came to a close; and a moment of awful silence ensued, during which no
man durst look at another. But in my weak and jelly-like condition I
ventured a glance at him, and noticed that he looked up and around with
an air of satisfaction at having performed a solemn duty in a becoming
manner, blissfully unconscious of having run a poor brother off the
track. Seeing us all with moist eyes and much affected,--two or three
handkerchiefs still going,--he no doubt flattered himself that the
pathetic touches in his prayer had told.
This will give you some idea of the kind of man we had on our hands; and
I won't risk making myself as great a bore as he is, by attempting a
history of his stay with us; for I remember I set out to tell you about
my little Iron-Clad. I'm coming to that.
Suffice it to say, he stayed--he _stayed_--he STAYED!--five mortal
weeks; refusing to take hints when they almost became kicks; driving our
friends from us, and ourselves almost to distraction; his misfortunes
alone protecting him from a prompt and vigorous elimination: when a
happy chance helped me to a solution of this awful problem of destiny.
More than once I had recalled Harry's vivacious suggestion of the
scarecrow--if one could only have been invented that would sit
composedly in a chair and nod when spoken to! I was wishing for some
such automaton, to bear the brunt of the boring with which we were
afflicted, when one day there came a little man into the garden, where I
had taken refuge.
He was a short, swarthy, foreign-looking, diminutive, stiff, rather
comical fellow,--little figure mostly head, little head mostly face,
little face mostly nose, which was by no means little--a sort of human
vegetable (to my horticultural eye) running marvellously to seed in that
organ. The first thing I saw, on looking up at the sound of footsteps,
was the said nose coming toward me, among the sweet-corn tassels. Nose
of a decidedly Hebraic cast,--the bearer respectably dressed, though his
linen had an unwholesome sallowness, and his cloth a shiny,
much-brushed, second-hand appearance.
Without a word he walks up to me, bows solemnly, and pulls from his
pocket (I thought he was laying his hand on his heart) the familiar,
much-worn weapon of his class,--the folded, torn yellow paper, ready to
fall to pieces as you open it,--in short, the respectable beggar's
certificate of character. With another bow (which gave his nose the
aspect of the beak of a bird of prey making a pick at me) he handed the
document. I found that it was dated in Milwaukee, and signed by the
mayor of that city, two physicians, three clergymen, and an editor, who
bore united testimony to the fact that Jacob Menzel--I think that was
his name--the bearer, any way,--was a deaf mute, and, considering that
fact, a prodigy of learning, being master of no less than five different
languages (a pathetic circumstance, considering that he was unable to
speak one); moreover, that he was a converted Jew; and, furthermore, a
native of Germany, who had come to this country in company with two
brothers, both of whom had died of cholera in St. Louis in one day; in
consequence of which affliction, and his recent conversion, he was now
anxious to return to Fatherland, where he proposed to devote his life to
the conversion of his brethren;--the upshot of all which was that good
Christians and charitable souls everywhere were earnestly recommended to
aid the said Jacob Menzel in his pious undertaking.
I was fumbling in my pocket for a little change wherewith to dismiss
him,--for that is usually the easiest way of getting off your premises
and your conscience the applicant for "aid," who is probably an
impostor, yet possibly not,--when my eye caught the words (for I still
held the document), "would be glad of any employment which may help to
pay his way." The idea of finding employment for a man of such a large
nose and little body, such extensive knowledge and diminutive legs--who
had mastered five languages yet could not speak or understand a word of
any one of them,--struck me as rather pleasant, to say the least; yet,
after a moment's reflection,--wasn't he the very thing I wanted, the
manikin, the target for my uncle?
Meanwhile he was scribbling rapidly on a small slate he had taken from
his pocket. With another bow (as if he had written something wrong and
was going to wipe it out with his nose), he handed me the slate, on
which I found written in a neat hand half-a-dozen lines in as many
different languages,--English, Latin, Hebrew, German, French,
Greek,--each, as far as I could make out, conveying the cheerful
information that he could communicate with me in that particular tongue.
I tried him in English, French, and Latin, and I must acknowledge that
he stood the test; he then tried me In Greek and Hebrew, and I as freely
confess that I didn't stand the test. He smiled intelligently, nodded,
and condescendingly returned to the English tongue, writing quickly,--"I
am a poor exile from Fatherland, and I much need friends."
