She was dressed up considerably, and, when a woman dresses up to ride in
a railway train, she advertises the fact that her intellect is beginning
to totter on its throne. People who have more than one suit of clothes
should not pick out the fine raiment for traveling purposes. This person
was not handsomely dressed, but she had the kind of clothes that look
as though they had tried to present the appearance of affluence and had
failed to do so.
This leads me to say, in all seriousness, that there is nothing so sad
as the sight of a man or woman who would scorn to tell a wrong story,
but who will persist in wearing bogus clothes and bogus jewelry that
wouldn't fool anybody.
My seat-mate wore a cloak that had started out to bamboozle the American
people with the idea that it was worth $100, but it wouldn't mislead
anyone who might be nearer than half a mile. I also discovered that
it had an air about it that would indicate that she wore it while she
cooked the pancakes and fried the doughnuts. It hardly seems possible
that she would do this, but the garment, I say, had that air about it.
She seemed to want to converse after awhile, and she began on the
subject of literature. Picking up a volume that had been left in her
seat by the train boy, entitled: "Shadowed to Skowhegan and Back; or,
The Child Fiend; price $2," we drifted on pleasantly into the broad
domain of letters.
Incidentally I asked her what authors she read mostly.
"O, I don't remember the authors so much as I do the books," said she.
"I am a great reader. If I should tell you how much I have read, you
wouldn't believe it."
I said I certainly would. I had frequently been called upon to believe
things that would make the ordinary rooster quail.
If she discovered the true inwardness of this Anglo-American
"Jewdesprit," she refrained from saying anything about it.
"I read a good deal," she continued, "and it keeps me all strung up. I
weep, O so easily." Just then she lightly laid her hand on my arm, and I
could see that the tears were rising to her eyes. I felt like asking her
if she had ever tried running herself through a clothes wringer every
morning. I did feel that someone ought to chirk her up, so I asked her
if she remembered the advice of the editor who received a letter from a
young lady troubled the same way. She stated that she couldn't explain
it, but every little while, without any apparent cause, she would shed
tears, and the editor asked her why she didn't lock up the shed.
We conversed for a long time about literature, but every little while
she would get me into deep water by quoting some author or work that I
had never read. I never realized what a hopeless ignoramus I was till I
heard about the scores of books that had made her shed the scalding,
and yet that I had never, never read. When she looked at me with that
faraway expression in her eyes, and with her hand resting lightly on
my arm in such a way as to give the gorgeous two karat Rhinestone from
Pittsburg full play, and told me how such works as "The New Made Grave;
or, The Twin Murderers" had cost her many and many a copious tear, I
told her I was glad of it. If it be a blessed boon for the student of
such books to weep at home and work up their honest perspiration into
scalding tears, far be it from me to grudge that poor boon.
I hope that all who may read these lines, and who may feel that the
pores of their skin are getting torpid and sluggish, owing to an
inherited antipathy toward physical exertion, and who feel that they
would rather work up their perspiration into woe and shed it in the
shape of common red-eyed weep, will keep themselves to this poor boon.
People have different ways of enjoying themselves, and I hope no one
will hesitate about accepting this or any other poor boon that I do not
happen to be using at the time.