one residence to pass, and that, thank fortune, was so densely screened
by shrubbery that the inmates could not see the road. To be sure, we
were on a favorite driving road, but we could reach home in five
minutes, and we might dodge into the woods if we heard a carriage
coming. Ha! There came a carriage already, and we--was there ever a
sorrier-looking group? There were ladies in the carriage, too--could it
be--of course it was--did the evil spirit, which guided those children
always, send an attendant for Miss Mayton before he began operations?
There she was, anyway--cool, neat, dainty, trying to look collected, but
severely flushed by the attempt. It was of no use to drop my eyes, for
she had already recognized me; so I turned to her a face which I think
must have been just the one--unless more defiant--that I carried into
two or three cavalry charges.
"You seem to have been having a real good time together," said she, with
a conventional smile, as the carriage passed. "Remember, you're all
going to call on me to-morrow afternoon."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Railway cars.
[2] Rocked.
[3] Basket.
A REFLECTIVE RETROSPECT
BY JOHN G. SAXE
'Tis twenty years, and something more,
Since, all athirst for useful knowledge,
I took some draughts of classic lore,
Drawn very mild, at ----rd College;
Yet I remember all that one
Could wish to hold in recollection;
The boys, the joys, the noise, the fun;
But not a single Conic Section.
I recollect those harsh affairs,
The morning bells that gave us panics;
I recollect the formal prayers,
That seemed like lessons in Mechanics;
I recollect the drowsy way
In which the students listened to them,
As clearly, in my wig, to-day,
As when, a boy, I slumbered through them.
I recollect the tutors all
As freshly now, if I may say so,
As any chapter I recall
In Homer or Ovidius Naso.
I recollect, extremely well,
"Old Hugh," the mildest of fanatics;
I well remember Matthew Bell,
But very faintly, Mathematics.
I recollect the prizes paid
For lessons fathomed to the bottom;
(Alas that pencil-marks should fade!)
I recollect the chaps who got 'em,--
The light equestrians who soared
O'er every passage reckoned stony;
And took the chalks,--but never scored
A single honor to the pony!
Ah me! what changes Time has wrought,
And how predictions have miscarried!
A few have reached the goal they sought,
And some are dead, and some are married!
And some in city journals war;
And some as politicians bicker;
And some are pleading at the bar--
For jury-verdicts, or for liquor!
And some on Trade and Commerce wait;
And some in schools with dunces battle;
And some the Gospel propagate;
And some the choicest breeds of cattle;
And some are living at their ease;
And some were wrecked in "the revulsion;"
Some served the State for handsome fees,
And one, I hear, upon compulsion!
LAMONT, who, in his college days,
Thought e'en a cross a moral scandal,
Has left his Puritanic ways,
And worships now with bell and candle;
And MANN, who mourned the negro's fate,
And held the slave as most unlucky,
Now holds him, at the market rate,
On a plantation in Kentucky!
TOM KNOX--who swore in such a tone
It fairly might be doubted whether
It really was himself alone,
Or _Knox_ and Erebus together--
Has grown a very altered man,
And, changing oaths for mild entreaty,
Now recommends the Christian plan
To savages in Otaheite!
Alas for young ambition's vow!
How envious Fate may overthrow it!--
Poor HARVEY is in Congress now,
Who struggled long to be a poet;
SMITH carves (quite well) memorial stones,
Who tried in vain to make the law go;
HALL deals in hides; and "PIOUS JONES"
Is dealing faro in Chicago!
And, sadder still, the brilliant HAYS,
Once honest, manly, and ambitious,
Has taken latterly to ways
Extremely profligate and vicious;
By slow degrees--I can't tell how--
He's reached at last the very groundsel,
And in New York he figures now,
A member of the Common Council!
"HULLO!"
BY SAM WALTER FOSS
W'en you see a man in woe,
Walk right up and say "hullo!"
Say "hullo," an' "how d'ye do!"
