Chapter I: ADDRESS myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct (1)

their compassionate regards to my unhappy fate, in order to remove the prejudices of which I am the victim. There are twin sisters of us; and the two eyes of man do not more resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself, were it not for the partiality of our parents, who make the most injurious distinctions between us. From my infancy I have been led to consider my sister as a being of a more elevated rank. I was suffered to grow up without the least instruction, while nothing was spared in her education.

She had masters to teach her writing, drawing, music, and other accomplishments; but if by chance I touched a pencil, a pen, or a needle, I was bitterly rebuked; and more than once I have been beaten for being awkward, and wanting a graceful manner. It is true, my sister associated me with her upon some occasions; but she always made a point of taking the lead, calling upon me only from necessity, or to figure by her side.

But conceive not, sirs, that my complaints are instigated merely by vanity. No; my uneasiness is occasioned by an object much more serious. It is the practice in our family, that the whole business of providing for its subsistence falls upon my sister and myself. If any indisposition should attack my sister,—and I mention it in confidence upon this occasion, that she is subject to the gout, the rheumatism, and cramp, without making mention of other accidents,—what would be the fate of our poor family?

Must not the regret of our parents be excessive, at having placed so great a difference between sisters who are so perfectly equal? Alas! we must perish from distress; for it would not be in my power even to scrawl a suppliant petition for relief, having been obliged to employ the hand of another in transcribing the request which I have now the honour to prefer to you.

Condescend, sirs, to make my parents sensible of the injustice of an exclusive tenderness, and of the necessity of distributing their care and affection among all their children equally. I am, with a profound respect, sirs, your obedient servant,

THE LEFT HAND.
_Benjamin Franklin._

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_WOMEN’S FASHIONS._

SHOULD I not keepe promise in speaking a little to Women’s fashions, they would take it unkindly. I was loath to pester better matter with such stuffe; I rather thought it meet to let them stand by themselves, like the _Quæ Genus_ in the Grammar, being Deficients, or Redundants, not to be brought under any Rule: I shall therefore make bold for this once, to borrow a little of their loose-tongued Liberty, and misspend a word or two upon their long-wasted, but short-skirted patience; a little use of my stirrup will doe no harme.

_Ridentem dicere verum, quid prohibet?

Gray Gravity itselfe can well beteam,
That Language be adapted to the Theme.
He that to Parrots speaks, must parrotize;
He that instructs a foole, may act th’ unwise._

It is known more then enough, that I am neither Nigard, nor Cinick, to the due bravery of the true Gentry: if any man mislikes a bully ’mong drossock more than I, let him take her for his labour! I honour the woman that can honour her selfe with her attire: a good Text alwayes deserves a fair Margent: I am not much offended if I see a trimme, far trimmer than she that wears it: in a word, whatever Christianity or Civility will allow, I can afford with _London_ measure: but when I heare a nugiperous Gentledame inquire what dresse the Queen is in this week: what the nudiustertian fashion of the court; I meane the very newest: with egge to be in it in all haste, what ever it be; I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cypher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if shee were of a kickable substance, than either honour’d or humour’d.

To speak moderately, I truly confesse, it is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive, how those women should have any true grace, or valuable vertue, that have so little wit, as to disfigure themselves with such exotick garbes, as not only dismantles their native lovely lustre, but trans-clouts them into gant bar-geese, ill-shapen-shotten-shell-fish, Egyptian hyeroglyphicks, or at the best into French flurts of the pastery, which a proper English-woman should scorne with her heels; it is no marvell they weare drailes on the hinder part of their heads, having nothing as it seems in the fore part, but a few Squirril’s brains to help them frisk from one ill-favor’d fashion to another.

_These whimm-Crown’d shees, these fashion-fansying wits,
Are empty thin-brained shells, and fiddling Kits._

The very troublers and impoverishers of mankind, I can hardly forbear to commend to the world a saying of a Lady living sometime with the Queen of _Bohemia_. I know not where shee found it, but it is a pitty it should be lost.

_The World is full of care, much like unto a bubble;
Women and care, and care and women, and women and care and trouble._

The Verses are even enough for such odde pegma’s. I can make myselfe sicke at any time, with comparing the dazling splender wherewith our Gentlewomen were embellished in some former habits, with the goosdom wherewith they are now surcingled and debauched. Wee have about five or six of them in our Colony; if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my phansie of them for a moneth after. I have been a solitary widdower almost twelve yeares, purposed lately to make a step over to my Native Country for a yoke fellow; but when I consider how women there have tripe-wifed themselves with their cladments, I have no heart to the voyage, least their nauseous shapes and the Sea, should work too sorely upon my stomach. I speak sadly; me thinkes it should breake the hearts of Englishmen to see so many goodly Englishwomen imprisoned in French Cages, peering out of their hood-holes for some men of mercy to help them with a little wit, and no body relieves them.

