Chapter IV: Part 4

Twict I've endevered to do things which thay wasn't my Fort. The fust time was when I undertuk to lick a owdashus cuss who cut a hole in my tent & krawld threw. Sez I, "My jentle Sir, go out or I shall fall on to you putty hevy." Sez he, "Wade in, Old wax figgers," whereupon I went for him, but he cawt me powerful on the hed & knockt me threw the tent into a cow pastur. He pursood the attack & flung me into a mud puddle. As I arose & rung out my drencht garmints I koncluded fitin wasn't my Fort. He now rize the kurtin upon Seen 2nd: It is rarely seldum that I seek consolation in the Flowin Bole. But in a certain town in Injianny in the Faul of 18--, my orgin grinder got sick with the fever & died. I never felt so ashamed in my life, & I thowt I'd hist in a few swallers of suthin strengthnin. Konsequents was I histid in so much I didn't zackly know whare bowts I was. I turned my livin wild beasts of Pray loose into the streets and spilt all my wax wurks. I then bet I cood play hoss. So I hitched myself to a Kanawl bote, there bein two other hosses hicht on also, one behind and another ahead of me. The driver hollerd for us to git up, and we did. But the hosses bein onused to sich a arrangemunt begun to kick & squeal and rair up. Konsequents was I was kickt vilently in the stummuck & back, and presuntly I fownd myself in the Kanawl with the other hosses, kickin & yellin like a tribe of Cusscaroorus savvijis. I was rescood & as I was bein carrid to the tavern on a hemlock Bored I sed in a feeble voise, "Boys, playin hoss isn't my Fort."

_Morul_.--Never don't do nothin which isn't your Fort, for ef you do you'll find yourself splashin round in the Kanawl, figgeratively speakin.

James Russell Lowell

WITHOUT AND WITHIN

My coachman, in the moonlight there,
Looks through the sidelight of the door;
I hear him with his brethren swear,
As I could do--but only more.

Flattening his nose against the pane,
He envies me my brilliant lot,
Breathes on his aching fist in vain,
And dooms me to a place more hot.

He sees me into supper go,
A silken wonder at my side,
Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row
Of flounces, for the door too wide.

He thinks how happy is my arm,
'Neath its white-gloved and jeweled load;
And wishes me some dreadful harm,
Hearing the merry corks explode.

Meanwhile I inly curse the bore
Of hunting still the same old coon,
And envy him, outside the door,
The golden quiet of the moon.

The winter wind is not so cold
As the bright smile he sees me win,
Nor the host's oldest wine so old
As our poor gabble, sour and thin.

I envy him the rugged prance
By which his freezing feet he warms,
And drag my lady's chains and dance,
The galley-slave of dreary forms.

Oh, could he have my share of din,
And I his quiet--past a doubt
'Twould still be one man bored within,
And just another bored without.

Louisa May Alcott

STREET SCENES IN WASHINGTON

The mules were my especial delight; and an hour's study of a constant succession of them introduced me to many of their characteristics: for six of these odd little beasts drew each army wagon and went hopping like frogs through the stream of mud that gently rolled along the street. The coquettish mule had small feet, a nicely trimmed tassel of a tail, perked-up ears, and seemed much given to little tosses of the head, affected skips and prances; and, if he wore the bells or were bedizened with a bit of finery, put on as many airs as any belle. The moral mule was a stout, hard-working creature, always tugging with all his might, often pulling away after the rest had stopped, laboring under the conscientious delusion that food for the entire army depended upon his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and, had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him with thanks for his excellent example. The histrionic mule was a melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp--a squirm--a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk and haul. When the last breath seemed to have left his body, and "doctors were in vain," a sudden resurrection took place; and if ever a mule laughed with scornful triumph, that was the beast, as he leisurely rose, gave a comfortable shake, and, calmly regarding the excited crowd, seemed to say--"A hit! a decided hit! for the stupidest of animals has bamboozled a dozen men. Now, then! what are _you_ stopping the way for?" The pathetic mule was, perhaps, the most interesting of all; for, though he always seemed to be the smallest, thinnest, weakest of the six, the postillion with big boots, long- tailed coat and heavy whip was sure to bestride this one, who struggled feebly along, head down, coat muddy and rough, eye spiritless and sad, his very tail a mortified stump, and the whole beast a picture of meek misery, fit to touch a heart of stone. The jovial mule was a roly-poly, happy-go-lucky little piece of horseflesh, taking everything easily, from cudgeling to caressing; strolling along with a roguish twinkle of the eye, and, if the thing were possible, would have had his hands in his pockets and whistled as he went. If there ever chanced to be an apple core, a stray turnip or wisp of hay in the gutter, this Mark Tapley was sure to find it, and none of his mates seemed to begrudge him his bite. I suspected this fellow was the peacemaker, confidant and friend of all the others, for he had a sort of "Cheer-up-old-boy-I'll-pull-you-through" look which was exceedingly engaging.

