bad habits and his domestic grievances, he became completely hipped. He
imagined that he was going to die; and suffered in quick succession all
the diseases that ever beset mortal man. Every shooting pain was an
alarming symptom,--every uneasy feeling after dinner a sure prognostic
of some mortal disease. In vain did his friends endeavor to reason, and
then to laugh him out of his strange whims; for when did ever jest or
reason cure a sick imagination? His only answer was, "Do let me alone; I
know better than you what ails me."
Well, gentlemen, things were in this state, when, one afternoon in
December, as he sat moping in his office, wrapped in an overcoat, with a
cap on his head and his feet thrust into a pair of furred slippers, a
cabriolet stopped at the door, and a loud knocking without aroused him
from his gloomy revery. It was a message from his friend the
wine-dealer, who had been suddenly attacked with a violent fever, and
growing worse and worse, had now sent in the greatest haste for the
notary to draw up his last will and testament. The case was urgent, and
admitted neither excuse nor delay; and the notary, tying a handkerchief
round his face, and buttoning up to the chin, jumped into the cabriolet,
and suffered himself, though not without some dismal presentiments and
misgivings of heart, to be driven to the wine-dealer's house.
When he arrived, he found everything in the greatest confusion. On
entering the house, he ran against the apothecary, who was coming down
stairs, with a face as long as your arm; and a few steps farther he met
the housekeeper--for the wine-dealer was an old bachelor--running up
and down, and wringing her hands, for fear that the good man should die
without making his will. He soon reached the chamber of his sick friend,
and found him tossing about in a paroxysm of fever, and calling aloud
for a draught of cold water. The notary shook his head; he thought this
a fatal symptom; for ten years back the wine-dealer had been suffering
under a species of hydrophobia, which seemed suddenly to have left him.
When the sick man saw who stood by his bedside, he stretched out his
hand and exclaimed,--
"Ah! my dear friend! have you come at last? You see it is all over with
me. You have arrived just in time to draw up that--that passport of
mine. Ah, _grand diable_! how hot it is here! Water,--water,--water!
Will nobody give me a drop of cold water?"
As the case was an urgent one, the notary made no delay in getting his
papers in readiness; and in a short time the last will and testament of
the wine-dealer was drawn up in due form, the notary guiding the sick
man's hand as he scrawled his signature at the bottom.
As the evening wore away, the wine-dealer grew worse and worse, and at
length became delirious, mingling in his incoherent ravings the phrases
of the Credo and Paternoster with the shibboleth of the dram-shop and
the card-table.
"Take care! take care! There, now--_Credo in_--Pop! ting-a-ling-ling!
give me some of that. Cent-é-dize! Why, you old publican, this
wine is poisoned,--I know your tricks!--_Sanctam ecclesiam
catholicam_--Well, well, we shall see. Imbecile! to have a
tierce-major and a seven of hearts, and discard the seven! By St.
Anthony, capot! You are lurched,--ha! ha! I told you so. I knew
very well,--there,--there,--don't interrupt me--_Carnis resurrectionem
et vitam eternam_!"
With these words upon his lips, the poor wine-dealer expired. Meanwhile
the notary sat cowering over the fire, aghast at the fearful scene that
was passing before him, and now and then striving to keep up his courage
by a glass of cognac. Already his fears were on the alert; and the idea
of contagion flitted to and fro through his mind. In order to quiet
these thoughts of evil import, he lighted his pipe and began to prepare
for returning home. At that moment the apothecary turned round to him
and said,--
"Dreadful sickly time, this! The disorder seems to be spreading."
"What disorder?" exclaimed the notary, with a movement of surprise.
"Two died yesterday, and three to-day," continued the apothecary,
without answering the question. "Very sickly time, sir,--very."
"But what disorder is it? What disease has carried off my friend here so
suddenly?"
"What disease? Why, scarlet fever, to be sure."
"And is it contagious?"
"Certainly!"
"Then I am a dead man!" exclaimed the notary, putting his pipe into his
waistcoat-pocket, and beginning to walk up and down the room in despair.
"I am a dead man! Now don't deceive me,--don't, will you? What--what are
the symptoms?"
"A sharp, burning pain in the right side," said the apothecary.
"O, what a fool I was to come here!"
In vain did the housekeeper and the apothecary strive to pacify him;--he
was not a man to be reasoned with; he answered that he knew his own
constitution better than they did, and insisted upon going home without
delay. Unfortunately, the vehicle he came in had returned to the city,
and the whole neighborhood was abed and asleep. What was to be done?
