assembled school, with feelings, nay, emotions which I now shudder to
recall, I did my first "song and dance." Many times before had I stepped
off a solo-cachuca to the staccato pleasing of a fragment of slate
frame, upon which my tutor was a gifted performer, but never until that
day did I accompany myself with words. Boy like, I had chosen for my
"piece" a poem sweetly expressive of those peaceful virtues which I most
heartily despised. So that my performance, at the inauguration of the
strike, as Mr. Hinman conducted the overture, ran something like this--
"Oh, not for me (whack) is the rolling (whack) drum,
Or the (whack, whack) trumpet's wild (whack) appeal! (Boo-hoo!)
Or the cry (swish--whack) of (boo-hoo-hoo!) war when the (whack) foe
is come (ouch!)
Or the (ow--wow!) brightly (whack) flashing (whack-whack) steel!
(wah-hoo, wah-hoo!)"
Words and symbols can not convey to the most gifted imagination the
gestures with which I illustrated the seven stanzas of this beautiful
poem. I had really selected it to please my mother, whom I had invited
to be present, when I supposed I would deliver it. But the fact that she
attended a missionary meeting in the Baptist church that afternoon made
me a friend of missions forever. Suffice it to say, then, that my
pantomime kept pace and time with Mr. Hinman's system of punctuation
until the last line was sobbed and whacked out. I groped my bewildered
way to my seat through a mist of tears and sat down gingerly and
sideways, inly wondering why an inscrutable providence had given to the
rugged rhinoceros the hide which the eternal fitness of things had
plainly prepared for the school-boy.
But I quickly forgot my own sorrow and dried my tears with laughter in
the enjoyment of the subsequent acts of the opera, as the chorus
developed the plot and action. Mr. Hinman, who had been somewhat gentle
with me, dealt firmly with the larger boy who followed, and there was a
scene of revelry for the next twenty minutes. The old man shook Bill
Morrison until his teeth rattled so you couldn't hear him cry. He hit
Mickey McCann, the tough boy from, the Lower Prairie, and Mickey ran out
and lay down in the snow to cool off. He hit Jake Bailey across the legs
with a slate frame, and it hurt so that Jake couldn't howl--he just
opened his mouth wide, held up his hands, gasped, and forgot his own
name. He pushed Bill Haskell into a seat and the bench broke.
He ran across the room and reached out for Lem Harkins, and Lem had a
fit before the old man touched him. He shook Dan Stevenson for two
minutes, and when he let him go, Dan walked around his own desk five
times before he could find it, and then he couldn't sit down without
holding on. He whipped the two Knowltons with a skate-strap in each hand
at the same time; the Greenwood family, five boys and a big girl, he
whipped all at once with a girl's skipping rope, and they raised such a
united wail that the clock stopped.
He took a twist in Bill Rodecker's front hair, and Bill slept with his
eyes open for a week. He kept the atmosphere of that school-room full of
dust, and splinters, and lint, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth,
until he reached the end of the alphabet and all hearts ached and
wearied of the inhuman strife and wicked contention. Then he stood up
before us, a sickening tangle of slate frame, strap, ebony ferule and
skipping rope, a smile on his kind old face, and asked, in clear,
triumphant tones:
"WHO says there isn't going to be any more speaking pieces?"
And every last boy in that school sprang to his feet; standing there as
one human being with one great mouth, we shrieked in concerted anguish:
"NOBODY DON'T!"
And your Pa, my son, who led that strike, has been "speakin' pieces"
ever since.
A NAUTICAL BALLAD
BY CHARLES E. CARRYL
A capital ship for an ocean trip
Was the "Walloping Window-blind";
No gale that blew dismayed her crew
Or troubled the captain's mind.
The man at the wheel was taught to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow,
And it often appeared, when the weather had cleared,
That he'd been in his bunk below.
"The boatswain's mate was very sedate,
Yet fond of amusement, too;
And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch,
While the captain tickled the crew.
And the gunner we had was apparently mad,
For he sat on the after rail,
And fired salutes with the captain's boots,
In the teeth of the booming gale.
