silent and sorry, and Mel was fidgeting in a riot of repentance; we had
never, either of us, heard a word of any romance of Aunt Pen's before.
We began to imagine that there might be some excuse for the overthrow of
Aunt Pen's nervous system, some reality in the overthrow. "You will
leave this ring on my finger;" said she; by-and-by. "If Chauncey Read
comes, and wants it, he will take it off. It will fit his finger as well
now, I suppose, as it did when he wore it before he gave it to me." Then
Aunt Pen bit her lip and shut her eyes, and seemed to be slipping off
into a gentle sleep.
"By-the-way!" said she, suddenly, sitting upright on the lounge, "I
won't have the horses from Brown's livery--
"The what, auntie?"
"The horses for the cortége. You know Brown puts that magnificent span
of his in the hearse on account of their handsome action. I'm sure Mrs.
Gaylard would have been frightened to death if she could only have seen
the way they pranced at her funeral last fall. I was determined then
that they should never draw me;" and Aunt Pen shivered for herself
beforehand. "And I can't have them from Timlin's, for the same reason,"
said she. "All his animals are skittish; and you remember when a pair of
them took fright and dashed away from the procession and ran straight to
the river, and there'd have been four other funerals if the schooner at
the wharf hadn't stopped the runaways. And Timlins has a way, too, of
letting white horses follow the hearse with the first mourning-coach,
and it's very bad luck, very--an ill omen; a prophecy of Death and the
Pale Horse again, you know. And I won't have them from Shust's, either,"
said Aunt Pen, "for he is simply the greatest extortioner since old
Isaac the Jew."
"Well, auntie," said Mel, forgetful of her late repentance, "I don't see
but you'll have to go with Shank's mare."
Even Aunt Pen laughed then. "Don't you really think you are going to
lose me, girls?" asked she.
"No, auntie," replied Maria. "We all think you are a hypo."
"A hypo?"
"Not a hypocrite," said Mel, "but a hypochondriac."
"I wish I were," sighed Aunt Pen; "I wish I were. I should have some
hope of myself then," said the poor inconsistent innocent. "Oh no, no; I
feel it only too well; I am going fast. You will all regret your
disbelief when I am gone;" and she lay back among her pillows. "That
reminds me," she murmured, presently. "About my monument."
"Oh, Aunt Pen, do be still," said Mel.
"No," said Aunt Pen, firmly; "it may be a disagreeable duty, but that is
all the better reason for me to bring my mind to it. And if I don't
attend to it now, it never will be attended to. I know what relatives
are. They put down a slab of slate with a skull and cross-bones
scratched on it, and think they've done their duty. Not that I mean any
reflections on you; you're all well-meaning, but you're giddy. I shall
haunt you if you do any thing of the kind! No; you may send Mr. Mason up
here this afternoon, and I will go over his designs with him. I am
going to have carved Carrara marble, set in a base of polished Scotch
granite, and the inscription is--Girls!" cried Aunt Pen, rising and
clasping her knees with unexpected energy, "I expressly forbid my age
being printed in the paper, or on the lid, or on the stone! I won't
gratify every gossip in town, that I won't! I shall take real pleasure
in baffling their curiosity. And another thing, while I am about it,
don't you ask Tom Maltby to my funeral, or let him come in, if he comes
himself, on any account whatever. I should rise in my shroud if he
approached me. Yes, I should! Tom Maltby may be all very well; I dare
say he is; and I hope I die at peace with him and all mankind, as a good
Christian should. I forgive him; yes, certainly, I forgive him; but it
doesn't follow that I need forget him; and, so long as I remember him,
the way he conducted in buying the pew over my head I can't get over,
dead or alive. And if I only do get well we shall have a reckoning that
will make his hair stand on end--that he may rely on!" And here Aunt Pen
took the fan from Maria, and moved it actively, till she remembered
herself, when she resigned it. "One thing more," she said. "Whatever
happens, Helen, don't let me be kept over Sunday. There'll certainly be
another death in the family within the year if you do. If I die on
Saturday, there's no help for it. Common decency won't let you shove me
into the ground at once, and so you will have to make up your minds for
a second summons." And Aunt Pen, contemplating the suttee of some one of
us with great philosophy, lay down and closed her eyes again. "You might
have it by torchlight on Sunday night, though," said she, half opening
them. "That would be very pretty." And then she dropped off to sleep
with such a satisfied expression of countenance that we judged her to be
welcoming in imagination the guests at her last rites herself.
Whatever the dream was, she was rudely roused from it by the wreched
little Israel, who came bounding up the stairs, and, without word or
warning, burst into the room, almost white with horror. Why Israel was
afraid I can't conjecture, but, at any rate, a permanent fright would
have been of great personal advantage to him. "Oh, ma'am! oh, miss!
dere's a pusson down stairs, a cullud woman, wid der small-pox!" he
almost whistled in his alarm.
