Chapter VI: INSURANCE IN GOSPELER's GULCH

The Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON (OCTAVIUS, because there had been seven other little SIMPSONS, who all took after their father when he died of mumps, like seven kittens after the parental tail,) having thrown himself all over the room with a pair of dumb-bells much too strong for him, and taken a seidlitz powder to oblige his dyspepsia, was now parting his back hair before a looking-glass. An unimpeachably consumptive style of clerical beauty did the mirror reflect; the countenance contracting to an expression of almost malevolent piety when the comb went over a bump, and relaxing to an open-mouthed charity for all mankind, amounting nearly to imbecility, when the more complex requirements of the parting process compelled twists of the head scarcely compatible with even so much as a squint at the glass.

It being breakfast time, Mrs. SIMPSON--mother of OCTAVIUS--was just down for the meal, and surveyed the operation with a look of undisguised anxiety.

"You'll break one of them yet, some morning, OCTAVE," said the old lady.

"Do what, OLDY?" asked the writhing Gospeler, apparently speaking out of his right ear.

"You'll break either the comb, or your neck, some morning."

Rendered momentarily irritable by this aggravating remark, the Reverend OCTAVIUS made a jab with the comb at the old lady's false-front, pulling it down quite askew over her left eye; but, upon the sudden entrance of a servant with the tea-pot, he made precipitate pretence that his hand was upon his mother's head to give her a morning blessing.

They were a striking pair to sit at breakfast together in Gospeler's Gulch, Bumsteadville: she with her superb old nut-cracker countenance, and he with the dyspepsia of more than thirty summers causing him to deal gently with the fish-balls. They sat within sound of the bell of the Ritualistic Church, the ringing of which was forever deluding the peasantry of the surrounding country into the idea that they could certainly hear their missing cows at last (hence the name of the church--Saint Cow's); while the sonorous hee-hawing of an occasional Nature's Congressman in some distant field reminded them of the outer political world.

"Here is Mr. SCHENCK'S letter," said Mrs. SIMPSON, handing an open epistle across the table, as she spoke to her son, "and you might read it aloud, my OCTAVE."

Taking the tea-cup off his face, the Reverend OCTAVIUS accepted the missive, which was written from "A Perfect Stranger's Parlor, New York," and began reading thus: "Dear Ma-a-dam--

I wri-i-te in the-e
Chai-ai-ai-air-"

--"Dear me, OCTAVE," interrupted the old lady, "can't you read even a letter without Intoning--and to the tone of 'Old Hundredth,' too?"

"I'm afraid not, dear OLDY," responded the Gospeler. "I'm so much in the habit of it. You're not so ritualistic yourself, and may be able to do better."

"Give it back to me, my sing-sing-sonny," said the old lady; who at once read as follows: "DEAR MADAM, I write from the chair which I have now occupied for six hours, in the house of a man whom I never saw before in my life, but who comes next in the Directory to the obstinate but finally conquered being under whose roof I resolutely passed the greater part of yesterday. He sits near me in another chair, so much weakened that he can just reply to me in whispers, and I believe that a few hours more of my talk will leave him no choice between dying of exhaustion at my feet and taking a Policy in the Boreal Life Insurance Company, of which I am Agent. I have spoken to my wards, MONTGOMERY and MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON, concerning MAGNOLIA'S being placed at school in the Macassar, and MONTGOMERY'S acceptance of your son, OCTAVIUS, as his tutor, and shall take them with me to Bumsteadville to-morrow, for such disposition. Hoping, Madam, that neither you nor your son will much longer fly into the face of Providence by declining to insure your lives, through me, in the Boreal, I have the honor to be Yours, for two Premiums, MELANCTHON SCHENCK."

"Well, OLDY," said OCTAVIUS, with dismal countenance, "do you think we'll have to do it?"

"Do what?" asked the old lady.

"Let him Insure us."

"I'm afraid it will come to that yet, OCTAVE. I've known persons to die under him."

"Well, well, Heaven's will be done," muttered the patient Gospeler. "And now, mother, we must do something to make the first coming of these young strangers seem cheerful to them. We must give a little dinner-party here, and invite Miss CAROWTHERS, and BUMSTEAD and his nephew, and the Flowerpot. Don't you think the codfish will go round?"

"Yes, dear: that is, if you and I take the spine," replied the old lady.

So the party of reception was arranged, and the invitations hurried out.

