“‘Is it licker?’ says I, reachin’ out my hand in holy horror.
“‘Don’t touch it,’ says he, puttin’ of it in his pocket, an’ stuffin’ a handkercher over it; ‘yes, it’s licker, an’ only fit for folks as ain’t well. I’m goin’ to keep it fer Doc. Diefendorf when he gets under the weather. If you put quinine in it, it ain’t so very bad.’
“So I comed home to dinner, an’ if it’s true as any o’ you boarders hes got a ‘riginal packidge in yer possession, I want ter know it.”
“Not I,” said the Colonel, stoutly.
“Nor I.”
“Nor I,” repeated the others.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” replied the landlady, looking wistfully out of the window, “for I should have considered it my duty to confisticate ‘em an’ keep ‘em for poor Doc. Diefendorf. — But I see a copy o’ the Reprint blowin’ about in my back yard, an’ I must go an’ take it away, for I see by the papers that Street Comiss’ner Lewis has ordered the citizens to remove all rubbish from their premises!”
She Raises the Price of Board, but Lowers it Again Through Stern Necessity
24 May 1890
“Board is riz,” said our landlady, decisively, as she slammed the plate of muffins on the table with such force that the colonel’s hand made a nervous dive toward his hip pocket before he recovered himself.
“It seems to me,” remarked the doctor, in a mild tone, “that it has fallen.”
“May I ask,” demanded Tom, forgetting in his agitation to butter his gingerbread, “may I ask why you announce that board has risen?”
“For oblivious reasons,” returned Mrs. Bilkins, with dignity. “Ye see this rain has altered the complecshun o’ affairs in Dakota, an’ sot trade on its proper level. I stayed in the house all day Tuesday, while the rain poured down, an’ got as grumpy as a councilman who thinks o’ suthin’ to say jest after the motion has passed; an’ so when the sun come out Wednesday I thought I’d take a trip down town an’ see how folks felt. Well, the fust man I see, I says” ‘Fine rain we had.’
“‘Yaw,’ says he, ‘but not near enough.’
“‘P’raps that’s so,’ thinks I to myself, an’ jest then I met another feller.
“‘Elegant rain we had,’ says I.
“‘Good enough,’ says he, ‘what there were of it. Only wet half a inch down!’” ‘No!’ says I.
“‘Yes!’ says he.
“Well, I felt a little staggered. Jest then I met a friend o’ mine as is a farmer.” ‘How’s crops?’ says I.
“‘Pritty fair,’ says he, ‘if it were’nt so dry This drouth is killin’ us!’
“‘But it rained all day yesterday, like blazes,’ says I, gittin’ a little riled.
“‘Yes, so it did,’ says he, ‘but it’ll take a week o’ sich rains to start the crop any.’
“‘Look here,’ says I, ‘I may look like a fool, but looks is deceivin’. So you jest tell me what you’re a drivin’ at, or else don’t never come to me for no more cold vittles.’
“‘Well,’ says he, lookin’ around to see as nobody heerd, ‘the facts is just these. Ye see, we’ve been growlin’ about the dry so long that this here rain were a kind of shock to us, an’ did’nt leave us nothin’ to growl about. An’ if we was fools enough to yell hurray! — the ground is wet! — the crops is growin’! — the country’s saved! — an’ all that rubbish, the people as we’ve been owin’ so long would be arter us wi’ sharp sticks to pay up. The only salvation fer a man as is in debt is to yell” hard times” no matter what happens. They say as we’re croakers, but as long as we can keep ‘em skeert, the better it’ll be fer us. See?’ “Well, as I ain’t blind, I told him I did, an’ I walked on coagulating on the frailties o’ human natur’. An’ when I met any one I’d say” ‘Nice rain, eh?’
“An’ if he said it din’nt amount to much, or anything of that kind, I knew as he were in debt, an’ respected his lilachelishness.
“But when I went into the stores to trade there was a different story to hear.” ‘Beautiful rain!’ says the groceryman, rubbin’ his hands. ‘Want some o’ them nice taters? Only sixty cents a bushel.’
“‘But they was fifty cents Monday,’ says I.
“‘But it’s rained,’ says he, ‘an’ if I only had a heart like a grindstone I’d charge a dollar. But my greatest failin’ is bein’ soft-hearted!’