I wrote: "You wish employment?" He replied: "I shall be much obliged for
any service I shall be capable to do,"--and passed me the slate with a
hopeful smile.
"What can you do?" I asked. He answered: "I copy the manuscripts, I
translate from the one language to others with some perfect exactitude,
I arrange the libraries, I make the catalogues, I am capable to be any
secretary." And he looked up as if he saw in my eyes a vast vista of
catalogues, manuscripts, libraries, and Fatherland at the end of it.
"How would you like to be companion to a literary man?" I inquired.
He nodded expressively, and wrote: "I should that like overall. But I
speak and hear not."
"No matter," I replied. "You will only have to sit and appear to listen,
and nod occasionally."
"You shall be the gentleman?" he asked with a bright, pleased look.
I explained to him that the gentleman was an unfortunate connection of
my family, whom we could not regard as being quite in his right mind.
Jacob Menzel smiled, and touched his fore head interrogatively.
I nodded, adding on the slate,--"He is perfectly harmless; but he can
only be kept quiet by having some person to talk and read to. He will
talk and read to you. He must not know you are deaf. He is very deaf
himself, and will not expect you to reply." And, for a person wishing a
light and easy employment, I recommended the situation.
He wrote at once, "How much you pay?"
"One dollar a day, and board you," I replied.
He of the nose nodded eagerly at that, and wrote, "Also you make to be
washed my shirt?"
I agreed; and the bargain was closed. I got him into the house, and gave
him a bath, a clean shirt, and complete instructions how to act.
The gravity with which he entered upon the situation was astonishing. He
didn't seem to taste the slightest flavor of a joke in it all. It was a
simple matter of business; he saw in it only money and Fatherland.
Meanwhile I explained my intentions to Dolly, saying in great glee: "His
deafness is his defence: the old three-decker may bang away at him; he
is IRON-CLAD!" And that suggested the name we have called him by ever
since.
When he was ready for action, I took him in tow, and ran him in to draw
the Popworth's fire--in other words, introduced him to my uncle in the
library. The meeting of my tall, lank relative and the big-nosed little
Jew was a spectacle to cure a hypochondriac! "Mr. Jacob
Menzel--gentleman from Germany--travelling in this country," I yelled in
the old fellow's ear. He of the diminutive legs and stupendous nose
bowed with perfect decorum, and seated himself, stiff and erect, in the
big chair I placed for him. The avuncular countenance lighted up: here
were fresh woods and pastures new to that ancient shepherd. As for
myself, I was wellnigh strangled by a cough which just then seized me,
and obliged to retreat,--for I never was much of an actor, and the
comedy of that first interview was overpowering.
As I passed the dining-room door, Dolly, who was behind it, gave my arm
a fearful pinch, that answered, I supposed, in the place of a scream, as
a safety-valve for her hysterical emotions. "O you cruel man--you
miserable humbug!" says she; and went off into convulsions of laughter.
The door was open, and we could see and hear every thing.
"You are travelling, h'm?" says my uncle. The nose nodded duly. "H'm! I
have travelled, myself," the old gentleman proceeded; "my life has been
one of vicissitudes, h'm! I have journeyed, I have preached, I have
published;--perhaps you have heard of my literary venture"--and over
went the big volume to the little man, who took it, turned the leaves,
and nodded and smiled, according to instructions.
"You are very kind to say so; thank you!" says my uncle, rubbing his
husky hands with satisfaction. "Rejoiced to meet with you, truly! It is
always a gratification to have an intelligent and sympathizing brother
to open one's mind to; it is especially refreshing to me, for, as I may
say without egotism, my life and labors have _not_ been appreciated."
From that the old interminable story took its start and flowed on, the
faithful nose nodding assent at every turn in that winding stream.
The children came in for their share of the fun; and for the first time
in our lives we took pleasure in the old gentleman's narration of his
varied experiences.
"O hear him! see him go it!" said Robbie. "What a nose!"
"Long may it wave!" said Harry.
With other remarks of a like genial nature; while there they sat, the
two,--my uncle on one side, long, lathy, self-satisfied, gesticulating,
earnestly laying his case before a grave jury of one, whom he was bound
to convince, if time would allow; my little Jew facing him, upright in
his chair, stiff, imperturbable, devoted to business, honorably earning
his money, the nose in the air, immovable, except when it played duly up
and down at fitting intervals: in which edifying employment I left them,
and went about my business, a cheerier man.