"How's the world a usin' you?"
Slap the fellow on his back,
Bring your han' down with a whack;
Waltz right up, an' don't go slow,
Grin an' shake an' say "hullo!"
Is he clothed in rags? O sho!
Walk right up an' say "hullo!"
Rags is but a cotton roll
Jest for wrappin' up a soul;
An' a soul is worth a true
Hale an' hearty "how d'ye do!"
Don't wait for the crowd to go,
Walk right up an' say "hullo!"
W'en big vessels meet, they say,
They saloot an' sail away.
Jest the same are you an' me,
Lonesome ships upon a sea;
Each one sailing his own jog
For a port beyond the fog.
Let your speakin' trumpet blow,
Lift your horn an' cry "hullo!"
Say "hullo," an' "how d'ye do!"
Other folks are good as you.
W'en you leave your house of clay,
Wanderin' in the Far-Away,
W'en you travel through the strange
Country t'other side the range,
Then the souls you've cheered will know
Who you be, an' say "hullo!"
THE WARRIOR
BY EUGENE FIELD
Under the window is a man,
Playing an organ all the day,
Grinding as only a cripple can,
In a moody, vague, uncertain way.
His coat is blue and upon his face
Is a look of highborn, restless pride,
There is somewhat about him of martial grace
And an empty sleeve hangs at his side.
"Tell me, warrior bold and true,
In what carnage, night or day,
Came the merciless shot to you,
Bearing your good, right arm away?"
Fire dies out in the patriot's eye,
Changed my warrior's tone and mien,
Choked by emotion he makes reply,
"Kansas--harvest--threshing machine!"
THE TALE OF THE TANGLED TELEGRAM
BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
James Trottingham Minton had a cousin who lived in St. Louis. "Cousin
Mary," Lucy Putnam discovered by a process of elimination, was the one
topic on which the reticent Mr. Minton could become talkative. Mary was
his ideal, almost. Let a girl broach the weather, he grew halt of
speech; should she bring up literature, his replies were almost inane;
let her seek to show that she kept abreast of the times, and talk of
politics--then Jimmy seemed to harbor a great fear in his own soul. But
give him the chance to make a few remarks about his cousin Mary and he
approached eloquence. For this reason Lucy Putnam was wise enough to ask
him something about Mary every so often.
Now, the question arises: Why should Lucy Putnam, or any other girl,
take any interest in a man who was so thoroughly bashful that his
trembling efforts to converse made the light quivering aspen look like a
ten-ton obelisk for calmness? The reason was, and is, that woman has the
same eye for babies and men. The more helpless these objects, the more
interested are the women. The man who makes the highest appeal to a
woman is he whose tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth and who does
not know what to do with his hands in her presence. She must be a
princess, he a slave. Each knows this premise is unsupported by facts,
yet it is a joyous fiction while it lasts. James Trottingham Minton was
not a whit bashful when with men. No. He called on Mr. Putnam at his
office, and with the calmness of an agent collecting rent, asked him for
the hand of his daughter.
"Why, Jimmy," Mr. Putnam said good-naturedly, "of course I haven't any
objections to make. Seems to me that's a matter to be settled between
you and Lucy."
Jimmy smiled confidentially.
"I suppose you're right, Mr. Putnam. But, you see, I've never had the
nerve to say anything about it to her."
"Tut, tut. Nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all. What's the matter
with you, young man? In my day, if a fellow wanted to marry a girl he
wouldn't go and tell her father. He'd marry her first and then ask the
old man where they should live."
Mr. Putnam chuckled heavily. Mr. Putnam was possessed of a striking fund
of reminiscences of how young men used to do.
"Of course, Mr. Putnam," Jimmy said. "But the girls nowadays are
different, and a fel--"
"Not a bit of it. No, sir. Women haven't changed since Eve's time. You
mustn't get woman mixed up with dry goods stores, Jimmy. Don't you know
there's lots of fellows nowadays that fall in love with the fall styles?