It is a more common than convenient saying, that nine Taylors make a man; it were well if nineteene could make a woman to her minde; if Taylors were men indeed, well furnished, but with meer morall principles, they would disdain to be led about like Apes, by such mymick Marmosets. It is a most unworthy thing, for men that have bones in them, to spend their lives in making fidle-cases for futilous women’s phansies; which are the very pettitoes of infirmity, the gyblets of perquisquilian toyes. I am so charitable to think, that most of that mystery would worke the cheerfuller while they live, if they might bee well discharged of the tyring slavery of mis-trying women; it is no little labour to be continually putting up English-women into Out-landish caskes; who if they be not shifted anew, once in a few moneths, grow too sowre for their Husbands. What this Trade will answer for themselves when God shall take measure of Taylors’ consciences is beyond my skill to imagine. There was a time when

_The joyning of the Red-Rose with the White,
Did set our State into a Damask plight._

But now our Roses are turned to _Flore de lices_, our Carnations to Tulips, our Gilliflowers to Dayzes, our City Dames, to indenominable Quæmalry of overturcas’d things. Hee that makes Coates for the Moone had need take measure every noone; and he that makes for women, as often, to keepe them from Lunacy.

I have often heard divers Ladies vent loud feminine complaints of the wearisome varieties and chargeable changes of fashions! I marvell themselves preferre not a Bill of redresse. I would _Essex_ Ladies would lead the Chore, for the honour of their County and persons; or rather the thrice honourable Ladies of the Court, whom it best beseemes; who may wel presume of a _Le Roy le Veult_ from our sober King, a _Les Seigneurs ont Assentus_ from our prudent Peers, and the like _Assentus_ from our considerate, I dare not say wife-worne Commons! who I believe had much rather passe one such Bill, than pay so many Taylors’ Bills as they are forced to doe.

Most deare and unparallel’d Ladies, be pleased to attempt it; as you have the precellency of the women of the world for beauty and feature; so assume the honour to give, and not take Law from any, in matter of attire; if ye can transact so faire a motion among yourselves unanimously I dare say, they that most renite, will least repent. What greater honour can your Honours desire, than to build a Promontory president to all foraigne Ladies, to deserve so eminently at the hands of all the English Gentry present and to come; and to confute the opinion of all the wise men in the world; who never thought it possible for women to doe so good a work?

If any man think I have spoken rather merrily than seriously, he is much mistaken. I have written what I write with all the indignation I can, and no more than I ought. I confesse I veer’d my tongue to this kinde of Language _de industria_ though unwillingly, supposing those I speak to are uncapable of grave and rationall arguments.

I desire all Ladies and Gentlewomen to understand that all this while I intend not such as through necessary modesty to avoyd morose singularity, follow fashions slowly, a flight shot or two off, showing by their moderation that they rather draw countermont with their hearts, than put on by their examples.

I point my pen only against the light-heel’d beagles that lead the chase so fast, that they run all civility out of breath, against these Ape-headed pullets, which invent Antique foole-fangles, meerly for fashion and novelty sake.

_Nathaniel Ward._

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_THE NEWSBOY._

“IS this the office of the _National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet_?” inquired Sapid in sepulchral tones.

“Hey—what? Oh!—yes,” gruffly replied the clerk, as he scrutinised the applicant.

“It is, is it?” was the response.

“H—umpse;” heaving a porcine affirmative, much in use in the city of brotherly love.

“I am here to see the editor, on business of importance,” slowly and solemnly articulated Sapid. There must have been something professionally alarming in this announcement, if an opinion may be formed from the effect it produced.

“Editor’s not come down yet, is he, Spry?” inquired the clerk, with a cautionary wink at the paste-boy.

“Guess he ain’t more nor up yet,” said Spry; “the mails was late last night.”

“I’ll take a seat till he does come,” observed Sapid, gloomily.

Spry and the clerk laid their heads together in the most distant corner of the little office.

“Has he got a stick?” whispered one.

“No, and he isn’t remarkable big, nuther.”

“Any bit of paper in his hand—does he look like State House and a libel suit? It’s a’most time—not had a new suit for a week.”

“Not much; and, as we didn’t have any scrouger in the _Gun_ yesterday, perhaps he wants to have somebody tickled up himself. Send him in.”

