gravitating in the direction of the barn, and soon she returned,
bringing with her that ancient delinquent, who looked like a lost sheep
indeed and a truly unreconciled one.
"Now the first thing," said Grandma, looking her forlorn captive over;
"is boots. Go and get on yer meetin' gaiters, pa."
The old gentleman, having dutifully invested himself, with those sacred
relics, came pathetically limping into the room.
"I declare, ma," said he; "somehow these things--phew! Somehow they
pinch my feet dreadfully. I don't know what it is,--phew! They're
dreadful oncomf'table things somehow."
"Since I've known ye, pa," solemnly ejaculated Grandma Keeler, "you've
never had a pair o' meetin' boots that set easy on yer feet. You'd ought
to get boots big enough for ye, pa," she continued, looking down
disapprovingly on the old gentleman's pedal extremities, which resembled
two small scows at anchor in black cloth encasements: "and not be so
proud as to go to pinchin' yer feet into gaiters a number o' sizes too
small for ye."
"They're number tens, I tell ye!" roared Grandpa nettled outrageously by
this cutting taunt.
"Wall, thar', now, pa," said Grandma, soothingly; "if I had sech feet as
that, I wouldn't go to spreadin' it all over town, if I was you--but
it's time we stopped bickerin' now, husband, and got ready for meetin';
so set down and let me wash yer head."
"I've washed once this mornin'. It's clean enough," Grandpa protested,
but in vain. He was planted in a chair, and Grandma Keeler, with rag and
soap and a basin of water, attacked the old gentleman vigorously, much
as I have seen cruel mothers wash the faces of their earth-begrimed
infants. He only gave expression to such groans as:
"Thar', ma! don't tear my ears to pieces! Come, ma! you've got my eyes
so full o' soap now, ma, that I can't see nothin'. Phew, Lordy! ain't ye
most through with this, ma?"
Then came the dyeing process, which Grandma Keeler assured me, aside,
made Grandpa "look like a man o' thirty;" but to me, after it he looked
neither old nor young, human nor inhuman, nor like anything that I had
ever seen before under the sun.
"There's the lotion, the potion, the dye-er, and the setter," said
Grandma, pointing to four bottles on the table. "Now whar's the
directions, Madeline?"
These having been produced from between the leaves of the family Bible,
Madeline read, while Grandma made a vigorous practical application of
the various mixtures.
"This admirable lotion"--in soft ecstatic tones Madeline rehearsed the
flowery language of the recipe--"though not so instantaneously startling
in its effect as our inestimable dyer and setter, yet forms a most
essential part of the whole process, opening, as it does, the dry and
lifeless pores of the scalp, imparting to them new life and beauty, and
rendering them more easily susceptible to the applications which follow.
But we must go deeper than this; a tone must be given to the whole
system by means of the cleansing and rejuvenating of the very centre of
our beings, and, for this purpose, we have prepared our wonderful
potion." Here Grandpa, with a wry face, was made to swallow a spoonful
of the mixture. "Our unparalleled dyer," Madeline continued, "restores
black hair to a more than original gloss and brilliancy, and gives to
the faded golden tress the sunny flashes of youth." Grandpa was dyed.
"Our world-renowned setter completes and perfects the whole process by
adding tone and permanency to the efficacious qualities of the lotion,
potion, and dyer, etc.;" while on Grandpa's head the unutterable dye was
set.
"Now, read teacher some of the testimonials, daughter," said Grandma
Keeler, whose face was one broad, generous illustration of that rare and
peculiar virtue called faith.
So Madeline continued: "Mrs. Hiram Briggs, of North Dedham, writes: 'I
was terribly afflicted with baldness, so that, for months, I was little
more than an outcast from society, and an object of pity to my most
familiar friends. I tried every remedy in vain. At length I heard of
your wonderful restorative. After a week's application, my hair had
already begun to grow in what seemed the most miraculous manner. At the
end of ten months it had assumed such length and proportions as to be a
most luxurious burden, and where I had before been regarded with pity
and aversion, I became the envied and admired of all beholders.'"
"Just think!" said Grandma Keeler, with rapturous sympathy and
gratitude, "how that poor creetur must a' felt!"
"'Orion Spaulding, of Weedsville, Vermont,'" Madeline went on--but,
here, I had to beg to be excused, and went to my room to get ready for
the Sunday-school.
When I came down again, Grandpa Keeler was seated, completely arrayed in
his best clothes, opposite Grandma, who held the big family Bible in her
lap, and a Sunday-school question book in one hand.
"Now, pa," said she; "what tribe was it in sacred writ that wore
bunnits?"
