Chapter V (4)

You see, the tenor had got kind of abstracted, or restless, or something during the long prayer, and was thinking about the European war, or the wheat corner last week, or something, and so when the minister gave out hymn 231, on page 67, and the chorister whispered them to sing the music on page 117, it all came in on the tenor like a volley, and as he had only the playing of the symphony in which to make the necessary combination of time, hymn and page, he came to the front just a little bit disorganized, and his fingers sticking between every leaf in the book. And the choir hadn’t faced the footlights half a minute before the congregation more than half suspected something was wrong. For you see, the soprano, in attempting to answer the frenzied whisper of the tenor in regard to the page, lost the first two or three words of the opening line herself, and that left the alto to start off alone, for the basso was so profoundly engaged in watching the tenor and wondering what ailed him, that he forgot to sing. The music wasn’t written for an alto solo, and consequently there wasn’t very much variety to that part, and after singing nearly through the first line alone, and receiving neither applause nor bouquets for one of the finest contralto efforts a Burlington or any other audience ever listened to, the alto stopped and looked reproachfully at the soprano, who had just plunged the tenor’s soul into a gulf of dark despair by leaving him to find his way out of the labyrinth of tunes and pages and hymns into which his own heedlessness had led him, by giving him a frantic shake of her head, which unsettled the new spring bonnet (just the sweetest duck of a Normandy), to that extent that every woman in the congregation noticed it. All this time the organist was doing nobly, and the alto, recovering her spirits, sang another bar, which, for sweetness and tenacious adherence to the same note, all the way through, couldn’t be beat in America. By this time the bass had risen to the emergency and sang two deep guttural notes, with profound expression, but as those of the congregation sitting nearest the choir could distinctly hear him sing “Ho, ho!” to the proper music, it was painfully evident that the basso had the correct tune, but was running wild on the words. At this point the soprano got her time and started off with a couple of confident notes, high and clear as a bird song, and the congregation, inspired with an over-ready confidence, broke out on the last word of the verse with a discordant roar that rattled the globes on the big chandelier, and as the verse closed with this triumphant outbreak, an expression of calm, restful satisfaction was observed to steal over the top of the pastor’s head, which was all that could be seen of him, as he bowed himself behind the pulpit.

The organist played an intricate and beautiful interlude without a tremor or a false note; not an uncertain touch to indicate that there was a particle of excitement in the choir, or that anything had gone wrong.

The choir didn’t exactly appear to catch the organist’s reassuring steadiness, for the basso led off the second verse by himself, and his deep-toned “Ho, ho!” was so perceptible throughout the sanctuary that several people started, and looked down under the seats for a man, and one irreverent sinner, near the door, thrust a felt hat into his mouth and slid out. The soprano got orders and started out only three or four words behind time, but she hadn’t reached the first siding before she collided with a woman in the audience, running wild and trying to carry a new tune to the old words. And then, to make it worse, the soprano handed her book to the tenor, and pointed him to the tune on page 117 and the words on page 67, and if that unhappy man didn’t get his orders mixed, and struck out on schedule time, with the tune on page 67 and the words on page 117, and in less than ten words ditched himself so badly that he was laid out for the rest of the verse, and then he lost his place, handed the book back to the soprano, took the one she had, and held it upside down, and no living man could tell from his face what he was thinking of or trying to say. Meanwhile the soprano, when the books were so abruptly changed on her, did just what might have been expected, and telescoped two tunes and sets of words into each other with disastrous effect. The alto was running smoothly along, passenger time, for the several wrecks gave her the track, so far as it was clear, all to herself. The basso, who had slipped an eccentric and was only working one side, was rumbling cautiously along, clear off his own time, flagging himself every mile of the way, and asking for orders every time he got a chance. The pastor’s head was observed to tremble with emotion, and the people sitting nearest the pulpit say they could indistinctly hear sounds from behind it that resembled the syllables “Te, he!” As the organist pulled and crowded and encouraged them along toward the closing line, it looked as though public confidence might soon be restored and the panic abated, but alas, as even the demoralized tenor rallied, and came in with the full quartette on the last line, a misguided man in the audience suddenly thought he recognized in the distracted tune an old, familiar acquaintance, and broke out in a joyous howl on something entirely different that inspired every singing man and woman in the congregation with the same idea, and the hymn was finished in a terrific discord of sixty-nine different tunes, and the rent and mangled melody flapped and fluttered around the sacred edifice like a new kind of delirium tremens, and all the wrecking cars on the line were started for the scene at once.

The pastor deserves more praise than can be crowded into these pages for pronouncing the benediction in clear, even tones, without even the ghost of a smile on his placid countenance.

RUPERTINO’S PANORAMA.

Our first view is leaving New York harbor. This is a beautiful picture. See the mighty vessel, spreading her snowy wings to the gale, glide through the water like a thing of life. There is nothing to hinder her, and nothing in that fact to make a fuss about. But if the water was to glide through her, it would be time for reflection on the brevity of one’s life insurance policy. The noble ship is freighted with precious human souls, bright hopes, happy anticipations, hides, salt meat and highwines.

This is a view of the Bourse in Paris, a twin institution to the Burlington Board of Trade. The man in the background, trying to hang himself on a lamp-post, is a member of the Bourse. He has just been Boursted. He has been operating in corn. If you will hold a bottle or small tumbler to your mouth and look steadily at this picture, you will see how they usually operate in corn at the Exchanges.

