Part 15

Och, you are there now, So purty and fair now, I raley declare, now I’m murthered outright; My mouth seems like butter, I hardly can mutter A sintince, or utter A word, love, to-night. Thumpin’ An’ bumpin’ An’ jumpin’ an’ flutterin’, Knockin’ an’ rockin’, my heart seems astray, And, as I can’t spake, why, I’ll have to be st-st-stutterin’ How much I love you, sweet Peggy O’Shea!

THE BOSTON CARRIER’S PLAINT.

The summer sun, disgusted at some too-familiar cloud, Had muffled up his brightness in a sort of misty shroud; The sky o’ercast and leaden-hued, as if in angry pain, Poured down upon our busy town huge tears of hissing rain. Amid the crowds that hurried from the sloppy streets amain Was one poor limping creature--the embodiment of pain. His pale face, drawn and twisted in a multitude of ways, Was really calculated quite to shock the public gaze; His body was contorted; bent his back, and clenched each hand, And his lips ejaculated words I could not understand; Yet his phrases, I confess it, were not very transcendental, For his adjectives, if forcible, were far from ornamental.

I questioned him--this blighted one--I asked him what the reason Of his sorrow, and his anger, and his language out of season; And in such a tone he answered, that a Tartar savage prowling Around the near environs would have thought a wolf was howling:--

“Don’t my uniform tell you that I Am of the unfortunate band, Whom you see day by day passing by, Never pausing a moment to stand; Who, in one perpetual round, Forever are marching, until It seems that while one of us stays overground Fate ordains he shall never be still.

“‘Tis hard when the bright golden sun Smiles out from a clear azure sky, To set out on a pilgrimage ne’er to be done Till his glory has gone and passed by. And e’en along green country lanes, ’Mid the scent of the newly mown hay, And a thousand gay birds chanting joyous refrains, Who would care to be tramping all day?

“Then why do you wonder to hear An unlucky sad mortal complain, Who has walked through the Hub, all the day pretty near, In this ne’er-ending, pitiless rain? Or say, are you looking for smiles From a fellow who feels on the rack, After walking some twenty odd miles On a path like a porcupine’s back?

“They say that the Muscovite knout, On the back of a troublesome peasant, When wielded by hands that are stout, Is decidedly very unpleasant. The rack and the thumb-screw, I’m told, Caused aught but delightful sensations, But what were their tortures of old, Compared to our new innovations?

“No martyr that ever yet died In those times that have long passed away, Whether gibbeted, hanged, drowned, or fried, Suffered more than I’ve suffered to-day. My feet are denuded of skin, My toes every one are disjointed, For the soles of my boots are peculiarly thin, And the most of our pavement is pointed!

“Aye, jagged, like the teeth of a saw, Or the glass of a smashed window-pane, Save where an occasional flaw Leaves a hole in to gather the rain--”

Here my comrade gave vent to a shriek That emptied a neighboring tavern, He had planted one foot on a peak, While the other was lost in a cavern!

Then his language assumed such a tone-- And one not by any means sweeter-- And he mixed up such adverbs with every groan That they couldn’t be put into metre. So thus my sad narrative ends, As I left the poor tortured one raving, And hoping the rest of his Post-office friends Would survive Boston’s wonderful paving.

APROPOS OF THE CENSUS.

If they do not call for the census papers in our street soon, we shall have a revolution. The crisis has arrived in Ryan’s already. Mrs. Ryan’s mother came a day or two before the numbering of the people to assist Mrs. Ryan through a difficulty not altogether unconnected with the census. The enumerator hadn’t called for the paper on Tuesday last, and on that morning there was another visitor at Ryan’s. Mrs. Ryan and her mother insist that the latest comer must be added to the list. Ryan, who is conscientious to a decimal point, argues that the important personage in question has no moral right to figure in the population for another ten years. After an animated and personal discussion on this point, Ryan retired to his study, took out the census paper, and filled up the last column by appending to his sainted mother-in-law’s name the classical expression “idiot!” That lady got hold of the document later, and she filled up Ryan’s own blank with the declaration that he was a brute, blind, deaf, dumb, and a dangerous lunatic. Ryan secured the blue pages afterwards, and what pen-and-ink profanity he was guilty of will not be known until the collector comes round. We expect something rather lively on that occasion.

Brown has got his form filled up all right. There was a preliminary difficulty between himself and his better four-fifths as to which of them had the greater claim to be entitled “Head of the Family.” As she threatened to sit on him, if he resisted her mandate, and her sitting weight is two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois, he consented to a compromise by which she appears as “Head of the Family,” and his dignity is maintained by the insertion of “Ditto, ditto,--occasionally.”

