A book for an hour containing choice reading and character sketches : A curious dream, and other sketches |
MY FORENOON WITH THE BABY. |
 | A book for an hour |  |
MY FORENOON WITH THE BABY.
Some fiend breathed ill-timed and ill-fated
benevolence into my heart.
Satan is like scrofula, he always seizes a man by the weakest part of his
constitution.
“I'll tell you, Aunt Fanny,” I said, under the impulse, with the
joyous
smile of one who brings relief at a crisis, “go you to church with uncle
and
the boys. You must not lose this fine day. I'll take care of
the baby.”
Aunt Fanny looked at me with some little doubt.
“Oh, yes,” I said, with calm and confident dignity, “of
course I can.
Just as if a man of my size couldn't take care of a baby for three hours!
Besides, I know exactly what to do. I've seen you do it more than a hundred
times. And children always like me.”
If my Aunt Fanny had had but this one only darling, she would have seen
me in—Hackensack before she would have done it. But Sammy was her
ninth
(all the rest being, by various accidents, absent, or to be absent, that morning);
and I have noticed that where there are so many, people don't
think
quite so much of them per head. What I mean is by no
means that maternal
love is like a dish of beans, to be divided about in smaller messes
as
there are more to partake of it, but only this—that the experienced
mother
finds out that her little ones are really safer then she used to think they
were, and can be trusted sometimes to competent guardians—like me.
“Well,” said she, at last, “baby's a dood yitty ting
(warn't oo, baby?),
and if I put him to sleep before I go, perhaps he won't wake up until we
get back. I'll try you, for once.”
So my small cousin was nicely arrayed in some mysterious but clean
white garments, the details of whose arrangement I did not see, as donated
with (as they say about gifts to infant colleges; ergo,
why not to infants,
though the phrase be insufferable?) a bounteous repast
of—from—by—in
short, the maternal fount (I thank you, Mr. Mieawber!), and soothed with
gentle oscillation and oft-repeated chanting of that wonderous, ancient
rhyme or magic song which commences with an allusion to our country's
flag, to wit,
“By-lo baby bunting;”
realms of Dreamland. Then my Aunt Fanny adorned herself with speed,
and forthwith the old, lean, over-worked farm-horse shambled off down the
sun-shiny summer road toward the church, two miles and more away. As
she stepped over the threshold she looked back for an instant, and some
shadows flitted indistinctly across her face. Was it a presentiment?
Human prosperity is a deceitful thing. I passed half an hour in profound
quiet, reading by the open window, in the sweet summer air, in the leafy
solitude of the remote farm, in a stillness so complete that the buzzing of
a
fly across the pane, or the motion or fall of one leaf from the tall trees
in
the darkly-shaded door-yard, was a noticeable event. I had been perusing
a sermon from that stately work, “Theology Explained and Defended, in
a
Series of Sermons, by Timothy Dwight, S. T. D., LL.
D.” The grave,
sonorous periodicity of phrase, not without the recognizable decent sermonic
idioms, bore an efficient analogy to the solemnity of the day; and I lingered
long in pleasant imaginings over “thirdly” of the Remarks, Sermon XXII.,
On Man.
“They were companions of angels,” saith the great New England
Doctor,
speaking of Adam and Eve in Paradise, “and shared their conversation,
their friendship, and their joys. Alike were they free from pain, sickness,
sorrow, and death; safe from fear and hatred, injustic and cruelty; and
superior to meanness, sloth, intemperance, and pollution. They were also
immortal; were destined to dwell in a perpetual Eden; were surrounded
always by beauty, life, and fragrance; and were employed only in knowing,
loving, and enjoying.”
It was a pretty thought, that. I was in a sort of paradise, with a
little
angel for my companion; and as I gazed upon the sleeping child, I felt
“no
end” of benignity, universal friendship, and pure delight, in having
attained
to the honor of so lovely an office of superintendence.
“Yah!”
Thus remarked my darling Sammy, suddenly waking up and writhing
about, and digging in a helpless, wavering manner at his eyes with his
fists.
