2 THELIBRARYOF JOHNWICKUFF MITCHELL PANA'ILLINOIS *1835 ** 1914* BEQVEATHED'BY MRS. MARY F. IC1TCHELL IN 1931 LIBRARYOFTHE VNIVERSITY OF* ILLINOIS e>i 7 JOSEPH MCDONOUGH RARE BOOKS v ALBANY - N. Y. I U« Ubrnrj ol the of HIWs. Out of the Hurly-Burly; OB, LIFE IN AN ODD CORNER. BY MAX ADELER. iittl) ttmrltj four gunbreb Muotrations, ARTHUR B. FROST, FRED. B. SCHELL, WM. L. SHEPPARD AND ED. B. BENSELL. GEORGE MACLEAN & CO., PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK, BOSTON, CINCINNATI AND CHICAGO. N. D. THOMPSON & CO., ST. LOUIS, MO. 1874 . Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by CHARLES HEBER CLARK, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. Westcott & Thomson, Stereotypers and Eleclrotypers, Philada. DEDICATION. $17 C54o C.w »f the . THE FINAL EXAMINATION. 79 “ Yes, and we will help her with our spinatus and infra- spiralis,” exclaimed the rest of the class. Magruder’s brother in the gloom of his closet did not com¬ prehend the character of these threats, but he had a vague idea that the life of that lovely young saw¬ bones was menaced by firearms and other engines of war of a peculiarly deadly de¬ scription. He felt that the punishment was too severe for the crime. Magruder himself, he was convinced, would have regarded that orbicularis operation with courageous fortitude and heroic composure. Mrs. Magruder then proceeded to give the class practice in certain operations in medical treatment. She vaccinated Magruder on the left arm, while one of the students bled his right arm and showed her companions how to tie up the vein. They applied leeches to his nose, under the professor’s instructions; they cupped him on the shoulder blades; they exercised themselves in spreading mustard plasters on his back; they timed his pulse ; they held out his tongue with pincers and examined it with a microscope, and two or three enthusiastic students kept hovering around Magruder’s leg with a saw and a carving-knife, until Magruder’s brother in retirement in the closet shuddered with apprehension. But the professor restrained these devotees of science; and when the other exercises were ended, she informed the stu¬ dents that they would devote a few moments in conclusion to study of the use of the stomach-pump. Hr. Jones continued : “ I shall not enter into particulars concerning the scene that then ensued. There is a certain want of poetry about the operation of the weapon just named, a certain absence of dignity and sentiment, which, I may say, render it impossible to describe it in a mariner which will elevate the soul and touch the moral sensibilities.' It will 1 80 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. suffice to observe that as each member of the class attacked Magruder with that murderous engine, Magruder’s brother, timid as he was, solemnly declared to himself that if the class would put away those saws and things he would rush out and rescue his brother at the risk of his life. “ He was saved the necessity of thus imperiling his safety. Magruder began to revive. He turned over ; he sat up; he stared wildly at the company; he looked at his wife; then he sank back upon the sofa and said to her, in a feeble voice: “ ‘ Henrietta, somehow or other I feel awfully hungry!’ “ Hungry! Magruder’s brother considered that, after that last performance of the class, Magruder ought to have a relish for a couple of raw buffaloes, at least. He emerged from the closet, and seizing a chair, determined to tell the whole story. Mrs. Magruder and the class screamed, but he proceeded. Then up rose Magruder and discussed the subject with vehemence, while his brother brandished his chair and joined in the chorus. Mrs. Magruder and the A QUESTION. 81 class cried, and said Mr. Magruder was a brute, and he had no love for science. But Mr. Magruder said that as for himself, ‘ hang science!’ when a woman became so infatuated with it as to chop up her husband to help it along. And his brother said he ought to put in even stronger terms than that. What followed upon the adjournment of the class is not known. But Magruder seems somehow to have lost much of his interest in medicine, and since then there has been a kind of coolness between him and the professor.” I shall repeat this extraordinary narrative to Mr. Parker. He ought to be aware of the propensities of his prospective mother-in-law beforehand, so that he may not encounter the dangers which attend her devotion to her profession without realizing the fact of their existence. Admitting that Jones adheres closely to truth in his statement, we may very reasonably fear that Mrs. Magruder would not hesitate to vivisect a mere son-in-law, or in an extreme case to remove one of his legs. A mother-in-law with such dangerous pro¬ clivities ought not to be accepted rashly or in haste. Pru¬ dence requires that she should be meditated upon. “I want to ask you a question,” observed Mr. Parker, as we sat out upon the porch after tea with Mrs. Adeler. “ I notice that you always say ‘ is being done/ and not ‘ is doing.’ Now, which is correct? I think you’re wrong. Some of those big guns who write upon such subjects think so too. Grind us out an opinion.” “ The subject has been much discussed, Bob, and a good many smart things have been said in support of both theo¬ ries. But I stick to ‘ is being done,’ first, because it is more common, and therefore handier, and second, because it is the only form that is really available in all cases. Suppose, for instance, you wished to express the idea that our boy Aga¬ memnon is enduring chastisement; you would say, ‘ Agamem- 82 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. non is being spanked/ not ‘ Agamemnon is spanking/ The difference may seem to you very slight, but it would be a matter of considerable importance to Agamemnon; and if a choice should be given him, it is probable that he would sud¬ denly select the latter form.” “ Just so,” exclaimed Mr. Parker. “You say again, *Captain Cook is being eaten/ Cer¬ tainly this expresses a very different fact from that which is conveyed by the form, ‘ Captain Cook is eating/ I venture to say that Captain Cook would have insisted upon the latter as by far the more agreeable of the two things.” “ Precisely,” said Mr. Parker. “ And equally diverse are the two ideas expressed by the phrases ‘ The mule is being kicked ’ and ‘ The mule is kick¬ ing/ But it is to be admitted that there are occasions when the two forms indicate a precisely similar act. You assert, I will say, that ‘ Hannah is hugging/ ” “ Which would be a very improper thing for Hannah to do,” suggested Mr. P. “ Of course it would; but there is an extreme probability that you would indicate Hannah’s action under the circum¬ stances if you should say, ‘ Hannah is being hugged/ It is in most cases a reciprocal act. Or suppose I say, ‘ Jane is kissing’?” “ And her mother ought to know about it if she is,” re¬ marked Bob. “ It is nearly the same as if I should say, ‘ Jane is being kissed,’ for one performance in most cases presupposes the other. It will not, however, be necessary for you to attempt to prove this fact by practice anywhere in the neighborhood of the Magruder mansion. If you find it necessary to ex¬ plain to Miss Magruder my views of this grammatical ques¬ tion, it will be better to confine your illustrations to the case of Captain Cook. But you can safely continue to say, ‘ is SOME CONCLUDING ADVICE. 83 being built.’ Nobody will object to that but a few superfine people who are so far ahead of you in such matters that they will be tolerably sure to regard you as an idiot whichever form you happen to use, while if you adopt the other form in conversation with your unfastidious acquaintances, you will be likely to confuse your meaning very often in such a manner as to impress them with the conviction that your reason is dethroned.” 7 * CHAPTER VI. The Editor of Our Daily Paper—The Appearance and Personal Characteristics of Colonel Bangs—The Af¬ fair with the Tombstone—Art News—Colonel Bangs in the Heat of a Political Campaign—Peculiar Trou¬ bles of Public Singers—The Phenomena of Menageries —Extraordinary Sagacity of the Animals—The Wild Man of Afghanistan. HE editor of our daily paper, The Morning Argus , is Col. Bangs — Colonel Mortimer J. Bangs. The colonel is an exceedingly important per¬ sonage in the village, and he bears about him the air of a man who is acutely con¬ scious of the fact. The gait of the colonel, the peculiar way in which he carries his head, the manner in which he swings his cane, and the =jg=| art he has of impressing any one he happens to address with a feeling that he is performing an act of sublime condescension in permitting himself to hold communication with an inferior being, combine to excite in the vulgar mind a sentiment of awe. The eminent journalist manifests in his entire bearing his confidence in the theory that upon him devolves the responsibility of forming the public opinion 84 V THE COURAGE OF THE COLONEL. 85 of the place; and there is a certain grandeur in the manner in which he conveys to the public mind, through the public eye, the fact that while he appreciates the difficulties of what seemed to be an almost superhuman task, which would surely overwhelm men of smaller intellectual calibre, the work presents itself to his mind'as something not much more formidable than pastime. The appearance of Colonel Bangs is not only imposing, but sometimes it inclines to be almost ferocious. The form in which he wears his whiskers, added to the military nature of his title, would be likely to give to timid strangers an idea not only that the colonel has a raging and insatiable thirst for blood and an almost irresistible appetite for the horrors of war, but that upon very slight provocation he would suddenly grasp his sword, fling away the scabbard, and then proceed to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind. But I rejoice to say that the colonel has not really such murderous and revolutionary in¬ clinations. His title was obtained in those early years of peace when he led the inoffensive forces of the militia upon parade, and marshaled them as they braved the perils of the target-shooting excursion. I think I am warranted in saying that Colonel Bangs would never voluntarily stand in the imminent deadly breach if there happened to be a man there with a gun who wanted him to leave, and that he will never seek the bubble reputation at the cannon’s mouth unless the cannon happens to be unloaded. Place Colonel Bangs in front of an empty cannon, and for a proper consideration he would remain there for years without the quiver of a muscle. 86 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Charge that piece of ordnance with powder and ball, and not all the wealth of the w T orld would induce him to stand anywhere but in the rear of the artillery. The Argus has never appeared to me to be an especially brilliant journal. To the intelligent and critical reader, in¬ deed, the controlling purpose of the colonel seems to be to endeavor to ascertain how near he can bring the paper to imbecility without actually reaching that condition; and it is surprising how close a shave he makes of it. When we first came to the village, a gleam of intelligence now and then appeared in the editorial columns of the Argus , and this phenomenon was generally attributed to the circumstance that Colonel Bangs t had permitted his assistant editor to spread his views before the public. On such occasions it was entertaining to observe in what manner the colonel would assume the honors of the authorship of his assistant’s articles. Cooley, for instance, meeting him upon the street would observe: “ That was an uncommonly good thing, colonel, which ap¬ peared in the Argus this morning on The Impending Struggle; whose was it?” Colonel Bangs (with an air of mingled surprise and indignation). Whose was it? Whose was that article ? I suppose you are aware, sir, that I am the editor of The Morning Argus !” Cooley. “Yes; but I thought perhaps—” Colonel (with grandeur). “No matter, sir, what you thought. When an article appears in my own paper, Mr. Cooley, there is but a single inference to be A GRATUITOUS TOMBSTONE. 87 drawn. When I find myself unable to edit the Argus, l will sell out, sir—I will sell out!” Cooley (calmly). “Well, but Murphy, your assistant, >old me distinctly that he wrote that editorial himself.” Colonel (coming down). “Ah! yes, yes! that is partly true, now I remember. I believe Murphy did scratch off the body of the article, but I overhauled it; it was neces¬ sary for me to revise it, to touch it up, to throw it into shape, as it were, before it went into type. Murphy means well, and with a little guidance—just a 1-e-e-t-l-e careful training —he will do.” But Murphy did not remain long. One of the colonel’s little nephews died, and a man who kept a marble-yard in Wilmington thought he might obtain a gratuitous adver¬ tisement by giving to the afflicted uncle a substantial ex¬ pression of his sympathy. So he got up a gravestone for the departed child. The design, cut upon the stone in bas- relief, represented an angel carrying the little one in his 88 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. arms and flying away with it, while a woman sat weeping upon the ground. It was executed in a most dreadful man¬ ner. The tombstone was sent to the colonel, with a simple request that he would accept it. As he was absent, Mr. Murphy determined to acknowledge the gift, although he had not the slightest idea what it meant. So the next morn¬ ing he burst out in the Argus with the following remarks: “art news. “We have received from the eminent sculptor, Mr. Felix Mullins of Wilmington, a comic bas-relief designed for an ornamental fireboard. It represents an Irishman in his night-shirt running away with the little god Cupid, while the Irishman’s sweetheart demurely hangs her head in the corner. Every true work of art tells its own story; and wo understand, as soon as we glance at this, that our Irish friend has been coqueted with by the fair one, and is pre¬ tending to transfer his love to other quarters. There is a lurking smile on the Irishman’s lips which expresses his BANGS DURING A CAMPAIGN. 89 mischievous intentions perfectly. We think it would have been better, however, to have clothed him in something else than a night-shirt, and to have smoothed down his hair. We have placed this chef d’oeuvre upon a shelf in our office, where it will undoubtedly be admired by our friends when they call. We are glad to encourage such progress in Delaware art.” This was painful. When the colonel returned next day, Mr. Mullins called on him and explained the tombstone to him, and that very night Mr. Murphy retired from the Morning Argus, and began to seek fresh fields for the exercise of his talents. Colonel Bangs affords me most entertainment in the Argus when an election is approaching. Your city editor often displays a certain amount of vehemence at such times, but his wildest frenzy is calmness, is absolute slumberous repose itself, when compared with the frantic enthusiasm mani¬ fested by Colonel Bangs. The latter succeeds in getting up as much fury over a candidate for constable as a city editor does over an aspirant for the Presidency. He will turn out column after column of double-leaded type, in which he will demonstrate with a marvelous profusion of adjectives that if you should roll all the prophets, saints and martyrs into one, you would have a much smaller amount of virtue than can be found in that one humble man who wants to be con¬ stable. He will prove to you that unless that particular person is elected, the entire fabric of American institutions will totter to its base and become a bewildering and hopeless ruin, while the merciless despots who grind enslaved millions beneath their iron heels will greet the hideous and irre¬ claimable chaos with fiendish laughter, and amid the rem¬ nants of a once proud republic they will erect bastiles in which they will forge chains to fetter the wrists of dismayed and heart-broken patriots. He will ask you to take your 90 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. choice between electing that man constable and witnessing the annihilation of the proud work for which the Revo¬ lutionary patriots bled and died. The man who runs against the candidate of the Argus will be proved to be a moral and intellectual wreck, and it will be shown that all the vices which have corrupted the race since the fall of man are concentrated in that one indi¬ vidual. The day after election, if his man wins, Colonel Bangs will decorate his paper with a whole array of roosters and a menagerie of ’coons, and inform a breathless world that the nation is once more saved. If he loses, he will omit any reference to the frightful prophecies uttered during the campaign, keep his roosters in the closet, and mildly assert that the opposition man is not so bad, after all, and that the right party must triumph next time for certain. Then Colonel Bangs will keep his enthusiasm cool for a year, and during that period will rest his overwrought brain, while he edits his paper with a pair of predatory shears and a dishonest paste-pot. It is extremely probable that we shall lose our servant- girl. She was the victim of a very singular catastrophe a night or two since, in consequence of which she has acquired a prejudice against the house of Adeler. We were troubled with dampness in our cellar, and in order to remove the difficulty we got a couple of men to come and dig the earth out to the depth of twelve or fifteen inches and fill it in with a cement-and-mortar floor. The material was, of course, very soft, and the workmen laid boards upon the surface, so that access to the furnace and the coal-bin was possible. That night, just after retiring, we heard a woman screaming for help, but after listening at the open window, we concluded that Cooley and his wife were engaged in an altercation, and so we paid no more attention to the noise. A CAPTIVE MAIDEN. 91 Half an hour afterward there was a violent ring at the front¬ door bell, and upon going to the window again, I found Pit¬ man standing upon the door-step below. When I spoke to him, he said: “ Max” (the judge is inclined sometimes, especially during periods of excitement, to be unnecessarily familiar), “ there’s somethin’ wrong in your cellar. There’s a woman down there screechin’ and carryin’ on like mad. Sounds ’s if somebody’s a-murderin’ her.” I dressed and descended; and securing the assistance of Pitman, so that I would be better prepared 'in the event of burglars being dis¬ covered, I lighted a lamp and we went into the cellar. There we found the maid-ser¬ vant standing by the refrigera¬ tor, knee-deep in the cement, and supporting herself with the handle of a broom, which was also half submerged. In seve¬ ral places about her were air¬ holes marking the spot where the milk-jug, the cold veal, the lima beans and the silver-plated butter-dish had gone down. We procured some additional boards, and while Pitman seized the suf¬ ferer by one arm I grasped tl time doubtful if she would come to the surface without the use of more violent means, and I confess that I was half inclined to regard with satisfaction the prospect that we would have to blast her loose with gunpowder. After a desperate struggle, during which the girl declared that she would be torn in pieces, Pitman and I succeeded in 8 92 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. getting her safely out, and she went up stairs with half a barrel of cement on each leg, declaring that she would leave the house in the morn- ing. The cold veal is in there yet. Centuries hence some antiquarian will perhaps grub about the spot whereon my cot¬ tage once stood, and will blow that cold veal out in a petrified condition, and then present it to a museum as the fossil remains of some unknown animal. Per¬ haps, too, he will excavate the milk-jug and the butter-dish, and go about lecturing upon them as utensils employed in bygone ages by a 1 3e of savages called “ the Adelers.” I should like to be a ve at the time to hear that lecture. And I cannot avoid the thought that PECULIAR MANIFESTATIONS. 93 if our servant had been completely buried in the cement, and thus carefully preserved until the coming of that anti¬ quarian, the lecture would be more interesting, and the girl more useful than she is now. A fossilized domestic servant of the present era would probably astonish the people of the tw r enty-eighth century. “I see,” said Mrs. Adeler, who was looking over the evening paper upon the day following the accident, “ that Mile. Willson, the opera-singer, has been robbed of ten thou¬ sand dollars’ worth of diamonds in St. Louis. What a dreadful loss!” “ Dreadful, indeed, Mrs. A. These singing women are very unfortunate. They are constantly being robbed, or rolled over embankments in railway cars, or subjected to deadly perils in some other form; and the astonishing thing about it all is that these frightful things invariably occur precisely at the times when public interest in the victims begins to flag a little, and the accounts always appear in the papers of a certain city just before the singers begin an en¬ gagement in that place. It is very remarkable.” “ You don’t think this story is false, do you, and that all such statements are untrue ?” “Certainly not. I only refer to the fact because it shows how very wonderful coincidences often are. I have observed precisely the same thing in connection with other contrib¬ utors to popular entertainment. But in these cases some¬ times we may trace the effects directly to the cause. Take menageries, for example. The peculiar manifestations which frequently attend the movements of these collections of wild animals through the land can be attributed only to the won¬ derful instinct of the beasts. If I am to judge from the reports that appear occasionally in the provincial news¬ papers, it invariably happens that the animals come to the 94 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. rescue of the menagerie people when the latter begin their campaigns and are badly in want of advertisements for which they are disinclined to pay. “ Regularly every season these ferocious beasts proceed to do something to secure sensational allusions to themselves in the papers. If the rhinoceros does not plunge through the side of the tent and .3 prowl about until he comes home with an entire Sun¬ day-school class of small boys impaled on his horn, the Nubian lion is per¬ fectly certain to bite its keeper in half and lunch upon his legs. If the elephant should neglect to seize his at¬ tendant and fling him into the parquet circle, while at the same time it crushes the hyena into jelly, the Bengal tiger is very sure not to forget to tear half a dozen ribs out of the ticket agent, and then to assimilate ten or twelve village children who are trying to peep under the tent. Either the brass band, riding upon the den of lions, finds the roof caving in, and at last is rescued with the loss of the cymbal player and the operator upon the key bugle, and of a lot of legs and arms snatched from the bass drummer and the man with the triangle, or else there is a railroad accident which empties the cars and permits kangaroos, panthers, blue-nose baboons and boa-constrictors to roam about the country re- THE WILD MAN. 95 ducing the majorities of the afflicted sections previous to the election. “You may find hundreds of accounts of such accidents in the rural press during the summer season; and whenever I read them, I am at a loss to determine which is more won¬ derful, the remarkable sagacity and the self-sacrificing devo¬ tion of these beasts, which perceive that something must be done and straightway do it, or the childlike confidence, the bland simplicity, of the editors who give gratuitous circula¬ tion to these narratives.” “ Talking about menageries,” observed Mr. Bob Parker, “did I ever tell you about Wylie and his love affair?” “ No.” “ Wylie, you know, was the brother of the porter in our store; and when he had nothing to do, he used to come around and sit in the cellar among the boxes and bales, and we fellows would go down when we were at leisure and hear him relate his adventures. “ One time, several years ago, he was awfully hard up, and he accepted a situation in a traveling show. They dressed him up in a fur shirt and put grizzly bears’ claws on his feet and daubed some stuff* over his face, and adver¬ tised him as * The Wild Man of Afghanistan.’ Then, when the show was open, he would stand in a cage and scrouge up against the bars and growl until he would scare the children nearly to death. The fat woman used to sit near him during the exhibitions just outside the cage, and by degrees he learned to love her. The keeper of the concern himself, it appears, also cherished a tender feeling for the corpulent young creature, and he became jealous of the Wild Man of Afghanistan.” “ And the professor of avoirdupois—whom did she affect ?” “ Well, when the visitors came, the keeper would procure a pole with a nail in the end, and he would stir up the Wild 8 * 96 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Man and poke him. Then he would ridicule the Wild Man’s legs and deliver lectures upon the manner in which he turned in his toes; and he sometimes read to the audience chapters out of books of natural history to show that a being with a skull of such a shape must necessarily be an idiot. Then he would poke the Wild Man of Afghanistan a few more times with the pole and pass on to the next cage with some remarks tending to prove that the monkeys therein and the Wild Man were of the same general type. “And all the time the fat woman would sit there and smile a cold and disdainful smile, as if she believed it all, and hated such legs and despised toes that turned in. At last the Wild Man of Af¬ ghanistan had his revenge. One day when all hands were off duty, the keeper fell asleep on the settee in the ticket-office ad¬ joining the show-room. Then Mr. Wylie threw a blanket over him and went for the fat woman. He led her by the AND SHE SAT DOWN. 97 hand and asked her to be seated while he told her about his love. Then she suddenly sat down on the keeper.” “ And killed him, I suppose, of course ?” 98 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “Wylie informed me that you could have passed the re¬ mains under a closed door without scraping the buttons of the waistcoat. They merely slid him into a crack in the ground when they buried him, and the fat woman pined away until she became thin and valueless. Then the Wild Man married her, and be¬ gan life again on a new basis.” “ Was Mr. Wylie what you might consider a man of veracity ?” “ Certainly he was; and his story is undoubtedly true, because his toes did turn in.” “ That settles the matter. With such incontrovertible evidence as that at hand, it would be folly to doubt the story. We will go quietly and confidently to tea instead of discussing it.” CHAPTER VII. The Battery and its Peculiarities—A Lovely Scene— Swede and Dutchman Two Hundred Years Ago—Old Names of the River—Indian Names Generally—Cooley’s Boy—His Adventure in Church—The Long and the Short of It—Mr. Cooley’s Dog and Our Troubles with It. HE closing hours of the long sum¬ mer afternoon can be spent in no pleasanter place than by the water’s side. And after tea I like to take my little group of Adelers out from the hot streets over the grassy way which leads to the river shore, and to find a comfortable loitering-place upon the Battery. That spot is adorned with a long row of rugged old trees whose trunks are gashed and scarred by the penknives of idlers. Their branches inter¬ lock overhead and form one great mass of tender green foliage, here sweeping down almost to the earth, and there hanging far out over the water, trembling and rustling in the breeze. Beileath, there is a succession of hewn logs, suggesting the existence of some sort of a wharf in the remote past, but now serving nicely for seats for those who come here to spend a quiet hour, 99 100 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Around there is a sod which grows lush and verdant, ex¬ cepting where the tread of many feet has worn a pathway backward to the village In front is as lovely a scene as any the eye can rest upon in this portion of the world. Below us the rising and the ebbing tides hurl the tiny ripples upon the pebbly beach, and the perpetual wash of the waves makes that gentle and con¬ stant music which is among the most grateful of the sounds of nature. Away to the southward sweeps the Delaware shore line in a mighty curve which gives the river here the breadth and magnificence of a great lake, and at the end of the chord of the arc the steeples and the masts at Delaware City rise in indistinct outline from the waves. To the left, farther in the distance, old Fort Delaware lifts its battlements above the surface of the stream. And see! A puff of white smoke rises close by the flag-staff. And now a dull thud comes with softened cadence across the wide interval. It is the sunset gun. Far, far beyond, a sail glimmers with rosy light caught from the brilliant hues of the clouds which make the western heavens glorious with their crimson drapery; and while here as we gaze straight out through the bay there is naught in the perspective but water and sky, to the right the low-lying land below the island fortress seems, somehow, to be queerly suspended between river and heaven, until as it recedes it grows more and more shadowy, and at last melts away into the mist that creeps in from the ocean. It is pure happiness to sit here beneath the trees and to look upon the scene while the cool air pours in from the water and lifts into the upper atmosphere the oppressive heat that has mantled the earth during the day. I do not know why the place is called “the Battery.” Perhaps a couple of centuries ago the Swedes may have built here a breastwork with which to menace their hated THE BATTRRT l fbrtrj •( th» TWO CENTURIES AGO. 103 Dutch rivals who held the fort just below us there upon the river bank. (We will walk over to the spot some day, Mrs. Adeler.) And who can tell what strange old Northmen in jerkin and helmet have marched up and down this very stretch of level sward, carrying huge fire¬ lock muskets and swearing mighty oaths as they watched the intrud¬ ing Dutchman in his stronghold, caring little for the placid loveli¬ ness of the view which the rolling tide of the majestic river ever offered to their eyes! But some of those people could appreciate this beautiful panorama. Some of them did not forget the grandeur of nature while their little passions raged against the Dutch¬ men. It was Jasper Dankers who came here from Sweden in 1676, and looked out from this Battery; returning home, he wrote in his diary in this fashion: “ The town is situated upon a point which extends out with a sandy beach, affording a good landing-place. It lies a little above the bay where the river bends and runs south from there, so that you can see down the river southwardly. The greater portion of it presents a beautiful view in per¬ spective, and enables you to see from a distance the ships come out from the great bay and sail up the river.” The sandy beach is gone, and the ships which float upward from the bay are not such craft as Dankers saw; but the stream has its ancient majesty, and the wooded banks, I like to think, present to our eyes nearly the same sweet picture that touched the soul of that old Swede two long centuries ago. 104 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Another thing has changed—yes, it has changed many times. The Indians, Mrs. A., called the bay Poutaxat and the river Lenape Wihittuck. The stream, too, was named the Arasapha, and also Mackerish Kitton—a title pretty enough in its way, but oddly suggestive of mackerel and kittens. But the Swedes came, and with that passion which burned in the bosoms of all the early European immi¬ grants for prefixing the word “ new ” to the names of natural objects, they entitled the river New Swedeland Stream. Then the Dutch obtained the mastery here, and it became the South River, the Hudson being the North River, and finally the English obtained possession, and called it Delaware. What a pity it is that they didn’t suffer one of the origi¬ nal titles to remain! The Lenape would have been a beautiful name for the river—far better than the Gallic compound that it bears now. The men who settled this country seem to have had for Indian names the same intense dislike that they entertained for the savages themselves, and as a rule they rejected with scorn the soft, sweet syllables with which mountain and forest and stream were crowned, substi¬ tuting too often most barbarous words therefor. Even Penn and his Quakers disdained the Indian names. How much better Pennsylvania would have been treated if that grand old State had been called Susquehanna or Juniata or Alle¬ gheny! And would it not have been wiser if the city, instead of bringing its name from Asia, had sought it among its own surroundings, and had grown to greatness as Wissahickon or Wingohocking ? The Indian names that still remain here and there to designate a stream, a district or a town are the few distinctly American words in existence. We have thrown away the others, although they were a very precious part of the legacy which we received from the race we have supplanted. One such word as Wyoming is worth an entire volume of such names as New York, Philadelphia, COOLEY’S BOY. 105 Baltimore, Maryland and the like; and I have always wondered at the blundering folly of the man who, with such musical syllables at hand ready to be used, dubbed the town of Wilkes Barre with that particularly poor name. While we were sitting by the river discussing these and other matters, Cooley’s boy, a thoroughly disagreeable urchin, who had been playing with some other boys upon the wharf near by, tumbled into the water. There was a terrible screaming among his companions, and a crowd quickly gathered upon the pier. For a few moments it seemed as if the boy would drown, for no one was disposed to leap in after him, and there was not a boat within saving distance. But fortunately the current swept him around to the front of the Battery, where the water is shallow, and before he was seriously hurt he was safely landed in the mud that stretches below the low-water mark. Then the excitement, which had been so great as to attract about half the population of the village, died away, and people who had just been filled with horror at the prospect of a tragedy began to feel a sense of disappointment because their fears had not been realized. I cannot of course say that I was sorry to see the youngster once more upon dry land; but if fate had robbed us of him, we should have accepted the dis¬ pensation without grievous com¬ plaint. We did not leave all the nui¬ sances behind us in the city. Cooley’s dog and his boy are two very sore afflictions which make life even here very much sadder than it ought to be in a place that pretends to be something in the nature of an tu/> • I—I'i^f I.. 106 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. earthly paradise. The boy Dot only preys upon my melon- patch and fruit trees and upon those of my neighbors, but he has an extraordinary aptitude for creating a disturbance in whatever spot he happens to be. Only last Sunday he caused such a terrible commotion in church that the services had to be suspended for several minutes until he could be re¬ moved. The interior of the edifice was painted and varnished recently, and I suppose one of the workmen must have left a clot of varnish upon the back of Cooley’s pew, which is directly across the aisle from mine. Cooley’s boy was the only representative of the family at church upon that day, and he amused himself during the earlier portions of the service by kneeling upon the seat and communing with Dr. Jones’s boy, who occupied the pew immediately in the rear. Sometimes, when young Cooley would resume a proper position, Jones’s boy would stir him up afresh by slyly pulling his hair, whereupon Cooley would "wheel about and menace Jones with his fist in a manner which betrayed utter indifference to the proprieties of the place and the occasion, as well as to the presence of the congregation. When Cooley finally sank into a condition of repose, he placed his head, most unfortu¬ nately, directly against the lump of undried varnish, while he amused himself by reading the commandments and the other scriptural texts upon the wall behind the pulpit. In a few moments he attempted to move, but the varnish had mingled with his hair, and it held him securely. After making one or two desperate but ineffectual efforts to release himself, he became very angry; and supposing that Jones’s boy was holding him, he shouted: A DISTURBANCE IN CHURCH. 