Pigs also possessed attractions for me, never having had an opportunity of observing their graces of mind and manner till I came to Washington, whose porcine citizens appeared to enjoy a larger liberty than many of its human ones. Stout, sedate-looking pigs hurried by each morning to their places of business, with a preoccupied air, and sonorous greetings to their friends. Genteel pigs, with an extra curl to their tails, promenaded in pairs, lunching here and there, like gentlemen of leisure. Rowdy pigs pushed the passersby off the sidewalk; tipsy pigs hiccoughed their version of "We won't go home till morning" from the gutter; and delicate young pigs tripped daintily through the mud as if they plumed themselves upon their ankles, and kept themselves particularly neat in point of stockings. Maternal pigs, with their interesting families, strolled by in the sun; and often the pink, baby-like squealers lay down for a nap, with a trust in Providence worthy of human imitation.--_Hospital Sketches._

MIS' SMITH

All day she hurried to get through, The same as lots of wimmin do; Sometimes at night her husban' said, "Ma, ain't you goin' to come to bed?" And then she'd kinder give a hitch, And pause half way between a stitch, And sorter sigh, and say that she Was ready as she'd ever be, She reckoned.

And so the years went one by one, An' somehow she was never done; An' when the angel said, as how "Miss Smith, it's time you rested now," She sorter raised her eyes to look A second, as a stitch she took; "All right, I'm comin' now," says she, "I'm ready as I'll ever be, I reckon."

Albert Bigelow Paine.

A BOSTON LULLABY

Baby's brain is tired of thinking
On the Wherefore and the Whence;
Baby's precious eyes are blinking
With incipient somnolence.

Little hands are weary turning
Heavy leaves of lexicon;
Little nose is fretted learning
How to keep its glasses on.

Baby knows the laws of nature
Are beneficent and wise;
His medulla oblongata
Bids my darling close his eyes

And his pneumogastrics tell him
Quietude is always best
When his little cerebellum
Needs recuperative rest.

Baby must have relaxation,
Let the world go wrong or right-
Sleep, my darling, leave Creation
To its chances for the night.

James Jeffrey Roche.

IRISH ASTRONOMY

O'Ryan was a man of might
Whin Ireland was a nation,
But poachin' was his heart's delight
And constant occupation.
He had an ould militia gun,
And sartin sure his aim was;
He gave the keepers many a run,
And wouldn't mind the game laws

St. Pathrick wanst was passin' by
O'Ryan's little houldin',
And, as the saint felt wake and dhry
He thought he'd enther bould in.
"O'Ryan," says the saint, "avick!
To praich at Thurles I'm goin';
So let me have a rasher quick,
And a dhrop of Innishowen."

"No rasher will I cook for you
While betther is to spare, sir,
But here's a jug of mountain dew,
And there's a rattlin' hare, sir."
St. Pathrick he looked mighty sweet,
And says he, "Good luck attind you,
And whin you're in your windin' sheet,
It's up to heaven I'll sind you."

O'Ryan gave his pipe a whiff-
"Them tidin's is thransportin',
But may I ax your saintship if
There's any kind of sportin'?"
St. Pathrick said, "A Lion's there,
Two Bears, a Bull, and Cancer"-
"Bedad," says Mick, "the huntin's rare;
St. Pathrick, I'm your man, sir."

So, to conclude my song aright,
For fear I'd tire your patience
You'll see O'Ryan any night,
Amid the constellations.
And Venus follows in his track
Till Mars grows jealous raally,
But, faith, he fears the Irish knack
Of handling the shillaly.

Charles Graham Halpine.

BESSIE BROWN, M.D.

'Twas April when she came to town;
The birds had come, the bees were swarming.
Her name, she said, was Doctor Brown:
I saw at once that she was charming.
She took a cottage tinted green,
Where dewy roses loved to mingle;
And on the door, next day, was seen
A dainty little shingle.

Her hair was like an amber wreath;
Her hat was darker, to enhance it.
The violet eyes that glowed beneath
Were brighter than her keenest lancet.
The beauties of her glove and gown
The sweetest rhyme would fail to utter.
Ere she had been a day in town
The town was in a flutter.

The gallants viewed her feet and hands,
And swore they never saw such wee things;
The gossips met in purring bands
And tore her piecemeal o'er the tea things.
The former drank the Doctor's health
With clinking cups, the gay carousers;
The latter watched her door by stealth,
Just like so many mousers.

But Doctor Bessie went her way
Unmindful of the spiteful cronies,
And drove her buggy every day
Behind a dashing pair of ponies.
Her flower-like face so bright she bore
I hoped that time might never wilt her.
The way she tripped across the floor
Was better than a philter.

Her patients thronged the village street;
Her snowy slate was always quite full.
Some said her bitters tasted sweet,
And some pronounced her pills delightful.
'Twas strange--I knew not what it meant-
She seemed a nymph from Eldorado;
Where'er she came, where'er she went,
Grief lost its gloomy shadow.

Like all the rest, I, too, grew ill;
My aching heart there was no quelling.
I tremble at my Doctor's bill-
And lo! the items still are swelling.
The drugs I've drunk you'd weep to hear!
They've quite enriched the fair concocter,
And I'm a ruined man, I fear,
Unless--I wed the Doctor!

Samuel Minturn Peck.

THE TROUT, THE CAT AND THE FOX

A Fable

(Anonymous)

A fine full-grown Trout for had some time kept his station in a clear stream, when, one morning, a Cat, extravagantly fond, as cats are wont to be, of fish, caught a glimpse of him, as he glided from beneath an overhanging part of the bank, toward the middle of the river; and with this glimpse, she resolved to spare no pains to capture him. As she sat on the bank waiting for the return of the fish, and laying a plan for her enterprise, a Fox came up, and saluting her, said:

"Your servant, Mrs. Puss. A pleasant place this for taking the morning air; and a notable place for fish, eh!"