At that very moment it occurred to me that really I never had one minute's
intercourse with him, and that possibly he might be an exception to the
rule which I had laid down that all children liked me—in fact, he was.
I mentioned that some fiend had, doubtless, inspired me with my benevolence.
As nearly as I can calculate, it was now that the said fiend
did,
in my opinion, leave me, and enter into that baby. As the above mentioned
suggestion about Sammy's exceptional disposition towards me arose in my
mind, an expression of confusion appeared upon my face—I remember it
accurately. This Sammy perceived as I arose, and, with what I fancied an
unexceptionable demonstration of paternal rapture, approached the cradle
of my chubby and innocent companion angel.
“Ah, oo pooty yitty ting! Did he want to tum and see his tuzen? So
he should!”
I appeal to every mother's heart, is not that a first-class
blandishment?
I can't print the affecting drawl that I put into it, the recitative style
and
portamente di voce with which I garnished it secundum artem. But as far
as types, will show it, I contend that the very mother of Moses, if you
like.
couldn't have turned out a more superior article of verbal endearment.
The baby listened with some complacency to my dulcet tones; and encouraged
by my success, I thought it proper to communicate to him
the
peculiar circumstances which rendered me his guardian for the time. Thus,
therefore, to him, I:
“Ha, pooty! Was oo muzzer au gone oo church? Es ee was! An
lef oo wiz oo tuzen Freddy (my baptismal name is Frederic) all ee morning?
Ha-a-a-a, ketcher, ketcher, ketcher, ketcher, ketcher! Ha-a-aa,
prrrrrrrr! Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle!”
Not being quite satisfied with the expression of Master Sammy's minute
features during the first half of this address, I began somewhat to doubt
my ability to communicate with him in language half baby and half English,
and, therefore, I repeated my statement as above, in pure baby, as near as
I can judge, pointing at him in a free and jovial manner during the words,
“Ha, ketcher,” etc., making a kind of swoop at him with outspread
fingers
word “jiggle.”
As I said, in despite of the profound theory and masterly execution of
this manœuvre, I did not perform it without a secret and embarrassing
apprehension. The evil spirit in the child—for no mere human baby
could
have failed to respond to such affectionate approaches—perceived this
hidden misery of mine, and took instant advantage thereof; namely, by
returning, not demonstrations of reciprocal affection, but what I may truly
call demons-strations of anger, unmingled except with
fear and aversion.
While I spoke and stuck out my paws at him (for I will admit that my
gestures may have been susceptible of that interpretation), Master Sammy
preserved an ominous silence, a grave and attentive expression, and
entire quiet—only opening his eyes and likewise his mouth. But no
sooner
had I ended, and made as though I would actually lift him from the cradle,
than he looked hastily about after his mother. She not being forthcoming,
a species of fearful contortion passed over his visage—his mouth opened
to
an extent unparalleled in my experience, occupying a space that left no
room for the rest of his face, which was, therefore, shriveled or heaped up
together in a little pile of wrinkles in the region of the bridge of the
nose
—no eyes whatever being visible, and only two little pink holes indicating
the “smellatory organ,” as Mrs. Baggles hath
it—and from this
preternatural orifice he discharged such a shriek as really hit me on the
forehead and knocked me straight up again into a frightened perpendicular.
It didn't stop either—it continued. I had no idea there was so much
noise
in any thing. This was evidently a diabolic energy. A child would have
had to breathe, but this phenomenon didn't. Its whole being resolved itself
into shriek. The mere fat human baby of a moment before was transmuted
into a sorcerer's thing—a kind of a live Teraph; a mere Institution for
the
Promotion of Awful Noises.
I think I stood, astounded and incapable of action for a minute. And
really, now that I am retrospecting the thing, in what a fix was I! Well-meaning,
but absurdly ignorant young bachelor that I was, how was I calculated,
either by nature or art, for assuaging the dire alarms of an
unweaned
child—much more for dealing with such an instance of
prococious
demoniac possession as this? Conjuro te would not tell
on a baby, nor
By-lo baby bunting on an imp.