107 “ Leg go o’ ray hair! Leg go o’ my hair, I tell you !” The clergyman paused just as he was entering upon con¬ sideration of “ secondly,” and the congregation looked around in amazement, in time to perceive young Cooley, with his head against the back of the pew, aiming dreadful blows over his shoulder with his fist at some unseen person behind him. And with every thrust he exclaimed : “ I’ll smash yer nose after church! I’ll go for you, Bill Jones, when I ketch you alone! Leg go o’ my hair,I tell you, or I’ll knock the stuffin’ out o’ yer,” etc., etc. Meanwhile, Jones’s boy sat up at the very end of his pew, far away from Cooley, and looked as solemn as if the ser- mon had made a deep impression upon him. &f|! Then the sexton came running up, with the g| idea that the boy had fallen asleep and had nightmare, while Mrs. Dr. Magruder sallied out from her pew and over to Cooley’s, con¬ vinced that he had a fit. When the cause of the disturb- 108 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. ance was ascertained, the sexton took out his knife, and after sawing off enough of Cooley’s hair to release him, dragged him out of church. The victim retreated unwillingly, glancing around at Jones’s boy and shaking his fist at that urchin as if to indicate that he cherished a deadly purpose against Jones. Then the sermon proceeded. I suppose a contest between the two boys has been averted, for only yesterday I saw Jones and Cooley, the younger, playing hop-scotch together in the street in apparent forgetfulness of the sorrows of the sanctuary. Judge Pitman tells me that one of the reasons why Cooley KEEPING STEP. 109 and his wife disagree is that there is such a difference in their height. Cooley is tall, and Mrs. Cooley is small. Mrs. Cooley told Mrs. Pitman, if /the judge is to be believed, that Cooley continually growled because she could not keep step with him. They always start wrong, somehow, when they go out together, and then, while he tries to catch step with her, she endeavors to get in with him. After both have been shuffling about over the pavement for several minutes in a perfectly absurd manner, they go ahead out of step just as before. When Cooley tried to take short steps like hers, his gait was so ridiculous as to excite remark; while if she tried to make such long strides as his, people stopped and looked at her as if they thought she was insane. Then she would strive to take two steps to his one, but she found that two and a half of hers were equal to one of his; and when she undertook to make that frac¬ tional number in order to keep up with him, he would frown at her and say, “ Mrs. Cooley, if you are going to dance the polka mazourka upon the public highway, I’m going home.” I do not receive this statement with implicit confidence in its truthfulness. Pitman’s imagination sometimes glows with unnatural heat, and he may have embellished the original narrative of. Mrs. Cooley. I shall probably never receive from any member of the Cooley family a correct account of the causes of the un- 110 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. pleasant differences existing therein, for we are on worse terms than ever with Cooley. His dog became such an intol¬ erable nuisance because of his nocturnal vociferation that some practical humanitarian in the neighborhood poisoned h i m. Cooley apparently cherished the conviction that I had kill¬ ed the animal, and he flung the carcass over the fence into my yard. I threw it back. Cooley returned it. Both of us remained at home that day, and spent the morning handing the inanimate brute to each other across the fence. At noon I called my man to take my place, and Cooley hired a colored person to relieve him. They kept it up until night¬ fall, by which time I suppose the corpse must have worn away to a great extent, for at sundowm my man buried the A FAITHFUL ANIMAL. Ill tail by my rose-bush and came in the house, while Cooley’s representative resigned and went home. The departed brute left behind him but one pleasant recollection; and when I recall it, I feel that he fully avenged my w T rongs upon his master. Cooley went out a week or two ago to swim in the creek, and he took the dog with him to watch his clothing. While Cooley bathed the dog slept; but when Cooley emerged from the water, the dog did not recognize him in his nude condition, and it refused to let him come near his garments. Whenever Cooley would attempt to seize a hoot or a stocking or a shirt, the dog flew at him with such ferocity that he dared not at¬ tempt to dress himself. So he stood in the sun until he was almost broiled; then he went into the water and remained there, dodging up and down for the purpose of avoiding the people who passed occasionally along the road. At last the dog went to sleep again, and Cooley, creeping softly behind the 112 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY ,. brute, caught it suddenly by the tail and flung it across the stream. Before the dog could recover its senses and swim back, Cooley succeeded in getting some of his clothing on him, and then the dog came sidling up to him looking as if it ex¬ pected to be rewarded for its extraordinary vigilance. The manner in which Cooley kicked the faithful animal is said to have been simply dreadful. I should have entertained a posi¬ tive affection for that dog if it had not barked at night. But I am glad it is gone. We came here to have quietness, and that was unattainable while Cooley’s dog remained within view of the moon. CHAPTER VIII. The Morning Argus Creates a Sensation—A New Editor; Mr. Slimmer the Poet—An Obituary Department— Mr. Slimmer on Death—Extraordinary Scene in the Sanctum of Colonel Bangs—Indignant Advertisers— The Colonel Violently Assailed—Observations of the Poet—The Final Catastrophe—Mysterious Conduct of Bob Parker—The Accident on Magiiuder’s Porch—Mrs. Adeler on the Subject of Obituary Poetry in General. gBf RATHER unusual sen- W\ sation has been excited in the village by the - Morning Argus within a day or two; and while most of the readers of that wonder¬ ful sheet have thus been sup¬ plied with amusement, the soul of the editor has been filled with gloom and wrath and despair. Colonel Bangs recently determined to engage an assistant to take the place made vacant by the retirement of the eminent art-critic, Mr. Murphy, and he found in one of the lower counties of the State a person who appeared to him to be suitable. The name of the new man is Slimmer. He has often contributed to the Argus verses of a distressing character, and I suppose Bangs must have become acquainted with him through the medium of the correspondence thus begun. No one in the 113 114 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. world but Bangs would ever have selected such a poet for an editorial position. But Bangs is singular—he is excep¬ tional. He never operates in accordance with any known laws, and he is more than likely to do any given thing in such a fashion as no other person could possibly have adopted for the pur¬ pose. As the Argus is also sui generis , perhaps Bangs does right to conduct it in a peculiar manner. But he made a mistake when he employed Mr. Slimmer. The colonel, in his own small way, is tolera¬ bly shrewd. He had observed the disposition of persons who have been bereaved of their relatives to give expression to their feelings in verse, and it occurred to him that it might be profitable to use Slimmer’s poetical talent in such a way as to make the Argus a very popular vehicle for the conveyance to the public of notices of deaths. That kind of in¬ telligence, he well knew, is especially interesting to a very large class of readers, and he believed that if he could offer to each advertiser a gratuitous verse to accompany the obit¬ uary paragraph, the Argus would not only attract advertise¬ ments of that description from the country round about the village, but it would secure a much larger circulation. When Mr. Slimmer arrived, therefore, and entered upon the performance of his duties, Colonel Bangs explained his theory to the poet, and suggested that whenever a death- notice reached the office, he should immediately write a rhyme or two which should express the sentiments most suitable to the occasion. “ You understand, Mr. Slimmer,” said the colonel, “that when the death of an individual is announced I want you, as it were, to cheer the members of the afflicted family with INSTRUCTING THE POET\ 115 the resources of your noble art. I wish you to throw your¬ self, you may say, into their situation, and to give them, f’r instance, a few lines about the deceased which will seem to be the expression of the emotion which agitates the breasts of the bereaved.” “ To lighten the gloom in a certain sense,” said Mr. Slim¬ mer, “ and to—” “ Precisely,” exclaimed Colonel Bangs. “ Lighten the gloom. Do not mourn over the departed, but rather take a joyous view of death, which, after all, Mr. Slimmer, is, as it were, but the entrance to a better life. Therefore, I wish you to touch the heart-strings of the afflicted with a tender hand, and to endeavor, f'r instance, to divert their minds from contemplation of the horrors of the tomb.” “ Refrain from despondency, I suppose, and lift their thoughts to—” “ Just so! And at the same time combine elevating sen¬ timent with such practical information as you can obtain 116 OUT OF THE TIURLY-BUELY. from the advertisement. Throw a glamour of poesy, f’r in¬ stance, over the commonplace details of the every-day life of the deceased. People are fond of minute descriptions. Some facts useful for this purpose may be obtained from the man who brings the notice to the office; others you may perhaps be able to supply from your imagination.” “ I think 1 can do it first rate,” said Mr. Slimmer. “ But, above all,” continued the colonel, “ try always to take a bright view of the matter. Cause the sunshine of smiles, as it were, to burst through the tempest of tears; and if we don’t make the Morning Argus hum around this town, it will be queer.” Mr. Slimmer had charge of the editorial department the next day during the absence of Colonel Bangs in Wilming¬ ton. Throughout the afternoon and evening death - notices ar¬ rived ; and when one would reach Mr. Slimmer’s desk, he would lock the door, place the fingers of his left hand among his hair and agonize until he succeeded in completing a verse that seemed to him to accord with his instructions. The next morning Mr. Slimmer proceeded calmly to the office for the purpose of embalming in sympathetic verse the memories of other departed ones. As he came near to the establishment he o'bserved a crowd of people in front of it, struggling to get into the door. Ascending some steps upon the other side of the street, he overlooked the crowd, and could see within the office the clerks selling papers as fast as they could handle them, while the mob pushed and yelled in frantic efforts to obtain copies, the presses in the cellar meanwhile clanging furiously. Standing upon the curbstone TROUBLE IN THE SANCTUM. 117 in front of the office there was a long row of men, each of whom was engaged in reading The Morning Argus with an earnestness that Mr. Slimmer had never before seen dis¬ played by the patrons of that sheet. The bard concluded that either his poetry had touched a sympathetic chord in the popular heart, or that an appalling dis¬ aster had occurred in some quarter of the globe. He went around to the back of the office and ascended to the editorial rooms. As he approached the sanctum, loud voices were heard within. Mr. Slimmer determined to ascertain the cause before entering. He ob¬ tained a chair, and placing it by the side door, he mounted and peeped over the door through the transom. There sat Colonel Bangs, holding The Morning Argus in both hands, while the fringe which grew in a semicircle around the edge of his bald head stood straight out, until he seemed to re¬ semble a gigantic gun-swab. Two or three persons stood in front of him in threatening attitudes. Slimmer heard one of them say: “My name is McGlue, sir!—William Mc- Glue! I am a brother of the late Alexander McGlue. I picked up your paper this morning, and perceived in it an outrageous insult to my deceased relative, and I have come 10 118 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. around to demand, sir, what you mean by the following infamous language: “‘The death-angel smote Alexander McGlue, And gave him protracted repose; He wore a checked shirt and a Number Nine slioe, And he had a pink wart on his nose. No doubt he is happier dwelling in space Over there on the evergreen shore. His friends are informed that his funeral takes place Precisely at quarter-past four/ “ This is simply diabolical! My late brother had no wart on his nose, sir. He had upon his nose neither a pink wart nor a green wart, nor a cream-colored wart, nor a wart of any other color. It is a slander ! It is a gratuitous insult to my family, and I distinctly want you to say what do you mean by such conduct?” “Keally, sir,” said Bangs, “ it is a mistake. This is the horrible work of a miscreant in whom I reposed perfect con- IN RELATION TO WILLIAM. 119 fidence. He shall be punished by my own hand for this outrage. A pink wart! Awful! sir—awful! The miser¬ able scoundrel shall suffer for this—he shall, indeed!” “ How could I know,” murmured Mr. Slimmer to the foreman, who with him was listening, “ that the corpse hadn’t a pink wart ? I used to know a man named McGlue, and he had one, and I thought all the McGlues had. This comes of irregularities in families.” “And who,” said another man, addressing the editor, “authorized you to print this hideous stuff about my de¬ ceased son ? Do you mean to say, Bangs, that it was not with your authority that your low comedian inserted with my advertisement the following scandalous burlesque? Listen to this: “ ‘ Willie had a purple monkey climbing on a yellow stick, And when he sucked the paint all off it made him deathly sick; And in his latest hours he clasped that monkey in his hand, And bade good-bye to earth and went into a better land. “ ‘ Oh! no more he’ll shoot his sister with his little wooden gun ; And no more he’ll twist the pussy’s tail and make her yowl, for fun. The pussy’s tail now stands out straight; the gun is laid aside; The monkey doesn’t jump around since little Willie died.’ “ The atrocious character of this libel will appear when I say that my son was twenty years old, and that he died of liver complaint.” “ Infamous!—utterly infamous!” groaned the editor as he cast his eyes over the lines. “ And the wretch who did this still remains unpunished! It is too much!” “And yet,” whispered Slimmer to the foreman, “he told me to lighten the gloom and to cheer the afflicted family 120 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. with the resources of my art; and I certainly thought that idea about the monkey would have that effect, somehow. Bangs is ungrateful!” Just then there was a knock at the door, and a woman entered, crying. “ Are you the editor ?” she inquired of Colonel Bangs. Bangs said he was. “ W-w-well!” she said, in a voice broken by sobs, “ wh- what d’you mean by publishing this kind of poetry about m-my child? M-my name is Sm-Smith; and wh-when I looked this m-morning for the notice of Johnny’s d-death in your paper, I saw this scandalous verse: “ 1 Four doctors tackled Johnny Smith— They blistered and they bled him ; With squills and anti-bilious pills And ipecac, they fed him. They stirred him up with calomel, And tried to move his liver; But all in vain—his little soul Was wafted o’er The River.’ “It’s false! false! and mean! Johnny only had one doc¬ tor. And they d-didn’t bl-bleed him and b-blister him. THE SHERIFF'S SUFFERING. 121 It’s a wicked falsehood, and you’re a hard-hearted brute f-f- for printing it!” “ Madam, I shall go crazy!” exclaimed Bangs. “ This is not my work. It is the work of a villain whom I will slay with my own hand as soon as he comes in. Madam, the miserable outcast shall die!” “Strange! strange!” said Slimmer. “And this man told me to combine elevating sentiment with practical informa¬ tion. If the information concerning the squills and ipecac, is not practical, I have misunderstood the use of that word. And if young Smith didn’t have four doctors, it was an out¬ rage. He ought to have had them, and they ought to have excited his liver. Thus it is that human life is sacrificed to carelessness.” At this juncture the sheriff entered, his brow clothed with thunder. He had a copy of The Morning Argus in his hand. He approached the editor, and pointing to a death- notice, said, “ Read that outrageous burlesque, and tell me the name of the writer, so that I can chastise him.” The editor read as follows: “ We have lost our little Hanner in a very painful manner, And we often asked, How can her harsh sufferings be borne? When her death was first reported, her aunt got up and snorted With the grief that she supported, for it made her feel forlorn. “ She was such a little seraph that her father, who is sheriff, Really doesn’t seem to care if he ne’er smiles in life again. She has gone, we hope, to heaven, at the early age of seven (Funeral starts off at eleven), where she’ll nevermore have pain." “As a consequence of this, I withdraw all the county advertising from your paper. A man who could trifle in this manner with the feelings of a parent is a savage and a scoundrel!” 10* 122 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. As the sheriff went out, Colonel Bangs placed his head upon the table and groaned. “ Really,” Mr. Slimmer said, “ that person must be de¬ ranged. I tried, in his case, to put myself in his place, and to write as if I was one of the family, according to instruc¬ tions. The verses are beautiful. That allusion to the grief of the aunt, particularly, seemed to me to be very happy. It expresses violent emotion with a felicitous combination of sweetness and force. These people have no soul—no appre¬ ciation of the beautiful in art.” While the poet mused, hurried steps w T ere heard upon the stairs, and in a moment a middle-aged man dashed in abruptly, and seizing the colonel’s scattered hair, bumped his prostrate head against the table three or four times with considerable force. Having expended the violence of his emotion in this manner, he held the editor’s head down with one hand, shaking it occasionally by way of emphasis, and with the other hand seized the paper and said, BARTHOLOMEW'S GRAVE. 123 “You disgraceful old reprobate! You disgusting vam¬ pire! You hoary-headed old ghoul! What d’you mean by putting such stuff as this in your paper about my deceased son ? What d’you mean by printing such awful doggerel as this, you depraved and dissolute ink-slinger—you imbecile quill-driver, you! “ ‘ Oh ! bury Bartholomew out in the woods, In a beautiful hole in the ground, Where the bumble-bees buzz and the woodpeckers sing, And the straddle-bugs tumble around ; So that, in winter, when the snow and the slush Have covered his last little bed, His brother Artemas can go out with Jane And visit the place with his sled.’ “ I’ll teach you to talk about straddle-bugs! I’ll instruct you about slush! I’ll enlighten your insane old intellect on the subject of singing woodpeckers! What do you know about Jane and Artemas, you wretched buccaneer, you des¬ picable butcher of the English language? Go out with a sled ! I’ll carry you out in a hearse before I’m done with you, you deplorable lunatic!” At the end of every phrase the visitor gave the editor’s head a fresh knock against the table. When the exercise was ended, Colonel Bangs explained and apologized in the humblest manner, promising at the same time to give his assailant a chance to flog Mr. Slimmer, who was expected to arrive in a few moments. “ The treachery of this man,” murmured the poet to the foreman, “is dreadful. Didn’t he desire me to throw a glamour of poesy over commonplace details ? But for that I should never have thought of alluding to woodpeckers and bugs, and other children of Nature. The man objects to the remarks about the sled. Can the idiot know that it was necessary to have a rhyme for 1 bed ’ ? Can he suppose that 124 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. I could write poetry without rhymes ? The man is a lunatic! He ought not to be at large!” Hardly had the indignant and energetic parent of Barthol¬ omew departed when a man with red hair and a ferocious glare in his eyes entered, carrying a club and accom¬ panied by a savage-looking dog. “ I want to see the editor,” he shouted. A ghastly pallor over¬ spread the colonel’s face, and he said, “ The editor is not in.” “Well, when will he be in, then?” “Not for a week—for a month—for a year—for ever! He will never come in any more!” screamed Bangs. “ He has gone to South America, with the intention to remain there during the rest of his life. He has departed. He has fled. If you want to see him, you had better follow him to the equator. He will be glad to see you. I would advise you, as a friend, to take the next boat—to start at once.” “ That is unfortunate,” said the man; “ I came all the way from Delaware City for the purpose of battering him Up a lot with this club.” “ He will be sorry,” said Bangs, sarcastically. “ He will regret missing you. I will write to him, and mention that you dropped in. “My name is McFadden,” said the man. “I came to break the head of the man who wrote that obituary poetry about my wife. If you don’t tell me who perpetrated the THE POET FLIES. 125 following, I’ll break yours for you. Where’s the man who wrote this ? Pay attention: “ * Mrs. McFadden has gone from this life; She has left all its sorrows and cares; She caught the rheumatics in both of her legs While scrubbing the cellar and stairs. They put mustard-plasters upon her in vain; They bathed her with whisky and rum; But Thursday her spirit departed, and left Her body entirely numb.’ ” “The man who held the late Mrs. McFadden up to the scorn of an unsympathetic world in that shocking manner,” said the editor, “ is named James B. Slimmer. He boards in Blank street, fourth door from the corner. I would advise you to call on him and avenge Mrs. McFadden’s wrongs with an intermixture of club and dog-bites.” “ And this,” sighed the poet, outside the door, “ is the man who told me to divert McFadden’s mind from contemplation of the horrors of the tomb. It was this monster who coun¬ seled me to make the sunshine of McFadden’s smiles burst through the tempest of McFadden’s tears. If that red¬ headed monster couldn’t smile over that allusion to whisky and rum, if those remarks about the rheumatism in her legs could not divert his mind from the horrors of the tomb, was it my fault? McFadden grovels! He knows no more about poetry than a mule knows about the Shorter Cate¬ chism.” The poet determined to leave before any more criticisms were made upon his performances. He jumped down from his chair and crept softly toward the back staircase. The story told by the foreman relates that Colonel Bangs at the same instant resolved to escape any further persecu¬ tion, and he moved off in the direction taken by the poet. The two met upon the landing, and the colonel was about 126 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. to begin his quarrel with Slimmer, when an enraged old woman who had been groping her way up stairs suddenly plunged her umbrella at Bangs, and held him in the corner while she handed a copy of the Argus to Slimmer, and pointing to a certain stanza, asked him to read it aloud. He did so in a somewhat tremulous voice and with frightened glances at the enraged colonel. The verse was as follows: “ Little Alexander’s dead ; Jam him in a coffin ; Don’t have as good a chance For a fun’ral often. Rush his body right around To the cemetery; Drop him in the sepulchre With his Uncle Jerry.” The colonel’s assailant accompanied the recitation with such energetic remarks as these: “ Oh, you willin! D’you hear that, you wretch ? What d’you mean by writin’ of my grandson in that way ? Take that, you serpint! Oh, you wiper, you! try in’ to break a lone widder’s heart with such scand’lus lies as them! There, you willin! I kemmere to hammer you well with this here umbreller, you owdacious wiper, you! Take that, and that, you wile, indecent, disgustin’ wagabone! When you know well enough that Aleck never had no Uncle Jerry, and never had no uncle in no sepulchre anyhow, you wile wretch, you!” When Mr. Slimmer had concluded his portion of the en¬ tertainment, he left the colonel in the hands of the enemy KEEPING LATE HOURS. 127 and fled. He has not been seen in New Castle since that day, and it is supposed that he has returned to Sussex county for the purpose of continuing in private his dalliance with the Muses. Colonel Bangs appears to have abandoned the idea of establishing a department of obituary poetry, and the Argus has resumed its accustomed aspect of dreariness. It may fairly boast, however, that once during its carefef it has produced a profound impression upon the community. Mr. Bob Parker came home at a very late hour last night; and when I opened the front door to let him in, he muttered something to the effect that he was “sorry for being out so late.” Then he pushed by me suddenly and went up stairs 128 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. in a very odd fashion, keeping his face as much as possible toward the door, where I remained standing, astonished at his very strange behavior. When I closed the door and went to my room, it occurred to me that some- thing of a serious nature and partly by a desire to be of service, I knocked at Bob’s door. “Anything the matter?” “ Oh no. I was detained down town,” replied Bob. “ I can’t do anything for you, then?” “ No; I’ll be in bed in a couple of minutes.” “You acted so peculiarly when you came in that I thought you might be ill.” “ I was never better in my life. I went lip stairs that way because I was tired.” “ A very extraordinary effect of fatigue,” I said. “I say!” cried Bob, “don’t say anything to your wife about it. There’s no use of getting up an excitement about nothing.” I went to bed convinced that something was wrong, and determined to compel Bob to confess on the morrow what it was. After breakfast we sat smoking together on the porch, and then I remarked: “ Bob, I wish you to tell me plainly what you meant by that extraordinary caper on the stairs last night. I think I ought to know. I don’t want to meddle with your private might have happened ; and impelled partly by curiosity WHY HE STAYED. 129 affairs, but it seems to me only the proper thing for you to give me a chance to advise you if you are in trouble of any kind. And then you know I am occupying just now a sort of a parental relation to you, and I want to overhaul you if you have been doing anything wrong.” “ I don’t mind explaining the matter to you,” replied Bob. “ It don’t amount to much, anyhow, but it’s a little rough on a fellow, and I’d rather not have the whole town discuss¬ ing it.” “ Well?” “You know old Magruder’s? Well, I went around there last night to see Bessie; and as it was a pleasant evening, we thought we would remain out on the porch. She sat in a chair near the edge, and I placed myself at her feet on one of the low wooden steps in front. We stayed there talking about various things and having a pretty fair time, as a matter of course, until about nine o’clock, when I said I thought I’d have to go.” “You came home later, I think.” “ Well, you know, some mutton-headed carpenter had been there during the day mending the rustic chairs on the porch, and he must have put his glue-pot down on the spot where I sat, for when I tried to rise I found I couldn’t budge.” “You and Cooley’s boy seem to have a fondness for that particular kind of adventure.” “ Just so. And when I made an effort to get upon my feet, Bessie said, ‘ Don’t be in a hurry; it’s early yet,’ and I told her I believed I would stay a little while longer. So I sat there for about two hours, and during the frightful gaps in the conversation I busied myself thinking how I could get away -without appearing ridiculous. It hurts a man’s chances if he makes himself ridiculous before a woman he is fond of. So you see I didn’t know whether to ask Bessie to go in the house while I partially disrobed and went home in 130 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Highland costume, or whether to give one terrific wrench and then proceed down the yard backward. I couldn’t make up my mind; and as midnight approached, Bessie, who was dreadfully sleepy, said, at last, in utter despair, she would have to excuse herself for the rest of the evening. “ Then, you understand, I was nearly frantic, and I asked her suddenly if she thought her father would lend me his front steps for a few days. She looked sort of scared. SAWED OUT. 131 and went in after old Magruder. When he came out, I made him stoop down while I explained the situation to him. He laughed and hunted up a hatchet and saw, and cut away the sur¬ rounding timber, so that I came home with only about a square foot of wood on my trousers. Very good of the old man, wasn’t it, to smash up his steps in that manner? And the reason why I kind of sidled up stairs was that I feared you’d see that wooden patch and want to know about it. That’s all. Queer sort of an affair, wasn’t it?” Then Mr. Parker darted off for the purpose of overtaking Miss Magruder, who at that moment happened to pass upon the other side of the street. As Mr. Parker disappeared, Mrs. Adeler came out upon the porch from the hall, and placing her hand upon my shoulder, said, “ You are not going to publish that story of the attempt of the Argus to establish a department of obituary poetry, are you ?” “ Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I ?” “Don’t you fear it might perhaps give offence? There are some people, you know, who think it right to accompany a notice of death w T ith verses. Besides, does it seem pre¬ cisely proper to treat such a solemn subject as death with so much levity ?” 132 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ My dear, the persons who use those ridiculous rhymes which sometimes appear in the papers for the purpose of parading their grief before the public cannot have very nice sensibilities.” “ Are you sure of that ? At any rate, is it not possible • that a verse which appears to you and me very silly may be the attempt of some bereaved mother to give in that forlorn fashion expression to her great agony? I shouldn’t like to ridicule even so wretched a cry from a suffering heart.” “The suggestion is creditable to your goodness. But I would like to retain the story of Slimmer’s folly, and I’ll MRS. ADELEES VIEWS. 133 tell you what I will do: I will publish your opinions upon the subject, so that those who read the narrative may un¬ derstand that the family of Adeler is not wholly careless of propriety.” So here are the story and the protest; and those to whom the former is offensive may find what conso¬ lation can be obtained from the fact that the latter has been offered in advance of any expression of opinion by indignant readers whose grief for the departed tends to run into rhyme. li * 4 f CHAPTER IX. The Reason why I Purchased a Horse— A Peculiar Cha¬ racteristic—Driving by the River—Our Horse as a Persecutor—He Becomes a Genuine Nightmare—Ex¬ perimenting with his Tail— How our Horse Died— In Relation to Pirates—Mrs. Jones’s Bold Corsair— A Lamentable Tale. T is probable that I should never have bought a horse if I had not been strongly urged to do so by other persons. I do not care a great deal for riding and driving; and if it ever did occur to me that it would, perhaps, be a nice thing to have a horse of my own, I regard¬ ed the necessary expense as much too great for the small amount of enjoy¬ ment that could be ob¬ tained from the invest¬ ment. It always seemed to me to be much cheaper to hire a horse at a livery-stable if only an occasional drive*was desired; and I cling to that theory yet. But everybody else seemed to think I ought to own a horse. Mrs. Adeler was especially anxious about it. She insisted that we were doing very well in the world, and she could not see the use of hav¬ ing means if we were to live always as we did when we were 134 COOLEY BTTYS A HORSE. 