"Good morning, Mr. Reynard," replied the Cat. "The place is, as you say, pleasant enough. As for fish, you can judge for yourself whether there are any in this part of the river. I do not deny that near the falls, about four miles from here, some very fine salmon and other fish are to be found."

At this very moment, very inappositely for the Cat's hint, the Trout made his appearance; and the Fox looking significantly at her, said:

"The falls, madam! Perhaps this fine Trout is on his way thither. It may be that you would like the walk; allow me the pleasure of accompanying you?"

"I thank you, sir," replied the Cat, "but I am not disposed to walk so far at present. Indeed, I hardly know whether I am quite well. I think I will rest myself a little, and then return home."

"Whatever you may determine," rejoined the Fox, "I hope to be permitted to enjoy your society and conversation; and possibly I may have the great gratification of preventing the tedium which, were you left alone, your indisposition might produce."

In speaking thus, the crafty Fox had no doubt that the only indisposition from which the Cat was suffering was an unwillingness to allow him a share of her booty; and he was determined that, so far as management could go, she should catch no fish that day without his being a party to the transaction. As the trout still continued in sight, be began to commend his shape and color; and the Cat, seeing no way of getting rid of him, finally agreed that they should jointly try their skill and divide the spoil. Upon this compact, they both went actively to work.

They agreed first to try the following device: A small knob of earth covered with rushes stood in the water close to the bank. Both the fishers were to crouch behind these rushes; the Fox was to move the water very gently with the end of his long brush, and withdraw it so soon as the Trout's attention should have been drawn to that point; and the Cat was to hold her right paw underneath, and be ready, so soon as the fish should come over it, to throw him out on the bank. No sooner was the execution of this device commenced than it seemed likely to succeed. The Trout soon noticed the movement on the water, and glided quickly toward the point where it was made; but when he had arrived within about twice his own length of it, he stopped and then backed toward the middle of the river. Several times this maneuver was repeated, and always with the same result, until the tricky pair were convinced that they must try some other scheme.

It so happened that whilst they were considering what they should do next, the Fox espied a small piece of meat, when it was agreed that he should tear this into little bits and throw them into the stream above where they then were; that the Cat should wait, crouched behind a tuft of grass, to dash into the river and seize the Trout, if he should come to take any piece of meat floating near the bank; and that the Fox should, on the first movement of the Cat, return and give his help. This scheme was put into practice, but with no better success than the other. The Trout came and took the pieces of meat which had floated farthest off from the bank, but to those which floated near he seemed to pay no attention. As he rose to take the last, he put his mouth out of the water and said, "To other travelers with these petty tricks: here we are 'wide awake as a black fish' and are not to be caught with bits and scraps, like so many silly gudgeons!"

As the Trout went down, the Fox said, in an undertone: "Say you so, my fine fellow; we may, perhaps, make a _gudgeon_ of you yet!"

Then, turning to the Cat, he proposed to her a new scheme in the following terms:

"I have a scheme to propose which cannot, I am persuaded, fail of succeeding, if you will lend your talent and skill for the execution of it. As I crossed the bridge, a little way above, I saw the dead body of a small dog, and near it a flat piece of wood rather longer than your person. Now, let us throw the dead dog into the river and give the Trout time to examine it; then, let us put the piece of wood into the water, and do you set yourself upon it so that it shall be lengthwise under you, and your mouth may lean over one edge and your tail hang in the water as if you were dead. The Trout, no doubt, will come up to you, when you may seize him and paddle to the bank with him, where I will be in waiting to help you land the prey."

The scheme pleased the Cat so much that, in spite of her repugnance to the wetting, which it promised her, she resolved to act the part which the cunning Fox had assigned to her. They first threw the dead dog into the river and, going down the stream, they soon had the satisfaction of seeing the Trout glide up close to it and examine it. They then returned to the bridge and put the piece of wood into the water, and the Cat, having placed herself upon it and taken a posture as if she were dead, was soon carried down by the current to where the Trout was. Apparently without the least suspicion, he came up close to the Cat's head, and she, seizing him by one of his gills, held him in spite of all his struggles. The task of regaining the bank still had to be performed, and this was no small difficulty, for the Trout struggled so hard, and the business of navigation was so new to the Cat, that not without great labor and fatigue did she reach the place where the Fox was waiting for her. As one end of the board struck the bank, the Fox put his right forepaw upon it, then seizing the fish near the tail, as the Cat let it go, he gave the board a violent push which sent it toward the middle of the stream, and instantly ran off with the Trout in his mouth toward the bridge.

