flat--positively flat--comparatively stale, and superlatively
unprofitable. It was a western prairie marsh, the home of gigantic
frogs, the abiding place of water-snakes and musk-rats; where flourished
in luxuriant profusion, bulrushes, water-cresses, pond-lilies, and such
like amphibious and un-get-at-able vegetables. Through that particular
locality a train of cars was not only seen, but heard going at 2'40"
speed over a pile-bridge, made across a Michigan swamp, by driving
black-oak logs end-wise into the mud. The people therein were covered
with dust, as thickly as if each man had been a locomoting Pompeii,
each woman a perambulating Herculaneum, and some vagrant Vesuvius had
been showering ashes on them all for a month. They were lying about
loose in the cars, after the ordinary fashion of people on a tedious
railway journey; curled up in some such ungraceful and uneasy positions
as the tired beasts of a strolling menagerie probably assume in their
cages during their forced marches across the country. To carry out the
parallel, the conductor came along at irregular intervals, and with
deliberate and premeditated malignity, stirred up the passengers, as if
they were actually animals on exhibition, and he really was their
keeper, and wanted to make them growl. And this conductor, in common
with conductors in general, deserves notice for the diabolical ingenuity
which he displayed in forcing from his helpless victims the greatest
number of growls in a limited space of time.
The cars had just left the flourishing prairie city of Scraggville,
which contains seven houses and a tavern, and a ten-acre lot for a
church, in the centre of which the minister holds forth now from a cedar
stump. At the tavern, dinner had been served up, and the conductor,
according to the usual custom, had started the train as soon, without
waiting for his passengers to eat anything, as the money was collected.
The population of our train, which exceeded that of the great city of
Scraggville by about one hundred and seventy persons, had composed
itself for a short nap, and the various individuals had settled as
nearly into their old places as possible, when a man, remarkable for a
particularly lofty shirt-collar, a wooden leg, and an unusual quantity
of dust on the bridge of his nose, began to sing. He commenced that
touching ballad, now so popular, "the affecting history of Vilikins and
his Dinah." The pathos of his words, added to the unusual power of his
voice, waked up his right-hand neighbor, before he had proceeded any
further than to inform the listeners that,
"Vilikins vas a-valking"----
This neighbor who was so suddenly aroused, and who was distinguished by
a steeple-crowned hat, did not appear to care _where_ Vilikins was
a-walking, or to take much interest in the particulars of the said walk,
for he immediately turned on the other side, tied himself up in a worse
knot than he was in before, and attempted to sleep again. He had in so
doing shaken from the top of his mountainous hat about half a peck of
cinders, directly into the mouth of the vocalist. The latter gentleman,
however, seemed nothing disconcerted by this unexpected pulverulent
donation, but, removing those particles which most interfered with his
vocal apparatus, he proceeded with his melody. This time he progressed
as far as to state emphatically that,
"Vilikins vas a-valkin' in his garding one day,"
And was about to add the explanatory notes, that it was the "back
garding," when his left-hand neighbor emerged from a condition of
somnolency into a state of unusual wakefulness.
The most noticeable thing about this last named individual was the
optical fact that he had but one eye. And as this solitary orb was
partially filled with the dust which had accumulated therein, during a
ten hours' nap in a rail-car, over a sandy road, with a headwind, it
might be supposed that his facilities for visual observation were
somewhat abridged. This did not prove, however, to be the case, for with
a single glance of this encumbered optic, he seemed to take in the
character of the singer, and to make up his mind instanter that he was a
good fellow and a man to be acquainted with.
Acting promptly upon this extemporaneous opinion, he held out his hand
with the remark:
"I don't want to interfere with any arrangements you have made,
stranger, but here's my hand, and my name's Wagstaff--let's be jolly."
The singer had by this time got to the chorus of his song, and although
he took the extended hand, his only immediate reply to the observations
of one-eyed Wagstaff, was "too ral li, too ral li, too ral li la," which
he repeated with an extra shake on the last "la," before he condescended
to answer. And even then his observation, though poetic, was not
particularly coherent or relevant. It was couched in the following
language.