135 poor. She said she often wanted to take a little drive along the river-road in the evening with the children, and she fre¬ quently wished to visit her friends in the country, but she couldn’t bear to go with a strange horse of which she knew nothing. My friends used to say, “ Adeler, I wonder you don’t keep a horse and take your family out sometimesand they hammered away at the theme until I actually began to feel as if the public suspected me of being a niggardly and cruel tyrant, who hugged my gold to my bosom and gloated over the misery of my wife and children—gloated because they couldn’t have a horse. People used to come down from the city to see us, and after examining the house and garden, they would remark, “Very charming!—very charming, in¬ deed ! A little paradise, in fact; but, Adeler, why don’t you buv a horse ?” I gradually grew nervous upon the subject, and was toler¬ ably well convinced that there would never be perfect hap¬ piness in my family until I purchased a steed of some kind. At last, one day Cooley had a yellow horse knocked down to him at one of those auction-sales which are known in the rural dis¬ tricts as “Va?idues.” And when I saw Cooley drive past the house, every afternoon, with that saffron brute, and his family in a dearborn wagon, and observed how he looked in at us and smiled superciliously, as if he was thinking, “ There lives a miserable outcast who has no horse and can’t get one,” I determined to purchase at once. I have not had much experience with horses, but I found one whose appearance and gait were fairly good, and I was 136 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. particularly drawn toward him because the man recom¬ mended him as being “urbane.” I had heard many de¬ scriptions of the points of a good horse, but this was the first time I had ever met a horse whose most prominent cha¬ racteristic was urbanity. It seemed to me that the quality was an excellent one, and I made a bargain on the spot and drove home. “ Mrs. Adeler,” I said, as I exhibited the purchase to her, “ I do not think this horse is very fast; I do not regard him as in the highest sense beautiful; he may even be deficient in wind; his tail certainly is short; and I think I can detect In his forelegs a tendency to spring too far forward at the knees; but, Mrs. Adeler, the horse is urbane. The man said that his urbanity amounted to a positive weakness, and that is why I bought him. If a horse is not urbane, my dear, it is useless, no matter what its merit in other respects.” She said that had been her opinion from early childhood. THE PLEASURES OF RIDING. 137 rt I do not care greatly, Mrs. Adeler, for excessive speed. Give me a horse that can proceed with merely a tolerable degree of celerity and I am content. I never could compre¬ hend why a man whose horse can trot a mile in two minutes and forty seconds should be made unhappy because another man’s horse trots the same distance one second sooner—that is, of course, supposing that they are not running for money. One second of time never makes any especial difference to me, even when I am in a hurry. What I want in a horse is not swiftness, but urbanity. I would rather have a kind- hearted horse, like ours, than the most rapid trotter with a wicked disposition.” For a while I enjoyed having a horse, and I felt glad I had bought him. It seemed very good to drive down by the river-bank upon a pleasant evening, with the cool breeze blowing in from the water, and the country around beautiful with the bright foliage of early autumn. There was a suf¬ ficient compensation for the heat and wretchedness of the busy day in that quiet journey over the level road and past the fragrant fields in the early twilight; and as we came home amid the deepening shadows, we could find pleasure in watching the schooners far off in the channel flinging out their lights, and we could see the rays streaming across the wide interval of rippling surface, and moving weirdly and strangely with the motion of the water. Sometimes, upon going out, we would overtake Cooley in his dearborn; and then it was felicitous to observe how, when I touched my horse with the whip, the animal put his head down, elevated his abbreviated tail to a horizontal posi¬ tion and left Cooley far, far behind, flogging his tawny horse with such fury as would surely have subjected him to the re¬ proaches of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals if that excellent organization had been present. My horse could achieve a tolerably rapid gait when he de- 138 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. sired to do so. That fact made existence in this world of anguish and tears seem even more sad to Cooley than it had done previously. I feel sure that he would have given fabu¬ lous sums if his horse could have trotted a mile in a minute —-just once—when we were upon the road together. I be¬ gan to think that it was just as well, after all, to have a pro¬ gressive horse as a slow one. But when the novelty of the thing had passed, my old indisposition to amusement of that kind gradually returned. I drove less frequently. One day my man said to me: " Mr. Adeler, that hoss is a-eatin’ his head off, sir. If you don’t take him out, he’ll be so wild that he’ll bu’st the ma¬ chine to flinders, sir.” The threatened catastrophe seemed so alarming that I took him out, although I had important work to do at home. The next day I wanted to stay up in the city to go to a lec¬ ture ; but that morning, early, the horse again displayed an alarming amount of friskiness, and I felt as if I must go down and exercise him. I drove him for three hours at a rapid gait, and succeeded in working off at least the exuber¬ ance of his spirits. On the following Wednesday I came home in the after- THE HORSE HAUNTS ME. 139 noon, exhausted with work, and intending to retire at an early hour. At half-past six o’clock, Judge Pitman came in. He remarked: “Adeler, that horse of yourn ’ll certainly go crazy if you don’t move him around. Mind me. He kicks like a flint¬ lock musket now if you come within forty foot of the stable.” I went out and hitched up, and that night I drove twenty-four miles at a frightful speed. Horses have, perhaps, gone farther and faster, but few have been pushed forward with a smaller regard for consequences. Nothing but a recollection of the cost of the horse restrained me from driving him into the river and leaving him there. By degrees the despicable brute became the curse of my existence. If I desired to go on a journey, the restlessness of the horse had first to be overcome. If I received an invi¬ tation to a party, the horse must be exercised beforehand. If I had an important article to write, I must roam around the country behind that horse for two or three hours, hold¬ ing him in with such force that my hands were made too unsteady for penmanship. If I wanted to take a row on the river—an exercise of which I am passionately fond—• that detestable animal had to be danced up and down the turnpike in order to keep him from kicking the stable to pieces. And he was recommended to me as “ urbane”! He made my life unhappy. I became depressed and morose. Sometimes when, amid a circle of friends, there was a provocation to laughter, and I participated in the gen¬ eral hilarity, I would suddenly become conscious of the fact that the horse was in active existence, and the mirth would be extinguished in gloom. He mingled with my dreams. Visions of a bob-tailed horse consuming spectral oats, and kicking with millions of legs, disturbed my rest at night. I 140 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. rushed with him over countless leagues of shadowy road, and plunged with him over incomprehensible precipices. He organized himself into hideous nightmare shapes, and charged wildly over me as I slept, and filled all the air of that mysterious slumber-land with the noise of his demoniac neighing. The reality was bad enough without the unreal nocturnal horrors. I might have sold the brute, but my wife really wanted to have a horse, and I wished to oblige her. But it was very wearing to bear about constantly the feeling of re¬ sponsibility which the animal engendered. I had to choose between driving him continually and having the lives of the members of my family imperiled when they took him out; and the consciousness that whether there was sickness or business, storm or earthquake, calamity or death, the horse must be driven, gradually placed me in the position of a man who is haunted by some dreadful spectre that clings to him and overshadows him for ever and for ever. AN APPALLING PROPOSITION. 141 The perpetual nervous worry told upon me. I became thin. My clothing hung loose upon me. I took up two inches in my waistcoat strap. The appetite which enabled me to find enjoyment at the table deserted me. The food seemed tasteless; and if in the midst of a meal the neigh of the horse came eddying up through the air from the stable, I turned away with a feeling of disgust, and felt as if I wanted to prod some¬ body with the carving-knife. One day my wife said to me: “ Mr. Adeler, you know that I urged you strongly to buy that horse, and I thought he would do, but—” “ But now you want to sell him! ha! ha!” I exclaimed, with delight. “Very well, I’ll send him to the auctioneer this very day.” “ I wasn’t going to say that,” she remarked. “ What I wanted to mention was that nearly everybody in good cir¬ cumstances about here drives a pair, and I think we ought to get another horse; don’t you, my dear? It’s so much nicer than having only one.” “ Mrs. Adeler,” I said, solemnly, “ that one horse down there in the stable has reduced me to a skeleton and made me utterly miserable. I will do as you say if you insist upon it, but I tell you plainly that if another horse is brought upon these premises I shall go mad.” “ Don’t speak in that manner, my dear.” “ I tell you, Mrs. Adeler, that I shall go stark, staring mad! Take your choice: go without the other horse or have a maniac husband.” She said, of course, she would do without the horse. But the affliction was suddenly and unexpectedly removed 12 142 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. My horse had a singularly brief tail, and I thought it might be that some of his violent demonstrations in the stable were induced by his inability to switch off the flies which alighted upon sensitive portions of the body. It occurred to me to get him up an arti¬ ficial tail for home use, and I procured a piece of thick rope for the pur¬ pose. There was, too, a certain hu¬ morousness about the idea that pleas¬ ed me; and as the amount of jocularity which that horse had occasioned had, thus far, been particularly small, the notion had peculiar attractiveness. I unraveled about eighteen inches of the rope and fast¬ ened the other end to the horse’s tail. This, I estimated, would enable him to switch a fly off the very end of his nose when he had acquired a little practice. Unfortunately, I neglected to speak to my man upon the subject; and when he came to the stable that evening, he ex¬ amined the rope and concluded that I was trying experiments with some new kind of hitching-strap; so he tied the horse to the stall by the artificial continuation. By morning the feed- box was kicked into kindling-wood, and the horse was stand DEATH OF OUR HORSE. 143 ing on three legs, with the other leg caught in the hay-rack, while he had chewed up two of the best boards in the side of the stable in front of him. Subsequently I explained the theory to the man and re¬ adjusted the rope. But the patent tail annoyed the hostler so much while currying the horse that he tied a stone to it to hold it still. The consequence was that in a moment of unusual excitement the horse flung the stone around and inflicted a severe wound upon the man’s head. The man resigned next morning. I then concluded to introduce an improvement. I pur¬ chased some horse-hair and spliced it upon the tail so neatly that it had the appearance of a natural growth. When the new man came, he attempted to comb out the horse’s tail, and the add¬ ed portion came off in his hand. He had profound confidence in his veterinarv skill, and he im- agined that the occurrence indi¬ cated a diseased condition of the horse. So he purchased some powders and gave the animal an enormous dose in a bucket of warm “mash.” In half an hour that pestilential horse was seized with convulsions, during which he kicked out the stable-door, shattered the stall to pieces, hammered four more boards out of the partition, dislocated his off hind leg and expired in frightful agony. He was more urbane after death than he had been during his life, and I contemplated his remains without shedding a tear. He was sold to a glue-man for eight dollars; and when he had departed, I felt that he would fulfill a wiser and better 144 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. purpose as a contributor to the national stock of glue than as the unconscious persecutor of his former owner. “ Mrs. Adeler, do you feel any interest in the subject of pirates ?” She said the question was somewhat abrupt, but she thought she might safely say she did not. “ I make the inquiry for the reason that I have just writ¬ ten a ballad which has for its hero a certain bold corsair. This is the first consequence of the death of our horse. In the exuberance of joy caused by that catastrophe, I felt as if I would like to perpetrate something which should be purely ridiculous, and accordingly I organized upon paper this piratical narrative. You think the subject is an odd one ? Not so. I do not pretend to explain the fact, but it is true that by this generation a pirate is regarded as a comic per¬ sonage. Perhaps the reason is that he has been so often presented to us in such a perfectly absurd form in melodrama and in the cheap and trashy novels of the day. At any rate, he is susceptible of humorous treatment, as you will perceive. “ I have had a stronger impulse to write of buccaneers, too, because I am in New Castle; for, somehow, I always associate those freeboot- ing individuals with this village. A certain ancestor of mine sailed away from this town in 1813, in a brig commis¬ sioned as a privateer, and played havoc with the ships of the enemy upon the Atlantic. In my childhood I used to hear of his brave deeds, and, somehow, I conceived the idea MRS. JONES'S PIRATE. 145 that he was a genuine pirate with a black flag, skull and cross-bones, and a disagreeable habit of compelling his cap¬ tives to walk the plank. I was much more proud of him then, Mrs. Adeler, than I should be now had he really been such a ruffian. But he was not. He was a gallant sailor and a brave and honest gentleman, who served his country faithfully on the ocean, and then held a post of honor as warden of the port of Philadelphia until his death. But I never go to the river’s side in New Castle without involun¬ tarily recalling that fine old man in the character of an out¬ lawed rover upon the high seas. “ Here, my dear, is the ballad. When I have read it to you, I will send it to the Argus. Since Mr. Slimmer’s retire¬ ment there has been a dearth of poetry in the columns of that great organ.” MRS. JONES’S PIRATE. A sanguinary pirate sailed upon the Spanish main In a rakish-looking schooner which was called the “Mary Jane.” She carried lots of howitzers and deadly rifled guns, With shot and shell and powder and percussion caps in tons. The pirate was a homely man, and short and grum and fat; He wore a wild and awful scowl be¬ neath his slouching hat. Swords, pistols and stilettos were ar¬ ranged around his thighs, And demoniacal glaring was quite common with his eyes. His heavy black moustaches curled away beneath his nose, And drooped in elegant festoons about his very toes. 12 * 146 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. •w-* • He hardly ever spoke at all; but when such was the case, His voice ’twas easy to perceive was quite a heavy bass. He was not a serious pirate; and despite his anxious cares, He rarely went to Sunday-school and seldom said his prayers. He worshiped lovely women, and his hope in life was this: To calm his wild, tumultuous soul with pure domestic bliss. When conversing with his shipmates, he very often swore That he longed to give up piracy and settle down on shore. He tired of blood and plunder ; of the joys that they could bring; He sighed to win the love of some affectionate young thing. One morning as the “ Mary Jane” went bounding o’er the sea The pirate saw a merchant bark far off upon his lee. He ordered a pursuit, and spread all sail»that he could spare, And then went down, in hopeful mood, to shave and curl his hair. lie blacked his boots and pared his nails and tied a fresh cravat; lie cleansed his teeth, pulled down his cuffs and polished up his hat; He dimmed with flour the radiance of his fiery red nose, For, hanging with that vessel’s wash, he saw some ladies' hose. Once more on deck, the stranger’s hull he riddled with a ball, And yelled, “I say! what bark is that?” In an¬ swer to his call The skipper on the other boat replied in thunder tones: “ This here’s the bark Matilda, and her captain’s name is Jones.” The pirate told his bold corsairs to man the jolly-boats, To board the bark and seize the crew, and slit their tarry throats, And then to give his compliments to Captain Jones, and say lie wished that he and Mrs. Jones would come and spend the day. 4 MBS. JONES OBJECTS. 147 killed the crew, they threw them in the Bat when the pirate’s message came, she dried her stream¬ ing tears, And said, although she’d like to come, she had unpleasant fears That, his social status being very evidently low, She might meet some common people whom she wouldn’t care to know. fhey reached the bark, they sea, And then they sought the cap¬ tain, who was mad as he could be, Because his wife—who saw the whole sad tragedy, it seems— Made all the ship vociferous with her outrageous screams. 148 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Her husband’s aged father, she admitted, dealt in bones, But the family descended from the famous Duke de Jones; And such blue-blooded people, that the rabble might be checked, Had to make their social circle excessively select. Before she visited his ship she wanted him to say If the Smythes had recognized him in a social, _ friendly way; —cw Sv--=-Did the Jonsons ever ask him ’round to their ancestral halls? Was he noticed by the Thomsons? Was he asked to Simms’s balls? The pirate wrote that Thomson was his best and oldest friend, That he often stopped at Jonson’s when he had a week to spend ; As for the Smythes, they worried him with their incessant calls; His very legs were weary with the dance at Simms’s balls. (The scoundrel fibbed most shamelessly. In truth he only knew A lot of Smiths without a y—a most plebeian crew. His Johnsons used a vulgar h, his Thompsons spelled with p, His Simses had one m, and they were common as could be.) Then Mrs. Jones mussed up her hair and donned her best delaine, And went with Captain Jones aboard the schooner Mary Jane. The pirate won her heart at once by saying, with a smile, He never saw a woman dressed in such exquisite style. WIDOWED AND MARRIED. 149 The pirate’s claim to status she was very sure was just When she noticed how familiarly the Johnsons he discussed. Her aristocratic scruples then were quickly laid aside, And when the pirate sighed at her, reciproc’ly she sighed. No sooner was the newer love within her bosom born Than Jones was looked upon by her with hatred and with scorn. She said ’twas true his ancestor was famous Duke de Jones, But she shuddered to remember that his father dealt in bones. So then they got at Captain Jones and hacked him with a sword, And chopped him into little bits and tossed him overboard. The chaplain read the service, and the cap¬ tain of the bark Before his widow’s weep¬ ing eyes was gobbled by a shark. The chaplain turned the prayer-book o’er > the bride took off her glove; They swore to honor, to obey, to cherish and to love. And, freighted full of happiness, across the ocean’s foam The schooner glided rapidly toward the pirate’s home. And when of ecstasy and joy their hearts could hold no more, That pirate dropped his anchor down and rowed his love ashore. And as they sauntered up the street he gave his bride a poke, And said, “In them there mansions live the friends of whom I spoke.” § She glanced her eye along the plates of brass upon each door, And then her anger rose as it had never done before. She said, “ That Johnson has an h ! that Thompson has a p! The Smith that spells without a y is not the Smith for me 1” 150 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY . And darkly scowled she then upon that rover of the wave; “False! False!” she shrieked, and spoke of him as “ Monster, trait¬ or, slave!” And then she wept and tore her hair, and filled the air with groans, And cursed with bit¬ terness the day she let them chop up Jones. And when she’d spent on him at last the venom of her tongue, She seized her pongee parasol and stabbed him in the lung. A few more energetic jabs were at his heart required, And then this scand- ’lous buccaneer rolled over and ex¬ pired. Still brandishing her parasol she sought the pirate boat; She loaded up a gun and jammed her head into its throat; And fixing fast the trig¬ ger, with string tied to her toe, She breathed “ Mother!” through the touch- hole, and kicked and let her go. A CONUNDRUM. 151 A snap, a fizz, a rumble; some stupendous roaring tones— And where upon earth’s surface was the recent Mrs. Jones? Go ask the moaning winds, the sky, the mists, the murmuring sea; Go ask the fish, the coroner, the clams—but don’t ask me. CHAPTER X. A Picturesque Church—Some Reflections upon Church Music—Bob Parker in the Choir—Our Undertaker— A Gloomy Man—Our Experience with the Hot-Air Furnaces—A Series of Accidents—Mr. Collamer’s Vocalism—An Extraordinary Mistake. HERE are but few old vil¬ lages in the United States that contain ancient church¬ es so picturesque in situation and in appearance as that which stands in the centre of our town, the most con¬ spicuous of its buildings. The churchyard is filled with graves, for the people still cling to that kindly usage which places the sacred dust of the departed in holy ground. And so here, be¬ neath the trees, and close to the shadow of the sanctuary walls, villagers of all ages and generations lie reposing in their final slumber, while from among them the snow-white spire rises heavenward to point the way their souls have gone. There are many of us who were not born here, and who are, as it were, almost strangers in the town, who can wander down the narrow paths of the yard, to out-of-the-way corners, where the headstones are gray with age and sometimes covered with a film of moss, 152 THE CHURCHYARD. 153 and read in the quaint characters with which the marble is inscribed our own family names. Here lies the mortal part of men and women who were dear to our grandsires; of little children too, sometimes, whose departure brought sorrow to the hearts of those who joined them in Paradise long, long before we began to play our parts in the drama of existence. The lives that ended in this quiet resting-place are full of deepest interest to us; they have a con¬ trolling influence upon our destiny, and yet they are very unreal to us. The figures which move by us as we try to summon up the panorama of that past are indistinct and obscure. They are shadows walking in the dusk, and we strive in vain to vest them with a semblance of the personality which once was theirs. They should seem very near to us their kindred, and yet, as we attempt to come closer to them, they appear so remote, so far away in the dead years, that we hardly dare to claim fellowship with them, or to speak of them as of our flesh and blood. It makes no difference where the empty shell is cast when the spiritual man is gone, but I reverence that human instinct which induces a man to wish to be laid at the last by the side of his ancestors and near to those whom he has loved in life. It is at least a beautiful sentiment which demands that those who are with each other in immortality should not be separated here on earth, but together should await the morning of the resurrection. I like this old church for its simplicity; not only for the absence of splendor in its adornment, but for the methods of worship of which it approves. The choir, from its station 13 154 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY . in the organ-loft, never hurls down upon the heads of the saints and sinners beneath any of those surprising sounds which rural choirs so often emit, with a conviction that they are achieving wonderful feats of vocalism, and no profane fingers compel the pipes of the microscopic organ to recall to the mind of the listener the music of the stage and the concert-room. From the instrument come only harmonies round, sweet and full, melting in solemn cadences from key to key and rolling down through the church, bringing the souls of the worshipers into full accord with the spirit of the place and the occasion, or else pouring forth some stately melody on which the voices of the singers are upborne. The choir fulfills its highest purpose by leading the people through the measures of those grand old tunes, simple in construction but sublime in spirit, which give to the language of the spiritual songs of the sanctu¬ ary a more eloquent beauty than their own. I would rather hear such music as may be found in “Federal Street,” in “Old Hundred,” in “Hursley” and in the “Adeste Fideles,” sung by an entire assembly of people who are in earnest in their re¬ ligion, than to listen to the most intricate fugue worked out by a city choir of hired singers, or the most brilliant anthem sung by a congregation of surpliced boys who quarrel w T ith each other and play wicked games during the prayers. Such tunes as these are filled with solemn meaning which is revealed to him whose singing is really an act of worship. There is more genuine religious fervor in “Hursley” than in a library of ordinary oratorios. A THE OLD CHURCH XU Llbftrr el of INUvfcii SOMETHING THE MATTER. 157 church which permits its choir to do all the singing might as well adopt the Chinese fashion of employing a machine to do its praying. A congregation which sits still while a quartette of vocalists overhead utters all the praises, need not hesitate to offer its supplications by turning a brass wheel with a crank. Our people do their singing and their praying for themselves, and the choir merely takes care that the music is of a fitting kind. Miss Magruder sits in the organ-loft now that she is at home, and I doubt not she contributes much to the sweetness of the strains which float from out that somewhat narrow enclosure. Her presence, I observe, ensures the regular attendance of young Mr. Parkerat the church, and last Sun¬ day he even ventured to sit with the choir and to help with the singing. I have never considered him a really good per¬ former, although he cherishes a conviction that he has an admirable voice, and such acquaintance with the art of using it as would have given him eminence if he had chosen the career of a public singer. After service I had occasion to speak to the clergyman for a moment, and as soon as he saw me he said: “ Mr. Adeler, did you notice anything about the organ or the choir to-day that was peculiar ?” “ No; I do not think I did.” “ It is very odd; but it seemed to me when they were singing the two last hymns that something must be the matter with one of the pipes. There was a sort of a rough, buzzing, rasping sound which I have never observed before. The instrument must need repairing.” 158 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY\ U «T7i “I think I know what it was,” remarked Mr. Campbell, the basso, who stepped up at that moment. The valves a little worn, I suppose ?” said the minister. “Well, no,” replied Campbell; “the fact is that extraordinary noise was produced by Mr. Parker, who was making a strenuous effort to sing bass. He seemed to be laboring under a strong conviction that the composers had made some mistakes in the tunes, which he proposed to correct as he went along. Parker’s singing is like homoeopathic medi¬ cine—a very little of it is enough.” Bob attributes the criticism of Campbell to professional jealousy, but he will probably sit down stairs after this. He prefers not to waste his talents upon provincial people who cannot appreciate genuine art. He will content him¬ self with walking home with the fair Magruder after service. There is one thing about the church with which I must OUR UNDERTAKER . 153 find fault. I have never been able to comprehend why it is customary throughout this country, even in the large cities, to permit undertakers to decorate the exteriors of churches with their advertisements, as ours is decorated by our undertaker. In old times, when the sexton was the grave-digger and general public functionary, it was well enough to give pub¬ licity to his residence by posting its whereabouts in a public place. There were oftentimes little offices which he had to perform for the congregation and for the neighborhood, and it was necessary that he should be found quickly. But the present fashion, which allows an undertaker—who has no other connection with the church than that he sits in a pew occasionally and goes to sleep during the sermon—to nail a tin sign, bearing a picture of a gilt coffin, right by the church door, so that no man, woman or child can enter that sanctuary without thinking of the grave, is monstrous. It is very proper that the minds of the people should be turned to contemplation of the certainty of death whenever they go to church. But it is hardly necessary to disturb a man’s reflections upon the necessity of preparing for the grave by confronting him with an advertisement which com¬ pels him to remember how much it is going to cost his rela¬ tions to put him there. Besides this, it makes the under¬ takers covetous, and fills their gloomy souls with murderous wishes. 1 have seen ours standing against the wall in the church¬ yard on a Sunday morning with his hands in his pockets, glowering at the congregation as they go in, eyeing and criticising the members, and muttering to himself, “Splendid fit he’d make in that mahogany coffin I’ve got at home!” “ There goes a man who ought to have died five years ago if I’d been treated right I” “ I’ll souse that Thompson un- 13 * 160 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. derground some of these fine days!” “ Those Mulligan girls certainly can’t give the old man anything less than a four- hundred-dollar funeral when he dies!” “ Healthiest looking congregation of its size I ever saw!” etc., etc. Jf I were in authority in the church, I would suppress that gilded advertisement and try to convert the owner of it. No man should be permitted to waste his Sabbaths in vain longings for the interment of his fellow-men. They are very busy now at the church putting in new furnaces in order to be prepared for the cold weather. New ones were introduced last winter, I am told, but they were not entirely successful in operation. The first time the fire was put in them was on Saturday morning, and on Sunday THOSE DREADFUL FURNACES. 161 the smoke was so dense in the church that nobody could see the clergyman. The workman had put the stove-pipe into the hot-air flue. Next Saturday night the fires were lighted, but on Sunday morning only the air immediately under the roof was warm, and the congregation nearly froze to death. The sexton was then instructed to make the fire on Thursday, in order to give the church a chance to become thoroughly heated. He did so, and early Sunday morning the furnaces were so choked up with ashes that the fires went out, and again the thermometer in the front pew marked zero. Then the sexton received or¬ ders to make that fire on Thurs¬ day, and to watch it carefully until church-time on the fol¬ lowing Sabbath. He did so, and both furnaces were in full blast at the appointed hour. That was the only warm Sunday we had last winter. The mercury was up to eighty degrees out of doors, while in the church everybody was in a profuse perspiration, and the bellows-blower at the organ fainted twice. The next Sunday the sexton tried to keep the fires low by pushing in the dampers, and con- sequently the church was filled with coal-gas, and the choir couldn’t 162 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. sing, nor could the minister preach without coughing be- tween his sentences. Subsequently the sexton removed one of the cast-iron registers in the floor for the purpose of examining the hot¬ air flue. He left the hole open while he went into the cel¬ lar for a moment, and just then old Mr. Collamer came in to hunt for his gloves, which he thought he had left in his pew. Of course he walked directly into the opening, and was dragged out in a condi¬ tion of asphyxia. That very day one of the furnaces burst and nearly fired the church. —The demand for heaters of another kind seemed to be imperative. Old Collamer, by the way, is singularly unfortunate in his experiences in the sanctuary. He is extremely deaf, and a few Sundays ago he made a fearful blunder during the sermon. The clergyman had occasion to introduce a quota¬ tion, and as it was quite long, he brought the volume with him; and when the time came, he picked up the book and began to read from it. We always sing the Old Hundred doxology after sermon at our church, and Mr. Collamer, see¬ ing the pastor with the book, thought the time had come, so while the minister was reading he opened his hymn-book at the place. Just as the clergy¬ man laid the volume down the man sitting next to Mr. Col¬ lamer began to yawn, and Mr. Collamer, thinking he was about to sing, immediately broke out into Old Hundred, and roared it at the top of his voice. As the clergyman was just beginning “secondly,” and as MR. COLL A HER AS A WARBLER. 