 | The fiend's delight |  |
1. SOME FICTION.
“One More Unfortunate.”
It was midnight—a black, wet, midnight—in a
great city by the sea. The church clocks were
booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the
marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw
a female figure glide past him like a ghost in the
gloom, and make directly toward a wharf. The
officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to
be enacted, and started in pursuit. Through the
sleeping city sped those two dark figures like
shadows athwart a tomb. Out along the deserted
wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive,
the guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to
overtake, and calling to her to stay. Soon she stood
upon the extreme end of the pier, in the scourging
rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded
her eyes with other tears than those of grief.
The night wind tossed her tresses wildly in air,
and beneath her bare feet the writhing billows
struggled blackly upward for their prey. At this
fell! He was badly bruised; he felt angry and
misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he
sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded
shin. The desperate woman raised her white arms
heavenward for the final plunge, and the voice of
the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the
waters in her ears, as down, down, she went—in
imagination—to a black death among the spectral
piles. She backed a few paces to secure an
impetus, cast a last look upon the stony officer,
with a wild shriek sprang to the awful verge and
came near losing her balance. Recovering herself
with an effort, she turned her face again to the
officer, who was clawing about for his missing
club. Having secured it, he started to leave.
In a cosy, vine-embowered cottage near the
sounding sea, lives and suffers a blighted female.
Nothing being known of her past history, she is
treated by her neighbours with marked respect.
She never speaks of the past, but it has
been remarked that whenever the stalwart form of
a certain policeman passes her door, her clean,
delicate face assumes an expression which can only
be described as frozen profanity.
The Strong Young Man of Colusa.
Professor Dramer conducted a side-show in the
wake of a horse-opera, and the same sojourned at
Colusa. Enters unto the side show a powerful
young man of the Colusa sort, and would see
his money's worth. Blandly and with conscious
pride the Professor directs the young man's attention
to his fine collection of living snakes. Lithely
the blacksnake uncoils in his sight. Voluminously
the bloated boa convolves before him. All horrent
the cobra exalts his hooded head, and the spanning
jaws fly open. Quivers and chitters the tail of the
cheerful rattlesnake; silently slips out the forked
tongue, and is as silently absorbed. The fangless
adder warps up the leg of the Professor, lays
clammy coils about his neck, and pokes a flattened
head curiously into his open mouth. The young
man of Colusa is interested; his feelings transcend
expression. Not a syllable breathes he, but with a
deep-drawn sigh he turns his broad back upon the
astonishing display, and goes thoughtfully forth
into his native wild. Half an hour later might
have been seen that brawny Colusan, emerging
from an adjacent forest with a strong faggot.
Then this Colusa young man unto the appalled
Professor thus: “Ther ain't no good place yer
in Kerloosy fur fittin' out serpence to be subtler
atween our seed and ther seed, an' it shell brooze
ther head.” And with a singleness of purpose and
a rapt attention to detail that would have done
credit to a lean porker garnering the strewn
kernels behind a deaf old man who plants his field
with corn, he started in upon that reptilian host,
and exterminated it with a careful thoroughness of
extermination.
The Glad New Year.
A poor brokendown drunkard returned to his
dilapidated domicile early on New Year's morn.
The great bells of the churches were jarring the
creamy moonlight which lay above the soggy
undercrust of mud and snow. As he heard their
joyous peals, announcing the birth of a new year,
his heart smote his old waistcoat like a remorseful
sledge-hummer.
“Why,” soliloquized he, “should not those
bells also proclaim the advent of a new resolution?
I have not made one for several weeks, and it's
about time. I'll swear off.”
He did it, and at that moment a new light
seemed to be shed upon his pathway; his wife
came out of the house with a tin lantern. He
rushed frantically to meet her. She saw the new
and holy purpose in his eye. She recognised it
and wept. Then stretching the wreck of what
had once been a manly form to its full length, he
raised his eyes to heaven and one hand as near there
as he could get it, and there in the pale moonlight,
with only his wondering wife, and the angels, and a
cow or two, for witnesses, he swore he would from
that moment abstain from all intoxicating liquors
until death should them part. Then looking
down and tenderly smiling into the eyes of his
wife, he said: “Is it not well, dear one?” With
a face beaming all over with a new happiness, she
replied:
“Indeed it is, John—let's take a drink.” And
they took one, she with sugar and he plain.
The spot is still pointed out to the traveller.
The Late Dowling, Senior.
My friend, Jacob Dowling, Esq., had been
spending the day very agreeably in his counting-room
with some companions, and at night retired
to the domestic circle to ravel out some intricate
accounts. Seated at his parlour table he ordered
his wife and children out of the room and addressed
himself to business. While clambering
wearily up a column of figures he felt upon his
cheek the touch of something that seemed to cling
oyster. Thoughtfully setting down the result of
his addition so far as he had proceeded with it, he
turned about and looked up.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but you
have not the advantage of my acquaintance.”