It had so happened that after the Fox had quitted the bridge the last time, an Otter had come there to watch for fish, and he, seeing the Trout in the Fox's mouth, rushed toward him, and compelled him to drop the fish and put himself on the defensive. It had also happened that this Otter had been seen in an earlier part of the day, and that notice of him had been given to the farmer to whom the Cat belonged, and who had more than once declared that if ever he found her fishing again she should be thrown into the river with a stone tied to her neck. The moment the farmer heard of the Otter, he took his gun, and followed by a laborer and two strong dogs, went toward the river, where he arrived just as the Cat, exhausted by the fatigue of her second voyage, was crawling up the bank. Immediately he ordered the laborer to put the sentence of drowning in execution; then, followed by his dogs, he arrived near the bridge just as the Fox and the Otter were about to join battle. Instantly the dogs set on the Fox and tore him to pieces; and the farmer, shooting the Otter dead on the spot, possessed himself of the Trout, which had thus served to detain first one, then the other of his destroyers, till a severe punishment had overtaken each of them. Moral.--The inexperienced are never so much in danger of being deceived and hurt as when they think themselves a match for the crafty, and suppose that they have penetrated their designs and seen through all their stratagems. As to the crafty, they are ever in danger, either by being overreached one by another or of falling in a hurry into some snare of their own, where, as commonly happens, should they be caught, they are treated with a full measure of severity.--Aesop, Jr., in America.

Robert C. Sands

A MONODY

Made on the Late Mr. Samuel Patch, by an Aadmirer of the Bathos

By water he shall die and take his end.--Shakespeare

Toll for Sam Patch! Sam Patch, who jumps no more, This or the world to come. Sam Patch is dead! The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore Of dark futurity, he would not tread. No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed; Nor with decorous woe, sedately stepp'd Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed-- The mighty river, as it onward swept, In one great wholesale sob, his body drowned and kept.

Toll for Sam Patch! he scorned the common way That leads to fame, up heights of rough ascent, And having heard Pope and Longinus say That some great men had risen by falls, he went And jumped, where wild Passaic's waves had rent The antique rocks--the air free passage gave-- And graciously the liquid element Upbore him, like some sea-god on its wave; And all the people said that Sam was very brave.

Fame, the clear spirit that doth to heaven upraise, Let Sam to dive into what Byron calls The hell of waters. For the sake of praise, He wooed the bathos down great waterfalls; The dizzy precipice, which the eye appals Of travelers for pleasure, Samuel found Pleasant as are to women lighted halls, Crammed full of fools and fiddles; to the sound Of the eternal roar, he timed his desperate bound.

Sam was a fool. But the large world of such Has thousands--better taught, alike absurd, And less sublime. Of fame he soon got much, Where distant cataracts spout, of him men heard. Alas for Sam! Had he aright preferred The kindly element, to which he gave Himself so fearlessly, we had not heard That it was now his winding sheet and grave, Nor sung, 'twixt tears and smiles, our requiem for the brave.

He soon got drunk with rum and with renown, As many others in high places do-- Whose fall is like Sam's last--for down and down, By one mad impulse driven, they flounder through The gulf that keeps the future from our view, And then are found not. May they rest in peace! We heave the sigh to human frailty due-- And shall not Sam have his? The muse shall cease To keep the heroic roll, which she began in Greece--

With demigods who went to the Black Sea For wool (and if the best accounts be straight, Came back, in Negro phraseology, With the same wool each upon his pate), In which she chronicled the deathless fate Of him who jumped into the perilous ditch Left by Rome's street commissioners, in a state Which made it dangerous, and by jumping which He made himself renowned and the contractors rich--

I say the muse shall quite forget to sound The chord whose music is undying, if She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drowned. Leander dived for love. Leucadia's cliff The Lesbian Sappho leapt from in a miff, To punish Phaon; Icarus went dead Because the wax did not continue stiff; And, had he minded what his father said, He had not given a name unto his watery bed.

And Helle's case was all an accident, As everybody knows. Why sing of these? Nor would I rank with Sam that man who went Down into Aetna's womb--Empedocles, I think he called himself. Themselves to please, Or else unwillingly, they made their springs; For glory in the abstract, Sam made his, To prove to all men, commons, lords, and kings, That "some things may be done, as well as other things."

I will not be fatigued, by citing more Who jump'd of old, by hazard or design, Nor plague the weary ghosts of boyish lore, Vulcan, Apollo, Phaeton--in fine All Tooke's Pantheon. Yet they grew divine By their long tumbles; and if we can match Their hierarchy, shall we not entwine One wreath? Who ever came "up to the scratch," And for so little, jumped so bravely as Sam Patch?

To long conclusions many men have jumped In logic, and the safer course they took; By any other they would have been stumped, Unable to argue, or to quote a book, And quite dumbfounded, which they cannot brook; They break no bones, and suffer no contusion, Hiding their woful fall, by hook and crook, In slang and gibberish, sputtering and confusion; But that was not the way Sam came to _his_ conclusion.

He jumped in person. Death or victory Was his device, "and there was no mistake," Except his last; and then he did but die, A blunder which the wisest men will make. Aloft, where mighty floods the mountains break, To stand, the target of the thousand eyes, And down into the coil and water-quake, To leap, like Maia's offspring, from the skies-- For this all vulgar flights he ventured to despise.

And while Niagara prolongs its thunder, Though still the rock primeval disappears And nations change their bounds--the theme of wonder Shall Sam go down the cataract of long years: And if there be sublimity in tears, Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed When his frail star gave way, and waked his fears, Lest, by the ungenerous crowd it might be said, That he was all a hoax, or that his pluck had fled.

Who would compare the maudlin Alexander, Blubbering because he had no job in hand, Acting the hypocrite, or else the gander, With Sam, whose grief we all can understand? His crying was not womanish, nor plann'd For exhibition; but his heart o'erswelled With its own agony, when he the grand, Natural arrangements for a jump beheld. And measuring the cascade, found not his courage quelled.

