good with girls--and I don't care!"
"Yes!" she assented wickedly. "There _are_ better ones."
"Sam Pritz--"
Sally looked away, smiled, and was silent.
"Sulky Seffy!" she finally said.
"If he does stink of salt mackerel, and 'most always drunk!" Seffy went
on bitterly. "He's nothing but a molasses-tapper!"
Sally began to drift farther away and to sing. Calling Pritz names was
of no consequence--except that it kept Seffy from making love to her
while he was doing it--which seemed foolish to Sally. The old man came
up and brought them together again.
"Oach! go 'long and make lofe some more. I like to see it. I expect I
am an old fool, but I like to see it--it's like ol' times--yas, and if
you don't look out there, Seffy, I'll take a hand myself--yassir! go
'long!"
He drew them very close together, each looking the other way. Indeed he
held them there for a moment, roughly.
Seffy stole a glance at Sally. He wanted to see how she was taking his
father's odiously intimate suggestion. But it happened that Sally wanted
to see how he was taking it. She laughed with the frankest of joy as
their eyes met.
"Seffy--I _do_--like you," said the coquette. "And you ought to know it.
You imp!"
Now this was immensely stimulating to the bashful Seffy.
"I like _you_," he said--"ever since we was babies."
"Sef--I don't believe you. Or you wouldn't waste your time so--about Sam
Pritz!"
"Er--Sally--where you going to to-night?" Seffy meant to prove himself.
And Sally answered, with a little fright at the sudden aggressiveness
she had procured.
"Nowheres that _I_ know of."
"Well--may I set up with you?"
The pea-green sunbonnet could not conceal the utter amazement and then
the radiance which shot into Sally's face.
"Set--up--with--me!"
"Yes!" said Seffy, almost savagely. "That's what I said."
"Oh, I--I guess so! Yes! of course!" she answered variously, and rushed
off home.
"You know I own you," she laughed back, as if she had not been
sufficiently explicit. "I paid for you! Your pappy's got the money!
I'll expect my property to-night."
"Yas!" shouted the happy old man, "and begoshens! it's a reg'lar
bargain! Ain't it, Seffy? You her property--real estate, hereditaments
and tenements." And even Seffy was drawn into the joyous laughing
conceit of it! Had he not just done the bravest thing of his small life?
"Yes!" he cried after the fascinating Sally. "For sure and certain,
to-night!"
"It's a bargain!" cried she.
"For better or worser, richer or poorer, up an' down, in an' out,
chassez right and left! Aha-ha-ha! Aha-ha-ha! But, Seffy,"--and the
happy father turned to the happy son and hugged him, "don't you efer
forgit that she's a feather-head and got a bright red temper like her
daddy! And they both work mighty bad together sometimes. When you get
her at the right place onct--well, nail her down--hand and feet--so's
she can't git away. When she gits mad her little brain evaporates, and
if she had a knife she'd go round stabbing her best friends--that's the
only sing that safes her--yas, and us!--no knife. If she had a knife it
would be funerals following her all the time."
II
They advanced together now, Seffy's father whistling some tune that was
never heard before on earth, and, with his arm in that of his son, they
watched Sally bounding away. Once more, as she leaped a fence, she
looked laughingly back. The old man whistled wildly out of tune. Seffy
waved a hand!
"Now you shouting, Seffy! Shout ag'in!"
"I didn't say a word!"
"Well--it ain't too late! Go on!"
Now Seffy understood and laughed with his father.
"Nice gal, Sef--Seffy!"
"Yes!" admitted Seffy with reserve.
"Healthy."
Seffy agreed to this, also.
"No doctor-bills!" his father amplified.
Seffy said nothing.
"Entire orphen."
"She's got a granny!"
"Yas," chuckled the old man at the way his son was drifting into the
situation--thinking about granny!--"but Sally owns _the farm_!"
"Uhu!" said Seffy, whatever that might mean.
"And Sally's the boss!"
Silence.
"And granny won't object to any one Sally marries, anyhow--she dassent!
She'd git licked!"
"Who said anything about marrying?"
Seffy was speciously savage now--as any successful wooer might be.
"Nobody but me, sank you!" said the old man with equally specious
meekness. "Look how she ken jump a six-rail fence. Like a three-year
filly! She's a nice gal, Seffy--and the farms j'ine together--her
pasture-field and our corn-field. And she's kissing her hand backwards!
At me or you, Seffy?"
Seffy said he didn't know. And he did not return the kiss--though he
yearned to.