"With the small-pox!" cried Aunt Pen, springing into the middle of the
floor, regardless of her late repose _in articulo mortis_. "Go away,
Israel! Have you been near her? Put her out immediately! How on earth
did she get there?"
"You allus telled me to let everybody in," chattered Israel.
"Put her out! put her out!" cried Aunt Pen, half dancing with
impatience.
"We can't get her out. She's right acrost der door-step. We's feared ter
tech her."
But Aunt Pen's head was out of the window, and she was shouting:
"Police! fire! murder! thieves!" possibly in the order of importance of
the four calamities, but quite as if she had a plenty of breath left;
and, for a wonder, the police came to the rescue, and directly afterward
an ambulance took the poor victim of the frightful epidemic to the
hospital. I believe it turned out to be only measles after all, though.
"Run, Israel!" screamed Aunt Pen then; "run instantly and bring home a
couple of pounds of roll-brimstone, and tell the maids to riddle the
furnace fire and make it as bright and hot as possible, and to light
fires in the parlor grates, and in the old Latrobe, and in every room
in the house, without losing a minute. We'll make this house too warm
for it!"
And, to our amazement, as soon as Israel came darting back with the
impish material, Aunt Pen took a piece in each hand, directed us to do
the same, and wrapping the blue afghan round her shoulders, descended to
the lower rooms three steps at a time, sent for the doctor to come and
vaccinate us, and having set a chair precisely over the register where a
red-hot stream of air was pouring up, she placed herself upon it and
issued her orders.
Every window was closed, every grate from basement to attic had a fire
lighted in it, and little pans of brimstone were burning in every room
and hall in the house, while we, astonished, indignant, frightened, and
amused, sat enduring the torments of vapor and sulphur baths to the
point of suffocation.
"I can't bear this another moment," wheezed Mel.
"It's the only way," replied Aunt Pen, serenely, with a rivulet
trickling down her nose. "You kill the germs by heat, and since we can't
bake ourselves quite to death, we make sure of the work by the fumes."
And as she sat there, her face rubicund, her swan's-down straight,
drops on her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, and wherever drops could
cling, her eyes watering, her curls limp, and an atmosphere of
unbearable odor enveloping her in its cloud, the front door opened, and
a footstep rung on the tiles.
"Jess you keep out o' yer!" yelled Israel to the intruder, seeing it
wasn't the doctor. "We's got der small-pox, and am a-killing de
gemmens--"
"Pen!" cried a man's voice through the smoke--a deep, melodious voice.
"What!" exclaimed Aunt Pen, starting up, and then pausing as if she
fancied the horrid fumes might have befogged her brain.
"Pen!" the voice cried again.
"Chauncey! Chauncey Read!" she shrieked. "Where do you come from? Am I
dreaming?"
"From the North Pacific," answered the voice; and we dimly discerned its
owner groping his way forward. "From the five years' whaling voyage into
which I was gagged and dragged--shanghaied, they call it. O, Pen, I
didn't dare to hope I should find--"
"Oh, Chauncey, is it you?" she cried, and fell fainting at his feet.
The draught from the open door after him was blowing away the smoke,
and we saw what a great, sunburned, handsome fellow it was that had
caught her in his arms, and was bearing her out to the back balcony and
the fresh air there, used in the course of his whaling voyage, perhaps,
to odors no more belonging to Araby the Blest than those of burning
brimstone do; and, seeing the movement, we divined that he knew as much
about the resources of the house as we did, and so we discreetly
withdrew, Israel's head being twisted behind him as he went to such
extent that you might have supposed he had had his neck wrung.
Well, we put the white silk and the tulle on Aunt Pen after all; yellow
as it was, she would have no other--only fresh, natural orange blossoms
in place of the false wreath. And if we had not so often had her word
for it in past times, we never should have taken her for any thing but
the gayest bride, the most alive and happy woman in the world. They
returned to the old house from their wedding journey, and we all live
together in great peace and pleasantness. But though three years are
passed and gone since Chauncey Read came home and brought a new
atmosphere with him into our lives, Aunt Pen has never had a sick day
yet; and we find that any allusion to her funeral gives her such a
superstitious trembling that we are pleased to believe it indefinitely
postponed, and by tacit and mutual consent we never say any thing about
it.--_Harper's Magazine_, June, 1872.
SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS.
("MARK TWAIN.")
(BORN, 1835.)
* * * * *
THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY.
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from
the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and
inquired after my friend's friend, _Leonidas W._ Smiley, as requested to
do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that
_Leonidas W._ Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a
personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler
about him, it would remind him of his infamous _Jim_ Smiley, and he
would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal
reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless for me.