I was compelled to infer from the tone of Grandpa Keeler's answer that
his temper had not undergone a mollifying process during my absence.
"Come, ma," said he; "how much longer ye goin' to pester me in this
way?"
"Why, pa," Grandma rejoined calmly; "until you git a proper
understandin' of it. What tribe was it in sacred writ that wore
bunnits?"
"Lordy!" exclaimed the old man. "How d'ye suppose I know! They must 'a'
been a tarnal old womanish lookin' set anyway."
"The tribe o' Judah, pa," said Grandma, gravely. "Now, how good it is,
husband, to have your understandin' all freshened up on the scripters!"
"Come, come, ma!" said Grandpa, rising nervously. "It's time we was
startin'. When I make up my mind to go anywhere I always want to git
there in time. If I was goin' to the Old Harry, I should want to git
there in time."
"It's my consarn that we shall git thar' before time, some on us," said
Grandma, with sad meaning, "unless we larn to use more respec'ful
language."
I shall never forget how we set off for church that Sabbath morning, way
out at one of the sunny back doors of the Ark: for there was Madeline's
little cottage that fronted the highway, or lane, and then there was a
long backward extension of the Ark, only one story in height. This
belonged peculiarly to Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. It contained the
"parlor" and three "keepin'" rooms opening one into the other, all of
the same size and general bare and gloomy appearance, all possessing the
same sacredly preserved atmosphere, through which we passed with
becoming silence and solemnity into the "end" room, the sunny kitchen
where Grandma and Grandpa kept house by themselves in the summer time,
and there at the door, her very yellow coat reflecting the rays of the
sun, stood Fanny, presenting about as much appearance of life and
animation as a pensive summer squash.
The carriage, I thought, was a fac-simile of the one in which I had been
brought from West Wallen on the night of my arrival. One of the most
striking peculiarities of this sort of vehicle was the width at which
the wheels were set apart. The body seemed comparatively narrow. It was
very long, and covered with white canvas. It had neither windows nor
doors, but just the one guarded opening in front. There were no steps
leading to this, and, indeed, a variety of obstacles before it. And the
way Grandma effected an entrance was to put a chair on a mound of earth,
and a cricket on top of the chair, and thus, having climbed up to
Fanny's reposeful back, she slipped passively down, feet foremost, to
the whiffle-tree; from thence she easily gained the plane of the
carriage floor.
Grandpa and I took a less circuitous, though, perhaps, not less
difficult route.
I sat with Grandpa on the "front" seat--it may be remarked that the
"front" seat was very much front, and the "back" seat very much
back--there was a kind of wooden shelf built outside as a resting-place
for the feet, so that while our heads were under cover, our feet were
out, utterly exposed to the weather, and we must either lay them on the
shelf or let them hang off into space.
Madeline and the children stood at the door to see us off.
"All aboard! ship ballasted! wind fa'r! go ahead thar', Fanny!" shouted
Grandpa, who seemed quite restored in spirits, and held the reins and
wielded the whip with a masterful air.
He spun sea-yarns, too, all the way--marvelous ones, and Grandma's
reproving voice was mellowed by the distance, and so confusedly mingled
with the rumbling of the wheels, that it seemed hardly to reach him at
all. Not that Grandma looked discomfited on this account, or in bad
humor. On the contrary, as she sat back there in the ghostly shadows,
with her hands folded, and her hair combed out in resplendent waves on
either side of her head, she appeared conscious that every word she
uttered was taking root in some obdurate heart. She was, in every
respect, the picture of good-will and contentment.
But the face under Grandpa's antiquated beaver began to give me a fresh
shock every time I looked up at him, for the light and the air were
rapidly turning his rejuvenated locks and his poor, thin fringe of
whiskers to an unnatural greenish tint, while his bushy eyebrows,
untouched by the hand of art, shone as white as ever.
In spite of the old sea-captain's entertaining stories, it seemed,
indeed, "a long jaunt" to West Wallen.
To say that Fanny was a slow horse would be but a feeble expression of
the truth.
A persevering "click! click! click!" began to arise from Grandma's
quarter. This annoyed Grandpa exceedingly.
"Shet up, ma!" he was moved to exclaim at last. "I'm steerin' this
craft."
"Click! click! click!" came perseveringly from behind.
"Dum it, ma! thar', ma!" cried Grandpa, exasperated beyond measure. "How
is this hoss goin' to hear anything that I say ef you keep up such a
tarnal cacklin'?"
Just as we were coming out of the thickest part of the woods, about a
mile beyond Wallencamp, we discovered a man walking in the distance. It
was the only human being we had seen since we started.