"Jolly? yes, we'll be jolly. Old King Cole was a jolly old soul, and a
jolly old soul was he. He called for his pipe and he called for his
bowl--wonder if he got it? My name is Dennis, my mother's maiden name
was Moore, so that if I'd been born before she married, I'd have been a
poet, which I'm sorry to say, don't think it, for I ain't. I'm glad to
see you, Mr. Wagstaff, and as you say _you're_ jolly, and propose that
we shall _all_ be jolly, perhaps you'll favor me by coming out strong on
the second and fourth lines of this chorus.
"I'll do my little utmost," said Wagstaff.
[Illustration]
And he _did_ do his little utmost with a will, and their united voices
croaked up again the first man with the steeple-crowned hat, who hadn't
got his eyes fairly opened before _he_ joined in the chorus too, and he
gave his particular attention to it, and put in so many unexpected
cadenzas and quavers which the composer never intended, and shakes that
nobody else _could_ put in, and trills that his companions couldn't keep
up with, that he fairly astonished his hearers. And he didn't stop when
they did, but kept singing "tooral li tooral," with unprecedented
variations, and wouldn't hold up for Dennis to sing the verses, and
wouldn't wait for Wagstaff to take breath; but kept right on, now
putting a long shake on "tooral," now an unheard of trill on "looral,"
now coming out with redoubled force on the final "la," and then starting
off again, as if his voice had run away with him and he didn't want to
stop it, but was going to sing a perpetual chorus of unceasing "toorals"
and never ending "loorals."
For fifteen minutes his harmony was allowed uninterrupted progress, but
at length Wagstaff, putting his hand over his mouth, thereby smothering,
in its infancy, a strain of extraordinary power, addressed him thus:
"I don't want to interfere with any of your little arrangements,
stranger, but, if you don't stop that noise, I'll knock your head off.
What do you mean by intruding your music upon other people's music, and
thus mixing the breed? Don't you try to swallow my fist, you can't
digest it."
The latter part of this address was called forth by the frantic efforts
of the unknown amateur to get his mouth away from behind Wagstaff's
hand, which he at length accomplished, and when he had recovered his
breath he made an effort to speak. The musical fiend, however, had got
too strong possession of him to give up on so short a notice, and he was
unable to speak more than ten words without introducing another touch of
the magical chorus. The address with which he first favored his
companions ran something after the following fashion and sounded as if
he might have been the identical Vilikins, unexpectedly recovered from
the effects of the "cup of cold pison," or prematurely resurrected from
the "same grave," wherein he had been disposed by the "cruel parient" by
the side of the lamented "Dinah."
"My friends, don't interrupt the concert--too ral li, too ral li, too
ral li la. I'll explain presently--with a too ral li, too ral li, too
ral li la. I'm delighted to meet you--allow me to introduce myself--ral
li la--I am a professional--loo ral li, loo ral li--man--ral li la--my
name is Moses Overdale--with my loo ral li, loo ral li, loo ral li la."
Here he stopped, evidently by a violent exertion, and shook hands with
each of the others, and afforded such a view of his personal appearance
as satisfied the individual of the solitary optic, and his companion of
the vegetable leg, that they had fallen in with another original--added
to the fact, with which they were already well acquainted, that he had a
powerful, though not very controllable voice. Other things about the
newly-discovered person showed him to be a man far above, or below, or,
at least, differing from, the common run of people one meets in a
railroad-car. His face, had it been visible to the naked eye, through
the surrounding thicket of hair, might have passed for good-looking; but
the hirsute crop which flourished about his head was something really
remarkable. If each hair had possessed as many roots as a scrub oak
sapling, and had grown the wrong way, with the roots out, there couldn't
have been more; or if each individual hair had been grafted with a score
of thrifty shoots, and each of them, in turn, had given off a multitude
of sandy-colored sprouts, and each separate sprout had taken an
unconquerable aversion to every other sprout, and was striving to grow
in an independent direction of its own, there wouldn't have been a more
abundant display of hair, growing towards a greater variety of hitherto
unknown points of compass. It was so long that it concealed his neck and
shoulders, and you could only suppose he had a throat from the certainty
that he had a mouth. And even the mouth was in its turn ornamented with
an overhanging moustache, of a subdued rat-color, which also was long,
running down the corners of the jaw, and joining the rest of the beard
on the neck below. A shirt-collar, turned down over his coat, was dimly
visible whenever the wind was strong enough to lift the superincumbent
hair.
