Chapter IV: Preface (4)

“Multiply 5 by 13, add 19, subtract 39, divide by 2, add 7, multiply by 9, add 15, divide by 7, add 8, multiply by 3, less 13, add 9, multiply by 7, divide by 9, add 13, divide by 11--how many?”

“Ninety-six!” fairly yelled the delighted boy, clapping his hands with merriment at the amazement which crowned the countenances of his interviewers, and the Inspectors turned to the paper man and said, “Take him, Mr. _Hawkeye_.”

Then we did our best to throw the boy. As fast as we could speak, and without punctuation, we rattled off this:

“Add 24 to 17½ multiply by 9½ divide by ½ add 33 per cent. multiply by 16 extract square root add 9 divide by ⅗ of ⅞ add 119 divide by 77½ times 44¾ square the quotient and multiply by 17⅔ add 77 and divide by 33 how ma----”

But before we could say the last syllable the boy fairly screamed,

“127⅞! Ask me a hard one!”

We had seen enough, and with feelings amounting almost to awe we left this wonderful boy. We talked about his marvelous powers all the way down. Finally it happened to occur to one of the Inspectors to ask the other Inspector,

“Did you follow my example through to notice whether the boy answered it correctly?”

The tone of amazement gradually passed away from the Inspector’s face, as he faintly gasped,

“N-n-no, not exactly, did you?”

Then the first Inspector ceased to look mystified and began to look very much like Mr. Skinner did when he got the Nebraska fruit, and they both turned to the gentleman who represented the literary department of the expedition and said lugubriously,

“Did you?”

But he only said:

“The Burlington and Northwestern narrow-gauge railroad will be owned, not by eastern capitalists, but by the people through whose country it passes.”

MISAPPLIED SCIENCE.

It was only a few years ago the New York _Journal of Information_ published the statement that a man in New Hampshire, who had been unable to speak for five years, went to sleep, one night, with a quid of tobacco in his mouth, and awoke the next morning with his voice perfectly strong and smooth and steady. Old Mr. Jarvis, who lives out on Vine Street, is sorely afflicted with an impediment in his speech, and often says he would give a hundred dollars if he could only “t-t-t-t-taw-taw-talk f-f-f-f-fast enough t-t-to t-t-tell a gug-gug-gug-grocer what he w-w-wants bub-bub-bub-before he gug-gug-gets it measured out.” He takes the _Journal_, and had taken it for twenty-three years, and he firmly believed every thing he ever read in it; Sylvanus Cobb’s stories, Mr. Parton’s Lives of Eminent Americans, the answers to correspondents--Mr. Jarvis had taken them all in and believed every word. He thought that probably this quid-of-tobacco treatment might help his voice a little, and he resolved to give it a good trial any how. The first trouble was that he didn’t chew, and Mrs. Jarvis would never allow a bit of tobacco about the house. But he begged a big “chaw” of navy, and when he went to bed he tucked it snugly away in his cheek, and prepared to sleep in hope. He had his misgivings, and they grew in number and strength as the quid began to assert itself, and be sociable, and assimilate itself with its surroundings. Mrs. Jarvis asked him if he fastened the front gate.

“Um,” said Mr. Jarvis, meaning that he had.

“And are you sure you locked the front door?” queried his restless spouse.

“Um,” replied Mr. Jarvis, meaning that he had not, for he was by this time in no condition to open his mouth.

“Hey?” she replied.

“Um,” persisted Mr. Jarvis.

“What?” she demanded.

“Um-m-m!” protested Mr. Jarvis.

“Well,” said she, “you can’t make me believe you are that near asleep this soon.”

“Um-m-m!” said Mr. Jarvis; meaning that he would get up and bounce her out of that front door if she didn’t hold her clack.

Presently she sat up in bed. Sniff, sniff! “John Jarvis,” she exclaimed, “if I don’t smell tobacco in this house, I’m a sinful woman. Don’t you smell it?”

“’M,” replied Mr. Jarvis; which by interpretation is, that he didn’t smell any thing and was going to sleep.

“It’s in this very room,” she persisted, excitedly.

“Um,” said Mr. Jarvis, meaning that she must be crazy.

“It’s under the bed!” she screamed. “There’s a burglar under the bed! Oh, help! fire! police! John Jarvis!!!” And she smote Mr. Jarvis a furious pelt in the stomach to waken him up.

It was a terrific thump, and its first effect was to knock all the atmosphere out of Mr. Jarvis’s lungs so far that he could only recover his breath by a violent gasp, which first carried the quid of tobacco and all the nicotine preparation that it had been steadily distilling down his throat, and was immediately succeeded by a tremendous cough, as he struggled to rise up in bed, which shot the quid squarely into the eye of the shrieking Mrs. Jarvis.

“Murder! murder!” she screamed, “I’m stabbed! I’m stabbed!”

And John Jarvis choked and coughed and spit and coughed and choked and clutched Mrs. Jarvis by the throat and tried to choke off her noise, but he grew so “ill” that he couldn’t hold his grip, and Mrs. Jarvis, the moment her throat was released from his trembling pressure, rose from the half-strangled gurgles to the sublimity of double-edged screams, and made Rome howl with melody. And the neighbors broke into the house and found a bedroom that looked and smelled like a jury-room or a street car, with the sickest man they ever saw lying with his head over the side of the bed, groaning at the rate of a mile a minute, and the worst frightened woman since the flood sitting up beside him, screaming faster than he groaned, while one of her eyes was plastered up with a black quid of tobacco. And that is the way Mr. Jarvis came to stop his _Journal_. He denounces it as the most infamous, mendacious, pestilent sheet that ever disgraced American journalism.

WIDE AWAKE.

One day Mr. Bellamy, of Pond Street, read in a religious paper the following paragraph:

Many very good people are annoyed by sleepiness in church. The
following remedy is recommended: Lift the foot seven inches from the
floor, and hold it in suspense without support for the limb, and
repeat the remedy if the attack returns.

