HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh! I have a great disappointment for you all. Here
is a telegram from my _best_ singer, saying she is sick, and can't come.
Now, we will have the pleasure of listening to Miss Jackson. Miss
Jackson is a pupil of Madame Parcheesi, of Paris. (_Singer whispers to
her._) Oh, I beg your pardon! It's Madame _Mar_cheesi.
DEAF OLD GENTLEMAN (_seated by piano, talking to pretty girl_)--I'd
rather listen to you than hear this caterwauling. (Old Gentleman _is
dragged into corner and silenced._)
YOUNG WOMAN (_singing_)--"Why do I sing? I know not, I know not! I can
not help but sing. Oh, why do I sing?"
(_Guests moan softly and demand of one another_, Why does she sing?)
WOMAN GUEST (_to another_)--Isn't that just the way?--their relatives
are always dying, and it's sure to be wash-day or just when you expect
company to dinner, and off they go to the funeral--
(Butler _appears with trayful of punch-glasses._)
MALE GUEST (_to another_)--Thank the Lord! here's relief in sight. Let's
drown our troubles.
THE OTHER--It's evident you haven't sampled the Smythes' punch before. I
tell you it's a crime to spoil a thirst with this stuff. Well, here's
how.
WOMAN GUEST (_to neighbor_)--I never saw Mrs. Smythe looking quite so
hideous and atrociously vulgar before, did you?
NEIGHBOR--Never! Why did we come?
VOICE (_overheard_)--The one in the white-lace gown and all those
diamonds?
ANOTHER VOICE--Yes. Well, you know it was common talk that before he
married her--
HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh! Signor Padrella has offered to play some of his
own compositions, but I thought you would all rather hear something
familiar by one of the real composers--Rubens or Chopin--Chopinhauer, I
think--
(Pianist _plunges wildly into something._)
VOICE (_during a lull in the music_)--First, you brown an onion in the
pan, then you chop the cabbage--
GUEST (_in the dressing-room, just arriving, to another_)--Yes, we are
awfully late, too, but I always say you never can be too late at one of
the Smythes' horrors.
THIN YOUNG WOMAN (_in limp pink gown and string of huge pearls, who has
come to recite_)--I'm awfully nervous, and I do believe I'm getting
hoarse. Mama, you didn't forget the lemon juice and sugar? (_Drinks from
bottle._) Now, where are my bronchial troches? Don't you think I could
stand just a little more rouge? I think it's a shame I'm not going to
have footlights. Remember, you are not to prompt me, unless I look at
you. You will get me all mixed up, if you do. (_They descend._)
HOSTESS (_to elocutionist_)--Why, I thought you were never coming! I
wanted you to fill in while people were taking their seats. The guests
always make so much noise, and the singers hate it. Now, what did you
say you would require--an egg-beater and a turnip, wasn't it? Oh, no!
That's for the young man who is going to do the tricks. I remember. Are
you all ready?
ELOCUTIONIST (_in a trembling voice_)--Ye-es.
HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh!
ELOCUTIONIST--_Aux Italiens._
"At Paris it was, at the opera there,
And she looked like--"
GUEST (_to another_)--Thirty cents, old chap! I tell you, there's
nothing will knock you out quicker than--
HOSTESS--'Sh, 'sh, 'sh!
(_Young woman finishes, and retires amidst subdued applause. Reappears
immediately and gives "The Maniac."_)
HOSTESS--As I have been disappointed in my best talent for this evening,
Mr. Briggs has kindly consented to do some of his parlor-magic tricks.
(Mr. Briggs _steps forward, a large, florid young man, wearing a "made"
dress-tie, the buckle of which crawls up the back of his collar._)
BRIGGS--Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall have to ask you all to move
to the other side of the room. (_This is accomplished with muttered
uncomplimentary remarks concerning the magician._)
BRIGGS (_to Hostess_)--I must have the piano pushed to the further end.
I must have plenty of space. (_All the men guests are pressed into
service, and, with much difficulty the piano is moved._)
BRIGGS--Now, I want four large screens.
HOSTESS (_faintly_)--But I have only two!
BRIGGS--Well, then, get me a clothes-horse and a couple of sheets.
POOR RELATIVE--You know, Sarah, I used the last two when I made up my
bed in the children's nursery yesterday. I can easily get--
HOSTESS (_hastily_)--No, Maria, don't trouble. (_To guests_)--Perhaps,
some of you gentlemen wouldn't mind lending us your overcoats to cover
the clothes-horse?