Ah, what a relief it was to feel myself free for a season from the
attacks of the enemy--to know that my plucky little Iron-Clad was
engaging him! In a hour I passed through the hall again, heard the loud
blatant voice still discoursing (it had got as far as the difficulties
with the second parish), and saw the unflinching nasal organ perform its
graceful see-saw of assent. An hour later it was the same,--except that
the speaker had arrived at the persecutions which drove him from parish
number three. When I went to call them to dinner, the scene had changed
a little, for now the old gentleman, pounding the table for a pulpit,
was reading aloud passages from a powerful farewell sermon preached to
his ungrateful parishioners. I was sorry I couldn't give my man a hint
to use his handkerchief at the affecting periods, for the nose can
hardly be called a sympathetic feature (unless indeed you blow it), and
these nods were becoming rather too mechanical, except when the old
gentleman switched off on the argumentative track, as he frequently did.
"What think you of that?" he would pause in his reading to inquire.
"Isn't that logic? isn't that unanswerable?" In responding to which
appeals nobody could have done better than my serious, my devoted, my
lovely little Jew.
"Dinner!" I shouted over my uncle's dickey. It was almost the only word
that had the magic in it to rouse him from the feast of reason which his
own conversation was to him. It was always easy to head him toward the
dining-room--to steer him into port for necessary supplies. The little
Iron-Clad followed in his wake. At table, the old gentleman resumed the
account of his dealings with parish number three, and got on as far as
negotiations with number four; occasionally stopping to eat his soup or
roast-beef very fast; at which time Jacob Menzel, who was very much
absorbed in his dinner, but never permitted himself to neglect business
for pleasure, paused at the proper intervals, with his spoon or fork
half-way to his mouth, and nodded,--just as if my uncle had been
speaking,--yielding assent to his last remarks after mature
consideration, no doubt the old gentleman thought.
The fun of the thing wore off after a while, and then we experienced
the solid advantages of having an Iron-Clad in the house;
Afternoon--evening--the next day--my little man of business performed
his function promptly and assiduously. But in the afternoon of the
second day he began to change perceptibly. He wore an aspect of languor
and melancholy that alarmed me. The next morning he was pale, and went
to his work with an air of sorrowful resignation.
"He is thinking of Fatherland," said the sympathizing Dolly; while
Harry's less refined but more sprightly comment was, that the nose had
about played out.
Indeed it had almost ceased to wave; and I feared that I was about to
lose a most valuable servant, whose place it would be impossible to
fill. Accordingly I wrote on a slip of paper, which I sent in to him,"--
"You have done well, and I raise your salary to a dollar and a quarter a
day. Your influence over our unfortunate relative is soothing and
beneficial. Go on as you have begun,--continue in well-doing, and merit
the lasting gratitude of an afflicted family."
That seemed to cheer him a little--to wind him up, as Harry said, and
set the pendulum swinging again. But it was not long before the
listlessness and low spirits returned; Menzel showed a sad tendency to
shirk his duty; and before noon there came a crash.
I was in the garden, when I heard a shriek of rage and despair, and saw
the little Jew coming toward me with frantic gestures.
"I yielt! I abandone! I take my moneys and my shirt, and I go!" says he.
I stood in perfect astonishment at hearing the dumb speak; while he
threw his arms wildly above his head, exclaiming:
"I am not teaf! I am not teaf! I am not teaf! He is one terreeble mon!
He vill haf my life! So I go--I fly--I take my moneys and my shirt--I
leafe him, I leafe your house! I vould earn honest living, but--Gott im
himmel! dieu des dieux! all de devils!" he shrieked, mixing up several
of his languages at once, in his violent mental agitation.
"Jacob Menzel!" said I, solemnly, "I little thought I was having to do
with an impostor!"
"If I haf you deceive, I haf myself more dan punish!" was his reply.
"Now I resign de position. I ask for de moneys and de shirt, and I
part!"
Just then my uncle came up, amazed at his new friend's sudden revolt and
flight, and anxious to finish up with his seventh parish. "I vill hear
no more of your six, of your seven,--I know not how many parish!"
screamed the furious little Jew, turning on him.
"What means all this?" said my bewildered uncle.