Nothing in the world but to take the apothecary's horse, which stood
hitched at the door, patiently waiting his master's will.
Well, gentlemen, as there was no remedy, our notary mounted this
raw-boned steed and set forth upon his homeward journey. The night was
cold and gusty, and the wind right in his teeth. Overhead the leaden
clouds were beating to and fro, and through them the newly-risen moon
seemed to be tossing and drifting along like a cock-boat in the surf;
now swallowed up in a huge billow of cloud, and now lifted upon its
bosom and dashed with silvery spray. The trees by the road-side groaned
with a sound of evil omen; and before him lay three mortal miles, beset
with a thousand imaginary perils. Obedient to the whip and spur, the
steed leaped forward by fits and starts, now dashing away in a
tremendous gallop, and now relaxing into a long, hard trot; while the
rider, filled with symptoms of disease and dire presentiments of death,
urged him on, as if he were fleeing before the pestilence.
In this way, by dint of whistling and shouting, and beating right and
left, one mile of the fatal three was safely passed. The apprehensions
of the notary had so far subsided, that he even suffered the poor horse
to walk up hill; but these apprehensions were suddenly revived again
with tenfold violence by a sharp pain in the right side, which seemed to
pierce him like a needle.
"It is upon me at last!" groaned the fear-stricken man. "Heaven be
merciful to me, the greatest of sinners! And must I die in a ditch,
after all? He! get up,--get up!"
And away went horse and rider at full speed,--hurry-scurry,--up hill and
down,--panting and blowing like a whirlwind. At every leap the pain in
the rider's side seemed to increase. At first it was a little point like
the prick of a needle,--then it spread to the size of a half-franc
piece,--then covered a place as large as the palm of your hand. It
gained upon him fast. The poor man groaned aloud in agony; faster and
faster sped the horse over the frozen ground,--farther and farther
spread the pain over his side. To complete the dismal picture the storm
commenced,--snow mingled with rain. But snow, and rain, and cold were
naught to him; for, though his arms and legs were frozen to icicles, he
felt it not; the fatal symptom was upon him; he was doomed to die,--not
of cold, but of scarlet fever!
At length, he knew not how, more dead than alive, he reached the gate of
the city. A band of ill-bred dogs, that were serenading at a corner of
the street, seeing the notary dash by, joined in the hue and cry, and
ran barking and yelping at his heels. It was now late at night, and only
here and there a solitary lamp twinkled from an upper story. But on went
the notary, down this street and up that, till at last he reached his
own door. There was a light in his wife's bedroom. The good woman came
to the window, alarmed at such a knocking, and howling, and clattering
at her door so late at night; and the notary was too deeply absorbed in
his own sorrows to observe that the lamp cast the shadow of two heads on
the window-curtain.
"Let me in! let me in! Quick! quick!" he exclaimed, almost breathless
from terror and fatigue.
"Who are you, that come to disturb a lone woman at this hour of the
night?" cried a sharp voice from above. "Begone about your business, and
let quiet people sleep."
"Come down and let me in! I am your husband! Don't you know my voice?
Quick, I beseech you; for I am dying here in the street!"
After a few moments of delay and a few more words of parley, the door
was opened, and the notary stalked into his domicile, pale and haggard
in aspect, and as stiff and straight as a ghost. Cased from head to heel
in an armor of ice, as the glare of the lamp fell upon him, he looked
like a knight-errant mailed in steel. But in one place his armor was
broken. On his right side was a circular spot, as large as the crown of
your hat, and about as black!
"My dear wife!" he exclaimed with more tenderness than he had exhibited
for many years, "Reach me a chair. My hours are numbered. I am a dead
man!"
Alarmed at these exclamations, his wife stripped off his overcoat.
Something fell from beneath it, and was dashed to pieces on the hearth.
It was the notary's pipe! He placed his hand upon his side, and, lo! it
was bare to the skin! Coat, waistcoat, and linen were burnt through and
through, and there was a blister on his side as large as your hand!
The mystery was soon explained, symptom and all. The notary had put his
pipe into his pocket without knocking out the ashes! And so my story
ends.
* * * * *
"Is that all?" asked the radical, when the story-teller had finished.
"That is all."
"Well, what does your story prove?"
"That is more than I can tell. All I know is that the story is true."
"And did he die?" said the nice little man in gosling-green.
