"I declare, ma," said he; "somehow these things--phew! Somehow theypinch my feet dreadfully. I don't know what it is,--phew! They'redreadful oncomf'table things somehow."
"Since I've known ye, pa," solemnly ejaculated Grandma Keeler, "you'venever had a pair o' meetin' boots that set easy on yer feet. You'd oughtto get boots big enough for ye, pa," she continued, looking downdisapprovingly on the old gentleman's pedal extremities, which resembledtwo small scows at anchor in black cloth encasements: "and not be soproud as to go to pinchin' yer feet into gaiters a number o' sizes toosmall for ye."
"They're number tens, I tell ye!" roared Grandpa nettled outrageously bythis cutting taunt.
"Wall, thar', now, pa," said Grandma, soothingly; "if I had sech feet asthat, I wouldn't go to spreadin' it all over town, if I was you--butit's time we stopped bickerin' now, husband, and got ready for meetin';so set down and let me wash yer head."
"I've washed once this mornin'. It's clean enough," Grandpa protested,but in vain. He was planted in a chair, and Grandma Keeler, with rag andsoap and a basin of water, attacked the old gentleman vigorously, muchas I have seen cruel mothers wash the faces of their earth-begrimedinfants. He only gave expression to such groans as:
"Thar', ma! don't tear my ears to pieces! Come, ma! you've got my eyesso full o' soap now, ma, that I can't see nothin'. Phew, Lordy! ain't yemost through with this, ma?"
Then came the dyeing process, which Grandma Keeler assured me, aside,made Grandpa "look like a man o' thirty;" but to me, after it he lookedneither old nor young, human nor inhuman, nor like anything that I hadever seen before under the sun.
"There's the lotion, the potion, the dye-er, and the setter," saidGrandma, pointing to four bottles on the table. "Now whar's thedirections, Madeline?"
These having been produced from between the leaves of the family Bible,Madeline read, while Grandma made a vigorous practical application ofthe various mixtures.
"This admirable lotion"--in soft ecstatic tones Madeline rehearsed theflowery language of the recipe--"though not so instantaneously startlingin its effect as our inestimable dyer and setter, yet forms a mostessential part of the whole process, opening, as it does, the dry andlifeless pores of the scalp, imparting to them new life and beauty, andrendering them more easily susceptible to the applications which follow.But we must go deeper than this; a tone must be given to the wholesystem by means of the cleansing and rejuvenating of the very centre ofour beings, and, for this purpose, we have prepared our wonderfulpotion." Here Grandpa, with a wry face, was made to swallow a spoonfulof the mixture. "Our unparalleled dyer," Madeline continued, "restoresblack hair to a more than original gloss and brilliancy, and gives tothe faded golden tress the sunny flashes of youth." Grandpa was dyed."Our world-renowned setter completes and perfects the whole process byadding tone and permanency to the efficacious qualities of the lotion,potion, and dyer, etc.;" while on Grandpa's head the unutterable dye wasset.
"Now, read teacher some of the testimonials, daughter," said GrandmaKeeler, whose face was one broad, generous illustration of that rare andpeculiar virtue called faith.
So Madeline continued: "Mrs. Hiram Briggs, of North Dedham, writes: 'Iwas terribly afflicted with baldness, so that, for months, I was littlemore than an outcast from society, and an object of pity to my mostfamiliar friends. I tried every remedy in vain. At length I heard ofyour wonderful restorative. After a week's application, my hair hadalready begun to grow in what seemed the most miraculous manner. At theend of ten months it had assumed such length and proportions as to be amost luxurious burden, and where I had before been regarded with pityand aversion, I became the envied and admired of all beholders.'"
"Just think!" said Grandma Keeler, with rapturous sympathy andgratitude, "how that poor creetur must a' felt!"
"'Orion Spaulding, of Weedsville, Vermont,'" Madeline went on--but,here, I had to beg to be excused, and went to my room to get ready forthe Sunday-school.
When I came down again, Grandpa Keeler was seated, completely arrayed inhis best clothes, opposite Grandma, who held the big family Bible in herlap, and a Sunday-school question book in one hand.
"Now, pa," said she; "what tribe was it in sacred writ that worebunnits?"
I was compelled to infer from the tone of Grandpa Keeler's answer thathis temper had not undergone a mollifying process during my absence.