All that, however, I had no leisure to consider; and Quintus Curtius did
not show more nerve and hardihood in riding into that crack in the ground
of the Roman Forum than I did in stoutly bending me to the task of
quieting Sammy. I may safely say, that in the wild and fearful struggle
which followed, all the resources of an active mind, a vigorous and healthy
body (masculine), an excellent disposition, were nobly devoted to the work,
and if I failed, it was in an attempt beyond the powers of any mere man.
I picked Sammy up, in the first place, and carried him to the window,
jumbling him up and down as I went, and aiming to divert his mind by
action and by speech.
“Poor itty fella! Was ee tired seepin in his tadle? Did ee want to
tum and see old cock-a-doodle-do and all ee biddy hens? Da, see um! Urk,
urk, u-r-r-r-k, a-chackle, chackle, chackle. Ducky go quack, quack!
(shrtek continued; nurse tries other class of impressions, and jumps him
vigorously up and down, accompanied with a noise similar to the following.)
Ha ti deedle deedle deedle deedle dum dum dum tiddy I, tiddy
I,
ha ha ha!”
“Full well I laughed, with counterfeited glee,”
countenance” of Sammy. Vain hope! All my jumbling only served to
modify that surprising and steady yell by introducing a kind of pulsation
or measured emphasis into it. My words might as well have been uttered
to a drunken Sixth Warder in a row at the polls; and my hollow merriment,
although its merits as an imitation did in fact make the baby stop a
moment, catch breath, and look up at me, did no more. His face curled up
again, and out came the yell.
I had observed, upon lifting Sammy from the cradle, that he seemed to
stiffen himself in a somewhat writhen attitude, as if to resist my purpose.
He
now began to squirm and wriggle in a rather alarming manner, so that I
fancied he might be about to indulge in the pleasing diversion of a fit.
All
at once I reflected that he must be hungry; and that very possibly both
screeching and squirming might be referred to that cause. I accordingly
placed the little one, still indefatigably howling in a manner that would
have exhausted a Mohawk war-chief in three minutes, in his cradle, raked
some live coals out from the buried kitchen fire, warmed some (cow's) milk
in an old tin cup, watered it and sugared it according to the regulations in
such
case made and provided, put it in the “suck-bottle”—as I
believe it is
called—took a small precautionary pull at the preparation myself, found
it
a perfect neetar for luke-warmness, washiness, and sweetness, and proceeded
to invite Master Sammy to partake, so to speak, of the festive
bowl.
Lying yelling on his back, with eyes close shut and mouth wide open,
he heeded not the approach of the seductive viand. I half lifted him up,
but he wouldn't look. I jerked some drops into his mouth, as they
“job”
peppered vinegar or tomato catsup through a quill in the cruet-cork at
eating-houses; but he appeared not to perceive it. I cautiously inserted
the
bottle into his mouth, until the tip of the sucking thing, whatever they
call it, fairly poked open his epiglottis. He only gagged, writhed, and
yelled on. Evidently he was not hungry; I put away the bottle.
The business grew dreadful; Sammy began to turn purple, and I to feel
blue; but still he contiuued that wonderful and ear-torturing cry. I looked
about me in folorn and hopeless perplexity. There was a rattle—one of
these coral things with half a dozen minute pewter sleigh-bells on
it—and
a penny whistle; I shook the former and blew the latter, in an industrious
but rather imbecile way, near Sammy's phiz. I might as well have used
the same means to scare a lioness robbed of her whelps, or a New York city
alderman nosing-out a job. I lifted the infant, who stiffened himself again
at my touch almost into a stony arc, and shivered as a dying fish will sometimes
do in the captor's hand, and with a feeble effort to preserve
further
the benignity and universal friendship which I had flourished so largely,
and which I felt momentarily growing thinner and thinner, I sang to the
child the inevitable “By-lo baby bunting,” and then “Now I lay
me,” also
the affecting ballad of Three Little Kittens, and as my stock of strictly
juvenile literature gave out at this point, I proceeded with “Rise my
soul,”
and one or two other hymns. These efforts were all in vain; I felt as
sheepish
as if I had been caught trying to sing a tornado to sleep; and my voice
died away as I tried once more to raise the square-built strains of old
Amsterdam, like those of “the monk, her son, and her daughter, the
nun,”
consternation.”