163 there was of course perfect silence in the church, the effect of Mr. Collamer’s vociferation was very startling. But the good old man failed to notice that anything was the matter, so he kept right on and sang the verse through. When he had finished, he observed that everybody else seemed to be quiet, excepting a few who were laughing, so he leaned over and said out loud to the man who yawned, “ What’s .the matter with this congregation, anyhow ? Why don’t they go home ?” The man turned scarlet, and the perspiration broke out all over him, for he felt that the eyes of the congregation were upon him, and he knew that he would have to yell to make Mr. Collamer hear. So he touched his lips with his fingers as a sign for the old man to keep quiet. But Mr. Collamer misunderstood the motion: “ Goin’ to sing another hymn, hey ? All right.” And he began to fumble his hymn-book again. Then the sexton hurried up the aisle, and explained matters out loud to Mr. Collamer, and that gentleman subsided, while the minister proceeded with his discourse. The clergyman has written Mr. Collamer a note requesting him in the future not to join in the sacred harmony. The effect is too appal¬ ling upon the ribald boys in the back pews. CHAPTER XI. A Fishing Excursion down the River—Difficulties of the Voyage— A Series of Unfortunate Incidents—Our Re¬ turn Home, and how we were Received— A Letter upon the General Subject of Angling—The Sorrows of the Fisherman—Lieutenant Smiley— His Recollec¬ tions of Rev. Mr. Blodgett— A very Remarkable Mis¬ sionary'. T is said that there is good fishing in this vicinity. Seve¬ ral of my neighbors who have been out lately have brought home large quantities of fish of various kinds, together with glowing re¬ ports of the delightful cha¬ racter of the sport. A crav¬ ing to indulge in this form of amusement was gradually excited in the mind of Mr. Bob Parker by the stories of the anglers and by the display of their trophies, and he succeeded in persuading me to assist in the organization of an expedition down the river to the fishing-grounds. Yesterday was selected for the undertaking. I hired a boat from a man at the wharf; and after packing a generous luncheon in the fish-basket and securing a box full of bait, 164 Aafrott TO UGH NA VIGATION. 165 we tossed our lines into the boat, together with a heavy stone which was to serve as an anchor, and then we pushed out into the stream. It was early morning when we started, and to my dismay I found that the tide was running up with remarkable velocity. As we had to pull four miles down the river, this was a consideration of very great importance. Mr. Parker is not an especially skillful oarsman, and before he had fairly seated himself and dipped his blade in the water we had drifted two hundred yards in the wrong direction. After very severe labor for half an hour, we succeeded in getting three-quarters of a mile below the town, and then Bob informed me that he thought he could row better with my oar. Accordingly, I changed places with him, and dur¬ ing the time thus expended the boat went back a third of the distance we had gained. Another prolonged and terrible effort enabled us to proceed two miles toward our destination, and then Parker observed that he must stop and rest; he said he would die if he rowed another stroke. So we lay upon our oars for a while, and embraced the opportunity to wipe away the perspiration and to cool our blistered hands in the river. Parker then asked me if I would mind changing places with him again. He said he was now convinced that 166 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. he had made a mistake in leaving his first position. We fell back half a mile during this period; and when we finally- reached the grounds, the morning was far advanced. Bob was nearly worn out, and he proposed that we give up the idea of catching fish and row ashore, where we could lie down under the trees and begin operations upon the luncheon. But as we had come to fish, I was determined to do so. I informed Bob that I should be ashamed to go home without bringing any game. I should be afraid to look in the face of the man who owned the boat when he asked me what luck I had. So we tied a rope around the stone, and tossing the stone overboard, we came to anchor. Our hooks were baited and the lines were thrown out, and then Bob and I waited patiently for bites. It required a great deal of patience, for the fish did not take the bait with a remarkable degree of freedom. In fact, we only had a nibble or two at first, and then even this mani¬ festation of the presence of the fish ceased. We were sitting with our backs to the shore, watching the corks in front of us, when Bob suddenly uttered an exclamation. Upon look¬ ing around, I found that we had drifted half a mile up stream and out into the middle of the river, which A SWIM FOR AN OAR. 167 i is aere nearly four miles wide. The stone had dropped from the knot in the rope and released the boat. Then we rowed back to shore and landed for the pur¬ pose of obtaining another stone. We could not find one, so we pulled out again; and sticking one of the oars in the mud, we fastened the boat to that. Then Bob had a bite. He pulled up, and dragged to the surface of the water a crab, which instantly let go and sidled under the boat. Then we each caught a small sun- fish, and with this our enthusiasm be¬ gan to revive. Just then the oar came out of the mud, slipped through the loop in the cable and floated off. The prospect of having to take the boat home with one oar seemed so appalling that I hastily threw off my coat and shoes and swam after the fugitive oar. Meantime, the boat floated off, and I reached it and was hauled in by Bob just as I had made up my mind to give up and go to the bottom. We then fastened the oar down again, and I held it with one hand and my fishing-line with the other. Suddenly each of us had a splendid bite, and we both pulled in vigorously. The fish seemed to struggle violently all the way to the surface; but when the hooks came into view, we found that our lines were entangled, and that neither of us had a 14 168 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. fish. The next time Bob attempted to take in his line his hook caught upon the bottom ; and when, in a fit of exas¬ peration, he tried to jerk it loose, the cord snapped and the hopes of the fisherman were blasted for that day. Then, as Bob tipped the boat while he wash¬ ed his hands, the bait- box fell overboard, and so matters came to a definite conclusion, and we determined to quit. When we started for home, the tide had turned, and we did not reach town until dark. The man who owned the craft had just telegraphed to Delaware City for the purpose of ascertaining if two sus¬ picious men had landed there and attempted to sell a boat. He compelled me to pay half a day’s hire ex¬ tra for staying out so late, together with the cost of the telegram. I consider it beneath me to notice the unnecessary violence of his language or the insolence of his criti¬ cisms upon our skill as fish¬ ermen. This I could have borne with patience, but it was hard, very, very hard, upon arriv¬ ing home, to have Mrs. Adeler come to the door with a smile upon her face and ask, “ Where are the fish ?” while THE SUFFERINGS OF FISHERMEN. 169 she informed us that she had asked the Magruders over to tea, and had depended upon us to supply the principal dish, so that now she had not a thing in the house that she could cook. “Mrs. Adeler, we return with two diminutive sunfish, one demoralized ham-sandwich, two crimson noses and a thorough, sincere, whole-souled and earnest disgust for the wretched business which some men choose to regard in the light of amusement. No, Mrs. Adeler, we have no fish that are worthy of the name, and hereafter when we wish to have some, we will purchase them from the unhappy beings who catch them. A fisherman deserves all the money he can get, my dear. I wouldn’t be a professional piscator for the mines of Golconda and the wealth of a nabob to boot.” Our unfortunate experiences upon the river tempt me to refer in detail to the ills to which amateur fishermen, as a class, are exposed. The pleasures of angling have been said and sung by a vast multitude of sentimental people reaching all the way from old Izaak Walton to Mr. Prime; but the story of the suffering that too often accompanies the sport has not yet been narrated with a sufficient amount of vigor. The martyr fishermen have been too long kept in the back¬ ground. The time has come for them to have a hearing. I have chosen to present their complaint in the somewhat singular form of a letter to Mr. Benjamin F. Butler, because at the time of the negotiation of the Washington treaty he manifested much indignation at the wrongs heaped upon American fishermen by that instrument, and because he is a very suitable person to figure in a remonstrance which has about it perhaps a slight flavor of burlesque, even though it is a narrative of real misery. 170 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. The Sorrows of the Fisherman. Dear General : I have given a great deal of reflection, lately, to the fishery question, and I am convinced that your opposition to the fishery clauses of the Washington treaty had a basis of sound common sense. The treaty, in my opinion, wholly fails to consider in a spirit of wise states¬ manship the causes which move the fisherman to complaint, and supplies no adequate means for securing their removal. Permit me to suggest to you the propriety of urging upon the government the reassembling of the joint high commission for the purpose of obtaining a reconsideration of the fishery question with the new light which I propose to shed upon it. My experience in fishing has convinced me that one of the most serious of the primary obstacles to be overcome is the difficulty of procuring worms. Perhaps you may have ob¬ served an enthusiastic fisherman in pursuit of worms ? The day is always warm, and his performance upon the shovel conduces to profuse perspiration. He seems never to strike precisely the spot where the worms frolic. He labors with tremendous energy until he has excavated a couple of cellars and a rifle-pit, from which he rescues but two or three worms, while all around him the earth is perforated with holes, into which other vermicular crea¬ tures are perceived to disappear before he can lay his hands on them. The alacrity with which a worm draws himself into a hole in the ground, and dives down apparently to the centre of the globe, when you want him, is a constant source of aggravation to the fisherman. The fishery interests suffer on account of it. IN RELATION TO NIBBLES. 171 If a joint high commission would address itself in a con¬ ciliatory spirit to the work of obtaining concerted action from the civilized nations of the world upon the subject of the reformation of worms, blessed results would undoubtedly accrue. I know a fisherman who could make a speech in Congress on the subject of worms which would make that body weep the rotunda full of tears. And even when bait has been secured, you are aware, perhaps, that the fisherman will sit for hours upon the bank of the stream watching his cork until he is nearly blinded, and until his head swims. At last, when his patience is exhausted and he is convinced that there are no fish about, he pulls up for the purpose of trying another spot, and finds that some disre¬ putable fish has sucked the bait off the hook an hour before without making a perceptible nibble. Perhaps a clause in the treaty upon the general subject of nibbles might be of service. I think a paragraph could be constructed on nibbles which would create more amazement and produce a greater sensational effect in diplomatic circles than anything that ever appeared in a treaty. The introduction of the subject of nibbles to in¬ ternational law would give that science refresh¬ ing variety and probably prevent devastating wars. It is another cause of suffering to the fisherman that when he has thrown in again, and has waited an hour for a bite, and waited in vain, he considers it safe to drop his rod fqr a u* CUR. SC* 172 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. moment, so that he can light his pipe. It is a peculiar cir¬ cumstance, I say, that just as he has struck his last match he al¬ ways gets the most vigorous bite of the whole day. The cork pulls under in the most exciting man¬ ner several times, and only floats up again permanently at the mo¬ ment when the angler seizes his rod in eager haste and finds that the fish is gone. It is this kind of thing that makes the fisherman feel as if he would be relieved by the use of violent language. The British premier, I am sure, will consent to the negotiation of another treaty if you will press this matter on him. He must see at once that unless bites are arranged with a greater regard for the feelings of the fisherman and for the sanctity of the law against profane swearing, the fishery interests will languisl and the crop prove a humiliating failure. I have often remarked, too, that when the fisherman has nearly landed a fish, which drops off the hook just as it ap¬ pears to be safe, he collects all his energies for the next bite. He grasps the rod tightly with both hands, he rises and plants his legs firmly upon the ground, he watches the cork carefully, with his lips compressed and with fiery determina¬ tion gleaming from his eyes. The cork moves slightly. It goes under; he has a good bite; he pulls up with frightful energy, determined not to lose this one, and the next in¬ stant his line hits the limb of the tree overhead, and winds around it as closely as if it was put there on purpose to splice that limb, so as to make it perfectly secure throughout the unending ages of eternity. THE PECULIARITIES OF EELS. 17 9 I always excuse the man for taking a gloomy view of life, and for saying over with ardor and vehemence his en^ tire reserve stock of objurga¬ tions as he shins up the tree. But has the government no missions if these things are to be allowed? We have made the republic successful, we have fought mighty bat¬ tles, we have paid millions of indebtedness and we have given the civilization of the world a tremendous impulse forward; now let us do some¬ thing for the disgusted fish¬ erman who has to fumble around out on that limb. Let us have a special treaty on that particular branch of the subject. If something could be done in relation to eels, I think the government of our beloved country would rest upon a foun¬ dation of greater stability and have a more permanent hold upon popular affection. Perhaps you have fished for eels? The eel gently pulls the cork under and lets go. You pull up suddenly, and throw in again. The eel tenderly draws the cork beneath the surface, and, wild with fury, you jerk out your line a second time. This exhilarating exercise con¬ tinues for some moments, and you make up your mind that existence will be a burden, the world a hollow sham, and groceries and marketing useless baubles, unless you catch that eel. Finally you do hook him and draw him out. He is active, playful and vivacious. He wriggles; he forms himself in quick succession into S’s, C’s and Q’s. He points duty in the matter ? What is the use of joint high com- 174 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. to all the four quarters of the compass at once. He swal¬ lows himself and spits himself out. He wraps himself around your boot and shoots up your leg and covers your trow- sers with slime, and tangles your line into a mess by the side of which the Gordian knot was the perfection of simpli¬ city. When you get your foot firmly on him, you find that he has swallowed the hook, and you have to cut him completely open, from head to tail, to get the hook out, and then, as likely as not, the eel will flip back into the water and escape. I think eels rarely die. A joint high commission which would devote itself with philanthropic ardor and untiring energy to a dispassionate consideration of the subject of the immortality of eels might, perhaps, achieve important results. Any settlement of the fishery question which overlooked the hideous wickedness of eels would be a cruel mockery of human woe. But for pure pathos, I can conceive of nothing that will equal the anguish of the fisherman when he imagines he has a catfish upon his hook. His cork is drawn slowly under the surface, and it goes down, down, down, until it sinks com¬ pletely out of sight. He is certain it is a catfish—they al¬ ways pull in this manner, he says; and he draws in his line gently, while the fish tugs and pulls at the other end. Gradually, v-e-r-y gradually, the fisherman pulls it in, in order to be sure to keep the prey upon the hook. It is evidently a very large fish, and he is determined to land it through the shallow water, so that it cannot drop back THAT BOY. 175 and escape. Slowly it comes up, and just as the hook nears the surface the angler gives a sudden jerk, and out comes a terrific snag with a dozen branches and covered with mud. And meanwhile, during all the fisher¬ man’s troubles, there is that infa¬ mous small boy sitting on the op¬ posite bank of the creek pulling up fish by the dozen with a pin- hook and some wrapping twine. It would gratify me if the new treaty would devote one clause to a definite settlement of the ques¬ tion of the bearing of snags upon the miseries of mankind, and about eight stupendous clauses to a determination of the fate that is deserved by that boy. My own humanitarian tendencies incline me to urge that he should be summarily shot. If a boy with a pin-hook is to be al¬ lowed thus to destroy the peace of older American citizens, the sooner we ask some efficient and reliable despot to come over here and break up the govern¬ ment and trample on us, the happier we shall be. I commend the subject to your enlightened consideration, and ask for an earnest appeal to the next Congress in behalf of suffering fishermen. If we cannot obtain redress by peaceful means, let us have it by force. I am ready to overturn the government, massacre the people, burn the cities and carry desolation, devastation and death into every home in the la^d, rather than to per- 176 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. mit these outrages against justice longer to continue and these unhappy men to endure further persecution. There are indications that the course of Bob Parker’s true love will not run entirely smooth. The officers sta¬ tioned at Fort Delaware, below here, come up to the village constantly upon social errands, and they are exceedingly' popular with the young ladies. Lieutenant Smiley is, I think, the favorite; and as he has become a somewhat fre¬ quent visitor at Magruder’s, Bob’s jealousy has been aroused. He hates Smiley with a certain deadly hatred. Mr. Parker is not naturally warlike in his tendencies, but I believe he would willingly engage in hostilities with the lieutenant with an utterly reckless disregard of the consequences. Smiley comes to see us sometimes; and Bob, I fear, re¬ gards even this family with gloom and suspicion because we receive the lieutenant courteously. But he says very little upon the subject; for when he begins to abuse Smiley, I always ask him why he does not propose to Miss Magruder at once and thus relieve himself from his agony of apprehen¬ sion. Then he beats a retreat. He would rather face a regiment of Smileys armed with Dahlgren guns than to dis¬ cuss the subject of his cowardice respecting the beautiful Magruder. We like the lieutenant well enough, and we should like him better but for his propensity for telling incredible stories. He was in the naval service for eight or ten years; and when he undertakes to give accounts of his adventures, he is very apt to introduce anecdotes of which Munchausen would have been ashamed. It is one of Smiley’s favorite theories that he sojourned for a considerable period among the Fiji Islands, and many of his narratives relate his experiences in that region. There was a missionary meeting at the church a night or two ago, and the lieutenant, having been MR. BLODGETT,\ MISSIONARY. 177 defeated by Bob in his attempt to escort Miss Magruder to her home, came to our house; and very naturally he began the conversation with a story of missionary enterprise with which he assumed to have be¬ come familiar during his visit to the South Seas. “ Mr. Adeler,” he said, “ I was very much interested in the proceedings at that meeting to-night, but it seems to me that there is one defect in the system of preparing men for the work of propagating the gospel among the heathen.” “ What is that?” “ Why they ought to teach the science of mesmerism in the divinity schools.” “ I don’t exactly understand the pur¬ pose of the—” “ Perhaps you never heard of the Rev. Mr. Blodgett, missionary to the Fiji Islands? Well, he saved his life once merely by practicing mesmerism. He has told me the story often.” “ I should like to hear it.” “ It seems that Blodgett in his sinful youth had been a traveling professor of mesmerism; but he had aban¬ doned the business to go into the ministry and to preach OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. 178 to the heathen in Fiji. Well, his church out there got up a Sunday-school picnic, it ap¬ pears ; and when the people all arrived upon the ground, they learned that the provis¬ ions had been forgotten. A meeting of the vestry was called, and after a brief con¬ sultation it was decided that the only thing which could be done to meet the emer¬ gency was to barbecue the minister. The inducement 5 , this the course was all stronger because his salary was six months in arrears, and the church w 7 as entirely out of funds. So they built a huge lire; and seizing Blodgett, they began to strip him and to stick him with forks. A GENEROUS REPAST. 179 “ In order to save himself, he immediately mesmerized each member of the vestry; and when they were all fixed, he called up the Sunday-school scholars, class by class, and put them comfortably to sleep. Having them all com¬ pletely under his influence, he gave an entire class to each one of the vestrymen, and assured them that the innocent children were the most luscious kind of missionary. There¬ upon the hypnotized vestry im¬ mediately ate up the somnambu¬ listic Sunday-school and picked the bones clean. Blodgett was a very conscientious man in the performance of his sacerdotal functions, so he read the funeral service over each class as it dis¬ appeared.” “ Bather an excessive meal, I should say.” “ Yes, but they are large eaters, the Fijians. You might say that their appetites are, in a certain sense, robust.” “ I should imagine that such was the case. But proceed.” “ Well, when the little ones were gone, Blodgett whispered to the magnetized wardens that their fellow-vestry men were also succulent propagators of Chris¬ tianity; whereupon the uncon¬ scious wardens fell upon their colleagues, and in a few moments nearly the whole vestry was in the process of assimilation. There remained now but the two ward¬ ens, and Blodgett, having pre¬ vailed upon the younger and more vigorous of the two to eat the other, then seized the slumbering body of his converted 15 180 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. but erring brother and stood it on its head in the fire. The Rev. Mr. Blodgett went away alone from that picnic, and he went with a heavy heart. When he got home, they asked where the rest of the folks were, and he said they were enjoying themselves up there in the woods in their own quiet, innocent way, but that he had to come away in order to visit a sick friend who stood in need of his ministrations. And then he packed his trunk and borrowed a canoe and paddled away to our ship, determined to seek some sunnier clime, where the heathen rage less furiously, and where the popular appetite for warm clergyman is not so intensely vivid.” “ That is a very remarkable narrative, lieutenant—very remarkable indeed!” “ Yes. But poor Mott was not so lucky.” u Who was Mott?” “ Why the Rev. Peter Mott—he was a missionary engaged upon one of the other islands. He knew nothing of mes¬ merism; and when his choir attacked him upon the way A PAINFUL DUTY. 181 home from church one day, he was unable to defend him¬ self, and they ate him.” “ How painful!” “I had to carry the mourn¬ ful news to Mrs. Mott, who lived in San Francisco. When we reached that port, I called upon her and performed the unpleasant duty. The manner in which she received’ the in- telligence was, 1 conceive, m en^ ~~ /> every way extraordinary. She cried, of course, and I offered her what consolation I could under the circumstances. I alluded to the fact that all men must die at any rate, and dear Mott, let us hope, had gone to a better world than this one of sorrow and trouble and so forth. “ Mrs. Mott in reply said, with a voice broken with sobs : 182 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. ‘ It isn’t that—oh, it isn’t that. I know he is better off; I’m sure he is happier; but you know what a very particular man he was, and oh, Mr. Smiley, I fear that those brutal savages boiled him with cabbage.’ There was no use trying to assuage her grief under such circumstances, so I shook hands with her and left. But it was an odd idea. Mott with cabbage! I thought as I came away that he would have tasted better with the merest flavor of onion.” When Lieutenant Smiley bade us good-night, I said, “ Mrs. Adeler, what do you think of that young man ?” “ I think,” she said, “ that he tells the most dreadful false¬ hoods I ever listened to. It will be a burning shame if he succeeds in cutting out Robert with Miss Magruder.” “ Mrs. Adeler, he shall not do that. Bob shall have Miss Magruder at all hazards. If he does not propose to her shortly, I shall go down and broach the subject to her my¬ self. We must defeat Smiley even if we have to violate all the rules of propriety to achieve that result.” CHAPTER XII. How the Plumber Fixed my Boiler—A Vexatious Busi¬ ness— How he didn’t come to Time, and what the Ul¬ timate Result was—An Accident, and the Pathetic Story of Young Chubb—Reminiscences of General Chubb—The Eccentricities of an Absent-minded Man —The Rivals—Parker versus Smiley. 3 have had a great deal of trouble recently with our kitchen boiler, which is built into the wall over the range. It sprang aleak a few weeks ago, and the as¬ sistance of a plumber had to be invoked for the pur¬ pose of repairing it. I sent for the plumber, and after examining the boiler, he in¬ structed the servant to let the fire go out that night, so that he could begin oper¬ ations early the next morn¬ ing. His order was obeyed, but in the morning the plumber failed to appear. We had a cold and very uncomfortable breakfast, and on my way to the depot I overtook the plumber going in the same direction. He said he was sorry to disappoint me, but he was called suddenly out of town on imperative business, and he would have to ask me to wait until the next morning, when he would be promptly on hand with his men. So we had no fire in the range upon that 15 * 183 % 184 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. day, and the family breakfasted again upon cool viands without being cheered with a view of the plumber. Upon calling at the plumber’s shop to ascertain why he had not fulfilled his promise, I was informed by the clerk that he had returned, but that he was compelled to go over to Wilmington. The man seemed so thoroughly in earnest in his assertion that the plumber positively would attend to my boiler upon the following morning that we permitted the range to remain untouched, and for the third time we broke our fast with a frigid repast. But the plumber and his as¬ sistants did not come. As it seemed to be wholly impossible to depend upon these faithless artisans, our cook was instructed to bring the range into service again without waiting longer for re¬ pairs, and to give the family a properly prepared meal in the morning. While we were ^LV INDIGNANT PLUMBER. 185 at breakfast there was a knock at the gate, and presently we perceived the plumber and his men coming up the yard with a general assortment of tools and materials. The range at the moment of his entrance to the kitchen was red hot ; and when he realized the fact, he flung his tools on the floor and expressed his indignation in the most vio¬ lent and improper language, 1 while his attendant fiends sat around in the chairs and growled in sympathy with their chief. When I ap¬ peared upon the scene, the plumber addressed me with the air of a man who had suffered a great and irrepa¬ rable wrong at my hands, and he really displayed so much feeling that for a few mo¬ ments I had an indistinct consciousness that I had somehow been guilty of an act of gross injustice to an unfortunate and persecuted fellow-being. Be¬ fore I could recover myself suf¬ ficiently to present my side of the case with the force properly belonging to it, the plumbers marched into the yard, where they tossed a quantity of ma¬ chinery and tools and lead pipe under the shed, and then left. We had no fire in the range the next morning, but the plumbers did not come until four o’clock in the afternoon, and then they merely dumped a 186 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. cart load of lime-boxes and hoes upon the asparagus bed and went home. An interval of four days elapsed before we heard of them again; and meanwhile the cook twice nearly killed herself by stumbling over the tools while going out into the shed in the dark. One morning, however, the gang arrived before I had risen; and when I came down to break¬ fast, I found that they had made a mortar bed on our best grass plot, and had closed up the principal garden walk with a couple of wagon loads of sand. I endured this patiently because it seemed to promise speedy performance of the work. The plumbers, however, went away at about nine o’clock, and the only reason we had for supposing they had not forgotten us was that a man with a cart called in the afternoon and shot a quantity of bricks down upon the pavement in such a position that no¬ body could go in or out of the front gate. Two days afterward the plumbers came and began to make a genuine effort to reach the boiler. It was buried in the wall in such a manner that it was wholly inaccessible by any other method than by the removal of the bricks from the outside. The man who erected the house evidently was a party with the plumber to a conspiracy to WHY HE DIDN’T COME. 187 give the latter individual something to do. They labored right valiantly at the wall, and by supper-time they had re¬ moved at least twelve square feet of it, making a hole large enough to have admitted a locomotive. Then they took oat the old boiler and went away, leaving a most discourag¬ ing mass of rubbish lying about the yard. That was the last we saw of them for more than a week. Whenever 1 went after the plumber for the purpose of per¬ suading him to hasten the work, I learned that he had been summoned to Philadelphia as a witness in a court case, or that he had gone to his aunt’s funeral, or that he was taking a holiday because it was his wife’s birthday, or that he had a sore eye. I have never been able to understand why the house was not robbed. An entire brigade of burglars might have entered the cottage and frolicked among its treasures without any difficulty. I did propose at first that Bob and I should procure revolvers and take watch and watch every 188 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. night until the breach in the wall should be repaired; but Mr. Parker did not regard the plan with enthusiasm, and it was abandoned. We had to content ourselves with fastening the inner door of the kitchen as securely as possible, and we were not molested. But we were nervous. Mrs. « Adeler, I think, assured me posi¬ tively at least twice every night that she heard robbers on the stairs, and entreated me not to go out after them; and I never did. Finally the men came and began to fill the hole with new bricks. That evening the plumber walked into my parlor with mud and mortar on his boots, and informed me that by an unfortunate mistake the hole left for the boiler by the bricklayers was far too small, and he could not insert the boiler without taking the wall down again. “ Mr. Nippers,” I said, "don’t you think it would be a good idea for me to engage you per¬ manently to labor upon that boiler? From the manner in which this business has been conducted, I infer that I can finally be rid of annoyance about such matters by employing a perennial plumber to live for ever in my back yard, and to spend the unending cycles of eternity banging boilers and demolishing walls.” NIPPERS SWEARS AN OATH. 189 Mr. Nippers said, with apparent seriousness, that he thought it would be a first-rate thing. “ Mr. Nippers, I am going to ask a favor of you. I do not insist upon compliance with my request. I know that I am at your mercy. Nippers, you have me, and I submit patiently to my fate. But my family is suffering from cold, we are ex¬ posed to the ravages of thieves, we are deprived of the means of cooking our food properly, and we are made generally un¬ comfortable by the condition of our kitchen. I ask you,\ therefore, as a personal favor to a man who wishes you pros¬ perity here and felicity hereafter, and who means to settle your bill promptly, to fix that boiler at once.” Mr. Nippers thereupon said that he always liked me, and he swore a solemn oath that he would complete the job next day without fail. That was on Tuesday. Neither Nip¬ pers nor his men came again until Saturday, and then they put the boiler in its place and went away, leaving four or five cart loads of ruins in the yard. On Sunday the boiler began to leak as badly as ever, and I feel sure Nippers must have set the old one in again, although when he called early Mon¬ day morning with a bill for $237y^-, which he w r anted at once because he had a note to meet, he declared upon his 190 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. honor that the boiler was a new one, and that it would not leak under a pressure of one thousand pounds to the square inch. I am going to buy a cooking stove, and defy Nippers and the entire plumbing fraternity. Cooley’s boy has been in trouble again. Yesterday morn¬ ing Mrs. Adeler heard loud screaming in Cooley’s yard, and in a few moments a servant came to say that Mrs. Cooley wished to see Mrs. Adeler at once. Mrs. A. hurried over there, supposing that some¬ thing terrible had happened. She found Mrs. Cooley shaking her boy and crying, while the lad stood, the picture of misery and fright, his eyes protrud¬ ing from his head and his hands holding his stomach. Mrs. Cooley explained in a voice broken with sobs that Henry had been play¬ ing with a small “mouth organ,” and had accident¬ ally swallowed it. The case was somewhat peculiar; and as Mrs. Adeler was not fa¬ miliar with the professional methods which are adopted in such emergencies, she re¬ commended simply a liberal use of mustard and warm water. The application was ultimately successful, and the missing musical instrument was surrendered by the boy. The incident is neither inter¬ esting nor remarkable, and I certainly should not have men¬ tioned it but for the fact that it had a result whi- h is per¬ haps worth chronicling here. THE FATE OF YOUNG CHUBB. 