CHORUS (_with great lack of enthusiasm_)--Of course! Delighted! (_They
go for coats._)
HOSTESS (_to Poor Relative_)--Maria, you get the clothes-horse. I think
it's in the laundry, or--Oh, I think it's in the cellar. Well, you look
till you find it. (_To Briggs_)--I got as many of the things you asked
for as I could remember. Will you read the list over?
BRIGGS--Turnip and egg-beater--
HOSTESS--Yes.
BRIGGS--Egg, large clock, jar of gold-fish, rabbit and empty barrel.
HOSTESS--I have the egg.
BRIGGS (_much annoyed_)--I particularly wanted the gold-fish, the clock
and the barrel.
(_Guests grow restless._)
Hostess--Couldn't you do a trick while we are waiting--one with the
egg-beater and turnip?
BRIGGS--No; I don't know one.
HOSTESS--Couldn't you make up one?
BRIGGS (_icily_)--Certainly not.
(_Gloom descends over the company, until the Poor Relative arrives,
staggering under the clothes-horse._)
CHORUS OF MEN GUESTS--Let me help you!
(_Improvised screen is finally arranged._ Briggs _performs "parlor
magic" for an hour. Guests, fidget, yawn and commence to drop away, one
by one._)
GUEST (_to Hostess_)--Really, we must tear ourselves away. Such a
delightful evening!--not a dull moment. And your punch--heavenly! Do ask
us again. Good night.
HOSTESS--Thank you so much! So good of you to come.
ANOTHER GUEST--Yes, we must go. I've had a perfectly dear time.
HOSTESS--So sorry you must go. So good of you to come. Good night.
IN THE DRESSING-ROOM
CHORUS OF GUESTS--Wasn't it awful?--Such low people!--Why did we ever
come--Parvenue!
ELOCUTIONIST--I was all right, wasn't I, mama? You noticed they never
clapped a bit until I'd walked the whole length of the room to my chair.
It just showed how wrought up they were. You nearly mixed me up, though,
prompting me in the wrong place; I--
HOSTESS (_throwing herself on sofa as door closes on last guest_)--Well,
I'm completely done up! (_To Poor Relative_)--Maria, run up to my room,
and get my red worsted bed-slippers. I can't stand these satin tortures
a minute longer. Entertaining is an awful strain. It's so hard trying
not to say the wrong thing at the right place. But, then, it certainly
went off beautifully. I could tell every one had such a good time!
COMIN' THU
BY ANNE VIRGINIA CULBERTSON
Yer's a sinner comin' thu,
Crowd roun', bre'ren, sisters, too,
Sing wid all yo' might an' main,
He'p de sinner out er pain,
He's comin', comin' thu.
He bin "seekin'" dis long time,
He'p him cas' de foe behime,
Clap yo' han's an' sing an' shout,
He'p him cas' de debil out,
Le's wrassel him right thu.
Tu'rr side de Gate er Sin,
Year him kickin' ter git in,
Putt up prayers wid might an' main,
Dat he doesn' kick in vain,
Y'all kin pray him thu.
Heart a-bus'in' fer de right,
Debil hol'in' to him tight,
Year him swish dat forkéd tail,
See de sinner-man turn pale,
Come on an' he'p him thu.
Sinner hangin' 'bove de pit,
By a hya'r strotch over hit,
Debil hol' one eend an' shake,
Y'all kin see de sinner quake,
Quick, he'p dis man come thu.
Seize de ropes, now, ev'y man,
He'p de gospel ship ter lan',
One long pull an' one gre't shout,
Hallelu! We got him out,
De sinner done come thu!
AUNT DINAH'S KITCHEN
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah perfectly scorned
logic and reason in every shape, and always took refuge in intuitive
certainty; and here she was perfectly impregnable. No possible amount of
talent, or authority, or explanation could ever make her believe that
any other way was better than her own, or that the course she had
pursued in the smallest matter could be in the least modified. This had
been a conceded point with her old mistress, Marie's mother; and "Miss
Marie," as Dinah always called her young mistress, even after her
marriage, found it easier to submit than contend; and so Dinah had ruled
supreme. This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress of that
diplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of manner with the
utmost inflexibility as to measure.