St. Sebastian Sockdolager, Esq., the editor of _The National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet_, sat at a green table, elucidating an idea by the aid of a steel pen and whity-brown paper, and therefore St. Sebastian Sockdolager did not look up when Mr. Sapid entered the sanctum. The abstraction may, perhaps, have been a sample of literary stage effect; but it is certain that the pen pursued the idea with the speed and directness of a steeple-chase, straight across the paper, and direful was the scratching thereof. The luckless idea being at last fairly run down and its brush cut off, Mr. Sockdolager threw himself back into his chair with a smile of triumph.

“Tickletoby,” said he, rumpling his hair into heroic expansiveness.

“What?” exclaimed Sapid, rather nervously.

“My dear sir, I didn’t see you—a thousand pardons! Pray what can be done for you in our line?”

“Sir, there is a nuisance——”

“Glad of it, sir; _The Gun_ is death on a nuisance. We circulate ten thousand deaths to any sort of a nuisance every day, besides the weekly and the country edition. We are a regular smash-pipes in that line—surgical, surgical to this community—we are at once the knife and the sarsaparilla to human ills, whether financial, political, or social.”

“Sir, the nuisance I complain of lies in the circulation—in its mode and manner.”

“Bless me,” said Sockdolager, with a look of suspicion, “you are too literal in your interpretations. If your circulation is deranged, you had better try Brandreth, or the Fluid Extract of Quizembob.”

“It is not my circulation, but yours, that makes all the trouble. I never circulate—I can’t without being insulted.”

“Really, mister, I can’t say that this is clearly comprehensible to perception. Not circulate! Are you below par in the money article; or in what particular do you find yourself in the condition of ‘no go’? Excuse my facetiæ and be brief, for thought comes tumbling, bumping, booming——” and Sockdolager dipped his pen in the ink.

Mr. Sappington Sapid unravelled the web of his miseries. “I wish you, sir, to control your newsboys—to dismiss the saucy, and to write an article which shall make ’em ashamed of themselves. I shall call on every editor in the city, sir, and ask the same—a combined expression for the suppression of iniquity. We must be emancipated from this new and growing evil, or our liberties become a farce, and we are squashed and crushed in a way worse than fifty tea-taxes.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Whatcheecallem; it can’t be done—it would be suicidal, with the sharpest kind of a knife. Whatcheecallem, you don’t understand the grand movement of the nineteenth century—you are not up to snuff as to the vital principle of human progression—the propulsive force has not yet been demonstrated to your benighted optics. The sun is up, sir; the hill-tops of intellect glow with its brightness, and even the level plain of the world’s collective mediocrity is gilded by its beams; but you, sir, are yet in the foggy valley of exploded prejudice, poking along with a tuppenny-ha’penny candle—a mere dip. Suppress sauciness! why, my dear bungletonian, sauciness is the discovery of the age—the secret of advancement! We are saucy now, sir, not by the accident of constitution—temperament has nothing to do with it. We are saucy by calculation, by intention, by design. It is cultivated, like our whiskers, as a superadded energy to our other gifts. Without sauciness, what is a newsboy? what is an editor? what are revolutions? what are people? Sauce is power. Sauce is spirit, independence, victory, everything. It is, in fact,—this sauce, or ‘sass,’ as the vulgar have it,—steam to the great locomotive of affairs. Suppress, indeed! No, sir; you should regard it as part of your duty as a philanthropist and as a patriot to encourage this essence of superiority in all your countrymen; and I’ve a great mind to write you an article on that subject instead of the other, for this conversation has warmed up my ideas so completely that justice will not be done to the community till they, like you, are enlightened on this important point.”

St. Sebastian Sockdolager, now having a leading article for _The National Pop-gun and Universal Valve Trumpet_ clearly in his mind, was not a creature to be trifled with. An editor in this paroxysm, however gentle in his less inspired moments, cannot safely be crossed, or even spoken to. It is not wise to call him to dinner, except through the keyhole; and to ask for “more copy,” in general a privileged demand, is a risk too fearful to be encountered. St. Sebastian’s eye became fixed, his brow corrugated, his mouth intellectually ajar.

“But, sir, the nuisance,” said Sappington.

“Don’t bother!” was the impatient reply, and the brow of St. Sebastian Sockdolager grew black as his own ink.

“The boys, sir, the boys!—am I to be worried out of my life and soul?”

The right hand of St. Sebastian Sockdolager fell heavily upon the huge pewter inkstand—the concatenation of his ideas had been broken—he half raised himself from his chair and glanced significantly from his visitor to the door. “Mizzle!” said he, in a hoarse, suppressed whisper.

The language itself was unintelligible—the word might have been Chaldaic, for all that Sapid knew to the contrary; but there are situations in which an interpreter is not needed, and this appeared to be one of them. Sapid never before made a movement so swiftly extemporaneous.

He intends shortly to try whether the Grand Jury is a convert to the new doctrine of sauciness.