“I thanked him fer bein’ so easy an’ went inter a dry-goods store to buy a new apron.
“‘Some o’ that six cent caliker,’ says I.
“‘Certainly,’ says he, ‘but it’s eight cents now.’
“‘Why?’ says I.
“‘Cause it’s rained. Now some men,’ says he, ‘as has cast-iron bowels o’ compashun, would a charged ten, but I ain’t built that way.’
“I offered him six cents and he took me up.
“It were just so in the shoe store. They wanted a dollar fer a pair o’ rubbers, but o’ course they took a quarter when I got mad. This gittin’ mad I find saves me lots o’ money.
“Well, the price o’ beef is goin’ up too, an’ now there’s a prospect fer crops it’s safe to bet as flour’ll be on the rise — ‘specially when it’s in the sponge — an’ so I’ve jest made up my mind to raise the price o’ board in this here tavern a dollar a week all around, an’ you can pay it er skip — jest as you like!” And Mrs. Bilkins went into the kitchen and slammed the door.
The three boarders eyed each other aghast.
Then the doctor jumped up and followed our landlady into the kitchen. “Mrs. Bilkins,” he began, in a choked voice, “I feel that I can’t part with you, and yet I’m barely able to pay the old price. It’s all right to raise on the others, but I’m sure you’ll let me stay at the old figure. Here’s a week in advance.”
“All right, doc,” replied our landlady, tying the money into a corner of her apron, “you can stay, but the others’ll have to put up.”
Now the doctor had scarcely gone when Tom stuck his head in, and seeing her alone, advanced confidendy to her side.
“My dear Mrs. Bilkins,” said he, “you see I am fixed rather differently than the others, and can’t afford to pay more. But here is last week’s board and a dollar on this week’s. Of course if I could afford to pay as much as they can, I’d do it with pleasure, but I can’t. Is it all right?”
“It’s all right,” responded our landlady, tying the money into another corner of her apron, with a sigh, “but don’t say anything to the rest.”
“Of course not.”
A half hour later Mrs. Bilkins found the colonel finishing his cigar on the front stoop.
“I am very sorry to say,” he remarked, in a voice shaken with emotion, “that I shall have to leave you. My finances won’t permit any high-priced luxuries such as a rise in board. I did think that you and I were too old friends to be parted by a dollar a week, but it seems I was mistaken. By the way, here’s a couple of dollars on my account.”
“Kernel,” said Mrs. Bilkins with a huskiness in her voice, “I’m sorry as I hurt yer feelin’s. If I’d a thunk you’d a took it this way I wouldn’t have said nothin’. But ye see a woman as talks as much as I do can’t help offendin’ somebody. Like Marthy’s Mary Ann, I never opens my mouth but what I puts my foot in it. But I mean well, so nobody must mind what I say! You just stay along at the old price, but don’t let the others know as I’ve relented.”
“I won’t,” said the colonel, brightening, “but stay — I’d forgotten that I shall need a little change this afternoon. Could you lend me a dollar?”
“Cert’nly,” replied our landlady, briskly, as she handed over the shiner, and then she watched his stately figure go down the street and whispered “That ‘air dodge about a rise worked fust rate. It ain’t no use keepin’ boarders unless you understan’ how to make ‘em shell out. Of course I didn’t git much outer the colonel, but I’ve got ‘em all skeert, an’ they’ll be more prompt in the future. That rain were good
fer the crops, but it were’nt so bad fer landladies, neither!”
She Manufactures Hash and Gives the Boarders a few Pointers on the Aberdeen Guards
31 May 1890
“You men folks,” said our landlady, as she returned to the chopping- bowl after scaring two strange dogs away from the water-pail, “must feel like pritty small pertaters.”
“Why?” queried the colonel, who was waiting, with the others, for the advent of the matutinal meal.
“Oh,” replied Mrs. Bilkins, carelessly throwing the end of a beefsteak, a piece of bologna, a bit of pork-chop, and a small chunk of fried liver into her bowl, and wielding the chopper vigorously between each word of her sentences, “them Aberdeen Guards kinder knocks the spots off’n anything you men folks kin do. Now, the time was when the Amazons was celebrated throughout the world as the fiercest lot o’ sodjers to tackle there was, an’ the men folks was skeert to go near ‘em, an’ them ‘air Aberdeen Guards is built on the same promisin’ lines. I tell you, nobody need be ‘feered fer the country’s safety while them Aberdeen gals is aroun’ to see things slide like they orter.”