"The captain sat in a commodore's hat
And dined in a royal way
On toasted pigs and pickles and figs
And gummery bread each day.
But the cook was Dutch and behaved as such;
For the diet he gave the crew
Was a number of tons of hot-cross buns
Prepared with sugar and glue.
"All nautical pride we laid aside,
And we cast the vessel ashore
On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smiles,
And the Rumbletumbunders roar.
And we sat on the edge of a sandy ledge
And shot at the whistling bee;
And the cinnamon-bats wore water-proof hats
As they danced in the sounding sea.
"On rubgub bark, from dawn to dark,
We fed, till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk,--when a Chinese junk
Came by from the torriby zone.
She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care,
And we cheerily put to sea;
And we left the crew of the junk to chew
The bark of the rubgub tree."
NATURAL PERVERSITIES
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
I am not prone to moralize
In scientific doubt
On certain facts that Nature tries
To puzzle us about,--
For I am no philosopher
Of wise elucidation,
But speak of things as they occur,
From simple observation.
I notice _little_ things--to wit:--
I never missed a train
Because I didn't _run_ for it;
I never knew it rain
That my umbrella wasn't lent,--
Or, when in my possession,
The sun but wore, to all intent,
A jocular expression.
I never knew a creditor
To dun me for a debt
But I was "cramped" or "busted"; or
I never knew one yet,
When I had plenty in my purse,
To make the least invasion,--
As I, accordingly perverse,
Have courted no occasion.
Nor do I claim to comprehend
What Nature has in view
In giving us the very friend
To trust we oughtn't to.--
But so it is: The trusty gun
Disastrously exploded
Is always sure to be the one
We didn't think was loaded.
Our moaning is another's mirth,--
And what is worse by half,
We say the funniest thing on earth
And never raise a laugh:
Mid friends that love us overwell,
And sparkling jests and liquor,
Our hearts somehow are liable
To melt in tears the quicker.
We reach the wrong when most we seek
The right; in like effect,
We stay the strong and not the weak--
Do most when we neglect.--
Neglected genius--truth be said--
As wild and quick as tinder,
The more you seek to help ahead
The more you seem to hinder.
I've known the least the greatest, too--
And, on the selfsame plan,
The biggest fool I ever knew
Was quite a little man:
We find we ought, and then we won't--
We prove a thing, then doubt it,--
Know _everything_ but when we don't
Know _anything_ about it.
BUDD WILKINS AT THE SHOW
BY S.E. KISER
Since I've got used to city ways and don't scare at the cars,
It makes me smile to set and think of years ago.--My stars!
How green I was, and how green all them country people be--
Sometimes it seems almost as if this hardly could be me.
Well, I was goin' to tell you 'bout Budd Wilkins: I declare
He was the durndest, greenest chap that ever breathed the air--
The biggest town on earth, he thought, was our old county seat,
With its one two-story brick hotel and dusty bizness street.
We'd fairs in fall and now and then a dance or huskin' bee,
Which was the most excitin' things Budd Wilkins ever see,
Until, one winter, Skigginsville was all turned upside down
By a troupe of real play actors a-comin' into town.
The court-house it was turned into a theater, that night,
And I don't s'pose I'll live to see another sich a sight:
I guess that every person who was able fer to go
Jest natchelly cut loose fer oncet, and went to see the show.
Me and Budd we stood around there all day in the snow,
But gosh! it paid us, fer we got seats right in the second row!
Well, the brass band played a tune or two, and then the play begun,
And 'twa'n't long 'fore the villain had the hero on the run.
Say, talk about your purty girls with sweet, confidin' ways--
I never see the equal yit, in all o' my born days.
Of that there brave young heroine, so clingin' and so mild,
And jest as innocent as if she'd been a little child.
I most forgot to say that Budd stood six feet in his socks,
As brave as any lion, too, and stronger than an ox!
But there never was a man, I'll bet, that had a softer heart,
And he was always sure to take the weaker person's part.
Budd, he fell dead in love right off with that there purty girl,
And I suppose the feller's brain was in a fearful whirl,
Fer there he set and gazed at her, and when she sighed he sighed,
And when she hid her face and sobbed, he actually cried.