"Yes; he died afterwards," replied the story-teller, rather annoyed by
the question.
"And what did he die of?" continued gosling-green, following him up.
"What did he die of? why, he died--of a sudden!"
HOLLY SONG
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD
Care is but a broken bubble,
Trill the carol, troll the catch;
Sooth, we'll cry, "A truce to trouble!"
Mirth and mistletoe shall match.
_Happy folly! we'll be jolly!
Who'd be melancholy now?
With a "Hey, the holly! Ho, the holly!"
Polly hangs the holly bough._
Laughter lurking in the eye, sir,
Pleasure foots it frisk and free.
He who frowns or looks awry, sir,
Faith, a witless wight is he!
_Merry folly! what a volley
Greets the hanging of the bough!
With a "Hey, the holly! Ho, the holly!"
Who'd be melancholy now?_
SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
I can not sing the old songs,
Though well I know the tune,
Familiar as a cradle song
With sleep-compelling croon;
Yet though I'm filled with music
As choirs of summer birds,
"I can not sing the old songs"--
I do not know the words.
I start on "Hail Columbia,"
And get to "heav'n-born band,"
And there I strike an up-grade
With neither steam nor sand;
"Star Spangled Banner" downs me
Right in my wildest screaming,
I start all right, but dumbly come
To voiceless wreck at "streaming."
So, when I sing the old songs,
Don't murmur or complain
If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum,"
Should fill the sweetest strain.
I love "Tolly um dum di do,"
And the "trilla-la yeep da"-birds,
But "I can not sing the old songs"--
I do not know the words.
TRIOLETS
BY C.W.M.
She threw me a kiss,
But why did she throw it?
What grieves me is this--
She threw me a kiss;
Ah, what chances we miss
If we only could know it!
She threw me a kiss
But why did she throw it!
Any girl might have known
When I stood there so near!
And we two all alone
Any girl might have known
That she needn't have thrown!
But then girls are so queer!
Any girl might have known,
When I stood there so near!
WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT IT
BY JOHN PAUL
Lyrics to Inez and Jane,
Dolores and Ethel and May;
Señoritas distant as Spain,
And damsels just over the way!
It is not that I'm jealous, nor that,
Of either Dolores or Jane,
Of some girl in an opposite flat,
Or in one of his castles in Spain,
But it is that salable prose
Put aside for this profitless strain,
I sit the day darning his hose--
And he sings of Dolores and Jane.
Though the winged-horse must caracole free--
With the pretty, when "spurning the plain,"
Should the team-work fall wholly on me
While he soars with Dolores and Jane?
_I_ am neither Dolores nor Jane,
But to lighten a little my life
Might the Poet not spare me a strain--
Although I am only his wife!
AN EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
BY ROY FARRELL GREENE
Since schools to teach one this or that
Are being started every day,
I have the plan, a notion pat,
Of one which I am sure would pay.
'Twould be a venture strictly new,
No shaking up of dusty bones;
How does the scheme appeal to you?
A regular school for chaperones!
One course would be to dull the ear,
And one would be to dim the eye,
So whispered love they'd never hear,
And glance coquettish never spy;
They'd be taught somnolence, and how
Ofttimes closed eye for sleep atones;
Had I a million, I'd endow
A regular school for chaperones!
There's crying need in West and East
For graduates, and not a source
Supplying it. Some one at least
Should start a correspondence course;
But joy will scarce o'errun the cup
Of maidenhood, my candor owns,
Till some skilled Mentor opens up
A regular school for chaperones!
THE CAMP-MEETING
BY BAYNARD RUST HALL
The camp was furnished with several stands for preaching, exhorting,
jumping and jerking; but still one place was the pulpit, above all
others. This was a large scaffold, secured between two noble sugar
trees, and railed in to prevent from falling over in a swoon, or
springing over in an ecstasy; its cover the dense foliage of the trees,
whose trunks formed the graceful and massive columns. Here was said to
be also the _altar_, but I could not see its _horns_ or any _sacrifice_;
and the pen, which I _did_ see--a place full of clean straw, where were
put into fold stray sheep willing to return. It was at this pulpit, with
its altar and pen, the regular preaching was done; around here the
congregation assembled; hence orders were issued; here, happened the
hardest fights, and were gained the greatest victories, being the spot
where it was understood Satan fought in person; and here could be seen
gestures the most frantic, and heard noises the most unimaginable, and
often the most appalling. It was the place, in short, where most crowded
either with praiseworthy intentions of getting some religion, or with
unholy purposes of being amused; we, of course, designing neither one
nor the other, but only to see philosophically and make up an opinion.
