University of Virginia Library

17. GAMALIEL GAMBRIL;
OR, DOMESTIC UNEASINESS.

It may be a truism, yet we cannot help recording it as
our deliberate opinion, that life is begirt with troubles.
The longer we live, the more we are convinced of the
fact—solidly, sincerely convinced; especially in cold
weather, when all evils are doubled, and great annoyances
are reinforced by legions of petty vexations. The
happiest conditions of existence—among which it is
usual to class matrimony—are not without their alloy.
There is a principle of equity always at work, and, therefore,
where roses strew the path, thorns are sharpest
and most abundant. Were it otherwise, frail humanity
might at times forget its mortal nature—as it is apt to do
when not roughly reminded of the fact—and grow altogether
too extensive for its nether integuments.

A stronger proof that “there's naught but care on
every hand,” and that it is often nearest when least expected,
could not be found, than in the case of Gamaliel
Gambril the cobbler, an influential and well known resident
of Ringbone Alley, a section of the city wherein he
has “a voice potential, double as the Duke's.” Gamaliel's
Christmas gambols — innocent as he deemed
them — terminated in the revolt of his household,
a species of civil war which was the more distressing
to him as it came like a cloud after sunshine,

darker and more gloomy from the preceding light. It is
often thus with frail humanity. The keenest vision cannot
penetrate the contracted circle of the present, and give
certain information of the future. Who, that sets forth
to run a rig, can tell in what that rig may end? The
laughing child, unconscious of mishap, pursues the sportive
butterfly and falls into a ditch; and man, proud of
his whiskers, his experience, and his foresight, will yet
follow that phantom felicity until he gets into a scrape.
The highways and the byways of existence are filled
with man-traps and spring-guns, and happy he whose
activity is so great that he can dance among them with
uninjured ankles, and escape scot-free. That faculty,
which to a man of a sportive turn of mind is more precious
than rubies, is denied to Gamaliel Gambril. When
convivially inclined, he is a Napoleon, whose every battle-field
is a Waterloo—a Santa Anna, whose San Jacintos
are innumerable.

It was past the noon of night, and the greater part of
those who had beds to go to, had retired to rest. Light
after light had ceased to flash from the windows, and
every house was in darkness, save where a faintly burning
candle in the attic told that Sambo or Dinah had just
finished labour, and was about enjoying the sweets of
repose, or where a fitful flashing through the fan light of
an entry door hinted at the fact that young Hopeful was
still abroad at his revels. It seemed that the whole city
and liberties were in bed, and the active imagination of
the solitary stroller through the streets could not avoid
painting the scene. He figured to himself the two hundred
thousand human creatures who dwell within those
precincts, lying prone upon their couches—couches varied
as their fortunes, and in attitudes more varied than either

—some, who are careless of making a figure in the world,
with their knees drawn up to their chins; the haughty
and ostentatious stretched out to their full extent; the ambitious,
the sleeping would-be Cæsars, spread abroad like
the eagle on a sign, or a chicken split for the gridiron,
each hand and each foot reaching toward a different point
of the compass; the timid rolled up into little balls, with
their noses just peeping from under the clothes; and the
valiant with clenched fists and bosoms bare—for character
manifests itself by outward signs, both in our sleeping
and in our waking moments; and if the imagination of the
speculative watcher has ears as well as eyes, the varied
music which proceeds from these two hundred thousand
somnolent bodies will vibrate upon his tympanum—the
dulcet flute-like snoring which melodiously exhales from
the Phidian nose of the sleeping beauty; the querulous
whining of the nervous papa; the warlike startling snort
of mature manhood, ringing like a trumpet call, and rattling
the window glass with vigorous fury; the whistling,
squeaking, and grunting of the eccentric; and, in fine, all
the diversified sounds with which our race choose to accompany
their sacrifices to Morpheus.