191 Last evening Bob came into the sitting-room and behaved in a manner which led me to believe that he had something on his mind. I asked him if anything was the matter. He said, “Well, no; not exactly. The fact is I’ve been thinking about that accident to Cooley’s boy, and it kind of suggested something to me.” “ What was the nature of the suggestion ?” “ I’ve jotted it down on paper. I’ve half a notion to send it to the Argus if you think it’s good enough, and that’s what I want to find out. I want to hear your opinion of the story. I don’t do much of this sort of thing, and I’m kind of shy about it. Shall I read it ?” “ Of course; let us hear it.” “ I’m going to call it 1 The Fate of Young Chubb.’ I expect it’ll make old Cooley mad as fury when he sees it. It is founded upon the catastrophe of which his boy was the victim.” The Fate of Young Chubb. When Mr. Chubb, the elder, returned from Europe, he brought with him from Geneva a miniature musical box, long and very narrow, and altogether of hard¬ ly greater dimensions, say, than a large pocket-knife. The instrument played four cheerful little tunes for the benefit of the Chubb family, and they enjoyed it. Young Henry Chubb enjoyed it to such an ex¬ tent that, one day, just after the machine had been wound up ready for action, he got to sucking the end 16 192 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. of it, and in a moment of inadvertence it slipped, and he swallowed it. The only immediate consequence of the ac¬ cident was that a harmonic stomach-ache was organized upon the interior of Henry Chubb, and he experienced a restlessness which he well knew would defy peppermint and paregoric. Henry Chubb kept his secret in his own soul, and in his stomach also, determined to hide his misery from his father, and to spare the rod to the spoiled child—spoiled, at any rate, as far as his digestive apparatus was concerned. But that evening, at the supper-table, Henry had eaten but one mouthful of bread when strains of wild, mysterious music were suddenly wafted from under the table. The family immediately made an effort to discover whence the sounds came, although Henry Chubb sat there filled with agony and remorse and bread and tunes, and desperately asserted his belief that the music came from the cellar, where INTERNAL HARMONY. 193 the servant-girl was concealed with a harp. He well knew that Mary Ann was unfamiliar with the harp. But he was frantic with anxiety to hide his guilt. Thus it is that one crime leads to another. But he could not disguise the truth for ever, and that very night, while the family was at prayers, Henry all at once began to hiccough, and the music box started off with¬ out warning with “Way down upon the Suwanee River,” with variations. Whereupon the paternal Chubb arose from his knees and grasped Henry kindly but firmly by his hair and shook him up and inquired what he meant by such con¬ duct. And Henry asserted that he was practicing some- f. //,? thing for a Sunday-school celebration, which old Chubb in¬ timated was a singularly thin ex¬ planation. Then they tried to get up that music box, and every time they would seize Henry by the legs and shake him over the sofa cushion, or would pour some fresh variety of emetic down his throat, the instru¬ ment within would give a fresh spurt, and joyously grind out “ Listen to the Mocking Bird ” or “ Thou’lt Never Cease to Love.” At last they were compelled to per¬ mit that musical box to remain within the sepulchral recesses of young Chubb. To say that the 194 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. unfortunate victim of the disaster was made miserable by his condition would be to express in the feeblest manner the state of his mind. The more music there was in his stomach, the wilder and more completely chaotic became the discord in his soul. As likely as not it would occur that while he lay asleep in the middle of the night the works would begin to revolve, and would play “ Home, Sweet Home ” for two or three hours, unless the peg happened to slip, when the cylinder would switch back again to “Way down upon the Suwanee River,” and would rattle out that tune with variations and fragments of the scales until Henry’s brother would kick him out of bed in wild despair, and sit on him in a vain effort to subdue the serenade, which, how¬ ever, invariably proceeded with fresh vigor when subjected to un¬ usual pressure. And when Henry Chubb went to church, it frequently occurred that, in the very midst of the most solemn portion of the sermon, he would feel a gentle disturbance under the lower button of his jacket; and pres¬ ently, when everything was hushed, the undigested engine would give a pre¬ liminary buzz and then reel off “ Lis¬ ten to the Mocking Bird” and “Thou’lt Never Cease to Love,” and scales and exercises, until the clergyman would stop and glare at Henry over his spectacles and whisper to one of the CHUBB’S FATE. 195 deacons. Then the sexton would suddenly tack up the aisle and clutch the unhappy Mr. Chubb by the collar and scud down the aisle again to the accompaniment of “ Home, Sweet Home,” and then incarcerate Henry in the upper portion of the steeple until after church. But the end came at last, and the miserable boy found peace. One day while he was sitting in school endeavor¬ ing to learn his multiplication table to the tune of “ Thou’lt Never Cease to Love,” his gastric juice triumphed. Some¬ thing or other in the music box gave way all at once, the springs were unrolled with alarming force, and Henry Chubb, as he felt the fragments of the instrument hurled right and left among his vitals, tumbled over on the floor and expired. At the post mortem examination they found several pieces of “ Home, Sweet Home” in his liver, while one of his lungs was severely torn by a fragment of “Way down upon the Suwanee B-iver.” Small particles of “ Listen to the Mock¬ ing Bird” were removed from his heart and breast-bone, and three brass pegs of “Thou’lt Never Cease to Love” were found firmly driven into his fifth rib. They had no music at the funeral. They sifted the machinery out of him and buried him quietly in the cemetery. Whenever the Chubbs buy musical boxes now, they get them as large as a piano and chain them to the wall. While Bob was engaged in reading the account of the melodious misery of the unhappy Chubb, Lieutenant Smiley came in, and the result was that both became uneasy. Bob disliked to subject himself to the criticism of a man whom he regarded as an enemy, and the lieutenant was so jealous of Bob’s success that he began instantly to try to think of something that would enable him at least to maintain bis reputation as a teller of stories. 16 * 196 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURL 1 *: “ That is very good indeed, Bob,’’ I said. “ Bangs will be only too glad to publish it. It is very creditable. Put your name to it, however, if it goes into the Argus , or the colonel will persuade the community that he is the author of it.” “ He will have to get a new brain-pan set in before he can write anything as good,” said Bob. “ It is a very amusing story,” remarked Mrs. Adeler. “ I had no idea that you ever attempted such things. It is quite good, is it not, lieutenant ?” “ Oh, very good indeed,” said Smiley. “ V-e-r-y good. Quite an achievement, in fact. Ha! ha! do you know that name ‘ Chubb’ reminds me of a very comical incident.” “ Indeed?” “Ha! yes! Old General Chubb was the actor in it. Perhaps you knew him, Parker ?” “No, I didn’t,” growled Bob. “Well, he was a very eccentric old man. Deuced queer, you know, and the most absent-minded person that ever lived. He had a wooden leg late in his life, and I’ve often known him to put that leg oil backward with the toes pointing be¬ hind him, and then he would come jolting down the street in the most extraordinary manner, with his good knee bending north and his timber knee doubling up southwardly; and ^ when I would meet him, he would stop and growl because the authorities ~~ kept the pavements in such bad repair that a man could hardly walk.” “ I don’t see anything very funny about that,” said Bob, impolitely and savagely. GENERAL CHUBB IS ABSORBED. 197 " Well, one day a few months ago,” continued Smiley, without noticing Mr. Par¬ ker’s ill-nature, “ he saunter¬ ed into the studio of the celebrated marine painter Hamilton, in Philadelphia. The artist was out at the moment, but standing upon the floor was a large and very superb picture of the sea-beach, with the surf roll¬ ing in upon it. The general stood looking at it for a while, until his mind jvan- dered off from the present, and under the influence of the picture he was gradually impressed with a vague notion that he was at the seashore. So, still gazing at the painting, he slowly removed his clothes, 198 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. and finally stood in a revery without a stitch upon him. Then he clasped his nose with his fingers, bent his neck for¬ ward and plunged head foremost into the surf. The people on the floor below thought there was an earthquake. The artist came rushing in, and found General Chubb with his head against the washboard, one leg hanging from the rag¬ ged surf and the toes of his left foot struggling among the ruins of the lighthouse. Hamilton has that torn picture yet. He says that Chubb’s dive is the highest tribute ever paid to his genius.” As the lieutenant finished the narrative, Bob rose and left the room with the suggestion, muttered as he passed me, that the story was tough. “ Mr. Parker don’t seem well,” remarked the lieutenant when Bob had gone. “ Oh yes, he is perfectly well. I imagine that he does not regard you with precisely the same amount of enthusiastic admiration that he might perhaps feel if you were not tread¬ ing on his toes a little.” “ Oh,” laughed the lieutenant, “ you refer, of course, to our relations with the Magruders ? I don’t like to talk much about that matter, of course; it is delicate, and you may think I am meddling with a business in which I have no concern. But perhaps I may as well tell you frankly that Parker has no earthly chance there—not the least in the world. The young lady won’t smile on him. I am as cer- tan of that as I am of death.” “You are positive of that, are you?” “Yes, sir, you can rely upon my word. Parker might as well give it up. By the way, I wonder if he has gone down there now ?” “Very likely.” “Well, I must say good-night, then; I promised to call there at half-past eight, and it is time to be off.” A MATTER OF FAITH. 199 So Lieutenant Smiley bade us adieu. Mrs. Adeler imme¬ diately asked: “ Do you believe what that man says ?” “Certainly not, my dear. I have as much faith as a dozen ordinary men, but it would require a grand army to believe him. He is foolish enough to hope to frighten Bob away. But Bob shall settle the matter to-morrow. If he doesn’t, we will disown him. The end of the campaign has come. Now for victory or defeat!” 4 CHAPTER XIII. An Evil Day—Flogging-Time in New Castle— How the Punishment is Inflicted— A Few Remarks upon the General Merits of the System— A Singular Judge— How George Washington Busby was Sentenced— Emo¬ tions of the Prisoner— A cruel Infliction, and a Code that ought to be Reformed. is St. Pillory’s Day. ' It is the day upon which humane and liberal Delawarians liana* o their heads for shame at the insult offered to civilization the law of their State. That law this morning placed half a dozen miserable creatures in the stocks, and then flogged them upon their naked flesh with a cat-o’-nine-tails. It was no slight thing to stand there wearing that wooden col¬ lar in this bitter November weather, with the north-east wind blowing in fierce gusts from the broad expanse of the river; and one poor wretch who endured that suffering was so benumbed with cold that he could hardly climb down the ladder to the ground. And when he had descended, they lashed his back until it was covered with purple stripes. He had stolen some provisions, and he looked as if he needed them, for he seemed hungry and forlorn and utterly desperate with misery. It would 200 THE WHIPPING POST. 201 < vTi>$c have been a kindlier act of Christian charity if society, in¬ stead of mutilating his body, had fed it and clothed it pro¬ perly, and placed him in some reformatory institution where his soul could have been taken care of. But that is not the method that prevails here. The gates of the prison yard were wide open when the punish¬ ment was inflicted upon these of¬ fenders, and among the spectators were at least two or three score children gathered to look upon the barbarous spectacle. Nothing could induce me to permit mine to witness it. The influence of such a scene is wholly brutalizing. The child that has seen that sacri¬ fice has lost some of the sweetness and tenderness of its better nature. The whipping-post and pillory is a sturdy bit of timber a foot square. Eight or nine feet from the ground it pierces a small platform, and five feet above this there is a cross-piece which con¬ tains in each of its two arms a hole for the neck and two holes for the Avrists of the man who is to be pilloried. The upper half of the arm lifts to admit the victim, and then closes upon him, some¬ times very tightly. It is fastened down Avith a wedge-shaped key, shot into the centre-post. Beueath the platform hangs 202 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. a pair of handcuffs in which the wrists of those who are to be flogged are placed. The whole machine looks like a gigantic cross. It is black with age, covered with patches of green mold and moss, and shrunken and split until the grain of the wood protrudes in ridges. There was a time in the past when it stood, an instrument of cruel torture, upon the public street. It was planted in the green just at the end of the old market house, and there the criminals were lashed by the sheriff. Any of the old , . „ Z'V- men who have I ( QlO^n nr.. / spent their lives m this place can tell how, when they were boys, it was the custom for the urchins and the loafers of the town to pelt any poor j. rogue who was pilloried with whatever missiles happened to be at hand; and often the creatures thus abused were taken down from the stocks and tied up to the post, there to have their flesh lacerated with the leather thongs. They used to flog women, too. They flogged women in the open street, with their garments torn away from their bodies above the waist, and the gaping crowd gathered about and witnessed without shame that dreadful spectacle. But that was more than half a century ago. Who shall say that we do not advance in civilization ? Who can assert that these people have not acquired a higher sense of decency, when public opinion has compelled the removal of this abom¬ inable relic of barbarism to the jail-yard, and the perform¬ ance of the penalty in another place than before the doors of the temple where a God of mercy is worshiped ? I hope that the day is not far distant when the whipping-post and A BAD SYSTEM. 203 the infernal system that sustains it will go down together, and w T hen the people of this State will learn that their first duty to a criminal is to strive to make him a better man. _ v They say here, in apologizing for the institution, that the punishment is not severe, because the sheriff never makes savage use of the lash. But it is a terrible infliction, no matter how lightly the blows are struck, for it is imposed in the presence of a multitude, and the sufferer feels that he is for ever to be known among men as a thief. The thongs do not always fall gently; the force of the lash depends upon the will of the sheriff, who may kill a man with the number of blows which in another case give no pain. I say that any law which places such discretionary power in the hands of an executive officer who may be bribed or frightened, or who may have some personal injury to avenge, defeats the true end of justice. The court should fix the penalty abso¬ lutely. They say here, also, that no man is ever flogged a second time. That' is untrue. The same men do return again and again. Some do not; but where do they go? Why, to other communities, where they perpetrate other crimes and become a burden upon other people. We have no right to breed criminals and then to drive them into cities and towns that have already enough of their own. We are under a sacred obligation to place them in prisons supported by the money of the State, and there to attempt to teach them arts by which they may earn their bread if they will. In such a place a convict can be reached by those philan¬ thropists who realize what society owes to its criminal classes. But as he is treated now, it is impossible that he should ever lift himself or be lifted to a purer and better life. Fallen angels in Delaware never rise again. Law clips their wings and stamps upon them with its heel, and society shakes off the dust of its feet upon them and curses them in their degradation. The gates of mercy are shut upon them 204 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. hopelessly and for ever, and they walk abroad with the story of their shame blazoned upon them, as the women who wore the Scarlet Letter in the old Puritan times in New England, that all the world may read it. They know that their pun¬ ishment has been fierce and terrible and out of all propor¬ tion to their offence, and they curse their oppressors and hate them with a bitter, unrelenting hatred. They know they will not be allowed to reform, and that the law which should have led them to a better future has cut them off from fellowship with their race, robbed them of their human¬ ity and made pariahs and outcasts of them. They are turned to stone, and they come out of their prisons confirmed, hope¬ less criminals. A certain judge who administered Delaware justice here once upon a time (we will say it was a thousand years ago) was a very peculiar man in certain of his methods. I do not know whether he was merely fond of listening to the music of his own voice, as too many less reverend and awful men are, or whether he really loved to torture the prison¬ ers in the dock, when he sentenced them, by keeping them in suspense respecting his intentions, and by excit¬ ing hopes which he finally crushed. But he had a way of assuming a mild and be¬ nevolent aspect as he ad¬ dressed a convicted man which was very reassuring to the unhappy wight, and then he usually proceeded to deliver a few remarks which were so ingeniously arranged, which expressed such THE CASE OF BUSBY. 205 tender and affectionate sympathy, which were so highly charged with benevolence, so expressive, as it w T ere, of a passionate yearning for the welfare of the victim, that the latter at last would be convinced that the judge was about to give him an exceedingly light sentence. Just as he had gotten himself into a frame of mind suitable to the unex¬ pected brightness of his prospects, the judge’s custom was to bring his observations suddenly to an end, and to hurl at the head of the convict, still with that philanthropic expres¬ sion upon his countenance, the most frightful penalty per¬ mitted by the law. On a certain day, while a certain historian was in court, he was engaged in exercising a youth named Busby in this fashion. Busby, it appears, was accused of stealing seventy-five cents’ worth of old iron from somebody, and the jury had found him guilty. Busby was ordered to stand up, and the judge, permitting a peculiarly bland smile to play upon his features, gazed tenderly at the prisoner, while he placed a small pinch of tobacco in his mouth; and then, drawing a long breath, he began: “George Washington Busby, you have been found guilty by a jury of your fellow-countrymen of an offence against w society and against the peace and dignity of the common- 206 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. wealth of Delaware, and I have now to impose upon you the ' penalties provided by the law. I am very, very sorry to see you here, George, and it grieves my heart to be compelled to fulfill the obligation devolving upon me as a judicial officer. Pause, I entreat you, at this the very outset of your career, and reflect upon what you are casting from you. You are a young man; you are, as it were, in the very morning of your life; a bright and happy home is yours, and around you are the kind parents and friends who have made you the child of their prayers, who have guided your footsteps from infancy, who have loved and cherished you and made for you mighty sacrifices. “You have a mother”—and here the judge’s voice fal¬ tered and he wiped away a tear—“ a mother at whose knee you were taught to lisp your earliest devotions, and who has watched over you and ministered to you with that tender and fervent love that only a mother can feel. You have a father who looked upon you with a heart swelling with pride, and who gave to you the heritage of his honest name. Up to the time when, yield¬ ing to the insidious wiles of the tempter, you committed this crime, your character had been irreproachable, and it seemed as if the brightest promises of your childhood were to have rich and beneficent fulfillment. For you the vista of the future appeared serene and beautiful; a pure and noble manhood seemed to await you, and all the blessings which may be gained by an unspotted reputation, by persistent energy and by earnest devotion to the right were to be yours.” Here Busby began to feel considerably better. He was THE HOPEFULNESS OF BUSBY. 207 assured that such a kind old man as that could not treat him with severity, and he informed the tipstaff in a whis¬ per that he calculated now on about sixty days’ imprisonment at the furthest. The judge shifted the quid in his cheek, blew his nose, and resumed: ♦ “ How difficult it is, then, for me to determine the precise measure of your punishment! Knowing that the quality of mercy is not strained, and that as we forgive so shall we be forgiven, how painful it is for me to draw the line between undue leniency and the demands of outraged law! Considering, I say, all these things, that are so much in your favor—your youth, your happy home, where the holiest influences are shed upon your path, where parental love covers you with its most gracious benediction, where your devoted mother lies stricken with anguish at the sin of her idolized son, where your aged father has his gray hairs brought down in sorrow to the grave, where you have been nurtured and admonished and taught to do right—” “ Certainly he can’t intend to give me more than one month,” said Busby to the tipstaff. “ Considering that this is your first offence; that your conduct hitherto has been that of an honest young man, and that the lesson you have learned from this bitter and terrible experience will sink deeply into your 208 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. heart; that you have opening out to you in the possible future a life of usefulness and honor, with a prospect of re¬ deeming this single error and winning for yourself a re¬ spected name—” “ He can’t decently give me more than twenty days after that,” suggested Busby. The judge, after wiping the moisture from his eyes and borrowing a morsel of tobacco from the prosecuting attorney, continued: “ In view of all these extenuating circumstances, in view of the fact, fully recognized by this court, that justice is not revengeful, but exercises its highest prerogative in leading the fallen to reformation and moral improvement—in view, I say, of the fact that you are in the very spring-time of your existence, with the vista of the future opening out with alluring brightness before you and giving promise of higher and better things—in view of those sorrowing parents the child of whose prayers you are; of that mother who guided your infant steps and cared for you with the yearning tenderness of ma¬ ternal love, of that venerable father who looks upon you as the staff of his old age; considering, too, that this is your first misstep from the path of duty—” “ Two weeks as sure as death!” ex¬ claimed Mr. Busby, joyfully, to the officer beside him. “ The path of duty,” continued the judge, “ and that up to the moment of the commission of the deed you had been above suspicion and above reproach,—in view of all this,” remarked the judge, “ I have thought it my duty, minister of the law though I am, and bound though I CflRlfi BUSBY MORE HOPEFUL. 209 am by my oath to vindicate the insulted majesty of that law—” “ If he gives me more than one week, I will never trust signs again,” murmured Busby. “ I say that although I am bound to administer justice with an im¬ partial hand, I feel it to be incum¬ bent upon me in this particular instance, in consequence of these extenuating circumstances, to mete it out so that, while the law will be vindicated, you may be taught that it is not cruel or un- > kind, but rather is capable of giv¬ ing the first generous impulse to reformation.” “ He certainly means to let me off altogether,” exclaimed Busby. prisoned for six months in “ In view, then, of these mit¬ igating circumstances of your youth, your previous good cha¬ racter, your happy prospects, your afflicted parents and your own sincere repentance, the sentence of the courtis: That you, George Washington Bus¬ by, the prisoner at the bar, do pay seventy-five cents restitu¬ tion money and the costs of this trial, and that on Saturday next you be whipped with twenty lashes on the bare back, well laid on; that you be im- the county jail, and that you 210 OUT OF THE HURLY-BUBLY. wear a convict’s jacket in public for one year after your release. Sheriff, remove the prisoner from the court.” Then the judge beamed a mournful but sympathetic smile upon Busby, secured the loan of another atom of tobacco, spat on the floor and called up the next case. Mrs. Adeler, you laugh and say that I have indulged in gross exaggeration in reproducing the sentence. Not so. I tell you that I have known a boy of thirteen to have that condemnation, couched in almost precisely those words, hurled at him from the bench of the New Castle court-house because he stole a bit of iron said to be worth seventy-five cents. And I was present among the spectators in the jail yard when the sheriff lashed the lad until he writhed with pain. It was infamous—utterly infamous. I cannot, perhaps, justly accuse the judge who imposed the sentence upon the boy of indulging in the lecture which has just been quoted. That, as I have said, may be attributed to a magistrate who lived ten »centuries ago. But the sentence is genuine, and it was given recently. I do not blame the judge. He acted under the authority of statutes which were created by other hands. But the law is savagery itself, and the humane men of this State should sweep it from existence. CHAPTER XIV. A Delaware Legend— A Story of the Old Time—The Christmas Play— A Cruel Accusation—The Flight in the Darkness along the River Shore—The Trial and the Condemnation—St. Pillory’s Day seventy Years ago—Flogging a Woman—The Deliverance. HILE the scenes at the whipping-post on flogging- day are fresh in my mind, I have written down the story of Mary Engle. It is a Delaware legend, and the events of which it speaks occurred, I will say, seventy- odd years ago, when they were in the habit of lashing women in this very town of . New Castle. It was on Christmas day that a little party had as¬ sembled in the old Newton mansion to participate in the festivities for which, at this season of the year, it was famous all the country over. The house stood upon the river bank, three miles and more from New Castle, and in that day it was considered the greatest and handsomest building in the whole neighborhood. A broad lawn swept away from it down to the water’s edge, and in summer-time this was covered with bright-colored flowers and bounded by green hedges. Now the grass was bleached with the cold; the 211 / i * 212 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. hedges were brown and sere, and the huge old trees, stripped of their foliage, moaned and creaked and shivered in the wind, rattling their branches together as if seeking sympathy with each other in their desolation. Inside the mansion the scene was as cheerful as life and fun and high spirits could make it. Old Major Newton, the lord and master of all the wide estates, was one of the race of country gentlemen who intro¬ duced to this continent the manners, habits and large hospi¬ tality of the better class of English squires of his day. He was a mighty fox-hunter, as many a brush hung in his dining- hall could attest. A believer in the free use of the good things of life, his sideboard always contained a dozen de¬ canters, from which the coming, the remain¬ ing and the parting guests were expected to follow the major’s example in drinking deeply. His table was always profusely b supplied with good fare, and dining with him was the great duty and pleasure of the day. He was a gentleman in education, and to some extent in his tastes; but his manners partook of the coarseness of his time, for he swore fierce oaths, and his temper was quick, terrible and violent. His forty negro slaves were treated with indulgent kindness while they obeyed him implicitly, but any attempt at insubordination upon their part called down upon their heads a volley of oaths and that savage punishment which the major considered necessary to discipline. To-day the major had been out of spirits, and had not joined heartily in the hilarity of the company, which, despite the gloom of the master, made the old house ring with the merriment and laughter due to the happiness of Christmas time. At five o’clock dinner was done; and the ladies having withdrawn, the cloth was removed, the wine and whisky and AT THE TABLE. 213 apple-toddy, and a half dozen other beverages, were brought out, and the major, with his male guests, began the serious work of the repast. The major sat at the head of the table; Dr. Ricketts, a jolly bachelor of fifty, who neglected medi¬ cine that he might better spend his fortune in a life of ease and pleasure, presided at the lower end of the board, upon the flanks of which sat a dozen gentlemen from the neigh¬ boring estates, among them Tom Willitts, from the adjoin¬ ing farm, and Dick Newton, the major’s only son. The conversation languished somewhat. The major was as gloomy as he had been earlier in the day. Dick seemed to sympathize with his father. Torn Willitts was impatient to have the drinking bout over, that he might go to the par¬ lor, where his thoughts already wandered, and where his fiancee , Mary Engle, the fair governess in the major’s family, awaited him. The guests at last began to be depressed by the want of spirits in their host; and if it had not been for Doctor Ricketts, there would have been a dull time indeed. But the doctor was talkative, lively and wholly indifferent to the taciturnity of his companions. His Weakness was a fondness for theorizing, and he rattled on from topic to topic, heedless of anything but the portly 214 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. goblet which he replenished time and again from the decanter and the punch-bowl. At last he exclaimed, in the hope of rousing his host from his apparent despondency, “And now let’s have a song from the major. Give us the ‘ Tally Ho!’ Newton.” “I can’t sing it to-day, gentlemen,” said the major; “the fact is I am a good deal out of sorts. I have met with a misfortune, and I—” “Why, what’s happened?” exclaimed the whole company. “Why,” said the major, with an oath, “I’ve lost my famous old diamond brooch—a jewel, gentlemen, given to my father by George II.—a jewel that I valued more than all the world beside. It was the reward given to my father for a brave and gallant deed at the battle of Dettingen, and its rare intrinsic value was trifling beside that which it pos¬ sessed as the evidence of my father’s valor.” “ How did you lose it, major ?” asked the doctor. “ I went to my desk this morning, and found that the lock had been picked, the inside drawer broken open and the brooch taken from its box.” “ Who could have done it ?” “ I can’t imagine,” replied the major; “ I don’t think any of those niggers would have done such a thing. I’ve searched them all, but it’s of no use, sir—no use; it’s gone. But if I ever lay hands on the scoundrel, I’ll flay him alive—I will, indeed, even if it should be Dick there;” and the old man gulped down a heavy draught of port, as if to drown his grief. “My theory about such crimes,” said the doctor, “is that the persons committing them are always more or less insane.” “Insane!” swore the major, fiercely. “If I catch the man who did this, I’ll fit him for a hospital!” “ We are all a little daft at times—when we are angry, in THE LOVERS. 