It was at this point that my long-tried patience utterly failed; and
with a sudden revulsion of wrath, I felt myself, mentally speaking, slung
round into a position of absolute opposition to this terrific child; of positive
anger and spite, not entirely unmingled with fear. I perfectly
recollect
that precisely as I was feeling myself carried away by this impulse, Sammy,
who lay in a stiffish attitude, with his head well back over one arm,
opened
his eyes a moment. As I am a living man, the pestilent infant WINKED
HIS LEFT EYE AT ME! Never tell me there wasn't a devil in that baby!
Well; it occurred to me in this new frame of mind, that possibly I
might intimidate the child, or simply out-yell and overwhelm it by sheer
superiority of vociferation. So I held him up by both arms on my knee,
looked right down his little, ugly, red throat, and gave him “A wet
sheet
and a flowing sea,” in a style that would have electrified the whole
British
navy. It didn't discourage him at all. I tried the Pirate's Glee,
containing
some fearful chromatic whining, which I made the most of; but to no end.
Then I degenerated, I am afraid, into mere mindless, ignoble spitefulness;
and opening my mouth again I spent from ten to fifteen minutes in series
of the most hideous, complicated, and disgusting yells that probably it
ever entered into the heart of man to conceive, until my throat felt as if
I
had had a peck of teazles poked into my lungs and then pulled out again.
Great Cæsar's ghost! what a baby! He never flinched, nor “bated a
jot
of heart or hope;” he yelled away as peacefully as if nothing had happened.
But as for me, this finished me. I fancied that, under these frightful
discouragements, my intellect was beginning slightly to waver. King
Herod came into my mind. I thought of the great bed of live coals in
the old-fashioned kitchen fire-place. Not altogether free from uneasiness
as to what I might be led to do, I put Sammy into his cradle, and shut the
kitchen door. Then I walked up and down the room a while, casting looks
full of sneers, fury, and contempt at the unterrified and still shrieking
child. Then I stationed myself at the foot of the cradle, and delivered a
long and savage invective at Sammy, as Cicero used to at his enemies—
when they were out of the way—shaking my fist at him, stringing reproachful
epithets together by the score, and attributing to the little wretch
an
early and mature degradation of character that would have satisfied the
toughest of the old New England Predestinarian Calvinists.
But I qiuckly grew ashamed of this. Dignified indifference, I remembered,
would suit me better. Besides, I recollected having heard
that
letting babies alone would stop their crying when every thing else failed.
I think it would—when they had yelled themselves to death. So I
erected a sort of little fortification in the middle of the floor, of
pillows
and blankets, ensconced Sammy within it, stuck his rattle in his hand, took
my “Dwight's Theology,” and sat down again by the window to
read.
The first passage upon which my eye fell was within a page of that which
I had been reading when these horrors began; and, like it, it seemed to
hear
an indistinct but decided relation to my case. It was this:
“To escape from our present melancholy, stormy, bloody world, to
such
a state, would be to quit, for a palace of splendor and delight, the gloom
of
a vault, hung round with midnight, and peopled with corpses; a bedlam,
where the eye of frenzy flashed, the tongue vibrated with malice, and
haunted with crimes, teeming with curses, filled with fiends in the human
shape, and opening its doors only to the gibbet and the grave.”
“Aha, my boy!” I involuntarily exclaimed to Sammy. “Fiends
in
human shape, eh? How'll you like that place?” And
I shook my fist at
him. He paid no regard either to my remark or my fist.
I read on; but perplexed, wearied, and excited as I was, and with that
wild alarm ever sounding in my ears, the forms upon the printed page made
no impression upon my sensorium, and I turned over leaf after leaf in utter
ignorance of what I read.
I had no perception of the duration of time. For what I know, Sammy
squalled there a week. Once, with a grim smile, I started up, and emptied
about half the milk out of the bottle, that I might permit it to be
supposed
he had fed to that extent. I had also mind enough left to shape a scheme
of equivocation wherewith to elude the necessity of confessing the facts of
the morning to my respected aunt. Otherwise, the period which supervened
is a miserable blank in my recollection—nothing more, except a yell.