"Hullo, there's Lovell!" exclaimed Grandpa. "I was wonderin' why we
hadn't overtook him before. We gin'ally take him in on the road. Yis,
yis; that's Lovell, ain't it, teacher?"
I put up my glasses, helplessly.
"I'm sure," I said, "I can't tell, positively. I have seen Mr. Barlow
but once, and at that distance I shouldn't know my own father."
"Must be Lovell," said Grandpa. "Yis, I know him! Hullo, thar'! Ship
ahoy! ship ahoy!"
Grandpa's voice suggested something of the fire and vigor it must have
had when it rang out across the foam of waves and pierced the tempest's
roar.
The man turned and looked at us, and then went on again.
"He don't seem to recognize us," said Grandma.
"Ship a-hoy! Ship a-hoy!" shouted Grandpa.
The man turned and looked at us again, and this time he stopped and kept
on looking.
When we got up to him we saw that it wasn't Lovell Barlow at all, but a
stranger of trampish appearance, drunk and fiery, and fixed in an
aggressive attitude.
I was naturally terrified. What if he should attack us in that lonely
spot! Grandpa was so old! And moreover, Grandpa was so taken aback to
find that it wasn't Lovell that he began some blunt and stammering
expression of surprise, which only served to increase the stranger's
ire. Grandma, imperturbable soul! who never failed to come to the rescue
even in the most desperate emergencies--Grandma climbed over to the
front, thrust out her benign head, and said in that deep, calm voice of
hers:
"We're a goin' to the house of God, brother; won't you git in and go
too?"
"No!" our brother replied, doubling up his fists and shaking them
menacingly in our faces: "I won't go to no house o' God. What d'ye mean
by overhauling me on the road, and askin' me to git into yer d--d old
traveling lunatic asylum?"
"Drive on, pa," said Grandma, coldly. "He ain't in no condition to be
labored with now. Drive on kind o' quick!"
"Kind o' quick" we could not go, but Fanny was made to do her best, and
we did not pause to look behind.
When we got to the church Sunday-school had already begun. There was
Lovell Barlow looking preternaturally stiff in his best clothes, sitting
with a class of young men. He saw us when we came in, and gave me a look
of deep meaning. It was the same expression--as though there was some
solemn, mutual understanding between us--which he had worn on that night
when he gave me his picture.
"There's plenty of young folks' classes," said Grandma; "but seein' as
we're late maybe you'd jest as soon go right along in with us."
I said that I should like that best, so I went into the "old folks'"
class with Grandma and Grandpa Keeler.
There were three pews of old people in front of us, and the teacher, who
certainly seemed to me the oldest person I had ever seen, sat in an
otherwise vacant pew in front of all, so that, his voice being very thin
and querulous, we could hear very little that he said, although we were
edified in some faint sense by his pious manner of shaking his head and
rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.
The church was a square wooden edifice, of medium size, and contained
three stoves all burning brightly. Against this, and the drowsy effect
of their long drive in the sun and wind, my two companions proved
powerless to struggle.
Grandpa looked furtively up at Grandma, then endeavored to put on as a
sort of apology for what he felt was inevitably coming, a sanctimonious
expression which was most unnatural to him, and which soon faded away as
the sweet unconsciousness of slumber overspread his features. His head
fell back helplessly, his mouth opened wide. He snored, but not very
loudly. I looked at Grandma, wondering why her vigilance had failed on
this occasion, and lo! her head was falling peacefully from side to
side. She was fast asleep, too. She woke up first, however, and then
Grandpa was speedily and adroitly aroused by some means, I think it was
a pin; and Grandma fed him with bits of unsweetened flag-root, which he
munched penitently, though evidently without relish, until he dropped
off to sleep again, and she dropped off to sleep again, and so they
continued.
But it always happened that Grandma woke up first. And whereas Grandpa,
when the avenging pin pierced his shins, recovered himself with a start
and an air of guilty confusion, Grandma opened her eyes at regular
intervals, with the utmost calm and placidity, as though she had merely
been closing them to engage in a few moments of silent prayer.
VIVE LA BAGATELLE
BY GELETT BURGESS
Sing a song of foolishness, laughing stocks and cranks!
The more there are the merrier; come join the ranks!
Life is dry and stupid; whoop her up a bit!
Donkeys live in clover; bray and throw a fit!
Take yourself in earnest, never stop to think,
Strut and swagger boldly, dress in red and pink;
Prate of stuff and nonsense, get yourself abused;
Some one's got to play the fool to keep the crowd amused!
Bully for the idiot! Bully for the guy!
You could be a prig yourself, if you would only try!
