Chapter II: In the Giant's Dungeon (2)

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
_Georgius Secundus_ was then alive,--
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always _somewhere_ a weakest spot,--
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,
Find it somewhere, you must and will,--
Above or below, or within or without,--
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise _breaks down_, but doesn't _wear out_.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell _yeou_,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it _couldn'_ break daown:
"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"
Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an ax had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin, too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."--
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren--where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED,--it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound,
Eighteen hundred increased by ten,--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came,--
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it,--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake day.--
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start,
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub _encore_.
And yet, as a _whole_, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be _worn out_!

First of November, Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,--
Had got to _fifthly_, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Moses--was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'house on the hill.
--First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n'house clock,--
Just the hour of the earthquake shock!
--What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground.
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,--
All at once, and nothing first,--
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 35: From "The Autocrat or the Breakfast Table," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, a noted American author and physician (1809--1894).]

EXPRESSION: Read the selection silently to appreciate its humor.
Now read it aloud with careful attention to naturalness of
expression. Study the historical allusions--"Georgius Secundus,"
"Lisbon town," "Braddock's army," "the Earthquake day," etc.

Read again the passages in which dialect expressions occur. Try to
speak these passages as the author intended them to be spoken.

Select the passages which appeal most strongly to your sense of
humor. Read them in such manner as to make their humorous quality
thoroughly appreciable to those who listen to you.

Now study the selection as a poem, comparing it with several
typical poems which you have already studied. Remembering your
definition of poetry (page 138), what is the real poetical value of
this delightful composition? Is it a true poem? Find some other
poems written by Dr. Holmes. Bring them to the class and read them
aloud.

Talk with your teacher about the life of Dr. Holmes and about his
prose and poetical works. As a poet, how does he compare with
Longfellow? with Whittier? with Walt Whitman? with Browning?

DOGS AND CATS[36]

Most people agree that the dog has intelligence, a heart, and possibly a soul; on the other hand, they declare that the cat is a traitor, a deceiver, an ingrate, a thief. How many persons have I heard say: "Oh, I can't bear a cat! The cat has no love for its master; it cares only for the house. I had one once, for I was living in the country, where there were mice. One day the cook left on the kitchen table a chicken she had just prepared for cooking; in came the cat, and carried it off, and we never saw a morsel of it. Oh, I hate cats; I will never have one."

True, the cat is unpopular. Her reputation is bad, and she makes no effort to improve the general opinion which people have of her. She cares as little about your opinion as does the Sultan of Turkey. And--must I confess--this is the very reason I love her.

In this world, no one can long be indifferent to things, whether trivial or serious--if, indeed, anything is serious. Hence, every person must, sooner or later, declare himself on the subjects of dogs and cats.

Well, then! I love cats.

Ah, how many times people have said to me, "What! do you love cats?"

"Certainly."

"Well, don't you love dogs better?"

"No, I prefer cats every time."

"Oh, that's very queer!"

The truth is, I would rather have neither cat nor dog. But when I am obliged to live with one of these beings, I always choose the cat. I will tell you why.

The cat seems to me to have the manners most necessary to good society. In her early youth she has all the graces, all the gentleness, all the unexpectedness that the most artistic imagination could desire. She is smart; she never loses herself. She is prudent, going everywhere, looking into everything, breaking nothing.

The cat steals fresh mutton just as the dog steals it, but, unlike the dog, she takes no delight in carrion. She is fastidiously clean--and in this respect, she might well be imitated by many of her detractors. She washes her face, and in so doing foretells the weather into the bargain. You may please yourself by putting a ribbon around her neck, but never a collar; she cannot be enslaved.

In short, the cat is a dignified, proud, disdainful animal. She defies advances and tolerates no insults. She abandons the house in which she is not treated according to her merits. She is, in both origin and character, a true aristocrat, while the dog is and always will be, a mere vulgar parvenu.

The only serious argument that can be urged against the cat is that she destroys the birds, not caring whether they are sparrows or nightingales. If the dog does less, it is because of his stupidity and clumsiness, not because he is above such business. He also runs after the birds; but his foolish barking warns them of his coming, and as they fly away he can only watch them with open mouth and drooping tail.

The dog submits himself to the slavery of the collar in order to be taught the art of circumventing rabbits and pigeons--and this not for his own profit, but for the pleasure of his master, the hunter. Foolish, foolish fellow! An animal himself, he delights in persecuting other animals at the command of the man who beats him.