But though so many were in bed, there were some
who should have been in bed who were not there. On
this very identical occasion, when calmness seemed to
rule the hour, the usually quiet precincts of Ringbone
Alley were suddenly disturbed by a tremendous clatter.
But loud as it was, the noise for a time continued unheeded.
The inhabitants of that locality—who are excellent
and prudent citizens, and always, while they give
their arms and legs a holiday, impose additional labour
upon their digestive organs—worn out by the festivities
of the season, and somewhat oppressed with a feverish
head-ache, the consequence thereof, were generally

asleep; and, with no disposition to flatter, or to assume
more for them than they are entitled to, it must be conceded
that the Ringboners, when they tie up their heads
and take off their coats to it, are capital sleepers—none
better. They own no relationship to those lazy, aristocratic
dozers, who seem to despise the wholesome employment
of slumbering, and, instead of devoting their
energies to the task, amuse themselves with counting the
clock, and with idly listening to every cry of fire—who
are afraid to trust themselves unreservedly to the night,
and are so suspicious of its dusky face, and so doubtful
of the fidelity of the “sentinel stars,” as to watch both
night and stars. Unlike this nervous race, the Ringboners
have in general nothing to tell when they assemble
round the breakfast table. They eat heartily, and
grumble not about the badness of their rest; for their
rest has no bad to it. They neither hear the shutters slam
in the night, nor are they disturbed by mysterious knockings
about three in the morning. They do not, to make
others ashamed of their honest torpidity, ask, “Where
was the fire?” and look astonished that no one heard
the alarm. On the contrary, when they couch themselves,
they are only wide enough awake to see the
candle out of the corner of one eye, and nothing is audible
to them between the puff which extinguishes the
light and the call to labour at the dawn. When their
heads touch the pillow, their optics are closed and their
mouths are opened. Each proboscis sounds the charge
into the land of Nod, and like Eastern monarchs, they
slumber to slow music, Ringbone Alley being vocal with
one tremendous snore.

No wonder that such a praiseworthy people, so circumstanced,
should not be easily awakened by the noise
before alluded to. But the disturbance grew louder; the

little dogs frisked and barked; the big dogs yawned and
bayed; the monopolizing cats, who like nobody's noise
but their own, whisked their tails and flew through the
cellar windows in dismay. The alley, which, like
Othello, can stand most things unmoved, was at last
waking up, and not a few night-capped heads projected
like whitewashed artillery through the embrasures of
the upper casements, dolefully and yawnfully “vanting
to know vot vos the row?”

The opening of Gamaliel Gambril's front door answered
the question. He and his good lady were earnestly
discussing some problem of domestic economy—
some knotty point as to the reserved rights of parties to
the matrimonial compact. It soon, however, became
evident that the husband's reasoning, if not perfectly convincing,
was too formidable and weighty to be resisted.
Swift as the flash, Madam Gambril dashed out of the
door, while Gamaliel, like “panting time, toiled after her
in vain,” flourishing a strap in one hand and a broom in
the other. Though the night was foggy, it was clear
that something unusual was the matter with Gamaliel.
His intellectual superstructure had, by certain unknown
means, become too heavy for his physical framework.
Mind was triumphing over matter, and, as was to be expected,
matter proving weak, the immortal mind had
many tumbles; but still, rolling, tumbling, and stumbling,
Gamaliel, like Alpheus, pursued his Arethusa; not
until the flying fair was metamorphosed into a magic
stream, but until he pitched into an urban water-course
of a less poetic nature, which checked his race, while its
waves soothed and measurably tranquillized his nervous
system. At the catastrophe, Mrs. Gambril ceased her
flight, but after the manner of the Cossacks of the Don,

or the Mahratta cavalry, kept circling round the enemy—
out of striking distance, yet within hail.

“Gammy Gambril,” said she, appealing to the argumentum
ad hominem, in reply to that ad baculum from
which she fled—“Gammy, you're a mere warmunt—a
pitiful warmunt; leave me no money—not at home these
two days and nights, and still no money!—now you are
come, what do you fetch?—a tipsy cobbler! Hot corn is
good for something, and so is corned beef; but I'd like
to know what's the use of a corned cobbler?”

“Corneycopey for ever! It's merry Christmas and
happy New Year, old woman!” said Gambril, raising
himself with great difficulty to a sitting posture; “and
I'll larrup you like ten thousand, if you'll only come a
little nearer. Ask for money on a Christmas!—it's too
aggrawatin'!—it's past endurin'! I'm bin jolly myself—
I'm jolly now, and if you ain't jolly, come a little nearer
and [flourishing the strap] I'll make you jolly.”