Ha, ha!"
It was not all clear to Minton, but he laughed dutifully. His was a
diplomatic errand, and the half of diplomacy is making the victim think
you are in agreement with him.
"Yes, sir," Putnam chuckled on, "I'll bet that silk and ruffles and pink
shades over the lamp have caused more proposals than all the dimples and
bright eyes in the world. Eh, Jimmy? But you haven't proposed yet?"
"I did. You gave your consent."
"But you're not going to marry me. You want Lucy. You'll have to speak
to her about it."
"Now look, Mr. Putnam, I can come to you and ask you for her, and it's
the same thing."
"Not by a hundred miles, my boy. If I told Lucy you had said that, she
wouldn't be at home next time you called. The trouble with you is that
you don't understand women. You've got to talk direct to them."
Jimmy looked hopelessly out of the window.
"No; what you say to me and what I say to you hasn't any more to do with
you and Lucy than if you were selling me a bill of goods. I like you,
Jimmy, and I've watched your career so far with interest, and I look for
great things from you in the future, and that's why I say to you to go
ahead and get Lucy, and good luck to you both."
Mr. Putnam took up some papers from his desk and pretended to be
studying them, but from the tail of his eye he gathered the gloom that
was settling over Jimmy's face. The elder man enjoyed the situation.
"Well, Mr. Putnam," Jimmy asked, "why can't you just tell Lucy for me
that I have asked you, and that you say it's all right? Then when I go
to see her next time, it'll all be arranged and understood."
"Le' me see. Didn't I read a poem or something at school about some one
who hadn't sand enough to propose to a girl and who got another man to
ask her? But it wasn't her own father. Why, Jimmy, if you haven't
courage enough to propose to a girl, what do you suppose will be your
finish if she marries you? A married man has to have spunk."
"I've got the spunk all right, but you understand how I feel."
"Sure! Let me give you some advice. When you propose to a girl, you
don't have to come right out and ask her to marry you."
Jimmy caught at the straw.
"You don't?" he asked.
"Certainly not. There's half a dozen ways of letting her know that you
want her. Usually--always, I may say--she knows it anyway, and unless
she wants you she'll not let you tell her so. But if I wanted a short,
sharp 'No' from a girl, I'd get her father to ask her to marry me."
"Then you mean that I've got to ask her myself?"
"To be sure."
"I can't do it, Mr. Putnam; I can't."
"Write it."
"Why, I'd feel as if the postman and everybody else knew it."
"Telephone."
"Worse yet."
"Jim Minton, I'm disgusted with you. I thought you were a young man with
some enterprise, but if you lose your courage over such an every-day
affair as proposing to a girl--"
"But men don't propose every day."
"Somebody is proposing to somebody every day. It goes on all the time.
No, sir; I wash my hands of it. I'll not withdraw my consent, and you
have my moral support and encouragement, but getting married is the same
as getting into trouble--you have to handle your own case."
"But, Mr. Putnam--"
"You'll only go over the same ground again. Good morning. I don't want
to hear any more of this until it is settled one way or the other. I'll
not help and I'll not hinder. It--It's up to you."
With this colloquial farewell Mr. Putnam waved his hand and turned to
his papers. Jimmy accumulated his hat and stick, and left, barren of
hope.
That night he took Lucy to see "Romeo and Juliet." The confidence and
enthusiasm of _Romeo_ merely threw him into a deeper despair of his own
ability as a suitor, and made him even more taciturn and stumbling of
speech than ever. His silence grew heavier and heavier, until at last
Lucy threw out her never-failing life-line. She asked him about his
cousin Mary.
"By the way," he said, brightening up, "Cousin Mary is going through
here one day next week."
"Is she? How I should like to know her. If she is anything like you she
must be very agreeable."
"She isn't like me, but she is agreeable. Won't you let me try to bring
you two together--at lunch down-town, or something like that?"