Altruistic asses keep the fun alive;
Clowns are growing scarcer; hurry and arrive!
I seen a crazy critic a-writin' of a screed;
"Tendencies" and "Unities"--Maeterlinck indeed!
He wore a paper collar, and his tie was up behind;
If that's the test of Culture, then I'm glad I'm not refined!
Let me laugh at you, then you can laugh at me;
Then we'll josh together everything we see;
Every one's a nincompoop to another's view;
Laughter makes the sun shine! Roop-de-doodle-doo!
THE TWO BROTHERS
BY CAROLYN WELLS
Once on a Time there were Two Brothers who Set Out to make their Way In
The World.
One was of a Roving Disposition, and no sooner had he settled Down to
Live in One Place than he would Gather Up all his Goods and Chattels and
Move to another Place. From here again he would Depart and make him a
Fresh Home, and so on until he Became an Old Man and had gained neither
Fortune nor Friends.
The Other, being Disinclined to Change or Diversity of Scene, remained
all his Life in One Place. He therefore Became Narrow-Minded and
Provincial, and gained None of the Culture and Liberality of Nature
which comes from Contact with various Scenes of Life.
MORALS:
This Fable teaches that a Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss, and a Setting
Hen Never Grows Fat.
A LETTER
FROM PETROLEUM V. NASBY
I AM REQUESTED TO ACT AS CHAPLAIN OF THE CLEVELAND CONVENTION.--THAT
BEAUTIFUL CITY VISITED FOR THAT PURPOSE.
POST OFFIS, CONFEDRIT X ROADS,
(wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky),
September 20, 1866.
I wuz sent for to come to Washington, from my comfortable quarters at
the Post Offis, to attend the convenshun uv sich soldiers and sailors uv
the United States ez bleeve in a Union uv 36 States, and who hev sworn
allejinse to a flag with 36 stars onto it, at Cleveland. My esteemed and
life-long friend and co-laborer, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, wuz to hev bin
the chaplin uv the convenshun, but he failed us, and it wuz decided in a
Cabinet meetin that I shood take his place. I didn't see the necessity
uv hevin a chaplin at every little convenshun uv our party, and so
stated; but Seward remarked, with a groan, that ef ever there wuz a
party, since parties wuz invented, wich needed prayin for, ours wuz that
party. "And, Parson," sed he, glancin' at a list uv delegates, "ef yoo
hev any agonizin petitions, any prayers uv extra fervency, offer em up
for these fellers. Ef there is any efficacy in prayer, it's my honest,
unbiased opinion that there never wuz in the history uv the world, nor
never will be agin, sich a magnificent chance to make it manifest. Try
yoor-self particularly on Custer; tho', after all," continyood he, in a
musin, abstracted sort uv a way, wich he's fallen into lately, "the
fellow is sich a triflin bein, that he reely kin hardly be held
'sponsible for what he's doin; and the balance uv em, good Hevens!
they'r mostly druv to it by hunger." And the Secretary maundered on
suthin about "sixty days" and "ninety days," payin no more attention to
the rest uv us than ez ef we wuzn't there at all.
So, receevin transportashen and suffishent money from the secret service
fund for expenses, I departed for Cleveland, and after a tejus trip
thro' an Ablishn country, I arrived there. My thots were gloomy beyond
expression. I hed recently gone through this same country ez chaplin to
the Presidential tour, and every stashen hed its pecooliar onpleasant
remembrances. Here wuz where the cheers for Grant were vociferous, with
nary a snort for His Eggslency; there wuz where the peasantry laft in
his face when he went thro' with the regler ritooal uv presentin the
constitooshn and the flag with 36 stars onto it to a deestrick assessor;
there wuz--but why recount my sufferins? Why harrow up the public bosom,
or lasserate the public mind? Suffice to say, I endoored it; suffice to
say that I hed strength left to ride up Bank street, in Cleveland, the
seen uv the most awful insult the Eggsecutive ever receeved.
The evenin I arrived, the delegates, sich ez wuz on hand, held a
informal meetin to arrange matters so ez they wood work smooth when the
crowd finally got together. Genral Wool wuz ez gay and frisky ez though
he reely belonged to the last ginerashn. There wuz Custar, uv Michigan,
with his hair freshly oiled and curled, and busslin about ez though he
hed cheated hisself into the beleef that he reely amounted to suthin;
and there wuz seventy-eight other men, who hed distinguished theirselves
in the late war, but who hed never got their deserts, ceptin by brevet,
owin to the fact that the Administrashn wuz Ablishn, which they wuzn't.