Now, Mr. Bellamy is a very good man, and he is subject to that very annoyance, which in his case amounts to a positive affliction. So he cut that paragraph out, in accordance with the appended instruction, and pasted it in his hat, and was rejoiced in his inmost soul to think that he had found a relief from his annoyance. He hoped that Deacon Ashbury, who had frowned at him so often and so dreadfully for nodding, hadn’t seen the paragraph, for the deacon sometimes slept under the preached word, and Mr. Bellamy wanted to get even with him. And Mr. Driscoll, who used to sit in the choir, and cover his own sleepiness and divert attention from his own heavy eyes by laughing in a most irreverent and indecorous manner at Mr. Bellamy’s sleepy visage and struggling eyes and head--how the good man did want to get it on Driscoll. So he chuckled and hugged his treasure, so to speak, in his mind. He was so confident that he had found the panacea for his trouble that he went to the minister and told him what a burden his drowsiness had been to him, but that he had made up his mind now to shake it off, and to continue to keep it off, and he was certain that he had sufficient strength of mind and force of will to overcome the habit. And the minister was so pleased, and commended Mr. Bellamy so warmly, and said so earnestly that he wished he had one hundred such men in his congregation, that Mr. Bellamy was so elated and happy and confident that he could hardly wait for Sunday to come to try his new method of averting drowsiness.

Sunday came, however, and soon enough too, for it was Saturday afternoon plumb, chick, chock full of men with bills, over-due notes, trifling accounts, little balances, pay-roll, rent, narrow-gauge subscription, political assessments and one little thing and another, almost before Mr. Bellamy knew it, although it hadn’t been there half an hour before he had some suspicion of it, and was soon very confident of it. Sunday morning found the good man in his accustomed place, devout and drowsy as ever. The church was very comfortably filled with an attentive congregation, and Mr. Bellamy was soon cornered up in one end of the pew, and the strange young lady who sat next him was attended by a very small white dog, that looked like a roll of cotton batting with red eyes and a black nose. The opening exercises passed off without incident, but the minister hadn’t got to secondly when Mr. Bellamy suddenly roused himself with a start from a doze into which he was dropping. His heart fairly stood still as he thought how nearly he had forgotten his recipe. He feared to attract any attention to himself lest his precious method should be discovered, and slowly lifted his left foot from the foot stool and held it about seven inches in the air. As he raised his foot the strange young lady shrunk away from him in evident alarm. This annoyed Mr. Bellamy and disconcerted him so that he was on the point of lowering his foot and whispering an explanation when the dog, which had been quietly sleeping by the footstool opened its eyes, and seeing the uplifted foot slowly descending in its direction, hastily scrambled to its feet and backed away, barking and yelping terrifically. The young lady, now thoroughly alarmed, jerked her feet from off the footstool, which immediately flew up under the weight of Mr. Bellamy’s other foot, and the dog, excited by this additional catastrophe, fairly barked itself into convulsions. Deacon Ashbury, awakened by the racket, came tiptoeing and frowning down the aisle, bending his shaggy brows upon Mr. Bellamy, who actually believed that if he got much hotter he would break out in flames, that not even the beaded perspiration that was standing out on his scarlet face, could extinguish. The young lady rose to leave the pew, Mr. Bellamy rose to explain, and as he did so, she was quite convinced of what she had before been suspicious, that he was crazy. She backed out of the pew and sought Deacon Ashbury’s protection. Mr. Bellamy attempted to whisper an explanation to the deacon, but that austere official motioned him back into his seat, and as the minister paused until the interruption should cease, said in a severe undertone that was heard all over the church.

“You’ve been dreaming again, Brother Bellamy.”

Mr. Bellamy sank into his seat, quite covered with confusion as with a couple of garments and a bed quilt, and his distress was greatly aggravated when he looked up into the choir and saw Driscoll, convulsed with merriment, stuffing his handkerchief into his mouth, and shaking with suppressed laughter.

After service Mr. Bellamy, who was, all through the service, the center of attraction for the entire congregation, waited for his pastor, and made one more effort to explain his unfortunate escapade. But the minister, whose sermon had been quite spoiled by the affair, waved him to silence and said, quite coldly:

“Never mind, Brother Bellamy; don’t apologize; you meant very well, I dare say, but if you make so much disturbance when you are awake, I believe I would prefer to have you sleep quietly through every sermon I preach.”

Mr. Bellamy has since stopped his church paper, and transferred his subscription to the _Hawkeye_, saying that if he could just find the wretch who set stumbling blocks and snares in the columns of the religious press for the feet of weak believers, he could die happy.

THE ARTLESS PRATTLE OF CHILDHOOD.

We always did pity a man who does not love children. There is something morally wrong with such a man. If his tenderest sympathies are not awakened by their innocent prattle, if his heart does not echo their merry laughter, if his whole nature does not reach out in ardent longings after their pure thoughts and unselfish impulses, he is a sour, crusty, crabbed old stick, and the world full of children has no use for him. In every age and clime, the best and noblest men loved children. Even wicked men have a tender spot left in their hardened hearts for little children. The great men of the earth love them. Dogs love them. Kamehamekemokimodahroah, the King of the Cannibal islands, loves them. Rare, and no gravy. Ah yes, we all love children.

And what a pleasure it is to talk with them. Who can chatter with a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, quick-witted little darling, anywhere from three to five years, and not appreciate the pride which swells a mother’s breast, when she sees her little ones admired. Ah, yes, to be sure.

One day, ah can we ever cease to remember that dreamy, idle, Summer afternoon--a lady friend who was down in the city on a shopping excursion, came into the sanctum with her little son, a dear little tid-toddler of five bright Summers, and begged us to amuse him while she pursued the duties which called her down town. Such a bright boy; so delightful it was to talk to him. We can never forget the blissful half hour we spent booking that prodigy up in his centennial history.