Taking into account the physical curtailments of Overdale's companions,
the trio consisted of about two men and a half.
Dennis now proposed that they should go on with the song, he
volunteering to sing the verses, and requesting the reinforcements to
show their strength when he said, "_Chorius_"--the mention of music
excited Overdale's harmonic devil again, and he was obliged to twist his
neckerchief until he was black in the face, to choke down an embryo,
"tooral," which ran to his lips before the cue came, and seemed to
insist upon an immediate and stormy exit; by dint of the most
suffocating exertions he succeeded in keeping back the musical torrent
until the end of the verse, when it broke forth with a vengeance.
And then Wagstaff struck in, and Dennis took a long breath, and _he_
struck in; and they waked up a couple of children, and _they_ struck in;
and Dennis put his wooden leg on the tail of a dog, and _he_ struck in;
and the locomotive put on the final touch, by shrieking with a frightful
yell, as if it had boiled down into one, the squalls of eleven hundred
freshly-spanked babies.
And they kept on, Dennis singing, in a masterly manner, the historical
part; the charms of Dinah the barbarity of the cruel parient, the
despair of Vilikins, the death and burial of the unfortunate "lovyers,"
their subsequent ghastly reappearance to the cruel parient, and his
final remorse, had all been related; the "chorus of tender maidens" had
been pathetically sung by the musical trio; the "chorus of cruel and
unnatural parients," had been indignantly disposed of; the "chorus of
pisoned young women," had been spasmodically executed: the "chorus of
agonized young men, with an awful pain in the stummack," had been
convulsively performed; the "chorus of cold corpuses," had been
sepulchrally consummated; and the musical enthusiasts were laying out
their most lugubrious strength on the "concluding dismal chorus of
gloomy apparitions," when the concert was interrupted by the train
running off the track and pitching a part of the passengers into a
sand-bank on the right, throwing the remainder into frog-pond on the
left, and gently depositing the engineer on a brush heap, where he was
afterwards discovered with the bell-rope in his hand, and his legs
covered up by the smoke-pipe.
It was soon ascertained that no very serious damage was done, beyond the
demolition of the engine, which had left the rail without cause or
provocation, and was now lying by the side of the road with its head in
the mud, wrong end to, bottom side up, roasting itself brown, steaming
itself yellow, and smoking itself black, like an insane cooking-stove
turned out-doors for misbehavior.
[Illustration]
Overdale got out of the sand without assistance, and, save a black eye,
and a peck or two of sand and gravel in his hair, was none the worse for
the accident. Wagstaff crawled out of the frog pond, looking as dripping
and juicy as a he-mermaid; while Dennis, though unconscious of any
painful hurt, had sustained so serious a fracture of his wooden leg,
that he found it necessary to splice it with an ironwood sapling before
he could navigate.
It being discovered that the danger was over, and that there was nothing
more to fear, the ladies, as in duty bound, began to faint; one old
lady fainted, and fell near the engine; happening, however, to sit down
in a puddle of hot water, she got up quicker than she went down; young
lady, rather pretty, fainted and fell into the arms of four or five
gentlemen who were waiting to receive her; another young lady fainted,
and didn't fall into anybody's arms, being cross-eyed and having a wart
on her nose; maiden lady, ancient and fat, got near a good-looking man
with a big moustache, and giving notice of her intention by a
premonitory squall, shut her eyes, and fell towards moustache; she had
better, however, have kept her eyes open, for moustache, seeing her
coming, and making a hasty estimate of her probable weight, stepped
aside, and the gentle creature landed in a clump of Canada thistles,
whence she speedily recovered herself, and looked fiery indignation at
moustache, who bore it like a martyr; young lady in pantalets and curls
tried it, but, being inexperienced, and not having taken the precaution
to pick out a soft place to fall, in case there didn't anybody catch
her, she bumped her head on a stone, and got up with a black eye;
jealous married lady, seeing her husband endeavoring to resuscitate a
plump-looking miss, immediately extemporized a faint herself, and fell
directly across the young miss aforesaid, contriving as she descended,
to break her husband's spectacles by a malicious dig with her elbow; in
fact the ladies all fainted at least once apiece, and those who received
the most attention had an extra spasm or two before their final
recovery, while the vicious old maids whom nobody cared for, invariably
fell near the best-looking girls, and went into furious convulsions, so
that they could kick them in the tender places without its being
suspected that their intentions were not honorable.