This is a view in Egypt. The great city of Cairo. It is named after Cairo, Illinois. Cairo is on the river Nile. Cairo never struck ile that we know of, but we do know that Cairo seen Nile. We do not know, history does not tell us, what there was so important in this event, but we know it is commemorated by monuments erected all over America. You can’t go into a cemetery in the United States without seeing one or more monuments erected to the memory of Cairo C. Nile. He was probably the inventor of a cooking-stove, as some reference is usually made to the kitchen fire.

This is a view of the Seine. This is the favorite place for the Parisians to shuffle off their mortal coil. The volatile Frenchman gets himself full of elan (you know what that is) and jumps off one of these arched bridges, the Pont Noof or the Pont de Jena, down by the Shong de Mar. The zhong darmay, which is French for river police, fishes the victim out; the coroner pronounces him incurably inseine, his property is confiscated, and his insurance policy declared void, so as to spoil his wife’s chances of marrying again. Such is the grasp of an iron despotism upon the wretched slaves of down-trodden Europe. (Applause)

Here is a view in London of the old Bucking’em palace. This is an exterior view. Inside there are several keno banks, some chuckaluck tables and a faro bank, and the nobility are in there bucking the tiger. King Richard came out of that palace once, cleaned out, after a run of bad luck. He remarked to a friend, “So much for bucking ’em.” The quotation has passed into history.

A panoramic view of Scotland. The gentleman in the peculiar position in the foreground is scratching his back against a mile post and remarking, “God bless the gude Duke of Argyle.” The children in Scotland are taught that the Duke of Argyle made the world. This is an error.

We stand among the antiquities of Rome--Rome that stood on her seven hills, like James Robinson in his famous eight-horse bareback act. This is Trajan’s Column--his spinal column. This is the Arch of Titus. When he put up that arch he was Titus a brick. This is the place where the Roman mobs used to collect and the police went Forum. Here is the Coliseum. There is the bloody sand of the arena; there is the spot where “the dying gladiator” lied. “I see before me the dying gladiator lie.” Some calm and temperate Roman ought to have cast the scoundrel’s lies in his teeth. The Romans were very depraved, wicked people, and the entire civilized world yet suffers from the effects of their malicious iniquity. They invented the Latin grammar, Nepos, Cicero and Virgil, and hurled upon the boys of succeeding ages a language containing ten rules to every word, and twenty exceptions to every rule. This is a statue of a noble Roman, Julius Cæsar. He was named after the Fourth of July and President Grant.

We stand in Greece. “The isles of Greece! The isles of Greece!” Probably the poet referred to goose grease. The Greeks were an ancient people. They wrote their letters in cipher, and schoolboys of to-day sigh for hours over their letters. Here are the ruins of the temple of Jupiter O’Lympus, erected to him by the ancient Greeks, thus proving that the Irish nation sprang from these ancient heroes. Here is an ancient theater. It is closed now for repairs; has been closed for a few thousand years, and the actors have gone off to their Summer resort, at Hades on the Styx.

Behold buried Pompeii. The city was entombed in an eruption that hadn’t been equaled since Job got well. The gentleman in a military position at the gate, dressed in a full suit of bones, is not only a charming specimen of anatomy, but was a brave sentinel, who was covered up with ashes before he could run. He would have been 1,795 years old to-morrow if he had run and kept on living. It appears, however, that he is dead. The fact is not substantiated by any direct evidence, as no witnesses can be found who saw him die, and his will, therefore, has not been probated. But it is generally believed that he is dead. Weep not for him, friends. He was a heathen, and has gone to a place where he is probably used to volcanoes by this time.

This building, the venerable pile that rises before you, is 27,000 years old. It originally cost $850, and took ten men nearly all Summer to build it. It was whitewashed nearly 4,000 years ago, but received no later repairs. The room on the right as you enter the hall on the first floor, is the Torture Room. It is called the County Treasurer’s office, and is where people go and mortgage their farms and homes for taxes. The room opposite is the County Insane Asylum. The juries are confined there while on duty, and the local debating societies also meet there. This court-house was built many ages before Burlington was settled. The massive walls are engraved with the names of eminent men who have served on the juries. A grim and imposing antiquity frowns upon us as we enter the Judgment Hall up stairs. The benches and desks are made of wood taken from the decks of the ark. The tobacco quids in the corners were piled there so long ago that people had not begun to remember anything. The wood-box is a pre-Adamic creation. It is modeled after the megatherium. The only man living who knows any thing about the early history of the court-house is dead.

MIDDLERIB’S DOG.