“Now listen, Clary,” we said--his name is Clarence Fitzherbert Alencon de Marchemont Caruthers--“and learn about George Washington.”

“Who’s he?” inquired Clarence, etc.

“Listen,” we said, “he was the father of his country.”

“Whose country?”

“Ours; yours and mine; the confederated union of the American people, cemented with the life blood of the men of ’76, poured out upon the altars of our country as the dearest libation to liberty that her votaries can offer.”

“Who did?” asked Clarence.

There is a peculiar tact in talking to children that very few people possess. Now most people would have grown impatient and lost their temper when little Clarence asked so many irrelevant questions, but we did not. We knew that, however careless he might appear at first, we could soon interest him in the story and he would be all eyes and ears. So we smiled sweetly,--that same sweet smile which you may have noticed on our photographs, just the faintest ripple of a smile breaking across the face like a ray of sunlight, and checked by lines of tender sadness, just before the two ends of it pass each other at the back of the neck.

And so, smiling, we went on,

“Well, one day George’s father----”

“George who?” asked Clarence.

“George Washington. He was a little boy then, just like you. One day his father----”

“Whose father?” demanded Clarence, with an encouraging expression of interest.

“George Washington’s, this great man we were telling you of. One day George Washington’s father gave him a little hatchet for a----”

“Gave who a little hatchet?” the dear child interrupted with a gleam of bewitching intelligence. Most men would have betrayed signs of impatience, but we didn’t. We know how to talk to children. So we went on:

“George Washington. His----”

“Who give him the little hatchet?”

“His father. And his father----”

“Whose father?”

“George Washington’s.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, George Washington. And his father told him----”

“Told who?”

“Told George.”

“Oh, yes, George.”

And we went on, just as patient and as pleasant as you could imagine. We took up the story right where the boy interrupted, for we could see that he was just crazy to hear the end of it. We said:

“And he told him that----”

“Who told him what?” Clarence broke in.

“Why, George’s father told George.”

“What did he tell him?”

“Why, that’s just what I am going to tell you. He told him----”

“Who told him?”

“George’s father. He----”

“What for?”

“Why, so he wouldn’t do what he told him not to do. He told him----”

“George told him?” queried Clarence.

“No, his father told George----”

“Oh!”

“Yes; told him that he must be careful with the hatchet----”

“Who must be careful?”

“George must.”

“Oh!”

“Yes; must be careful with the hatchet----”

“What hatchet?”

“Why, George’s.”

“Oh!”

“Yes; with the hatchet, and not cut himself with it, or drop it in the cistern, or leave it out in the grass all night. So George went round cutting every thing he could reach with his hatchet. And at last he came to a splendid apple tree, his father’s favorite, and cut it down, and----”

“Who cut it down?”

“George did.”

“Oh!”

“----but his father came home and saw it the first thing, and----”

“Saw the hatchet?”

“No; saw the apple tree. And he said, ‘Who has cut down my favorite apple tree?’”

“What apple tree?”

“George’s father’s. And everybody said they didn’t know any thing about it, and----”

“Any thing about what?”

“The apple tree.”

“Oh!”

“----and George came up and heard them talking about it----”

“Heard who talking about it?”

“Heard his father and the men.”

“What was they talking about?”

“About this apple tree.”

“What apple tree?”

“The favorite apple tree that George cut down.”

“George who?”

“George Washington.”

“Oh!”

“So George came up and heard them talking about it, and he----”

“What did he cut it down for?”

“Just to try his little hatchet.”

“Whose little hatchet?”

“Why, his own, the one his father gave him.”

“Gave who?”

“Why, George Washington.”

“Who gave it to him?”

“His father did.”

“Oh!”

“So George came up and he said, ‘Father, I can not tell a lie, I----’”

“Who couldn’t tell a lie?”

“Why, George Washington. He said, ‘Father, I can not tell a lie. It was----’”

“His father couldn’t?”

“Why no, George couldn’t.”

“Oh, George? oh, yes.”

“----It was I cut down your apple tree; I did----”

“His father did?”

“No, no; it was George said this.”

“Said he cut his father?”

“No, no, no; said he cut down his apple tree.”

“George’s apple tree?”

“No, no; his father’s.”

“Oh!”

“He said----”

“His father said?”

“No, no, no; George said, ‘Father, I can not tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet.’ And his father said, ‘Noble boy, I would rather lose a thousand trees than have you tell a lie.’”

“George did?”

“No, his father said that.”

“Said he’d rather have a thousand apple trees?”

“No, no, no; said he’d rather lose a thousand apple trees than----”

“Said he’d rather George would?”

“No, said he’d rather he would than have him lie.”

“Oh! George would rather have his father lie?”

We are patient, and we love children, but if Mrs. Caruthers, of Arch Street, hadn’t come and got her prodigy at that critical juncture, we don’t believe all Burlington could have pulled us out of that snarl. And as Clarence Fitzherbert Alencon de Marchemont Caruthers pattered down the stairs, we heard him telling his ma about a boy who had a father named George, and he told him to cut down an apple tree, and he said he’d rather tell a thousand lies than cut down one apple tree.

SPRING DAYS IN BURLINGTON.

Down where the wake-robin springs from its slumbers,
Opening its cardinal eye to the sun;
Come the dull echoes of far away thunders
Heavy and fast as the shots of a gun.
Up on the hill where the wild flowers nestle,
Like new fallen stars on the green mossy strand;
There come the dead notes of the house-cleaning pestle--
The sound of the carpet is heard in the land.