Dinah was the mistress of the whole art and mystery of excuse-making, in
all its branches. Indeed, it was an axiom with her that the cook can do
no wrong, and a cook in a Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and
shoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintain
her own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was a failure,
there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it, and it was the fault,
undeniably, of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparing
zeal.
But it was very seldom that there was any failure in Dinah's last
results. Though her mode of doing everything was peculiarly meandering
and circuitous, and without any sort of calculation as to time and
place,--though her kitchen generally looked as if it had been arranged
by a hurricane blowing through it, and she had about as many places for
each cooking utensil as there were days in the year,--yet, if one could
have patience to wait her own good time, up would come her dinner in
perfect order, and in a style of preparation with which an epicure could
find no fault.
It was now the season of incipient preparation for dinner. Dinah, who
required large intervals of reflection and repose, and was studious of
ease in all her arrangements, was seated on the kitchen floor, smoking a
short, stumpy pipe, to which she was much addicted, and which she always
kindled up, as a sort of censer, whenever she felt the need of an
inspiration in her arrangements. It was Dinah's mode of invoking the
domestic Muses.
Seated around her were various members of that rising race with which a
Southern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peeling potatoes,
picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatory arrangements,
Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditations to give a poke,
or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators, with the
pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly
heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to consider
them born for no earthly purpose but to "save her steps," as she phrased
it. It was the spirit of the system under which she had grown up, and
she carried it out to its full extent.
Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory tour through all the
other parts of the establishment, now entered the kitchen. Dinah had
heard, from various sources, what was going on, and resolved to stand on
defensive and conservative ground,--mentally determined to oppose and
ignore every new measure, without any actual and observable contest.
The kitchen was a large, brick-floored apartment, with a great
old-fashioned fireplace stretching along one side of it,--an arrangement
which St. Clair had vainly tried to persuade Dinah to exchange for the
convenience of a modern cook-stove. Not she. No Pusseyite, or
conservative of any school, was ever more inflexibly attached to
time-honored inconveniences than Dinah.
When St. Clair had first returned from the North, impressed with the
system and order of his uncle's kitchen arrangements, he had largely
provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers, and various
apparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguine illusion
that it would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in her
arrangements. He might as well have provided them for a squirrel or a
magpie. The more drawers and closets there were, the more hiding-holes
could Dinah make for the accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, old
shoes, ribbons, cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of
_vertu_, wherein her soul delighted.
When Miss Ophelia entered the kitchen, Dinah did not rise, but smoked on
in sublime tranquillity, regarding her movements obliquely out of the
corner of her eye, but apparently intent only on the operations around
her.
Miss Ophelia commenced opening a set of drawers.
"What is this drawer for, Dinah?" she said.
"It's handy for 'most anything, missis," said Dinah. So it appeared to
be. From the variety it contained Miss Ophelia pulled out first a fine
damask table-cloth stained with blood, having evidently been used to
envelop some raw meat.
"What's this, Dinah? You don't wrap up meat in your mistress's best
table-cloth?"
"Oh, Lor', missis, no; the towels was all a-missin', so I just did it. I
laid it out to wash that ar; that's why I put it thar."
"Shir'less!" said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to tumble over the
drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater and two or three nutmegs, a
Methodist hymn-book, a couple of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarn
and knitting-work, a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers, one or
two gilded china saucers with some pomade in them, one or two thin old
shoes, a piece of flannel carefully pinned up enclosing some small white
onions, several damask table-napkins, some coarse crash towels, some
twine and darning-needles, and several broken papers, from which sundry
sweet herbs were sifting into the drawer.
"Where do you keep your nutmegs, Dinah?" said Miss Ophelia, with the air
of one who "prayed for patience."
"Most anywhar, missis; there's some in that cracked tea-cup up there,
and there's some over in that ar cupboard."
"Here are some in the grater," said Miss Ophelia, holding them up.
"Laws, yes; I put 'em there this morning; I likes to keep my things
handy," said Dinah. "You Jake! what are you stopping for? You'll cotch
it! Be still, thar!" she added, with a dive of her stick at the
criminal.
"What's this?" said Miss Ophelia, holding up the saucer of pomade.
"Laws, it's my _har-grease_: I put it thar to have it handy."
"Do you use your mistress's best saucers for that?"
"Law! it was 'cause I was driv' and in sich a hurry. I was gwine to
change it this very day."