His last great failure set the final seal Unto the record Time shall never tear, While bravery has its honor--while men feel The holy natural sympathies which are First, last and mightiest in the bosom. Where The tortured tides of Genesee descend, He came--his only intimate a bear-- (We know now that he had another friend), The martyr of renown, his wayward course to end.

The fiend that from the infernal rivers stole Hell-drafts for man, too much tormented him; With nerves unstrung, but steadfast of his soul, He stood upon the salient current's brim; His head was giddy, and his sight was dim; And then he knew this leap would be his last-- Saw air, and earth, and water, wildly swim, With eyes of many multitudes, dense and vast, That stared in mockery; none a look of kindness cast.

Beat down, in the huge amphitheatre, "I see before me the gladiator lie," And tier on tier, the myriads waiting there The bow of grace without one pitying eye-- He was a slave--a captive hired to die-- _Sam_ was born free as Caesar; and he might The hopeless issue have refused to try; No! with true leap, but soon with faltering flight-- "Deep in the roaring gulf, he plunged to endless night."

But, ere he leapt, he begged of those who made Money by this dread venture, that if he Should perish, such collection should be paid As might be picked up from the "company" _To his Mother._ This, his last request, shall be-- Tho' she who bore him ne'er his fate should know-- An iris, glittering o'er his memory-- When all the streams have worn their barriers low, And, by the sea drunk up, forever cease to flow.

On him who chooses to jump down cataracts, Why should the sternest moralist be severe? Judge not the dead by prejudice--but facts, Such as in strictest evidence appear. Else were the laurels of all ages sere. Give to the brave, who have passed the final goal-- The gates that ope not back--the generous tear; And let the muse's clerk upon her scroll In coarse, but honest verse, make up the judgment roll.

_Therefore it is considered_ that Sam Patch Shall never be forgot in prose or rhyme; His name shall be a portion in the batch Of the heroic dough, which baking Time Kneads for consuming ages--and the chime Of Fame's old bells, long as they truly ring, Shall tell of him; he dived for the sublime, And found it. Thou, who, with the eagle's wing, Being a goose, would'st fly--dream not of such a thing!

THE BRITISH MATRON

(Anonymous)

I have heard a good deal of the tenacity with which English ladies retain their personal beauty to a late period of life; but (not to suggest that an American eye needs use and cultivation before it can quite appreciate the charm of English beauty at any age) it strikes me that an English lady of fifty is apt to become a creature less refined and delicate, so far as her physique goes, than anything that we Western people class under the name of woman. She has an awful ponderosity of frame--not pulpy, like the looser development of our few fat women, but massive, with solid beef and streaky tallow; so that (though struggling manfully against the ideal) you inevitably think of her as made up of steaks and sirloins. When she walks her advance is elephantine. When she sits down it is on a great round space of her Maker's footstool, where she looks as if nothing could ever move her. She imposes awe and respect by the muchness of her personality, to such a degree that you probably credit her with far greater moral and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. Her visage is usually grim and stern, seldom positively forbidding, yet calmly terrible, not merely by its breadth and weight of feature, but because it seems to express so much well-defined self-reliance, such acquaintance with the world, its toils, troubles and dangers, and such sturdy capacity for trampling down a foe. Without anything positively salient, or actively offensive, or, indeed, unjustly formidable to her neighbors, she has the effect of a seventy-four-gun ship in time of peace; for, while you assure yourself that there is no real danger, you cannot help thinking how tremendous would be her onset if pugnaciously inclined, and how futile the effort to inflict any counter-injury. She certainly looks tenfold--nay, a hundredfold-- better able to take care of herself than our slender-framed and haggard womankind; but I have not found reason to suppose that the English dowager of fifty has actually greater courage, fortitude and strength of character than our women of similar age, or even a tougher physical endurance than they. Morally, she is strong, I suspect, only in society and in common routine of social affairs, and would be found powerless and timid in any exceptional strait that might call for energy outside of the conventionalities amid which she has grown up.

You can meet this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at the recollection. But conceive of her in a ballroom, with the bare, brawny arms that she invariably displays there, and all the other corresponding development, such as is beautiful in the maiden blossom, but a spectacle to howl at in such an overblown cabbage-rose as this.

Yet, somewhere in this enormous bulk there must be hidden the modest, slender, violet-nature of a girl, whom an alien mass of earthliness has unkindly overgrown; for an English maiden in her teens, though very seldom so pretty as our own damsels, possesses, to say the truth, a certain charm of half-blossom, and delicately folded leaves, and tender womanhood, shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, somehow or other, our American girls often fail to adorn themselves during an appreciable moment. It is a pity that the English violet should grow into such an outrageously developed peony as I have attempted to describe. I wonder whether a middle-aged husband ought to be considered as legally married to all the accretions that have overgrown the slenderness of his bride, since he led her to the altar, and which make her so much more than he ever bargained for! Is it not a sounder view of the case that the matrimonial bond cannot be held to include the three-fourths of the wife that had no existence when the ceremony was performed? And ought not an English married pair to insist upon the celebration of a silver wedding at the end of twenty-five years to legalize all that corporeal growth of which both parties have individually come into possession since pronounced one flesh?--_Our Old Home_.