Up! for the song birds their matins are singing;
Up, for the morning is tinting the skies;
Up, for the good wife the clothes-prop is bringing
Out to the line where the hall carpet flies.
Up, and away! for the carpet is dusty!
Fly, for the house-cleaning days have begun!
Run! for the womanly temper is crusty;
Up and be doing, lest ye be undone!

Late, late; too late. Just one moment of snoring.
He wakes to the sound of the tumult below.
O’er the beating of carpets he hears a voice roaring,
“Breakfast was over three hours ago!”
See, he is plunged in the front of the battle;
Where dust is the thickest they tell him to stand;
Where suds, mops and scrub-brushes spatter and rattle,
And the sound of the carpet is heard in the land.

LIFE IN THE “HAWKEYE” SANCTUM.

The _Hawkeye_ has just got into its new editorial rooms, and it is proud to say it has the finest, most comfortable, complete, and convenient editorial rooms in America. They are finished off with a little invention which will be of untold value to the profession of journalism when it is generally adopted; and we know that it will rapidly come into universal use as soon as its merits are understood and appreciated. We believe it is fully equal, in all that the term implies, to the famous Bogardess Kicker, less liable to get out of order, and less easily detected by casual visitors. It is known as “Middlerib’s Automatic Welcome.” The sanctum is on the same floor as the news-room, being separated from it by a partition, in which is cut a large window, easily opened by an automatic arrangement. The editor’s table is placed in front of that window, and near the head of the stairs; and on the side of the table next the window, directly opposite the editor, the visitor’s chair is placed. It has an inviting look about it, and its entire appearance is guileless and commonplace. But the strip of floor on which that chair rests is a deception and a fraud. It is an endless chain, like the floor of a horse-power, and is operated at will by the editor, who has merely to touch a spring in the floor to set it in motion. Its operation can best be understood by personal inspection.

One morning, soon after the “Middlerib Welcome” had been placed in position, Mr. Bostwick came in with a funny story to tell. He naturally flopped down into the chair that had the strongest appearance of belonging to some one else, and began in his usual happy vein: “I’ve got the richest thing--oh! ah, ha, ha!--the best thing--oh, by George! I can’t--oh, ha, ha, ha! Oh! it’s too _good_! Oh, by George, the richest thing! Oh! it’s _too_ loud! You must never tell where you got--oh, by George, I can’t do it! It’s _too_ good! You know--oh, ha, ha, ha, oh, he, he, he! You know the--oh, by George, I ca--” Here the editor touched the spring, a nail-grab under the bottom of the chair reached swiftly up and caught Mr. Bostwick by the cushion of his pants, the window flew up, and the noiseless belt of floor gliding on its course bore the astonished Mr. Bostwick through the window out into the news-room, half-way down to the cases, where he was received with great applause by the delighted compositors. The window had slammed down as soon as he passed through; and when the editorial foot was withdrawn from the spring and the chair stopped and the nail-grab assumed its accustomed place, young Mr. Bostwick found himself so kind of out of the sanctum, like it might be, that he went slowly and dejectedly down the stairs, as it were, while amazement sat upon his brow, like.

The next casual visitor was Mr. J. Alexis Flaxeter, the critic. He had a copy of the _Hawkeye_ in his hand, with all the typographical errors marked in red ink, and his face was so wreathed in smiles that it was impossible to tell where his mouth ended and his eyes began. He took the vacant chair, and spread the paper out before him, covering up the editorial manuscript. “My keen vision and delicate sense of accuracy,” he said, “are the greatest crosses of my life. Things that you never see are mountains in my sight. Now here, you see, is a----” The spring clicked softly, like an echo to the impatient movement of the editor’s foot, the nail-grab took hold like a bulldog helping a Burlington troubadour over the garden fence, the chair shot back through the window like a meteor, and the window came down with a slam that sounded like a wooden giant getting off the shortest bit of profanity known to man; and all was silent again. Mr. Flaxeter sat very close to the frosted window, staring blankly at the clouded glass, seeing nothing that could offer any explanation of what he would have firmly believed was a land slide, had he not heard the editor, safe in his guarded den, softly whistling, “We shall meet but we shall miss him.”

Then there was a brief interval of quiet in the sanctum, and a rustling of raiment was heard on the stairs. A lovely woman entered, and stood unawed in the editorial presence. The E. P., on its part, was rather nervous and uncomfortable. The lovely woman seated herself in the fatal chair. She slapped her little gripsack on the table, and opened her little subscription book. She said: “I am soliciting cash contributions--strictly, exclusively, and peremptorily cash contributions--to pay off the church debt, and buy an organ for the Mission Church of the Forlorn Strangers, and I expect----.” There are times when occasion demands great effort. The editor bowed his head, and, after one brief spasm of remorse, felt for the secret spring. The window went up like a charm; the reckless nail-grab hung back for a second, as if held by a feeling of innate delicacy, and then it shut its eyes and smothered its pity, and reached up and took a death-like hold on a roll of able and influential newspapers and a network of string and tape, and the cavalcade backed out into the news-room with colors flying. The chair stopped just before the familiar spirit who was washing the forms; and, as the lovely woman gazed at the inky face, she shrieked: “Merciful heavens, where, where am I?” and was borne down the gloomy stairway unconscious; while the printers whose cases were nearest the wicked window heard the editor singing, as it might be to himself, “Dearest sister, thou hast left us.”

An hour of serenity and tranquillity in the editorial room was broken by a brisk, business-like step on the stairs; the door flew open with a bang that shot the key half-way across the room, and a sociable-looking, familiar kind of a stranger jammed into the chair, slapped his hat over the ink-stand, pushed a pile of proof, twenty pages of copy, a box of pens, the paste-cup, and a pair of scissors off the table to make room for the old familiar flat sample case, and said, in one brief breath: “I am agent for Gamberton’s Popular Centennial World’s History and American Citizens’ Treasure Book of Valuable Information sold only by subscription and issued in thirty parts each number embellished with one handsome steel-plate engraving and numerous beautifully executed wood-cuts no similar work has ever been published in this country and at the exceedingly low price at which it is offered $2 per vol----.”