Mr. Middlerib used to be a devoted dog fancier. About three years ago he owned a beautiful hound pup about five months old. It was considered an ornament to the neighborhood. A hound pup at that age is an object of surprising beauty, under any circumstances; but when you consider that Mr. Middlerib had raised his pup on scientific principles (boiled beef and rice), you can readily imagine what a canine divinity it was. Gaunt legs, longer than your grandfather’s stories, and the hind ones so crooked that the dog sticks his foot into everything in the yard every time he tries to scratch his ear; sides look as though he had swallowed an old hoopskirt, and the springs showed through; more ribs under his hide than there are spots on it; tail as long as the dog, and two inches across the big end and tapering down like a marlinspike, so lean you can count every joint in it, and so hard that you couldn’t scratch it with a diamond--has every appearance of having been made ten years before the dog was, and then hung out to bleach in the rain and dry in the sun until the dog came along; ears soft as a kid glove, and about the size and appearance of a blacksmith’s apron--bear every evidence of being considered by all other dogs in the precinct as dreadful nice things to chew. Beautiful eyes; open twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes of the day; scare every woman into fits that looks into the back yard after dark. Sweet mouth, opens on a hinge at the back of his head, and is never shut unless there is something in it. That’s the best picture of a growing hound, one of this kind with liver colored spots, that we can draw, and Mr. Middlerib’s was just like that, only more so. His principal characteristic was a tendency to lunch. He was fond of nibbling little things around the house. Split his face one Sunday while the folks were at church, and shut it down over a whole ham. Liked to peek at odd bones and scraps, and one Monday morning he ate two tablecloths, a flannel shirt, a big roller towel, half a dozen clothes pins and thirteen linear yards of clothes-line, before the washing had been hung out half an hour. Fond of eggs, too, and knows every hen by sight in the neighborhood, and sets off on a friendly call every time he hears a cackle. Mrs. M. wants to sell him, but Middlerib says gold couldn’t buy him. So he stays, and eggs are as scarce in that ward as ever.

Well, one night, Mrs. M. had made something by pulverizing a lot of very hot potatoes. We believe it was yeast. Any how, it was necessary that it should cool very presently, and after some misgivings relative to the dog and his weakness, which were dispelled by Middlerib’s indignant defense of that sagacious animal, the dish containing the fiery compound was placed on the outer edge of a window sill, to cool in the night air.

Then the family resumed their occupation of hearing Middlerib explain the causes that led to the recent revolution in politics.

Such a weird, unearthly, piercing wail hadn’t been heard since Dresseldorf learned to play the clarionet. It seemed to come out of the ground, out of the sky, out of the air around them, and for an instant the frightened Middleribs gazed at each other with white, terror-blanched faces. Then they rushed to the door and looked out. A gaunt, ghostly form, with liver colored spots and a mouth full of red hot potato yeast thrashed wildly up and down the yard, splitting the darkness with terrific yells at every jump. It was Middlerib’s dog; and it was apparently feeling uneasy. It dashed madly around in short circles and screamed “Police,” and scraped its jaws with its paws, and wept and rubbed its chops along the cold ground, and swore and howled for water, and pawed the earth and sang psalms, and in several ways expressed its disapprobation of potato yeast as a diet. Finally, the dog wedged himself in between the fence and the ash-barrel, and told all about it, how it happened and what it felt like, and how he liked it as far as he’d got. He never slept a wink that night. He was too anxious to get his narrative completed and see the proofs of it. Neither did anybody in the neighborhood sleep, either. And every time a water pitcher would crash down into the yard, or a boot-jack bang against the fence or an andiron plunge madly into the ash-barrel, the dog would laugh in mocking tones, and go on with his testimony. About midnight a vigilance committee waited on Mr. Middlerib, but he wouldn’t come out, and they couldn’t stand the noise long enough to break in the door. The dog finished his statement about sunrise, when the committee rose. The family ate baker’s bread the next day, and Middlerib so far yielded to Mrs. M.’s entreaties as to say that if any man will make a fair offer, he might sell an undivided third of the dog.

A BOY’S DAY AT HOME.

Master Bilderback had been home all day, confined to the house and barn by the rain, and excited by the prospect of unlimited fun during the long vacation. He was a blessing to his mother and sister, and his affectionate parent caught her death of cold by running around after him in one stocking foot, searching out the tender places in his nature and anatomy with a four and a half slipper. He tied one end of his sister’s ball of crochet cotton to the fly-wheel of the sewing-machine and the other around the tail of the cat, and by the time his mother had sewed half-way down one of the long seams in Mr. Bilderback’s new shirt, all but a few yards of that cotton was a chaotic mass about that fly-wheel and shaft, and the cat was waltzing in and out of the kitchen, sprawling along backward, tail straight as a poker, fur up and eyes aflame, snowling, and spitting, and swearing like mad, and Mrs. Bilderback and her daughter climbed upon the table and shrieked till the windows rattled, while Master Bilderback, hid behind the clothes-horse in the kitchen, lay down on his back and laughed a wicked gurgling kind of a laugh. Then he went out and jammed a potato into the nose of the chain pump and the hired girl went out and pumped till her arms ached clear down to her heels, and then told Mrs. Bilderback the cistern had sprung a leak and was dry as a bone. And then Mrs. Bilderback, declaring she knew better, went out and turned the wheel till her head swam and she gave up, and Miss Bilderback went out and turned till she cried, and then Master Bilderback, rather than go to the neighbor’s for water, went out and fixed the pump and came in to be praised, and was duly praised with the slipper, for he had been watched. He put an old last year’s fire-cracker in the kitchen stove; he insured a steady run of strange visitors for about two hours, to the great amazement of his mother and sister, by pinning a placard on the porch step, plainly seen from the street, but invisible from the front door, “Man wanted to drive carriage; $35.00 a month and board.” Mrs. Bilderback drew a sigh of relief when she heard Mr. B.’s step in the hall, and informed her son that as soon as his father came in he should be duly informed of all that had been going on. A most impressive silence followed this remark, and the trio in the sitting-room listened to Mr. Bilderback’s heavy breathing as he divested himself of his wet boots, and prepared to assume his slippers. Master Bilderback’s face wore an expression of the deepest concern.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a shout of astonishment and terror, followed by a howl of intense agony, and there was a clattering as of a runaway crockery wagon in the hall. The affrighted family rushed to the door, and beheld Mr. Bilderback cleaving the shadows with wild gestures and frantic gyrations. “Take it off,” he shouted, and made a grab at his own foot, but, missing it, went on with his war-dance. “Water!” he shrieked, and started up stairs, three at a step, and turning, came back in a single stride, “Oh, I’m stabbed!” he cried, and sank to the floor and held his right leg high above his head; then he rose to his feet with a bound and screamed for the boot-jack, and held his foot out toward his terrified family. “Oh, bring me the arnica!” he yelled, and with one despairing effort he reached his slipper and got it off, and with a groan as deep as a well and hollow as a drum, sank into a chair and clasped his foot in both hands. “Look out for the scorpion,” he whispered hoarsely, “I’m a dead man.”