_Joseph C. Neal._

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_THE BOYS AROUND THE HOUSE._

SURELY you must have seen a boy of eight or ten years of age get ready for bed? His shoe-strings are in a hard knot, and after a few vain efforts to unlace them he rushes after a case-knife and saws each string in two. One shoe is thrown under the table, the other behind the stove, his jacket behind the door, and his stockings are distributed over as many chairs as they will reach.

The boy doesn’t slip his pants off; he struggles out of them, holding a leg down with his foot and drawing his limbs out after many stupendous efforts. While doing this his hands are clutched into the bedclothes, and by the time he is ready to get into bed the quilts and sheets are awry and the bed is full of humps and lumps. His brother has gone through the same motions, and both finally crawl into bed. They are good boys, and they love each other, but they are hardly settled on their backs when one cries out—

“Hitch along!”

“I won’t!” bluntly replies the other.

“Ma, Bill’s got more’n half the bed!” cries the first.

“Hain’t either, ma!” replies Bill.

There is a moment of silence, and then the first exclaims—

“Get yer feet off’n me!”

“They hain’t touching you!” is the answer.

“Yes they be, and you’re on my pillar, too!”

“Oh! my stars, what a whopper! You’ll never go to heaven!”

The mother looks into the bedroom and kindly says—

“Come, children, be good, and don’t make your mother any trouble.”

“Well,” replies the youngest, “if Bill ’ll tell me a bear story ’ll go to sleep.”

The mother withdraws, and Bill starts out—

“Well, you know, there was an old bear who lived in a cave. He was a big black bear. He had eyes like coals of fire, you know, and when he looked at a feller he——”

“Ma, Bill’s scaring me!” yells Henry, sitting on end.

“Oh, ma! that’s the awfullest story you ever heard!” replies Bill.

“Hitch along, I say!” exclaims Henry.

“I am along!” replies Bill.

“Get yer knee out’n my back!”

“Hain’t anywhere near ye!”

“Gimme some cloze!”

“You’ve got more’n half now!”

“Come, children, do be good and go to sleep,” says the mother, entering the room and arranging the clothes.

They doze off after a few muttered words, to preserve the peace until morning, and it is popularly supposed that an angel sits on each bed-post to sentinel either curly head during the long, dark hours.

“Ho-hum!” yawns Bill.

“Ho-hum!” yawns Henry.

It is morning, and they crawl out of bed. After four or five efforts they get into their pants, and then reach out for stockings.

“I know I put mine right down here by this bed!” exclaims Bill.

“And I put mine right there by the end of the bureau!” adds Henry.

They wander around, growling and jawing, and the mother finally finds the stockings. Then comes the jackets. They are positive that they hung them on the hooks, and boldly charge that some maliciously wicked person removed them. And so it goes until each one is finally dressed, washed, and ready for breakfast, and the mother feels such a burden off her mind that she can endure what follows their leaving the table—a good half-hour’s hunt after their hats, which they “positively hung up,” but which are at last found under some bed, or stowed away behind the woodbox.

_C. B. Lewis (“M Quad”)._

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_MR. DOTY MAD._

MR. HENRY K. DOTY, one of the most prominent citizens, and the leading hide and pelt dealer in the North-West, has just returned from a European tour. He has been absent about four months; and in that time he has made a visit to every European country, and has become thoroughly acquainted with the customs, manners, and languages of the different people. He spent about seventy-five thousand dollars on the trip; but this could not be called an extravagant sum when one takes into consideration the superb paintings, statuary, and other works of virtue that he brought back with him. In Paris, upon the Roo de Rivoly alone, he purchased fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of pictures; and in Brussels he bought several thousand dollars’ worth of those elegant carpets from which that city derives its name. Mr. Doty says that he was well treated everywhere except in England. He is specially bitter against Mr. Phelps, our representative at the court of St. James.

“This man Phelps,” says he, “is a little, dried-up, snobbish Vermont lawyer, with a soul no bigger than a huckleberry. I dyed my moustache, and put on my dress-suit and my twenty-thousand-dollar diamond bosom-pin, and called to see him. A fine specimen he is to represent our wealth and culture! I don’t believe his clothes cost more than twenty dollars a suit.

“‘I suppose I ought to call on the queen,’ says I.

“He didn’t say anything; and I continued, ‘Would you mind introducing me?’

“‘Really, Mr. Doty,’ says he, ‘I do not feel like presenting an entire stranger to her Majesty.’

“‘Oh! you needn’t be scared,’ says I, ‘for I carry as big a letter of credit as any American in London; and when it comes to culture, and that sort of thing, I can knock the socks off any of your lords and marqueezies.’