"Here are two damask table-napkins."
"Them table-napkins I put thar to get 'em washed out some day."
"Don't you have some place here on purpose for things to be washed?"
"Well, Mas'r St. Clair got dat ar chest, he said, for dat; but I likes
to mix up biscuit and hev my things on it some days, and then it ain't
handy a-liftin' up the lid."
"Why don't you mix your biscuits on the pastry-table, there?"
"Law, missis, it gets sot so full of dishes, and one thing and another,
der ain't no room, noways."
"But you should wash your dishes, and clear them away."
"Wash my dishes!" said Dinah, in a high key, as her wrath began to rise
over her habitual respect of manner. "What does ladies know 'bout work,
I want to know? When'd mas'r ever get his dinner, if I was to spend all
my time a-washin' and a-puttin' up dishes? Miss Marie never telled me
so, nohow."
"Well, here are these onions."
"Laws, yes!" said Dinah; "that _is_ whar I put 'em, now. I couldn't
'member. Them's particular onions I was a savin' for dis yer very stew.
I'd forgot they was in dat ar old flannel."
Miss Ophelia lifted out the sifting papers of sweet herbs. "I wish
missis wouldn't touch dem ar. I likes to keep my things where I knows
whar to go to 'em," said Dinah, rather decidedly.
"But you don't want these holes in the papers."
"Them's handy for siftin' on't out," said Dinah.
"But you see it spills all over the drawer."
"Laws, yes! if missis will go a-tumblin' things all up so, it will.
Missis has spilt lots dat ar way," said Dinah, coming uneasily to the
drawers. "If missis only will go up-sta'rs till my clarin'-up time
comes, I'll have everything right; but I can't do nothin' when ladies is
'round a-henderin'. You Sam, don't you gib de baby dat ar sugar-bowl!
I'll crack ye over, if ye don't mind!"
"I'm going through the kitchen, and going to put everything in order,
_once_, Dinah; and then I'll expect you to _keep_ it so."
"Lor', now, Miss 'Phelia, dat ar ain't no way for ladies to do. I never
did see ladies doin' no sich; my old missis nor Miss Marie never did,
and I don't see no kinder need on't." And Dinah stalked indignantly
about, while Miss Ophelia piled and sorted dishes, emptied dozens of
scattering bowls of sugar into one receptacle, sorted napkins,
table-cloths, and towels, for washing; washing, wiping and arranging
with her own hands, and with a speed and alacrity which perfectly amazed
Dinah.
"Lor', now! if dat ar de way dem Northern ladies do, dey ain't ladies
nohow," she said to some of her satellites, when at a safe
hearing-distance. "I has things as straight as anybody, when my
clarin'-up times comes; but I don't want ladies 'round a-henderin' and
gettin' my things all where I can't find 'em."
To do Dinah justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxysms of
reformation and arrangement, which she called "clarin'-up times," when
she would begin with great zeal and turn every drawer and closet wrong
side outward on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusion
sevenfold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe and leisurely
go over her arrangements, looking things over and discoursing upon them;
making all the young fry scour most vigorously on the tin things, and
keeping up for several hours a most energetic state of confusion, which
she would explain to the satisfaction of all inquirers by the remark
that she was a "clarin'-up." "She couldn't hev things a-gwine on so as
they had been, and she was gwine to make these yer young ones keep
better order;" for Dinah herself, somehow, indulged the illusion that
she herself was the soul of order, and it was only the _young uns_, and
the everybody else in the house, that were the cause of anything that
fell short of perfection in this respect. When all the tins were
scoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and everything that could
offend tucked out of sight in holes and corners, Dinah would dress
herself up in a smart dress, clean apron, and high, brilliant Madras
turban, and tell all marauding "young uns" to keep out of the kitchen,
for she was gwine to have things kept nice. Indeed, these periodic
seasons were often an inconvenience to the whole household, for Dinah
would contract such an immoderate attachment to her scoured tin as to
insist upon it that it shouldn't be used again for any possible
purpose,--at least till the ardor of the "clarin'-up" period abated.
THE STRIKE AT HINMAN'S
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
Away back in the fifties, "Hinman's" was not only the best school in
Peoria, but it was the greatest school in the world. I sincerely thought
so then, and as I was a very lively part of it, I should know. Mr.