During this characteristic female performance, our musical trio had not
been idle. Dennis had been busily engaged in splicing his wooden leg.
Wagstaff had seized a bucket from the disabled engine, and nearly
drowned three or four unfortunate females with dirty water from the
frog-pond. Overdale was attracted to the side of a blue-eyed girl, who
had swooned in a clean place, behind a concealing blackberry bush, and
he had rubbed the skin off her hands in his benevolent exertions to
"bring her to," and had meanwhile liberally peppered her face and neck
with gravel-stones and sand, from the stock which had accumulated in his
hair when he was first pitched into the sand-bank.
Everybody was eventually convalescent, and likely to recover from the
damage which nobody had sustained; the gentlemen had repented of the
prayers which they had not said, and were now swearing ferociously about
their fractured pocket-companions, and their broken cigars; and the
ladies were regaling each other with multitudinous accounts of
miraculous escapes from the horrible accidents which might have killed
everybody, but hadn't hurt anybody. Another engine was sent for, and the
cars ran to the end of the railroad, seventy miles, before the women
stopped talking, or the men got anything to drink.
The musical trio, whose united chorus had been so suddenly interrupted,
met at the bar of the nearest tavern for the first time since the run
off; their greeting was peculiar, but characteristic; when they came in
sight of each other, they didn't speak a word, until they solemnly
joined hands and finished the "too ral li la," which they hadn't had the
leisure to complete at the time of their sudden separation. Overdale,
true to his ruling passion, wouldn't stop when the others did, but was
going on with an extra "tooral li, looral li," when Wagstaff presented a
glass of strong brandy and water at him; the plan succeeded; he stopped
in the midst of a most astonishing shake on the first "looral," and
merely remarking, "To be continued," he yielded, a passive captive to
the fluid conqueror.
Subsequent conversations disclosed their future plans, and it was
discovered that they were all journeying to the same place, New York
city; and that their several visits had one common object, to see the
mysteries of the town. An agreement, which I overheard, was quickly
made, that they should remain together, and pursue, in company, their
investigations.
They proceeded harmoniously on their journey, singing "Vilikins" between
meals every day; and when Overdale couldn't stop in the chorus at the
the proper time, Wagstaff corked him up with a corn-cob, which he
carried in his pocket for that purpose.
It so happened that I continued on the same trains of cars with this
interesting trio of eccentricities, until we took the steamboat at the
Dutch village, where the State Legislature meets. After the last verse
of their customary evening hymn had been sung, with a strong chorus, as
they were about to shelve themselves in their state-rooms for the night,
I heard Overdale remark to his companions:
"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or--well, no
matter where. Dennis, you see this black eye; I have to make this
particular request, that if this steamboat blows up in the night, and
you take a fancy to black anybody's eye, you'll pick out somebody's
else."
"I didn't black your eye; what do you mean?"
Overdale explained thus: "I could a tale unfold, which would--but I
won't--I'll tell you how it happened, nothing extenuate or set down
aught in malice. When that locomotive ran off the track, the shock threw
us both, as you are aware, about fifteen feet straight up in the air--as
I was going up, you were coming down, and you were practising some kind
of an original pigeon-wing with your wooden leg, and, in one of its
fantastic gyrations, it came in contact with my visual apparatus, and
damaged my personal beauty to the extent you see;--don't do it any more,
that's all, my friend, don't do it any more."
Dennis expressed himself exceedingly sorry--"Overdale, my hairy friend,"
said he, "at the particular time you speak of, that leg was not under my
control, and I am not accountable for the misbehavior of that leg; but I
solemnly promise that, if we _are_ blown up before morning, if I see
which way you go, I will do my best to travel in a different
direction."