The spring clicked like a pistol-shot, the window went up half-way through the ceiling, the nail-grab took hold like a three-barreled harpoon, and the column moved on its backward way through the window, down through the news-room past the foreman, standing grim and silent, by the imposing stone, past the cases, vocal with the applause and encouraging and consolatory remarks of the compositors, on to the alley windows, over the sills--howling, yelling, shrieking, praying, the unhappy agent was hurled to the cruel pavement, three stories below, where he lit on his head and plunged through into a cellar, where he tried to get a subscription out of a man who was shoveling coal.

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

It was a Mt. Pleasant girl. No other human divinity could play such a heartless trick on an admiring, nay, an adoring and adorable, young man. He always praised the flowers she wore, and talked so learnedly about flowers in general, that this incredulous young angel “put up a job” on him--if one may be so sacrilegious as to write slang in connection with so much beauty and grace. She filled the bay window with freshly potted weeds which she had laboriously gathered from the sidewalk and in the hollow under the bridge, and when he came round that evening she led the conversation to flowers, and her admirer to the bay window. “Such lovely plants she had,” she told him, and he just clasped his hands and looked around him in silly ecstasy, trying to think of their names.

“That is _Patagonia influenses_, Mr. Bogundus,” she said, pointing to the miserable cheat of a young rag-weed; “did you ever see any thing so delicate?”

“Oh!” he ejaculated, regarding it reverentially; “beautiful, beautiful; what delicately serrated leaves!”

“And,” she went on, with a face as angelic as though she was only saying “Now I lay me down to sleep,” “it breaks out in the Summer in such curious green blossoms, clinging to long, slender stems. Only think of that--green blossoms.” And she gazed pensively on the young man as though she saw something green that probably never would blossom.

“Wonderful, wonderful indeed,” he said, “one can never tire of botany. It continually opens to us new worlds of wonders with every awakening flower and unfolded leaf.”

“And here,” she said, indicating with her snowy finger a villainous sprout of that little bur the boys call “beggar’s lice,” “this _Mendicantis parasitatis_, what----”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, rapturously, “where did you get it? Why, do you know how rare it is? I have not seen one in Burlington since Mrs. O’Gheminie went to Chicago. She had such beautiful species of them; such a charming variety. She used to wear them in her hair so often.”

“No doubt,” the angel said dryly; and the young man feared he had done wrong in praising Mrs. O’Gheminie’s plants so highly. But the dear one went on, and pointing to a young jimson weed, said:

“This is my pet, this _Jimsonata filiofensis_.”

The young man gasped with the pleasure of a true lover of flowers, as he bent over it in admiration and inhaled its nauseous odor. Then he rose up and said:

“This plant has some medicinal properties.”

“Ah!” she said.

“Yes,” he replied, stiffly, “it has. I have smelt that plant in my boyhood days. Wilted on the kitchen stove, then bruised and applied to the eruption, the leaves are excellent remedial agents for the poison of the ivy.” He strode past the smiling company that gathered in the parlor, and said sternly, “We meet no more!” and, seizing her father’s best hat from the rack, he extinguished himself in it, and went banging along the line of tree-boxes which lined his darkened way.

SPRING TIME IN AMERICA.

Dear, faded, flowers, they bloom again,
Like echoes of the spring time gone;
And mossy hillside, shadowy glen,
Break out in beauty like the dawn.
In regal beauty, leaf and bud
Bend ’neath the kisses of the breeze,
And “Spanish Mixture for the Blood”
Smiles from the fences, rocks and trees.

Dear, smiling Spring, what tender hope
Breathes from the life-awakening soil;
How “Bolus’ Anti-bilious Dope,”
And “Dr. Gastric’s Castor Oil”
Bid frightened nature wake and smile;
For spring time’s blossoms fill us less
With thoughts of pansies than with vile
“Panaceas” for “Biliousness.”

If to the wooded nook we stray,
Where every swelling germ is huge
With life; each gray-browed rock will say,
“Use Philogaster’s Vermifuge.”
If from these sylvan bowers we fly,
We fly, alas, to other ills;
And farm-yard gates and barn-doors cry,
“Take Ginsengrooter’s Liver Pills.”

Each blue-eyed violet hides a “Pill,”
There’s scent of “Rhubarb” in the air;
“Rheumatic Plasters” line each hill,
And “Bitters” blossom everywhere.
With “Ague Cures” the eyes are seared;
The air is thick, or thin, I meant,
For Nature’s face and clothes are smeared
With “Universal Liniment.”

WOODLAND MUSIC AND POETRY.

But Mr. Middlerib’s greatest delight, escaping from his daily wrangle with phlegmatic Peorians, was to seek some cool, sequestered spot, where the air was vocal with the song of birds, there to read, and ponder, and doze, and blend with the melody of the woodland warblers wrathful objurgations of the gnats, and flies, and mosquitoes, and hard-backed bugs that nobody knew the names of. But his poetical nature rose above all these minor distractions, and he enjoyed his seclusion and its sylvan delights. One lovely morning he sat in a vine-embowered porch, with four cages of canaries hanging above his head, and the trees around fairly alive with the wild birds, and as he listened to the varied, melodious passages of the wild-wood orchestra, he grew enraptured, and in a moment of enthusiasm gave himself up to poetry for Mrs. M.’s benefit. He opened the book in his hand, and in a lull of the music he began:

“A cloud lay cradled near the set----”

“Tweetle, tweetle, twee twee tweedle dee tweet tweet!” broke in ear-piercing chorus from the four cages, “twee, twee, tweedle de deedle, twee twee!”