"Well, I bet a dollar that the first initial of his last name is
Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, _Junior_."
"Well!" said Seffy with a great flourish, "I'm going to set up with her
to-night."
"Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it.
"You'll see."
"No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!"
Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow.
"I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in
the air.
"No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him
about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be
explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was
dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that,
consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting.
"Yes!" declared Seffy again.
"Bring forth the stovepipe,
The stovepipe, the stovepipe--"
chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus.
"And my butterfly necktie with--"
"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father.
They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer,
was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew
who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it
were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the
difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near,
and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond
and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage.
"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to _do_?"
"Do?"
Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's
the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it.
"Oh, of _course_! Hah? But what _yit_?"
I regret to say that Seffy did not understand.
"Seffy," he said impressively, "you haf' tol' me what you goin' to wear.
It ain't much. The weather's yit pooty col' nights. But I ken stand it
if you ken--God knows about Sally! Now, what you goin' to _do_--that's
the conuntrum I ast you!"
Still it was not clear to Seffy.
"Why--what I'm a-going to do, hah? Why--whatever occurs."
"Gosh-a'mighty! And nefer say a word or do a sing to help the
occurrences along? Goshens! What a setting-up! Why--say--Seffy, what you
set up _for_?"
Seffy did not exactly know. He had never hoped to practise the thing--in
that sublimely militant phase.
"What do _you_ think?"
"Well, Sef--plow straight to her heart. I wisht I had your chance. I'd
show you a other-guess kind a setting-up--yassir! Make your mouth warter
and your head swim, begoshens! Why, that Sally's just like a young
stubble-field; got to be worked constant, and plowed deep, and manured
heafy, and mebby drained wiss blind ditches, and crops changed constant,
and kep' a-going thataway--constant--constant--so's the weeds can't git
in her. Then you ken put her in wheat after a while and git your money
back."
This drastic metaphor had its effect. Seffy began to understand. He said
so.
"Now, look here, Seffy," his father went on more softly, "when you git
to this--and this--and this,"--he went through his pantomime again, and
it included a progressive caressing to the kissing point--"well, chust
when you bose comfortable--hah?--mebby on one cheer, what I know--it's
so long sence I done it myself--when you bose comfortable, ast
her--chust ast her--aham!--what she'll take for the pasture-field! She
owns you bose and she can't use bose you and the pasture. A bird in the
hand is worth seferal in another feller's--not so?"
But Seffy only stopped and stared at his father. This, again, he did
_not_ understand.
"You know well enough I got no money to buy no pasture-field," said he.
"Gosh-a'mighty!" said the old man joyfully, making as if he would strike
Seffy with his huge fist--a thing he often did. "And ain't got nossing
to trade?"
"Nothing except the mare!" said the boy.
"Say--ain't you got no feelings, you idjiot?"
"Oh--" said Seffy. And then: "But what's feelings got to do with
cow-pasture?"
"Oach! No wonder he wants to be an anchel, and wiss the anchels
stand--holding sings in his hands and on his head! He's too good for
this wile world. He'd linger shifering on the brink and fear to launch
away all his durn life--if some one didn't push him in. So here goes!"
This was spoken to the skies, apparently, but now he turned to his son
again.
"Look a-yere, you young dummer-ux,[2] feelings is the same to gals like
Sally, as money is to you and me. You ken buy potatoes wiss 'em! Do you
understand?"
Seffy said that he did, now.
"Well, then, I'fe tried to _buy_ that pasture-field a sousand times--"
Seffy started.
"Yas, that's a little bit a lie--mebby a dozen times. And at last
Sally's daddy said he'd lick me if I efer said pasture-field ag'in, and
I said it ag'in and he licked me! He was a big man--and red-headed yit,
like Sally. Now, look a-yere--_you_ ken git that pasture-field wissout
money and wissout price--except you' dam' feelings which ain't no other
use. Sally won't lick _you_--if she is bigger--don't be a-skeered. You
got tons of feelin's you ain't got no other use for--don't waste
'em--they're good green money, and we'll git efen wiss Sally's daddy for
licking me yit--and somesing on the side! Huh?"
[Footnote 2: Dumb ox--a term of reproach.]
At last it was evident that Seffy fully understood, and his father broke
into that discordant whistle once more.
"A gal that ken jump a six-rail fence--and wissout no running
start--don't let her git apast you!"
"Well, I'm going to set up with her to-night," said Seffy again, with a
huge ahem. And the tune his father whistled as he opened the door for
him sounded something like "I want to be an angel."