It was at some time in the distant future—as regards my reading of
that
ominous delineation of the abodes of the wicked—that the sudden noise
of
stamping feet, rattling wheels, and mingled voices smote upon my ear, and
awakened me from a kind of awful stupor. Before I had composed my
countenance my Aunt Fanny entered the room, glanced at her vociferous
progeny, and bent a keen and suspicious look upon me. I fairly cowered
before her—an abject thing—as miserable as if I had been taken in
the act
of stealing sheep from my best friend. I know my face was flushed, I know
I had a hang-dog look; and I felt, to use a certain figurative expression,
“like a boiled owl.”
“Well, Fred,” said she, in her sharp, decisive, incisive voice,
“how did
you get along?”
“Well,” I said, feebly, “pretty well, on the whole. He
cried some latterly.
But, on the whole, I think he enjoyed himself.”
Did I lie? I don't care much if I did. But I think he did enjoy himself.
As the people came trooping in, Sammy was apparently diverted by the
noise, and “ceased firing.” That is, his devil went out of him,
because
there was no futher chance to torment me. He was very soon in the enjoyment
of his stated means of support, and seemed to appreciate
them
fully.
“Rather hungry,” said my Aunt Fanny, when he had been dining
strenuously for about half an hour, and looking queerly at me.
“I'm sure,” I answered, “I gave him quite a lot of milk.
It's half gone,
at least.”
No lie there. I did give him
quite a lot—quite a small lot. But I have
always labored under the impression that my Aunt Fanny suspected that
the proceedings had been a little irregular that morning. I let her think
so. I didn't care to press the subject much.
I've speculated often upon the causes of that failure of mine, for it
was
a failure. I did every thing right; why— But I invariably fall back
upon
my theory of demoniacal possession. No other solution is possible.
I've formed some few conclusions upon this subject.
I don't think children like me much.
I think that the Fall of Man consisted in the becoming liable to be
born,
and to struggle up to maturity through the horrors of infancy. In the paradisiacal
state we should all have merely come into existence, at
eighteen
for women and twenty for men, together with a good common school education.
I often ask, with Dr. Franklin, “What's the use of a baby?” He
gave
no answer; I do. A baby is providentially provided as an “awful
example”
for the warning of maids and bachelors, as terrific consequences
universally
follow great follies. It is the delirium tremens of matrimony. If you don't
want to have it, let the causes alone.
Mother Ann Lee is your only true prophet. I intend to join the Shakers.
I have already secured a broad-brimmed hat, and a coat of butternut brown
I can naturally sing through my nose and shake my paws about.
An Impromptu Hen-Roost.—A Methodist minister
out West was
invited to take tea by a member of his circuit.
The food consisted of cake made of Indian meal.
When the elder opened his slice, he noticed some feathers in it.
“It seems to me, sister,” said he, “that your Johnny-cake
is feathering
out.”
“There,” the hostess replied, “I told my husband the other
day that he
must either get a cover for the meal barrel or remove the hen-roost.”
No Danger.—Cooke, the actor, while once
delighting the Scotch with
his inimitable performance, and the night being very hot, and the tragedian
having acted his best, toward the close of the evening felt not a little fatigued.
The manager perceived this, and between the scenes he took
the
actor into his dressing-room, and unlocking a cupboard, selected a small
thistle glass, and filling it with whiskey, said, “Here, Maister Cooke,
I
dinna think 'twill hurt ye.” “No,” said George, glancing at
the size of the
glass, “no, my friend, not if it were vitriol.”
Coolness.—A few days since one of our popular
attorneys called upon
another brother of the profession and asked his opinion upon a certain
point of law. The lawyer to whom the question was addressed drew himself
up, and said, “I generally get paid for telling what I
know!” The
questioner drew a half-dollar from his waistcoat pocket, handed it to the
other, and coolly remarked: “Tell me all you know, and give me the
change.”
The enterprising vagabond who is organizing a brass band of twenty
women says that, if they learn half as many “airs” as they put on,
the experiment
cannot fail to be a success.