“Why, Jake,” replied the apparition—whom I
have thought it useless to describe—“don't you
know me?”
“I confess that your countenance is familiar,”
returned my friend, “but I cannot at this moment
recall your name. I never forget a face, but names
I cannot remember.”
“Jake!” rumbled the spectre with sepulchral
dignity, a look of displeasure crawling across his
pallid features, “you're foolin'.”
“I give you my word I am quite serious.
Oblige me with your name, and favour me with a
statement of your business with me at this hour.”
The disembodied party sank uninvited into a
chair, spread out his knees and stared blankly at a
Dutch clock with an air of weariness and profound
discouragement. Perceiving that his guest was
making himself tolerably comfortable my friend
turned again to his figures, and silence reigned
supreme. The fire in the grate burned noiselessly
with a mysterious blue light, as if it could
do more if it wished; the Dutch clock looked
like one who is determined to do his precise
duty and shun responsibility; the cat assumed an
attitude of intelligent neutrality. Finally the
spectre trained his pale eyes upon his host, pulled in
a long breath and remarked:
“Jake, I'm yur dead father. I come back to have
a talk with ye 'bout the way things is agoin' on.
I want to know 'f you think it's right notter recog
nise yur dead parent?”
“It is a little rough on you, dear,” replied the
son without looking up, “but the fact is that
[7 and 3 are IO, and 2 are I2, and 6 are I8] it is
so long since you have been about [and 3 off are
I5] that I had kind of forgotten, and [2 into 4 goes
twice, and 7 into 6 you can't] you know how it is
yourself. May I be permitted to again inquire the
precise nature of your present business?”
“Well, yes—if you wont talk anything but
shop I s'pose I must come to the p'int. Isay!
you don't keep any thing to drink 'bout yer, do
ye—Jake?”
“I4 from 23 are 9—I'll get you something
when we get done. Please explain how we can
serve one another.”
“Jake, I done everything for you, and you ain't
done nothin' for me since I died. I want a monument
bigger'n Dave Broderick's, with an eppytaph
any kind o' society till I have 'em. You've no
idee how exclusive they are where I am.”
This dutiful son laid down his pencil and effected
a stiffly vertical attitude. He was all attention:
“Anything else to-day?” he asked—rather
sneeringly, I grieve to state.
“No-o-o, I don't think of anything special,”
drawled the ghost reflectively; “I'd like to have
an iron fence around it to keep the cows off, but I
s'pose that's included.”
“Of course! And a gravel walk, and a lot of
abalone shells, and fresh posies daily; a marble
angel or two for company, and anything else that
will add to your comfort. Have you any other
extremely reasonable request to make of me?”
“Yes—since you mention it. I want you to
contest my will. Horace Hawes is having his'n
contested.”
“My fine friend, you did not make any will.”
“That ain't o' no consequence. You forge me a
good 'un and contest that.”
“With pleasure, sir; but that will be extra.
Now indulge me in one question. You spoke of the
society where you reside. Where do you reside?”
The Dutch clock pounded clamorously upon its
brazen gong a countless multitude of hours; the
glowing coals fell like an avalanche through the
voice in a squawk like the deathwail of a stuck
pig, and dashed affrighted through the window.
A smell of scorching fur pervaded the place, and
under cover of it the aged spectre walked into the
mirror, vanishing like a dream.
“Love's Labour Lost.”
Joab was a beef, who was tired of being courted
for his clean, smooth skin. So he backed through
a narrow gateway six or eight times, which made
his hair stand the wrong way. He then went and
rubbed his fat sides against a charred log. This
made him look untidy. You never looked worse
in your life than Joab did.
“Now,” said he, “I shall be loved for myself
alone. I will change my name, and hie me to
pastures new, and all the affection that is then
lavished upon me will be pure and disinterested.”
So he strayed off into the woods and came out
at old Abner Davis' ranch. The two things Abner
valued most were a windmill and a scratching-post
for hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the
fame of their comeliness had gone widely abroad.
To them Joab naturally paid his attention. The
windmill, who was called Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford,
received him with expressions of the liveliest
creakings of contempt, and as he turned sadly away
he was rewarded by a sound spank from one of her
fans. Like a gentlemanly beef he did not deign to
avenge the insult by overturning Lucille Ashtonbury;
and it is well for him that he did not, for
old Abner stood by with a pitchfork and a trinity
of dogs.
Disgusted with the selfish heartlessness of society,
Joab shambled off and was passing the scratching-post
without noticing her. (Her name was Arabella
Cliftonbury Howard.) Suddenly she kicked away
a multitude of pigs who were at her feet, and called
to the rolling beef of uncanny exterior:
“Comeer!”
Joab paused, looked at her with his ox-eyes, and
gravely marching up, commenced a vigorous scratching
against her.
“Arabella,” said he, “do you think you could
love a shaggy-hided beef with black hair? Could
you love him for himself alone?”