"But not to buy no pasture-land!" warned Seffy.
"Oach, no, of course not!" agreed his wily old father. "That's just one
of my durn jokes. But I expect I'll take the fence down to-morrow! Say,
Sef, you chust marry the gal. I'll take keer the fence!"
III
It took Seffy a long time to array himself as he had threatened. And
when it was all done you wouldn't have known him--you wouldn't have
cared to know him. For his fine yellow hair was changed to an ugly brown
by the patent hair-oil with which he had dressed it--and you would not
have liked its fragrance, I trust. Bergamot, I think it was. His fine
young throat was garroted within a starched standing collar, his feet
were pinched in creaking boots, his hands close-gauntleted in buckskin
gloves, and he altogether incomparable, uncomfortable, and triumphant.
Down stairs his father paced the floor, watch in hand. From time to time
he would call out the hour, like a watchman on a minaret. At last:
"Look a-yere, Seffy, it's about two inches apast seven--and by the time
you git there--say, _nefer_ gif another feller a chance to git there
afore you or to leave after you!"
Seffy descended at that moment with his hat poised in his left hand.
His father dropped his watch and picked it up.
Both stood at gaze for a moment.
"Sunder, Sef! You as beautiful as the sun, moon and stars--and as stinky
as seferal apothecary shops. Yere, take the watch and git along--so's
you haf some time wiss you--now git along! You late a'ready. Goshens!
You wass behind time when you wass born! Yas, your mammy wass
disapp'inted in you right at first. You wass seventy-six hours late! But
now you reformed--sank God! I always knowed it wass a cure for it, but I
didn't know it wass anysing as nice as Sally."
Seffy issued forth to his first conquest--lighted as far as the front
gate by the fat lamp held in his father's hand.
"A--Sef--Seffy, shall I set up for you tell you git home?" he called
into the dark.
"No!" shouted Seffy.
"Aha--aha--aha! That sounds _right_! Don't you forgit when you
bose--well--comfortable--aha--aha! Mebby on one cheer aha--ha-ha. And
we'll bose take the fence down to-morrow. Mebby all three!"
AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL CONGRESS
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
"'There's none can tell about my birth
For I'm as old as the big round earth;
Ye young Immortals clear the track,
I'm the bearded Joke on the Carpet tack."
Thus spoke
A Joke
With boastful croak;
And as he said,
Upon his head
He stood, and waited for the tread
Of thoughtless wight,
Who, in the night,
Gets up, arrayed in garments white,
And indiscreet,
With unshod feet,
Prowls round for something good to eat.
But other Jokes
His speech provokes;
And old, and bald, and lame, and gray,
With loftiest scorn they say him Nay;
And bid him hold his unweaned tongue,
For they were blind ere he was young.
So hot
They grew,
This complot
Crew,
They laid a plan
To catch a Man;
That all the clan
Might then trepan
His skull with Jokes; they thus began:
First Mule, his heel its skill to try,
Amid his ribs like lightning laid--
And back recoiled--he well knew why;
"Insurance Man," he faintly sayed.
Next Stove Pipe rushed, as hot as fire,
"Put up!" he cried, in accents bold;
With Elbow joint he struck the lyre,
And knocked the Weather Prophet cold.
But thou, Ice Cream, with hair so gray,
Three thousand years before the Flood,
Cold, bitter cold, will be the day
Thou dost not warm the Jester's blood.
"Spoons for the spooney," was her ancient song,
That with slow measure dragged its deathless length along.
And longer had she sung, but with a frown,
Old Pie, impatient, rose
And roared, "Behold, I am the Funny Clown!
And without me there is no Joke that goes.
"To every Jester in the land,
I lend my omnipresent hand;
I've filled in Jokes of every grade
Since ever Jokes and Pies were made;
Sewed, pegged and pasted, glued or cast,
If not the first of Jokes, I'll be the last."
With heart unripe and mottled hide,
Pale summer watermeloncholly sighed,
And--but the Muse would find it vain
To give a list of all the train;
The hairless, purblind, toothless crew,
That burst on Man's astonished view--
The Bull dog and the Garden gate;
The Girl's Papa in wrathful state;
Ma'ma in law; the Leathern Clam;
The Woodshed Cat; the Rampant Ram;
The Fly, the Goat, the Skating Rink,
The Paste-brush plunging in the Ink;
The Baby wailing in the Dark;
The Songs they sang upon the Ark;
Things that were old when Earth was new,
And as they lived still old and older grew,
And as these Jokes about him cried,
And all their Ancient Arts upon him tried,
Their hapless victim, Man, lay down and died.