Master Bilderback was by this time out in the woodshed, rolling in the kindling in an ecstasy of glee, and pausing from time to time to explain to the son of a neighbor, who had dropped in to see if there was any innocent sport going on in which he could share, “Oh, Bill, Bill,” he said, “you wouldn’t believe; some time to-day, some how or Other, a big blue wasp got into the old man’s slipper, and when he come home and put it on--oh, Bill, you don’t know!”

WHY MR. BOSTWICK MOVED.

Young Mr. Bostwick has moved. He liked the house he has been living in well enough, and Mrs. Bostwick fairly cried her eyes out when they left it, because it had a bay window and blinds with slats that you could turn so that you could see anybody in the street and nobody could see you. But old Mr. Glasford, the landlord, was very deaf, and it was on account of this infirmity that his tenant left the house. Mrs. Bostwick said she couldn’t see what Mr. Glasford’s deafness had to do with the house, but her husband only looked worried and said it made a good deal of difference with a man’s peace of mind, when he had something he wanted to whisper, and had to whisper it to a man who couldn’t hear anything if he went into a boiler factory. Mrs. Bostwick didn’t understand what difference it made anyhow, but then she wasn’t down town that terrible Wednesday, when old Mr. Glasford went into the store where her husband was selling a lovely young divinity from Denmark a dress pattern off a piece of Centennial percale. Mr. Bostwick saw the old gentleman coming and felt very nervous. Eager to anticipate the demand which he knew the old man was going to make, he dashed toward him with an abruptness that astonished the fair customer who had just lost herself in admiration of Bostwick’s diamond pin, and the fact, just confidentially imparted to her, that he was not a clerk but the silent partner, holding about $475,000 worth of stock in the concern, and that he just worked from pure love of employment. Mr. Bostwick checked the old gentleman about ten feet away from his customer, and leaning over the counter so as to get as close range on his ear as possible, whispered hoarsely that “it wouldn’t be convenient to pay that rent to-day.”

“Hey?” shouted the old man, looking at Bostwick’s agitated face in some alarm, “why, why, wha’s the matter? ’S happened?”

Mr. Bostwick made a futile effort to catch hold of the old man’s ear, intending to pour his explanation into it as one pours water into a funnel, but his landlord briskly dodged and waved Bostwick away with an expression of considerable apprehension. Mr. Bostwick groaned and endeavored to explain to the old gentleman in a manner that would convey to the pretty customer and the others in the store the idea that he was refusing to give the old party credit, and at the same time let old Glasford know that he was bankrupt.

“Can’t do it!” he shouted.

“Can’t do what?” inquired the mystified old gentleman in those stentorian tones so popular with deaf people.

“Can’t help you!” shouted Bostwick, in tones the sternness of which contrasted ludicrously with the sheepish expression of his countenance. “Can’t do anything for you!”

The old man looked at Bostwick in helpless wonder and then at the door, with his mind half made up to run away, under the impression that the young man was crazy. He finally stared at him in open-mouthed amazement and speechless bewilderment.

“Oh, Moses,” thought Bostwick, “he’s mad as a hornet, he’ll break out in a minute; I know he will.” Then he tried him again, in a voice like a steam whistle.

“I can’t do anything for you!”

The old man’s mouth opened still wider, and his eyes stood around on his cheek-bones in their amazement.

“Who asked ye to do anything for me?” he finally gasped. “What is it ye can’t do?”

Bostwick groaned, and in a fit of desperation he broke down, and gave it up.

“I can’t pay that rent to-day!” he shrieked, and the pretty customer was so shocked that she dropped her parasol, fan and paper of gum drops.

“What went to-day?” asked the old man, waving Bostwick off with his stick.

Here the proprietor officiously interposed to cover Bostwick’s confusion, speaking in the highest key he could assume.

“Rent! Rent! House rent, you know! He says he can’t pay his house rent to-day!”

“Rent day?” echoed old Glasford, “yes, oh yes, that’s past, two weeks ago; first of the month.”

“Yes,” shrieked Mr. Bostwick, while the store full of customers and his fellow clerks stood around and smiled, “I know it, but I can’t pay it to-day; haven’t got a cent!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the old man, with a gleam of intelligence passing over his face, “I don’t care about that; that isn’t what I come for. I come to tell you if your wife wanted that front room down stairs papered, to go ahead and have it done, and I’d allow it.”