THE POSTER GIRL

The blessed Poster Girl leaned out
From a pinky-purple heaven;
One eye was red and one was green;
Her bang was cut uneven;
She had three fingers on her hand,
And the hairs on her head were seven,

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No sunflowers did adorn;
But a heavy Turkish portiere
Was very neatly worn;
And the hat that lay along her back
Was yellow like canned corn.

It was a kind of wobbly wave
That she was standing on,
And high aloft she flung a scarf
That must have weighed a ton;
And she was rather tall--at least
She reached up to the sun.

She curved and writhed, and then she said
Less green of speech than blue:
"Perhaps I _am_ absurd--perhaps
I _don't_ appeal to you;
But my artistic worth depends
Upon the point of view."

I saw her smile, although her eyes
Were only smudgy smears;
And then she swished her swirling arms,
And wagged her gorgeous ears,
She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob,
And wept some purple tears.

Carolyn Wells.

James Gardner Sanderson

THE CONUNDRUM OF THE GOLF LINKS

(_With thanks to Kipling_)

When the flush of the new-born sun fell first on
Eden's gold and green,
Our Father Adam sat under the Tree and shaved
his driver clean,
And joyously whirled it round his head and
knocked the apples off,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves:
"Well done--but is it golf?"

Wherefore he called his wife and fled to practise
again his swing--
The first of the world who foozled his stroke (yet
the grandpapa of Tyng);
And he left his clubs to the use of his sons--and
that was a glorious gain,
When the Devil chuckled "Beastly Golf" in the
ear of the horrored Cain.

They putted and drove in the North and South;
they talked and laid links in the West;
Till the waters rose o'er Ararat's tees, and the
aching wrists could rest--
Could rest till that blank, blank canvasback,
heard the Devil jeer and scoff,
As he flew with the flood-fed olive branch, "Dry
weather. Let's play golf."

They pulled and sliced and pounded the earth,
and the balls went sailing off
Into bunkers and trees while the Devil grinned,
"Keep your eye on it! _That's_ not golf."
Then the Devil took his sulphured cleik and
mightily he swung,
While each man marveled and cursed his form
and each in an alien tongue.

The tale is as old as the Eden Tree--and new as
the newest green,
For each man knows ere his lip thatch grows the
caddy's mocking mien.
And each man hears, though the ball falls fair,
the Devil's cursed cough
Of joy as the man holes out in ten, "You did
it--but what poor golf!"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to
the shape of a niblick's shaft,
We have learned to make a mashie with a
wondrous handicraft,
We know that a hazard is often played best by
re-driving off,
But the Devil whoops as he whooped of old, "It's
easy, but is it golf?"

When the flicker of summer falls faint on the
Clubroom's gold and green,
The sons of Adam sit them down and boast of
strokes unseen;
They talk of stymies and brassie lies to the tune
of the steward's cough,
But the Devil whispers in their ears, "Gadzooks!
But that's not golf!"

Now if we could win to the Eden Tree where
the Nine-Mile Links are laid,
And seat ourselves where Man first swore as he
drove from the grateful shade,
And if we could play where our Fathers played
and follow our swings well through,
By the favor of God we might know of Golf
what our Father Adam knew.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

THE MINISTER'S WOOING

"Wal, the upshot on't was, they fussed and fuzzled and wuzzled till they'd drinked up all the tea in the teapot; and then they went down and called on the Parson, and wuzzled him all up talkin' about this, that, and t'other that wanted lookin' to, and that it was no way to leave everything to a young chit like Huldy, and that he ought to be lookin' about for an experienced woman.

"The Parson, he thanked 'em kindly, and said he believed their motives was good, but he didn't go no further.

"He didn't ask Mis' Pipperidge to come and stay there and help him, nor nothin' o' that kind; but he said he'd attend to matters himself. The fact was, the Parson had got such a likin' for havin' Huldy 'round that he couldn't think o' such a thing as swappin' her off for the Widder Pipperidge.

"'But,' he thought to himself, 'Huldy is a good girl; but I oughtn't to be a-leavin' everything to her--it's too hard on her. I ought to be instructin' and guidin' and helpin' of her; 'cause 'tain't everybody could be expected to know and do what Mis' Carryl did'; and so at it he went; and Lordy massy! didn't Huldy hev a time on't when the minister began to come out of his study and wanted to ten' 'round an' see to things? Huldy, you see, thought all the world of the minister, and she was 'most afraid to laugh; but she told me she couldn't, for the life of her, help it when his back was turned, for he wuzzled things up in the most singular way. But Huldy, she'd just say, 'Yes, sir,' and get him off into his study, and go on her own way.

"'Huldy,' says the minister one day, 'you ain't experienced outdoors; and when you want to know anything you must come to me.'

"'Yes, sir,' said Huldy.

"'Now, Huldy,' says the Parson, 'you must be sure to save the turkey eggs, so that we can have a lot of turkeys for Thanksgiving.'

"'Yes, sir,' says Huldy; and she opened the pantry door and showed him a nice dishful she'd been a-savin' up. Wal, the very next day the parson's hen-turkey was found killed up to old Jim Scrogg's barn. Folks say Scroggs killed it, though Scroggs, he stood to it he didn't; at any rate, the Scroggses they made a meal on't, and Huldy, she felt bad about it 'cause she'd set her heart on raisin' the turkeys; and says she, 'Oh, dear! I don't know what I shall do. I was just ready to set her.'

