, what
was somewhat extraordinary, he considered his wealth a signal proof of
his talents and sagacity, and valued himself according to the infallible
standard of pounds, shillings, and pence. But though he lorded it
without, he was, as we have just said, the most gentle of men within
doors. The moment he stepped inside of his own house his spirit cowered
down, like that of a pious man entering a church; he felt as if he was
in the presence of a superior being—to wit, Mrs. Abigail Shuttle. He
was, indeed, the meekest of beings at home except Moses; and Sir Andrew
Aguecheek’s song, which Sir Toby Belch declared “would draw nine souls
out of one weaver,” would have failed in drawing half a one out of Amos.
The truth is, his wife, who ought to have known, affirmed that he had no
more soul than a monkey; but he was the only man in the city thus
circumstanced at the time we speak of. No wonder, therefore, the year
one thousand seven hundred and sixty was called _annus mirabilis_!
Such as he was, Mr. Amos Shuttle waxed richer and richer every day,
insomuch that those who envied his prosperity were wont to say, “that he
had certainly been born with a dozen silver spoons in his mouth, or such
a great blockhead would never have got together such a heap of money.”
When he had become worth ten thousand pounds, he launched his shuttle
magnanimously out of the window, ordered his weaver’s beam to be split
up for oven wood, and Mrs. Amos turned his weaver’s shop into a
_boudoir_. Fortune followed him faster than he ran away from her. In a
few years the ten thousand doubled, and in a few more trebled,
quadrupled—in short, Amos could hardly count his money.
“What shall we do now, my dear?” asked Mrs. Shuttle, who never sought
his opinion that I can learn, except for the pleasure of contradicting
him.
“Let us go and live in the country, and enjoy ourselves,” quoth Amos.
“Go into the country! go to——” I could never satisfy myself what Mrs.
Shuttle meant; but she stopped short, and concluded the sentence with a
withering look of scorn, that would have cowed the spirit of nineteen
weavers.
Amos named all sorts of places, enumerated all sorts of modes of life he
could think of, and every pleasure that might enter into the imagination
of a man without a soul. His wife despised them all; she would not hear
of them.