“What a delightful interruption,” said Mr. Middlerib, sweetly; and, with a tender smile wrinkling his placid face, like the upper crust of a green apple pie, he waited for the music to cease, and resumed:

“A cloud lay cra----”

“Twee, twee, twee-ee-ee, tweedle, tweedle, tweedle! Tweet-te-deet-deet, tweet tweet! Tweedle-de-deedle, tweetle, tweetle tweet tweet!”

“A poem without words,” said Mr. Middlerib, softly, glancing from his book toward the cages wherein eight yellow throats were manufacturing music of the shrillest key that ever developed an ear-ache or woke up a deaf and dumb asylum. Presently he got another chance, and resumed once more:

“A cloud lay cradled near the set----”

“To-whoot! To-whoot! Whootle-te-toot-toot!” came from a bird in the nearest hickory, a solemn-looking bird with a brown back and a voice like a wooden whistle. Mr. Middlerib paused and glanced toward the tree, while the benign smile which made his face look like a damaged photograph of one of the early Christian martyrs, faded away like a summer twilight. He resumed:

“A cloud lay cra----”

“Too-toot too doodle toot-te-doot! Wheetle de deetle, tweet tweet tweetle tweet, twee twee whoot de doot too too, chippity-wippity, cheep-cheep-cheep, whoot, squack squack!” went off the whole chorus, cages and trees, supplemented by a visiting party of cat-birds, all aroused into indignant and jealous protest by the obtrusive solo of the wooden-whistle bird, who appeared to be an object of general dislike. Mr. Middlerib, thinking he would read down opposition, went right on:

“----dled near the setting sun,
A gleam of crim----”

“K-r-r-r-r-r-r!”

A woodpecker tapped his merry roundelay on the roof of the porch, and Mrs. Middlerib sprang from her chair with, “Mercy on us! what is that?” Mr. Middlerib made a cutting remark about people who had no appreciation of the beautiful in nature or art, and remarked:

“A gleam of crimson tinged its----”

“Twee-ee, twee, deedle-eedle-odle twiddle twoddle, twoot, too too tweedle oot! Teedle idle eedle odle, twee twee, twee! Pe weet, pe weet! Whootle ootle tootle too, squack squack!”

Mr. Middlerib elevated his voice to about ninety degrees in the shade, and roared:

“----tinged its braided snow,
Long had I wat----”

“Caw, caw, caw! Ca-a-a-aw!” came from the pensive crow, startled from its quiet retreat in the old dead cottonwood, and Miss Middlerib giggled. But Mr. M. inflated his lungs and roared on:

“----ched the glory moving on,
O’er the still radiance----”

“Tweetle de twootle, caw, caw, tweetle doodle tweet tweet! K-r-r-r-r-r-r, krk, krk! twee deedle eet tweet! teedle idle, whoot, toot, twoot! who! squack, squack, k-r-r-r----”

“Shut up, ye nasty, squawking, yallipin’, howlin’ little beasts! Shoo! Light out o’ this or I’ll stone ye from here to Halifax! Scat with yer noise! Oh!” exclaimed the exasperated worshiper of nature as he hurled his book into the nearest tree and went off the porch to look for some stones, “If there is any thing in this world I hate more than another, it’s a lot of nasty, flittering, fidgety, yowping, howling birds! Ugh!” And he threw his shoulder nearly out of joint, and sprained his arm, in a herculean but futile effort to hit a black bird a mile and a half away, with a rock as big as a straw hat. He has dropped the sulphur baths for the present and taken to arnica.

BUYING A TIN CUP.

The town was dozing in the drowsy sunlight of a dull August afternoon, when a dejected looking man, with the appearance of one who was making desperate efforts to appear unconcerned, stepped into a prominent and fashionable dry goods establishment up on Jefferson Street. Scorning the proffered stool, he braced himself firmly against the counter, and looking the polite and attentive clerk fixedly in the eye, broke the impressive silence by abruptly demanding:

“Gimme tinkup!”

“We do not keep them, sir,” smilingly replied the affable clerk, and the glare of suspicion with which that man regarded him was sufficient to chill the blood of a snake.

“Donkeep tinkups?” he asked, quickly and distrustfully.

“No, sir,” replied the clerk, “we have no tin cups. This is a dry goods store. You will find the tin store farther up the street.”

“Few donkeep notinkups--watchkeep?” demanded the man, imperiously.

“We have grenadines, calicos, bareges, gros grain ribbons, tarletan, velvets, moire antique, empress cloth, pongee and Japanese silks----”

“Shut her off!” ejaculated the man, “Puttit tup! Puttit tup!”

He turned away with a dignified gesture, and walked away with stately, though uncertain strides, and dived into the Plunder store, where he startled the proprietor by the same urgent demand for the “tinkup,” and he was finally piloted into Kaut & Kriechbaum’s, where he bought his “tinkup,” which he fell down on before he got to the Barret House corner, mashing it flat as a pie pan. He was helped into his wagon, and as he drove away the last the citizens saw of him he was holding the flattened tin cup before him, exclaiming ruefully:

“Devlofa--lookin--tinkupthatis!”

ONE OF THE LEGION.

A citizen of South Hill,
His visage bathed in tears,
His raiment streaked with rust and dust,
His mind distraught with fears,
Was leaning up by the shattered gate,
And his sad eyes gazed around
Where reckless ruin here and there
With fragments strewed the ground.
But a drayman stood beside him
To hear what he might say,
As he stretched him out his good right arm
And waited for his pay.

The weeping mover faltered
As he saw the drayman’s hand,
And he said, “I haven’t a red, red cent
In all of this broad fair land.
I haven’t a clothes to my aching back
Save only these rags you see;
And all the furniture I have left
Won’t pay you half your fee.
There’s a leg of the table in the street,
And the lamp globes strew the stair,
And the stovepipe’s flattened out like a lath,
And the clock is not nowhere.