Hinman was the Faculty, and he was sufficiently numerous to demonstrate
cube root with one hand and maintain discipline with the other. Dear old
man; boys and girls with grandchildren love him to-day, and think of him
among their blessings. He was superintendent of public instruction,
board of education, school trustee, county superintendent, principal of
the high school and janitor. He had a pleasant smile, a genius for
mathematics, and a West Point idea of obedience and discipline. He
carried upon his person a grip that would make the imported malady which
mocks that name in these degenerate days, call itself Slack, in very
terror at having assumed the wrong title.
We used to have "General Exercises" on Friday afternoon. The most
exciting feature of this weekly frivolity consisted of a free-for-all
exercise in mental arithmetic. Mr. Hinman gave out lists of numbers,
beginning with easy ones and speaking slowly; each succeeding list he
dictated more rapidly and with ever-increasing complications of
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, until at last he was
giving them out faster than he could talk. One by one the pupils dropped
out of the race with despairing faces, but always at the closing
peremptory:
"Answer?"
At least a dozen hands shot into the air and as many voices shouted the
correct result. We didn't have many books, and the curriculum of an
Illinois school in those days was not academic; but two things the
children could do, they could spell as well as the dictionary and they
could handle figures. Some of the fellows fairly wallowed in them. I
didn't. I simply drowned in the shallowest pond of numbers that ever
spread itself on the page. As even unto this day I do the same.
Well, one year the Teacher introduced an innovation; "compositions" by
the girls and "speakin' pieces" by the boys. It was easy enough for the
girls, who had only to read the beautiful thought that "spring is the
pleasantest season of the year." Now and then a new girl, from the east,
awfully precise, would begin her essay--"spring is the most pleasant
season of the year," and her would we call down with derisive laughter,
whereat she walked to her seat, very stiffly, with a proud dry-eyed look
in her face, only to lay her head upon her desk when she reached it, and
weep silently until school closed. But "speakin' pieces" did not meet
with favor from the boys, save one or two good boys who were in training
by their parents for congressmen or presidents.
The rest of us, who were just boys, with no desire ever to be anything
else, endured the tyranny of compulsory oratory about a month, and then
resolved to abolish the whole business by a general revolt. Big and
little, we agreed to stand by each other, break up the new exercise, and
get back to the old order of things--the hurdle races in mental
arithmetic and the geographical chants which we could run and intone
together.
Was I a mutineer? Well, say, son, your Pa was a constituent conspirator.
He was in the color guard. You see, the first boy called on for a
declamation was to announce the strike, and as my name stood very
high--in the alphabetical roll of pupils--I had an excellent chance of
leading the assaulting column, a distinction for which I was not at all
ambitious, being a stripling of tender years, ruddy countenance, and
sensitive feelings. However, I stiffened the sinews of my soul, girded
on my armor by slipping an atlas back under my jacket and was ready for
the fray, feeling a little terrified shiver of delight as I thought that
the first lick Mr. Hinman gave me would make him think he had broken my
back.
The hour for "speakin' pieces," an hour big with fate, arrived on time.
A boy named Aby Abbott was called up ahead of me, but he happened to be
one of the presidential aspirants (he was mate on an Illinois river
steamboat, stern-wheeler at that, the last I knew of him), and of course
he flunked and "said" his piece--a sadly prophetic selection--"Mr.
President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope."
We made such suggestive and threatening gestures at him, however, when
Mr. Hinman wasn't looking, that he forgot half his "piece," broke down
and cried. He also cried after school, a little more bitterly, and with
far better reason.
Then, after an awful pause, in which the conspirators could hear the
beating of each other's hearts, my name was called.
I sat still at my desk and said:
"I ain't goin' to speak no piece."
Mr. Hinman looked gently surprised and asked:
"Why not, Robert?"
I replied:
"Because there ain't goin' to be any more speakin' pieces."
The teacher's eyes grew round and big as he inquired:
"Who says there will not?"
I said, in slightly firmer tones, as I realized that the moment had come
for dragging the rest of the rebels into court:
"All of us boys!"
But Mr. Hinman smiled, and said quietly that he guessed there would be
"a little more speaking before the close of the session." Then laying
his hand on my shoulder, with most punctilious but chilling courtesy, he
invited me to the rostrum. The "rostrum" was twenty-five feet distant,
but I arrived there on schedule time and only touched my feet to the
floor twice on my way.