Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

by Bierce, Ambrose

  “Hank,” said she to the boy’s father, who was forging a bank note in the chimney corner, “this all comes o’ not edgercatin’ ‘im when he was a baby. Ef he’d larnt spellin’ and ciferin’ he never could a-ben elected.”

  It pains me to state that old Hank didn’t seem to get any thinner under the family disgrace, and his appetite never left him for a minute. The fact is, the old gentleman wanted to go to the United States Senate.

  A Kansas Incident.

  An invalid wife in Leavenworth heard her husband make proposals of marriage to the nurse. The dying woman arose in bed, fixed her large black eyes for a moment upon the face of her heartless spouse with a reproachful intensity that must haunt him through life, and then fell back a corpse. The remorse of that widower, as he led the blushing nurse to the altar the next week, can be more easily imagined than described. Such reparation as was in his power he made. He buried the first wife decently and very deep down, laying a handsome and exceedingly heavy stone upon the sepulchre. He chiselled upon the stone the following simple and touching line: “She can’t get back.”

  Mr. Grile’s Girl.

  In a lecture about girls, Cady Stanton contrasted the buoyant spirit of young males with the dejected sickliness of immature women. This, she says, is because the latter are keenly sensitive to the fact that they have no aim in life. This is a sad, sad truth! No longer ago than last year the writer’s youngest girl-Gloriana, a skin-milk blonde concern of fourteen-came pensively up to her father with big tears in her little eyes, and a forgotten morsel of buttered bread lying unchewed in her mouth.

  “Papa,” murmured the poor thing, “I’m gettin’ awful pokey, and my clothes don’t seem to set well in the back. My days are full of ungratified longin’s, and my nights don’t get any better. Papa, I think society needs turnin’ inside out and scrapin’. I haven’t got nothin’ to aspire to-no aim; nor anything!”

  The desolate creature spilled herself loosely into a cane-bottom chair, and her sorrow broke “like a great dyke broken.”

  The writer lifted her tenderly upon his knee and bit her softly on the neck.

  “Gloriana,” said he, “have you chewed up all that toffy in two days?”

  A smothered sob was her frank confession.

  “Now, see here, Glo,” continued the parent, rather sternly, “don’t let me hear any more about ‘aspirations’-which are always adulterated with terra alba-nor ‘aims’-which will give you the gripes like anything. You just take this two shilling-piece and invest every penny of it in lollipops!”

  You should have seen the fair, bright smile crawl from one of that innocent’s ears to the other-you should have marked that face sprinkle, all over with dimples-you ought to have beheld the tears of joy jump glittering into her eyes and spill all over her father’s clean shirt that he hadn’t had on more than fifteen minutes! Cady Stanton is impotent of evil in the Grile family so long as the price of sweets remains unchanged.

  His Railway.

  The writer remembers, as if it were but yesterday, when he edited the Hang Tree Herald. For six months he devoted his best talent to advocating the construction of a railway between that place and Jayhawk, thirty miles distant. The route presented every inducement. There would be no grading required, and not a single curve would be necessary. As it lay through an uninhabited alkali flat, the right of way could be easily obtained. As neither terminus had other than pack-mule communication with civilization, the rolling stock and other material must necessarily be constructed at Hang Tree, because the people at the other end didn’t know enough to do it, and hadn’t any blacksmith. The benefit to our place was indisputable; it constituted the most seductive charm of the scheme. After six months of conscientious lying, the company was incorporated, and the first shovelful of alkali turned up and preserved in a museum, when suddenly the devil put it into the head of one of the Directors to inquire publicly what the road was designed to carry. It is needless to say the question was never satisfactorily answered, and the most daring enterprise of the age was knocked perfectly cold. That very night a deputation of stockholders waited upon the editor of the Herald and prescribed a change of climate. They afterward said the change did them good.

  Mr. Gish Makes a Present.

  In the season for making presents my friend Stockdoddle Gish, Esq., thought he would so far waive his superiority to the insignificant portion of mankind outside his own waistcoat as to follow one of its customs. Mr. Gish has a friend-a delicate female of the shrinking sort-whom he favours with his esteem as a sort of equivalent for the respect she accords him when he browbeats her. Our hero numbers among the blessings which his merit has extorted from niggardly Nature a gaunt meathound, between whose head and body there exists about the same proportion as between those of a catfish, which he also resembles in the matter of mouth. As to sides, this precious pup is not dissimilar to a crockery crate loosely covered with a wet sheet. In appetite he is liberal and cosmopolitan, loving a dried sheepskin as well in proportion to its weight as a kettle of soap. The village which Mr. Gish honours by his residence has for some years been kept upon the dizzy verge of financial ruin by the maintenance of this animal.

  The reader will have already surmised that it was this beast which our hero selected to testify his toleration of his lady friend. There never was a greater mistake. Mr. Gish merely presented her a sheaf of assorted angle-worms, neatly bound with a pink ribbon tied into a simple knot. The dog is an heirloom and will descend to the Gishes of the next generation, in the direct line of inheritance.

  A Cow–County Pleasantry.