"Come, ma," said he; "how much longer ye goin' to pester me in thisway?"
"Why, pa," Grandma rejoined calmly; "until you git a properunderstandin' of it. What tribe was it in sacred writ that worebunnits?"
"Lordy!" exclaimed the old man. "How d'ye suppose I know! They must 'a'been a tarnal old womanish lookin' set anyway."
"The tribe o' Judah, pa," said Grandma, gravely. "Now, how good it is,husband, to have your understandin' all freshened up on the scripters!"
"Come, come, ma!" said Grandpa, rising nervously. "It's time we wasstartin'. When I make up my mind to go anywhere I always want to gitthere in time. If I was goin' to the Old Harry, I should want to gitthere in time."
"It's my consarn that we shall git thar' before time, some on us," saidGrandma, with sad meaning, "unless we larn to use more respec'fullanguage."
I shall never forget how we set off for church that Sabbath morning, wayout at one of the sunny back doors of the Ark: for there was Madeline'slittle cottage that fronted the highway, or lane, and then there was along backward extension of the Ark, only one story in height. Thisbelonged peculiarly to Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. It contained the"parlor" and three "keepin'" rooms opening one into the other, all ofthe same size and general bare and gloomy appearance, all possessing thesame sacredly preserved atmosphere, through which we passed withbecoming silence and solemnity into the "end" room, the sunny kitchenwhere Grandma and Grandpa kept house by themselves in the summer time,and there at the door, her very yellow coat reflecting the rays of thesun, stood Fanny, presenting about as much appearance of life andanimation as a pensive summer squash.
The carriage, I thought, was a fac-simile of the one in which I had beenbrought from West Wallen on the night of my arrival. One of the moststriking peculiarities of this sort of vehicle was the width at whichthe wheels were set apart. The body seemed comparatively narrow. It wasvery long, and covered with white canvas. It had neither windows nordoors, but just the one guarded opening in front. There were no stepsleading to this, and, indeed, a variety of obstacles before it. And theway Grandma effected an entrance was to put a chair on a mound of earth,and a cricket on top of the chair, and thus, having climbed up toFanny's reposeful back, she slipped passively down, feet foremost, tothe whiffle-tree; from thence she easily gained the plane of thecarriage floor.
Grandpa and I took a less circuitous, though, perhaps, not lessdifficult route.
I sat with Grandpa on the "front" seat--it may be remarked that the"front" seat was very much front, and the "back" seat very muchback--there was a kind of wooden shelf built outside as a resting-placefor the feet, so that while our heads were under cover, our feet wereout, utterly exposed to the weather, and we must either lay them on theshelf or let them hang off into space.
Madeline and the children stood at the door to see us off.
"All aboard! ship ballasted! wind fa'r! go ahead thar', Fanny!" shoutedGrandpa, who seemed quite restored in spirits, and held the reins andwielded the whip with a masterful air.
He spun sea-yarns, too, all the way--marvelous ones, and Grandma'sreproving voice was mellowed by the distance, and so confusedly mingledwith the rumbling of the wheels, that it seemed hardly to reach him atall. Not that Grandma looked discomfited on this account, or in badhumor. On the contrary, as she sat back there in the ghostly shadows,with her hands folded, and her hair combed out in resplendent waves oneither side of her head, she appeared conscious that every word sheuttered was taking root in some obdurate heart. She was, in everyrespect, the picture of good-will and contentment.
But the face under Grandpa's antiquated beaver began to give m
e a freshshock every time I looked up at him, for the light and the air wererapidly turning his rejuvenated locks and his poor, thin fringe ofwhiskers to an unnatural greenish tint, while his bushy eyebrows,untouched by the hand of art, shone as white as ever.
In spite of the old sea-captain's entertaining stories, it seemed,indeed, "a long jaunt" to West Wallen.
To say that Fanny was a slow horse would be but a feeble expression ofthe truth.
A persevering "click! click! click!" began to arise from Grandma'squarter. This annoyed Grandpa exceedingly.
"Shet up, ma!" he was moved to exclaim at last. "I'm steerin' thiscraft."
"Click! click! click!" came perseveringly from behind.
"Dum it, ma! thar', ma!" cried Grandpa, exasperated beyond measure. "Howis this hoss goin' to hear anything that I say ef you keep up such atarnal cacklin'?"