At every grand outcry a simultaneous rush would, however, take place
from all parts of the camp, proper and improper, towards the pulpit,
altar, and pen; till the crowding, by increasing the suffocation and
the fainting, would increase the tumult and the uproar; but this, in the
estimation of many devotees, only rendered the meeting more lively and
interesting.
By considering what was done at this central station one may approximate
the amount of spiritual labor done in a day, and then a week in the
whole camp:
1. About day-break on Sabbath a horn _blasted_ us up for public prayer
and exhortation, the exercises continuing nearly two hours.
2. Before breakfast, another blast for family and private prayer; and
then every tent became, in camp language, "a bethel of struggling Jacobs
and prevailing Israels," every tree "an altar;" and every grove "a
secret closet;" till the air all became religious words and phrases, and
vocal with "Amens."
3. After a proper interval came a horn for the forenoon service; then
was delivered the sermon, and that followed by an appendix of some half
dozen exhortations let off right and left, and even _behind_ the pulpit,
that all might have a portion in due season.
4. We had private and secret prayer again before dinner;--some
clambering into thick trees to be hid, but forgetting in their
simplicity, that they were heard and betrayed. But religious devotion
excuses all errors and mistakes.
5. The afternoon sermon with its bob-tail string of exhortations.
6. Private and family prayer about tea time.
7. But lastly, we had what was termed "a precious season," in the third
regular service at the _principia_ of the camp. This season began not
long after tea and was kept up long after I left the ground; which was
about midnight. And now sermon after sermon and exhortation after
exhortation followed like shallow, foaming, roaring waters; till the
speakers were exhausted and the assembly became an uneasy and billowy
mass, now hushing to a sobbing quiescence, and now rousing by the groans
of sinners and the triumphant cries of folks that had "jist got
religion"; and then again subsiding to a buzzy state, occasioned by the
whimpering and whining voices of persons giving spiritual advice and
comfort! How like a volcanic crater after the evomition of its lava in a
fit of burning cholic, and striving to resettle its angry and
tumultuating stomach!
It is time, however, to speak of the three grand services and their
concomitants, and to introduce several master spirits of the camp.
Our first character, is the Reverend Elder Sprightly. This gentleman was
of good natural parts; and in a better school of intellectual discipline
and more fortunate circumstances, he must have become a worthy minister
of some more tasteful, literary and evangelical sect. As it was, he had
only become what he never got beyond--"a very smart man;" and his aim
had become one--to enlarge his own people. And in this work, so great
was his success, that, to use his own modest boastfulness in his sermon
to-day,--"although folks said when he came to the Purchase that a single
corn-crib would hold his people, yet, bless the Lord, they had kept
spreading and spreading till all the corn-cribs in Egypt weren't big
enough to hold them!"
He was very happy at repartee, as Robert Dale Owen well knows; and not
"slow" (inexpert) in the arts of "taking off"--and--"giving them their
own." This trait we shall illustrate by an instance.
Mr. Sprightly was, by accident, once present where a Campbellite
Baptist, that had recently taken out a right for administering six doses
of lobelia, red pepper and steam to men's bodies, and a plunge into
cold water for the good of their souls, was holding forth against all
Doctors, secular and sacred, and very fiercely against Sprightly's
brotherhood. Doctor Lobelia's text was found somewhere in Pope
Campbell's _New_ Testament; as it suited the following discourse
introduced with the usual inspired preface:
DOCTOR LOBELIA'S SERMON
"Well, I never rub'd my back agin a collige, nor git no sheepskin, and
allow the Apostuls didn't nither. Did anybody ever hear of Peter and
Poll a-goin' to them new-fangled places and gitten skins to preach by?
No, sirs, I allow not; no, sirs, we don't pretend to loguk--this here
_new_ testament's sheepskin enough for me. And don't Prisbeteruns and
tother baby sprinklurs have reskorse to loguk and skins to show how them
what's emerz'd didn't go down into the water and come up agin? And as to
Sprightly's preachurs, don't they dress like big-bugs, and go ridin
about the Purchis on hunder-dollur hossis, a-spunginin on poor
priest-riden folks and a-eatin fried chickin fixins so powerful fast
that chickins has got skerse in these diggins; and then what ain't fried
makes tracks and hides when they sees them a-comin?