"I tell you vat means it all!" the vindictive little impostor, tiptoeing
up to him, yelled at his cheek. "I make not vell my affairs in your
country; I vould return to Faderlant; for conwenience I carry dis
pappeer. I come here; I am suppose teaf; I accept de position to be your
companion, for if a man hear, you kill him tead soon vid your book and
your ten, twenty parish! I hear! you kill me! and I go!"
And, having obtained his moneys and his shirt, he went. That is the last
I ever saw of my little Iron-Clad. I remember him with gratitude, for he
did me good service, and he had but one fault, namely, that he was _not_
iron-clad!
As for my uncle, for the first time in his life, I think, he said never
a word, but stalked into the house. Dolly soon came running out to ask
what was the matter; Popworth was actually packing his carpet-bag! I
called Andrew, and ordered him to be in readiness with the buggy to take
the old gentleman over to the railroad.
"What! going?" I cried, as my uncle presently appeared, bearing his book
and his baggage.
"Nephew Frederick!" said he, "after this treatment, can you ask me if am
going?"
"Really," I shouted, "it is not my fault that the fellow proved an
impostor. I employed him with the best of intentions, for your--and
our--good!" "Nephew Frederick," said he, "this is insufferable; you
will regret it! I shall never--NEVER" (as if he had been pronouncing my
doom)--"accept of your hospitalities again!"
He did, however, accept some money which I offered him, and likewise a
seat in the buggy. I watched his departure with joy and terror,--for at
any moment he might relent and stay nor was I at ease in my mind until I
saw Andrew come riding back alone.
We have never seen the old gentleman since But last winter I received a
letter from him he wrote in a forgiving tone, to inform me that he had
been appointed chaplain in a prison, and to ask for a loan of money to
buy a suit of clothes. I sent him fifty dollars and my congratulations.
I consider him eminently qualified to fill the new situation. As a
hardship he can't be beat; and what are the rogues sent to prison for,
but to suffer punishment?
Yes, it would be a joke if my little Iron-Clad should end his career of
imposture in that public institution, and sit once more under my
excellent uncle! But I can't wish him any such misfortune. His mission
to us was one of mercy. The place has been Paradise again, ever since
his visit.--_Scribners Magazine_, August, 1873.
OLIVER BELL BUNCE.
(BORN, 1828.)
* * * * *
MR. BLUFF DISCOURSES OF THE COUNTRY AND KINDRED THEMES.
(_In a Country Lane_.)
BACHELOR BLUFF. A LISTENER.
"The country," exclaimed Mr. Bluff, with an air of candor and
impartiality, "is, I admit, a very necessary and sometimes a very
charming place. I thank Heaven for the country when I eat my first green
peas, when the lettuce is crisp, when the potatoes are delicate and
mealy, when the well-fed poultry comes to town, when the ruddy peach and
the purple grape salute me at the fruit-stands. I love the country when
I think of a mountain ramble; when I am disposed to wander with rod and
reel along the forest-shadowed brook; when the apple-orchards are in
blossom; when the hills blaze with autumn foliage. But I protest
against the dogmatism of rural people, who claim all the cardinal and
all the remaining virtues for their rose-beds and cabbage-patches. The
town, sir, bestows felicities higher in character than the country does;
for men and women, and the works of men and women, are always worthier
our love and concern than the rocks and the hills ...
--"Oh, yes! I have heard before of the pleasures of the garden. Poets
have sung, enthusiasts have written, and old men have dreamed of them
since History began her chronicles. But have the _pains_ of the garden
ever been dwelt upon? Have people, now, been entirely honest in what
they have said and written on this theme? When enthusiasts have told us
of their prize pears, their early peas of supernatural tenderness, their
asparagus, and their roses, and their strawberries, have they not hidden
a good deal about their worm-eaten plums--about their cherries that were
carried off by armies of burglarious birds; about their potatoes that
proved watery and unpalatable; about their melons that fell victims to
their neighbors' fowls; about their peaches that succumbed to the
unexpected raid of Jack Frost; about their grapes that fell under the
blight of mildew; about their green corn that withered in the hill;
about the mighty host of failures that, if all were told, would tower in
high proportion above the few much blazoned successes?