At about half an hour before dinner there was a sound in the air of Bumsteadville as of a powerful stump-speaker addressing a mass-meeting in the distance; rapidly intensifying to stentorian phrases, such as--"provide for your miserable surviving offspring"--"lower rates than any other company"--"full amount cheerfully paid upon hearing of your death"--until a hack appeared coming down the crossroad descending into Gospeler's Gulch, and stopped at the Gospeler's door. As the faint driver, trembling with nervous debility from great excess of deathly admonition addressed to him, through the front window of his hack, all the way from the ferry, checked his horses in one feeble gasp of remaining strength, the Reverend OCTAVIUS stepped forth from the doorway to greet Mr. SCHENCK and the dark-complexioned, sharp-eyed young brother and sister who came with him.

"Now remember, fellow," said Mr. SCHENCK to the driver, after he had come out of the vehicle, shaking his cane menacingly at him as he spoke, "I've warned you, in time, to prepare for death, and given you a Schedule of our rates to read to your family. If you should die of apoplexy in a week, as you probably will, your wife must pick rags, and your children play a harp and fiddle. Dream of it, think of it, dissolute man, and take a Policy in the Boreal."

As the worn-out hackman, too despondent at thought of his impending decease and family-bankruptcy to make any other answer than a groan, drove wretchedly away, the genial Mr. SCHENCK hoarsely introduced the young PENDRAGONS to the Gospeler, and went with them after the latter into the house.

The Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON, with dire forebodings of the discomfiture of his dear old nut-cracker of a mother, did the honors of a general introduction with a perfect failure of a smile; and, thenceforth, until dinner was over, Mr. SCHENCK was the Egyptian festal skeleton that continually reminded the banqueters of their latter ends.

"Great Heavens! what signs of the seeds of the tomb do I not see all around me here," observed Mr. SCHENCK, in a deep base voice, as he helped himself to more codfish. "Here is my friend, Mr. SIMPSON, withering under our very eyes with Dyspepsia. In Mr. BUMSTEAD'S manly eye you can perceive Congestion of the Brain. General Debility marked the venerable Mrs. SIMPSON for its own. Miss POTTS and MAGNOLIA can bloom and eat caramels now; but what will be their anguish when malignant Small Pox rages, as it surely must, next month! Mr. DROOD and MONTGOMERY are rejoicing in the health and thin legs of youth; but how many lobster salads are there between them and fatal Cholera Morbus? As for Miss ELIZABETH CADY CAROWTHERS, there, her Skeleton is already coming through at the shoulders."--"Oh, my friends!" exclaimed the ghastly Mr. SCHENCK, with beautiful enthusiasm, "Insure while yet, there is time; that the kindred, or friends, whom you will all leave behind, probably within the next three months, may have something to keep them from the Poor-House, or, its dread alternative--Crime!" He considerately paused until the shuddering was over, and then added, with melting softness--"I'll leave a few of our Schedules with you."

When, at last, this boon-companion said that he must go, it was surprising to see with what passionate cordiality everybody helped him off. Mr. BUMSTEAD frenziedly crammed his hat upon his beaming head, and, with one eager blow on the top, drove it far down over his ears; FLORA POTTS and MAGNOLIA thrust each a buckskin glove far up either sleeve; Miss CAROWTHERS frantically stuck one of his overshoes under each arm; Mr. DROOD wildly dragged his coat over his form, without troubling him at all about the sleeves, and breathlessly buttoned it to the neck; and the Reverend OCTAVIUS and MONTGOMERY hurried him forth by the shoulders, as though the house were on fire and he the very last to be snatched from the falling beams.

These latter two then almost ran with him to the livery stable where he was to obtain a hack for the ferry; leaving him in charge of the livery man--who, by the way, he at once frightened into a Boreal Policy, by a few felicitous remarks (while the hack was preparing) upon the curious recent fatality of Heart-Disease amongst middle-aged podgy men with bulbous noses.

(_To be Continued._)

* * * * *

THE FEROCITY OF FAILURE.

It is not, everybody knows, pleasant to fail; and of all failures, it is the most aggravating to an editor to have the juvenile newspaper of his own begetting expire at an early age. Such has been the melancholy fate of _The Hancock_ (Ky.) _Messenger_. "Ah!" says the wretched editor in his farewell address, "if I could but write the obituary of several of the miserable skinflints of this town." Such being his passionate emotions, and such the wild bitterness of his revengeful spirit, it is greatly to be wondered at that with rifle, bowie-knife or pistol, he did not rush into the streets of Hancock, and, having run a muck through those thoroughfares, and having slaughtered quite a large number of the "miserable skin-flints," that he did not then retire to his den, there and then to compose the obituaries aforesaid. It must be confessed that this gentleman appears to be more bilious than brave.

* * * * *

SONG OF THE CHICAGO LAWYER.

Divorces, Ho! Divorces!
Ye sorry lords, come one and all!
Afflicted wives, come at my call!
I have a balm for all the smarts
And pains of unrequited hearts;
I have a cure for every ill
That matrimonial feuds instil--
Come ye unto my call!