215 love, in extreme want, or excited by intense passion of any kind,” said the doctor. “Extreme ignorance, being neglect of one’s intellectual faculties, is a kind of insanity, and so is the perversion of the moral perceptions of those who are educated to a life of crime from their childhood. My theory is that punishment should be so inflicted as to restore reason, not merely to wreak vengeance.” “ And my theory is that every vagabond who breaks the laws ought to be flogged and imprisoned, so that he may know that society will not tolerate crime. Hang your fine¬ spun theories about the beggars who prey upon the commu¬ nity !” said the major, rising and kicking back his chair ill- naturedly. The doctor had nothing more to say, and the company withdrew to the parlor. There, gathered around the great fireplace, sat Mrs. New¬ ton, her daughters—both children—Mary Engle, their tutor, Mrs. Willitts and the wives of the gentlemen who had come from the dinner-table. They rose as the men entered the room, and greeted them cordially. Tom Willitts went quickly to Mary’s side, and while the others engaged in lively conversation he took her hand gently and, as was their privilege, they walked slowly up the room and sat by the window alone, Mary’s face brightening as she thanked Tom heartily for the beautiful present he had sent her the day before. “ Why don’t you wear it now, Mary ?” asked Tom. “ Do you want me to ? I will get it and put it on, then, when I go to my room,” said Mary. Mary Engle was the daughter of a widow in humble circum- 18 216 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. stances who lived in the village. Talented and well-edu¬ cated, she had determined no longer to be a burden upon her mother, but to support herself. She had chosen to be¬ come a governess in Major Newton’s family. Young, beau¬ tiful and of good social position, she was a valuable acquisi¬ tion to that household, and w r as a universal favorite, although the major could never quite rid himself of the notion that, as she was a dependant and an employ^, he was conferring a favor upon her by permitting such intimate relations to exist between her and his family. But he treated her kindly, as all men must a pretty woman. She was a girl with whom any man might have fallen in love upon first acquaintance. Dick Newton loved her passionately before she had been in his father’s house a month. But she had chosen rather to favor Tom Willitts, a constant visitor at the Newton mansion, and as fine a fellow as ever galloped across the country with the hounds. Dick had not had time to propose before the game was up and Tom called the prize his own. But Dick nursed his passion and smothered his disappointment, while he swore that he would possess the girl or involve her and her lover in common ruin with him¬ self. Tom had been engaged for three months before this Christmas day. He was to be married in the coming spring. There was to be a theatrical exhibition in the Newton mansion this Christmas evening, in which the young people were to participate. A temporary stage had been erected at one end of the long room, and at an early hour seats were placed in front of the curtain, and the guests took their places, conversing with much merriment and laughter until the bell gave the signal for the performance to begin. It was a little play—a brief comedy of only tolerable merit, and it devolved upon Mary Engle to enter first. She tripped in smiling, and began the recitation with a ACCUSED! 217 x vivacity and spirit that promised well for the excellence of her performance throughout. Upon her throat she wore a diamond brooch which blazed and flashed in the glare of the foot-lights. There was an exclamation of surprise on the part of the gentlemen present, and the sound startled Mary. She paused and looked around her inquiringly. Just then Major Newton caught sight of the brooch. With an ugly word upon his lips, he sprang from his seat and jumped upon the stage. “ Where did you get that ?” he demanded, fiercely, point¬ ing at the diamonds, his hand trembling violently. There was absolute silence in the room as Mary, pale and calm, replied: “ Why do you ask, sir ?” “ Where did you get that, I say? It was stolen from me. You are a thief!” In an instant she tore it from her dress and flung it upon the floor. The major leaped toward it and picked it up quickly. Mary covered her face with her hands, and the crimson of her cheeks shone through her fingers. “ Where did you get it ?” again demanded the major. “ I will not tell you, sir,” said she, dragging down her hands with an effort and clasping them in front of her. “ Then leave this house this instant, and leave it for ever!” said the major, wild with passion. Tom Willitts entered just as the last words were uttered. Mary seemed fainting. He flew to her side as if to defend her against her enemy. He did not know the cause of her trouble, but he glared at the major as if he could slay him. 218 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. But as he tried to place his arm around Mary, she shrank away from him; and giving him one look of scorn and con¬ tempt and hatred, she ran from the room. From the room to the great door in the hall, which, with frantic eagerness, she flung open, and then, without any covering upon her fair head, hot with shame and disgrace, and maddened with insult, she fled out into the cold and dark and desolate winter’s night. Scarcely heeding the direction, she reached the river’s shore; and choosing the hard sand for a pathway, she hur¬ ried along it. The tide swept up in ceaseless ripples at her feet, the waves breaking upon the icy fringe of the shore, each with a whisper that seemed to tell of her dishonor. The wind rustled the sedges upon the banks and filled them with voices that mocked her. The stars that lighted her upon her mad journey twinkled through the frosty air with an intelligence they had never before possessed. The lights, far out upon the river and in the distant town, danced up and down in the darkness as if beckoning her to come on to them and to destruction. Her brain was in a whirl. At first she felt an impulse to end her misery in the river. One plunge, and all this anguish and pain would be buried beneath those restless waters. Then the hope of vindication flashed upon her mind, and the awful sin and the cowardice of self-destruction rose vividly before her. She would seek her home and the mother from whom she should never have gone out. .ihe would give up happiness and humanity, and hide herself from the cold, heartless world for ever. She would have no more to do with false friends and false lovers, but would shut herself away from all this deceit and treachery and unkind¬ ness, and nevermore trust any human being but her own dear mother. And so, over the sandy beach, through mire and mud. HOME ONCE MORE. 219 through the high grass and the reeds of the water’s edge, tangled and dead, and full of peril in the darkness, with her hair disheveled and tossed about bv the riotous wind, but with not a tear upon her white face, she struggled on¬ ward through the night, until, exhausted with her journey, her wild passion and her misery, she reached her mother’s house, and entering, clasped her arms about her mother’s neck, and with a sob fell fainting at her feet. * . * * * * There was an end to merriment at the Newton mansion. When Mary ran from the room, the company stood for a moment amazed and bewildered, while the major, raging with passion, yet half ashamed of his furious conduct, walked rapidly up and down the stage, attempting to explain the theft to his guests and to justify his conduct. But Tom Willitts, shocked at the cruel treatment he had received from Mary, yet filled with righteous indignation at the major’s violence, interrupted his first utterance. 220 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ You are a coward and a brute, sir; and old as you are, I will make you answer for your infamous treatment of that young girl.” And before the major could reply he dashed out to pursue Mary and give her his protection. He sought her in vain upon the highway; and filled with bitterness,and wondering why she had so scorned him, he trudged on through the darkness, peering about him vainly for the poor girl for whom he would have sacrificed his life. “ Perhaps it was merely a jest,” suggested Mrs. Willitts. “ I think Mary wholly incapable of theft. She never could have intended seriously to keep the brooch.” “ A pretty serious jest,” said the major, “ to break into my desk three days ago. It’s the kind of humor that puts peo¬ ple in jail.” “ My theory about the matter,” said the doctor, “ is this: She either was made the victim of a pretty ugly practical joke, or else some one stole the jewel from you and gave it to her to get her into trouble.” “ I don’t believe anything of the kind,” said the major. “ It must be so. If she had stolen it, she certainly would not have worn it in your presence this evening. It is absurd to suppose such a thing. Taking this theory—” “ Hang theorizing!” exclaimed the major, seeing the force of this suggestion, but more angry that he was driven to admit it to his own mind. “ She is a thief, and as sure as 1 live she shall either confess, tell how she got the jewel or go to prison.” * “And as sure as I live,” said the doctor, grown indignant and serious, “ I will unravel this mystery and clear this in¬ nocent girl of this most infamous and wicked imputation.” “ Do it if you can!” said the major, and turned his back upon him contemptuously. The doctor left the house, and the company dispersed. 221 A SECRET. V eager gossips, all of them, to tell the story far and wide throughout the community before to-morrow’s noon. jK * * sf: When Mary had revived and told, in broken words, the story of her misery and disgrace, her mother soothed and comforted her with the assurance that she should never leave her again; and while she denounced Major Newton’s conduct bitterly, she said he would find that he had made a mistake and would clear her of the charge. “ But he will not find it out, mother.” “ Why ? Where did you get the brooch, Mary ?” “ Do not ask me, mother; I cannot, cannot tell you.” “ Had you merely picked it up and put it on in jest?” “No, no,” said Mary, “it was given to me, I cannot tell by whom, and I thought it was mine. It was cruel, cruel!” and her tears came again. “ And who was it that did so vile a thing ?” asked her mother. “ Mother, I cannot tell even you that.” “ But, Mary, this is foolish. You must not, for your own sake, for mine, hide the name of this criminal.” “ I will never, never tell. I will die first.” “Was it Tom Willitts?” “ You must not question me, mother,” said Mary, firmly. “ If the person who betrayed me is cowardly enough to place me in such a position, and then to stand coldly by and wit¬ ness my shame, I am brave enough and true enough to bear the burden. I would rather have this misery than his conscience.” Tom Willitts knocked at the door. “ If it is Tom Willitts, mother,” said Mary, rising, “ tell him I will not see him. Tell him never to come to this house again. Tell him,” she said, her eyes glowing with excitement, and stamping her foot upon the floor, “ tell him I 222 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. 9 hate him—hate him for a false, mean villain!” and she fell back upon the chair in a wild passion of tears. Mrs. Engle met Tom at the door. He was filled with anxiety and terror, but he rejoiced that Mary was safe. Mrs. Engle told him that Mary refused to see him. He was smitten with anguish, and begged for a single word with her. “ Do you know anything about this wicked business, Mr. Willitts ?” asked Mrs. Engle, suspicious, because of Mary’s words, that Tom was the criminal. “Upon my honor I do not. I heard Major Newton’s language, and saw the brooch upon the floor; and when Mary fled from me, I pursued her, wondering what it all meant.” “ She evidently suspects you of having been the cause of the trouble. Prove that you were not. Until then she will . not see you. I beg you, for yourself and her, to tell the truth about this, if you know it, or at least to persist till you discover it. Tom went away distressed and confounded. She sus¬ pected him. No wonder, then, she had spurned him so rudely. He thought the matter over, and could arrive at no solution of the difficulty. He had sent her a bracelet which she had promised to wear, but she had not worn it. It was impossible that this brooch could have been substi- • tuted. No, his own servant had given it to her, and brought her thanks in return. Besides, who could be base enough to play such a dastardly trick upon a pretty young girl ? He could not master the situation; and in his trouble he went the next morning to Dr. Ricketts. The doctor was equally puzzled, but he was certain that there was foul play somewhere. He had pledged himself to unravel the mystery, and he began the work by visiting Mary. Alone, he went to her house. He found it in AN IMPENETRABLE MYSTERY. 223 strange commotion. Mrs. Engle was sitting upon the sofa, crying bitterly; Mary, with pale, sad face, but with an air of determination, confronted an obsequious man, who, with many apologies and a manner that proved that he was ashamed of his business, extended a paper toward her, and requested her to accompany him. It was a constable w T ith a warrant for her arrest. Nearly five weary months were to pass before the cruel time of the trial. Dr. Ricketts busied himself examining every one who could possibly have been connected with the affair of the brooch, but with no result but a deeper mystery. Tom’s servant swore that he had given the bracelet into Mary’s own hand. Two of the house servants at Major Newton’s were present at the time, and they were certain the package was not broken. Mary’s thimble had been found under the broken desk in which the brooch was kept, and the housemaid had discovered a chisel secreted behind some books in the bookcase in her room. The evidence, slight though it was, pointed to Mary as the criminal, despite the absurdity of the supposition, in view of the manner in which she had worn the jewel. Mary herself preserved an obstinate silence, refusing to tell how or where or from whom she procured the fatal brooch. The doctor was bewildered and confounded, and he at last gave up his inquiries in despair, hoping for a gracious verdict from the jury at the trial. Through all the weary time Mary kept closely at home, secluded from friends and acquaintances. Indeed, visitors were few in number now. She was in humble circumstances, and she was in disgrace. Society always accounts its mem¬ bers guilty until their innocence is proved. There were people in the town who had been jealous of her beauty, her popularity, her place in the affections of rich Tom Wil- litts, and these did not hesitate to hint, with a sneer, that 224 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. they had always doubted the reported excellence of Mary Engle, and to assert their belief in her guilt. Tom Willitts was nearly crazed about her treatment of him and the ignominy that was heaped upon her. With Dr. Ricketts and Dick Newton, who professed intense anxi¬ ety to help solve the matter, he strove valiantly to clear her of the charge, but without avail. The day of the trial came. The court-room was crowded. Able lawyers on both sides sparred with each other, as able lawyers do, but the heart of the prosecuting attorney was evidently not with his work. His duty was clear, however, and the evidence was overwhelming. The defence had nothing to offer but Mary’s good character and her ap¬ pearance before the company with the brooch upon her person. The judge was compelled to instruct the jury against the prisoner. An hour of anxious suspense, and they returned a verdict of “ guilty.” Mrs. Engle began to sob violently. Mary drew her veil aside from a face that was ashen white, but not a muscle quivered until the judge pronounced the sentence : “Costs of prosecution, a fine of one hundred dollars, twenty lashes upon the bare back on the Saturday fol¬ lowing, and imprisonment for one year.” Mary fell to the floor insensible, and Dr. Ricketts, raising her in his arms, applied restoratives. She was removed to the jail to await her punishment. The doctor mounted his horse and sped away in hot haste forty miles to Dover. He had influence with the governor. He would procure a pardon, and then have Mary taken away from the scene of her tribulation—where her suffering and disgrace would be forgotten, and she would be at peace. He was unsuccessful. The governor was a just, not a mer¬ ciful, man. The law had been outraged. Twelve good jnen DICK CONFESSES. 225 and true had said so. If people committed crimes, they must submit to the penalty. Society must be protected. The in¬ telligence and social position of the criminal only made the demands of justice more imperative. If he pardoned Mary Engle, men would rightly say that the poor and friendless and weak were punished, while the influential and rich es¬ caped the law. He must do his duty to Delaware and to her people. He could not grant the pardon. But there was to be another appeal to executive mercy. It was the night before the punishment. The doctor sat in his parlor, before the glowing fire in the grate, and with his head resting upon his hand he thought sadly of the pitiful scene he had witnessed in the jail from which he had just come— of Mary, in the damp, narrow cell, bearing herself like a heroine through all this terrible trial, and still keeping a secret which the doctor felt certain would give her back her freedom and her good name if it could be disclosed; of Mrs. Engle, full of despair and terror, crying bitterly over the shame and disgrace that had come upon her child, and which would be increased beyond endurance on the morrow. As the doctor’s kind old heart gfew heavy with these thoughts, and from the bewildering maze of circumstances he tried to evolve some theory that promised salvation, Dick Newton entered. He was haggard and pale, and his eyes were cast down to the floor. “Why, Dick, what’s the matter?” asked the doctor. “ Dr. Ricketts, I have come to make a shameful con¬ fession. I—” “Well?” said the doctor, suspiciously and impatiently, as Dick’s voice faltered. “ I will not hesitate about it,” said Dick, hurriedly; “ I am afraid it is even now too late. I stole the diamond brooch.” 226 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ What ?” exclaimed the doctor, jumping to his feet in a frenzy of indignant excitement. “ I am the cause of all this trouble. It was my fault that Mary Engle was accused and convicted, and it will be my fault if she is punished. Oh, doctor, cannot something be done to save her ? I never intended it should go so far.” “ You infamous scoun drel!” said the doctor, un. able to restrain his scorn and contempt; “ why did you not say this before? Why did you permit all this misery and shame to fall upon the defenceless head of a woman for whom an honest man should have was this villainy consum¬ mated ? Tell me, quickly!” The poor wretch sank upon his knees, and with a trem¬ bling voice exclaimed, “I loved her. I hated Tom Willitts. He sent her a bracelet. I knew it would come. I broke open father’s cabinet and took his brooch. With threats and money I induced Tom’s servant to lend me the box for a few moments before he entered the house. I placed the brooch in it. She thought it came from Tom, and she resolved to die rather than betray him, although she thinks him the cause of her ruin. It was vile and mean and wicked in me, but I thought Tom would be the victim, not she; and when the trouble came, I could not endure the shame of exposure. But you will save her now, doctor, will you not ? I will fly—leave sacrificed his very life? How FLOGGING-BAY. 227 the country—kill myself—anything to prevent this awful crime.” The miserable man burst into tears. Dr. Ricketts looked at him a moment with eyes filled with pity and scorn, and then said, “ So my theory was right, after all. Come, sir, you will go to the governor with me, and we will see if he will grant a pardon upon your confession.” “ What, to-night ?” asked Dick. “Yes, to-night—now; and it will be well for you and your victim if fleet horses carry us to Dover and back before ten to-morrow morning.” In five minutes the pair were seated in a carriage, and through the black night they sped onward, the one with his heart swelling with hope, joy and humanity, the other cow¬ ering in the darkness, full of misery and self-contempt, and of horrible forebodings of the future. BMB ■< qMg -vlv ■'T* 'T' *7* Saturday morning—a cold, raw, gusty morning in May. The town was in a small uproar. Men lounged on the porches of the taverns, in front of which their horses were hitched, talking politics, discussing crop prospects, the prices of grain, the latest news by coach and schooner from Philadelphia. Inside the bar-room men were reading news¬ paper's a month old, drinking, swearing and debating with loud voices. But the attraction that morning was in another quarter. In the middle of the market street there was a common—a strip of green sod twenty feet wide fringed on either side with a row of trees. In the centre of this stood the whipping-post and pillory. The hour of ten tolled out from the steeple down the street. It was the same bell that called the people together on Sunday to worship God and to supplicate his mercy. It 19 228 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. was a bell of various uses. It summoned the saints to prayer and the sinners to punishment. At its earliest stroke the jailer issued from the prison with a forlorn-looking white man in his clutches. He hurried his prisoner up the ladder, and prepared to fasten him in the pil¬ lory. The boys below collected in knots, and fingered the mis¬ siles in their hands. The jailer descended. A boy lifted his hand and flung a rotten egg at the pilloried wretch. It hit him squarely in the face, and the feculent contents streamed down to his chin. That was the signal. Eggs, dead cats, mud, stones, tufts of sod and a multitude of filthy things were showered upon the prisoner, until the platform was covered with the debris. He yelled with pain, and strove vainly to shake from his face the blood that streamed forth from the cut skin and the filth that be¬ smeared it. The crowd hooted at him and laughed at 'His efforts, and called him vile names, and jested w’ith him about his wooden collar and cuffs, and no human heart in all that assembly had any pity for him. For an hour he stood there, enduring inconceivable torture. When the steeple clock struck eleven, he was taken out in wretched plight, almost helpless and sorely wounded. No more pil¬ lory that day. It was the turn of the whipping-post now. There were two women to be whipped, one of them white, the other black. AVe know who the white woman was. The negro was to suffer first. She was dragged from the jail wild with fright and apprehension. Around her legs a soiled skirt of calico dangled. About her naked body, stripped for the sacrifice, a fragment of carpet was hung. The jailer brought her by main force to the post through the jeering crowd, and while she begged wildly, almost incoherently, for mercy, promising vague, impossible things, the officer of the law clasped the iron cuffs about her uplifted hands, so that \ / I fee Ifbrtry oi '•Jjpt+rti ty of IffUvdtf " i THE LASH FALLS. 231 she was compelled to stand upon her toes to escape unendur¬ able agony. The blanket was torn from her shoulders, and with dilated eyes glistening with terror, she turned her head half around to where the sheriff stood, ready to execute the law. This virtuous officer felt the sharp thongs of his “cat” complacently as he listened with dull ear to the incessant prayers of the woman; and when the jailer said, “Forty lashes, sheriff,” the cat was swung slowly up, and the ends of the lashes touched the victim’s back, bringing blood at the first blow. The crowd laughed and applauded. The sheriff accepted the applause with the calm indifference of a man who feels the greatness of his office and has confidence in his own skill. As the lashes came thick and fast, the skin swelled up into thick purple ridges, and then the blood spurted out in crimson streams, flowing down upon the wretched skirt and staining it with a new and dreadful hue. The woman’s piercing screams rang out upon the air and filled some kind hearts with tender pity. But as it was a “ nigger,” the tend¬ ency to human kindness was smothered. Beneath the blows she writhed and contorted and shrank forward, until at last, faint with loss of blood, with terrible pain and nervous exhaustion, she sank helplessly down and hung by her arms alone. At first the sheriff thought he would postpone the rest of the punishment until she recovered. But there were only five more lashes to be given, and he con¬ cluded that it would be as well to finish up the job. They were inflicted upon the insensible form, and then the jailer came forward with a pair of shears. The sheriff took them coolly and clipped away a portion of the woman’s ears. Her hands were then unshackled; and bleeding, mutilated, uncon¬ scious, she was carried into the prison. 232 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Her agonized cries had penetrated those walls already and brought a whiter hue to the pale cheeks of the woman who by this ignominy had learned her sisterhood with the poor black. There were two other women in the cell, Mrs. Engle and Mrs. Willitts. The former controlled herself for her daughter’s sake, but dared speak no word to her. Mrs. Willitts, through her tears, tried to comfort Mary as with hesitating hands she disrobed her for her torture: “ The day will come, Mary dear, when you will be vindi¬ cated, and these wicked men will hide their heads with bitter shame and humiliation. But bear up bravely, dear. Have good courage through it all. Perhaps it will not be so hard. 1 Though there be heaviness for a night, joy cometh in the morning.’ We will all be happy together yet some day.” Mary Engle stood there, speechless, statue-like, immov¬ able, as they took away her garments, and her fair white skin glistened in the dim light. It was almost time. The black woman was being dragged through the door to the next cell. The murmur of the crowd came up from the street. Mrs. Willitts placed the blanket upon those ivory shoulders, and Mary, turning to her mo¬ ther, flung her arms about her and kissed her. In a whisper she said, “ I shall die, mother. I will not live through it. I will never see you again.” But there was not a tear in her eye. Wrapping the blanket tightly about her, with the calmness of despair she prepared to step from the cell at the call of the impatient jailer. A great commotion in the streets. The noise of horse’s hoofs. A din of voices; then a wild cheer. Dr. Bicketts dashed in, flourishing a paper in his hand. “ She is pardoned! pardoned !” he shouted; “ go back ! take her back!” he said as the jailer laid his hand upon Mary. “See this/” and he flung the paper open in his face. OUT OF PRISON. 233 The long agony was oyer, and the reaction was so great that Mary Engle, hardly conscious of the good thing that had happened to her, and not fully realizing the events by which her innocence was proved, stood stupefied and bewil¬ dered. Then she felt faint, and laying her upon the low bed, they told her all the story; and when the doctor said that Tom was not a guilty man, she turned her face to the wall to hide the blinding tears, and she muttered: “ Thank God! thank God for that!” As she came out of the prison doors, leaning on the doc¬ tor’s arm, the crowd, now largely increased, hailed her with a hurrah, but Mary drew her veil over her face and shud¬ dered as she thought how these very people had assembled to see her flogged. iy* . 234 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ It is my theory, my dear,” said the doctor, “ that human beings are equally glad when their fellow-creatures get into trouble and when they get out of it.” Back once again in her old home, Mary was besieged by friends whose regard had suddenly assumed a violent form, and who were now eager to congratulate her upon her vin¬ dication. Tom Willitts came to the door and inquired for Mrs. Engle. “ Can I come in now ?” he inquired, with a glow upon his face. He did go in, and there, before them all, he clasped Mary in his arms, while she begged him to forgive her for all the suffering she had caused him. But Tom wanted to be forgiven, too; and as both confessed guilt, repentance and an earnest wish to be merciful, they were soon better friends than ever. “ I used to love you,” said Tom, “ but now I worship you for your heroism and your sacrifice for me.” There was another visitor. Old Major Newton entered the room, hat in hand, and with bowed head. The lines in his face were deeper and harder than usual, but he looked broken and sad. He went up to Mary and said as he stood before her with downcast eyes: “ I have come to ask pardon for my brutality and cruelty. The injury I did to you I can never atone for. I shall carry my remorse to the grave. But if you have any word of pity for an old man whose son has fled from home a scoundrel and a villain, and who stands before you broken-hearted, ready to kiss your feet for your angelic goodness and your noble self-sacrifice, say it, that I may at least have that comfort in my desolation.” And Mary took the old man’s hard hands in hers and AN ANNIVERSARY. 235 spoke kind and gentle words to him; and with tears coursing down his rough cheeks, he kissed her dainty fingers and went out, and back to his forlorn and wretched home. There was another Christmas night a few months later, and this time the merry-making was going on in the Willitts mansion. There were two brides there. Mary and Tom Willitts were busy helping the children with their Christmas games, and keeping up the excitement as if no sorrow had ever come across their path ; while seated at the upper end of the room, Dr. Ricketts and his wife (Mrs. Engle that had been), looking upon the younger pair with pride and pleasure, touched only now and then with a sad memory of the troubled times that were gone by for ever. And when the games were all in full progress, Tom and his wife watched them for a while, and then he drew her arm through his, and they went to the porch and looked out upon the river beating up against the ice-bound shore, just as it did on that night one year ago. But it had a different language to Mary’s ears now. It was full of music, but music that seemed in a minor key, as the remembrance of that wild flight along the shore came up vividly in her mind. Neither spoke for a while, but each knew that the thoughts of the other went over all the misery and terror of the past, only to rest satisfied with the calm, sweet happiness of the present. Mary, clasping her husband’s arm tighter in her grasp, looked with unconscious eyes out over the broad river, while her lips slowly repeated that grand old hymn of comfort and hope: 236 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY “ There is a day of peace and rest For sorrow’s dark and dreary night; Though grief may bide an evening guest. Yet joy shall come with morning light. “ The light of smiles shall beam again From lids that now o’erflow with tears, And weary days of woe and pain Are earnests of serener years.” % CHAPTER XV. A Very Disagreeable Predicament—Wild Exultation of Parker— He makes an Important Announcement—An Interview with the Old Man—The Embarrassment of Mr. Sparks, and how he Overcame it — A Story of Bishop Potts—The Miseries of too much Marriage— How Potts Suffered, and what his End was. AST evening, after waiting until eleven o’clock for Mr. Parker to come home, I went to bed. I had hardly composed my¬ self for slumber when I thought I heard the door-bell ring; and supposing Bob had forgotten his latch-key, I descended for the purpose of letting him in. When I opened the door, no one was upon the porch ; and although I was dressed simply in a night-shirt, I stepped out just beyond the doorway for the purpose of ascertaining if I could see any one who might have pulled the bell. Just as I did so the wind banged the door shut, and as it closed it caught a portion of my raiment which was fluttering about, and held it fast. I was somewhat amused at first, and I laughed as I tried to pull the muslin from the door; but after making very violent exertion for that purpose, I 237 238 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. discovered that the material would not slip through. The garment was held so firmly that it could not possibly be re¬ moved. Then I determined to reach over to the other side of the doorway and pull the bell, in the hope that some one would hear it and come to my assist¬ ance. But to my dismay I found that the doorway was so wide that even with the most desperate effort I could not suc¬ ceed in touching the bell-knob with the tips of my fingers. Meantime, I was beginning to freeze, for the night was very cold, and my legs and feet were wholly unprotected. At last a happy thought struck me. I might very easily creep out of the shirt and leave it hanging in the door until I rang the bell, and then I could slip back again and await the result. Accordingly, I began to withdraw from the gar¬ ment, and I had just freed myself from it and was about to pull the bell when I heard some one coming down the street. As the moon was shining brightly, I became panic-stricken, and hurried into the garment again. In my confusion I got TROUSERS AND THE SOUL. 239 it on backward, and found myself with my face to the wall; and then the person who was coming turned down the street just above my house, and didn’t pass, after all. I was afraid to try the ex¬ periment again, and I deter¬ mined to shout for help. I ut¬ tered one cry, and waited for a response. It w T as a desperately cold night. I think the air must have been colder than it ever w T as before in the his¬ tory of this continent. I stamped my feet in order to keep the blood in circulation, and then I shouted again for assistance. The river lay white and glistening in the light of the moon, and so clear was the atmosphere, so lustrous the radiance of the orb above, that I could plainly distinguish the dark line of the Jersey shore. It was a magnificent spectacle, and I should have enjoyed it intensely if I had had my clothing on. Then I began to think how very odd it was that a man’s appreciation of the glorious majesty of nature should be dependent upon his trousers! how strange it was that cold legs should prevent an immor¬ tal soul from having felicity! Man is always prosaic when he is uncomfortable. Even a slight indigestion is utterly destructive of sentiment. I defy any man 240 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. to enjoy the fruitiest poetry while his corns hurt him, or to feel a genuine impulse of affection while he has a severe cold in his head. Then I cried aloud again for help, and an immediate re¬ sponse came from Cooley’s new dog, which leaped over the fence and behaved as if it meditated an assault upon my defenceless calves. I was relieved from this dreadful situation by Bob, who came up the street whistling and singing in an especially joy¬ ous manner. H e was a little frightened, I think, when he saw a figure in white upon the porch, and he paused for a moment be¬ fore opening the gate, but he entered when I called to him; and unlocking the door with his key, he released me, and went up stairs laughing heartily at my mishap. I was about to retire when I heard a series of extraordinary sounds in Bob’s room overhead, and I thought it worth while to go up and ascertain what was going on. Standing out¬ side the door, I could hear Bob chuckling and making use of such exclamations as, “ Bul-l-e-e-e / Ha! ha! All right, my boyl All right! You’ve fixed that, I guess! Bul-l-e-e-e-e-e /” Then he seemed to be executing a hornpipe in his stockings upon the carpet; and when.this a | exercise was concluded, he continued the con- versation with himself in such tones as these: EXUBERANT JOY OF BOB. 241 chR Sc “ How are you, Smiley! No chance, hadn’t I? Couldn’t make it, couldn’t I ? I know a thing or two, I reckon. How are you, Lieutenant Smil-e-e-e-e / Ha ! ha! I’ve settled your case, I guess, my boy! Bully for you, Parker! You’ve straight¬ ened that out, anyhow. Yes, sir! Ha! ha! Fol de rol de rol de rol,” etc., etc. (second performance of the hornpipe, accompanied by whistling and new expressions of in¬ tense satisfaction). I went down stairs with a solemn conviction that Mr. Parker had explained himself to Miss Magruder, and had received an answer from her that was wholly satis¬ factory. I did not reveal the secret to Mrs. Adeler, concluding that it would be better to permit Bob to do that himself in the morning. Parker rose about two hours earlier than usual, and I entertain a suspicion that he expended a portion of the time in going down the street to examine the exterior of Mr. Magruder’s house. It probably gave him some satisfaction merely to view the tenement wherein his fair enslaver reposed. He came to the breakfast-table with a radiant countenance, and it was evident that he would be unable to contain the news for many moments longer. In order to prepare the way for him, I asked him: “ Why were you so late last night, Bob?” 20 ***<;<:—- 242 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ Oh, I had some important business on hand. Big things have been happening ; I have some news to tell you.” “ Another railroad accident ?” I asked, carelessly, “ or a riot in Philadelphia ?” “ Riot ? no! Thunder !” exclaimed Bob; “ nothing of that kind. It’s something more important. You know old Smiley—Fiji Island Smiley? Well, Pve floored him; I’ve laid him out flat; I’ve knocked him into diminutive smith¬ ereens.” “ Had a personal encounter with the lieutenant ?” I asked, gravely. “ No, sir! better than that. I’ve cut him out down at Magruder’s. Bessie and I are engaged! What do you think of that, Max ?” 