“Well, will you believe it? he had the impudence to shove a printed list of questions at me.

“‘You will have to answer these on oath before I can tell you whether I can present you to her Majesty,’ says he.

“I was as mad as a Texas steer. Here are some of the questions: ‘Did you ever have a grandfather? and if so, what was his vocation?’ ‘Have you contracted the toothbrush habit?’ ‘Are you addicted to the use of the double negative?’ ‘Spell phthisis, strychnine, pneumonia?’ Fine questions these to put to a gentleman worth a cool million! I told him to go to —— with his queen; and I’m going to have my private secretary write a letter to the President, complaining of Phelps, and demanding that he be discharged.”

_Eugene Field._

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_OUR TWO OPINIONS._

US two wuz boys when we fell out,—
Nigh to the age uv my youngest now;
Don’t rec’lect what ’t wuz about,
Some small deeff’rence, I’ll allow.
Lived next neighbours twenty years,
A-hatin’ each other, me ’nd Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

Grew up together ’nd wouldn’t speak,
Courted sisters, ’nd marr’d ’em, too;
’tended same meetin’-house oncet a week,
A-hatin’ each other through ’nd through!
But when Abe Linkern asked the West
F’r soldiers, we answered,—me ’nd Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

But down in Tennessee one night
Ther wuz sound uv firin’ fur away,
’nd the sergeant allowed ther’d be a fight
With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex’ day;
’nd as I wuz thinkin’ uv Lizzie ’nd home
Jim stood afore me, long ’nd slim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

Seemed like we knew ther wuz goin’ to be
Serious trouble f’r me ’nd him;
Us two shuck hands, did Jim ’nd me,
But never a word from me or Jim!
He went _his_ way ’nd _I_ went _mine_,
’nd into the battle’s roar went we,—
_I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv Jim,
’nd _he_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me._

Jim never come back from the war again,
But I hain’t forgot that last, last night
When, waitin’ f’r orders, us two men
Made up ’nd shuck hands, afore the fight.
’nd after it all, it’s soothin’ to know
That here _I_ be ’nd yonder’s Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

_Eugene Field._

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_ONE OF MR. WARD’S BUSINESS LETTERS._

To the Editor of the ——.

SIR—I’m movin along—slowly along—down tords your place. I want you should rite me a letter, sayin how is the show bizniss in your place. My show at present consists of three moral Bares, a Kangaroo (a amoozin little Raskal—’twould make you larf yerself to deth to see the little cuss jump up and squeal) wax figgers of G. Washington Gen. Tayler, John Bunyan Capt. Kidd and Dr. Webster in the act of killin Dr. Parkman, besides several miscellanyus moral wax statoots of celebrated piruts & murderers, &c., ekalled by few & exceld by none. Now Mr. Editor, scratch orf a few lines sayin how is the show bizness down to your place. I shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss. Depend upon it. I want you should git my hanbills up in flamin stile. Also git up a tremenjus excitemunt in yr. paper ’bowt my onparaleld Show. We must fetch the public sumhow. We must wurk on their feelins. Cum the moral on ’em strong. If its a temprance community tell ’em I sined the pledge fifteen minits arter Ise born, but on the contery ef your peple take their tods, say Mister Ward is as Jenial a feller as we ever met, full of conwiviality, & the life an sole of the Soshul Bored. Take, don’t you? If you say anythin abowt my show say my snaiks is as harmliss as the new-born Babe. What a interestin study it is to see a zewological animal like a snaik under perfeck subjecshun! My kangaroo is the most larfable little cuss I ever saw. All for 15 cents. I am anxyus to skewer your infloounce. I repeet in regard to them hanbills that I shall git ’em struck orf up to your printin offiss. My perlitercal sentiments agree with yourn exackly. I know thay do, becawz I never saw a man whoos didn’t.

Respectively yures,

A. WARD.

P.S.—You scratch my back & Ile scratch your back.

_Artemus Ward._

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_THE SHOWMAN’S COURTSHIP._

THARE was many affectin ties which made me hanker arter Betsy Jane. Her father’s farm jined our’n; their cows and our’n squencht their thurst at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forrerds; the measles broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy’s and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin house, and the nabers used to obsarve, “How thick the Wards and Peasleys air!” It was a surblime site, in the Spring of the year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy’s and mine) with their gowns pin’d up so thay couldn’t sile ’em, affecshunitly Bilin sope together & aboozin the nabers.

Altho I hankerd intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I darsunt tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly Buzzom. I’d try to do it but my tung would kerwollup up agin the roof of my mowth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast Afrikan, or a country postmaster to his offiss, while my hart whanged agin my ribs like a old-fashioned wheat Flale agin a barn door.