The pretty customer wouldn’t have a word to say to the discomfited Mr. Bostwick when he went back, and the old man told the proprietor as he went out of the door that he believed that young man was just about half crazy, and the clerks were all so pleasant that Bostwick nearly went mad every time he was reminded of his unfortunate precipitancy, and that is the way he became convinced that it was altogether lighter than vanity to rent of a deaf man.

SPECIAL PROVIDENCES.

There was wailing and woe in Burlingtown,
For every other day
The humid showers came tumbling down,
As they had come to stay.

There was water enough in the land to spare;
And men who were wont to pray,
When they looked in the cellar each morn would swear
And wrathfully turn away.

All out on South Hill they pumped and pumped
From morn till dewy eve,
But their every effort the storm king trumped,
And laughed him in his sleeve,

Till the South Hill man his spirit was broke,
And he sate him down on his hill.
“Though I pump till my back cries out,” he spoke,
“My cellar still keeps its fill.”

“Now lithe and listen, good pump of mine,
If ever I touch thee more,
May never again the bright sun shine
As it shone in the days of yore.”

Then he took his pump and he hung it up
Where it might not taunt his sight,
And he drowned his grief in the poisonous cup
Which “moveth itself aright.”

And he vowed him that if the immortal gods
Would hold up their rain for a while,
He’d build him a cellar and take the odds--
On top of his domicile.

“For what was the use,” he grimly said,
“Of a cellar in the ground,
Into the which, if you went for bread,
You were pretty sure to be drowned?”

“I hate the cellar; oh winds of the south,
Thy rains, as hard as I can;
I wish I could strike them both with a drouth,”
Exclaimed the South Hill man.

He lifted his eyes to the city road
A coming figure to scan,
And a wild fierce light in his optics glowed
When they fell on the hated gas man.

He carried his book and his railway lamp,
And wore a sinister frown;
And he sought out the meter in cellars damp,
And he noted the figures down.

And whether a man burned much or small,
Or how often the gas man came,
Or whether they turned on the gas at all,
The meter just counted the same.

So the man of South Hill, when he saw him come,
Supposing that he had come th--
Rough ignorance, said, in tones full glum,
“You cut off my gas last month.”

The gas man he winked, and eke as he wunk,
He shook his head knowinglee,
And, as though he something suspiciously thunk,
“We’ll look at the meter,” said he.

Then he opened the door of the cellar so damp,
And he stepped where the pump log had been,
And he went out of sight, with his book and his lamp,
As the water he tumbled in.

“Oh, help!” loud he shrieked as his noddle came up,
“Hubbulubbulup!” as his noddle went down,
While the man of South Hill on the cellar door sill,
Was the happiest man in the town.

Splash! Splash! Blubbulup! in the cellar he heard,
And he hugged himself close in his glee;
And whenever the gas man would sputter a word,
“Oh, catch hold of the meter!” cried he.

And he shut down the doors, and he locked them up tight,
And into the well threw the key,
And, “Providence always and ever is right:
Rains and cellars are useful,” said he.

MR. BARINGER’S HOUSE-CLEANING.

You see, Mr. Baringer has only been keeping house about a year, and they took the carpets up this Spring for their first general house-cleaning. Mrs. Baringer’s mother was there, because she said Olivia was a mere child at such things, and she didn’t believe that Aristarchus was much better, and it was better to have some one around who could manage. The young people, however, felt very confident that they had, by numerous consultations and many well-laid plans, reduced house-cleaning to a perfect science, a system that had never yet been attained by any other housekeepers, and they were all impatient to get at work and clean the whole house, from garret to cellar, and have all the pictures back on the walls and carpets nailed down again before dark. They were disgusted at the way other people cleaned house, and Olivia thought it was perfectly wonderful how Aristarchus could have such beautifully lucid and systematic ideas on matters of which most men, and she would say most women as well, were so deplorably stupid and ignorant.

The stirring notes of the alarm clock dragged Mr. Baringer out of bed at 3:15 A. M., and he thought he felt intolerably sleepy for five o’clock, but he didn’t look at the clock until he was dressed, and then he was too mad to swear. He merely woke Mrs. Baringer up to tell her that he’d bet a thousand dollars some stupid had changed the alarm after he set it and then he flopped down on a lounge to sleep till daylight. He awoke at half-past seven o’clock, the hour at which, by their prearranged system and calculations, the two up-stairs bed-room carpets were to have been beaten and ready to put down as soon as the floors were dry. Then the kitchen fire went out twice, and they finally sat down to breakfast at half-past eight o’clock, Mrs. Baringer’s mother beguiling the time during that matin meal by asking Olivia if she minded how she used to be half through her house-cleaning by nine o’clock in the morning. But Mr. Baringer bore up very well under it, and immediately after breakfast, he took up the bed-room carpets. It was slow work, jerking the tacks out one at a time. Some times they flew up into his face; some times he pulled the head off and left the tack in the floor; and when they got to be rather thickly scattered around the room he put his knee down on one occasionally and talked in a fragmentary manner about certain mill privileges in connection with housekeeping which Mrs. Baringer couldn’t understand. At last he noticed that by lifting up the edge of the carpet, a gentle pull would bring up half a dozen tacks in rapid succession. Happy thought. He rose to his feet, grasped the bound edge of the carpet in both hands, gave a mighty lift and a tremendous pull--k-r-r-r-r-r-t! and when the dust settled a little, Mrs. Baringer and her mother were discovered standing in the door, looking in speechless horror at Mr. Baringer, who stood like an image of despair, holding a carpet with a fringe in one hand, and a long line of carpet binding in the other.