"It would be fine."
"I'll do it. I'll arrange it just as soon as I see her."
Then silence, pall-like, fell again upon them. Jimmy thought of _Romeo_,
and Lucy thought of--_Romeo_, let us say. When a young man and a young
woman, who are the least bit inclined one to another, witness
Shakespeare's great educative effort, the young woman can not help
imagining herself leaning over the balcony watching the attempts of the
young man to clamber up the rope ladder.
After he had gone that night, Lucy sat down for a soul communion with
herself. Pity the woman who does not have soul communions. She who can
sit side by side with herself and make herself believe that she is
perfectly right and proper in thinking and believing as she does, is
happy. The first question Lucy Putnam put to her subliminal self was:
"Do I love Jimmy?" Subliminal self, true to sex, equivocated. It said:
"I am not sure." Whereupon Lucy asked: "Why do I love him?" Then ensued
the debate. Subliminal self said it was because he was a clean,
good-hearted, manly fellow. Lucy responded that he was too bashful. "He
is handsome," retorted subliminal self. "But there are times when he
grows so abashed that he is awkward." Subliminal self said he would
outgrow that. "But there are other men who are just as nice, just as
handsome, and just as clever, who are not so overwhelmingly shy," argued
Lucy. Whereat subliminal self drew itself up proudly and demanded: "Name
one!" And Lucy was like the person who can remember faces, but has no
memory at all for names.
II
Cousin Mary came to town as she had promised, and she made Cousin Jimmy
drop his work and follow her through the shops half the morning. Cousin
Mary was all that Cousin Jimmy had ever said of her. She was pretty and
she was genial. When these attributes are combined in a cousin they
invite confidences.
The two were standing on a corner, waiting for a swirl of foot
passengers, carriages and street-cars, to be untangled, when Mary heard
Jimmy making some remark about "Miss Putnam."
"So, she's the one, is she, Jimmy?"
"Well--er--I--I don't know. You see--"
"Certainly I see. Who wouldn't? Is she pretty, Jimmy?"
Jimmy saw a pathway through the crowd and led his cousin to the farther
curb before answering:
"Yes, she is very pretty."
"Tell me all about her. How long have you known her? How did you meet
her? Is she tall or short? Is she dark or fair? Is she musical? Oh, I am
just dying to know all about her!"
All the way down State Street Jimmy talked. All the way down State
Street he was urged on and aided and abetted by the questions and
comments of Cousin Mary, and when they had buffeted their way over
Jackson to Michigan Avenue and found breathing room, she turned to him
and asked pointedly:
"When is it to be?"
"When is what to be?"
"The wedding."
"Whose wedding?" Jimmy's tone was utterly innocent.
"Whose? Yours and Lucy's, to be sure."
"Mine and Lucy's? Why? Mary, I've never asked her yet."
"You've never asked her! Do you mean to tell me that when you can talk
about her for seven or eight blocks, as you have, you have not even
asked her to marry you? Why, James Trottingham Minton, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself! Where does this paragon of women live? Take me to
see her. I want to apologize for you."
"Won't it be better to get her to come in and lunch with us? She lives
so far out you'd miss your train east this afternoon."
"The very thing. Would she come?"
"Why, yes. I asked her the other night and she said she would."
"Then, why have you waited so long to tell me. Where are we to meet
her?"
"Well, I didn't know for sure what day you would be here, so I didn't
make any definite arrangement. I'm to let her know."
"Oh, Jimmy! Jimmy! You need a guardian, and not a guardian angel,
either. You need the other sort. You deserve hours of punishment for
your thoughtlessness. Now go right away and send her word that I am here
and dying to meet her."
"All right. We'll have lunch here at the Annex. You'll excuse me just a
moment, and I'll send her a telegram and ask her to come in."
"Yes, but hurry. You should have told her yesterday. When will you ever
learn how to be nice to a girl?"