The Danbury News says: Here are Miss Anthony and
others of her
ilk skiltering about the country, and eggs are forty cents a dozen.
Interpretation of a Will.—A very rich
merchant, who had an only
son, made his will, by which he left all his property, amounting to three
hundred thousand francs, to some monks, who were to give his son such a
sum as they wished. After the death of the merchant, the monks took
possession of all the money without offering any of it to the son. The son
being displeased at this, brought the monks before the viceroy. The viceroy,
having read the will, asked them what sum of money they wished
to
give the son. They answered:
“Six thousand francs.”
“And what then do you wish to do with the rest?” asked the viceroy.
“We wish to keep that,” they said, “because it is ours by right?”
“But you do not understand the will properly,” said the viceroy,
“for
it says that you are to give the sum you wish. The six
thousand francs are
therefore yours, and the rest belongs to the son.”
With this decision the monks had to be satisfied. Thus, in trying to
get all, they lost nearly all. There was no release from the viceroy's decision.
Crying was of no use; they had to submit.
A Rebuke.—It is related that at a State
dinner given in Washington,
at which the principal foreign ministers, with a sprinkling of prominent
Senators and representatives of the State Department attended, the decorum
that for a while prevailed was rudely disturbed by a very ill-timed
question
propounded to the Spanish Minister, who was present, by a certain well-known
Senator.
“Senor Tassara,” said our Senator, “when are you going to
sell us
Cuba?”
The elegant representative of Spanish chivalry “smiling, put the question
by” in this wise:
“Mr.—, when you are President of the United States and I am
Prime Minister of Spain, we will, with your permission, discuss that question.”
The rebuke was terrible, when the formal, almost solemn character of
the dinner and Spain's sensitiveness relative to the Cuban question are
considered; but, although its full force was perceptible to the majority of
the guests, the Senator from — went on, with the impassiveness of
Charlotte at the sight of Wether's dead body, munching his Gruyere
cheese.
Some years ago a singular method was adopted by a
“city man” in
London for securing distinguished guests. He requested the honor of the
Duke of Wellington's company to meet Marshal Soult, and that of Marshal
Soult to meet the Duke of Wellington, although unacquainted with either
of them, for he knew that both of these illustrious warriors were so fond
of “fighting their battles o'er again” with one another that they
were sure
to accept. And then he invited people to meet Marshal Soult and the Duke
of Wellington.
A CONDUCTOR on the Pensylvania Railroad telegraphed from Derry
station recently: “Train delayed fifteen minutes on account of a
lady.
don't know whether it is a boy or a girl.”
Mark Twain tenders the following advice to
serenaders:—“Don't stand
right under the porch and howl, but get out in the middle of the street, or
better still, on the other side of it. Distance lends enchantment to the
sound. * * * Don't let your screaming tenor soar an octave above all
the balance of the chorus, and remain there, setting everybody's teeth on
edge for blecks around; and above all, don't let him sing a solo; probably
there is nothing in the world so suggestive of serene contentment and
perfect bliss, as the spectacle of a calf chewing a dish-rag; but the
nearest
approach to it is your reedy tenor, standing apart, in siekly attitude,
with
head thrown back, and eyes uplifted to the moon, piping his distressing
solo. Now do not pass lightly over this matter, friend, but ponder it with
that seriousness which its importance entitles it to. * * * As soon as
you start, gag your tenor, otherwise he will be letting off a screech every
now and then, to let the people know he is around. Your amateur tenor is
notoriously the most self-conceited of all God's creatures.”
The following anecdote is related of Charles Lever
by a writer in
Tinsley's Magazine:
Though Lever's fascinating manners made him one of the most popular
of men, he could sometimes say a bitter thing. It is well known that the
late Archbishop Whately was remarkably susceptible to flattery. One
morning at Redesdale, near Stillorgan, Dublin, His Grace received a number
of guests, including a large proportion of the expectant clergy,
who
paid profound court to the ex-Fellow of Oriel. While walking through
the grounds, Dr. Whately plucked a leaf, which he declared had a most
nauseous flavor. “Taste it,” said he, handing it to one of the
acolytes. The
latter blandly obeyed, and then, with a wry face, subseribed to the
botanical
orthodoxy of his master. “Taste it,” said the grateful prelate,
handing the
leaf to Lever. “Thank Your Grace,” said the latter, as he declined
it, “my
brother is not in Your Lordship's diocese.”