“How _did_ you do it?” shrieked Mrs. Baringer.

“How _ever_ did you do it?” echoed Mrs. Baringer’s mother.

Then they both said something about the general incapacity of a man, and Mr. Baringer endeavored to explain that in going across the room for the tack hammer he had caught his foot in the edge of the carpet, with the result as above. And at the conclusion of his explanation, Mrs. Baringer’s mother gave a sniff that blew dust out of the carpet, and there was a general expression of incredulity on the faces of the congregation.

It was a long time before they got the carpets down in the yard, and on the line. Then Mr. Baringer approached and smote the first carpet with a long stick, and the next instant he was feeling his way out of a dense cloud of dust, coughing, sneezing and snorting, and wildly gasping for air. He went around on the other side, and as he aimed a terrific swipe at the carpet, he struck the clothes-prop, and his nerveless arm stung and tingled to his neck, while his wail was heard down to the city building. Then he got at it again, and found that his stick was too light, and he took another one. A few strokes sufficed to convince him that it was too heavy, and he took a lath. That broke in two at the first blow, and he tried an apple switch, but it was too limber. He finally gave up the idea of beating any more, and called to Mrs. Baringer that the carpet was ready to be shaken. Mrs. Baringer, with her head in an apron, came out. They gathered the carpet, and Mr. Baringer got the start of her and shook a roll clear down to her hands, exploding in a loud snap and a volcano of dust in her face. Then she dropped the carpet and sneezed and protested.

“You shook too quick, deary,” she said.

“But you said you were ready, sweety,” replied Mr. Baringer.

“But you shouldn’t be so rough, lovey,” she protested.

“Well, I have to shake hard to get the dust out, ducky,” he insisted.

“Well, you needn’t be so cross about it, deary,” she said.

“Oh well,” he said, “you must expect hard work house-cleaning days, and you mustn’t lose your temper, sweety.”

“It isn’t me that gets cross and jerks people around, lovey,” she said, “it’s you.”

“I never jerked you around,” he retorted.

“Why, Aristarchus Baringer!” exclaimed his wife, making very large eyes at him and speaking in tones of the greatest amazement, “and maybe you didn’t tear the carpet up stairs, either.”

“I wish your old carpet was in Halifax,” he said, savagely. “Pick up that end; let’s get through with it. This is sweet work for a dry goods salesman, anyhow! Ready?”

“No,” she snapped, “I ain’t ready. Now wait. There. Hold on now; don’t be in such a hurry. Now!”

And the next instant the carpet was snapped out of her hands, and it did seem as though her fingers had gone with it, while Mr. Baringer, pretending not to know that it had fallen from her fingers, kept on shaking violently at his end, filling the air with dust and grit. At this juncture Mrs. Baringer’s mother, who had been a quiet spectator of the carpet shaking scene, approached and called him to desist. Then she gathered up the vacant end of the carpet.

“Aristarchus,” she said kindly but firmly, “Olivia is not strong enough for such work.”

Then she added:

“Have you got a good hold, Aristarchus?”

And Mr. Baringer said he had.

“Don’t let go then, Aristarchus. Ready.”

They lifted their arms high in the air and Mr. Baringer is undecided yet which part of him started first. He walked up the whole length of that carpet on his hands and then he fell over the edge and banged along the walk on his hands and knees until he reached the front fence, through which he plunged his head, and would have gone on through but for his shoulder catching against the gate post. The carpets did not go down that day, and a big Irishman was engaged to come and welt the fuzz off them, Mr. Baringer having privately and with some asperity informed his wife that he would rather live, sleep, and eat in dirt up to his eyes, than ever again to sweep, beat, or shake the lightest carpet ever trodden by the foot of man.

AN AUTUMNAL REVERIE.

“Oh dreamy haze: veiling the murmuring river that stretches away like a silver thread under a mosquito bar, winding in wooded nooks and creeping through low lying islands where the balmy breeze is redolent with the odor of dead leaves and dead fish. Oh lovely haze; what dreams of soulful tenderness its name recalls. Oh, musty hays in the street car; oh, hays that used to be full of bumble bees; oh, hazel nuts on another man’s farm with a big dog hid in the patch. Away; these memories are too painful.

“Afar, the hillsides glitter in gold and scarlet, and the sumach bushes, climbing the slope with their nodding plumes, look like a new express wagon coming down Division Street. The mellow air brings into the city the rustle of fallen leaves piled deep on winding cow-paths, threading through quiet dells and winding along the side of purling brooks. It brings an odor of something old. Because it blows over the cheese factory.

“How faint and far off every sound. The ghosts of the dead Summer flowers sigh in every breeze, and the phantom of the cow that butted the freight train tinkles her drowsy bell afar. And in muffled tenderness, as a falling star might drop on a feather bed, we hear the teamster’s cheery call, ‘G’up! ye lop-eared spavin, ’r I’ll lam the hair off ye with a dray pin.’ And the muffled creak of the wood wagon falls plaintively on the ear. Eight dollars a cord, and only cut three feet long at that, and piled so loosely that when you go to measure it you can throw a felt hat through the pile any place and never touch a stick.