Arabella had observed that the black rubbed off,
and the hair lay sleek when stroked the right way.
“Yes, I think so; could you?”
This was a poser: Joab had expected her to talk
business. He did not reply. It was only her arch
way; she thought, naturally, that the best way to
win any body's love was to be a fool. She saw her
and this fellow was a beef! Mistakes must be
rectified very speedily in these matters.
“Sir, I have for you a peculiar feeling; I may
say a tenderness. Hereafter you, and you only,
shall scratch against Arabella Cliftonbury Howard!”
Joab was delighted; he stayed and scratched all
day. He was loved for himself alone, and he did
not care for anything but that. Then he went
home, made an elaborate toilet, and returned to
astonish her. Alas! old Abner had been about,
and seeing how Joab had worn her smooth and
useless, had cut her down for firewood. Joab
gave one glance, then walked solemnly away into a
“clearing,” and getting comfortably astride a blazing
heap of logs, made a barbacue of himself!
After all, Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, the light-headed
windmill, seems to have got the best of all
this. I have observed that the light-headed commonly
get the best of everything in this world;
which the wooden-headed and the beef-headed
regard as an outrage. I am not prepared to say if
it is or not.
A Comforter.
William Bunker had paid a fine of two hundred
dollars for beating his wife. After getting his
receipt he went moodily home and seated himself
and melancholy demeanour, the good wife approached
and tenderly inquired the cause. “It's
a delicate subject, dear,” said he, with love-light in
his eyes; “let's talk about something good to
eat.”
Then, with true wifely instinct she sought
to cheer him up with pleasing prattle of a new
bonnet he had promised her. “Ah! darling,” he
sighed, absently picking up the fire-poker and
turning it in his hands, “let us change the subject.”
Then his soul's idol chirped an inspiring
ballad, kissed him on the top of his head, and
sweetly mentioned that the dressmaker had sent
in her bill. “Let us talk only of love,” returned
he, thoughtfully rolling up his dexter sleeve.
And so she spoke of the vine-enfolded cottage
in which she fondly hoped they might soon sip together
the conjugal sweets. William became rigidly
erect, a look not of earth was in his face, his
breast heaved, and the fire-poker quivered with
emotion. William felt deeply. “Mine own,” said
the good woman, now busily irrigating a mass
of snowy dough for the evening meal, “do you
know that there is not a bite of meat in the
house?”
It is a cold, unlovely truth—a sad, heart-sickening
conscientious novelist. William repaid all this
affectionate solicitude—all this womanly devotion,
all this trust, confidence, and abnegation in a
manner that needs not be particularly specified.
A short, sharp curve in the middle of that iron
fire-poker is eloquent of a wrong redressed.
Little Isaac.
Mr. Gobwottle came home from a meeting
of the Temperance Legion extremely drunk. He
went to the bed, piled himself loosely atop of it
and forgot his identity. About the middle of
the night, his wife, who was sitting up darning
stockings, heard a voice from the profoundest
depths of the bolster: “Say, Jane?”
Jane gave a vicious stab with the needle,
impaling one of her fingers, and continued her
work. There was a long silence, faintly punctuated
by the bark of a distant dog. Again that
voice—“Say—Jane!”
The lady laid aside her work and wearily
replied: “Isaac, do go to sleep; they are off.”
Another and longer pause, during which the
ticking of the clock became painful in the intensity
of the silence it seemed to be measuring. “Jane,
what's off!” “Why, your boots, to be sure,”
pulled them off when you first lay down.”
Again the prostrate gentleman was still. Then
when the candle of the waking housewife had
burned low down to the socket, and the wasted
flame on the hearth was expiring bluely in convulsive
leaps, the head of the family resumed: “Jane,
who said anything about boots?”
There was no reply. Apparently none was
expected, for the man immediately rose, lengthened
himself out like a telescope, and continued:
“Jane, I must have smothered that brat, and
I'm 'fernal sorry!”
“What brat?” asked the wife, becoming interested.
“Why, ours—our little Isaac. I saw you put
'im in bed last week, and I've been layin' right onto
'im!”
“What under the sun do you mean?” asked
the good wife; “we haven't any brat, and never
had, and his name should not be Isaac if we
had. I believe you are crazy.”
The man balanced his bulk rather unsteadily,
looked hard into the eyes of his companion, and
triumphantly emitted the following conundrum:
“Jane, look-a-here! If we haven't any brat,
what'n thunder's the use o'bein' married!”
Pending the solution of the momentous problem,
whisky-skin.
The Heels of Her.
Passing down Commercial-street one fine day,
I observed a lady standing alone in the middle of
the sidewalk, with no obvious business there, but
with apparently no intention of going on. She was
outwardly very calm, and seemed at first glance to
be lost in some serene philosophical meditation. A
closer examination, however, revealed a peculiar
restlessness of attitude, and a barely noticeable uneasiness
of expression. The conviction came upon
me that the lady was in distress, and as delicately as
possible I inquired of her if such were not the
case, intimating at the same time that I should
esteem it a great favour to be permitted to do something.