Much conversation of a similar tenor passed between
the parties; but as the argument continued the same, no
new ideas were elicited, until Montezuma Dawkins, a
near neighbour, and a man of a rather nervous temperament—the
consequence perhaps of being a bachelor—
stepped out to put an end to the noise, which interfered
materially with his repose.

“Go home, Mrs. Gambril,” said Montezuma Dawkins
soothingly; and as she obeyed, he turned to Mr.
Gambril, and remarked in a severe tone, “This 'ere's
too bad, Gammy—right isn't often done in the world;
but if you had your rights, you'd be between the finger
and thumb of justice—just like a pinch of snuff—you'd
be took.”

Montezuma Dawkins prided himself on his legal

knowledge, for he had made the fires in a magistrate's
office during a whole winter, and consequently was well
qualified to lecture his neighbours upon their errors in
practice.

“Nonsense,” replied Gammy—“me took when it's
Christmas!—well I never!—did any body ever?—I'm
be switch'd—”

“No swearing. This 'ere is a connubibal case—connubibalities
in the street; and the law is as straight as a
loon's leg on that pint. You don't understand the law,
I s'pose? Well, after you're growed up, and your real
poppy—or your pa, as the people in Chestnut street
would call him—can't keep you straight, because you
can lick him, which is what they mean by being of age,
then the law becomes your poppy, because it isn't so
easy to lick the law. The law, then, allows you a wife;
but the law allows it in moderation, like any thing else.
Walloping her is one of the little fondlings of the connubibal
state; but if it isn't done within doors, and without
a noise, like taking a drop too much, why then it
ain't moderation, and the law steps in to stop intemperate
amusements. Why don't you buy a digestion of
the laws, so as to know what's right and what's wrong?
It's all sot down.”

“The law's a fool, and this isn't the first time I've
thought so by a long shot. If it wasn't for the law,
and for being married, a man might get along well
enough. But now, first your wife aggrawates you, and
then the law aggrawates you. I'm in a state of aggrawation.”

“That all comes from your not knowing law—them
that don't know it get aggrawated by it, but them that does
know it only aggrawates other people. But you ignorantramusses
are always in trouble, 'specially if you're

married. What made you get married if you don't
like it?”

“Why, I was deluded into it—fairly deluded. I had
nothing to do of evenings, so I went a courting. Now,
courting's fun enough—I haven't got a word to say agin
courting. It's about as good a way of killing an evening
as I know of. Wash your face, put on a clean dicky,
and go and talk as sweet as nugey or molasses candy
for an hour or two—to say nothing of a few kisses behind
the door, as your sweetheart goes to the step with
you. The fact is, I've quite a taste and a genus for courting—it's
all sunshine, and no clouds.”

“Well, if you like it so, why didn't you stick to it; it's
easy enough; court all the time, like two pretty people
in a pickter.”

“Not so easy as you think for; they won't let a body
court all the time—that's exactly where the mischief lies.
If you say A, they'll make you say B. The young 'uns
may stand it because they're bashful sometimes, but the
old ladies always interfere, and make you walk right
straight up to the chalk, whether or no. Marry or cut stick
—you mustn't stand in other people's moonshine. That's
the way they talked to me, and druv' me right into my
own moonshine. They said marrying was fun!—pooty
fun to be sure!”

“Well, Gammy, I see clear enough you're in a
scrape; but it's a scrape accordin' to law, and so you
can't help your sad sitivation. You must make the best
of it. Better go home and pacify the old lady—larrupings
don't do any good as I see—they're not wholesome food
for anybody except hosses and young children”—and
Montezuma yawned drearily as if anxious to terminate
the colloquy.

“The fact is, Montey—to tell you a secret—I've a

great mind to walk off. I hate domestic uneasiness, and
there's more of that at my house than there is of eatables
and drinkables by a good deal. I should like to leave it
behind me. A man doesn't want much when he gets
experience and comes to look at things properly—he
learns that the vally of wives and other extras is tantamount
to nothing—it's only essentials he cares about.
Now I'm as hungry as a poor box, and as thirsty as a cart
load of sand—not for water, though; that's said to be
good for navigation and internal improvements, but it
always hurts my wholesome, and I'm principled against
using the raw material—it's bad for trade. I can't go
home, even if there was any use in it; and so I believe
I'll emigrate—I'll be a sort of pinioneer, and fly away.”