“I didn’t attend their exhibition the other night,” said Tom, looking hungrily at the chopping-bowl.
“Well, yer missed a great sight. I were there, an’ I tell ye what, it was inspirin’ an’ no mistake. When the curtain rolled up an’ a sharp voice yelled ‘For’d mush!’ there comed a suddent silence. The little patterin’ noise to be heered was the enemies o’ their country shakin’ in their boots, an’ the gurglin’ sound what broke the stillness were the hearts o’ the patriots leapin’ inter their throats. Well, on comed the fierce an’ furious warriors, their lances glitterin’ an’ their gum tucked temporarily under their tongues. Not one o’ them thunk anything about their back hair, not one paid any attention to the fit o’ the coattails on the sodjer in front o”em! Every one was thinkin’ of their country’s enemies an’ how they’d like to scratch their eyes out. The men stopped figgerin’ on how to bulldoze the assessor and yelled till they was red in the face. The women took out their sour-drops from their mouths and screamed hurray! The old veterans looked ashamed o’ theirselves and kinder sorry as they had come, an’ the kids was too tuk aback to even yell ‘rats!’ Cap. Hauser — now I don’t mean the old ‘un, but the young’ un, who could show her dad some tricks in sodjerin’, an’ don’t you fergit it! — put the Guards through their paces with business-like celery. They marched by ones an’ twos, an’ fours an’ eights, an’ they would a marched by sixteens, only there wam’t enough of ‘em to do it. The Cap. she watched’ em like a tiger, an’ when one o”em allowed their gum to roll over her tongue the ossifer would cry ‘I’s right!’ which meant as she was correct in her bet that they couldn’t all keep the tooty-frooty quiet till the parade was over. An’ then they’d blush an’ look at the gal on the end as though they all suspected her, till the Cap skeert ‘em out o’ it by yellin”Front!’ ter intimate as she’d call the bell-boy in a twinklin’ if they didn’t let that end gal alone. I guess they hates bell-boys by the way they minded her.”
“But is this Aberdeen Guard only for show?” enquired the doctor.
“Not much!” responded our landlady, as she rolled the hash into little wads between her hands and dropped them into the frying pan. “They’s organized so that the standin’ army can be discharged. This is gen’ally understood. One man enquired if they had any navy, thinkin’ that model essablishment might be abolished too, but the cap’n shook her head an’ after a minit’s thought replied that they all chewed gum an’ left the navy to the men folks. This organization hain’t fer show — it’s fer business. O’ course they was peaceable enough Wen’sday night, but each one has got a spear of Gossamer steel, with a flag near the end o’ it. In a fight with their country’s enemies they’ll just run this spear through the foe’s insides, wave the flag when it comes through, and let the lifeless body slide off’n the handle. There’s a automatic arrangement in the handle that cuts a notch every time a body slides olf, to show how many heart’s blood has been took, and the gal as has the fewest notches in her lance handle after a battle has got to set up the ice cream fer the whole lot. Then there’s a piece o’ flint on the handle o’ the lance, besides, and they can point their spears at the foe, an’ when the flash o’ their eyes runs down the handle it strikts a streak o’ lightnin’ from the flint an’ the steel spear-point, as is guaranteed either to kill or cure a traitor to their country. The one who uses up her ammunition fust is entitled to a box o’ caramels. They’re all single, these Guards, and is likely to stay so till they gets married. They’re all kinder pritty too. I heard that one o’ them has a beard, but I didn’t see nothin’ but smooth faces. They’re pritty spry, and walked as if the y hadn’t had no kitchen work to do for a week. You can bet one thing, and that is that these gals will make their mark ‘afore you hears the last of’em, even if they has to do it with their lead-pencils.
“But breakfast’s ready, genl’men, so be lively. ‘Tain’t nothin’ but hash, to be sure, but you ain’t likely to git no fish bones in yer throat, an’ that’s one comfort!”
She Tackles Religion and Gives Her Ideas of the Sunday Enforcement Law
7 June 1890
“I see by the papers,” said our landlady, as she took a speck out of the milk-pitcher with her thumb, “that the church folks is to have a conwention to obleege folks to observe the Sabbath.”