“Tell my wife, if you can find her,
That when the job was done,
The furniture wasn’t half so good
As it was when we begun.
That the end of the bureau she’s looking for
Is down by the alley gate,
And the parlor mirror is bent so bad
She never can pound it straight.
We broke the legs of the kitchen stove,
And we smashed the Parian vase,
And the dray ran over her rocking chair
And ruined its stately grace.

“Tell my sister, her darling new spring hat
Was packed in a bag of corn,
And I never again can look in her face
And meet her glance of scorn.
We spilled coal oil on her summer silk,
And we tore her cashmere sacque,
For her dressing bureau fell off the dray
And the horse kicked out its back.

“There’s another, not a sister,
In happier days gone by,
You’d know her by the savage light
That glittered in her eye.
Too business-like for foolery,
Too sharp for my excuses--
Ah me, I fear adversity
Has naught but bitter uses;
Tell her, the last time you saw me--
For ere the clock strikes ten,
I’ll be at work on the ‘Third Degree,’
The happiest of men;
Tell her I said that she could go
To the bow-wow wow-wow wows;
That I’d stay down town when lodge was out,
And sleep at a boarding-house
Tell her she needn’t sit up for me,
And she needn’t leave no light----”
And a voice came out of the hall and said,
“You don’t go to no Lodge to-night.”

His voice was gone in a minute,
He gasped and tried to speak;
He tried to swear, but the drayman says
That he couldn’t raise a squeak.

And his mother-in-law rose slowly,
And calmly she looked down
On the green grass of the littered yard,
With household treasures strewn.
Yes, calmly on that dreadful scene
She gazed, and looked around,
And said to the weeping man by the gate,
“Pick them things up off the ground.”

A TACITURN WITNESS.

An ordinary case of assault and battery was called in Judge Stutsman’s court, and the prosecuting witness was duly sworn: Phelim O’Shaughnessy, a little, weazen-faced man, with a stubbly beard all over his jaws and a pair of bright eyes flanking the snubbiest of noses.

“Now, then, Mr. O’Shaughnessy,” said the court, “tell what you know about this matter in as few words as you possibly can.”

“Faix, thin, yer anner, an’ I will do that same,” replied the witness, with great volubility. “Av’ there is ony thing I do be despisin’ it’s wan ov thim same whurrimurroo gabblers that niver know when they’re through. When ye git troo pumpin, sez I, lave the handle; that’s me. An’ ye niver see an O’Shaughnessy in the wor-r-ld, yer anner, that wur a cackler. I mind me mither’s own uncle that ever was, Tim the Croaker they used to be callin’ him, though his name was Timothy Mahone O’Dubbleriggle Balbrigganainey, for be the token he niver wur known to say more nor wan wor-rud at a time, yer anner, an’ that wan he said with a grunt. There was wan day, whin he wur gamekeeper fur my lord Donald McAlpin Clanargotty Callum O’Dowd, a Scotch gintleman that owned a bit av a shootin’ box might be, in the north uv----”

“Well, there, there, there,” interrupted the court, “that’s enough about your ancestry; now tell what you know about this case of yours, and stick to the point.”

“The p’int, is it, avick?” replied the witness; “Musha, thin, it wur fwhat I wur comin’ to, jist. It’s what I sez to Mrs. O’Shaughnessy twinty times a day, an’ she’s the wor-r-rst talker between here an’ Dublin bay. ‘Norah,’ sez I; ‘Is it you,’ sez she; ‘Faix thin, an’ who else wud it be?’ sez I; ‘An’ phwat uv it?’ sez she; ‘Div ye mind me, now?’ sez I; ‘Sorra the wan uv me does,’ sez she; ‘Wait thin, till I tell ye,’ sez I; ‘Whisht, thin, go on with yer blarney,’ sez she; ‘Howld yer hush a minit, thin,’ sez I, ‘an’ let’s have a second av quiet;’ ‘What!’ sez she, ‘wid ye in the house?’ ‘Listhen,’ sez I; ‘Whisper, thin,’ sez she; ‘Well, thin,’ sez I, ‘kape to the p’int. Av yez will do nothin’ but talk from the peep o’ mor-r-rn till the lasht wink uv night, kape till the p’int.’ Ah, yer anner, it’s the wan fur talkin’, she is, is Norah. It isn’t an O’Shaughnessy she is, yer anner, her father, rest his sowl, was ould Darby Muldoon, the solid man, an’ he wur sint to Austhralia for twenty-sivin years panal sarvitude fur talkin’ a thraveler to death whin he wur dhrivin’ him from----”

“That will do,” interrupted the court, sternly; “we’ve heard enough of your reminiscences. Now you tell what you know about this case, or I’ll fine you for contempt. You have filed information against Morris McHogadan for assaulting you with a paving hammer, in the back yard of your own premises in Melrose Place, Happy Hollow, and knocking three teeth down your throat, breaking one of your ribs, and chewing your ear off. Now what have you got to say about it?”

“Is it me, avick?”

“Yes, you are the prosecuting witness; that is your own case, and you filed the information on which the warrant was issued.”

“An’ it says that Morris McHogadan bate me?”

“It does, and it is sworn to.”

“Oh, the divil an’ all; who shwore to that?”

“You did.”

“PHWAT?”

“You swore to all that.”

“Oh, tower uv ivory! That Morris McHogadan bate me?”

“Yes.”

“Wid a pavin’ hammer?”

“Yes, so you declared.”

“Oh-h-h, thundher an’ turf! An’ bate me teeth down the troat ov me?”

“So you averred.”

“Oh, the bloody-minded villin; an’ broke me rib?”

“That’s what you said.”

“Oh-h-h, bones of the martyrs; and chawed off the ear o’ me?”

“So you told us.”