If Timmins’s paper be not called for soon he will occupy the abnormal position of being the husband of a lady as yet unborn. Their eldest is fifteen, and duly entered as of that age, yet Mrs. T. insisted on figuring as thirty, and to avoid hysterics Timmins consented to let her appear as of that matronly but not too far advanced period of adolescence. She has had charge of the sheet since, and when it was not called for on Monday she studied her charms in the mirror for an hour or so, and thought appearances justified her in knocking two years off her record. On Tuesday, a lady friend congratulated her on her youthful figure, and she abbreviated her years by half a decade. She has been at that column every day since, and by latest accounts was only two years ahead of her eldest born. In another week she should be fit for spoon and bottle-feeding.

The worst case of all, however, is that of poor Robinson. Robinson is the family man of our street. He has been adding to the population of it for a quarter of a century with a regularity that is inspiring. He is a commercial traveller, and he seldom returns from a lengthy journey without the expectation of an introduction to another of his name and lineage. He don’t know half his offspring. From the moment he turns the corner into our street on his return from a month’s absence he is the central figure of an imposing procession. A territorial army of young Robinsons surround him, climb on his shoulders, take up quarters in his arms, cling to his coat-tails, impede his footsteps, follow four deep in his wake, and make the welkin ring with filial expressions of welcome. He has shirked the fearful ordeal of reckoning his responsibilities until the fatal exigencies of the census have brought it home to him. The only occasions on which he has obtained a faint idea of his success as a father have been those momentous periods when the baptismal signboard of the latest Robinson has had to be hung out. “What shall we call sonny?” has whispered the joint shareholder in his live-stock. “Oh, John.” “But we’ve got John already.” “Oh, then, name him Peter or Theodore--Theodore sounds well with Robinson.” “But we have had Peter fifteen years, my dear, and it was only yesterday, you know, that we feared Theodore had the measles.” Then Robinson would became irritated. “Hang it,” he would exclaim, “do you think I am a Thom’s Directory, or an army list, or a dictionary of scriptural names? What name are you short of? Give him that.” Then Mrs. R. would begin the catalogue. “We have John, and Peter, and Theodore, and Joe’s with his aunt, and Tom’s at his grandmother’s, and there’s Philip, and James, and little Edmund, and--” Then Robinson would fly out with his fingers in his ears, and knock over two or three of the middle-sized ones in the lobby, and be followed by the screams of the smaller ones to the door, and meet some of the eldest “sparking” in the lane; and when he entered some refuge to drown reflection in a flowing bowl, he would hear one tall stripling whisper to another, “Here’s father,” and his end of the counter would be left deserted. It was too much to think of, and he didn’t, as a rule.

But he couldn’t escape the census. He was at home. His feelings as a father and his duty as head of the household demanded that that paper should be filled up. Anna Maria couldn’t assist--there was another Robinson _en route_. So he entered the parlor on Sunday night, and sent the housemaid round to summon the clan. They came--in twos, in threes, in fours, and the last batch was half a dozen. He gazed upon the throng, and as he traced his nose in this one, his mouth in that, and the cast in his eye leered at him all round the room from other eyes, he felt like Noah--only Noah would have been nowhere with an ark of the dimensions used at the time of the Flood. He commenced his enumeration, and before any appreciable diminution had been made in the numbers present by the retirement of those whose descriptive particulars had been entered, his form, with its fifteen spaces, pegged out. The room was still full. Two or three of the boys were playing leap-frog in one corner, a few girls were dressing and comparing dolls in another, the twins were fighting under the table, the youngest but two was struggling with the coal scuttle, and some of them hadn’t come home from church yet. Then Robinson felt the full extent of his marital liabilities, and he laughed. “Ha! ha!” he yelled. “What’s the use of this bit o’ paper? Send me a volume, four hundred pages, bound in morocco, forty names on a page! I’ll fill ’em up. Order up your whole staff of enumerators, two or three barrels of ink, and a goods train to carry out the returns. I’m ready. There’s Robinsons enough round to make a census of their own. Oh, let us be joyful!” Then he began to dance, sang “A father’s early love,” and went up-stairs to swallow the latest arrival. It’s a pity Robinson was at home this census time.

NEW ENGLAND’S MARKSMEN.