He clinched his fists and ground his teeth when the villain laid
his plot
And said out loud he'd like to kill the rogue right on the spot,
And when the hero helped the girl, Budd up and yelled "Hooray!"
He'd clean fergot the whole blame thing was nothing but a play.
At last the villain trapped the girl, that sweet confidin' child,
And when she cried for help, why I'll admit that I was riled;
The hero couldn't do a thing, but roll and writhe around
And tug and groan because they'd got the poor chap gagged and bound.
The maiden cried: "Unhand me now, or, weak girl that I am--"
And then Budd Wilkins he jumped up and give his hat a slam,
And, quicker'n I can tell it he was up there raisin' Ned,
A-rescuin' the maiden and a-punchin' the rogue's head.
I can't, somehow, perticklerize concernin' that there row:
The whole thing seems a sort of blur as I recall it now--
But I can still remember that there was a fearful thud,
With the air chock full of arms and legs and the villain under Budd.
I never see a chap so bruised and battered up before
As that there villain was when he was picked up from the floor!--
The show? Oh, it was busted, and they put poor Budd in jail,
And kept him there all night, because I couldn't go his bail.
Next mornin' what d' you think we heard? Most s'prised in all my life!
That sweet, confidin' maiden was the cruel villain's wife!
Budd wilted when he heard it, and he groaned, and then, says he:
"Well, I'll be dummed! Bill, that's the last play actin' show fer me!"
BALLAD
BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
Der noble Ritter Hugo
Von Schwillensaufenstein,
Rode out mit shpeer and helmet,
Und he coom to de panks of de Rhine.
Und oop dere rose a meer maid,
Vot hadn't got nodings on,
Und she say, "Oh, Ritter Hugo,
Vhere you goes mit yourself alone?"
And he says, "I rides in de creenwood
Mit helmet und mit shpeer,
Till I cooms into em Gasthaus,
Und dere I trinks some beer."
Und den outshpoke de maiden
Vot hadn't got nodings on:
"I tont dink mooch of beoplesh
Dat goes mit demselfs alone.
"You'd petter coom down in de wasser,
Vere deres heaps of dings to see,
Und hafe a shplendid tinner
Und drafel along mit me.
"Dere you sees de fisch a schwimmin,
Und you catches dem efery one:"--
So sang dis wasser maiden
Vot hadn't got nodings on.
"Dere ish drunks all full mit money
In ships dat vent down of old;
Und you helpsh yourself, by dunder!
To shimmerin crowns of gold.
"Shoost look at dese shpoons und vatches!
Shoost see dese diamant rings!
Coom down und full your bockets,
Und I'll giss you like avery dings.
"Vot you vantsh mit your schnapps und lager?
Coom down into der Rhine!
Der ish pottles der Kaiser Charlemagne
Vonce filled mit gold-red wine!"
_Dat_ fetched him--he shtood all shpell pound;
She pooled his coat-tails down,
She drawed him oonder der wasser,
De maidens mit nodings on.
THE HOOSIER AND THE SALT PILE
BY DANFORTH MARBLE
"I'm sorry," said Dan, as he knocked the ashes from his regalia, as he
sat in a small crowd over a glass of sherry, at Florence's, New York,
one evening,--"I'm sorry that the stages are disappearing so rapidly. I
never enjoyed traveling so well as in the slow coaches. I've made a good
many passages over the Alleghanies, and across Ohio, from Cleveland to
Columbus and Cincinnati, all over the South, down East, and up North, in
stages, and I generally had a good time.
"When I passed over from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the last time, in a
stage, I met a queer crowd. Such a corps, such a time, you never did
see. I never was better amused in my life. We had a good team,--spanking
horses, fine coaches, and one of them drivers you read of. Well, there
was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a stage full of
Christians ever started before, so chuck full of music.