The lady smiled blandly and replied that
she was merely waiting for a gentleman. It was tolerably
evident that I was not required, and with a
stammered apology I hastened away, passed clear
around the block, came up behind her, and took up
a position on a dry-goods box; it lacked an hour to
dinner time, and I had leisure. The lady maintained
her attitude, but with momently increasing
impatience, which found expression in singular
wave-like undulations of her lithe figure, and an occasional
unmistakeable contortion. Several gentlemen
dismissed. Suddenly she experienced a quick convulsion,
strode sharply forward one step, stopped
short, had another convulsion, and walked rapidly
away. Approaching the spot I found a small iron
grating in the sidewalk, and between the bars two
little boot heels, riven from their kindred soles, and
unsightly with snaggy nails.
Heaven only knows why that entrapped female
had declined the proffered assistance of her species
—why she had elected to ruin her boots in preference
to having them removed from her feet. Upon
that day when the grave shall give up its dead, and
the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, I shall
know all about it; but I want to know now.
A Tale of Two Feet.
My friend Zacharias was accustomed to sleep
with a heated stone at his feet; for the feet of Mr.
Zacharias were as the feet of the dead. One night
he retired as usual, and it chanced that he awoke
some hours afterwards with a well-defined smell of
burning leather, making it pleasant for his nostrils.
“Mrs. Zacharias,” said he, nudging his snoring
spouse, “I wish you would get up and look about.
I think one of the children must have fallen into
the fire.”
The lady, who from habit had her own feet
stowed comfortably away against the warm stomach
of her lord and master, declined to make the investigation
demanded, and resumed the nocturnal
melody. Mr. Zacharias was angered; for the first
time since she had sworn to love, honour, and obey,
this female was in open rebellion. He decided
upon prompt and vigorous action. He quietly
moved over to the back side of the bed and braced
his shoulders against the wall. Drawing up his
sinewy knees to a level with his breast, he placed
the soles of his feet broadly against the back of the
insurgent, with the design of propelling her against
the opposite wall. There was a strangled snort,
then a shriek of female agony, and the neighbours
came in.
Mutual explanations followed, and Mr. Zacharias
walked the streets of Grass Valley next day as if
he were treading upon eggs worth a dollar a dozen.
The Scolliver Pig.
One of Thomas Jefferson's maxims is as follows:
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very
angry, count a hundred.” I once knew a man to
square his conduct by this rule, with a most gratifying
result. Jacob Scolliver, a man prone to bad
temper, one day started across the fields to visit his
small corner of the old homestead. He found the old
gentleman behind the barn, bending over a barrel
that was canted over at an angle of seventy degrees,
and from which issued a cloud of steam. Scolliver
père was evidently scalding one end of a dead pig
—an operation essential to the loosening of the
hair, that the corpse may be plucked and shaven.
“Good morning, father,” said Mr. Scolliver, approaching,
and displaying a long, cheerful smile.
“Got a nice roaster there?” The elder gentleman's
head turned slowly and steadily, as upon a swivel, until
his eyes pointed backward; then he drew his arms
out of the barrel, and finally, revolving his body till
it matched his head, he deliberately mounted upon
the supporting block and sat down upon the sharp
edge of the barrel in the hot steam. Then he replied,
“Good mornin', Jacob. Fine mornin'.”
“A little warm in spots, I should imagine,” returned
the son. “Do you find that a comfortable
seat?” “Why—yes—it's good enough for an old
man,” he answered, in a slightly husky voice, and
with an uneasy gesture of the legs; “don't make much
difference in this life where we set, if we're good—
does it? This world ain't heaven, anyhow, I s'spose.”
“There I do not entirely agree with you,”
rejoined the young man, composing his body
upon a stump for a philosophical argument. “I
about on the edge of the barrel and constructing
a painful grimace. There was no argument,
but a silence instead. Suddenly the aged party
sprang off that barrel with exceeding great haste,
as of one who has made up his mind to do a thing
and is impatient of delay. The seat of his trousers
was steaming grandly, the barrel upset, and there
was a great wash of hot water, leaving a deposit of
spotted pig. In life that pig had belonged to Mr.
Scolliver the younger! Mr. Scolliver the younger
was angry, but remembering Jefferson's maxim, he
rattled off the number ten, finishing up with “You
— thief!” Then perceiving himself very angry,
he began all over again and ran up to one hundred,
as a monkey scampers up a ladder. As the last
syllable shot from his lips he planted a dreadful
blow between the old man's eyes, with a shriek that
sounded like—“You son of a sea-cook!”
Mr. Scolliver the elder went down like a stricken
beef, and his son often afterward explained that if he
had not counted a hundred, and so given himself
time to get thoroughly mad, he did not believe he
could ever have licked the old man.