But the cat, when she catches a bird, has a good excuse for her cruelty--she catches it only to eat it herself. Shall she be slandered for such an act? Before condemning her, men may well think of their own shortcomings. They will find among themselves, as well as in the race of cats, many individuals who have claws and often use them for the destruction of those who are gifted with wings.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 36: Translated from Alexandre Dumas, a noted French novelist (1802-1870).]

EXPRESSION: In what does the humor of this selection consist? Read
aloud and with expression the passages which appeal to you as the
most enjoyable. Do you agree with all the statements made by the
author? Read these with which you disagree, and then give reasons
for your disagreement.

THE OWL CRITIC[37]

"Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop;
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The _Daily_, the _Herald_, the _Post_, little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is--
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis?
I make no apology;
I've learned owl-eology,
I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskillful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you'll soon be the laughingstock all over town!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

"I've _studied_ owls,
And other night fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true:
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can't _do_ it, because
'Tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That _can't_ turn out so!
I've made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mister Brown, I'm amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To _look_ at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed _him_ don't half know his business!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

"Examine those eyes.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down:
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

"With some sawdust and bark
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl than that horrid fowl
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about _him_ there's not one natural feather."
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say,
"Your learning's at fault _this_ time, anyway;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 37: By James T. Fields, an American publisher and author (1817-1881).]

MRS. CAUDLE'S UMBRELLA LECTURE[38]

Bah! That's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold? Indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd better have taken cold than taken our umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, DO YOU HEAR THE RAIN?

Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle. Don't insult me. He return the umbrella? Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella!

I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow. They shan't go through such weather, I'm determined. No! they shall stay at home and never learn anything--the blessed creatures--sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up, I wonder whom they'll have to thank for knowing nothing--who, indeed, but their father?

But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes! I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow--you knew that--and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate to have me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle. No, sir; if it comes down in bucketfuls I'll go all the more.

No! and I won't have a cab! Where do you think the money's to come from? You've got nice, high notions at that club of yours. A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteen pence at least--sixteen pence?--two-and-eight-pence, for there's back again! Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who is to pay for them! I can't pay for them, and I'm sure you can't if you go on as you do; throwing away your property and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas.

Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, DO YOU HEAR IT? But I don't care--I'll go to mother's to-morrow, I will; and what's more, I'll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish woman; it's you that's the foolish man. You know I can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a cold--it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall--and a pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will! It will teach you to lend your umbrella again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death; and that's what you lent your umbrella for. Of course!

Nice clothes I shall get, too, traipsing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. Needn't I wear them, then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear them. No, sir; I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows, it isn't often I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once--better, I should say. But when I go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady.

Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow. How I'm to go to mother's I'm sure I can't tell. But, if I die, I'll go. No, sir; I won't _borrow_ an umbrella.

No; and you shan't _buy_ one. Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it into the street. Ha! it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one, for all of me.

The children, too, dear things, they'll be sopping wet; for they shan't stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave them, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. Don't tell me I said they shouldn't; you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the temper of an angel; they shall go to school; mark that! And if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault. I didn't lend the umbrella.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 38: By Douglas William Jerrold, an English humorous writer (1803-1857).]

NOTE: Which of the various specimens of humor here presented do you
enjoy most? Give reasons.

THE DARK DAY IN CONNECTICUT[39]

'Twas on a Mayday of the far old year,
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,--
The Twilight of the Gods....
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable Law.
Meanwhile in the old statehouse, dim as ghosts,
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
"It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn,"
Some said; and then as if with one accord
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.

He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. "This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord's command
To occupy till he come. So at the post
Where he hath set me in his providence,
I choose, for one, to meet him face to face,--
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do his work, we will see to ours.--
Bring in the candles!" And they brought them in.
Then, by the flaring lights the Speaker read,
Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands,
An act to amend an act to regulate
The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon
Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport,
Straight to the question, with no figures of speech
Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without
The shrewd, dry humor natural to the man--
His awestruck colleagues listening all the while,
Between the pauses of his argument,
To hear the thunder of the wrath of God
Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud.
And there he stands in memory to this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen
Against the background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass,
That simple duty hath no place for fear.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 39: From "Abraham Davenport," by John Greenleaf Whittier.]

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