"There was a beautiful young lady going to one of the Cincinnati
academies; next to her sat a Jew peddler,--Cowes and a market; wedging
him was a dandy black-leg, with jewelry and chains around about his
breast and neck enough to hang him. There was myself, and an old
gentleman with large spectacles, gold-headed cane, and a jolly,
soldering-iron-looking nose; by him was a circus-rider, whose breath was
enough to breed yaller fever and could be felt just as easy as cotton
velvet! A cross old woman came next, whose look would have given any
reasonable man the double-breasted blues before breakfast; alongside of
her was a rale backwoods preacher, with the biggest and ugliest mouth
ever got up since the flood. He was flanked by the low comedian of the
party, an Indiana Hoosier, 'gwine down to Orleans to get an army
contrac' to supply the forces, then in Mexico, with beef.
"We rolled along for some time. Nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The
old aunty sat bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the
hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of
her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat to nod and
dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalets and poetry; the old
gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph nose, looked out at the corduroy
and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the circus convoy
followed suit, leaving the preacher and me _vis-à-vis_ and saying
nothing to nobody. 'Indiany,' he stuck his mug out of the window and
criticized the cattle we now and then passed. I was wishing somebody
would give the conversation a start, when 'Indiany' made a break.
"'This ain't no great stock country,' says he to the old gentleman with
the cane.
"'No, sir,' says the old gentleman. 'There's very little grazing here,
and the range is pretty much wore out.'
"Then there was nothing said again for some time. Bimeby the hoosier
opened ag'in:
"'It's the d----dest place for 'simmon-trees and turkey-buzzards I ever
did see!'
"The old gentleman with the cane didn't say nothing, and the preacher
gave a long groan. The young lady smiled through her veil, and the old
lady snapped her eyes and looked sideways at the speaker.
"'Don't make much beef here, I reckon,' says the hoosier.
"'No,' says the gentleman.
"'Well, I don't see how in h----ll they all manage to get along in a
country whar thar ain't no ranges and they don't make no beef. A man
ain't considered worth a cuss in Indiany what hasn't got his brand on a
hundred head.'
"'Yours is a great beef country, I believe,' says the old gentleman.
"'Well, sir, it ain't anything else. A man that's got sense enuff to
foller his own cow-bell with us ain't in no danger of starvin'. I'm
gwine down to Orleans to see if I can't git a contract out of Uncle Sam
to feed the boys what's been lickin' them infernal Mexicans so bad. I
s'pose you've seed them cussed lies what's been in the papers about the
Indiany boys at Bony Visty.'
"'I've read some accounts of the battle,' says the old gentleman, 'that
didn't give a very flattering account of the conduct of some of our
troops.'
"With that, the Indiany man went into a full explanation of the affair,
and, gettin' warmed up as he went along, begun to cuss and swear like
he'd been through a dozen campaigns himself. The old preacher listened
to him with evident signs of displeasure, twistin' and groanin' till he
couldn't stand it no longer.
"'My friend,' says he, 'you must excuse me, but your conversation would
be a great deal more interesting to me--and I'm sure would please the
company much better--if you wouldn't swear so terribly. It's very wrong
to swear, and I hope you'll have respect for our feelin's, if you hain't
no respect for your Maker.'
"If the hoosier had been struck with thunder and lightnin', he couldn't
have been more completely tuck aback. He shut his mouth right in the
middle of what he was sayin', and looked at the preacher, while his
face got as red as fire.
"'Swearin',' says the old preacher, 'is a terrible bad practice, and
there ain't no use in it, nohow. The Bible says, Swear not at all, and I
s'pose you know the commandments about swearin'?'
"The old lady sort of brightened up,--the preacher was her 'duck of a
man'; the old fellow with the nose and cane let off a few 'umph, ah!
umphs'; but 'Indiany' kept shady; he appeared to be cowed down.
"'I know,' says the preacher, 'that a great many people swear without
thinkin', and some people don't b'lieve the Bible.'
"And then he went on to preach a regular sermon ag'in swearing, and to
quote Scripture like he had the whole Bible by heart. In the course of
his argument he undertook to prove the Scriptures to be true, and told
us all about the miracles and prophecies and their fulfilment. The old
gentleman with the cane took a part in the conversation, and the hoosier
listened, without ever opening his head.
