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A GUEST
AT THE LUDLOW
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
EDGAR WILSON NYE
[BILL NYE]
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
LOUIS BRAUNHOLD_
[Illustration]
INDIANAPOLIS AND KANSAS CITY
THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY
M DCCC XCVII
Copyright, 1896
BY
THE BOWEN-MERRILL CO.
A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW
[Illustration: _You can pay five cents to the Elevated Railroad and get
here, or you can put some other man's nickel in your own slot and come
here with an attendant_ (Page 2)]
* * * * *
This volume was prepared for publication by the author a few months
before his death, and is now published by arrangement with Mrs. Edgar
Wilson Nye.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PAGE.
I. A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW 1
II. OLD POLKA DOT'S DAUGHTER 13
III. A GREAT CEREBRATOR 22
IV. HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD 33
V. A JOURNEY WESTWARD 42
VI. A PROPHET AND A PIUTE 52
VII. THE SABBATH OF A GREAT AUTHOR 64
VIII. A FLYER IN DIRT 69
IX. A SINGULAR "HAMLET" 81
X. MY MATRIMONIAL BUREAU 92
XI. THE HATEFUL HEN 99
XII. AS A CANDIDATE 108
XIII. SUMMER BOARDERS AND OTHERS 123
XIV. THREE OPEN LETTERS 134
XV. THE DUBIOUS FUTURE 144
XVI. EARNING A REWARD 156
XVII. A PLEA FOR JUSTICE 162
XVIII. GRAINS OF TRUTH 168
XIX. A SCAMPER THROUGH THE PARK 179
XX. HINTS TO THE TRAVELER 187
XXI. A MEDIEVAL DISCOVERER 201
XXII. HOW TO PICK OUT A BIRTHPLACE 208
XXIII. ON BROADWAY 218
XXIV. MY TRIP TO DIXIE 222
XXV. THE THOUGHT CLOTHIER 228
XXVI. A RUBBER ESOPHAGUS 233
XXVII. ADVICE TO A SON 243
XXVIII. THE AUTOMATIC BELL BOY 254
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
You can pay five cents to the Elevated Railroad and get here, or
you can put some other man's nickel in your own slot and
come here with an attendant _Frontispiece_
His old look of apprehensive cordiality did not leave him until
he had seen me climb on a load of hay with my trunk and start
for home 15
Then they tied a string of sleighbells to his tail, and hit him a
smart, stinging blow with a black snake 27
My idea was to apply it to the wall mostly, but the chair tipped,
and so I papered the piano and my wife on the way down 36
Frogs build their nests there in the spring and rear their young,
but people never go there 45
I improved the time by cultivating the acquaintance of the beautiful
and picturesque outcasts known as the Piute Indians 57
He sometimes succeeds in getting himself disliked by some other
dog and then I can observe the fight 67
Then rolling my trousers up a yard or two, I struck off into the
scrub pine, carrying with me a large board 74
He looked up sadly at me with his one eye as who should say,
"Have you got any more of that there red paint left?" 105
"Mr. Nye, on behalf of this vast assemblage (tremulo), I thank
God that you are POOR!!!" 115
Three or four times as much oxygen is consumed in activity as in
repose, hence the hornets' nests introduced by me last season 124
Playing billiards, accompanied by the vicious habit of pounding
on the floor with the butt of the cue ever and anon, produces
at last optical illusions 149
Mr. Whatley hadn't gone more than half a mile when he heard the
wild and disappointed yells of the Salvation army 159
"I was in a large, cool hosspital which smelt strong of some forrin
substans. The hed doctor had been breathing on me and so I
come too" 163
Said the Governor as he swung around with his feet over in our
part of the carriage and asked me for a light 181
He therefore had to borrow a bald-headed man to act as bust for
him in the evening 194
It was at this time that he noticed the swinging of a lamp in a
church, and observing that the oscillations were of equal duration 202
Here Andrew turned the grindstone in the shed, while a large,
heavy neighbor got on and rode for an hour or two 210
"A man that crosses Broadway for a year can be mayor of Boston,
but my idee is that he's a heap more likely to be mayor of the
New Jerusalem" 220
I bought tickets at Cincinnati of a pale, sallow liar, who is just
beginning to work his way up to the forty-ninth degree in the
Order of Ananias 222
In hotels it will take the mental strain off the bell-boy, relieving
him also of a portion of his burdensome salary at the same
time 256
A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW
I
We are stopping quietly here, taking our meals in our rooms mostly, and
going out very little indeed. When I say we, I use the term editorially.
We notice first of all the great contrast between this and other hotels,
and in several instances this one is superior. In the first place, there
is a sense of absolute security when one goes to sleep here that can not
be felt at a popular hotel, where burglars secrete themselves in the
wardrobe during the day and steal one's pantaloons and contents at
night. This is one of the compensations of life in prison.
Here the burglars go to bed at the hour that the rest of us do. We all
retire at the same time, and a murderer can not sit up any later at
night than the smaller or unknown criminal can.
You can get to Ludlow Street Jail by taking the Second avenue Elevated
train to Grand street, and then going east two blocks, or you can fire a
shotgun into a Sabbath-school.
You can pay five cents to the Elevated Railroad and get here, or you can
put some other man's nickel in your own slot and come here with an
attendant.
