“An’ the kid he just whooped her up fer glory an’ Hi forgot the draft an’ dropped out.
“An’ then Cholly Howard he came in ter be took fer a picter to hang in the council chamber, an’ he says ‘why don’t you stop that brat?’
“‘Stop him yourself,’ says I, fer I were nearly crazy with the racket. So Cholly he whistled ter him, an’ sing’d ter him, an’ chucked him under the chin, an’ patted him on the back, but he screeched so much louder that I most hoped he’d bust a blood-vessel an’ quit it. An’ finally Cholly he wiped the sweat off his face an’ says, ‘If that were my brat I’d hoss-whip him!’ an”Raldy she gets mad at that an’ shied a nussin’-botde at his head an’ he went away cussin’.
“By that time my nerves was so unstrung I wanted ter yell myself, but there weren’t no chance ter be heard while that six-months old baby held the fort.
“Jest then Johnny Waterman comed in with a rose in his butting-hole an’ a smile on his face, an’ he sat down, an’ blushed, an’ got up agin, an’ smiled an’ says to me ‘what’s wrong?’
“‘That!’ says I, pointin’ to the baby that was a whoopin’ of ‘er up wi’ his eyes shut an’ his mouth wide open.
“An’ Waterman he looked at him a minnit, an’ then went up an’ pulled a pin out from under his arm (that were a stickin’ in the poor baby all the time) an’ the infant he quit his racket an’ looked up an’ smiled!
“‘How did it come there?’ says I.
“‘I put it there to hold back his dress,’ says ‘Raldy,’ but oh, sir, I bless ye a thousan’ times! You must have lots o’ babies yourself for you know jest what ter do!’ An’ the pore feller blushed like a girl, an’ I had ter tell her he weren’t even married — not yet.
“But the whole thing broke me up so I had ter take a dose o’ the baby’s soothin’ syrup to quiet me.”
“Very sad,” remarked the colonel, extracting a morsel of egg shell from his custard pie; and the other boarders looked sympathetic.
“But did you get his picture taken at last?” asked Tom.
“Oh, yes,” replied Mrs. Bilkins, “an’ he looks jest like a cherub, an’ as if he’d never knowd what a pin were, nor ever even learnt how to cry. But the next time I goes with anyone to have a baby’s picter tooked, you can put me down fer a born fool, an’ no mistake!”
She Discourses on Many Topics and tells how Alley deals out the Corn
3 May 1890
“There ain’t no use a talkin’,” said our landlady, as she faced the boarders and threw out her arms so suddenly that two of her dress buttons popped off with pistolic reports — one going into the soup and the other into the doctor’s left eye — “there ain’t no use o’ talkin’ about hard times, for the times ain’t hard a bit! Whenever you see a dancin’ bear in the streets an’ a dog show a paradin’ around you can know as times is more flush nor otherwise!”
“But people feel rather poor, nothwithstanding,” hazarded the doctor, meekly, as he placed a damp handkerchief over his eye to prevent its swelling.
“They don’t neither!” retorted Mrs. Bilkins, fiercely. “People as feel poor don’t pay a old codger eighteen hundred dollars a year to sup’intend their schools, as could’ent earn eighteen dollars ahoein’ pertaters! Poor people ain’t so extravagant as all that!”
“I’m surprised, Mrs. Bilkins,” observed the colonel, severely, “to hear you speak in so rabid a manner. You shock me extremely.”
“Well, p’raps I were a little hard,” responded Mrs. Bilkins, more calmly, “but it just makes me mad. Real estate can’t be bought for love or money in Aberdeen, an’ our business men has to go to Huron to work up a boom. That shows Aberdeen ain’t in the soup — if my butting is!”
“But the farmers at least are poor,” said Tom, reflectively.
“Ah, the farmers!” she retorted, “p’raps they do feel ruther light in the pocket. But the farmers has kept us all goin’ so fur, an’ as soon as they gets another crop they’ll keep us goin’ agin. The only thing that bothers ‘em now is to get feed. Now my cousin Jake he went down to ole man Alley’s yesterday to git some o’ that free com that he heerd the spring robins brought back with ‘em. An’ ole Alley he says, ‘I don’t know whether you can git any com or not;’ says he, ‘we give the corn to them that’s done their full duty in trying to farm Dakota dust.’