“List to the plaintive piping of the quail in the stubble. Ah, quail on toast, and the plaintive piping of the anxious waiter for seventy-five cents. Avaunt, dull dotard, take thy black shadow from the fairy scene. (This remark was addressed to the waiter, and not to the quail on toast.)

“Why, in these dreamy dark autumnal days--we don’t know what kind of a day a dark day is, but we wanted another word that begins with d and could only think of dark and another one, and the other one wouldn’t do at all; these kind of days then, bring with them a sad--a sad--sad something, we knew what it was when we started out, but stopping to explain about that dark knocked it clear out of our head; sad--it isn’t saddle, nor Sadducee, nor--ah yes, now we have it. These dreamy days, that come like a tender poem, veiled in the delicate drapery that hangs over the distant landscape, bring with them----”

At this critical juncture a man with a business-like look in his eye burst into the sanctum, slapped his hat down on the paste-cup, banged a sample case on the ink-stand, and proceeded to remark in one long unpunctuated sentence, “Good morning not a word my dear fellow I know the value of an editor’s time I wish you just to glance at this prospectus of the most valuable work that has ever been issued from the American press it is the American Centennial Portrait Gallery and you will observe contains exquisite steel engravings full page of all the Presidents with the autograph of each one appended and complete biographical sketches. Observe that engraving of Washington through this glass if you please bank note engraving not more perfect not a single line crosses or becomes merged into another one what expression what fidelity to nature what marvelous portraiture what minute attention to detail. Notice the folds in the cloak and the exquisitely penciled pattern of the ruffles at the wrists. And so with Adams and Jefferson and Madison and Monroe and Jackson and all the rest of them with biographical sketches compiled from the best authorities with facts incidents and reminiscences never before published--a book that no American of intelligence should be without a book without a rival in its field of patriotic biographical excellence. In different styles of binding--$3.00, $3.50 and $4.25. Now, sir, shall I have your name right here?”

We felt all around the room before we could catch our breath, and when we regained it we told him we didn’t believe we could put $4.25 worth of signature anywhere that morning, and, after a struggle of fifteen or twenty minutes with him, we got him close enough to the stairway to push him over the railing and heard him reach the ground floor and disappear into the street and around the corner with the long introductory sentence of his prospectus trailing after him like the dribbling shower of a runaway street sprinkler. And we went on with the dreamy, sad, sweet reverie:

“The tender song of a day whose wordless beauties haunt the mystic scene; the dreamy, vague, imperfect memories that bring----”

A man with a black coat and a high hat came softly into the sanctum, and after he laid a flat oil cloth case on the table, he lifted his hat off with both hands and said, speaking in soft and distressingly deliberate tones, and articulating with awful distinctness and precision:

“Ah--is the editor in?”

We imparted the desired information, and the deliberate man went on,

“I have taken the liberty to call on a matter of some importance to yourself, as well as to the great masses of the American people. I have here the artist’s proof of a new ker-romo entitled ‘Columbia.’ It is a centennial allegory, and is designed by Mr. Alfred Reynolds Vincenzo Fitzdaub, one of the most eminent artists of America, at immense outlay of time, labor and money. The tube colors used on the original painting alone cost seven dollars and a half, while the can-vas, when prepared and stretched for the pict-ewer, was worth nearly doub-bel that sum. Here you see, we have in the foreground Columbia, her sandaled feet resting upon the broking canning to signify that war is no more. At her right hand sits the American eagil, ger-rasping the olive ber-ranch of peace in his talents, and lifting his wings as though pluming himself for fe-light. Here on the left we have the artisin in working-dress, the statesman, the teacher, the farmer, the sai-leure, repperesenting the various callings, and here rushes a train of cars, while in the background an old-fashioned stage coach is disappearing, illustrative of the perrogeress of the past hundred years. The original painting is valued at $2,500, but these ker-romos we supply for $18 a piece, mounted ready for framing. No man of culture or artistic taste can afford to be without this ker-romo. The eye of a connoisseur can not distinguish it ferrom an oil painting. Observe the transparency of the atmosphere; notice the soft natural blending of the high light and middle tint into the hazy shadows of the backger-round, and the bold effects of the heavy cul-louds that overshadow the past, where the dim edges are silvered with the sunlight that ber-reaks ferrom the veil of the few-chewer. And here, you observe, is a blank tablet at the right of the figewer of Columbia, for a family record. Only eighteen dollars. They will be ready for delivery about the first of Jewen, and if I may have the pleasure of seeing your signature in this book, just here, it will cost you but the trifling sum of eighteen dollars, and establish more fully the reputation you have already acquired as a man of culture and refined taste.”

We got rid of him after a heated session of about half an hour, and he went away, mourning over the depravity of a man who had acquired a reputation for culture and refined taste under false pretenses. Then we resumed:

“Over the distant hills, hushed in the misty haze that hangs like a veil of peace over the motionless landscape, the fleecy clouds, like drifting air-ships on the broad expanse of melting blue, bring the sweet----”

A man with a mahogany box came in and sat down, and talked as he opened it, and displayed a variety of phials and boxes.