A BOY'S VIEW OF IT
BY FRANK L. STANTON
Mother--she's always a-sayin', she is,
Boys must be looked after--got to be strict;
When I tear my breeches like Billy tears his,
It helps 'em considerable when I am licked!
But it ain't leapin' over the fence or the post--
It's jest that same lickin' 'at tears 'em the most!
Mother--she's always a-sayin' to me,
Boys must have people to foller 'em roun';
Never kin tell where they're goin' to be;
Sure to git lost, an' then have to be foun'.
An' then--when they find 'em, they're so full of joy
They can't keep from lovin' an' lickin' the boy!
There's Jimmy Johnson--got lost on the road;
Daddy wuz drivin' to market one day,
Fell out the wagon, an' nobody knowed
Till they come to a halt, an' his daddy said: "Hey!
Wonder where Jimmy is gone to?" But Jim--
Warn't no two hosses could keep up with him!
Jest kept a-goin', an' got to a place
Where wuz a circus; took up with the clown,
Cut off his ringlets and painted his face,
An' then come right back to his daddy's own town!
An' what do you reckon? His folks didn't know,
An' paid to see Jimmy that night in the show!
An' there's Billy Jenkins--he jest run away
(Folks at his house wuzn't treatin' him right);
Went to the place where the red Injuns stay;
An' once, when his daddy wuz travelin' at night
An' the Injuns took after him, hollerin' loud,
Bill run to his rescue, an' scalped the whole crowd!
No use in talkin'--boys don't have no show!
Wuzn't fer people a-follerin' 'em roun',
Jest ain't no tellin' how fast they would grow;
Bet you they'd fool everybody in town!
But mother--she says they need lickin', an' so
They're too busy hollerin' to git up an' grow!
"RINGWORM FRANK"
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Jest Frank Reed's his _real_ name--though
Boys all calls him "Ringworm Frank,"
'Cause he allus _runs round_ so.--
No man can't tell where to bank
_Frank_'ll be,
Next you see
Er _hear_ of him!--Drat his melts!--
That man's allus _somers else_!
We're old pards.--But Frank he jest
_Can't_ stay still!--Wuz _prosper'n here_,
But lit out on furder West
Somers on a ranch, last year:
Never heard
Nary a word
_How_ he liked it, tel to-day,
Got this card, reads thisaway:--
"Dad-burn climate out here makes
Me homesick all Winter long,
And when Springtime _comes_, it takes
Two pee-wees to sing one song,--
One sings '_pee_'
And the other one '_wee_!'
Stay right where you air, old pard.--
Wisht _I_ wuz this postal-card!"
THE COLONEL'S CLOTHES
BY CAROLINE HOWARD GILMAN
Every man has some peculiar taste or preference, and, I think, though
papa dressed with great elegance, his was a decided love of his old
clothes; his garments, like his friends, became dearer to him from their
wear and tear in his service, and they were deposited successively in
his dressing-room, though mamma thought them quite unfit for him. He
averred that he required his old hunting-suits for accidents; his summer
jackets and vests, though faded, were the coolest in the world; his
worm-eaten but warm _roquelaure_ was admirable for riding about the
fields, etc. In vain mamma represented the economy of cutting up some
for the boys, and giving others to the servants; he would not consent,
nor part with articles in which he said he felt at home. Often did mamma
remonstrate against the dressing-room's looking like a haberdasher's
shop; often did she take down a coat, hold it up to the light, and show
him perforations that would have honored New Orleans or Waterloo; often,
while Chloe was flogging the pantaloons, which ungallantly kicked in
return, did she declare that it was a sin and a shame for her master to
have such things in the house; still the anti-cherubic shapes
accumulated on the nails and hooks, and were even considered as of
sufficient importance to be preserved from the fire at the burning of
Roseland.
Our little circle about this time was animated by a visit from a
peddler. As soon as he was perceived crossing the lawn with a large
basket on his arm, and a bundle slung across a stick on his shoulder, a
stir commenced in the house. Mamma assumed an air of importance and
responsibility; I felt a pleasurable excitement; Chloe's and Flora's
eyes twinkled with expectation; while, from different quarters, the
house servants entered, standing with eyes and mouth silently open, as
the peddler, after depositing his basket and deliberately untying his
bundle, offered his goods to our inspection. He was a stout man, with a
dark complexion, pitted with the small-pox, and spoke in a foreign
accent. I confess that I yielded myself to the pleasure of purchasing
some gewgaws, which I afterward gave to Flora, while mamma looked at the
glass and plated ware.