Mr. Hunker's Mourner.
Strolling through Lone Mountain cemetery one
day my attention was arrested by the inconsolable
Hunker, aged 67.” The attitude of utter dejection,
the look of matchless misery upon that angel's face
sank into my heart like water into a sponge. I
was about to offer some words of condolence when
another man, similarly affected, got in before me,
and laying a rather unsteady hand upon the celestial
shoulder tipped back a very senile hat, and
pointing to the name on the stone remarked with
the most exact care and scrupulous accent: “Friend
of yours, perhaps; been dead long?”
There was no reply; he continued: “Very worthy
man, that Jake; knew him up in Tuolumne. Good
feller—Jake.” No response: the gentleman settled
his hat still farther back, and continued with a trifle
less exactness of speech: “I say, young wom'n, Jake
was my pard in the mines. Goo' fell'r I 'bserved!”
The last sentence was shot straight into the
celestial ear at short range. It produced no
effect. The gentleman's patience and rhetorical
vigilance were now completely exhausted. He
walked round, and planting himself defiantly in
front of the vicarious mourner, he stuck his hands
doggedly into his pockets and delivered the following
rebuke, like the desultory explosions of a bunch
of damaged fire-crackers: “It wont do, old girl;
ef Jake knowed how you's treatin' his old pard he'd
jest git up and snatch you bald headed—he would!
good—you bet! Now you jest sling your swag
an' bolt back to heav'n, or I'm hanged ef I don't
have suthin' worse'n horse-stealin' to answer fur,
this time.”
And he took a step forward. At this point I
interfered.
A Bit of Chivalry.
At Woodward's Garden, in the city of San
Francisco, is a rather badly chiselled statue of
Pandora pulling open her casket of ills. Pandora's
raiment, I grieve to state, has slipped down about
her waist in a manner exceedingly reprehensible. One
evening about twilight, I was passing that way, and
saw a long gaunt miner, evidently just down from
the mountains, and whom I had seen before, standing
rather unsteadily in front of Pandora, admiring her
shapely figure, but seemingly afraid to approach
her. Seeing me advance, he turned to me with a
queer, puzzled expression in his funny eyes, and
said with an earnestness that came near defeating
its purpose, “Good ev'n'n t'ye, stranger.” “Good
evening, sir,” I replied, after having analyzed his
salutation and extracted the sense of it. Lowering
his voice to what was intended for a whisper,
the miner, with a jerk of his thumb Pandoraward,
continued: “Stranger, d'ye hap'n t'know 'er?”
maiden, in the pay of the Board of Supervisors.”
He straightened himself up with a jerk that threatened
the integrity of his neck and made his teeth
snap, lurched heavily to the other side, oscillated
critically for a few moments, and muttered:
“Brdgtpnd—.” It was too much for him; he
went down into his pocket, fumbled feebly round,
and finally drawing out a paper of purely hypothetical
tobacco, conveyed it to his mouth and
bit off about two-thirds of it, which he masticated
with much apparent benefit to his understanding,
offering what was left to me. He then resumed
the conversation with the easy familiarity of one
who has established a claim to respectful attention:
“Pardner, couldn't ye interdooce a fel'r's wants
tknow'er?” “Impossible; I have not the honour of
her acquaintance.” A look of distrust crept into
his face, and finally settled into a savage scowl
about his eyes. “Sed ye knew'er!” he faltered,
menacingly. “So I do, but I am not upon speaking
terms with her, and—in fact she declines
to recognise me.” The soul of the honest miner
flamed out; he laid his hand threateningly upon
his pistol, jerked himself stiff, glared a moment at
me with the look of a tiger, and hurled this question
at my head as if it had been an iron interrogation
point: “W'at a' yer ben adoin' to that gurl?”
I fled, and the last I saw of the chivalrous gold-hunter,
he had his arm about Pandora's stony
waist and was endeavouring to soothe her supposed
agitation by stroking her granite head.
The Head of the Family.
Our story begins with the death of our hero.
The manner of it was decapitation, the instrument
a mowing machine. A young son of the
deceased, dumb with horror, seized the paternal
head and ran with it to the house.
“There!” ejaculated the young man, bowling
the gory pate across the threshold at his mother's
feet, “look at that, will you?”
The old lady adjusted her spectacles, lifted the
dripping head into her lap, wiped the face of it with
her apron, and gazed into its fishy eyes with
tender curiosity. “John,” said she, thoughtfully,
“is this yours?”
“No, ma, it ain't none o' mine.”
“John,” continued she, with a cold, unimpassioned
earnestness, “where did you get this
thing?”
“Why, ma,” returned the hopeful, “that's
Pap's.”
“John”—and there was just a touch of severity
in her voice—“when your mother asks you a question
Where did you get this?”
“Out in the medder, then, if you're so derned
pertikeller,” retorted the youngster, somewhat
piqued; “the mowin' machine lopped it off.”