“The profession of literature, my dear sir,” he said, “is of all others under the ban of the fell destroyer, dyspepsia, and it is especially in the Spring of the year that literary workers suffer most keenly from its dreadful effects. An ounce of prevention, etc.--you know the old saying. Now I can see by your heavy eyes that you are at this moment suffering from headache. This ‘Centennial Cordial and American Indian Aboriginal Invigorator’ is one of the latest and most valuable discoveries in the world of medical science, and has positively no equal for the cure of jaundice and all manner of liver disorders, headache, indigestion, want of appetite, dyspepsia, bilious, remittent and intermittent fevers, ague, giddiness of the head, rheumatic affections, poverty or impurity of the blood, salt rheum, teething, cholera morbus, croup, ophthalmia, asthma, hay fever, sea-sickness, diphtheria, catarrh, toothache, sleeplessness, gray hair, pimples, tan and freckles, kleptomania, emotional insanity, growing pains, stone bruise, rattlesnake bites, jimjams, katzenjammer, tight boots, bad breath, warts, soft corns, old clothes, tailor’s bills, spring fever and all other ills to which human flesh is heir. Compounded purely of herbs and the finest cologne spirits, and selling at the ridiculously low price of $1.75 per bottle. Now sir, let me----”

And we let him out of the door and he went away, after marking us for the tomb in a few short weeks. And then we tried to get back to our reverie.

“The sweet days come and go, in hallowed rhythmic cadences, like the half forgotten chords of some tender, sobbing nocturne, while they bring the----”

“No, sir, this is not the tobacco factory; it’s the next building up the street.--Thank heaven, he’s gone.”

“----bring the sad yearning of a restless heart, that reaches out amid the hectic flushes of the dying year, as it would clasp the----”

“No ma’am, we don’t want to buy ‘The Centennial Gift Book for Young Ladies;’ no, we have no young lady friends; we have no friends of any kind; we have no sisters, or brothers, or relations, we have no money, we have no literary taste, we have no desire to read anything; we can’t read, and we don’t know anybody who can.”

“----amid the hectic flushes of the dying year, as it would clasp----”

“Have no use for a fly trap, sir; don’t keep house; ain’t married; don’t expect to be; haven’t seen a fly in Iowa for a thousand years.”

“----the hectic flushes of the dying year, as though----”

“No, no, no! this is not the barber-shop. No, we don’t know where the barber-shop is; there is none in this block; there are no barbers in Burlington; the nearest barber-shop is at the North Pole. No, sir, you needn’t apologize, we are _not_ annoyed. _Good_ afternoon, sir.”

“----amid the dying flushes of the hectic year whose pulses throb so faintly that----”

“No, we don’t want any ‘Wonderful Saponifier and Dirt Eradicator for the Toilet and Laundry.’ No, we have no family, and we never wash; never heard of such a thing as a bath; don’t want to be clean; never shave, never clean our nails, and have on the same shirt we wore the day we were born. No, sir. Yes, sir. _Good_ afternoon.”

“----amid the flying dushes of the pulsing year whose hectics faint so throbly that----”

“Yes, sir, this is _The Hawkeye_ office. No, sir, we do not buy sand; no, we have no old clothes to exchange for tin ware; no, we don’t want any superior stove blacking. _Good_ afternoon, sir.”

“----amid the dusting fishes of the throbling hectics whose painted ear is throoming in the gulch, so faintly fleam the glib and----”

[Note by the editor. We entered the office at this point and found the writer of the above in convulsions. From the ravings of his delirium we gathered that he was trying to write something nice, and was tormented by innumerable interruptions. Medical assistants were summoned, and we were told to keep the young man’s head cool and he would get well. So we cut it off and had it packed in ice. It weighed two and a half ounces. The young man is doing finely, and will not need it again this year.]

INFANTILE SCINTILLATIONS.

Ah yes, we do love children. We fairly dote on them, and enjoy and admire their sweet, innocent ways, from the dear little cloudy-faced, bare-legged cherubs that swear and throw stones at you as you go past Happy Hollow, to the sweet-faced but pampered angel that sits in the golden lap of luxury and breaks the mirrors and your head with pa’s cane. It was purely our love for the little innocents that induced us to comply with the urgent request of many parents, and open a department in _The Hawkeye_ for the smart sayings of precocious children.

Mrs. H--y B--k, of North Hill, has a sweet little rosebud, of four bright Summers, who came into the house and lisped, “Ma, Ith tho theepy.”

“What makes you sleepy?” asked Rosebud’s mother.

“I don’t know,” murmured the child.

Strange yearning after the incomprehensible in an infant heart. Could any of the children of an older growth have made a better answer?

Then there is little Freddy L----, out on West Hill. Although he is but three years old, he put his father’s watch in the shaving mug, filled the mug out of a kerosene lamp, and set the mixture in the oven to dry, where it presently dried--soon after the hired girl made up the breakfast fire--with such abruptness that three of the stoveplates haven’t been found since. After the excitement had subsided, his mother took him on her lap and said:

“Freddy, did you put papa’s watch and the mug full of oil in the oven?”

And the dear child, opening wide his innocent eyes, and smiling in tender confidence in her face, said placidly:

“No, ma’am, ’deed I didn’t.”

Sweet, cautious instinct of an untried heart. Could any of us get out of it any better than that? Who can tell what vague, uncertain dreams of congressional honors float through that busy little mind?