William Marcy Tweed was the contractor of Ludlow Street Jail, and here
also he died. He was the son of a poor chair-maker, and was born April
3, 1823. From the chair business in 1853 to congress was the first false
step. Exhilarated by the delirium of official life, and the false joys
of franking his linen home every week, and having cake and preserves
franked back to him at Washington, he resolved to still further taste
the delights of office, and in 1857 we find him as a school
commissioner.
In 1860 he became Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society, an association at
that time more purely political than politically pure. As president of
the board of supervisors, head of the department of public works, state
senator, and Grand Sachem of Tammany, Tweed had a large and seductive
influence over the city and state. The story of how he earned a scanty
livelihood by stealing a million of dollars at a pop, and thus, with the
most rigid economy, scraped together $20,000,000 in a few years by
patient industry and smoking plug tobacco, has been frequently told.
Tweed was once placed here in Ludlow Street Jail in default of
$3,000,000 bail. How few there are of us who could slap up that amount
of bail if rudely gobbled on the street by the hand of the law. While
riding out with the sheriff, in 1875, Tweed asked to see his wife, and
said he would be back in a minute.
He came back by way of Spain, in the fall of '76, looking much improved.
But the malaria and dissipation of Blackwell's Island afterwards
impaired his health, and having done time there, and having been
arrested afterwards and placed in Ludlow Street Jail, he died here
April 12, 1878, leaving behind him a large, vain world, and an equally
vain judgment for $6,537,117.38, to which he said he would give his
attention as soon as he could get a paving contract in the sweet
ultimately.
From the exterior Ludlow Street Jail looks somewhat like a conservatory
of music, but as soon as one enters he readily discovers his mistake.
The structure has 100 feet frontage, and a court, which is sometimes
called the court of last resort. The guest can climb out of this court
by ascending a polished brick wall about 100 feet high, and then letting
himself down in a similar way on the Ludlow street side.
That one thing is doing a great deal towards keeping quite a number of
people here who would otherwise, I think, go away.
James D. Fish and Ferdinand Ward both remained here prior to their
escape to Sing Sing. Red Leary, also, made his escape from this point,
but did not succeed in reaching the penitentiary. Forty thousand
prisoners have been confined in Ludlow Street Jail, mostly for civil
offenses. A man in New York runs a very short career if he tries to be
offensively civil.
As you enter Ludlow Street Jail the door is carefully closed after you,
and locked by means of an iron lock about the size of a pictorial family
Bible. You then remain on the inside for quite a spell. You do not hear
the prattle of soiled children any more. All the glad sunlight, and
stench-condensing pavements, and the dark-haired inhabitants of
Rivington street, are seen no longer, and the heavy iron storm-door
shuts out the wail of the combat from the alley near by. Ludlow Street
Jail may be surrounded by a very miserable and dirty quarter of the
city, but when you get inside all is changed.
You register first. There is a good pen there that you can write with,
and the clerk does not chew tolu and read a sporting paper while you
wait for a room. He is there to attend to business, and he attends to
it. He does not seem to care whether you have any baggage or not. You
can stay here for days, even if you don't have any baggage. All you
need is a kind word and a mittimus from the court.
One enters this sanitarium either as a boarder or a felon. If you decide
to come in as a boarder, you pay the warden $15 a week for the privilege
of sitting at his table and eating the luxuries of the market. You also
get a better room than at many hotels, and you have a good strong door,
with a padlock on it, which enables you to prevent the sudden and
unlooked-for entrance of the chambermaid. It is a good-sized room, with
a wonderful amount of seclusion, a plain bed, table, chairs, carpet and
so forth. After a few weeks at the seaside, at $19 per day, I think the
room in which I am writing is not unreasonable at $2.
Still, of course, we miss the sea breeze.
You can pay $50 to $100 per week here if you wish, and get your money's
worth, too. For the latter sum one may live in the bridal chamber, so to
speak, and eat the very best food all the time.
Heavy iron bars keep the mosquitoes out, and at night the house is
brilliantly lighted by incandescent lights of one-candle power each.
Neat snuffers, consisting of the thumb and forefinger polished on the
hair, are to be found in each occupied room.
Bread is served to the Freshmen and Juniors in rectangular wads. It is
such bread as convicts' tears have moistened many thousand years. In
that way it gets quite moist.
The most painful feature about life in Ludlow Street Jail is the
confinement. One can not avoid a feeling of being constantly hampered
and hemmed in.
One more disagreeable thing is the great social distinction here. The
poor man who sleeps in a stone niche near the roof, and who is
constantly elbowed and hustled out of his bed by earnest and restless
vermin with a tendency toward insomnia, is harassed by meeting in the
court-yard and corridors the paying boarders who wear good clothes, live
well, have their cigars, brandy and Kentucky Sec all the time.
The McAllister crowd here is just as exclusive as it is on the outside.
But, great Scott! what a comfort it is to a man like me, who has been
nearly killed by a cyclone, to feel the firm, secure walls and solid
time lock when he goes to bed at night! Even if I can not belong to the
400, I am almost happy.
We retire at 7:30 o'clock at night and arise at 6:30 in the morning, so
as to get an early start. A man who has five or ten years to stay in a
place like this naturally likes to get at it as soon as possible each
day, and so he gets up at 6:30.