Jimmy, feeling somehow that he had been guilty of a breach of courtesy
that should fill him with remorse, hastened to the telegraph desk and
scribbled a message to Lucy. It read:
"Please meet me and Mary at Annex at 2 o'clock."
"Rush that," he said to the operator.
The operator glanced over the message and grinned.
"Certainly, sir," he said. "This sort of a message always goes rush.
Wish you luck, sir."
The operator has not yet completely gathered the reason for the
reproving stare Jimmy gave him. In part it has been explained to him.
But, as Jimmy has said since, the man deserved censure for drawing an
erroneous conclusion from another's mistake.
It was then noon, so Jimmy and Mary, at Mary's suggestion, got an
appetite by making another tour of the shops. In the meantime a
snail-paced messenger boy was climbing the Putnam steps with the
telegram in his hand.
III
Lucy took the telegram from the boy and told him to wait until she saw
if there should be an answer. She tore off the envelope, unfolded the
yellow slip of paper, read the message, gasped, blushed and turned and
left the patient boy on the steps.
Into the house she rushed, calling to her mother. She thrust the
telegram into her hands, exclaiming:
"Read that! Isn't it what we might have expected?"
"Mercy! What is it? Who's dead?"
"Nobody! It's better than that," was Lucy's astonishing reply.
Mrs. Putnam read the telegram, and then beamingly drew her daughter to
her and kissed her. The two then wrote a message, after much counting of
words, to be sent to Jimmy. It read:
"Of course. Mama will come with me. Telephone to papa."
When this reached Jimmy he was nonplused. He rubbed his forehead,
studied the message, reread it, and then handed it to Mary with the
suggestion:
"Maybe you can make it out. I can't."
Mary knitted her brows and studied the message in turn. At length she
handed it back.
"It is simple," she decided. "She is a nice, sweet girl, and she wants
me to meet her mama and papa. Or maybe she wants us to be chaperoned."
So Jimmy and Mary waited in the hotel parlor until Lucy should arrive.
Reminded by Mary, Jimmy went to the 'phone and told Mr. Putnam that Lucy
was coming to lunch with him.
"Well, that's all right, isn't it, Jimmy?" Mr. Putnam asked.
"Yes. But she told me to telephone you."
"Why?"
"I don't know. But won't you join us?"
"Is that other matter arranged, Jimmy?"
"N-no. Not yet."
"I told you I didn't want to see you until it was. As soon as you wake
up, let me know. Good-by."
Jimmy, red, returned to the parlor, and there was confronted by a vision
of white, with shining eyes and pink cheeks, who rushed up to him and
kissed him and called him a dear old thing and said he was the
cleverest, most unconventional man that ever was.
Limp, astounded, but delighted, James Trottingham Minton drew back a
pace from Lucy Putnam, who, in her dainty white dress and her white hat
and filmy white veil, was a delectable sight.
"I want you to meet Cousin Mary," he said.
"Is she to attend?"
"Of course," he answered.
They walked toward the end of the long parlor where Mary was sitting,
but half way down the room they were stopped by Mrs. Putnam. She put
both hands on Jimmy's shoulders, gave him a motherly kiss on one cheek,
and sighed:
"Jimmy, you will be kind to my little girl?"
Jimmy looked from mother to daughter in dumb bewilderment. Certainly
this was the most remarkable conduct he ever had dreamed of. Yet, Mrs.
Putnam's smile was so affectionate and kind, her eyes met his with such
a tender look that he intuitively felt that all was right as right
should be. And yet--why should they act as they did?
Into the midst of his reflections burst Lucy's chum, Alice Jordan.
"I've a notion to kiss him, too!" she cried.
Jimmy stonily held himself in readiness to be kissed. If kissing went by
favor he was pre-eminently a favored one. But Lucy clutched his arm with
a pretty air of ownership and forbade Alice.
"Indeed, you will not. It wouldn't be good form now. After--afterward,
you may. Just once. Isn't that right, Jimmy?"