The old lady rose and restored the head into the
hands of the young man. Then, straightening
with some difficulty her aged back, and assuming a
matronly dignity of bearing and feature, she
emitted the rebuke following:
“My son, the gentleman whom you hold in your
hand—any more pointed allusion to whom would
be painful to both of us—has punished you a
hundred times for meddling with things lying
about the farm. Take that head back and put it
down where you found it, or you will make your
mother very angry.”
Deathbed Repentance.
An old man of seventy-five years lay dying.
For a lifetime he had turned a deaf ear to religion,
and steeped his soul in every current crime. He
had robbed the orphan and plundered the widow;
he had wrested from the hard hands of honest
toil the rewards of labour; had lost at the gaming-table
the wealth with which he should have endowed
churches and Sunday schools; had wasted
and left his wife and children without bread. The
intoxicating bowl had been his god—his belly had
absorbed his entire attention. In carnal pleasures
passed his days and nights, and to the maddening
desires of his heart he had ministered without
shame and without remorse. He was a bad, bad
egg! And now this hardened iniquitor was to
meet his Maker! Feebly and hesitatingly his
breath fluttered upon his pallid lips. Weakly
trembled the pulse in his flattened veins! Wife,
children, mother-in-law, friends, who should have
hovered lovingly about his couch, cheering his last
moments and giving him medicine, he had killed
with grief, or driven widely away; and he was
now dying alone by the inadequate light of a
tallow candle, deserted by heaven and by earth. No,
not by heaven. Suddenly the door was pushed
softly open, and there entered the good minister,
whose pious counsel the suffering wretch had
in health so often derided. Solemnly the man
of God advanced, Bible in hand. Long and silently
he stood uncovered in the presence of death. Then
with cold and impressive dignity he remarked,
“Miserable old sinner!”
Old Jonas Lashworthy looked up. He sat up.
The voice of that holy man put strength into his
aged limbs, and he stood up. He was reserved
Mr. Lashworthy was hanged for braining a minister
of the Gospel with a boot-jack. This touching
tale has a moral.
Moral of this Touching Tale.—In snatching
a brand from the eternal burning, make sure of its
condition, and be careful how you lay hold of it.
The New Church that was not Built.
I have a friend who was never a church member,
but was, and is, a millionaire—a generous
benevolent millionaire—who once went about
doing good by stealth, but with a natural preference
for doing it at his office. One day he took
it into his thoughtful noddle that he would like
to assist in the erection of a new church edifice,
to replace the inadequate and shabby structure
in which a certain small congregation in his town
then worshipped. So he drew up a subscription
paper, modestly headed the list with “Christian,
2000 dollars,” and started one of the Deacons about
with it. In a few days the Deacon came back to
him, like the dove to the ark, saying he had
succeeded in procuring a few names, but the press
of his private business was such that he had felt
compelled to intrust the paper to Deacon Smith.
Next day the document was presented to my
Brother Smith explained that he (Smith) had
started this thing, and a brother calling himself
“Christian,” whose name he was not at liberty
to disclose, had put down 2000 dollars. Would
our friend aid them with an equal amount? Our
friend took the paper and wrote “Philanthropist,
1000 dollars,” and Brother Smith went away.
In about a week Brother Jones put in an appearance
with the subscription paper. By extraordinary
exertions Brother Jones—thinking a handsome
new church would be an ornament to the town
and increase the value of real estate—had got two
brethren, who desired to remain incog., to subscribe:
“Christian” 2000 dollars, and “Philanthropist”
1000 dollars. Would my friend kindly
help along a struggling congregation? My friend
would. He wrote “Citizen, 500 dollars,” pledging
Brother Jones, as he had pledged the others, not
to reveal his name until it was time to pay.
Some weeks afterward, a clergyman stepped into
my friend's counting-room, and after smilingly
introducing himself, produced that identical subscription
list.
“Mr. K.,” said he, “I hope you will pardon
the liberty, but I have set on foot a little scheme
to erect a new church for our congregation, and
three of the brethren have subscribed handsomely.
the good work?”
My friend glanced over his spectacles at the
proffered paper. He rose in his wrath! He
towered! Seizing a loaded pen he dashed at that
fair sheet and scrabbled thereon in raging characters,
“Impenitent Sinner—Not one cent, by G—!”
After a brief explanatory conference, the minister
thoughtfully went his way. That struggling congregation
still worships devoutly in its original,
unpretending temple.
A Tale of the Great Quake.
One glorious morning, after the great earthquake
of October 21, 1868, had with some difficulty shaken
me into my trousers and boots, I left the house.
I may as well state that I left it immediately, and
by an aperture constructed for another purpose.