7 » “Think of it? Why, I congratulate you heartily. You have secured a treasure.” “ And I congratulate you, too,” said Mrs. A. “ Bessie is a very fine girl, and will make you a good wife.” “ That’s what I think about it,” observed Mr. Parker. “ I am very glad Lieutenant Smiley didn’t succeed there,” said Mrs. A. “ Smiley! Smiley!” exclaimed Bob, scornfully. “ Why, he never had the ghost of a chance. Bessie told me last night she despised him. She wouldn’t look at such a man as he is.” “ Not while such men as you are around, at any rate, I suppose ?” “ When are you going to speak to Bessie’s father ?” asked Mrs. Adeler. A cloud suddenly passed over Bob’s face, and he said: “ I don’t know. I have to do it, I s’pose, but I hate it worse than I can tell you. I believe I’d rather propose to a woman a dozen times than to broach the matter to a stern parent once. It’s all well enough to express your feelings HOW THE OLD MAN TOOK IT. 243 to a woman who loves you ; but when you come to explain the matter to a cold-blooded, matter-of-fact old man who is as prosy as a boiled turnip, it seems kind of ridiculous.” “ Why don’t you speak to Mrs. Dr. Magruder, then ? She is a power in that family.” “ No; I’ll talk to Mr. Magruder. It’s hard, but it has to be done. And see here, Max, don’t you poke fun at Mrs. Magruder. She’s a first-rate woman, and those things Dr. Jones told about her are the most rascally kind of lies. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go down and see the old man now. I might as well settle the thing at once.” This evening, while we were waiting for tea, Bob made a report. The paternal Magruder, it seems, had already con¬ sidered the subject carefully, and was not by any means as much surprised by Mr. Parker’s statement as the latter ex¬ pected he would be. Bob was amazed to find that although the old gentleman during the courtship had appeared wholly unconscious of the fact that his daughter was particularly intimate with the youth, yet somehow he seemed now to have had all the time a very clear perception of the state of the case. “ I thought he would get excited and, maybe, show a lit¬ tle emotion,” said Bob, “ but blame me if he didn’t sit there and take it as coolly as if such things happened to him every day. And you know, when I began to tell him how much I thought of Bessie, he soused down on me and brought me back to prose with a question about the size of my income. But it’s all right. He said he would be glad to have me a member of his family, and then he called in Bessie, and gave us a kind of a blessing and advised us not to be in a hurry about getting married.” “Very good advice, too. There is no need of haste. You ought to have plenty of time to think the matter over.” 244 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ Think it over!” exclaimed Bob, indignantly. “ Why, I have thought it over. You don’t suppose I’d be such a fool as to engage myself to a girl without thinking seriously about it?” “Certainly not; but marriage is a very solemn thing, and it should be undertaken advisedly. It is probable, I sup¬ pose, that you would never, under any circumstances, marry any woman but Bessie Magruder ?” “ Nev-er; no, never I” “You don’t believe in second marriages, then?” “ Certainly not.” “ They do get a man into trouble very often. Did I ever tell you about old Sparks, of Pencadder Hundred ?” “ I think not,” said Bob. “ Well, old Sparks was married four times; and several years after the death of his last wife they started a new cem¬ etery up there at Pencadder. Sparks bought a lot, and determined to remove his sacred dust from the old graveyard. Somehow or other, in taking the remains over to the cemetery in the wagon, they were hope¬ lessly mixed together, so that it was utterly impossible to tell which was which. Any other man than Sparks would c HR sT EXTINGUISHED SPARKS. 245 simply have taken the chances of having the reinterments properly made. But he was an extremely conscientious man; and when the sepulture was completed, he had a lot of new headstones set in, bearing such inscriptions as these: * Here lies Jane (and probably part of Susan) Sparks ‘ Sacred to the memory of Maria (to say nothing of Jane and Hannah) Sparks.’ “ 1 Stranger, pause and drop a tear, For Susan Sparks lies buried here ; Mingled, in some perplexing manner, With Jane, Maria and portions of Hannah.’ ” “ Don’t it seem a little bit rough,” said Bob, “ to bring in such a story as that in connection with my engagement ? I don’t like it.” “ Pardon me, Bob. Perhaps it was neither gracious nor in good taste, but somehow I just happened to think of old Sparks at that moment. I am sure, though, you won’t object to another narrative which I am going to read to you upon the subject of too frequent marriage. It is the story of Bishop Potts. Do you feel like hearing it ?” “Well, no,” said Bob, gloomily, “to tell you the truth,I don’t; but I suppose I will have to hear it, so go ahead.” “ Yes, I am going to inflict it upon you whether you want it or not. A man who is meditating matrimony, and is in a hurry, needs the influence of a few 1 awful examples ’ to induce him to proceed slowly. Here is the story. The hero was a dignitary in the Mormon Church, and his suffer¬ ings were the result of excessive marriage. The tale is entitled “ Bishop Potts. “Bishop Potts, of Salt Lake City, was the husband of three wives and the father of fifteen interesting children. 246 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Early in the winter the bishop deter¬ mined that his little ones should have a good time on Christmas, so he concluded to take a trip down to San Francisco to see what he could find in the shape of toys with which to gratify and amuse them. The good bishop packed his carpet¬ bag, embraced Mrs. Potts one by one and kissed each of her affectionately, and started upon his journey. “ He was gone a little more than a week, when he came back with fifteen brass trumpets in his valise for his darlings. He got out of the train at Salt Lake, thinking how joyous it would be at home on Christmas morning when the fifteen trumpets should be in operation upon different tunes at the same moment. But just as he entered the depdt he saw a group of women standing in the ladies’ room apparently wait¬ ing for him. As soon as he approached, the whole twenty of them rushed up, threw their arms about his neck and kissed him, exclaiming: “‘Oh, Theodore, we are so, so glad you have come back! W elcome home! Welcome, dear Theodore, to the bosom of your family!’ and then the entire score of them fell upon his neck and cried over his shirt front and mussed him. THE BISHOP IS SURPRISED. 247 “ The bishop seemed surprised and embarrassed. Strug¬ gling to disengage himself, he blushed and said: “ ‘ Really, ladies, this kind of thing is well enough—it is interesting and all that; but there must be some kind of a —that is, an awkward sort of a—excuse me, ladies, but there seems to be, as it were, a slight misunderstanding about the—I am Bishop Potts.’ ‘‘‘We know it, we know it, dear,’ they exclaimed, in chorus, ‘ and we are glad to see you safe at home. We have all been very well while you were away, love.’ “ ‘ It gratifies me,’ remarked the bishop, ‘ to learn that none of you have been a prey to disease. I am filled with serenity when I contemplate the fact; but really, I do not understand why you should rush into this railway station and hug me because your livers are active and your digestion good. The precedent is bad; it is dangerous !’ “‘Oh, but we didn’t!’ they exclaimed, in chorus. ‘We came here to welcome you because you are our husband.’ “ ‘ Pardon me, but there must be some little—that is to say, as it were, I should think not. Women, you have mis¬ taken your man!’ “ ‘ Oh no!’ they shouted; ‘ we were married to you while you were away!’ “ ‘ What!’ exclaimed the bish¬ op ; ‘ you don’t mean to say •that—’ “ ‘ Yes, love. Our husband, William Brown, died on Monday, and on Thursday, Brigham had a vision in which he was directed to seal us to you; and so he per¬ formed the ceremony at once by proxy.’ “ ‘ Th-th-th-th-under!’ observed the bishop. 248 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. “ ‘ And we are all living with you now—we and the dear children.’ “ ‘ Children ! children!’ exclaimed Bishop Potts, turning pale; * you don’t mean to say that there is a pack of chil¬ dren, too?’ “ ‘ Yes, love, but only one hundred and twenty-five, not counting the eight twins and the triplet.’ “ ‘ Wha-wha-wha-what d’you say ?’ gasped the bishop, in a cold perspiration; ‘one hundred and twenty-five! One hundred and twenty-five children and twenty more wives! It is too much—it is awful!’ and the bishop sat down and groaned, while the late Mrs. Brown, the bride, stood around in a semicircle and fanned him with her bonnets, all except the red-haired one, and she in her trepidation made a futile effort to fan him with the coal-scuttle. “But after a while the bishop became reconciled to his new alliance, knowing well that protests would be unavail¬ ing, so he walked home, holding several of the little hands of the bride, while the red-haired woman carried his umbrella and marched in front of the parade to remove obstructions and to scare off small boys. “ When the bishop reached .the house, he went around among the cradles which filled the back parlor and the two second-story rooms, and attempted with such earnestness to become acquainted with his new sons and daughters that he set the whole one hundred and twenty-five and the twins to crying, while his own original fifteen stood around and swelled the volume of sound. Then the bishop went out THE SECOND JOURNEY. 249 and sat on the garden fence to whittle a stick and solemnly think, while Mrs. Potts distrib¬ uted herself around and soothed the children. It occurred to the bishop while he mused, out there on the fence, that he had not enough trumpets to go around among the children as tne family now stood; and so, rather than seem to be partial, he deter- mineci to go back to San Francisco for one hundred and forty-four more. “ So the bishop repacked his carpet-bag, and began again to bid farewell to his family. He tenderly kissed all of the Mrs. Potts who were at home, and started for the depot, while Mrs. Potts stood at the various windows and waved her handkerchiefs at him—all except the woman with the warm hair, and she, in a fit of absent-mindedness, held one of the twins by the leg and brandished it at Potts as he 4 fled down the street toward the railway station. “ The bishop reached San Francisco, completed his pur¬ chases, and was just about to get on the train with his one hundred and forty-four trum¬ pets, when a telegram was handed him. It contained in¬ formation to the effect that the auburn-haired Mrs. Potts had just had a daughter. This induced the bishop to return to the city for the purpose of purchasing an addi¬ tional trumpet. “On the following Saturday he returned home. As he approached his house a swarm of young children flew out of the front gate and ran toward him, shouting, ‘ There’s pa! 250 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Here comes pa! Oh, pa, but we’re glad to see you! Hur¬ rah for pa!’ etc., etc. “The bishop looked at the children as they flocked around him and clung to his legs and coat, and was aston¬ ished to perceive that they were neither his nor the late Brown’s. He said, ‘You youngsters have made a mis¬ take ; I am not your father;’ and the bishop smiled good- naturedly. “ ‘ Oh yes, you are, though!’ screamed the little ones, in chorus. “ ‘ But I say I am not,’ said the bishop, severely, and frowning; ‘ you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Don’t you know where little story-tellers go? It is scandalous ANOTHER WEDDING. 251 for you to violate the truth in this manner. My name is Potts/ “‘Yes, we know it is/ exclaimed the children—‘we know it is, and so is ours; that is our name now, too, since the wedding/ “‘Since what wedding?’ demanded the bishop, turning pale. “ ‘ Why, ma’s wedding, of course. She was married yes¬ terday to you by Mr. Young, and we are all living at your house now with our new little brothers and sisters/ “ The bishop sat down on the nearest front-door step and wiped away a tear. Then he asked, “ ‘ Who was your father ?’ “ ‘ Mr. Simpson/ said the crowd, ‘ and he died on Tues¬ day/ ' “ ‘ And how many of his infernal old widows—I mean how many of your mother—are there ?’ “ ‘Only twenty-seven/ replied the children, ‘and there are only sixty-four of us, and we are awful glad you have come home/ “ The bishop did not seem to be unusually glad ; somehow, he failed to share the enthusiasm of the occasion. There ap¬ peared to be, in a certain sense, too much sameness about these surprises; so he sat there with his hat pulled over his eyes and considered the situation. Finally, seeing there was no help for it, he went up to the house, and forty-eight of Mrs. Potts rushed up to him and told him how the prophet had another vision, in which he was commanded to seal Simpson’s widow to Potts. “ Then the bishop stumbled around among the cradles to his writing-desk. He felt among the gum rings and rattles for his letter-paper, and then he addressed a note to Brigham, asking him as a personal favor to keep awake until after Christmas. ‘ The man must take me for a foundling hospi 252 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. tal,’ he said. Then the bishop saw clearly enough that if he gave presents to the other children, and not to the late Simpson’s, the bride would make things warm for him. So he started again for San Francisco for sixty- four more trumpets, while Mrs. Potts gradually took leave of him in the entry— all but the red-haired wo¬ man, who was up stairs, and who had to be satisfied with screeching good-bye at the top of her voice. “ On his way home, after his last visit to San Francisco, the bishop sat in the car by the side of a man who had left Salt Lake the day before. The stranger was communica¬ tive. In the course of the conversation he remarked to the bishop: “ ‘ That was a mighty pretty little affair up there at the city on Monday.’ “ ‘ What affair ?’ asked Potts. “‘ Why, that wedding; McGrath’s widow, you know— married by proxy.’ “‘You don’t say?’ replied the bishop. ‘I didn’t know McGrath was dead.’ “ ‘ Yes; died on Sunday, and that night Brigham had a vision in which he was ordered to seal her to the bishop.’ “ ‘ Bishop!’ exclaimed Potts. ‘ Bishop! What bishop ?’ “ ‘ Well, you see, there were fifteen of Mrs. McGrath and eighty-two children, and they shoved the whole lot off on old Potts. Perhaps you don’t know him ?’ POTTS FLIES. 253 u The bishop gave a wild shriek and writhed upon the floor as if he had a fit. When he re¬ covered, he leaped from the train and walked back to San Francisco. He aftenvard took the first steamer for Peru, where he entered a mon¬ astery and became a celibate. His carpet-bag w r as sent on to his family. It contained the balance of the trumpets. On Christmas morning they were distributed, and in less than an hour the entire two hundred and eight chil- *§§ dren were sick from sucking the brass upon ^ them. A doctor was called* and he seemed so much interested in the family that Brigham divorced the whole concern from old Potts and annexed it to the doctor, who immediately lost his reason, and would have butchered the entire family if the red-haired woman and the oldest boy had not march¬ ed him off to a lunatic asylum, where he spent his time trying to arrive at an estimate of the num- *** ** ber of his children by ciphering with an impossible com¬ bination of the multiplication table and algebra.” “ And now that that’s over,” said Bob, as I folded up the manuscript, “ will you please to tell me what the suffering of old Potts has to do with my engagement ?” “Well, to tell the truth, nothing in particular. I thought 21 254 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. perhaps you might feel a sort of general interest in the mere subject of matrimony just now; and at any rate, I wanted your opinion of the merit of the story.” “Well, I think it is a pretty poor story. The humor of the Mormon business is stale, anyhow, and in your hands it be¬ comes absolutely dismal. I can write a better Mormon story than that myself, and I don’t even profess to be a scribbler.” Then Mr. Parker swaggered out with the air of a man whose opinions have the weight of a ju¬ dicial decision. I think he has acquired, since his engagement, a much greater notion of his im¬ portance than he had before. It is remarkable how a youth who has succeeded in a love affair immediately begins to cherish the idea that his victory is attributable to the fact that he possesses particularly brilliant qualities of some kind. Bob was the humblest man in Delaware a week ago; to-day he walks about with such an air as he might have had if he had just won the battle of Waterloo. CHAPTER £VI. Old Fort Kasimir two Centuries Ago—The Goblins of the Lane—An Outrage upon Pitman’s Cow—The Judge Discusses the Subject of Bitters— How Cooley came Home—Turning off the Gas—A Frightful Accident in the Argus Office—The Terrible Fate of Archibald Watson— How Mr. Bergner taught Sunday-school. HEN the people of our vil¬ lage are in the mood to re¬ flect upon antiquity, when they feel as if they would like to meditate upon the heroic deeds that have been achieved in this kindly old place by the mighty men of valor who swaggered and ^ l swore and fought here a hundred years before the war of the Revolution was dreamed of, they turn from the . street down the gentle slope of the highway which runs by the river; and when they have wandered on a brief distance beyond the present confines of the town, they reach old Fort Lane. It is but a little stretch of greensward, gashed by the wheels of vehicles and trodden by the feet of wayfarers. It extends from the road eastward for a hundred yards, and then it dips downward and ends upon the sandy beach of the stream. Here, right upon the edge of the water. 255 256 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. once stood brave old Fort Kasimir,with its gqns threatening destruction not only to unfriendly vessels which sailed up the bay, but absolutely menacing the very town itself. The village then was called New Stockholm. That was the name given to it by the Swedes, who perceived what a superb site for a city lay here, and who went to work and built a swarm of snug wooden houses. It has had half a dozen other names since. When the Dutchmen conquered it, they dubbed it Sandhoec, then New Amstel and then Fort Kasimir. After¬ ward it was known as Grape Wine Point, then as Delaware- town and finally as New Castle. But twenty years after the Swedes had settled here, the Dutchmen at New York coveted the place and the command of the river; and as an earnest of what they intended to do, they came right here under the very noses of the villagers and built Fort Kasimir. I can imagine how the old Swedes in the village stood over there on the Battery and glowered at the Dutchmen as they labored upon the fort; and it is not difficult to conceive the terror and dismay that filled those humble little homes in New Stockholm when the intruder placed his queer brass cannon in the embrasures of the fort after its completion, and when he would hurl a ball across the bows of a Swedish ship coming up to the town, or would send a shot whistling over the roofs of the village itself merely to gratify a grim humor. I would give a great deal, Mrs. Adeler, to have but one day of that distant past recalled; to see New Stock¬ holm and its people as they were; to watch the Dutch chief¬ tain and his handful of men parading about in the fort in the panoply of war, and boasting of the prowess that dared thus to defy the enemy upon his own threshold. But, alas! look! not one vestige of the ancient battlements remains. The grass has grown over the spot whereon they stood, and the rolling river has long since buried beneath the sand of its shores whatever timbers of the structure touched its waters. library of tht U*iv*»4?ty of GHOSTLY MANIFESTATIONS. 259 It would have been forgotten, perhaps, but that Irving, with the humorous pen which traced the history of the Knicker¬ bockers, has given it immortality in the lines that tell how the exasperated Swedes seized the fort and held the Dutch¬ men prisoners, and how, when the news came to Manhattan island, the Dutch sent forth a valiant army, which not only retook the fortress, but carried away nearly all the villagers. There was wild lamentation in the little community upon that day as the unhappy people were torn from their homes and sent into exile; and though the historian tells his tale sportively, the story always seemed to me to be full of pathos. This place was thronged with strange figures, and it wit¬ nessed some very sad scenes in that far-off time. And if the traditions of the neighborhood may be believed, those tough old warriors even yet have not bid farewell for ever to the spot. There is no more fighting here, unless when some of the village urchins come out to have a tussle upon the sward, and the chimneys of the town are unmolested by hostile shot. But they do say that sometimes we may look upon the shadowy out¬ line of the ancient Hollanders who made this their battleground. The venturesome wight who comes to old Fort Lane at certain seasons after nightfall may see headless Dutchmen in strange and ghostly attire marching up and down the shore, and he may hear the cry of sentinels, uttered in an unknown tongue, borne past him on the wind. There are those who have listened to the noise of cannon balls rolling in the dusk over floors which no mortal eye can ever see, and often, when there 260 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. is a tempest, the booming of guns will be heard above the roar of the storm, and from spectral ships floating upon the bosom of the river will come the wailing voices of women and children who are still sor¬ rowing for their lost homes. I do not say that this is so, Mrs. Adeler; I merely assert the existence of a popular the¬ ory to that effect. I have pri¬ vate doubts if the goblin Dutch¬ men ever have been seen, and I know of no reason why, if a ghost of that kind really comes back to earth, he should re¬ turn without his head. Judge Pitman has a field that is bounded upon one side by the lane, and in this enclosure we found, upon our visit to the historic spot, a med¬ itative cow with a blind- board upon her forehead. There was nothing especi¬ ally remarkable about the board, and yet it has caused a great deal of trouble. In a recent interview with me the judge sought to console himself for the mis¬ ery created by that blind- board by relating the story of his sorrow. “Adeler,” he said, “you know I j’ined the temp’rance society a couple o’ months ago, not because I was much BROWN'S BITTERS. 261 afeared of gittin’ drunk often, but just to please the old woman. You know how women are—kinder insane on the subject of drinkin’. Well, my cow had a way o’ jumpin’ the fence, an’ I couldn’t do nothin’ to stop her. She was the ornariest critter that way that I ever see. So at last I got a blind-board an’ hung it on her horns. That stopped her. But you know she used to come jam up agin’ the fence an’ stand there for hours; an’ one day one o’ them vagabone advertisin’ agents come along—one o’ them fellers that daubs signs all over the face of natur’—an’ as soon as he seen that blind-board he went for it.” M, “ A patent medicine man, I suppose ?” “ No, he was advertisin’ some kind o’ stomach bitters ; and 262 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY . he painted on that board the follerin’: ‘ Take Brown’s Bit¬ ters for your Stomach’s Sake. They make the Best Cock - tails.’ ” “ The temperance society didn’t like that, of course ?” “No, sir / The secretary happened to see it, and he brought out the board of directors; and the fust thing I knowed, they hauled me up an’ wanted to expel me for cir¬ culatin’ scand’lous information respectin’ bitters an’ cock¬ tails.” “ That was very unjust.” “Well, sir, I had the hardest time to make them fellers understand that I was inner cent, an’ to git ’em to let up on me. But they did. Then I turned the blind-board over; and now the first man I ketch placin’ any revolutionary sen¬ timents on the frontispiece of that cow, why, down goes his house; I’ll knock the stuffin’ out o’ him; now mind me /” “ I am usually not in favor of resort to violence, judge; but I must say that under the circum¬ stances even such severity would be perfectly justifiable.” “ This bitters business is kinder fraudulent anyway,” continued the judge, meditatively. “I once had a very cur’ous experience drinkin’ that stuff. Last winter I read in one of the papers an advertisment which said— But hold on; I’ll read it to you. I’ve got ’em all* I PITMAN WARDS OFF DISEASE. 263 kep’ ’em as a cur’osity. Let’s see; where d’ I put them things? Ah! yes; here they areand the judge produced some news¬ paper cuttings from his pocket- book. “Well, sir, I read in the Argus this parergraph: “ ‘ The excessive moisture and the extreme cold and continuous dampness of winter are peculi¬ arly deleterious to the human system, and colds, consumption and death are very apt to ensue unless the body is braced by some stimulating tonic such as Blank’s Bitters, which give tone to the stomach, purify the blood, promote digestion and increase the appetite. The Bitters are purely medicinal, and they contain no in¬ toxicating element.’ “ I’d been kinder oneasy the winter afore about my health, and this skeered me. So I drank them Bitters all through the cold weather; an’ when spring come, I was just about to knock off an’ begin agin on water, when I was wuss frightened than ever to see in the Argus the followin’: “ ‘ The sudden changes of tem¬ perature which are characteristic of the spring, and the enervating influence of the increased heat, make the season one of peculiar danger to the human system, so that ague, fever and diseases re¬ sulting from impurities clogging the circulation of the blood can only be avoided by giving tone 264 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. to the stomach and increasing the powers of that organ by a liberal use of Blank’s Bitters.’ “ I thought there wa’n’t no use takin’ any risks, so I begun agin; but I made up my mind to stop drinkin’ when sum¬ mer come an’ danger was over.” “Your confidence in those advertisements, judge, was something wonderful.” “ Jes so. Well, about the fust of June, while I was a-fin- ishin’ the last bottle I had, I seen in the Argus this one. Jes lissen to this: “‘The violent heat of summer debilitates and weakens the human system so completely that, more easily than at any other time, it becomes a prey to the insidious diseases which prevail during what may fairly be called the sickly season. The sacrifice of human life during this dangerous period would be absolutely frightful had not Nature and Art offered a sure preventive in Blank’s Bitters, which give tone to the stomach,’ etc., etc. “ This seemed like such a solemn warnin’ that I hated to let it go; an’ so I bought a dozen more bottles an’ took another turn. I begun to think that some mis¬ take ’d been made in gittin’ up a climate for this yer country, and it d i d seem astonishin’ that Blank should be the only man who knew how to correct the error. Howsomdever, I determined to quit in the fall, when the sickly season was over, an’ I was jes gittin’ ready to quit when the Argus published another one of them notices. Here it is: MR. COOLEY IS VICTIMIZED. 265 ‘“The miasmatic vapors with which the atmosphere is filled daring the fall of the year break down the human system and destroy life with a frightful celerity which is characteristic of no other season, unless the stomach is strengthened by constant use of Blank’s Bitters, which are a sure preventive of disease,’ etc., etc. “ But they didn’t fool me that time. No, sir. I took the chances with those asthmatic vapors, and let old Blank rip. I j’ined the temperance society, an’ here I am, hearty as a buck.” “ You look extremely well.” “ But, Adeler, I never bore no grudge agin the bitters men for lyin’ until they spread their owdacious falsehoods on the blind-board of my cow. Then it did ’pear’s if*they was crowdin’ me too hard.” “Judge, did you ever try to convert Cooley to temperance principles ? It seems to me that he would be a good subject to work upon.” “Well, no; I never said nothin’ to him on the subject. I’m not a very good hand at convertin’ people; but I s’pose I ought ter tackle Cooley too. He’s bin a-carryin’ on scan- d’lus lately, so I hear.” “ Indeed! I hadn’t heard of it.” “Yes, sir; cornin’ home o’ nights with a load on, an’ a-snortin’ at that poor little wife of his’n. By gracious, it’s rough, isn’t it ? An’ Mrs. Cooley was tellin’ my old woman that some of them fellers rubbed Cooley’s nose the other night with phosphorous while he was asleep down at the tavern ; an’ when he went home, it ’peared’s if he had a locomotive headlight in front of him.” “ A very extraordinary proceeding, judge.” “Well, sir, when he got in the hall it was dark, an’ he ketched a sight o’ that nose in the lookin'-glass 266 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. on the hat-rack, an’ he thought Mrs. Cooley had left the gas burnin’. Then he tried to turn it off, an’ after fumblin’ around among the umbrellers an’ hat-pegs for a while for the stop¬ cock, he concluded the light must come from a candle, an’ he nearly bu’sted his lungs tryin’ to blow it out. Then he grabbed his hat an’ tried to jam her down over that candle; an’ when he found he couldn’t, he got mad, picked up an um- breller an’ hit a whack at it, which broke the lookin’-glass all to flinders; an’ there was Mrs. Cooley a-watchin’ that old lunatick all the time, an’ afraid to tell him it was his own nose. I tell you, Adeler, this yer rum drink in’ ’s a fearful thing any way you take it, now, ain’t it ?” i am glad to say that the Argus has been fully repaid for its attempts to beguile the judge into the use of bitters. The Argus is in complete disgrace with all the people who attend our church. Some of the admirers of Rev. Dr. Hop¬ kins, the clergyman, gave DR. HOPKINS IS OUTRAGED. 