“It can't be allowed, Gammy Gambril. If you try it
and don't get off clear, the law will have you as sure as
a gun—for this 'ere is one of them 'are pints of law what
grabs hold of you strait—them husbands as cut stick
must be made examples on. If they wasn't, all the hebiddies
in town would be cutting stick. To allow such
cuttings up and such goings on is taking the mortar out
of society and letting the bricks tumble down. Individuals
must sometimes keep in an uneasy posture, for the
good of the rest of the people. The world's like a flock
of sheep, and if one runs crooked all the rest will be sure
to do the same.”

Gamaliel elevated his eyebrows and shrugged his
shoulders in contempt at the application of the abstract
principle to his individual case, and then reverted to his
original train of thought. After rising to his feet, he
turned his eyes upward and struck a classical attitude.

“Marrying fun!” ejaculated he—“yes, pooty fun!
very pooty!”

“Keep a goin' ahead,” said Montezuma Dawkins,

poking him with a stick,—“talk as you go, and let's hear
the rights of it.”

“When I was a single man, the world wagged along
well enough. It was jist like an omnibus: I was a passenger,
paid my levy, and hadn't nothing more to do with it
but sit down and not care a button for any thing. S'posing
the omnibus got upsot—well, I walks off, and leaves the
man to pick up the pieces. But then I must take a wife
and be hanged to me. It's all very well for a while;
but afterwards, it's plaguy like owning an upsot omnibus.”

“'Nan?” queried Montezuma—“What's all that about
omnibusses?”

“What did I get by it?” continued Gamaliel, regardless
of the interruption. “How much fun?—why a jawing
old woman and three squallers. Mighty different
from courting that is. What's the fun of buying things
to eat and things to wear for them, and wasting good
spreeing money on such nonsense for other people? And
then, as for doing what you like, there's no such thing.
You can't clear out when people's owing you so much
money you can't stay convenient. No—the nabbers must
have you. You can't go on a spree; for when you come
home, missus kicks up the devil's delight. You can't
teach her better manners—for constables are as thick as
blackberries. In short, you can't do nothing. Instead of
`Yes, my duck,' and `No, my dear,'—`As you please,
honey,' and `When you like, lovey,' like it was in courting
times, it's a riglar row at all hours. Sour looks and
cold potatoes; children and table-cloths bad off for soap
—always darning and mending, and nothing ever darned
and mended. If it wasn't that I'm partickelarly sober,
I'd be inclined to drink—it's excuse enough. It's heartbreaking,
and it's all owing to that I've such a pain in

my gizzard of mornings. I'm so miserable I must stop
and sit on the steps.”

“What's the matter now?”

“I'm getting aggrawated. My wife's a savin' critter—
a sword of sharpness—she cuts the throat of my felicity,
stabs my happiness, chops up my comforts, and snips up
all my Sunday-go-to-meetings to make jackets for the
boys—she gives all the wittels to the children, to make
me spry and jump about like a lamp-lighter—I can't
stand it—my troubles is overpowering when I come to
add 'em up.”

“Oh, nonsense! behave nice—don't make a noise
in the street—be a man.”

“How can I be a man, when I belong to somebody
else? My hours ain't my own—my money ain't my
own—I belong to four people besides myself—the old
woman and them three children. I'm a partnership concern,
and so many has got their fingers in the till that I
must bust up. I'll break, and sign over the stock in
trade to you.”

Montezuma, however, declined being the assignee in
the case of the house of Gambril, and finally succeeded
in prevailing upon him to abandon, at least for the present,
his design of becoming a “pinioneer,” and to return
to his home. But before Gambril closed the door, he
popped out his head, and cried aloud to his retiring friend,

“I say, Montezuma Dawkins!—before you go—if
you know anybody that wants a family complete to
their hands, warranted to scold as loud and as long as
any, I'll sell cheap. I won't run away just yet, but I
want cash, for I'll have another jollification a New Year's
Eve, if I had as many families as I've got fingers and
toes!”