Arrived in the street, I at once betook myself to
saving people. This I did by remarking closely
the occurrence of other shocks, giving the alarm
and setting an example fit to be followed. The
example was followed, but owing to the vigour with
which it was set was seldom overtaken. In passing
down Clay-street I observed an old rickety brick
boarding-house, which seemed to be just on the
point of honouring the demands of the earthquake
but the building was slowly and composedly settling
into the ground. As the third story came down to
my level, I observed in one of the front rooms a
young and lovely female in white, standing at a
door trying to get out. She couldn't, for the door
was locked—I saw her through the key-hole. With
a single blow of my heel I opened that door, and
opened my arms at the same time.
“Thank God,” cried I, “I have arrived in time.
Come to these arms.”
The lady in white stopped, drew out an eye-glass,
placed it carefully upon her nose, and taking an
inventory of me from head to foot, replied:
“No thank you; I prefer to come to grief in
the regular way.”
While the pleasing tones of her voice were still
ringing in my ears I noticed a puff of smoke rising
from near my left toe. It came from the chimney
of that house.
Johnny.
Johnny is a little four-year-old, of bright,
pleasant manners, and remarkable for intelligence.
The other evening his mother took him upon her
lap, and after stroking his curly head awhile, asked
him if he knew who made him. I grieve to state
that instead of answering “Dod,” as might have
face full of ginger-bread, and finally took a fit of
coughing that threatened the dissolution of his
frame. Having unloaded his throat and whacked
him on the back, his mother propounded the following
supplementary conundrum:
“Johnny, are you not aware that at your age
every little boy is expected to say something brilliant
in reply to my former question? How can you so
dishonour your parents as to neglect this golden
opportunity? Think again.”
The little urchin cast his eyes upon the floor and
meditated a long time. Suddenly he raised his face
and began to move his lips. There is no knowing
what he might have said, but at that moment his
mother noted the pressing necessity of wringing and
mopping his nose, which she performed with such
painful and conscientious singleness of purpose that
Johnny set up a war-whoop like that of a night-blooming
tomcat.
It may be objected that this little tale is neither
instructive nor amusing. I have never seen any
stories of bright children that were.
The Child's Provider.
Mr. Goboffle had a small child, no wife, a large
dog, and a house. As he was unable to afford the
child in the care of the dog, who was much attached
to it, while absent at a distant restaurant for his
meals, taking the precaution to lock them up
together to prevent kidnapping. One day, while at
his dinner, he crowded a large, hard-boiled potato
down his neck, and it conducted him into eternity.
His clay was taken to the Coroner's, and the great
world went on, marrying and giving in marriage,
lying, cheating, and praying, as if he had never
existed.
Meantime the dog had, after several days of
neglect, forced an egress through a window, and a
neighbouring baker received a call from him daily.
Walking gravely in, he would deposit a piece of
silver, and receiving a roll and his change would
march off homeward. As this was a rather unusual
proceeding in a cur of his species, the baker one
day followed him, and as the dog leaped joyously
into the window of the deserted house, the man of
dough approached and looked in. What was his
surprise to see the dog deposit his bread calmly
upon the floor and fall to tenderly licking the face
of a beautiful child!
It is but fair to explain that there was nothing
but the face remaining. But this dog did so love
the child!
Boys who Began Wrong.
Two little California boys were arrested at Reno
for horse thieving. They had started from Surprise
Valley with a cavalcade of thirty animals, and
disposed of them leisurely along their line of march,
until they were picked up at Reno, as above explained.
I don't feel quite easy about those
youths—away out there in Nevada without their
Testaments! Where there are no Sunday School
books boys are so apt to swear and chew tobacco
and rob sluice-boxes; and once a boy begins to do
that last he might as well sell out; he's bound to
end by doing something bad! I knew a boy once
who began by robbing sluice-boxes, and he went
right on from bad to worse, until the last I heard
of him he was in the State Legislature, elected by
Democratic votes. You never saw anybody take
on as his poor old mother did when she heard
about it.
“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
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
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
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,
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
manking 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 meat-hound,
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,
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 hed 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
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;
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 necissary
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
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
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 suspicion
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,
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 my 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!”
There was a quick jerk under the soles of my
feet, which pitched me prone upon the ground.
Scrambling up, I saw the old gentleman vanishing
behind an adjacent sandhill as if the devil were
after him.
The Mistake of a Life.
The hotel was in flames. Mr. Pokeweed was
promptly on hand, and tore madly into the burning
pile, whence he soon emerged with a nude female.
Depositing her tenderly upon a pile of hot bricks, he
mopped his steaming front with his warm coat-tail.
“Now, Mrs. Pokeweed,” said he, “where will I
be most likely to find the children? They will
naturally wish to get out.”
The lady assumed a stiffly vertical attitude,
and with freezing dignity replied in the words
following:
“Sir, you have saved my life; I presume you
are entitled to my thanks. If you are likewise
solicitous regarding the fate of the person you
have mentioned, you had better go back and
prospect round till you find her; she would probably
be delighted to see you. But while I have
a character to maintain unsullied, you shall not
stand there and call me Mrs. Pokeweed!”
Just then the front wall toppled outward, and
Pokeweed cleared the street at a single bound.