  About the most ludicrous incident that I remember occurred one day in an ordinarily solemn village in the cow-counties. A worthy matron, who had been absent looking after a vagrom cow, returned home, and pushing against the door found it obstructed by some heavy substance, which, upon examination, proved to be her husband. He had been slaughtered by some roving joker, who had wrought upon him with a pick-handle. To one of his ears was pinned a scrap of greasy paper, upon which were scrambled the following sentiments in pencil~tracks:

  “The inqulosed boddy is that uv old Burker. Step litely, stranger, fer yer lize the mortil part uv wat you mus be sum da. Thers arrest for the weery! If Burker heddenta wurkt agin me fer Corner I wuddenta bed to sit on him. Ov setch is the kingum of hevvun! You don’t want to moov this boddy til ime summuns to hold a ninquest. Orl flesh are gras!”

  The ridiculous part of the story is that the lady did not wait to summon the Coroner, but took charge of the remains herself; and in dragging them toward the bed she exploded into her face a shotgun, which had been cunningly contrived to discharge by a string connected with the body. Thus was she punished for an infraction of the law. The next day the particulars were told me by the facetious Coroner himself, whose jury had just rendered a verdict of accidental drowning in both cases. I don’t know when I have enjoyed a heartier laugh.

  The Optimist, and What He Died Of.

  One summer evening, while strolling with considerable difficulty over Russian Hill, San Francisco, Mr. Grile espied a man standing upon the extreme summit, with a pensive brow and a suit of clothes which seemed to have been handed down through a long line of ancestors from a remote Jew peddler. Mr. Grile respectfully saluted; a man who has any clothes at all is to him an object of veneration. The stranger opened the conversation:

  “My son,” said he, in a tone suggestive of strangulation by the Sheriff, “do you behold this wonderful city, its wharves crowded with the shipping of all nations?”

  Mr. Grile beheld with amazement.

  “Twenty-one years ago-alas! it used to be but twenty,” and he wiped away a tear—”you might have bought the whole dern thing for a Mexican ounce.”

  Mr. Grile hastened to proffer a paper of tobacco, which disappeared like a wisp of oats drawn into a threshing machine.

  “I was one among the first who—”

  Mr. Grile hit him on the head with a paving-stone by way of changing the topic
.

  “Young man,” continued he, “do you feel this bommy breeze? There isn’t a climit in the world—”

  This melancholy relic broke down in a fit of coughing. No sooner had he recovered than he leaped into the air, making a frantic clutch at something, but apparently without success.

  “Dern it,” hissed he, “there goes my teeth; blowed out again, by hokey!”

  A passing cloud of dust hid him for a moment from view, and when he reappeared he was an altered man; a paroxysm of asthma had doubled him up like a nut-cracker.

  “Excuse me,” he wheezed, “I’m subject to this; caught it crossin’ the Isthmus in ‘49. As I was a-sayin’, there’s no country in the world that offers such inducements to the immygrunt as Californy. With her fertile soil, her unrivalled climit, her magnificent bay, and the rest of it, there is enough for all.”

  This venerable pioneer picked a fragmentary biscuit from the street and devoured it. Mr. Grile thought this had gone on about long enough. He twisted the head off that hopeful old party, surrendered himself to the authorities, and was at once discharged.

  The Root of Education.

  A pedagogue in Indiana, who was “had up” for unmercifully waling the back of a little girl, justified his action by explaining that “she persisted in flinging paper pellets at him when his back was turned.” That is no excuse. Mr. Grile once taught school up in the mountains, and about every half hour had to remove his coat and scrape off the dried paper wads adhering to the nap. He never permitted a trifle like this to unsettle his patience; he just kept on wearing that gaberdine until it had no nap and the wads wouldn’t stick. But when they took to dipping them in mucilage he made a complaint to the Board of Directors.

  “Young man,” said the Chairman, “ef you don’t like our ways, you’d better sling your blankets and git. Prentice Mulford tort skule yer for more’n six months, and he never said a word agin the wads.”

  Mr. Grile briefly explained that Mr. Mulford might have been brought up to paper wads, and didn’t mind them.

  “It ain’t no use,” said another Director, “the children hev got to be amused.”

  Mr. Grile protested that there were other amusements quite as diverting; but the third Director here rose and remarked:

  “I perfeckly agree with the Cheer; this youngster better travel. I consider as paper wads lies at the root uv popillar edyercation; ther a necessary adjunck uv the skool systim. Mr. Cheerman, I move and second that this yer skoolmarster be shot.”

  Mr. Grile did not remain to observe the result of the voting.

  Retribution.

  A citizen of Pittsburg, aged sixty, had, by tireless industry and the exercise of rigid economy, accumulated a hoard of frugal dollars, the sight and feel whereof were to his soul a pure delight. Imagine his sorrow and the heaviness of his aged heart when he learned that the good wife had bestowed thereof upon her brother bountiful largess exceeding his merit. Sadly and prayerfully while she slept lifted he the retributive mallet and beat in her brittle pate. Then with the quiet dignity of one who has redressed a grievous wrong, surrendered himself unto the law this worthy old man. Let him who has never known the great grief of slaughtering a wife judge him harshly. He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone-and let it be a large heavy stone that shall grind that wicked old man into a powder of exceeding impalpability.