"'I've just heard of a gentleman,' says the preacher, 'that's been to
the Holy Land and went over the Bible country. It's astonishin' to hear
what wonderful things he has seen. He was at Sodom and Gomorrow, and
seen the place whar Lot's wife fell.'
"'Ah!' says the old gentleman with the cane.
"'Yes,' says the preacher; 'he went to the very spot; and, what's the
remarkablest thing of all, he seen the pillar of salt what she was
turned into.'
"'Is it possible!' says the old gentleman.
"'Yes, sir; he seen the salt, standin' thar to this day.'
"'What!' says the hoosier, 'real genewine, good salt?'
"'Yes, sir, a pillar of salt, jest as it was when that wicked woman was
punished for her disobedience.'
"All but the gambler, who was snoozing in the corner of the coach,
looked at the preacher,--the hoosier with an expression of countenance
that plainly told us that his mind was powerfully convicted of an
important fact.
"'Right out in the open air?' he asked.
"'Yes, standin' right in the open field, whar she fell.'
"'Well, sir,' says 'Indiany,' 'all I've got to say is, if she'd dropped
in our parts, the cattle would have licked her up afore sundown!'
"The preacher raised both his hands at such an irreverent remark, and
the old gentleman laughed himself into a fit of asthmatics, what he
didn't get over till we came to the next change of horses. The hoosier
had played the mischief with the gravity of the whole party; even the
old maid had to put her handkerchief to her face, and the young lady's
eyes were filled with tears for half an hour afterward. The old preacher
hadn't another word to say on the subject; but whenever we came to any
place, or met anybody on the road, the circus-man nursed the thing along
by asking what was the price of salt."
A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT
BY KATE FIELD
I once heard a bright child declare that if circuses were prohibited in
heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under
Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given
her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naïve utterance touched a
responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how
gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the
ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of
mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures who
jumped over flags and through balloons; how the clown was the dearest,
funniest of men; how the young athletes in tights and spangles were my
_beau-ideals_ of masculinity; and how La Belle Rose, with one foot upon
her native heath, otherwise a well-padded saddle, and the other pointed
in the direction of the sweet little cherubs that sat up aloft, was the
most fascinating of her sex. I am persuaded that circuses fill an aching
void in the universe. What children did before their invention I shudder
to think, for circuses are to childhood what butter is to bread; and
what the world did before the birth of Barnum is an almost equally
frightful problem. Some are born to shows, others attain shows, and yet
again others have shows thrust upon them. Barnum is a born showman. If
ever a man fulfills his destiny, it is the discoverer of Tom Thumb. With
the majority of men and women life is a failure. Not until one leg
dangles in the grave is their _raison d'être_ disclosed. The round
people always find themselves sticking in the square holes, and _vice
versa_; but with Barnum we need not deplore a _vie manquée_. We can
smile at his reverses, for even the phoenix has cause to blush in his
presence. Though pursued by tongues of fire, Barnum remains invincible
when iron, stone, and mortar crumble around him; and while yet the smoke
is telling volumes of destruction, the cheery voice of the showman
exclaims, "Here you are, gentlemen; admission fifty cents, children half
price."
Apropos of Barnum, once in my life I gave myself up to unmitigated joy.
Weary of lecturing, singing the song "I would I were a boy again," I
went to see the elephant. To speak truly, I saw not one elephant, but
half a dozen. I had a feast of roaring and a flow of circus. In fact I
indulged in the wildest dissipation. I visited Barnum's circus and
sucked peppermint candy in a way most childlike and bland. The reason
seems obscure, but circuses and peppermint candy are as inseparable as
peanuts and the Bowery. Appreciating this solemn fact, Barnum provides
bigger sticks adorned with bigger red stripes than ever Romans sucked in
the palmy days of the Coliseum. In the dim distance I mistook them for
barbers' poles, but upon direct application I recognized them for my
long lost own.
However, let me, like the Germans, begin with the creation. "Here,
ladies and gentlemen, is for sale Mr. Barnum's Autobiography, full of
interest and anecdote, one of the most charming productions ever issued
from the press, 900 pages, thirty-two full-page engravings, reduced from
$3.50 to $1.50. Every purchaser enters free."