The following scene, it is said, took place in a
Parisian Magasin. An
elegantly dressed lady asked to see some materials for paletots. The shopman
mounted the steps, and took down several pieces of striped
velvet.
“The rain would spoil it,” said the lady, “Show me some swanskin.”
Several pieces being laid upon the counter:
“Too thick,” said the lady, after an examination to ten minutes;
“show
me some lady's cloth.”
Several great rolls were laid before her. They were too thin. Then
came velvet, silk, satin, moire, until the counter disappeared under the
piles
of stuffs behind which stood the nearly invisible shopman, still patient
and
polite. At last:
“I have decided,” said the customer, “in favor of
flannel—blue
flannel.”
Ten or twelve pieces were placed upon the heap.
“That will do,” she said, after a long and minute scrutiny.
“How
much will it take to make a dog's paletot?” and she held up a
microscopic
toy terrier.
“A paletot?” asked the shopman, not at all disconcerted, and
appearing
to make a mental calculation. “With pockets, madame?”
A Conscientious Deacon.—Many years ago a
church was built in
Brandon, and the deacon was employed to do some part of the work—
building the pulpit, if I remember. He wanted a hundred and fifty
dollars, while the committee wished it done for a hundred. At last it was
settled between him and the chairman, a shrewd lawyer and something of
a wag, that a hundred dollars should be the price; but if, on the completion
of the job, the deacon said that he had “an all-fired hard
bargain,”
he should be paid twenty-five dollars more.
The good deacon found that he had lost by the job, and claimed the
additional five and twenty dollars.
“Well, deacon,” asked the lawyer, “can you honestly say you
had an
all-fired hard bargain?”
“Yes, I have had an awful hard bargain.”
“But can you say you have had an all-fired hard bargain?”
“Yes, it was a tremendous hard bargain.”
“But that is not according to agreement. Will you say you have had
an all-fired hard bargain?”
“No, squire, I can't say that. That would be swearing, and I won't
swear for any money; but it was a most outrageous hard bargain.”
“Then I don't sec, Deacon Spooner, how we can, under the
agreement,
pay you the twenty-five dollars.”
The deacon left, preferring to lose his money rather than violate his
conscience by saying “all-fired.” But the upshot was that after the
lawyer
had enjoyed the telling of the joke for a few days, he paid the sum. So
the good deacon saved his conscience and did not lose his money.
A Sharp Farmer.—An honest old Pennsylvania
farmer had a tree on
his premises he wanted cut down, but being weak in the back, and having
a dull axe, he hit upon the following plan: Knowing the passion among
his neighbors for coon hunting he made a coon's foot out of a potato and proceeded
to imprint numerous tracks to and up the tree. When all ready he
informed
the neighbors that the tree must be filled with coons, pointing to
the external
evidence made with his potato foot. The bait took, and in a
short
time half a dozen fellows, with sharp axes, were chopping at the base of
the tree, each taking his regular turn. The party also brought dogs and
shot-guns, and were in ecstacies over the anticipated haul of fat coons.
The tree finally fell, but not a coon was seen to “drop.”
“I had more money than he had to carry on the
suit,” said a very mean
individual who had just won a lawsuit over a poor neighbor; “and
that's
where I had the advantage of him. Then I had much better counsel than
he, and there I had the advantage of him. And his family were sick while
the suit was pending, so he couldn't attend to it, and there I had the advantage
of him again. But then Brown is a very decent sort of a man
after all.” “Yes.” said his listener, “and there's where
he has the advantage
of you.”
Voltaire once praised another writer very heartily
to a third person.
“It is very strange,” was the reply, “that you speak so well
of him, for he
says you are a charlatan.” “Oh,” replied Voltaire, “I
think it very likely
that both of us are mistaken.”
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