“So I see,” replied the colonel, turning his beefsteak over to find a vulnerable point of attack.
“Well,” she continued, “I’ve observed the Sabbath ever since I’ve been in this ‘ere town, an’ what I’ve observed ain’t any credit to it. I hope they’ll pass a law as’ll make every man go to church or to jail, that’s what I hope!”
“My dear Mrs. Bilkins,” retorted Tom, “this is a free country, and I’d like to see any pack of religious fanatics oblige me to attend church when I don’t want to go!”
Mrs. Bilkins put on her gold-rimmed “specs” and stared long and indignantly at the audacious speaker.
“I see how it is,” she remarked, at length, “you want to go down to the post- office every Sunday mornin’, with the other heathen men-folks, an’ open an’ read your mail, an’ loaf in the drugstores, an’ smoke bad cigars an’ talk politics! As if that couldn’t be done on week days! I’m ashamed o’ you, young man!”
“I don’t suppose,” broke in the doctor, reflectively, “that there’s anything wrong in what you have mentioned. And as far as this convention is concerned, they will find it difficult to restrict the personal liberty of people who are not religiously inclined.”
“Don’t you fool yourself,” snapped our landlady, beginning to get angry. “You fellers can buck agin’ politics all you wont to, but you’ll find it harder to buck agin’ religion. There was a feller in our town down east as didn’t want the church bells to ring on Sunday mornin’ cause it waked him up outer his beauty sleep; an’ so he complained agin”em as a nuisance, an’ the other heathen men in the town backed him up, an’ made the a’thorities pass a law as no church bells should be ringed. Well, them church people, as had been as meek and Junei8qo quiet as Moses so long as they could jingle the bells and try to down the noise o’ the rival churches, these same folks became roarin’ lions o’ indignation. They went to that ‘ere complainer’s house an’ fetched him away, an’ carried him up inter the church tower, an’ tied the bell-rope around his neck.
“‘Now,’ says they, ‘what have you got to say?’
“‘Jest this,’ says he, ‘your a set o’ rabid fanatics, an’ your religion ain’t skin deep.’
“‘Then,’ says they, ‘as we can’t ring the church bells, we’ll ring your neck. Pull him up, sexton!’
“‘Hoi’ up,’ yells the wictim, ‘I ain’t werry pertic’lar about them bells. You can ring ‘em for all I care. It’s better to be kep’ awake Sunday mornin’ than be killed entirely.’
“So they let him off, an’ th
e church bells in that town hes been ringin’ ever sence.”
“But these people in South Dakota are not content to ring their bells,” said the colonel, “they want to oblige us to attend church whether we want to or not.”
“Well, why shouldn’t they?” she replied, “it don’t hurt none to go to church, an’ it’s good discipline. It makes us appreciate our blessin’s a good deal harder. A pusson as never goes to church can’t realize the fun there is in stayin’ away, an’ somebody’s got to support these ministers what is gittin’ thicker an’ thicker every day, or else they’ll be obleeged to work fer a livin’, an’ religion will be at a standstill. An’ that ain’t all this conwention orter do. They orter obleege the sexton ter search every woman’s pocket fer gum an’ candy, and to arrest every man what puts buttons in the conterbushun box. Them is needed reforms. I tell you, people has lost all respect fer religion, now’days, an’ if they won’t be pius o’ their own accord, it must be druv inter ‘em by the iron hammer o’ the Law. A close Sunday observance would mean to you boarders a clean shirt ev’ry Sabbath mornin’, a sermon as ‘ud teach you that life is not an empty dream, but is full o’ ups an’ downs — more downs nor ups — cold pork an’ beans fer dinner, Sunday-school, an’ prayer meetin’ in the arternoon, more serious thoughts an’ achin’ backs in the evenin’, an’ a good night’s rest. No politics, no cigars, no turkey dinner, no flirtin’ or visitin’ with pritty gals, no rest. An’ then, if you didn’t feel on Monday mornin’ that this ‘ere is a glorious existence six days in the week, the law could be repealed; but I expect, arter you’d tried it awhile, you’d think as Shakespeare did, or else it were Ella Wheeler Wilcox or Ed. Lowe or Billy Carleton — I don’t know which an’ I don’t care — but this is what he thunk, an’ I agree wi’ him —
‘To appreciate heaven well
It’s well fer a man ter hev
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 803