"'Do, Huldy?' says the Parson; 'why, there's the other turkey, out there by the door, and a fine bird, too, he is.'

"Sure enough, there was the old tom-turkey a-struttin' and a-sidlin' and a-quitterin', and a-floutin' his tail feathers in the sun, like a lively young widower all ready to begin life over again.

"'But,' says Huldy, 'you know _he_ can't set on eggs.'

"'He can't? I'd like to know why" says the Parson. 'He _shall_ set on eggs, and hatch 'em, too.'

'"Oh, Doctor!' says Huldy, all in a tremble; 'cause, you know, she didn't want to contradict the minister, and she was afraid she should laugh--' I never heard that a tom-turkey would set on eggs.'

"'Why, they ought to,' said the Parson getting quite 'arnest. 'What else be they good for? You just bring out the eggs, now, and put 'em in the nest, and I'll make him set on 'em.'

"So Huldy, she thought there weren't no way to convince him but to let him try; so she took the eggs out and fixed 'em all nice in the nest; and then she come back and found old Tom a-skirmishin' with the Parson pretty lively, I tell ye. Ye see, old Tom, he didn't take the idea at all; and he flopped and gobbled, and fit the Parson; and the Parson's wig got 'round so that his cue stuck straight out over his ear, but he'd got his blood up. Ye see, the old Doctor was used to carryin' his p'ints o' doctrine; and he hadn't fit the Arminians and Socinians to be beat by a tom-turkey; and finally he made a dive and ketched him by the neck in spite o' his floppin', and stroked him down, and put Huldy's apron 'round him.

"'There, Huldy,' he says, quite red in the face, 'we've got him now'; and he traveled off to the barn with him as lively as a cricket.

"Huldy came behind, just chokin' with laugh, and afraid the minister would look 'round and see her.

"'Now, Huldy, we'll crook his legs and set him down,' says the Parson, when they got him to the nest; 'you see, he is getting quiet, and he'll set there all right.'

"And the Parson, he sot him down; and old Tom, he sot there solemn enough and held his head down all droopin', lookin' like a rail pious old cock as long as the Parson sot by him.

"'There; you see how still he sets,' says the Parson to Huldy.

"Huldy was 'most dyin' for fear she should laugh. 'I'm afraid he'll get up,' says she, 'when you do.'

"'Oh, no, he won't!' says the Parson, quite confident. 'There, there,' says he, layin' his hands on him as if pronouncin' a blessin'.

"But when the Parson riz up, old Tom he riz up, too, and began to march over the eggs.

"'Stop, now!' says the Parson. 'I'll make him get down agin; hand me that corn-basket; we'll put that over him.'

"So he crooked old Tom's legs and got him down agin; and they put the corn-basket over him, and then they both stood and waited.

"'That'll do the thing, Huldy,' said the Parson.

"'I don't know about it,' says Huldy.

"'Oh, yes, it will, child; I understand,' says he.

"Just as he spoke, the basket riz up and stood, and they could see old Tom's long legs.

"'I'll make him stay down, confound him,' says the Parson, for you see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the Doctor had got his spunk up.

"'You jist hold him a minute, and I'll get something that'll make him stay, I guess; and out he went to the fence and brought in a long, thin, flat stone, and laid it on old Tom's back.

"'Oh, my eggs!' says Huldy. 'I'm afraid he's smashed 'em!'

"And sure enough, there they was, smashed flat enough under the stone.

"'I'll have him killed,' said the Parson. 'We won't have such a critter 'round.'

"Wall next week, Huldy, she jist borrowed the minister's horse and side-saddle and rode over to South Parish to her Aunt Bascome's-- Widder Bascome's, you know, that lives there by the trout-brook--and got a lot o' turkey eggs o' her, and come back and set a hen on 'em, and said nothin'; and in good time there was as nice a lot o' turkey- chicks as ever ye see.

"Huldy never said a word to the minister about his experiment, and he never said a word to her; but he sort o' kep more to his books and didn't take it on him to advise so much.

"But not long arter he took it into his head that Huldy ought to have a pig to be a-fattin' with the buttermilk.

"Mis' Pipperidge set him up to it; and jist then old Tom Bigelow, out to Juniper Hill, told him if he'd call over he'd give him a little pig.

"So he sent for a man, and told him to build a pig-pen right out by the well, and have it all ready when he came home with his pig.

"Huldy said she wished he might put a curb round the well out there, because in the dark sometimes a body might stumble into it; and the Parson said he might do that.

"Wal, old Aikin, the carpenter, he didn't come till 'most the middle of the afternoon; and then he sort o' idled, so that he didn't get up the well-curb till sundown; and then he went off, and said he'd come and do the pig-pen next day.

"Wal, arter dark, Parson Carryl, he driv into the yard, full chizel, with his pig.

"'There, Huldy. I've got you a nice little pig.'

"'Dear me!' says Huldy; 'where have you put him?'

"'Why, out there in the pig-pen, to be sure.'

"'Oh, dear me!' says Huldy,'that's the well-curb--there ain't no pig- pen built,' says she.

"'Lordy massy!' says the Parson; 'then I've thrown the pig in the well!'

"Wal, Huldy she worked and worked, and finally she fished piggy out in the bucket, but he was as dead as a doornail; and she got him out o' the way quietly, and didn't say much; and the Parson he took to a great Hebrew book in his study.

