A SERENADING CATASTROPHE.
THOSE of our readers acquainted on Monson Street will remember that the roof
to Mr. Forceps's saloon adjoins his house, and is approached by two windows.
One of these windows is in Mr. Forceps's bedroom. On this roof Mrs. Forceps
has spread hesitating tomatoes with a view to hastening their ripeness. Last
Wednesday she put five more with their fellows, making thirty in all. The
Forcepses have a niece visiting with them,—a young lady named Hall, of
Thomaston. She has made the acquaintance of many of our young people; and
on Wednesday night several of them got together to give her a serenade. Providing
themselves with requisite instruments, the young men took up a position near
this addition we speak of, and struck up on the instruments. Mrs. Forceps
was first awakened by the music, and nudged her husband. He also awoke. The
music was grand,—not loud or coarse, but soft, low, and harmonious. Mr.
Forceps was very much pleased, and got up to the window to hear it. Then
Mrs. Forceps got up also, and, retying her night-cap, stood beside Forceps.
"They're serenading Ellen," said she. "I know it," said Forceps. "Who can
they be?" she asked. "I don't know, I'm sure," said he; "but I suppose I
could find out if I could creep out on the roof and look over."—"Why don't
you?" said she, her curiosity increasing. "I'm afraid they might see me,"
he said. "I don't think they would," she said. "They wouldn't be looking
up on the roof, would they!" Mr, Forceps thought a moment, and then concluded
no one could see him, as the moon had gone into a bank of clouds, and objects
were quite dim. And then he softly opened the blind, and cautiously crawled
out on the shingles, completely incased in red flannel under-clothes and
a night-cap of the same rich material. The music still continued, coming
up through the night-air in waves of ecstatic harmony. Mr, Forceps sat down
on the roof, and
laboriously worked his way to the eaves. Then he lifted
himself up to turn over and look down; and just then he stepped on something
soft and yielding, felt his feet give, made a desperate clutch at the shingles,
was too late, gave a piercing shriek, and shot off the roof, and went revolving
and howling in among the band, followed by the tomatoes, and madly cleaving
the air with his red-flannel limbs. He struck on his back on the bass-viol,
and with one leg tore the entrails from an accordion, and with the other
knocked all the keys from a silver-mounted flute. The man who played the
bass-viol was driven senseless into a pile of pea-brush; and the flute-player,
with his mouth full of blood and splinters, jumped over the fence, and fled.
What became of the others Mr. Forceps does not know, he being too busily
engaged in getting on his feet, and into the house, to make a critical
examination of the field. It is presumed the bass-viol man died on the spot,
and was surreptitiously removed and buried by his companions, as there was
no sign of him about the premises in the morning.