’Twas a carm still nite in Joon. All nater was husht and nary zeffer disturbed the sereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on the fense of her farther’s pastur. We’d bin rompin threw the woods, kullin flours & drivin the woodchuck from his Native Lair (so to speak) with long sticks. Wall we sot thar on the fense, a swingin our feet two and fro, blushin as red as the Baldinsville skool house when it was fust painted, and lookin very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm was ockepied in ballunsin myself on the fense, while my rite was woundid luvinly round her waste.

I cleared my throat and tremblinly sed, “Betsy, you’re a Gazelle.”

I thought that air was putty fine. I waitid to see what effeck it would hav upon her. It evidently didn’t fetch her, for she up and sed—

“You’re a sheep!”

Sez I, “Betsy, I think very muchly of you.”

“I don’t b’leeve a word you say—so there now cum!” with which obsarvashun she hitched away from me.

“I wish thar was winders to my Sole,” said I, “so that you could see some of my feelins. There’s fire enuff in here,” said I, strikin my buzzum with my fist, “to bile all the corn beef and turnips in the naberhood. Versoovius and the Critter ain’t a circumstans!”

She bowd her hed down and commenst chawin the strings to her sun bonnet.

“Ar could you know the sleeplis nites I worry threw with on your account, how vittles has seized to be attractiv to me, & how my lims has shrunk up, you wouldn’t dowt me. Gase on this wastin form and these ’ere sunken cheeks——”

I should have continnered on in this strane probly for sum time, but unfortnitly I lost my ballunse and fell over into the pastur kersmash, tearin my close and seveerly damagin myself ginerally.

Betsy Jane sprung to my assistance in dubble quick time and dragged me 4th. Then drawin herself up to her full hite, she said:

“I won’t listen to your noncents no longer. Jes say rite strate out what you’re drivin at. If you mean gettin hitched, I’M IN!”

I considered that air enuff for all practical purpusses, and we proceeded immejitly to the parson’s, and was made 1 that very nite.

(Notiss to the Printer. Put some stars here.)

* * * * *

I’ve parst threw many tryin ordeels sins then, but Betsy Jane has bin troo as steel. By attendin strickly to bizniss I’ve amarsed a handsum Pittance. No man on this footstool can rise & git up & say I ever knowinly injered no man or wimmin folks, while all agree that my Show is ekalled by few and exceld by none, embracin as it does a wonderful colleckshun of livin wild Beests of Pray, snaix in grate profushun, a endliss variety of life-size wax figgers, & the only traned kangaroo in Ameriky—the most amoozin little cuss ever introjuced to a discriminatin public.

_Artemus Ward._

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_YE PEDAGOGUE._

A BALLAD

I.

RIGHTE learnéd is ye Pedagogue,
Fulle apt to reade and spelle,
And eke to teache ye parts of speeche,
And strap ye urchins welle.

II.

For as ’tis meete to soake ye feete,
Ye ailinge heade to mende;
Ye younker’s pate to stimulate,
He beats ye other ende!

III.

Righte lordlie is ye Pedagogue,
As any turbaned Turke;
For welle to rule ye District Schoole,
It is no idle worke.

IV.

For oft Rebellion lurketh there,
In breaste of secrete foes,
Of malice fulle, in waite to pulle
Ye Pedagogue his nose!

V.

Sometimes he heares with trembling feares
Of ye ungodlie rogue
On mischiefe bent, with felle intent
To licke ye Pedagogue!

VI.

And if ye Pedagogue be smalle,
When to ye battell led,
In such a plighte, God sende him mighte
To break ye rogue his heade!

VII.

Daye after daye, for little paye,
He teacheth what he can,
And bears ye yoke, to please ye folke,
And ye committee-man.

VIII.

Ah! many crosses hath he borne,
And many trials founde,
Ye while he trudged ye district through,
And boarded rounde and rounde!

IX.

Ah! many a steake hath he devoured,
That, by ye taste and sighte,
Was in disdaine, ’twas very plaine,
Of Daye his patent righte!

X.

Fulle solemn is ye Pedagogue,
Amonge ye noisy churls,
Yet other while he hath a smile
To give ye handsome girls;

XI.

And one,—ye fayrest mayde of all,—
To cheere his wayninge life,
Shall be, when Springe ye flowers shall bringe,
Ye Pedagogue his wife!