Here, pretty one!
I know your lord refused to buy
That velvet dress, no reason why--
He is a brute! There, do not cry,
I'll drive the tear-drop from your eye,
And you again, fair one, shall be
From such a selfish thraldom free--
Take courage, then--look up!

This way, good sir--
Is raging, wild insanity;
Ha! ha! my friend, is that the plea?
Oh, well, we've doctors by the score
Will prove it twenty times, or more,
Or, if it may His Honor please,
Will swear the moon is made of cheese--
Come on, good sir, come on!

Good morning, pious friend!
You wish for ministerial aid
To prove the flaws? Be not afraid--
The ministerial conscience leads
Sometimes to proving of misdeeds,
Which less exalted minds would hold
It nobler to have left untold;
But duty, sir, is stern.

Divorces, Ho! Divorces!
We'll put them through at Dexter speed,
And, this late day, there is no need
Of flying off to Indiana
In such a helter-skelter manner;
We're going to have a train, you know,
'Twill stop, (with patients passing through,)
Five minutes for divorces.

* * * * *

INTERESTING TO ITINERANT CIRCUS COMPANIES.

You can make your tents waterproof by Pitching them.

* * * * *

MORE MYTHOLOGY.

APOLLO. This gentlemanly deity was the manager of the Sun. By this statement we do not mean to imply that he had any connection with the _Sun_ of the present day over which Mr. DANA presides, although his fondness for a good lyre has led many to suppose that he was the patron of the classic journalists. The Sun which was in APOLLO'S charge was the same respectable luminary which has been seen at London no less than three different times during the present century, and which daily shines upon this free and happy republic. What APOLLO'S duties as keeper of the Sun were, is not precisely known. Probably he was required to superintend the scouring and brightening of the solar disk. At any rate, since he gave up his office, the Sun has become freckled over with ugly spots, the cause of which no modern astronomer has yet discerned;--the scientific chaps, with their customary want of common sense, having never once surmised that these spots were simply rust occasioned by a lack of proper scouring. The theory that APOLLO really did scour the Sun is substantiated by the ancient legend that he used to scour the heavens in a swift chariot drawn by several coursers. The greater is universally admitted to contain the less--except in the solitary instance of the nutmeg grater, which generally contains nothing but dust.--Hence the deity who scoured the entire Heavens would unquestionably scour that small portion which we call the Sun. This is an argument which will convince any one but a strong-minded woman or a Protectionist.

APOLLO, as we have already said, was very fond of the lyre. He was also an archer--not the one who shot at a crow, although his name does begin with "A," but an archer who was addicted to drawing a very long and ornamental bow. This is doubtless another reason why he is believed to have been the guide, counsellor, and friend of the journalists of the period. Indeed, so firm is the belief, even at the present day, in his honorary connection with journalism, that one of our best known editors, whose personal appearance strikingly resembles that of the best statues of APOLLO, is frequently called, by way of compliment, "the APOLLO of the press." Need we say that we refer to Mr. HORACE GREELEY, who receives this title quite as much on account of his professional eminence, as because of his resemblance to the APOLLO BELVIDERE?

APOLLO was the first individual, mortal or immortal, who became a public lecturer, and--after the manner of our most popular lyceum lecturers--propounded unintelligible conundrums to the confiding public. He had a Hall at Delphi, where he used to speak upon "The Lesson of the Hour," and his oracular sayings were every bit as valuable as those of RALPH WALDO EMERSON himself. People used to ask him all manner of questions, precisely as they now ask questions of the editors of newspapers. Now-a-days if a girl wants to know what she shall do to change the color of her hair, she writes to the editor of PUNCHINELLO, and receives a satisfactory answer. Had she lived two thousand years ago, however, she would have gone to Delphi and asked APOLLO, who would have oracularly answered, "Dye." As APOLLO never wrote his prescriptions, the girl would have been uncertain whether he meant to say "Dye" or "Die," and after the manner of her sex, would, of course, have chosen the wrong interpretation, and have immediately drowned herself. By such responses as these, APOLLO sometimes accomplished much good, though usually his oracular sayings were as useless as those of the Veteran Observer.

* * * * *

THE CROWING HENS.

The ladies, bless 'em! are disgusted with man management, and seek to inaugurate a season of Miss management.

* * * * *

RICHES HAVE WINGS.

Gen. BUTLER'S failure to profit by his investment in the Lynn shoe-manufacture, may at this time be justly regarded as another proof that wealth has wings and "shoe-flies" away.

* * * * *

THE HOLY GRAIL AND OTHER POEMS.

(This is one of the other Poems.)

BY A HALF-RED DENIZEN OF THE WEST.