We dress by the gaudy light of the candle, and while we do so, we
remember far away at home our wife and the little boy asleep in her
arms. They do not get up at 6:30. It is at this hour we remember the
fragrant drawer in the dresser at home where our clean shirts, and
collars and cuffs, and socks and handkerchiefs, are put every week by
our wife. We also recall as we go about our stone den, with its odor of
former corned beef, and the ghost of some bloody-handed predecessor's
snore still moaning in the walls, the picture of green grass by our own
doorway, and the apples that were just ripening, when the bench warrant
came.
The time from 6:30 to breakfast is occupied by the average, or
non-paying inmate, in doing the chamberwork and tidying up his
state-room. I do not know how others feel about it, but I dislike
chamberwork most heartily, especially when I am in jail. Nothing has
done more to keep me out of jail, I guess, than the fact that while
there I have to make up my bed and dust the piano.
Breakfast is generally table d'hote and consists of bread. A tin-cup of
coffee takes the taste of the bread out of your mouth, and then if you
have some Limburger cheese in your pocket you can with that remove the
taste of the coffee.
Dinner is served at 12 o'clock, and consists of more bread with soup.
This soup has everything in it except nourishment. The bead on this soup
is noticeable for quite a distance. It is disagreeable. Several days ago
I heard that the Mayor was in the soup, but I didn't realize it before.
I thought it was a newspaper yarn. There is everything in this soup,
from shop-worn rice up to neat's-foot oil. Once I thought I detected
cuisine in it.
The dinner menu is changed on Fridays, Sundays and Thursdays, on which
days you get the soup first and the bread afterwards. In this way the
bread is saved.
Three days in a week each man gets at dinner a potato containing a
thousand-legged worm. At 6 o'clock comes supper with toast and
responses. Bread is served at supper time, together with a cup of tea.
To those who dislike bread and never eat soup, or do not drink tea or
coffee, life at Ludlow Street Jail is indeed irksome.
I asked for kumiss and a pony of Benedictine, as my stone boudoir made
me feel rocky, but it has not yet been sent up.
Somehow, while here, I can not forget poor old man Dorrit, the Master of
the Marshalsea, and how the Debtors' Prison preyed upon his mind till he
didn't enjoy anything except to stand off and admire himself. Ludlow
Street Jail is a good deal like it in many ways, and I can see how in
time the canker of unrest and the bitter memories of those who did us
wrong but who are basking in the bright and bracing air, while we, to
meet their obligations, sacrifice our money, our health and at last our
minds, would kill hope and ambition.
In a few weeks I believe I should also get a preying on my mind. That is
about the last thing I would think of preying on, but a man must eat
something.
Before closing this brief and incomplete account as a guest at Ludlow
Street Jail I ought, in justice to my family, to say, perhaps, that I
came down this morning to see a friend of mine who is here because he
refuses to pay alimony to his recreant and morbidly sociable wife. He
says he is quite content to stay here, so long as his wife is on the
outside. He is writing a small ready-reference book on his side of the
great problem, "Is Marriage a Failure?"
With this I shake him by the hand and in a moment the big iron
storm-door clangs behind me, the big lock clicks in its hoarse, black
throat and I welcome even the air of Ludlow street so long as the blue
sky is above it.
OLD POLKA DOT'S DAUGHTER
II
I once decided to visit an acquaintance who had named his country place
"The Elms." I went partly to punish him because his invitation was so
evidently hollow and insincere.
He had "The Elms" worked on his clothes, and embossed on his stationery
and blown in his glass, and it pained him to eat his food from table
linen that didn't have "The Elms" emblazoned on it. He told me to come
and surprise him any time, and shoot in his preserves, and stay until
business compelled me to return to town again. He had no doubt heard
that I never surprise any one, and never go away from home very much,
and so thought it would be safe. Therefore I went. I went just to teach
him a valuable lesson. When I go to visit a man for a week, he is
certainly thenceforth going to be a better man, or else punishment is of
no avail and the chastening rod entirely useless in his case.
"The Elms" was a misnomer. It should have been called "The Shagbark" or
"The Doodle Bug's Lair." It was supposed to mean a wide sweep of meadow,
a vine covered lodge, a broad velvet lawn, and a carriage way, where the
drowsy locust, in the sensuous shadow of magnanimous elms, gnawed a file
at intervals through the day, while back of all this the mossy and
gray-whiskered front and corrugated brow of the venerable architectural
pile stood off and admired itself in the deep and glassy pool at its
base.
In the first place none of the yeomanry for eight miles around knew that
he called his old malarial tank "The Elms," so it was hard to find. But
when I described the looks of the lord of The Elms they wink at each
other and wagged their heads and said, "Oh, yes, we know him," also
interjecting well known one syllable words that are not euphonious
enough to print.
[Illustration: ... "_His old look of apprehensive cordiality did not
leave him until he had seen me climb on a load of hay with my trunk and
start for home_" (Page 15)]
When I got there he was down cellar sprouting potatoes, and his wife
was hanging out upon the clothes line a pair of gathered summer trousers
that evidently were made for a man who had been badly mangled in a
saw-mill.
The Elms was not even picturesque, and the preserves were out of order.
I was received with the same cordiality which you detect on the face of
any other kind of detected liar. He wanted to be regarded as a
remarkable host and landed proprietor, without being really hospitable.