Each of us, myself included, then went to his state-room, achieved his
allotted shelf, rolled himself into so small a ball that the narrow
blankets would cover him, and laid in feverish restlessness, awaiting
that morning bell which should summon him to disperse himself into his
pantaloons, go on deck, and catch the first glimpse of smoky Gotham, the
home of the undiluted elephant.
[Illustration]
"Hooror for Johnny," said Mr. Spout, as he rushed towards that
individual to offer his congratulations. The other members followed
suit, and Johnny, anticipating that he would be favored with a bear-like
hug, more boisterous than pleasant, unless he acted promptly to prevent
such a consummation, ran into one corner, squared off, and threatened to
show an immoderate pugnacity, if they made any immoderate demonstrations
of fraternal affection. The language and action of Johnny had the effect
to check the enthusiasm of his friends, and they resumed their places.
Johnny then came out, and made a peremptory demand of Mr. Spout that he
telegraph to the saloon below for a lemonade for his (Johnny's) private
consumption. Mr. Spout announced the impossibility of acceding to
Johnny's demand, as there had been no signal agreed upon which should
indicate to the individual below that a lemonade was wanted. Johnny
said that he could not hold Mr. Spout to a strict accountability on that
occasion, but if he did not arrange a signal to indicate his future
wants, he should proceed to expel Mr. Spout from the club. Under
existing circumstances, he should go down below and order personally a
strong lemonade, to be made of considerable lemon, some sugar, and a
good deal of water. Johnny disappeared through the door. He had been
gone three minutes, by Quackenbush's bull's-eye silver watch, which he
says keeps excellent time as long as he hires a boy to move the
balance-wheel, when the Higholdboy arose, and proposed "The health of
the Elephant--may his shadow never be less," which was to be drunk in
silence, standing. All the members had assumed an erect position,
required for the performance of this imposing ceremony, when a yell of
such prodigious dimensions, entitling it to be called a roar, followed
by a most extraordinary clattering outside the door, as of three persons
trying to ascend abreast a flight of stairs only wide enough for one,
and quarrelling about the precedence, and in the intervals of their
emphatic remarks to each other uttering cries of exultant triumph, as if
they had made some long-sought discovery, suddenly petrified the various
members into flesh and blood statues with breeches on, and mouths open.
Not long, however, did they remain thus inactive, for a mighty rush from
the outside carried the door from its hinges, knocked Mr. Quackenbush,
the stalwart guardian of the portal, into a far corner of the room, and
disclosed to the astonished gaze of the assembled Elephantines, the
forms of three individuals, to them unknown. The action of the
Higholdboy, who first recovered his senses and his presence of mind, is
worthy of remembrance. Keeping both eyes fixed upon one of the
intruders, he deliberately drank the contents of his tumbler, and then,
taking a cool aim, he threw the glass-ware at him. This act of the
Higholdboy was regarded as an announcement, by implication, that
crockery and glass-ware could be used on the present occasion
offensively, and accordingly the other members followed the example of
their chief. For a few minutes the destruction of property was great,
and the more so, as, whenever a tumbler, plate, bottle, or any other
similar missile fell to the floor unfractured, one of the three
intruding parties would stamp on it with one of his feet, and pulverize
it instanter. When the crockery was all disposed of, the assault was
renewed with lemons, crackers, bologna sausages, and whatever
projectiles remained, and the chairs and tables would have undoubtedly
followed suit, had not the precaution previously taken, of chaining them
up, precluded the possibility of their being used for this purpose. The
result of this peculiar reception of the intruding parties was the
temporary demolition of one, who had been hit over the head with the
lemon-squeezer, and knocked down in the corner behind the chair of the
Higholdboy. The second person had rolled himself up in a heap as well as
he could, drew his head into his coat, and seemed resigned to whatever
might be his fate. The third, however, made no resistance whatever, but
rushed into one corner, turned his face to the wall, in which position
he sustained for five minutes a brilliant cannonade of lemons, Boston
crackers, with an occasional bomb in the shape of a nut-cracker and
doughnut, for which affectionate tokens of respect he was indebted to
the kindness of Van Dam, who bestowed upon him his undivided attention.