MR. COBLEIGH'S SORROW.
MR. COBLEIGH moved on the Ist of May. We were going through North Street
when we met him with the insignia of the act upon him; viz., a looking-glass,
clock, and lamp. If we had suddenly discovered our own family moving, we
could not have been more astonished. He had lived in the house whence he
was moving for at least eight years. He set the lamp on a fence, and propped
the clock and looking-glass against the same.
"You are surprised to see me at this?" he said with an anxious look.
We admitted as much.
"I little expected it at one time myself." And he sighed drearily.
"Any trouble with the landlord?"
"No, no."
"With the house, then?"
"Oh, no! good landlord, and good house. I don't know if I'll ever again find
as good. I've
lived there eight years last fall; and I might've lived there
all my life, if it wasn't for the danged fools in the world."
We looked our sympathy.
"You see," he went on, "about six months ago, one of those chaps who believe
in a series of sudden and unexpected judgment-days—Second Advent, they call
'em—moved in next door (where Parker used to live). He was a peaceful sort
of a man enough to get along with; but he was a strong Second Advent, and
so is his wife. Well, they hadn't lived there two weeks before they got
acquainted, and began to have revelations." He paused and sighed.
"But why should their peculiar religious belief make you dissatisfied with
your home?" we ventured to inquire.
"Why?" he ejaculated, staring hard at us. "But then you don't know any thing
about it. You never lived next door to a Second Advent, perhaps?"
"Not that we can remember."
"You'd remembered it if you had," he replied with significant emphasis. "I'll
never forget my experience. That family got acquainted with us; and then
it had its revelations. First they borrowed a little sugar, and then a little
tea, and then a little saleratus, and then this, and then that. They said
the world was all going to be burned up in
two weeks, and they didn't feel
like going to the expense of getting a barrel of sugar, when eternity was
so close; and wouldn't we let them have a small teacupful? We let 'em have
it, Then, two days after, they came in, and said, that, owing to the immediate
approach of the end of all things, they didn't think it advisable to lay
in a ton of saleratus, and wouldn't we just loan them a cupful? My wife didn't
believe, of course, that the world was a-coming to an end; but she thought
the poor critters did: and she reasoned, that, when they saw there was no
fire nor smoke on the day in question, they'd pony up with the sugar and
saleratus, and the hundred and one other things. But they wasn't that kind
of Advents. When the time came around, and the performance didn't, they professed
to have got a sort of postscript with later particulars; and then they came
over as rampant as ever, and more so. In fact, every fresh disappointment
appeared to give them new zeal for victuals and other things; and it got
so that they were over every day, and sometimes twice a day, after one thing
or another."
"But didn't they return any of the articles?"
"Certainly not. If the world was going to end, what on earth was we a-going
to do with the articles? I couldn't go through fire, could I, with tea-cupfuls
of saleratus, sugar, tea, &c., hung to me? That's the way they reasoned.
But they was going to make it all right on the other shore, was what
his
wife always said. I told my wife, that, if we could only get back ten per
cent of the things on this shore, I'd cheerfully run my chances for the balance
when we got over there. Besides all that, the prospect of so much groceries
waiting me on the other shore began, after a while, to get very embarrassing;
and I kinder hinted to the chap something to this effect; but it did no good.
He'd got that notion bored right into his skull; and all he could see was
clouds of glory, and angels, and harps, and my sugar and saleratus and coffee
and the like. By George! it got to be just awful, I can tell you! Day in
and day out, that fellow, or some of his folks, was repairing their ascension
duds, or going for my groceries; and it did seem as if I'd go mad, and get
up a judgment-day on my own hook. Why, that chap would come on the greatest
errands you ever saw. He come in one day to get my shaving-brush. He said
he didn't feel justified in buying a new brush right on the eve of a general
resurrection; but he would use mine, and, when we all got over
there"
(here Mr. Cobleigh waved his hand in gloomy indication of the locality),
"he'd give me a shaving-brush inlaid with precious stones, and frisking in
golden foam. Bah!—the jackass! But that's the way he'll talk. He got my
axe one day with a lot of the same foolishness; and, while he was using it,
the handle broke, and the blade went down the well. He come over right away
to see if
I had another axe; and when I told him I hadn't, and that I didn't
know how I was to get along without that one, I'm blamed if he didn't want
me to borrow one from some of the neighbors, so he could finish the little
job he was at! He said there was no use of my buying a new axe, with the
crack of doom staring us in the face. There'd be no use for a new axe in
heaven, for there'd be no pain there, an' no crying; with a lot of other
stuff. This riled me like thunder. But there was no use talking to
him. I was mad, though, about the axe,—as mad as I could be; and
I told him, if he didn't get me a new axe, I'd bust him in pieces with the
right arm of the law. And what do you suppose he said?" And Mr. Cobleigh
looked at us with grim anxiety.
We were obliged to admit that we couldn't tell.
"He said he'd go home and pray for me," added our friend with a sigh of despair.
"And now, what could I do with such a chap as that! There was no use
in getting mad, and you couldn't reason him out of the foolishness. And he
wouldn't move; and the day of judgment showed no signs of being in earnest.
So there I was. The only thing I could do was to get away; and I've hired
a house at the other end of the town, and I'm moving there. And now," added
our unfortunate friend, steadying the looking-glass and clock under his
arms,
while he grasped the lamp, "I've got where there is a jail on one side of
me, and a graveyard on the other; and I don't care a darn how many Second
Advents move in on either side."
And he stalked grimly on his way.