I remained there at The Elms a few days, rubbing rock salt and Cayenne
pepper into the wounds of my host, and suggesting different names for
his home, such as "The Tom Tit's Eyrie," "The Weeping Willow," "The
Crook Neck Squash" and "The Muskrat's Retreat." Then I came away. His
old look of apprehensive cordiality did not leave him until he had seen
me climb on a load of hay with my trunk and start for home.
During my brief sojourn I noticed that the surrounding country was full
of people, and I presume there was a larger population of "boarders," as
we were called indiscriminately, than ever before. The number of
available points to which the victims of humidity and poor plumbing may
retreat in summer time is constantly on the increase, while, so far as I
know, all the private and public boarding places are filled to their
utmost capacity. Everywhere, the gaudy boarder in flannels and ecru
shoes looms upon the green lawn or the brown dirt road, or scales the
mountain one day and stays in bed the following week, rubbing James B.
Pond's Extract on his swollen joints.
I scaled Mount Utsa-yantha in company with others. We picked out a nice
hot day, and, selecting the most erect wall of the mountain, facing
west, we scaled it in such a way that it will not have to be done again
till new scales grow on it.
Mount Utsa-yantha is 3,365 feet above sea level, and has a brow which
reminds me of mine. It is broad, massive and bleak. The foot of the
mountain is more massive, however. From the top of the mountain one
gets, with a good glass, a view of six or seven states, I was told.
Possibly there were that many in sight, though at that season of the
year states look so much alike that it takes an expert to pick them out
readily. When states are moulting, it is all I can do to tell Vermont
from Massachusetts. On this mountain one gets a nice view and highly
exhilarating birch beer.
Albany can be distinctly seen with a glass--a field glass, I mean, not a
glass of birch beer. Some claim that the nub of a political boom may be
seen protruding from the Capitol with the nude vision. Others say they
can see the Green mountains, and as far south as the eye can reach. We
took two hours and a half for the ascent of the mountain, and came down
in about twenty minutes. We descended ungracefully--the way the Irishman
claimed that the toad walked, viz.: "git up and sit down."
Mount Utsa-yantha--I use the accepted orthography as found in the
Blackhawk dictionary--has a legend also. Many centuries ago this
beautiful valley was infested by the red brother and his bronze progeny.
Where now the red and blue blazer goes shimmering through the swaying
maples, and the girl with her other dress on and her straw colored
canvas cinch knocketh the croquet ball galley west, once there dwelt an
old chief whom we will call Polka Dot, the pride of his people. He
looked somewhat like William Maxwell Evarts, but was a heavier set man.
Places where old Polka Dot sat down and accumulated rest for himself are
still shown to city people whose faith was not overworked while young.
Old Polka Dot was a firm man, with double teeth all around, and his
prowess got into the personal columns of the papers every little while.
He had a daughter named Utsa-yantha, which means "a messenger sent
hastily for treasure," so I am told, or possibly old Polka Dot meant to
imply "one sent off for cash."
Anyhow Utsa-yantha grew to be quite comely, as Indian women go. I never
yet saw one that couldn't stop an ordinary planet by looking at it
steadily for two minutes. She dressed simply, wearing the same clothes
while tooling cross-country before breakfast that she wore at the scalp
dance the evening before. In summer time she shellacked herself and
visited the poor. Taking a little box of water colors in a shawl strap,
so that she could change her clothes whenever she felt like it, she
would go away and be gone for a fortnight at a time, visiting the ultra
fashionable people of her tribe.
Finally a white man penetrated this region. He did it by asking a
brakeman on the West Shore road how to get here and then doing
differently. In that way he had no trouble at all. He saw Utsa-yantha
and loved her almost instantly. She was skinning a muskrat at the time,
and he could not but admire her deftness and skill. From that moment he
was not able to drive her image from his heart. He sought her again and
again to tell her of his passion, but she would jump the fence and flee
like a frightened fawn with a split stick on its tail, if such a
comparison may be permitted. At last he won her, and married her quietly
in his working clothes. The nearest justice of the peace was then in
England, and so rather than wait he was married informally to
Utsa-yantha, and she went home very much impressed indeed. That fall a
little russet baby came to bless their union. The blessing was all he
had with him when he arrived.
Then the old chief Polka Dot arose in his wrath, to which he added a
pair of moose hide moccasins, and he upbraided his daughter for her
conduct. He upbraided her with a piazza pole from his wigwam. He was
very much agitated. So was the pole.
Then he cursed her for being the mother of a 1/2 breed child, and
stalking 1/4 he slew the white man by cutting open his trunk and
disarranging his most valuable possessions. He then wiped the stab
knife on his tossing mane, and grabbing his grandson by his swaddling
clothes he hurled the surprised little stranger into Lake Utsa-yantha.
By pouring another pailful of water into the lake the child was
successfully drowned.
Then the widowed and childless Utsa-yantha came forth as night settled
down upon the beautiful valley and the day died peacefully on the
mountain tops. Her eyes were red with weeping and her breath was
punctuated with sobs. Putting on a pair of high rubber boots she waded
out into the middle of the lake, where there is quite a deep place, and
drowned herself.
When the old man found the body of his daughter he was considerably
mortified. He took her to the top of the mountain and buried her there,
and ever afterward, it is said, whenever any one spoke of the death of
his daughter and her family, he would color up and change the subject.
This should teach us never to kill a son-in-law without getting his
wife's consent.