“‘Well,’ says Jake, ‘that’s me.’
“‘Got any hosses?’ says Alley.
“‘Six,’ says Jake.
“‘Got any feed?’ says Alley.
“‘No,’ says Jake, ‘I put green goggles on my hosses an’ feed ‘em shavin’s an’ they think it’s grass, but they ain’t gittin’ fat on it.’
‘What’ come o’ yer feed?’ says Alley.
“‘All gone, an’ my money was spent ‘afore I got round to buyin’ any more.’” ‘How much wheat did you raise?’ says Alley, takin’ a apple out o’ his pocket an’ eatin’ of it.
“‘Two thousan’ bushels,’ says Jake.
“‘Any flax?’
“‘Flax didn’t do well,’ says Jake, ‘only got 350 bushel.’
“‘Well,’ says Alley, ‘you can’t have no corn nohow. A man what raises $1,400 wuth o’ wheat an’ $400.00 wuth o’ flax can buy his own feed.’
“‘No he can’t,’ says Jake, ‘when there’s so many dependin’ on him.’
“‘Got any children?’ says Alley, puttin’ the core in his pocket to give to the poor children.
“‘No,’ says Jake. Then Alley gits mad.
“‘Young feller,’ says he, ‘you can’t work me.’
“‘I ain’t tryin’ to,’ says Jake.
“‘Who’s a dependin’ on you?’
“‘Well, there’s them Hail Insurance agints, an’ the Machine men, an’ the Elevaitors, an’ the Loan agints, an’ the Prohibition speakers an’ singers an’ the preachers, an’ lots more. What’ll they do if I don’t git a crop this spring?’
“‘Oh, pshaw!’ says Alley, takin’ a chew o’ gum, ‘what’s them fellers got to do with your crop?’
“‘Not much raisin’ it,’ said Jake, ‘but a heap to do wi’ the spendin’ o’ the harvest money. Guess you don’t know much about Dakota farmin’,’ says he, ‘but I tell you what, ole man, when you’ve paid your hail insurance notes — losses or no losses — an’ bought a few supplies, an’ paid Narre four per cent on what you’ve borrowed, — it eats a big hole in the harvest, an’ then a feller comes along an’ says the country’s goin’ to the devil unless Ralph Brown’s circus is kep’ goin’ and so I subscribes to the circus tent an’ temperance songs an’ that makes another hole.
“‘Then Miller has to have McCormick’s note paid to keep his boss outer the poor house, an’ Hoit and Mack an’ the rest o’ the gang say the wheat’s full o’ dirt and hes got to be docked, an’ there goes more holes. Last year I divided up my crop amongst ‘em an’ was glad to get away alive — an’ feelin’ that anyhow I’d done my share to’ards supportin’” Mollie an’ the baby” an’ the rest o”em. Say — be I a goin’ to git that corn?’
“‘Why, yes,’ says ole Alley, at last, ‘I guess as your entitled to it. But be very careful o’ them twenty bushels o’ corn,’ says he, ‘for it cost Bach, an’ Hoit an’ Drake a heap o’ trouble to git, an’ I don’t know but what Mellette wishes it never had been growed.’ So after all that chin music Jake gits jest six dollars wuth o’ feed.
“I hain’t sent no spring poetry to the PIONEER, but when I think o’ the poor farmers I feel like sayin’
All flesh is grass,
All grass is hay!
We are here tomorrow
An’ gone today!”
She Gives Away the Initiation Ceremonies of the United Workmen and has a Fruitless Search for the Chief of Police
10 May 1890
“There’s one thing certain, genl’men,” remarked our landlady, as she blew down the spout of the coffee-pot to clear away the grounds, “if you can’t m
anage to get in a little earlier nights this ‘ere boardin’ house’ll git a bad name, an’ business will be ruined! Now where was you, Tom?”
“I!” exclaimed that gentleman, taken by surprise and blushing violently, “I was calling on Miss — Miss — on a lady, in fact.”
“Then she didn’t have a paternal sire,” continued Mrs. Bilkins, severely, “or he’d a sent you home ‘afore midnight. Now colonel — ”
“My dear madam,” he interrupted, “I was studying art; — drawing, in fact -”
“Humph!” exclaimed our landlady, “them sort o’ artists make a good many chips. I’m onto you all right, colonel, an’ I do hope you’ll win enough to pay up last month’s board.”