Rank on rank they march together, Through the lanes and o’er the heather, And the rhythmic ringing beat Of their measured swinging feet Music bears in martial tone To the land they call their own. Happy land that proudly boasts, Not coerced, unwilling hosts, But around her throne can feel Hearts of oak and nerves of steel, Hearts whose love no bribes retain, Hands that never strike in vain.

Through the fields of yellow grain, Through the woods of leafy green, Here and there on many a plain, Are their snowy targets seen; And the mountains echo back From their peaks the rifles’ crack.

Freedom knows how keen of eye, Firm of nerve and quick of finger, Are the marksmen brave who vie In the skill they freely bring her. Bunker Hill and Concord tell They have won their laurels well.

And should war assail our shore, Still to guard it ever ready As their fathers were of yore. Calm, yet eager, true and steady, Are the loyal ranks that play But at mimic strife to-day.

A MIXED ANTIQUARIAN.

They have high old times of it occasionally at the Royal Dublin Society rooms. For example, at a recent festive gathering Mr. William Smith, C. E., read an exciting essay on “The Manufacture of paper from molina cœrulea.” Then there was some light literature from Mr. W. E. Burton, F. R. A. S., who gave a paper on “A new form of micrometer for astronomical instruments.” After these two courses came dessert in the shape of a sweet thing from Dr. Leith Adams, F. R. S., about “Explorations in the bone cave of Ballynamintra.” I wanted to read a dozen pages of “Falconer’s Railway Guide,” but in the feverish state of excitement in which the audience were boiling over it was felt that the experiment might be dangerous. It might have led to revolution, and it wouldn’t be logical--or geological--to use the Ballynamintra bones for ammunition.

I always had a sneaking regard for these delicious scientific symposiums. I love to hear of the domestic arrangements of the gay ichthyosaurus, and to see dragged forth from the dark recesses of antiquity the private character (very shaky it was) of the lordly mastodon.

I once lectured myself on “Relics of the Pre-Glacial Period discovered during Excavations at Ballymacslughaun.” I got on very well for an hour or so. The bald-headed antiquarian who had excavated the relics had been kind enough to label them--“Tooth of an Irish Elk,” “Skull of a Land Agent of the Pliocene Era (dinged by rocks),” “Feeding-bottle of the Bone Age,” etc.

I was all right till I came to a confounded triangular iron arrangement in a wooden handle covered with mud. I couldn’t for the life of me tell what it was. There was no label on it. I was going to dub it the “toe-nail of an Irish giant,” but the wooden handle forbade. Finally, with a desperate plunge I went on: “The heroism of our sires has been told in song and story for centuries. The predatory Norse pirates turned not their prows to the inhospitable shores of Erin, guarded by fiery gallowglass and furious kerne. The Danish invaders felt at Clontarf the whirlwind passion of the Irish charge. What feelings of awe must be inspired by the sight of this--this--this ancient weapon--it is evidently a spear-head--which in the nervous hands of some brave Celtic warrior of old has probably pierced many a proud invader’s breast. This spear-head, ladies and gentlemen--”

I was here interrupted by the appearance on the platform of a dirty bricklayer who had been engaged in the early part of the day in some repairs about the building. “Howld on,” he exclaimed, seizing the pre-glacial relic; “I beg your honor’s pardon, but I want my throwel to finish a job outside!”

JONES’S UMBRELLA.