267 nim a gold-headed cane a few days ago, and a reporter of the Argus was invited to be present. Nobody knows whether the reporter was temporarily insane, or whether the foreman,in giving out the “copy,” mixed it accidentally with an account of a patent hog-killing machine which was tried in Wilmington on that same day, but the appalling result was that the Argus next morning contained this some¬ what obscure but very dreadful narrative: “ Several of Rev. Dr. Hopkins’s friends called upon him yesterday, and after a brief conversation the unsuspicious liog was seized by the hind legs and slid along a beam until he reached the hot-water tank. His friends explained the object of their visit, and presented him with a very hand¬ some gold-headed butcher, who grabbed him by the tail, swung him around, slit his throat from ear to ear, and in less than a minute the carcass was in the water. Thereupon he came forward and said that there were times when the feelings overpowered one, and for that reason he would not attempt to do more than thank those around him, for the manner in which such a huge animal was cut into fragments was simply astonishing. The doctor concluded his re¬ marks, when the machine seized him, and in less time than it takes to write it the hog was cut into fragments and worked up into delicious sausage. The occasion will long be remembered by the doc¬ tor’s friends as one of the most delightful of their lives. The best pieces can be procured for fifteen cents a pound; and we are sure that those who have sat so long under his ministry will rejoice that he has been treated so handsomely.” 22 268 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. The Argus lost at least sixty subscribers in consequence of this misfortune, and on the following Sunday we had a very able and very energetic sermon from Dr. Hopkins upon “The Evil Influence of a Debauched Public Press.” It would have made Colonel Bangs shiver to have heard that discourse. Lieutenant Smiley came home with us after church, and I am sorry to say he exulted over the sturdy blows given to the colonel. “ I haven’t any particular grudge against the man,” he said, “ but I don’t think he has treated me exactly fair. I sent him an article last Tuesday, and he actually had the in¬ solence to return me the manuscript without offering a word of explanation.” “ To what did the article refer ?” “ Why, it gave an account of a very singular thing that happened to a friend of mine, the son of old Commodore Watson. Once, when the commodore was about to go upon a voyage, he had a presentiment that something would occur ARCHIBALD'S DOOM. 269 to him, and he made a will leaving his son Archibald all his property on condition that, in case of his death, Archi¬ bald would visit his tomb and pray at it once every year. Archibald made a solemn vow that he would, and the com¬ modore started upon his journey. Well, sir, the fleet went to the Fiji Islands, and while there the old man came ashore one day, and was captured by the natives. They stripped him, laid him upon a gridiron, cooked him and ate him.” “ That placed Archibald in a somewhat peculiar position ?” “Imagine his feelings when he heard the news! How could he perform his vow ? How could he pray at the com¬ modore’s tomb? Would not the tomb, as it were, be very apt to prey upon him, to snatch him up and assimilate him ? There seemed to be an imminent probability that it would But he went. That noble- hearted young man went out to the islands in search of the savage that ate the com¬ modore, and I have no doubt that he suffered upon the same gridiron.”* .“You don’t mean to say that Bangs declined to pub¬ lish that narrative ?” “ He did, and he offered no explanation of his re¬ fusal.” “ He is certainly a very incompetent person to con- "-w duct a newspaper. A man who would refuse to give such * I have reasons for believing that Smiley did not construct thia story. I remember having seen it in a French newspaper long before I met the lieutenant, and I am sure he borrowed it from that or some other publication. 270 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. C HR Sc a story to a world which aches for amusement is worse than a blockhead.” “ By the way,” said the lieutenant, changing the subject suddenly, “ I hear Parker has taken a class in the Sunday- school. He is sly—monstrous sly, sir. Miss Magruder teaches there, too. Parker seems to be determined to have her, and I hope he may be suc¬ cessful, but I don’t think he will be, I’m sorry to say.” It was evident that Smiley had not heard the news, and I did not enlighten him. “ Some men have a fitness for that kind of work, and some haven’t. There was poor Berg- ner, a friend of mine. He took a class in a Sunday-school at Carlisle while we were sta¬ tioned there. The first Sunday he told the scholars a story about a boy named Simms. Simms, he said, had climbed a tree for the purpose of stealing apples, and he fell and killed himself. ‘ This,’ said Bergner,‘ conveys an impressive warning to the young. It teaches an instructive lesson which I hope will be heeded by all you boys. Bear in mind that if Simms had not gone into that tree he would probably now be alive and well, and he might have grown up to be a useful member of society. Remember this, boys,’ said Bergner, ‘and resolve firmly now that when you wish to steal apples you will do so in the only safe way, which is to stand on the ground and knock them down with a pole.’ * A healthy moral lesson, wasn’t it ? Somebody told the su- PARKER AS A POET. 271 perintendent about it, and they asked Berguer to resign. Yes, a man has to have a peculiar turn for that kind of thing to succeed in teaching Sunday-school. I don’t know how Parker will make out.” Then the lieutenant shook hands and left in order to catch the last boat for the fort. “Mrs. Adeler,” I said, as I lighted a fresh cigar, “ we may regard it as a particularly for¬ tunate thing that Smiley is not entrusted with the religious education of any number of American youth. Place the Sunday-schools of this land in the hands of Smiley and others like him, and in the next generation the country would be overrun with a race of liars.” I am not aware that Bob Parker has ever made any very serious attempt to write poetry for the public. Of course since he has been in love with the bewildering Magruder he has sometimes expressed his feelings in verse. But fortu¬ nately these breathings of passion were not presented to a cold and heartless world; they were reserved for the sympathetic Magruder, who doubtless read them with delight and admira¬ tion, and locked them up in her writing-desk with Bob’s letters and other precious souvenirs. This, of course, is all right. Every lover writes what he considers poetry, and society permits such manifestations without insisting upon the con¬ finement of the offenders in lunatic asylums. Bob, however, has constructed some verses which are not of a sentimental kind. Judge Pitman’s story of the illumination of Cooley’s nose suggested the idea which Bob has worked into rhyme and published in the Argus. As the poet has not been per¬ mitted to shine to any great extent in these pages as a literary person, it will perhaps be fair to reproduce his poem in the chapter which contains the account of Cooley’s misfortune. Here it is: 22 * 272 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Tim Keyser’s Nose. Tim Keyser lived in Wilmington; He had a monstrous nose, Which was a great deal redder than The very reddest rose, And was completely capable Of most terrific blows. He wandered down one Christmas day To skate upon the creek, And there, upon the smoothest ice, He slid around so quick That people were amazed to see Him do it up so slick. TIM KEYSER’S NOSE. 273 The exercise excited thirst; And so, to get a drink, He cut an opening in the ice And lay down on the brink. He said, “ I’ll dip my lips right in And suck it up, I think.” And while his nose was thus immersed Six inches in the stream, A very hungry pickerel was Attracted by its gleam; And darting up, he gave a snap, And Keyser gave a scream. 274 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Tim Keyser then was well assured He had a splendid bite. To pull his victim up he jerked And tugged with all his might; But that disgusting pickerel had The better of the fight. And just as Mr. Keyser thought His nose was cut in two, The pickerel gave its tail a twist And pulled Tim Keyser through, And he was scudding through the waves The first thing that he knew. TIM KEYSETS NOSE. 275 Then onward swam that savage fish With swiftness toward its nest, Still chewing Mr. Keyser’s nose; While Mr. Keyser guessed What sort of policy would suit His circumstances best. Just then his nose was tickled with A spear of grass close by; Then came an awful sneeze, which knocked ‘The pickerel into pi, And blew its bones, the ice and waves Two hundred feet on high! 276 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. Tim Keyser swam up to the top A breath of air to take; And finding broken ice, he hooked His nose upon a cake, And gloried in a nose which could Such a concussion make. Until he reached the shore; And creeping out all dripping wet, He very roundly swore To use that crimson nose as bait For pickerel no more. TIM KEYSER’S NOSE. 277 His Christmas turkey on that day He tackled with a vim, And thanked his stars as, shuddering, He thought upon his swim, That that wild pickerel had not Spent Christmas eating him! CHAPTER XVII. A Dismal Sort of Day— A Few Able Remarks about Um¬ brellas— The Umbrella in a Humorous Aspect—The Calamity that Befel Colonel Coombs—An Ambitious but Miserable Monarch—Influence of Umbrellas on the Weather—An Improved Weather System—A Lit¬ tle Nonsense—Judge Pitman’s Views of Weather of Various Kinds. T is difficult to imagine any¬ thing more dismal than a rainy day at New Castle, particularly at this late period in the year. The river especially is robbed of much of its attractiveness. The falling drops obscure the view, so that the other shore is not visible through the gray curtain of mist, and the few vessels that can be seen out in the channel struggling upward with the tide or beating slowly down¬ ward to the bay look so drenched and cold and utterly forlorn that one shivers as he watches them, with their black sails and their dripping cord¬ age, and sees the moist sailors in tarpaulins and sea-boots hur¬ rying over the slippery decks. The grain schooner lying at the wharf has all her hatches down, and there is about her no other sign of life than one soaked vagabond, who sits 278 A VERY MOIST TIME . 279 npon the bowsprit angling in a most melancholy fashion for fish which will not bite. He may be seeking for his supper, poor, damp sinner! or he may be an infatuated being who deceives himself with the notion that he is having sport. There is a peculiar feeling of comfort on such a day to stand in a room where a bright fire blazes in the grate, and from the window to watch this solitary fisherman as the fit¬ ful gusts now and then blow the rain down upon his head in sheets, and to observe the few people who remain upon the streets hurrying by under their umbrellas, each anxious to reach a place of shelter. The water pours in yellow torrents through the gutter-ways, the carriages which go swiftly past have their leathern aprons drawn high up in front of the drivers, the stripped branches of the trees are black with moisture, and from each twig the drops trickle to the earth; the water-spout upon the side of the house continues its monotonous song all day long, drip, drip, drip, until the very sound contributes to the gloom¬ iness of the time; there is desolation in the yard and in the garden, where a few yellow corn-stalks and headless trunks of cabbage remain from the summer’s harvest to face the wintry storms, and where the chickens gath¬ ered under the woodshed are standing with ruffled feathers, hungry, damp and miserable, some on one leg and some on two, and with an expression upon their faces that tells plainly the story of their dejection at the poor prospect of having any dinner. 23 280 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY It is a good time, Mrs. Adeler, to offer a few remarks upon that subject of perennial interest, the weather, and especially to refer to some facts in reference to that useful but uncertain implement, the umbrella. I do not know why it is so, but by common agreement the umbrella has been permitted to assume a comic aspect. No man, particularly no journalist, can be considered as having wholly discharged his duty to his fellow-creatures unless he has permitted him¬ self to make some jocular remarks concerning the exception of umbrellas from the laws which govern other kinds of property. The amount of facetiousness that has attended the presentation of that theory is already incalculably great, and there is no reason for believing that it will not be in¬ creased to an infinite extent throughout the coming ages. It is perhaps a feeble idea upon which to erect so vast a structure; but if it makes even a dismal sort of merriment, we should not complain. And then reflect with what humorous effect the comic artists intro¬ duce the excessive and corpulent umbrella to their pictures of nervous or emphatic old ladies, and how much more convulsive the laughter be¬ comes at the theatre when the low-comedy man carries with him an umbrella of that unwieldy description ! It is universally admitted that an umbrella with distended sides is funny; and if general consent is given to such a proposition, the consequences are quite as satisfactory as if the article in question was really plethoric with humor. There are occasions when the simple elevation of an umbrella is grotesquely absurd, as when a group of British guardsmen sheltered themselves in this fashion from the rain during a certain battle, to the infinite disgust of Wellington, who ordered the COLONEL COMBS’S EXPERIMENT. 281 tender warriors to put their umbrellas down lest the ser¬ vice should be made ridicu¬ lous. It was a Frenchman, Emile Girardin, I think, who brought an umbrella with him to the dueling-ground, and in¬ sisted upon holding it over his head during the combat. “ I do not mind being killed,” he said, “ but I object decidedly to getting wet.” They gave him much credit for admirable coolness; but I cherish a private opinion that he was scared, and hoped, by making the affair ridiculous, to bring it to a conclusion without burning powder; and he succeeded, for the combatants shook hands and went away friends. And there was the case of Colonel Coombs—Coombs of Colorado. He had heard that the most ferocious wild beast could be frightened and put to flight if an umbrella should suddenly be opened in its face, and he determined to test the matter at the earliest opportunity. One day, while walking in the woods, Coombs perceived a panther crouch¬ ing, preparatory to making a spring at him. Coombs held his umbrella firmly in his hand, and presenting it at the panther, unfurled it. The result was not wholly satisfac¬ tory, for the next mo¬ ment the animal leaped upon the umbrella, flattened it out and began to lunch upon Coombs. Not only did the beast eat that anx- i o u s inqu i rer after truth, but it swallowed 282 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. the hooked handle of the umbrella, which was held tightly in Coombs’s grasp, and for two or three weeks it wandered about with its nose buried among the ribs of the umbrella. It was very handy when there was rain, but it obstructed the animal’s vision, and consequently it walked into town and was killed. In some countries the umbrella is the symbol of dignity and power. One of the magnates of Siam is proud to begin his list of titles with “Lord of Thirty-seven Um¬ brellas.” Conceive, if you can, the envy and hatred with which that bloated aristocrat must be regarded by a man who is lord of only fifteen umbrellas! Among certain African tribes the grandeur of the individual increases with the size, and not with the number, of the umbrellas. Did I ever tell you the story of the African chieftain who deter¬ mined to surpass all his rivals in this respect? He made up his mind to procure the largest umbrella in the world, and he induced a trader to send his order to Lon¬ don for the article. Its ribs were forty feet in length, and its handle was like a telegraph pole. When it was dis¬ tended, the effect was sublime. The machine resembled a green gingham circus tent, and it was crowned with a ferule as large as a barrel. When the umbrella arrived, there was great re¬ joicing in the domestic circle of that dusky sovereign, and so impatient was the owner to test its qualities that he fairly yearned for the arrival of a rainy day. At last, one morn- MORE DISAPPOINTMENT\ 283 ing, he awoke to find that his opportunity had come. The rain was pouring in torrents. Exultingly he called forth his vassals, and the work of opening the umbrella began in the presence of an awestricken multitude. Two entire days were consumed by the effort to elevate the monster, and at the end of the second day, as the task was done, the storm ceased, and there was a general clearing up. The disappointed chieftain waited a day or two in vain for another shower, and finally, sick at heart, he commanded the umbrella to be closed. The work occupied precisely forty-eight hours, and just as the catch snapped upon the handle a thunder-gust came up, and it rained furiously all day. The frenzied monarch then con¬ sulted with his medicine man, and was assured that there would certainly be rain on the following Wednesday. The king therefore ordered the ging¬ ham giant up again. While the swarthy myrmidons were strug¬ gling with it there were at least sixty or seventy violent showers, but just as it was fairly open the clouds drifted away, and the sun came out with terrific force. And it remained out. There was not a drop of rain or so much as a fragment of cloud in the sky for two hundred and seventy- three days, and the umbrella re¬ mained open during all the time, while the potentate who owned it went dancing about daily 23 * 284 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. in an ecstasy of rage. At the end of the period he sought the medicine man and slew him upon the spot. Then he ordered the umbrella down. The very next morning after it was closed the rain began, and it has been raining ever since. Mrs. Adeler, that unfortunate savage thus became inti¬ mately familiar with one of the most striking of meteoro¬ logical phenomena. The influence of the umbrella upon the weather is a sub¬ ject that has engaged the attention of millions of mankind. The precise laws by which that influence is exerted and governed have not yet been defined, but the fact of the ex¬ istence of the influence is universally recognized. If there seems to be a promise of rain in the morning when I leave home, and I carry my umbrella with me, the sky clears be¬ fore noon; but if I neglect to take my umbrella, I will cer¬ tainly be drenched. If I carry an umbrella forty days in order to be prepared in case of sudden showers, there will be perfect dryness during that period; but if I forget the um¬ brella on the forty-first day, the floodgates of heaven will assuredly be opened. Sometimes the conduct of the elements is peculiarly aggravating. When I have been caught in town by a rain-storm and I had no umbrella, I have some¬ times darted through the shower to a store to purchase one, but always, just as the man has given me the change, the rain has stopped. And when I have kept one umbrella at the house and another at the office, in order to be prepared at both ends of the line, all the storms have begun and ex¬ pended their fury while I was passing between the two points. This experience is not peculiar. It is that of every man who uses an umbrella. I am persuaded, Mrs. Adeler, that the time will come when science, having detected the cha¬ racter of the mysterious sympathy existing between um¬ brellas and the weather, will be able to give to a suffering THE IMPROVED WEATHER SYSTEM. 285 world sunshine or rain as we want it. Whether we shall then be any better off is another matter. In the mean time, while we are waiting for science to pen¬ etrate the hidden secrets of the umbrella, let me unfold to you a plan which I have devised for the better management of the weather bureau at Washington. I confided the scheme, once upon a time, to Old Probabilities himself, through the medium of a newspaper at the capital, but he did not deign to express an opinion concerning it. Perhaps it contained too much levity to entitle it to the consideration of a man who meditates upon the thunder and tries to trace the pathway of the cyclone. I have called it The Improved Weather System. The Probability man who meddles with our great Amer¬ ican weather means well, and tries conscientiously to do his best, but his system is radically defective, and the conse¬ quence is that his conjectures are despicably incorrect quite half the time. The inconvenience caused by these mistakes, not only to the people generally, but to me personally, is in¬ conceivably great, and it is not to be endured any longer. For instance, if I read in the morning that this Probability person entertains a conviction that we shall have a clear day in my neighborhood, I place confidence in his assurance. I remove the roof from my house in order to dry the garret thoroughly, and I walk down town with a new umbrella under my arm. Now, it is plainly evident that if, after all, it does begin to rain, and I am obliged to unfurl that um¬ brella and ruin it with the wet, and I am compelled, when I arrive at home, to witness my family floating around in the dining-room upon a raft constructed out of the clothes-horse and a few bed-slats and pie-boards, the government for which Washington died is a failure. Or suppose that our friend at the weather office asserts 286 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. that a thunder-storm is certain to strike my section of the country upon a given day. I believe him. I bring out my lightning-rods and buckle them to the chimneys and set them around on the roof and plant them out in the yard and rivet them upon my hired girl; and I place my family safely in feather beds in the middle of the room, and drink all the milk in the neighborhood, and prevail upon the tax collector to go and stand an hour or two under a tree where he will be almost certain to be struck by lightning. And when all these arrangements are completed, so that I feel equal to the promised emergency, suppose that thunder-storm does not come ? When I watch that tax collector sally out and begin to assess my property, counting in all those lightning-rods at double their cost, is there any reason to wonder that I sit down and sigh for some responsible despot who will give us a Probability man who grasps the subject of the weather, as it were, in a more comprehensive manner ? But I lost all faith in him after his ill-treatment of Cooley. He said that a cyclone would sweep over this district upon a certain morning, and Cooley was so much alarmed at the prospect that he made elaborate preparations to receive the storm. He arose before daybreak and went into the middle of his gar¬ den, where he filled his pockets with pig lead, fettered himself to the apple tree and fixed the pre¬ serving kettle securely upon his head with a dog chain in order to preserve his hair. Cooley stayed there until five o’clock in the afternoon waiting for the simoom to swoop down upon him. TFE BASIS OF THE SYSTEM. 287 But it was a failure—a disgraceful failure. And when Cooley looked out from under the kettle in the afternoon, he was surprised to observe that the fence was filled with men and boys who were watching him with intense interest. Then the boys began to whistle upon their fingers and to make unpleasant remarks, and finally Cooley was obliged to cut loose and go into the house to avoid arrest by a police¬ man upon a charge of lunacy. Now, this is all wrong. The feelings of American citizens ought not to be trifled with in such a manner, and I propose to arrange a plan by which meteorological facts and condi¬ tions can be observed with something like certainty. The basis of my system is Corns. The marvelous accu¬ racy with which changes in the weather can be foretold by a man whose feet are decorated with those excrescences is so well known that it is hardly worth while to consider at length, at this particular crisis, the human corn in its meteorological characteristics. It is quite certain, however, that it will be impossible to expect the Probability being to walk around the country once or twice every day for the purpose of submitting his corns to the diverse atmospheric influences which exist between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It would wear out any man. It will be better, therefore, to have him kept stationary. I propose, in that event, that he should buy up any available corn that is in the market in any given State, and have it transplanted and grafted upon his own toe. Doubtless there are patriotic citizens in every portion of the land who would be willing to lay upon the altar of their beloved country their most cher¬ ished corns. The Probability official then might obtain, let us assume, one corn from each State and a reliable bunion to represent each Territory. When these were engrafted upon his feet in a healthful condition, each one would, as a matter of course. 288 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. be peculiarly susceptible to the atmospheric influences which prevail in its native clime. All we have to do, then, is to compel the weather man to wear exceptionally tight boots while he is not attending to business, so that his barometers will acquire the requisite amount of sensibility. Then I should have pipes laid from each State to the office in Wash¬ ington for the purpose of conveying the different varieties of atmosphere to the foot of the Probability person. Suppose, then, he desired to make a guess in regard to the weather in Louisiana. I should have a man stationed at the end of the pipe in New Orleans with a steam fan, and he could waft zephyrs, as it were, upon the Louisiana corn, which would respond instantly, and we should have the facts about the weather in that State with precision and accuracy. When we admitted a new State, our friend could weld on a new corn; or if the Mormons succeeded in procuring the admis¬ sion of their Territory as a State, we could plough up the Utah bunion and plant a corn, so as to preserve the pro¬ prieties. Of course this system of excrescences would be of no value as an indicator of the movements of thunder-storms and hur¬ ricanes. But in order to acquire information concerning the former, how would it do to build up stacks of lightning-rods in every portion of every State, and to connect each State group, if I may be allowed the expression, with a wire which shall be permanently fastened to the arm or leg of the Prob¬ ability man in Washington ? Because, in such a case, when¬ ever a thunder-gust appeared in any portion of the country, some one out of all those bunches of lightning-rods would certainly be struck, and our conjectural friend at the weather office would be likely to know about it right soon. As for hurricanes, I am in favor of putting an end to them at once, instead of telegraphing around the country to A LITTLE NONSENSE. 289 warn people to look out for them. When I reorganize the weather service, I shall have men stationed everywhere with machines fixed up like the wind sails that are used on ship¬ board for sending air into the hold. I should make the mouth of each one a mile wide, construct it of stout canvas, and run the lower end into a coal-mine, or a mammoth cave, or a volcano. Then, when a tornado approached, I should place a man at each side of the sail, put the men into bal¬ loons, send them up, and spread the sail directly across the route of the approaching cyclone. When it arrived, it would strike the sail, of course; there would be a momentary flap¬ ping and jerking around, and in a minute or two I should have that hurricane comfortably packed away in the vol¬ cano, suppose we say. A man would then be upon the spot, of course, to drive a plug into the crater, so as to make everything tight and snug, and one more nuisance is taken off the face of the earth. “Is that the whole of the article?” inquired Mrs. Adeler. “Yes, that is all of it.” “ Well, I am not surprised that no notice was taken of it. It is perfectly nonsensical.” “ I admit the fact, but still I shall not smother the article. It will not do to take all the nonsense out of the world. While thousands of learned fools are hard at work trying to stupefy mankind, we must be permitted sometimes to in¬ dulge in absurdities of a less weighty kind in order to coun¬ teract them.” And while we are discussing the weather, let me not forget to allude to the most remarkable of Judge Pitman’s pecu¬ liarities. He is the only man in the world of whom I know anything who is always satisfied with the weather. No mat¬ ter what the condition of the atmosphere, be is contented and happy, and willing to affirm that the state of things at 290 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. any given moment is the very best that could have been devised. In summer, when the mercury bolted up among the nine¬ ties, the judge would come to the front door with beads of perspiration standing out all over his red face, and would look at the sky and say, “Splendid! perfectly splendid! Noble weather for the poor and for the ice companies and the washerwomen! I never saw sich magnificent weather for dryin’ clothes. They don’t shake up any such climate as this in Italy. Gimme me my umbreller, Harriet, while I sit out yer on the steps and enjoy it.” In winter, when the mercury would creep down fifteen degrees below zero, and the cold was nearly severe enough to freeze the inside of Vesuvius solid to the centre of the globe, Pitman would sit out on my fence and exclaim, “By gracious, Adeler! did you ever see sich weather as this? I like an atmosphere that freezes up yer very marrer. It helps the coal trade an’ gives us good skeetin’. Don’t talk of sum¬ mer-time to me. Gimme cold, and give it to me stiff.” When there was a drought, Pitman used to meet me in the street and remark, “No rain yet, I see! Magnificent, isn’t it ? I want my weather dry, I want it with the damp¬ ness left out. Moisture breeds fevers and ague, an’ ruins yer boots. If there’s anything I despise, it’s to carry an um¬ breller. No rain for me, if you please.” When it rained for a week and flooded the country, the judge often dropped in to see me and to observe, “ I dunno how you feel about this yer rain, Adeler, but it allers seems to me that the heavens never drop no blessin’s but when we A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT. 291 have a long wet spell. It makes the corn jump an’ cleans the sewers an’ keeps the springs from gittin’ too dry. I wouldn’t give a cent to live in a climate where there was no rain. Put me on the Nile, an’ I’d die in a week. Soak me through an’ through to the inside of my bones, and I feel as if life was bright and beautiful, an’ sorrer of no account.” On a showery day, when the sun shone brightly at one moment and at the next the rain poured in torrents, the judge has been known to stand at the window and exclaim, “ Harriet, if you’d’ve asked me how I liked the weather, I’d ’ve said, just as it is now. What I want is weather that is streaked like a piece of fat an’ lean bacon—a little shine an’ a little rain. Mix ’em up an’ give us plenty of both, an’ I’m yer man.” The judge is always happy in a thunder-storm, and one day, after the lightning had knocked down two of his best apple trees and splintered them into fragments, and the wind had torn his chimney to pieces, I went over to see him. He was standing by the prostrate trees, and he at once remarked, “ Did you ever know of a man havin’ sich luck as this? I was goin’ to chop dow r n them two trees to- morrer, an’ as that chimney * never draw’d well, I had con¬ cluded to have it rebuilt. An’ that gorgeous old storm has fixed things just the way I want ’em. Put me in a thunder-storm an’ let the lightnin’ play around me, an’ I’m at home. I’d rather have one storm that’d tear the bowels out of the American continent than a dozen of yer little dribblin’ 24 / 292 OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY. waterin’-pot showers. If I can’t have a rippin’ and roarin’ storm, I don’t want none.” They say here in the village, but I do not believe it, that one day the judge was upon his roof fixing a shingle, when a tornado struck him, lifted him off, carried him a quarter of a mile, and dashed him with such terrible force against a fence that his leg was broken. As they carried him home, he opened his eyes languidly and said, “ Immortal Moses! what a storm that was! When it does blow, it suits me if it blows hard. I’d give both legs if we could have a squall like that every day. I—I—” Then he fainted. If contentment is happiness, then the life of Pitman is one uninterrupted condition of bliss. 4 CHAPTER XVIII. Trouble for the Hero and Heroine— A Broken Engage¬ ment and a Forlorn Damsel—Bob Parker’s Suffering —A Formidable Encounter—The Peculiar Conduct of a Dumb Animal—Cooley’s Boy and his Home Discipline —A Story of an Echo. E had been talking of asking the Magruders to come to take tea with us, so that the two families, which were now to be brought into close re¬ lations, might become better acquainted. But one even¬ ing, just as I had settled myself for a comfortable perusal of the paper, Miss Magruder was ushered into the room by the servant. It was plainly evident from her appearance that she was in distress from some cause. We should have guessed from her visit at such an hour un¬ accompanied by any one that all was not right, even if her countenance had not manifested extreme agitation. After the usual salutation she asked, “ Is Mr. Parker not at home ?” “ He has not yet returned from the city,” I said. “ I sup¬ pose he has been detained for some reason. It is probable that he will be here presently.” “I wanted to see him,” she said, hesitatingly. “I am afraid you’ll think it very queer for me to come here at such 293