"But, dear bruthrun, we don't want store cloth and yaller buttins, and
fat hossis and chickin fixins, and the like doins--no, sirs! we only
wants your souls--we only wants beleevur's baptism--we wants
prim--prim--yes, Apostul's Christianity, the Christianity of Christ and
them times, when Christians _was_ Christians, and tuk up thare cross and
went down into the water, and was buried in the gineine sort of baptism
by emerzhin. That's all we wants; and I hope all's convinced that's the
true way--and so let all come right out from among them and git
beleevur's baptism; and so now if any brothur wants to say a word I'm
done, and I'll make way for him to preach."
* * * * *
Anticipating this common invitation, our friend Sprightly, indignant at
this unprovoked attack of Doctor Lobelia, had, in order to disguise
himself, exchanged his clerical garb for a friend's blue coatee
bedizzened with metal buttons; and also had erected a very tasteful and
sharp coxcomb on his head, out of hair usually reposing sleek and quiet
in the most saint-like decorum; and then, at the bid from the
pulpit-stump, out stepped Mr. Sprightly from the opposite spice-wood
grove, and advanced with a step so smirky and dandyish as to create
universal amazement and whispered demands--"Why! who's that?" And some
of his very people, who were present, as they told me, did not know
their preacher till his clear, sharp voice came upon the hearing, when
they showed, by the sudden lifting of hands and eyebrows, how near they
were to exclaiming: "Well! I never!"
Stepping on to the consecrated stump, our friend, without either
preliminary hymn or prayer, commenced thus:
"My friends, I only intend to say a few words in answer to the pious
brother that's just sat down, and shall not detain but a few minutes.
The pious brother took a good deal of time to tell what we soon found
out ourselves--that he never went to college and don't understand logic.
He boasts, too, of having no sheepskin to preach by; but I allow any
sensible buck-sheep would have died powerful sorry, if he'd ever thought
his hide would come to be handled by some preachers. The skin of the
knowingest old buck couldn't do some folks any good--some things salt
won't save.
"I rather allow Johnny Calvin's boys and 'tother baby sprinklers,'
ain't likely to have they idees physicked out of them by steam logic,
and doses of No. 6. They can't be steamed up so high as to want cooling
by a cold water plunge. But I want to say a word about Sprightly's
preachers, because I have some slight acquaintance with that there
gentleman, and don't choose to have them all run down for nothing.
"The pious brother brings several grave charges; first, they ride good
horses. Now don't every man, woman and child in the Purchase know that
Sprightly and his preachers have hardly any home, and that they live on
horseback? The money most folks spend in land these men spend for a good
horse; and don't they _need_ a good horse to stand mud and swim floods?
And is it any sin for a horse to be kept fat that does so much work? The
book says 'a merciful man is merciful to his beast,' and that we mustn't
'muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' Step round that fence
corner, and take a peep, dear friends, at a horse hung on the stake;
what's he like? A wooden frame with a dry hide stretched over it. What's
he live on? Ay! that's the pint! Well, what's them buzzards after?--look
at them sailing up there. Now who owns that live carrion?--the pious
brother that's just preached to us just now. And I want to know if it
wouldn't be better for him to give that dumb brute something to cover
his bones, before he talks against 'hunder-dollur hossis' and the like?
"The next charge is, wearing good clothes. Friends, don't all folks when
they come to meeting put on their best clothes? and wouldn't it be wrong
if preachers came in old torn coats and dirty shirts? It wouldn't do no
how. Well, Sprightly and his preachers preach near about every day; and
oughtn't they always to look decent? Take, then, a peep at the pious
brother that makes this charge; his coat is out at the elbow, and has
only three or four buttons left, and his arm, where he wipes his nose
and mouth, is shiny as a looking glass--his trousers are crawling up to
show he's got no stockings on; and his face has got a crop of beard two
weeks old and couldn't be cleaned by 'baby sprinklin''; yes, look at
them there matters, and say if Sprightly's preachers ain't more like the
apostles in decency than the pious brother is.
"A word now about chickin-fixins and doins. And I say it would be a
charity to give the pious brother sich a feed now and then, for he looks
half-starved, and savage as a meat-ax; and I advise that old hen out
thare clucking up her brood not to come this way just now, if she don't
want all to disappear. But I say that Sprightly's preachers are so much
beliked in the Purchase, that folks are always glad to see them, and
make a pint of giving them the best out of love; an' that's more than
can be said for some folks here.