A GREAT CEREBRATOR
III
Being at large in Virginia, along in the latter part of last season, I
visited Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson, also his grave.
Monticello is about an hour's ride from Charlottesville, by diligence.
One rides over a road constructed of rip-raps and broken stone. It is
called a macadamized road, and twenty miles of it will make the pelvis
of a long-waisted man chafe against his ears. I have decided that the
site for my grave shall be at the end of a trunk line somewhere, and I
will endow a droska to carry passengers to and from said grave.
Whatever my life may have been, and however short I may have fallen in
my great struggle for a generous recognition by the American people, I
propose to place my grave within reach of all.
Monticello is reached by a circuitous route to the top of a beautiful
hill, on the crest of which rests the brick house where Mr. Jefferson
lived. You enter a lodge gate in charge of a venerable negro, to whom
you pay two bits apiece for admission. This sum goes towards repairing
the roads, according to the ticket which you get. It just goes toward
it, however; it don't quite get there, I judge, for the roads are still
appealing for aid. Perhaps the negro can tell how far it gets. Up
through a neglected thicket of Virginia shrubs and ill-kempt trees you
drive to the house. It is a house that would readily command $750, with
queer porches to it, and large, airy windows. The top of the whole hill
was graded level, or terraced, and an enormous quantity of work must
have been required to do it, but Jefferson did not care. He did not care
for fatigue. With two hundred slaves of his own, and a dowry of three
hundred more which was poured into his coffers by his marriage, Jeff did
not care how much toil it took to polish off the top of a bluff or how
much the sweat stood out on the brow of a hill.
Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. He sent it to one of
the magazines, but it was returned as not available, so he used it in
Congress and afterward got it printed in the _Record_.
I saw the chair he wrote it in. It is a plain, old-fashioned wooden
chair, with a kind of bosom-board on the right arm, upon which Jefferson
used to rest his Declaration of Independence whenever he wanted to write
it.
There is also an old gig stored in the house. In this gig Jefferson used
to ride from Monticello to Washington in a day. This is untrue, but it
goes with the place. It takes from 8:30 A. M. until noon to ride this
distance on a fast train, and in a much more direct line than the old
wagon road ran.
Mr. Jefferson was the father of the University of Virginia, one of the
most historic piles I have ever clapped eyes on. It is now under the
management of a classical janitor, who has a tinge of negro blood in his
veins, mixed with the rich Castilian blood of somebody else.
He has been at the head of the University of Virginia for over forty
years, bringing in the coals and exercising a general oversight over the
curriculum and other furniture. He is a modest man, with a tendency
toward the classical in his researches. He took us up on the roof,
showed us the outlying country, and jarred our ear-drums with the big
bell. Mr. Estes, who has general charge of Monticello--called
Montechello--said that Mr. Jefferson used to sit on his front porch with
a powerful glass, and watch the progress of the work on the University,
and if the workmen undertook to smuggle in a soft brick, Mr. Jefferson,
five or six miles away, detected it, and bounding lightly into his
saddle, he rode down there to Charlottesville, and clubbed the
bricklayers until they were glad to pull down the wall to that brick and
take it out again.
This story is what made me speak of that section a few minutes ago as an
outlying country.
The other day Charles L. Seigel told us the Confederate version of an
attack on Fort Moultrie during the early days of the war, which has
never been printed. Mr. Seigel was a German Confederate, and early in
the fight was quartered, in company with others, at the Moultrie House,
a seaside hotel, the guests having deserted the building.
Although large soft beds with curled hair mattresses were in each room,
the department issued ticks or sacks to be filled with straw for the use
of the soldiers, so that they would not forget that war was a serious
matter. Nobody used them, but they were there all the same.
Attached to the Moultrie House, and wandering about the back-yard, there
was a small orphan jackass, a sorrowful little light blue mammal, with a
tinge of bitter melancholy in his voice. He used to dwell on the past a
good deal, and at night he would refer to it in tones that were choked
with emotion.
The boys caught him one evening as the gloaming began to arrange itself,
and threw him down on the green grass. They next pulled a straw bed over
his head, and inserted him in it completely, cutting holes for his
legs. Then they tied a string of sleighbells to his tail, and hit him a
smart, stinging blow with a black snake.
[Illustration: _Then they tied a string of sleighbells to his tail, and
hit him a smart, stinging blow with a black snake_ (Page 27)]
Probably that was what suggested to him the idea of strolling down the
beach, past the sentry, and on toward the fort. The darkness of the
night, the rattle of hoofs, the clash of the bells, the quick challenge
of the guard, the failure to give the countersign, the sharp volley of
the sentinels, and the wild cry, "to arms," followed in rapid
succession. The tocsin sounded, also the slogan. The culverin, ukase,
and door-tender were all fired. Huge beacons of fat pine were lighted
along the beach. The whole slumbering host sprang to arms, and the crack
of the musket was heard through the intense darkness.
In the morning the enemy was found intrenched in a mud-hole, south of
the fort, with his clean new straw tick spattered with clay, and a
wildly disheveled tail.
On board the Richmond train not long ago a man lost his hat as we pulled
out of Petersburg, and it fell by the side of the track. The train was
just moving slowly away from the station, so he had a chance to jump off
and run back after it. He got the hat, but not till we had placed seven
or eight miles between us and him. We could not help feeling sorry for
him, because very likely his hat had an embroidered hat band in it,
presented by one dearer to him than life itself, and so we worked up
quite a feeling for him, though of course he was very foolish to lose
his train just for a hat, even if it did have the needle-work of his
heart's idol in it.