"After that the Parson set sich store by Huldy that he come to her and asked her about everything, and it was amazin' how everything she put her hand to prospered. Huldy planted marigolds and larkspurs, pinks and carnations, all up and down the path to the front door; and trained up mornin'-glories and scarlet runners round the windows. And she was always gettin' a root here, and a sprig there, and a seed from somebody else; for Huldy was one o' them that has the gift, so that ef you jist give 'em the leastest of anything they make a great bush out of it right away; so that in six months Huldy had roses and geraniums and lilies sich as it would take a gardener to raise.

"Huldy was so sort o' chipper and fair spoken that she got the hired men all under her thumb: they come to her and took her orders jist as meek as so many calves, and she traded at the store, and kep' the accounts, and she had her eyes everywhere, and tied up all the ends so tight that there wa'n't no gettin' 'round her. She wouldn't let nobody put nothin' off on Parson Carryl 'cause he was a minister. Huldy was allers up to anybody that wanted to make a hard bargain, and afore he knew jist what he was about she'd got the best end of it, and everybody said that Huldy was the most capable girl they ever traded with.

"Wal, come to the meetin' of the Association, Mis' Deakin Blodgett and Mis' Pipperidge come callin' up to the Parson's all in a stew and offerin' their services to get the house ready, but the Doctor he jist thanked 'em quite quiet, and turned 'em over to Huldy; and Huldy she told 'em that she'd got everything ready, and showed 'em her pantries, and her cakes, and her pies, and her puddin's, and took 'em all over the house; and they went peekin' and pokin', openin' cupboard doors, and lookin' into drawers; and they couldn't find so much as a thread out o' the way, from garret to cellar, and so they went off quite discontented. Arter that the women sat a new trouble a-brewin'. They began to talk that it was a year now since Mis' Carryl died; and it railly wasn't proper such a young gal to be stayin' there, who everybody could see was a-settin' her cap for the minister.

"Mis' Pipperidge said, that so long as she looked on Huldy as the hired gal she hadn't thought much about it; but Huldy was railly takin' on airs as an equal, and appearin' as mistress o' the house in a way that would make talk if it went on. And Mis' Pipperidge she driv 'round up to Deakin Abner Snow's, and down to Mis 'Lijah Perry's, and asked them if they wasn't afraid that the way the Parson and Huldy was a-goin on might make talk. And they said they hadn't thought on't before, but now, come to think on't it, they was sure it would and they all went and talked with somebody else and asked them if they didn't think it would make talk. So come Sunday, between meetin's there warn't nothin' else talked about; and Huldy saw folks a-noddin' and a-winkin', and a-lookin' arter her, and she begun to feel drefful sort o' disagreeable. Finally Mis' Sawin, she says to her, 'My dear, didn't you never think folk would talk about you and the minister?'

"'No; why should they?' says Huldy, quite innocent.

"'Wal, dear,' says she, 'I think it's a shame; but they say you're tryin' to catch him, and that it's so bold and improper for you to be courtin' of him right in his own house--you know folks will talk--I thought I'd tell you, 'cause I think so much of you,' says she.

"Huldy was a gal of spirit, and she despised the talk, but it made her drefful uncomfortable; and when she got home at night she sat down in the mornin'-glory porch, quite quiet, and didn't sing a word.

"The minister he had heard the same thing from one of his deakins that day; and when he saw Huldy so kind o' silent, he says to her, 'Why don't you sing, my child?'

"He had a pleasant sort o' way with him, the minister had, and Huldy had got to likin' to be with him; and it all come over her that perhaps she ought to go away; and her throat kind o' filled up so she couldn't hardly speak; and, says she, 'I can't sing to-night'

"Says he, 'You don't know how much good your singin' has done me, nor how much good you have done me in all ways, Huldy. I wish I knew how to show my gratitude.'

"'Oh, sir!' says Huldy, '_is_ it improper for me to be here?'

"'No, dear,' says the minister, 'but ill-natured folks will talk; but there is one way we can stop it, Huldy--if you'll marry me. You'll make me very happy, and I'll do all I can to make you happy. Will you?'

"Wal, Huldy never told me just what she said to the minister; gals never does give you the particulars of them things jist as you'd like 'em--only I know the upshot and the hull on't was, that Huldy she did a considerable lot o' clear starchin' and ironin' the next two days, and the Friday o' next week the minister and she rode over together to Doctor Lothrop's, in Oldtown, and the Doctor he jist made 'em man and wife."

William Dean Howells

MRS. JOHNSON

It was on a morning of the lovely New England May that we left the horse-car and, spreading our umbrellas, walked down the street to our new home in Charlesbridge, through a storm of snow and rain so finely blent by the influences of this fortunate climate that no flake knew itself from its sister drop, or could be better identified by the people against whom they beat in unison. A vernal gale from the east fanned our cheeks and pierced our marrow and chilled our blood, while the raw, cold green of the adventurous grass on the borders of the sopping sidewalks gave, as it peered through its veil of melting snow and freezing rain, a peculiar cheerfulness to the landscape. Here and there in the vacant lots abandoned hoopskirts defied decay; and near the half-finished wooden houses empty mortar-beds and bits of lath and slate, strewn over the scarred and mutilated ground, added their interest to the scene....