“Oh, to the divil wid the informashin that says sich a pack o’ lies. Morris McHogadan bate me? Och, Moses an’ Aarin, its tearin’ ravin’ disthracted mad I am! Why, yer anner, it’s a bloody-minded lie. He can’t fip wan side o’ me; why, the pig-eyed thafe ov the wor-rold, I clawed all the red hair out ov the ugly head of him and trowed him down the bank ov the crick, and welted him like an ould shoe wid a splinther ov timber I grabbed out of the crick. Him bate me? He can’t bate nobody. I didn’t lave a whole bone in his ugly carkiss, an’ av he dares to say I did, yer anner, I’ll ate off his other ear an’ pound the flure wid him. Oh, the divil fly away wid sich infermashin. It’s the beggar’s own lie, an’----”

Here the witness was cut short by the court fining him $10.00 and costs for assault and battery, and Phelim, astonished into a terrific flow of volubility for such a taciturn man, went away with a policeman, arguing that it wasn’t possible that he could be fined when he was the prosecuting witness, and declaring that the case never would have gone against him but for “the bloody-minded infermashin,” which he firmly believed to be the evil work of the designing Morris McHogadan.

THE SEEDSMAN.

How doth the busy nurseryman
Improve each shining hour;
And peddle cions, sprouts and seeds
Of every shrub and flower.

How busily he wags his chin,
How neat he spreads his store,
And sells us things that never grew
And won’t grow any more.

Who showed the little man the way
To sell the women seed?
Who taught him how to blow and lie
And coax and beg and plead?

He taught himself, the nurseryman;
And when his day is done,
We’ll plant him where the lank rag weeds
Will flutter in the sun.

But oh, although we plant him deep
Beneath the buttercup,
He’s so much like the seed he sells,
He never will come up.

CORNERING THE BOYS.

Only a few days before they moved the capital, a worthy lady of Peoria one morning detected her two sons laughing immoderately. Suspecting that she was the cause of their disrespectful mirth, the good woman involuntarily loosened her slipper and called up the young culprits.

“Thomas, what made you laugh?”

“Nobody made me laugh; I laughed on purpose.”

“None of your impudence, sir. John, why were you laughing at the door just now?”

John (eagerly)--“Wasn’t laughing at the door, I was laughing at Tom.”

Tom--“And I was laughing at John.”

The matron assumed a dignified attitude. “Now, my boys, what were you both laughing at?”

Boys (in a triumphant shout)--“We were both laughing at once!”

The good lady summoned all her energies for a final effort, and resolved to corner the boys by a settling question.

“Now, then, I want you to tell me, Tom, what made John laugh and you laugh?”

Tom--“John didn’t laugh a new laugh; it was the same old laugh!”

Neither of the boys got whipped, the slipper slid back to its accustomed place, and to this day nobody knows what those boys laughed at.

SELLING THE HEIRLOOM.

One afternoon, about a week after the big Fourth of July, a hungry-looking man made his appearance down near the post-office corner, carrying in his arms an old-fashioned clock, about four feet high, with some ghastly looking characters scrawled across the dial, like the photograph of a fire-cracker label with the delirium tremens. He set the clock down, and in loud tones called upon the passers-by to pause, as he was about to make a sacrifice that would break the heart of the oldest horologer living. He was going to sell that clock, he said. An old family heirloom, and a genuine curiosity of antiquity, which he would not ordinarily take thousands of dollars for, but which he sold now because he was out of work, penniless; and when his wife and children cried to him for bread, he could not say them nay when he had that in his possession that would, in any intelligent community, bring them food and plenty.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “look at that clock. A relic of antiquity. One of the oldest Chinese clepsydras in the world. Bamboo case and sandal-wood running gear. Not an ounce of metal in its construction. Made in China by the eminent horologer Tchin Pitshoo, as near as can be ascertained, three hundred years after the flood. Worth a thousand dollars if it’s worth a cent; but of course I don’t expect to get half its value in these hard times. The inscription on the face is in the characters of the purest Confucian Chinese, and the interpretation of them is, ‘Time flies and money is twelve per cent.’ Now what are you going to give me for that clock? Who will buy this clock, and present it to the Iowa Historical Society or the Burlington Library? How much? Start her up; send her ahead at something, gentlemen; there’s a woman and five children that haven’t had a bite to eat for two days, and can’t get a crumb till the money for this clock is in my pocket. A marvelous time-piece; never lost----”

A man in brown overalls and a dirty face lounged up to the clock, and after scratching the case with a pin, to assure himself that it was really a genuine Chinese clepsydra, bid ten cents.

“Ten cents!” roared the man, rolling his eyes--“Heaven, hold back your lightnings! Don’t strike him dead just yet! Give him time to repent. Ten cents to buy food for a starving woman and five children. Ten cents for a d----” He choked with emotion, and could not go on for a moment. “Ten cents! Why, that clock only has to be wound once a month, and it records every minute of time; tells just how long it will take you to get to the depot; tells when the train starts, and when the children are late to school. This clock, gentlemen, will tell when the oldest boy has played hookey and gone off fishing; it tells how late the hired girl’s beau stays Sunday night, and it will register the exact minute of our oldest daughter’s arrival and departure at and from the front gate after ten o’clock at night. Why, after you’ve had it six weeks, you’ll not take six hundred dollars for it. It runs fast all day and slow all night, giving a man fourteen hours’ sleep in the Winter and sixteen hours’ sleep in the Summer, without disturbing the accurate average of the day a minute. Ten cents for such a clock as that! Ten cents! Gentlemen, this is robbery; it’s cold-blooded murder. At ten cents; at ten, at ten, atten, atten, attenat-tennit-tennit-tennet-tenatenatenaten a-a-t ten cents only am I offered, twenty do I hear? At ten--”

An old rag-man, after a critical examination of the marvel, bid fifteen cents, and was instantly regarded as a mortal enemy by the first bidder.