If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the
old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I
noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of
winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He
roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of
his boyhood named _Leonidas W._ Smiley--_Rev. Leonidas W._ Smiley--a
young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a
resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me any
thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many
obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his
chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative
which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he
never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned
the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of
enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein
of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,
so far from his imagining that there was any thing ridiculous or funny
about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and
admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in _finesse_. To
me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer
yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I
asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he
replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never
interrupted him once:
There was a feller here once by the name of _Jim_ Smiley, in the winter
of '49--or may be it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly,
somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I
remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp;
but any way he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing
that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other
side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the
other man would suit him--any way just so's he got a bet, _he_ was
satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come
out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't
be no solitry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and
take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a
horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of
it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight,
he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if
there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would
fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar, to
bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about
here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug
start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to
get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller
that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was
bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has
seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no
difference to _him_--he would bet on _any_ thing--the dangdest feller.
Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it
seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in,
and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable
better--thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy--and coming on so smart
that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley,
before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't,
any way."
This-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,
but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster
than that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so
slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or
something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards
start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the
race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and
straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the
air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up
m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing
and blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck
ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.
And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he
wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a
chance to steal something. But as soon as the money was up on him, he
was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the
fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage
like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and
bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew
Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let
on but what _he_ was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and
the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till
the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other
dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you
understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the
sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup,
till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because
they'd been sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone
along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch
for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how
the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared
surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no
more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a
look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was _his_ fault, for
putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which
was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and
laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and
would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in
him, and he had genius--I know it, because he hadn't had no
opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could
make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no
talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of
his'n, and the way it turned out.
Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats,
and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't
fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog
one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and
so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and
learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he _did_ learn him, too. He'd
give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog
whirling in the air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or may
be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all
right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and
kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far
as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he
could do most any thing--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l
Webster down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the
frog--and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink,
he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and
flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to
scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if
he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You
never see a frog so modest and straight-for'ard as he was, for all he
was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead
level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of
his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you
understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him
as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and
well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been everywheres,
all said he laid over any frog that ever _they_ see.
Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to
fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a
stranger in the camp, he was--come across him with his box, and says,
"What might it be that you've got in the box?"
And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It might be a parrot, or it
might be a canary, may be, but it ain't--it's only just a frog."
And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round
this way and that, and says, "H'm--so't is. Well, what's _he_ good for?"
"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for _one_
thing, I should judge--he can out-jump ary frog in Calaveras county."
The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look,
and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't
see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
"May be you don't," Smiley says. "May be you understand frogs, and may
be you don't understand 'em; may be you've had experience, and may be
you ain't, only a amature, as it were. Any ways, I've got _my_ opinion,
and I'll risk forty dollars that he can out-jump any frog in Calaveras
county."
And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well,
I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog,
I'd bet you."
And then Smiley says, "That's all right--that's all right--if you'll
hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller
took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set
down to wait.
So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then
he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and
filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to his
chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped
around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and
fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:
"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws
just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says,
"One--two--three--jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs
from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and
hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use--he
couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no
more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised,
and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter
was, of course.
The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at
the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulders--this way--at
Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no pints
about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long
time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog
throw'd off for--I wonder if there ain't some thing the matter with
him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by
the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if
he don't weigh five pound!" and turned him upside down, and he belched
out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was
the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller,
but he never ketched him. And--
(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got
up to see what was wanted.) And turning to me as he moved away, he said:
"Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I an't going to be
gone a second."
But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history
of the enterprising vagabond _Jim_ Smiley would be likely to afford me
much information concerning the Rev. _Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I
started away.
At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me
and recommenced:
"Well, this-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no
tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"
"Oh, hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered, good-naturedly, and
bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.
FITZ HUGH LUDLOW. (BORN, 1836--DIED, 1870.)
* * * * *
BEN THIRLWALL'S SCHOOLDAYS.
My name is Ben Thirlwall, and I am the son of rich but honest parents. I
never had a wish ungratified until I was twelve years of age. My wish
then was to stay on a two-year-old colt which had never been broken. He
did not coincide with me, and a vast revelation of the resistances to
individual will of which the universe is capable, also of a terrestrial
horizon, bottom upward, burst upon me during the brief space which I
spent in flying over his head. Picked up senseless, I was carried to the
bosom of my family on a wheelbarrow, and awoke to the consciousness that
my parents had decided on sending me to a boarding-school,--a remedy to
this day sovereign in the opinion of all well-regulated parents for all
tangential aberrations from the back of a colt or the laws of society.