He never learned what became of the strange lady,
and to the day of his death he professed an indifference
that was simply brutal.
L. S.
Early one evening in the autumn of '64, a pale
girl stood singing Methodist hymns at the summit
of Bush Street hill. She was attired, Spanish
fashion, in a loose overcoat and slippers. Suddenly
she broke off her song, a dark-browed young soldier
from the Presidio cautiously approached, and seizing
retreating with it to an auction-house on Pacific
Street, where it may still be seen by the benighted
traveller, just a-going for two-and-half—and never
gone!
The poor maiden after this misfortune felt a
bitter resentment swelling in her heart, and scorning
to remain among her kind in that costume,
took her way to the Cliff House, where she arrived,
worn and weary, about breakfast-time.
The landlord received her kindly, and offered her
a pair of his best trousers; but she was of noble
blood, and having been reared in luxury, respectfully
declined to receive charity from a low-born stranger.
All efforts to induce her to eat were equally unavailing.
She would stand for hours on the rocks where
the road descends to the beach, and gaze at the
playful seals in the surf below, who seemed rather
flattered by her attention, and would swim about,
singing their sweetest songs to her alone. Passersby
were equally curious as to her, but a broken
lyre gives forth no music, and her heart responded
not with any more long metre hymns.
After a few weeks of this solitary life she was
suddenly missed. At the same time a strange seal
was noted among the rest. She was remarkable
for being always clad in an overcoat, which she had
doubtless fished up from the wreck of the French
years afterward.
One tempestuous night, an old hag who had long
done business as a hermitess on Helmet Rock came
into the bar-room at the Cliff House, and there,
amidst the crushing thunders and lightnings spilling
all over the horizon, she related that she had
seen a young seal in a comfortable overcoat, sitting
pensively upon the pinnacle of Seal Rock, and had
distinctly heard the familiar words of a Methodist
hymn. Upon inquiry the tale was discovered to be
founded upon fact. The identity of this seal could
no longer be denied without downright blasphemy,
and in all the old chronicles of that period not a
doubt is even implied.
One day a handsome, dark, young lieutenant of
infantry, Don Edmundo by name, came out to the
Cliff House to celebrate his recent promotion.
While standing upon the verge of the cliff, with
his friends all about him, Lady Celia, as visitors
had christened her, came swimming below him, and
taking off her overcoat, laid it upon a rock. She
then turned up her eyes and sang a Methodist hymn.
No sooner did the brave Don Edmundo hear it
than he tore off his gorgeous clothes, and cast himself
headlong in the billows. Lady Celia caught
him dexterously by the waist in her mouth, and,
swimming to the outer rock, sat up and softly bit
him in halves. She then laid the pieces tenderly
plunging into the waters was never seen more.
Many are the wild fabrications of the poets
about her subsequent career, but to this day
nothing authentic has turned up. For some months
strenuous efforts were made to recover the wicked
Lieutenant's body. Every appliance which genius
could invent and skill could wield was put in requisition;
until one night the landlord, fearing
these constant efforts might frighten away the
seals, had the remains quietly removed and secretly
interred.
The Baffled Asian.
One day in '49 an honest miner up in Calaveras
county, California, bit himself with a small snake
of the garter variety, and either as a possible antidote,
or with a determination to enjoy the brief
remnant of a wasted life, applied a brimming jug
of whisky to his lips, and kept it there until, like a
repleted leech, it fell off.
The man fell off likewise.
The next day, while the body lay in state upon
a pine slab, and the bereaved partner of the
deceased was unbending in a game of seven-up
with a friendly Chinaman, the game was interrupted
by a familiar voice which seemed to proceed from
the jaws of the corpse: “I say—Jim!”
Bereaved partner played the king of spades,
claimed “high,” and then, looking over his
shoulder at the melancholy remains, replied, “Well,
what is it, Dave? I'm busy.”
“I say—Jim!” repeated the corpse in the same
measured tone.
With a look of intense annoyance, and muttering
something about “people that could never stop
dead more'n a minute,” the bereaved partner rose
and stood over the body with his cards in his hand.
“Jim,” continued the mighty dead, “how fur's
this thing gone?”
“I've paid the Chinaman two-and-a-half to dig
the grave,” responded the bereaved.
“Did he strike anything?”
The Chinaman looked up: “Me strikee pay
dirt; me no bury dead 'Melican in 'em grave. Me
keep 'em claim.”
The corpse sat up erect: “Jim, git my revolver
and chase that pig-tail off. Jump his dam
sepulchre, and tax his camp five dollars each fer
prospectin' on the public domain. These Mungolyun
hordes hez got to be got under. And—I say
—Jim! 'f any more serpents come foolin' round
here drive 'em off. 'T'aint right to be bitin' a
feller when whisky's two dollars a gallon. Dern
all foreigners, anyhow!”
And the mortal part pulled on its boots.
| The fiend's delight | |