Just as we were coming out of the thickest part of the woods, about amile beyond Wallencamp, we discovered a man walking in the distance. Itwas the only human being we had seen since we started.
"Hullo, there's Lovell!" exclaimed Grandpa. "I was wonderin' why wehadn't overtook him before. We gin'ally take him in on the road. Yis,yis; that's Lovell, ain't it, teacher?"
I put up my glasses, helplessly.
"I'm sure," I said, "I can't tell, positively. I have seen Mr. Barlowbut once, and at that distance I shouldn't know my own father."
"Must be Lovell," said Grandpa. "Yis, I know him! Hullo, thar'! Shipahoy! ship ahoy!"
Grandpa's voice suggested something of the fire and vigor it must havehad when it rang out across the foam of waves and pierced the tempest'sroar.
The man turned and looked at us, and then went on again.
"He don't seem to recognize us," said Grandma.
"Ship a-hoy! Ship a-hoy!" shouted Grandpa.
The man turned and looked at us again, and this time he stopped and kepton looking.
When we got up to him we saw that it wasn't Lovell Barlow at all, but astranger of trampish appearance, drunk and fiery, and fixed in anaggressive attitude.
I was naturally terrified. What if he should attack us in that lonelyspot! Grandpa was so old! And moreover, Grandpa was so taken aback tofind that it wasn't Lovell that he began some blunt and stammeringexpression of surprise, which only served to increase the stranger'sire. Grandma, imperturbable soul! who never failed to come to the rescueeven in the most desperate emergencies--Grandma climbed over to thefront, thrust out her benign head, and said in that deep, calm voice ofhers:
"We're a goin' to the house of God, brother; won't you git in and gotoo?"
"No!" our brother replied, doubling up his fists and shaking themmenacingly in our faces: "I won't go to no house o' God. What d'ye meanby overhauling me on the road, and askin' me to git into yer d--d oldtraveling lunatic asylum?"
"Drive on, pa," said Grandma, coldly. "He ain't in no condition to belabored with now. Drive on kind o' quick!"
"Kind o' quick" we could not go, but Fanny was made to do her best, andwe did not pause to look behind.
When we got to the church Sunday-school had already begun. There wasLovell Barlow looking preternaturally stiff in his best clothes, sittingwith a class of young men. He saw us when we came in, and gave me a lookof deep meaning. It was the same expression--as though there was somesolemn, mutual understanding between us--which he had worn on that nightwhen he gave me his picture.
"There's plenty of young folks' classes," said Grandma; "but seein' aswe're late maybe you'd jest as soon go right along in with us."
I said that I should like that best, so I went into the "old folks'"class with Grandma and Grandpa Keeler.
There were three pews of old people in front of us, and the teacher, whocertainly seemed to me the oldest person I had ever seen, sat in anotherwise vacant pew in front of all, so that, his voice being very thinand querulous, we could hear very little that he said, although we wereedified in some faint sense by his pious manner of shaking his head androlling his eyes toward the ceiling.
The church was a square wooden edifice, of medium size, and containedthree stoves all burning brightly. Against this, and the drowsy effectof their long drive in the sun and wind, my two companions provedpowerless to struggle.
Grandpa looked furtively up at Grandma, then endeavored to put on as asort of apology for what he felt was inevitably coming, a sanctimoniousexpression which was most unnatural to him, and which soon faded away asthe sweet unconsciousness of slumber overspread his features. His headfell back helplessly, his mouth opened wide. He snored, but not veryloudly. I looked at Grandma, wondering why her vigilance had failed onthis occasion, and lo! her head was falling peacefully from side toside. She was fast asleep, too. She woke up first, however, and thenGrandpa was speedily and adroitly aroused by some means, I think it wasa pin; and Grandma fed him with bits of unsweetened flag-root, which hemunched penitently, though evidently without relish, until he droppedoff to sleep again, and she dropped off to sleep again, and so theycontinued.
But it always happened that Grandma woke up first. And whereas Grandpa,when the avenging pin pierced his shins, recovered himself with a startand an air of guilty confusion, Grandma opened her eyes at regularintervals, with the utmost calm and placidity, as though she had merelybeen closing them to engage in a few moments of silent prayer.