The colonel was squelched.
“For my part,” began the doctor, but Mrs. Bilkins interrupted him contemptuously, “Oh, you’re always out wi’ a patient! I know you, too! The worst men in the world to keep an eye on is the doctors, for you never know where to find ‘em. But I’m glad o’ one thing, an’ that is none o’ you was in that horrible crowd as joined the United States Workmen last night.”
“The what?” asked the colonel.
“The United States Workmen, I said! Oh, I know all about it. They had twenty fellers to be initiated last night, an’ everyone o”em got more nor he bargained for, I guess. Why the way they abused that poor Fletch is enough to break up the whole order, an’ is a disgrace to a civilized community!”
“Did he ride the goat?” asked the colonel with suspicious interest. “Naw! he didn’t ride no goat! You can’t foolish me, Kernel, cause I ain’t no fool. Miss Smithereses hired gal were there when they brought poor Fletch home, an’ in his wild wanderin’s he let the whole secret out.”
“What did they do to him?”
“Why they put a black-cap over his head an’ nearly hung him, an’ then they made him walk a barb-wire fence in his stockin’ feet, an’ then they tossed him up in a blanket an’ put him head fust into a water barrel!”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Tom, in horror, “It’s a wonder it didn’t kill him.”
“So it were. But that wasn’t the wust of it. They asked him what he’d like to buy fer the boys, an’ Fletch, when he could get his breath, said ‘nothin’!’ So they got out a big wheel like the wheel o’ a water-mill an’ it had spikes all over it. An’ they took poor Fletchie an’ tied him onter the wheel like he were Mazeppy, an’ then the Chief Bulldozer says sweetly” ‘What’ll you buy, Fletch?’
“‘Nuthin’,’ says the miserable wictim.
“An’ then they took hold o’ the crank an’ turned the wheel over once, an’ the spikes hurt like blazes, an’ when the Chief asked him agin ‘what’ll you buy?’ Fletch he give in an’ whispered “‘Pop!’
“‘Pop’s no go here,’ says the torturer, ‘turn him over agin!’
“By that time the wictim’s eye-balls was layin’ over his specks an’ he offered to buy ice cream.
“‘Too cool,’ says the torturer, an’ they turned him over agin.
“Then Fletch says that if oysters and champagne were any objects he would be pleased to buy ‘em for the crowd, an’ so they took him off the wheel, all bloody an’ wounded, an’ sent him home in a hack.”
“Dreadful!” exclaimed the doctor, but he winked at the colonel nevertheless. “An’ Fletch’s friends are wild for vengeance,” continued Mrs. Bilkins, earnestly, “an’ the fust thing they started to do was to find the chief o’ police an’ have the whole gang arrested. But they couldn’t find him anywheres, an’ so I told ‘em I’d go out and find him myself. So I meets one o’ our leadin’ politicians, an’ I says” ‘Who’s the new chief o’ perlice?’
“‘Dunno,’ says he, ‘it’s a man I never heerd of.’
“‘Go-long!’ says I.
“‘Go-long yerself,’ says he, ‘an’ find him if ye can.’
“‘I will!’ says I, but I didn’t know what a job I had on my hands.
“One feller he said as he heard it were Harvey Jewett, but I knew better. I went into all the stores, but some had fergot his name and some had never heard it, an’ some said as it were a subjec’ they didn’t care to speak on. An’ there lay poor Fletch all the while, sufferin’ an’ unavenged!
“Jest then I meets Jack Cavanaugh, an’ he says the Chief was in to see him a minit before to ask what the handcuffs was used for. So I goes out an’ meets another feller who said the chief was lookin’ for a number two caliber revolver to carry in his hip pocket, an’ so I gave up in despair an’ went to Mayor Moody.
“‘What do you want?’ says he.
“‘The chief o’ perlice,’ says I.
“‘Hain’t the people got through wantin’ the chief o’ perlice, yet?’ says he.” ‘I hain’t,’says I.
“‘Go to the knights o’ labor,’ says he, ‘I’m busy,’ an’ he turned away an’ went on figgerin’ up the cost o’ a campaign.
“Someone told me that there were three or four knights o’ labor in the town, but they was hard to find, so I give up thejob an’ went home, an’ if poor Fletchie is ever goin’ to get avenged on some one someone else’ll have to find the chief o’ perlice.”