_John Godfrey Saxe._

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_SETTLING UNDER DIFFICULTIES._

STRANGERS visiting the beautiful city of Burlington have not failed to notice that one of the handsomest young men they meet is very bald, and they fall into the usual error of attributing this premature baldness to dissipation. But such is not the case. This young man, one of the most exemplary Bible-class scholars in the city, went to a Baptist sociable out in West Hill one night about two years ago. He escorted three charming girls, with angelic countenances and human appetites, out to the refreshment table, let them eat all they wanted, and then found he had left his pocket-book at home, and a deaf man that he had never seen before at the cashier’s desk. The young man with his face aflame, bent down, and said softly—

“I am ashamed to say I have no change with——”

“Hey——?” shouted the cashier.

“I regret to say,” the young man repeated in a little louder key, “that I have unfortunately come away without any change to——”

“Change two?” chirped the old man. “Oh, yes; I can change five if you want it.”

“No,” the young man explained in a terrible penetrating whisper, for half-a-dozen people were crowding up behind him, impatient to pay their bills and get away, “I don’t want any change, because——”

“Oh, don’t want no change?” the deaf man cried gleefully. “’Bleeged to ye, ’bleeged to ye. ’Taint often we get such generous donations. Pass over your bill.”

“No, no,” the young man explained, “I have no funds——”

“Oh, yes, plenty of fun,” the deaf man replied, growing tired of the conversation, and noticing the long line of people waiting with money in their hands; “but I haven’t got time to talk about it now. Settle, and move on.”

“But,” the young man gasped out, “I have no money——”

“Go Monday?” queried the deaf cashier. “I don’t care when you go; you must pay, and let these other people come up.”

“I have no money!” the mortified young man shouted, ready to sink into the earth, while the people all around him, and especially the three girls he had treated, were giggling and chuckling audibly.

“Owe money?” the cashier said; “of course you do; 2.75 dollars.”

“I can’t pay!” the youth screamed, and by turning his pockets inside out, and yelling his poverty to the heavens, he finally made the deaf man understand. And then he had to shriek his full name three times, while his ears fairly rung with the half-stifled laughter that was breaking out all around him; and he had to scream out where he worked, and roar when he would pay, and he couldn’t get the deaf man to understand him until some of the church members came up to see what the uproar was, and, recognising their young friend, made it all right with the cashier. And the young man went out into the night and clubbed himself, and shred his locks away ontil he was as bald as an egg.

_Robert J. Burdette._

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_MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE._

A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco pedler by trade, was on his way from Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker’s Falls, on Salmon River. He had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk, on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favour he used to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the country lassies of New England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little grey mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to reach the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of a hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary, yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day.

“Good morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when within speaking distance. “You go a pretty good jog. What’s the latest news at Parker’s Falls?”

The man pulled the broad brim of a grey hat over his eyes, and answered rather sullenly that he did not come from Parker’s Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day’s journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his inquiry.

“Well, then,” rejoined Dominicus Pike, “let’s have the latest news where you did come from. I’m not particular about Parker’s Falls. Any place will answer.”

Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him—

“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o’clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to a branch of a St. Michael’s pear-tree, where nobody would find him till the morning.”

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the stranger betook himself to his journey again with more speed than ever, not even turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. The pedler whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long-nines, and a great deal of pig-tail, ladies’ twist, and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o’clock the preceding night; and yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when in all probability poor Mr. Higginbotham’s own family had just discovered his corpse hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots to travel at such a rate.

“Ill news flies fast, they say,” thought Dominicus Pike; “but this beats railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the President’s message.”

The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made a mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country store along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified audiences. He found himself invariably the first bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline, till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall with the money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe, hinting, what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece, who was now keeping school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good and driving bargains for his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker’s Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half-an-hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer, who had arrived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in a corner smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded he rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus, and stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt.

“Will you make affidavit,” demanded he in the tone of a country justice taking an examination, “that old Squire Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and found hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?”

“I tell the story as I heard it,” answered Dominicus, dropping his half-burnt cigar. “I don’t say that I saw the thing done, so I can’t take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way.”

“But I can take mine,” said the farmer, “that if Squire Higginbotham was murdered the night before last, I drank a bottle of bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbour of mine he called me into his store as I was riding by and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. He didn’t seem to know any more about his own murder than I did.”

“Why, then, it can’t be a fact!” exclaimed Dominicus Pike.

“I guess he’d have mentioned if it was,” said the old farmer, and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in the mouth.

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water and went to bed, where, all night long, he dreamt of hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham’s), Dominicus rose in the grey of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart, and trotted swiftly away towards Parker’s Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to hear it. But he met neither ox-team, light waggon, chaise, horseman, nor foot-traveller, till just as he crossed Salmon River a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick.

“Good morning, mister,” said the pedler, reining in his mare; “if you come from Kimballton or that neighbourhood maybe you can tell me the real facts about the affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago by an Irishman and a nigger?”

Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden question the Ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while shaking and stammering he thus replied—

“No! no! There was no coloured man! It was an Irishman that hanged him last night at eight o’clock. I came away at seven! His folks can’t have looked for him in the orchard yet.”

Scarcely had the yellow man spoken when he interrupted himself, and though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a pace which would have kept the pedler’s mare on a sharp trot. Dominicus stared after him in great perplexity. If the murder had not been committed till Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it, in all its circumstances, on Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham’s corpse were not yet discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above thirty miles distance, to know that he was hanging in the orchard, especially as he had left Kimballton before the unfortunate man was hanged at all? These ambiguous circumstances, with the stranger’s surprise and terror, made Dominicus think of raising a hue and cry after him, as an accomplice in the murder, since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated.

“But let the poor devil go,” thought the pedler. “I don’t want his black blood on my head; and hanging the nigger won’t unhang Mr. Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman! It’s a sin, I know; but I should hate to have him come to life a second time, and give me the lie!”

With these meditations Dominicus Pike drove into the street of Parker’s Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as three cotton factories and a slitting-mill can make it. The machinery was not in motion, and but a few of the shop doors unbarred, when he alighted in the stable-yard of the tavern, and made it his first business to order the mare four quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe to the ostler. He deemed it advisable, however, not to be too positive as to the date of the direful fact, and also to be uncertain whether it was perpetrated by an Irishman and a mulatto, or by the son of Erin alone. Neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority, or that of any other person; but mentioned it as a report generally diffused.

The story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees, and became so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence it originated. Mr. Higginbotham was as well known at Parker’s Falls as any citizen of the place, being part-owner of the slitting-mill, and a considerable stockholder in the cotton factories. The inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested in his fate. Such was the excitement that the _Parker’s Falls Gazette_ anticipated its regular day of publication, and came out with half a form of blank paper and a column of double pica emphasised with capitals, and headed HORRID MURDER OF MR. HIGGINBOTHAM! Among other dreadful details, the printed account described the mark of the cord round the dead man’s neck, and stated the number of thousand dollars of which he had been robbed. There was much pathos also about the affliction of his niece, who had gone from one fainting fit to another, ever since her uncle was found hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree with his pockets inside out. The village poet likewise commemorated the young lady’s grief in seventeen stanzas of a ballad. The select-men held a meeting, and in consideration of Mr. Higginbotham’s claims on the town, determined to issue handbills offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of his murderers and the recovery of the stolen property.

Meanwhile the whole population of Parker’s Falls, consisting of shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory girls, mill-men and school-boys, rushed into the street, and kept up such a terrible loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the cotton machines, which refrained from their usual din out of respect to the deceased. Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown, his untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult. Our friend Dominicus, in his vanity of heart, forgot his intended precautions, and, mounting on the town pump, announced himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and had just began a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a field-preacher when the mail stage drove into the village street. It had travelled all night, and must have shifted horses at Kimballton at three in the morning.

“Now we shall hear all the particulars,” shouted the crowd.

The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man assailed them with separate questions all propounded at once. The couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady.

“Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old Mr. Higginbotham!” bawled the mob. “What is the coroner’s verdict? Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham’s niece come out of her fainting fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!”

The coachman said not a word, except to swear awfully at the ostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did, after learning the cause of the excitement, was to produce a large red pocket-book. Meanwhile, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer’s, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth, that Dominicus would almost as lieves have heard a love-tale from it as a tale of murder.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the mill-men, and the factory girls, “I can assure you that some unaccountable mistake, or more probably, a wilful falsehood, maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham’s credit, has excited this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o’clock this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the murder, had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong as Mr. Higginbotham’s own oral testimony in the negative. Here is a note relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts, which was delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten o’clock last evening.”

So saying the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the note, which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or—as some deemed the more probable case of two doubtful ones—that he was so absorbed in worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death. But unexpected evidence was forthcoming. The young lady, after listening to the pedler’s explanations, merely seized a moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at the tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard.

“Good people,” said she, “I am Mr. Higginbotham’s niece.”

A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so rosy and bright, the same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the authority of the _Parker’s Falls Gazette_, to be lying at death’s door in a fainting fit. But some shrewd fellow had doubted all along whether a young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a rich old uncle.

“You see,” continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, “that this strange story is quite unfounded, as to myself; and I believe I may affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He has the kindness to give me a home in his house, though I contribute to my support by teaching a school. I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of commencement week with a friend, about five miles from Parker’s Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called me to his bedside, and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay my stage fare, and another dollar for my extra expenses. He then laid his pocket-book under his pillow, shook hands with me, and advised me to take some biscuit in my bag, instead of breakfasting on the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I left my beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him so on my return.”