VIVE LA BAGATELLE
BY GELETT BURGESS
Sing a song of foolishness, laughing stocks and cranks! The more there are the merrier; come join the ranks! Life is dry and stupid; whoop her up a bit! Donkeys live in clover; bray and throw a fit!
Take yourself in earnest, never stop to think, Strut and swagger boldly, dress in red and pink; Prate of stuff and nonsense, get yourself abused; Some one's got to play the fool to keep the crowd amused!
Bully for the idiot! Bully for the guy! You could be a prig yourself, if you would only try! Altruistic asses keep the fun alive; Clowns are growing scarcer; hurry and arrive!
I seen a crazy critic a-writin' of a screed; "Tendencies" and "Unities"--Maeterlinck indeed! He wore a paper collar, and his tie was up behind; If that's the test of Culture, then I'm glad I'm not refined!
Let me laugh at you, then you can laugh at me; Then we'll josh together everything we see; Every one's a nincompoop to another's view; Laughter makes the sun shine! Roop-de-doodle-doo!
THE TWO BROTHERS
BY CAROLYN WELLS
Once on a Time there were Two Brothers who Set Out to make their Way InThe World.
One was of a Roving Disposition, and no sooner had he settled Down toLive in One Place than he would Gather Up all his Goods and Chattels andMove to another Place. From here again he would Depart and make him aFresh Home, and so on until he Became an Old Man and had gained neitherFortune nor Friends.
The Other, being Disinclined to Change or Diversity of Scene, remainedall his Life in One Place. He therefore Became Narrow-Minded andProvincial, and gained None of the Culture and Liberality of Naturewhich comes from Contact with various Scenes of Life.
MORALS:
This Fable teaches that a Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss, and a SettingHen Never Grows Fat.
A LETTER
FROM PETROLEUM V. NASBY
I AM REQUESTED TO ACT AS CHAPLAIN OF THE CLEVELAND CONVENTION.--THATBEAUTIFUL CITY VISITED FOR THAT PURPOSE.
POST OFFIS, CONFEDRIT X ROADS, (wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky), September 20, 1866.
I wuz sent for to come to Washington, from my comfortable quarters atthe Post Offis, to attend the convenshun uv sich soldiers and sailors uvthe United States ez bleeve in a Union uv 36 States, and who hev swornallejinse to a flag with 36 stars onto it, at Cleveland. My esteemed andlife-long friend and co-laborer, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, wuz to hev binthe chaplin uv the convenshun, but he failed us, and it wuz decided in aCabinet meetin that I shood take his place. I didn't see the necessityuv hevin a chaplin at every little convenshun uv our party, and sostated;
but Seward remarked, with a groan, that ef ever there wuz aparty, since parties wuz invented, wich needed prayin for, ours wuz thatparty. "And, Parson," sed he, glancin' at a list uv delegates, "ef yoohev any agonizin petitions, any prayers uv extra fervency, offer em upfor these fellers. Ef there is any efficacy in prayer, it's my honest,unbiased opinion that there never wuz in the history uv the world, nornever will be agin, sich a magnificent chance to make it manifest. Tryyoor-self particularly on Custer; tho', after all," continyood he, in amusin, abstracted sort uv a way, wich he's fallen into lately, "thefellow is sich a triflin bein, that he reely kin hardly be held'sponsible for what he's doin; and the balance uv em, good Hevens!they'r mostly druv to it by hunger." And the Secretary maundered onsuthin about "sixty days" and "ninety days," payin no more attention tothe rest uv us than ez ef we wuzn't there at all.
So, receevin transportashen and suffishent money from the secret servicefund for expenses, I departed for Cleveland, and after a tejus tripthro' an Ablishn country, I arrived there. My thots were gloomy beyondexpression. I hed recently gone through this same country ez chaplin tothe Presidential tour, and every stashen hed its pecooliar onpleasantremembrances. Here wuz where the cheers for Grant were vociferous, withnary a snort for His Eggslency; there wuz where the peasantry laft inhis face when he went thro' with the regler ritooal uv presentin theconstitooshn and the flag with 36 stars onto it to a deestrick assessor;there wuz--but why recount my sufferins? Why harrow up the public bosom,or lasserate the public mind? Suffice to say, I endoored it; suffice tosay that I hed strength left to ride up Bank street, in Cleveland, theseen uv the most awful insult the Eggsecutive ever receeved.
The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) Page 5