She Investigates the Original Package Deal With Doubtful Results
17 May 1890
“I’d like to know,” declared our landlady, as she set the beefsteak on the table and sharpened the carving knife on a scythe-stone, “which o’ you boarders hes been tryin’ to git this establishment in trouble?”
The boarders cast a unanimous look of astonishment and righteous indignation at Mrs. Bilkins, and said nothing.
“‘Tain’t no use, genl’men,” she continued, shaking her head ‘til her hair settled carelessly over her left ear, “I’ve got the matter in black an’ white, an’ I’ll have it out o’ yer if it comes as hard as a wisdom tooth in the forceps o’ a green dentist. Listen to this,” and she unfolded a piece of paper majestically while the boarders glanced uneasily at one another, and Tom got white and the Colonel red, and the Doctor salmon-color. Mrs. Bilkins read out, in her best equal-rights voice, the following:
“‘My dearest sister,’ — that’s the way he allus calls us — ‘I regret to state as it hes comed to my knowledge that one o’ your boarders hes been receivin’ of a ‘riginal packidge. The laws o’ this here State must be upheld at any sacrifice, an’ I advise you to inwestigate the matter to oncet. — Elder Burdock.’”
For a moment there was silence.
“Why do you call him that?” demanded the Doctor, feebly.
“Elder? Oh, I s’pose because he’s older’n you’d think he was to hear him talk. Now, then, what have you got to say for yourselves?”
“Nothing!” protested the boarders, with one voice.
“To tell you the truth,” continued our landlady, in a slightly mollified voice, “I didn’t know when I got this ‘ere dockyment what a’ riginal package was. But where ignorance is bliss it’s better to find out, an’ so I goes on a inwestigatin’ tower. The first man I see was Georgejinkens. He’s my lawyer, because he never sends up a bill. ‘Georgie,’ says I, kinder smilin’, ‘what’s a ‘riginal packidge?’
“‘Ma’am,’ says he, throwin’ aside a paper where he was figerin’ on his school tax with a eighteen hundred dollar Supt. to pay, ‘ma’am, when I were a boy, it were a prize packidge, what cost a nickle ‘afore you could bust it an’ take a brass ring outen its insides, with pink candy stuck all over it. No thanks — the infermashun is free!’
“But it’s jest as well to be sure, so I went to my seconk best lawyer — that’s Taub.
“‘What’s a ‘riginal packidge?’ says I.
“‘A’ riginal packidge,’ says he, ‘is a necessity in South Dakota.’ That wam’t no answer at all, but knowin’ he charged high fer sich legal opinions, I went over to Frank Brown’s and asked him.
“‘A’ riginal packidge,’ says the great man, lookin’ me square in the eye, ‘is a invention of the devil!’
“That u
nsettled me, so I tackled Ira Barnes. He was eatin’ pop-com outen a bag an’ he says,” ‘I’m kinder outer politics, Mrs. Bilkins,’ says he, ‘an’ don’t like to be tackled on sich subjec’s. But I’ll give ye a parable. This here bag were a ‘riginal packidge a minit ago, but now,’ says he, as he blew it up and busted it, ‘it’s a wuss inwestment than city warrants at par.’
“August Witte kinder smiled when I put the question to him.
“‘Mrs. Bilkins,’ says he, ‘you yourself are the most’ riginal packidge what I knows of!’
“That made me mad, an’ I give him a cast-iron look of virtuous indignation an’ lit out.
“As I walked down the street musin’ on the fact that I seemed to know as much as anybody else did, the Rev. McBride come along an’ overtook me.
“‘Parson,’ says I, brightenin’ up, ‘what’s a ‘riginal packidge, anyhow?’
“He looked up an’ down the street, an’ then drew me inter a doorway an’ pulled a queer little wooden case from his pocket.
“‘Mrs. Bilkins,’ says he, wi’ tears in his voice — at least it seemed as if his mouth was waterin’ — ‘some idjut has insulted me by sendin’ me this little ‘riginal packidge by mail! — it don’t hold but two ounces — but o’course that’s too much for a man as ain’t thirsty. But if that’s the size o’ the ‘riginal packidge deal, you can put me on the side o’ prohibition.’
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 802