"Ver sheap," said the peddler, following her eye, and taking up a pair
of glass pitchers; "only two dollar--sheap as dirt. If te lady hash any
old closhes, it is petter as money."
Mamma took the pitchers in her hand with an inquisitorial air, balanced
them, knocked them with her small knuckles--they rang as clear as a
bell--examined the glass--there was not a flaw in it. Chloe went through
the same process; they looked significantly at each other, nodded, set
the pitchers on the slab, and gave a little approbatory cough.
"They are certainly very cheap," said mamma, tentatively.
"They is, for true, my mistress," said Chloe, with solemnity, "and more
handsomer than Mrs. Whitney's that she gin six dollars for at
Charleston."
"Chloe," said mamma, "were not those pantaloons you were shaking to-day
quite shrunk and worn out?"
"Yes, ma'am," said she; "and they don't fit nohow. The last time the
colonel wore them he seemed quite _on-restless_."
"Just step up," said her mistress, "and bring them down; but stay--what
did you say was the price of these candlesticks, sir?"
"Tish only von dollars; but tish more cheaper for te old closhes. If te
lady will get te old closhes, I will put in te pellows and te prush, and
it ish more sheaper, too."
Chloe and mamma looked at each other, and raised their eyebrows.
"I will just step up and see those pantaloons," said mamma, in a
consulting tone. "It will be a mercy to the colonel to clear out some of
that rubbish. I am confident he can never wear the pantaloons again;
they are rubbed in the knees, and require seating, and he never _will_
wear seated pantaloons. These things are unusually cheap, and the
colonel told me lately we were in want of a few little matters of this
sort." Thus saying, with a significant whisper to me to watch the
peddler, she disappeared with Chloe.
They soon returned, Chloe bearing a variety of garments, for mamma had
taken the important _premier pas_. The pantaloons were first produced.
The peddler took them in his hand, which flew up like an empty scale, to
show how light they were; he held them up to the sun, and a half
contemptuous smile crossed his lips; then shaking his head, he threw
them down beside his basket. A drab overcoat was next inspected, and was
also thrown aside with a doubtful expression.
"Mr. Peddler," said mamma, in a very soft tone, "you must allow me a
fair price; these are very excellent articles."
"Oh, ver fair," said he, "but te closhes ish not ver goot; te
closhesman is not going to give me noting for dish," and he laid a
waistcoat on the other two articles.
Mamma and Chloe had by this time reached the depths of the basket, and,
with sympathetic exclamations, arranged several articles on the slab.
"You will let me have these pitchers," said mamma, with a look of
concentrated resolution, "for that very nice pair of pantaloons."
The peddler gave a short whistle expressive of contempt, shook his head,
and said, "Tish not possibles. I will give two pishers and von prush for
te pantaloon and waistcoat."
Mamma and Chloe glanced at each other and at me; I was absorbed in my
own bargains, and said, carelessly, that the pitchers were perfect
beauties. Chloe pushed one pitcher a little forward, mamma pushed the
other on a parallel line, then poised a decanter, and again applied her
delicate knuckles for the test. That, too, rang out the musical,
unbroken sound, so dear to the housewife's ear, and, with a pair of
plated candlesticks, was deposited on the table. The peddler took up the
drab overcoat.
"Te closhesman's give noting for dish."
Mamma looked disconcerted. The expression of her face implied the fear
that the peddler would not even accept it as a gift. Chloe and she held
a whispering consultation. At this moment Binah came in with little
Patsey, who, seeing the articles on the slab, pointed with her dimpled
fingers, and said her only words,
"Pretty! pretty!"
At the same moment, Lafayette and Venus, the two little novices in
furniture-rubbing, exclaimed,
"Ki! if dem ting an't shine too much!"
These opinions made the turning-point in mamma's mind, though coming
from such insignificant sources.
"So they are pretty, my darling," said mamma to Patsey; and then,
turning to the peddler, she asked him what he would give in exchange for
the pantaloons, the waistcoat and the coat.
The peddler set aside two decanters, one pitcher, the plated
candlesticks, and a hearth-brush.
"Tish ver goot pargains for te lady," said he.
Mamma gained courage.
"I can not think of letting you have all these things without something
more. You must at least throw in that little tray," and she looked at a
small scarlet one, worth perhaps a quarter of a dollar.