  The Faithful Wife.

  “A man was sentenced to twenty years’ confinement for a deed of violence. In the excitement of the moment his wife sought and obtained a divorce. Thirteen years afterward he was pardoned. The wife brought the pardon to the gate; the couple left the spot arm in arm; and in less than an hour they were again united in the bonds of wedlock.”

  Such is the touching tale narrated by a newspaper correspondent. It is in every respect true; I knew the parties well, and during that long bitter period of thirteen years it was commonly asked concerning the woman: “Hasn’t that hag trapped anybody yet? She’ll have to take back old Jabe when he gets out.” And she did. For nearly thirteen weary years she struggled nobly against fate: she went after every unmarried man in her part of the country; but “No,” said they, “we cannot-indeed we cannot-marry you, after the way you went back on Jabe. It is likely that under the same circumstances you would play us the same scurvy trick. G’way, woman!” And so the poor old heartbroken creature had to go to the Governor and get the old man pardoned out. Bless her for her steadfast fidelity!

  Margaret the Childless.

  This, therefore, is the story of her: — Some four years ago her husband brought home a baby, which he said he found lying in the street, and which they concluded to adopt. About a year after this he brought home another, and the good woman thought she could stand that one too. A similar period passed away, when one evening he opened the door and fell headlong into the room, swearing with studied correctness at a dog which had tripped him up, but which upon inspection turned out to be another baby. Margaret’s sus~picion was aroused, but to allay his she hastened to implore him to adopt that darling also, to which, after some slight hesitation, he consented. Another twelvemonth rolled into eternity, when one evening the lady heard a noise in the back yard, and going out she saw her husband labouring at the windlass of the well with unwonted industry. As the bucket neared the top he reached down and extracted another infant, exactly like the former ones, and holding it up, explained to the astonished matron: “Look at this, now; did you ever see such a sweet young one go a-campaignin’ about the country without a lantern and a-tumblin’ into wells? There, take the poor little thing in to the fire, and get off its wet clothes.” It suddenly flashed across his mind that he had neglected an obvious precaution-the clothes were not wet-and he hastily added: “There’s no tellin’ what would have become of it, a-climbin’ down that rope, if I hadn’t seen it afore it got down to the water.”

  Silently the good wife took that infant into the house and disrobed it; sorrowfully she laid it alongside its little brothers and sister; long and bitterly she wept over the quartette; and then with one tender look at her lord and master, smoking in solemn silence by the fire, and resembling them with all his might, she gathered her shawl about her bowed shoulders and went away into the night.

  The Discomfited Demon.

  I never clearly knew why I visited the old cemetery that night. Perhaps it was to see how the work of removing the bodies was getting on, for they were all being taken up and carted away to a more comfortable place where land was less valuable. It was well enough; nobody had buried himself there for years, and the skeletons that were now exposed were old mouldy affairs for which it was difficult to feel any respect. However, I put a few bones in my pocket as souvenirs. The night was one of those black, gusty ones in March, with great inky clouds driving rapidly across the sky, spilling down sudden showers of rain which as suddenly would cease. I could barely see my way between the empty graves, and in blundering about among the coffins I tripped and fell headlong. A peculiar laugh at my side caused me to turn my head, and I saw a singular old gentleman whom I had often noticed hanging about the Coroner’s office, sitting cross-legged upon a prostrate tombstone.

  “How are you, sir?” said I, rising awkwardly to my feet; “nice night.”

  “Get off my tail,” answered the elderly party, without moving a muscle.

  “My eccentric friend,” rejoined I, mockingly, “may I be permitted to inquire your street and number?”

  “Certainly,” he replied, “No. 1, Marle Place, Asphalt Avenue, Hades.”

  “The devil!” sneered I.

  “Exactly,” said he; “oblige me by getting off my tail.”

  I was a little staggered, and by way of rallying my somewhat dazed faculties, offered a cigar: “Smoke?”

  “Thank you,” said the singular old gentleman, putting it under his coat; “after dinner. Drink?”

  I was not exactly prepared for this, but did not know if it would be safe to decline, and so putting the proffered flask to m
y lips pretended to swig elaborately, keeping my mouth tightly closed the while. “Good article,” said I, returning it. He simply remarked, “You’re a fool,” and emptied the bottle at a gulp.

  “And now,” resumed he, “you will confer a favour I shall highly appreciate by removing your feet from my tail.”

  There was a slight shock of earthquake, and all the skeletons in sight arose to their feet, stretched themselves and yawned audibly. Without moving from his seat, the old gentleman rapped the nearest one across the skull with his gold-headed cane, and they all curled away to sleep again.

  “Sire,” I resumed, “indulge me in the impertinence of inquiring your business here at this hour.”

  “My business is none of yours,” retorted he, calmly; “what are you up to yourself?”

  “I have been picking up some bones,” I replied, carelessly.

  “Then you are—”

  I am—”

  “A Ghoul!”

  “My good friend, you do me injustice. You have doubtless read very frequently in the newspapers of the Fiend in Human Shape whose actions and way of life are so generally denounced. Sire, you see before you that maligned party!”