Later I was surprised to see the same man in Columbia, South Carolina,
and he then told me this sad story:
"I started out a month ago to take a little trip of a few weeks, and the
first day was very, very happily spent in scrutinizing nature and
scanning the faces of those I saw. On the second day out, I ran across a
young man whom I had known slightly before, and who is engaged in the
business of being a companionable fellow and the life of the party. That
is about all the business he has. He knows a great many people, and his
circle of acquaintances is getting larger all the time. He is proud of
the enormous quantity of friendship he has acquired. He says he can't
get on a train or visit any town in the Union that he doesn't find a
friend.
"He is full of stories and witticisms, and explains the plays to theater
parties. He has seen a great deal of life and is a keen critic. He would
have enjoyed criticising the Apostle Paul and his elocutionary style if
he had been one of the Ephesians. He would have criticised Paul's
gestures, and said, 'Paul, I like your Epistles a heap better than I do
your appearance on the platform. You express yourself well enough with
your pen, but when you spoke for the Ephesian Y. M. C. A., we were
disappointed in you and we lost money on you.'
"Well, he joined me, and finding out where I was going, he decided to go
also. He went along to explain things to me, and talk to me when I
wanted to sleep or read the newspaper. He introduced me to large numbers
of people whom I did not want to meet, took me to see things I didn't
want to see, read things to me that I didn't want to hear, and
introduced to me people who didn't want to meet me. He multiplied misery
by throwing uncongenial people together and then said: 'Wasn't it lucky
that I could go along with you and make it pleasant for you?'
"Everywhere he met more new people with whom he had an acquaintance. He
shook hands with them, and called them by their first names, and felt in
their pockets for cigars. He was just bubbling over with mirth, and
laughed all the time, being so offensively joyous, in fact, that when he
went into a car, he attracted general attention, which suited him
first-rate. He regarded himself as a universal favorite and all-round
sunbeam.
"When we got to Washington, he took me up to see the President. He knew
the President well--claimed to know lots of things about the President
that made him more or less feared by the administration. He was
acquainted with a thousand little vices of all our public men, which
virtually placed them in his power. He knew how the President conducted
himself at home, and was 'on to everything' in public life.
"Well, he shook hands with the President, and introduced me. I could see
that the President was thinking about something else, though, and so I
came away without really feeling that I knew him very well.
"Then we visited the departments, and I can see now that I hurt myself
by being towed around by this man. He was so free, and so joyous, and so
bubbling, that wherever we went I could hear the key grate in the lock
after we passed out of the door.
"He started south with me. He was going to show me all the
battle-fields, and introduce me into society. I bought some strychnine
in Washington, and put it in his buckwheat cakes; but they got cold, and
he sent them back. I did not know what to do, and was almost wild, for I
was traveling entirely for pleasure, and not especially for his pleasure
either.
"At Petersburg I was told that the train going the other way would meet
us. As we started out, I dropped my hat from the window while looking
at something. It was a desperate move, but I did it. Then I jumped off
the train, and went back after it. As soon as I got around the curve I
ran for Petersburg, where I took the other train. I presume you all felt
sorry for me, but if you'd seen me fold myself in a long, passionate
embrace after I had climbed on the other train, you would have changed
your minds."
He then passed gently from my sight.
HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD
IV
There are a great many pleasures to which we may treat ourselves very
economically if we go at it right. In this way we can, at a slight
expense, have those comforts, and even luxuries, for which we should
otherwise pay a great price.
Costly rugs and carpets, though beautiful and rich in appearance,
involve such an outlay of money that many hesitate about buying them;
but a very tasty method of treating floors inexpensively consists in
staining the edge for several feet in width, leaving the center of the
room to be covered by a large rug. Staining for the floor maybe easily
made, by boiling maple bark, twenty parts; pokeberry juice,
twenty-five parts; hazel brush, thirty parts, and sour milk, twenty-five
parts, until it becomes about the consistency of the theory of infant
damnation. Let it stand a few weeks, until the rich flavor has died
down, so that you can look at it for quite a while without nausea; then
add vinegar and copperas to suit the taste, and apply by means of a
whisk broom. When dry, help yourself to some more of it. This gives the
floor a rich pauper's coffin shade, over which shellac or cod liver oil
should be applied.
Rugs may be made of coffee sacking or Turkish gunny-rest sacks, inlaid
with rich designs in red yarn, and a handsome fringe can be added by
raveling the edges.
A beautiful receptacle for soiled collars and cuffs may be made by
putting a cardboard bottom in a discarded and shattered coal scuttle,
gilding the whole and tying a pale blue ribbon on the bail.
A cheap and very handsome easy-chair can be constructed by sawing into a
flour barrel and removing less than half the length of staves for
one-third the distance around, then fasten inside a canvas or duck seat,
below which the barrel is filled with bran.
A neat little mackerel tub makes a most appropriate foot-stool for this
chair, and looks so unconventional and rustic that it wins every one at
once. Such a chair should also have a limited number of tidies on its
surface. Otherwise it might give too much satisfaction. A good style of
inexpensive tidy is made by poking holes in some heavy, strong goods,
and then darning up these holes with something else. The darned tidy
holds its place better, I think, and is more frequently worn away on the
back of the last guest than any other.