"Perfectly," he replied, his mind still whirling in an effort to adjust
actualities to his conception of what realities should be.
The four had formed a little group to themselves in the center of the
parlor, Lucy clinging to Jimmy's arm, Mrs. Putnam eying them both with a
happy expression, and Alice fluttering from one to the other, assuring
them that they were the handsomest couple she ever had seen, that they
ought to be proud of each other, and that Mrs. Putnam ought to be proud
of them, and that she was sure nobody in all the world ever, ever could
be as sublimely, beatifically happy as they would be, and that they must
be sure to let her come to visit them.
"And," she cried, admiringly, stopping to pat Jimmy on his unclutched
arm, "I just think your idea of proposing by telegraph was the brightest
thing I ever heard of!"
It is to be written to the everlasting credit of James Trottingham
Minton that he restrained himself from uttering the obvious remark on
hearing this. Two words from him would have wrecked the house of cards.
Instead, he blushed and smiled modestly. Slowly it was filtering into
his brain that by some unusual, unexpected, unprecedented freak of
fortune his difficulties had been overcome; that some way or other he
had proposed and had been accepted.
"I shall always cherish that telegram," Lucy declared, leaning more
affectionately toward Jimmy. "If that grimy-faced messenger boy had not
gone away so quickly with my answer I should have kissed him!"
"I've got the telegram here, dear," said Mrs. Putnam.
"Oh, let's see it again," Alice begged. "I always wanted to hear a
proposal, but it is some satisfaction to see one."
Mrs. Putnam opened her hand satchel, took out the telegram, unfolded it
slowly, and they all looked at it, Jimmy gulping down a great choke of
joy as he read:
"Please meet me and marry at Annex at two o'clock."
His bashfulness fell from him as a garment. He took the message, saying
he would keep it, so that it might not be lost. Then he piloted the two
girls and Mrs. Putnam to the spot where Mary had been waiting patiently
and wonderingly.
"Mary," he said boldly, without a tremor in his voice, "I want you to
meet the future Mrs. Minton, and my future mother-in-law, Mrs. Putnam,
and my future--what are you to me, anyhow, Alice?"
"I'm a combination flower girl, maid of honor and sixteen bridesmaids
chanting the wedding march," she laughed.
"And when," Mary gasped, "when is this to be?"
"At two o'clock," Lucy answered.
"Oh, Jimmy! You wretch! You never told me a word about it. But never
mind. I bought the very thing for a wedding gift this morning."
Jimmy tore himself away from the excited laughter and chatter, ran to
the telephone and got Mr. Putnam on the wire.
"This is Minton," he said.
"Who? Oh! Jimmy? Well?"
"Well, I've fixed that up."
"Good. And when is it to be?"
"Right away. Here at the Annex. I want you to go and get the license for
me on your way over."
"Come, come, Jimmy. Don't be in such precipitate haste."
"You told me that was the only way to arrange these matters."
"Humph! Did I? Well, I'll get the license for you--"
"Good-by, then. I've got to telephone for a minister."
The minister was impressed at once with the value of haste in coming,
and on his way back to the wedding party Jimmy stopped long enough to
hand a five-dollar bill to the telegraph operator.
"Thank you, sir," said the astonished man. "I have been worrying for
fear I had made a mistake about your message."
"You did. You made the greatest mistake of your life. Thank you!"
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
BY WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND
Very offen I be t'inkin' of de queer folks goin' roun',
And way dey kip a-talkin' of de hard tam get along--
May have plaintee money, too, an' de healt' be good an' soun'--
But you'll fin' dere's alway somet'ing goin' wrong--
'Course dere may be many reason w'y some feller ought to fret--
But me, I'm alway singin' de only song I know--
'Tisn't long enough for music, an' so short you can't forget,
But it drive away de lonesome, an' dis is how she go,
"Jus' tak' your chance, an' try your luck."