"Who is it that says a garden is a standing source of pleasure? Amend
this, I say, by asserting that a garden is a standing source of
discomfort and vexation ... A hopeless restlessness, according to my
observation, takes possession of every amateur gardener. Discontent
abides in his soul. There is, indeed, so much to be done, changed,
rearranged, watched, nursed, that the amateur gardener is really
entitled to praise and generous congratulations when one of his thousand
schemes comes to fruition. We ought in pity to rejoice with him over his
big Lawton blackberries, and say nothing of the cherries, and the pears,
and the peaches, that once were budding hopes, but have gone the way of
Moore's 'dear gazelle.' Then the large expenditures which were needed to
bring about his triumph of the Lawtons. 'Those potatoes,' said an
enthusiastic amateur gardener to me once, 'cost twenty-five cents
apiece!' And they were very good potatoes, too--almost equal to those
that could be bought in market at a dollar a bushel.
"And then, amateur gardeners are feverishly addicted to early rising.
Men with gardens are like those hard drinkers whose susceptibilities are
hopelessly blunted. Who but a man diverted from the paths of honest
feeling and natural enjoyment, possessed of a demoniac mania, lost to
the peace and serenity of the virtuous and the blessed, could find
pleasure amid the damps, and dews, and chills, and raw-edgedness of a
garden in the early morning, absolutely find pleasure in saturated
trousers, in shoes swathed in moisture, in skies that are gray and
gloomy, in flowers that are, as Mantalini would put it, 'demnition
moist'? The thing is incredible! Now, a garden, after the sun has dried
the paths, warmed the air, absorbed the dew, is admissible. But a
possession that compels an early turning out into fogs and discomforts
deserves for this fact alone the anathema of all rational beings.
"I really believe, sir, that the literature of the garden, so abundant
everywhere, is written in the interest of suburban land-owners. The
inviting one-sided picture so persistently held up is only a covert bit
of advertising, intended to seduce away happy cockneys of the town--men
supremely contented with their attics, their promenades in Fifth Avenue,
their visits to Central Park, where all is arranged for them without
their labor or concern, their evenings at the music gardens, their soft
morning slumbers, which know no dreadful chills and dews! How could a
back-ache over the pea-bed compensate for these felicities? How could
sour cherries, or half-ripe strawberries, or wet rosebuds, even if they
do come from one's own garden, reward him for the lose of the ease and
the serene conscience of one who sings merrily in the streets, and cares
not whether worms burrow, whether suns burn, whether birds steal,
whether winds overturn, whether droughts destroy, whether floods drown,
whether gardens flourish, or not?"--_Bachelor Bluff: his Opinions,
Sentiments, and Disputations_.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
(BORN, 1829.)
* * * * *
GARDEN ETHICS.
I believe that I have found, if not original sin, at least vegetable
total depravity in my garden; and it was there before I went into it. It
is the bunch-, or joint-, or snake-grass,--whatever it is called. As I
do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam
did in his garden,--name things as I find them. This grass has a
slender, beautiful stalk: and when you cut it down, or pull up a long
root of it, you fancy it is got rid of; but in a day or two it will come
up in the same spot in half a dozen vigorous blades. Cutting down and
pulling up is what it thrives on. Extermination rather helps it. If you
follow a slender white root, it will be found to run under the ground
until it meets another slender white root; and you will soon unearth a
network of them, with a knot somewhere, sending out dozens of
sharp-pointed, healthy shoots, every joint prepared to be an independent
life and plant. The only way to deal with it is to take one part hoe and
two parts fingers, and carefully dig it out, not leaving a joint
anywhere. It will take a little time, say all summer, to dig out
thoroughly a small patch; but if you once dig it out, and keep it out,
you will have no further trouble.
I have said it was total depravity. Here it is. If you attempt to pull
up and root out sin in you, which shows on the surface,--if it does not
show, you do not care for it,--you may have noticed how it runs into an
interior network of sins, and an ever-sprouting branch of these roots
somewhere; and that you cannot pull out one without making a general
internal disturbance, and rooting up your whole being. I suppose it is
less trouble to quietly cut them off at the top--say once a week, on
Sunday, when you put on your religious clothes and face,--so that no one
will see them, and not try to eradicate the network within.
_Remark_.--This moral vegetable figure is at the service of any
clergyman who will have the manliness to come forward and help me at a
day's hoeing on my potatoes. None but the orthodox need apply.