They were, in a pekuniary pint uv view, suthin the worse for wear, tho'
why that shood hev bin the case I coodent see (they hevin bin, to an
alarmin extent, quarter-masters and commissaries, and in the recrootin
service), til I notist the prevailin color uv their noses, and heerd one
uv em ask his neighbor ef Cleveland wuz blest with a faro bank! Then I
knowd all about it.
There wuz another pekooliarity about it which for a time amoozed me.
Them ez wuz present wuz divided into 2 classes--those ez hed bin
recently appinted to posishens, and them ez expected to be shortly. I
notist on the countenances uv the first class a look uv releef, sich ez
I hev seen in factories Saturday nite, after the hands wuz paid off for
a hard week's work; and on the other class the most wolfish, hungry,
fierce expression I hev ever witnessed. Likewise, I notist that the
latter set uv patriots talked more hefty uv the necessity uv sustainin
the policy uv our firm and noble President, and damned the Ablishunists
with more emphasis and fervency than the others.
One enthoosiastic individual, who hed bin quartermaster two years, and
hed bin allowed to resign "jest after the battle, mother," wich, hevin
his papers all destroyed, made settlin with the government a easy
matter, wuz so feroshus that I felt called upon to check him. "Gently,
my frend," sed I, "gently! I hev bin thro' this thing; I hev my
commission. It broke out on me jest ez it hez on yoo; but yoo won't git
yoor Assessorship a minit sooner for it."
"It ain't a Assessorship I want," sez he. "I hev devoted myself to the
task uv bindin up the wounds uv my beloved country--"
"Did you stop anybody very much from inflictin them sed wounds?"
murmured I.
"An ef I accept the Post Orfis in my native village,--which I hev bin
solissited so strongly to take that I hev finally yielded,--I do it only
that I may devote my few remainin energies wholly to the great cause uv
restorin the 36 States to their normal posishens under the flag with 36
stars onto it, in spite uv the Joodis Iskariots wich, ef I am whom, wat
is the Savior, and--and where is--"
Perseevin that the unfortunate man hed got into the middle uv a
quotashen from the speech uv our noble and patriotic President, and
knowin his intellek wuzn't hefty enough to git it off jist as it wuz
originally delivered, I took him by the throat, and shet off the flood
uv his elokence.
"Be quiet, yoo idiot!" remarked I, soothingly, to him. "Yoo'll git your
apintment, becoz, for the fust time in the history uv this or any other
Republic, there's a market for jist sich men ez yoo; but all this
blather won't fetch it a minit sooner."
"Good Lord!" tho't I, ez I turned away, "wat a President A.J. is, to hev
to buy up _sich_ cattle! Wat a postmaster he must be, whose gineral
cussedness turns _my_ stummick!"
It wuz deemed necessary to see uv wat we wuz compozed; whatever Kernel
K----, who is now Collector uv Revenue in Illinoy, asked ef there wuz
ary man in the room who hed bin a prizner doorin the late fratricidle
struggle. A gentleman uv, perhaps, thirty aroze, and sed he wuz. He hed
bin taken three times, and wuz, altogether, 18 months in doorance vile
in three diffrent prizns.
Custar fell on his neck, and asked him, aggitatidly, ef he wuz
shoor--quite shoor, after sufferin all that, that he supported the
policy of the President? Are you quite shoor--quite shoor?
"I am," returned the phenomenon. "I stand by Andrew Johnson and his
policy, and I don't want no office!"
"Hev yoo got wun?" shouted they all in korus.
"Nary!" sed he. "With me it is a matter uv principle!"
"Wat prizns wuz yoo incarcerated in?" asked I, lookin at him with
wonder.
"Fust at Camp Morton, then at Camp Douglas, and finally at Johnson's
Island!"
Custar dropt him, and the rest remarked that, while they hed a very
helthy opinion uv him, they guessed he'd better not menshen his
presence, or consider hisself a delegate. Ez ginerous foes they loved
him ruther better than a brother; yet, as the call didn't quite inclood
him, tho' there wuz a delightful oneness between em, yet, ef 'twuz all
the same, he hed better not announce hisself. He wuz from Kentucky, I
afterwards ascertained.
The next mornin, suthin over two hundred more arriv; and the delegashens
bein all in, it wuz decided to go on with the show. A big tent hed bin
brought on from Boston to accommodate the expected crowd, and quite an
animated discussion arose ez to wich corner uv it the Convenshun wuz to
ockepy. This settled, the biznis wuz begun. Genral Wool wuz made
temporary Chairman, to wich honor he responded in a elokent
extemporaneous speech, which he read from manuscript. General Ewing made
another extemporaneous address, which he read from manuscript, and we
adjourned for dinner.