This list might be prolonged almost indefinitely, and I should be glad
to write my own experience in the line of experiment, if it were not for
the danger of appearing egotistical. For instance, I once economized in
the matter of paper-hanging, deciding that I would save the
paper-hanger's bill and put the money into preferred trotting stock.
So I read a recipe in a household hint, which went on to state how one
should make and apply paste to wall paper, how to begin, how to apply
the paper, and all that. The paste was made by uniting flour, water and
glue in such a way as to secure the paper to the wall and yet leave it
smooth, according to the recipe. First the walls had to be "sized,"
however.
I took a tape-measure and sized the walls.
Next I began to prepare the paste and cook some in a large milk-pan. It
looked very repulsive indeed, but it looked so much better than it
smelled, that I did not mind. Then I put about five cents' worth of it
on one roll of paper, and got up on a chair to begin. My idea was to
apply it to the wall mostly, but the chair tipped, and so I papered the
piano and my wife on the way down. My wife gasped for breath, but soon
tore a hole through the paper so she could breathe, and then she laughed
at me. That is the reason I took another end of the paper and repapered
her face. I can not bear to have any one laugh at me when I am myself
unhappy.
It was good paste, if you merely desired to disfigure a piano or a wife,
but otherwise it would not stick at all. I did not like it. I was mad
about it. But my wife seemed quite stuck on it. She hasn't got it all
out of her hair yet.
[Illustration: _My idea was to apply it to the wall mostly, but the
chair tipped, and so I papered the piano and my wife on the way down_]
(Page 36)
Then a man dropped in to see me about some money that I had hoped to pay
him that morning, and he said the paste needed more glue and a quart of
molasses. I put in some more glue and the last drop of molasses we had
in the house. It made a mass which looked like unbaked ginger snaps, and
smelled as I imagine the deluge did at low tide.
I next proceeded to paper the room. Sometimes the paper would adhere,
and then again it would refrain from adhering. When I got around the
room I had gained ground so fast at the top and lost so much time at the
bottom of the walls, that I had to put in a wedge of paper two feet wide
at the bottom, and tapering to a point at the top, in order to cover the
space. This gave the room the appearance of having been toyed with by an
impatient cyclone, or an air of inebriety not in keeping with my poor
but honest character.
I went to bed very weary, and abraded in places. I had paste in my
pockets, and bronze up my nose. In the night I could hear the paper
crack. Just as I would get almost to sleep, it would pop. That was
because the paper was contracting and trying to bring the dimensions of
the room I own to fit it.
In the morning the room had shrunken so that the carpet did not fit, and
the paper hung in large molasses-covered welts on the walls. It looked
real grotesque. I got a paper-hanger to come and look at it. He did so.
"And what would you advise me to do with it, sir?" I asked, with a
degree of deference which I had never before shown to a paper-hanger.
"Well, I can hardly say at first. It is a very bad case. You see, the
glue and stuff have made the paper and wrinkles so hard now, that it
would cost a great deal to blast it off. Do you own the house?"
"Yes, sir. That is, I have paid one-half the purchase-price, and there
is a mortgage for the balance."
"Oh. Well, then you are all right," said the paper-hanger, with a gleam
of hope in his eye. "Let it go on the mortgage."
Then I had to economize again, so I next resorted to the home method of
administering the Turkish bath. You can get a Turkish bath in that way
at a cost of four and one-half to five cents, which is fully as good as
one that will cost you a dollar or more in some places.
I read the directions in a paper. There are two methods of administering
the low-price Turkish bath at home. One consists in placing the person
to be treated in a cane-seat chair, and then putting a pan of hot water
beneath this chair. Ever and anon a hot stone or hot flat-iron is
dropped into the water by means of tongs, and thus the water is kept
boiling, the steam rising in thick masses about the person in the chair,
who is carefully concealed in a large blanket. Every time a hot
flat-iron or stone is dropped into the pan it spatters the boiling water
on the bare limbs of the person who is being operated upon, and if you
are living in the same country with him, you will hear him loudly
wrecking his chances beyond the grave by stating things that are really
wrong.
The other method, and the one I adopted, is better than this. You apply
the heat by means of a spirit lamp, and no one, to look at a little
fifteen cent spirit lamp, would believe that it had so much heat in it
till he has had one under him as he sits in a wicker chair.
A wicker chair does not interfere with the lamp at all, or cut off the
heat, and one is so swathed in blankets and rubber overcoats that he
can't help himself.
I seated myself in that way, and then the torch was applied. Did the
reader ever get out of a bath and sit down on a wire brush in order to
put on his shoes, and feel a sort of startled thrill pervade his whole
being? Well, that is good enough as far as it goes, but it does not
really count as a sensation, when you have been through the Home
Treatment Turkish Bath.
My wife was in another room reading a new book in which she was greatly
interested. While she was thus storing her mind with information, she
thought she smelled something burning. She went all around over the
house trying to find out what it was. Finally she found out.
It was her husband. I called to her, of course, but she wanted me to
wait until she had discovered what was on fire. I tried to tell her to
come and search my neighborhood, but I presume I did not make myself
understood, because I was excited, and my personal epidermis was being
singed off in a way that may seem funny to others, but was not so to one
who had to pass through it.
It bored me quite a deal. Once the wicker seat of the chair caught fire.
"Oh, heavens," I cried, with a sudden pang of horror, "am I to be thus
devoured by the fire fiend? And is there no one to help? Help! Help!
Help!"
I also made use of other expressions but they did not add to the sense
of the above.
I perspired very much, indeed, and so the bath was, in a measure, a
success, but oh, what doth it profit a man to gain a bath if he lose his
own soul?
A JOURNEY WESTWARD
V
I once visited my old haunts in Colorado and Wyoming after about seven
years of absence. I also went to Utah, where spring had come in the rich
valley of the Jordan and the glossy blackbird, with wing of flame,
scooted gaily from bough to bough, deftly declaring his affections right
and left, and acquiring more wives than he could support, then clearing
his record by claiming to have had a revelation which made it all right.
One could not shut his eyes to the fact that there was great real estate
activity in the West that spring. It took the place of mining and stock,
I judge, and everywhere you heard and saw men with their heads together
plotting against the poor rich man. In Salt Lake I saw the sign, "Drugs
and Real Estate."
I presume it meant medicine and a small residence lot in the cemetery.
In early days in Denver, Henry C. Brown, then in the full flush and
vigor of manhood, opened negotiations with the agent of the Atchison
stage line for a ticket back to Atchison, as he was heart-broken and
homesick. He owned a quarter-section of land, with a heavy growth of
prairie dogs on it, and he had almost persuaded the agent to swap him a
ticket for this sage brush conservatory, when the ticket seller backed
gently out of the trade. Mr. Brown then sat him down on the sidewalk and
cried bitterly.
I just tell this to show how easily some men weep. Atchison is at
present so dead that a good cowboy, with an able mule, could tie his
rope to its tail, and, putting his spurs to the mule, jerk loose the
entire pelt at any time, while Brown's addition to Denver is worth
anywhere from one and a half to two millions of dollars. When Mr. Brown
weeps now it is because his food is too rich and gives him the gout. He
sold prairie dogs enough to fence the land in so that it could not blow
into Cherry Creek vale, and then he set to work earnestly to wait for
the property to advance. Finding that he could not sell the property at
any price, he, with great foresight, concluded to retain it. Some men,
with no special ability in other directions, have the greatest genius
for doing such things, while others, with superior talent in other ways,
do not make money in this way.
A report once got around that I had made a misguess on some property.
This is partly true, only it was my wife who speculated. She had never
speculated much before, though she had tried other open air amusements.
So she swapped a cottage and lots in Hudson, Wisconsin, for city lots in
Minneapolis, employing a man named Flinton Pansley to work up the trade,
look into the title, and do the square thing for her. He was a real good
man, with heavenly aspirations and a true sorrow in his heart for the
prevalence of sin. Still this sorrow did not break in on his business.
Well, the business was done by correspondence and Mr. Pansley only
charged a reasonable amount, she giving him her new carriage to
remunerate him for his brain fag. What the other man paid him for
disposing of the lots I do not know. I was away at the time, and having
no insect powder with which to take his life I regretfully spared him to
his Bible class.
[Illustration: _Frogs build their nests there in the spring and rear
their young, but people never go there_ (Page 45)]
I did send a man over the lots, however, when I returned. They were not
really in the city of Minneapolis, that is, they were not near enough to
worry anybody by the tumult of the town. In fact, they were in another
county. You may think I am untruthful about this, but the lots are
there, if you have any curiosity to see them. They are not where they
were represented to be, however, and the machine shops and gas works and
court-house are quite a long distance away.
You could cut some hay on these lots, but not enough to pay the interest
on the mortgage. Frogs build their nests there in the spring and rear
their young, but people never go there. Two years ago Senator Washburn
killed a bear on one of these lots, but that is all they have ever
produced, except a slight coldness on our part toward Mr. Pansley. He
says he likes the carriage real well, and anything he can do for us in
the future in dickering for city property will be done with an alacrity
that would almost make one's head swim. I must add that I have
permission to use this information, as the victim seems to think there
is something kind of amusing about it. Some people think a thing funny
which others can hardly get any amusement out of. What I wonder at is
that Pansley did not ask for the team when he got the carriage.
Possibly he did not like the team.
I just learned recently that he and the Benders used to be very thick in
an early day, but after awhile the Benders said they guessed they would
have to be excused. Even the Benders had to draw the line somewhere.
Later I bought property in Salt Lake. Not a heavy venture, you
understand. Just the box-office receipts for one evening. I saw it
stated in the papers at $10,000. Anyway, I will let that go. That is
near enough. When I see anything in the papers I ask no more questions.
I do not think it is right. Patti and I have both made it a rule to put
in at least one evening as an investment where we happen to be. We are
almost sure to do well out of it, and we also get better notices in the
papers.
Patti is not looking so well as she did when my father took me to see
her in the prime of her life. Though getting quite plain, it costs as
much to see her as ever it did. Her voice has a metallic, or rather
bi-metallic, ring to it nowadays, and she misses it by not working in
more topical songs and bright Italian gags.
I asked her about an old singer who used to be with her. She said: "He
was remova to ze ocean, where he keepa ze lighthouse. He learn to
himself how to manage ze lighthouse one seasong; then he try by himself
to star."