There has been a lot of atmosphere round our neighborhood this past week. Jones’s umbrella has been round the neighborhood, too. On the whole it has pervaded the locality to a greater extent than the atmosphere, and has left impressions of a more or less durable character, according to their positions. Jones’s umbrella is the eighth wonder of the world. Its size is majestic, its staying powers in the heaviest hurricane are miraculous; its age is lost in the dim recesses of primeval tradition; its performances are historic. It is believed to have belonged to the original Jones, and to have been manufactured in view of a second deluge, and were it not that the Joneses are such a scattered family (being distributed over half a dozen sub-lunar continents, to say nothing of their colonization of other spheres, principally tropical in their temperature), that umbrella could afford shelter to the clan yet. It is massive in its strength. It’s a kind of an iron-clad umbrella. I won’t undertake to say that it’s bullet-proof, but a Ceylon cyclone or a Texan tornado wouldn’t disturb a seam in it. It has only one defect. Given sufficient space--say Yellowstone Park, and a child could open that umbrella; but there are occasions when Samson would need all his locks to shut it up. Tuesday was one of those occasions. Jones and Mrs. Jones and three of the grown-up Joneses left their ancestral home to pay a visit to the Cyclorama. They had the umbrella with them. In an evil hour, Jones, persuaded by a slight shower that threatened destruction to Mrs. Jones’s new bonnet, opened that umbrella. Just at that moment, a miniature tempest careened up the street. It struck the umbrella broadside on, and that antiquated arrangement of ribs and canvas began an express excursion in the direction of the eastern coast, at the rate of a mile a minute. Jones held on to the umbrella, making heroic efforts to close it; Mrs. Jones held on to him; the little Joneses clung to her; and the family quintette sailed along in a series of gyrations and bounds and flops that flung the whole population of the city into a labyrinth of confusion and dismay. Two hand-carts, a street car, an apple stall, and a policeman were whelmed in the impetuous charge. Then the wind changed and the umbrella suddenly turned round, jabbed Jones in the mouth, dabbed Mrs. Jones in the gutter, threw the Jones minors promiscuously about the side streets, and started back erratically for the west. It was a thrilling time, but after Jones had been smashed through a few shop windows, and softened his brain against a lamp-post or two, and tried to dig up the pavement with that part of his manly figure caressed by his coat-tails, and sat down once or twice quite unexpectedly in Mrs. Jones’s lap, and lost his spectacles, and wrecked his hat, he let the umbrella go. It hasn’t been seen since; but he don’t pine for it. He hesitates to offer a reward for its recovery. In fact, if any fellow restores it to him, I think he’ll have that man’s blood.

LESSONS IN THE FRENCH DRAMA.

The adorable Sara has been, she has seen, she has conquered. She has nearly done for Guffin.

Guffin is a pork butcher, and there is about as much romance in his nature as in that of Jay Gould. He prefers pigs to poetry, and knows much more about sausages than he does about Shakespeare.

Now, Mrs. Guffin is exactly the opposite. She is æsthetic, she is poetic, she is romantic--in fact, she has a Soul. So has her daughter, and the pair of them go languishing and sighing round the Guffin mansion with their Souls in a way that distracts Guffin, who has more liver than soul. That mansion is situate in a fashionable suburb, far from the prosaic pork-curing establishment where Guffin makes his money--so far, in fact, from business houses of any description that, as Guffin puts it, one has to take a street-car to get a ha’porth of salt. Of course, in this sacred locality all mention of Guffin’s trade is forbidden--Mrs. Guffin’s soul couldn’t stand it. The works of Hogg and Bacon find no place on the shelves of his library, the family never visit the theatre when Ham-let is on, and the fair young Guffin blighted the future of an ardent suitor, because he accidentally referred to the price of pig-iron, in which his father was interested. So there is a polite fiction kept up by the Guffins that Guffin, senior, is in a bank--a sort of director, and for the sake of peace that matter-of-fact pig-sticker has acquiesced in the social fraud. But he has declared he will do so no longer. His blood is up, and he has threatened to slaughter his future porcine victims in the front lawn, cure his bacon in the drawing-room, and decorate the mediæval porch of his country home with strings of sausages.

The ethereal Mlle. Bernhardt was the cause of it all. From the day her appearance at the leading theatre was announced, Guffin has been a martyr to the French dramatic enthusiasm of his feminine accessories. They engaged a tutor who had advertised his proficiency, grammatically and conversationally, in the language of the Gaul. For six weeks the Saxon tongue was unheard in the house, save when some of its most vigorous expletives would escape Guffin, or when Miss G. or Mrs. G. would get stuck in their French. The maid-of-all-work, cook, laundress, housemaid, and generally useful Molly became Marie. It was “Marie, donnez moi la curling-tongs,” or “Marie, avez vous such a thing as a hairpin about you?” the whole day long. Harry Snaffles, groom, stable-boy, gardener, and general help, was Henri, and he was beginning to get gray with such orders as--“Henri, mon garçon, harness le cheval noir, nous avons made up our mind to take a drive apres quatre heures et demi aujourd’hui.” And Harry would go into the stables and bury his head in the straw, and wonder why he was born.

But it wasn’t till after they had seen the shadowy artiste in “La Dame aux Camellias” that the explosion came. They returned home enraptured. Guffin hadn’t been with them. He said he’d been getting enough of French at home for nothing, and he wasn’t going to pay for it. But they told him she was too utterly utter, and the gushing Miss G. showed him how Marguerite interviewed her intended father-in-law, while the Matron Guffin gave an imitation of Sara B. dying of consumption. The latter performance was a failure, however. Mrs. Guffin is fat, she is ponderous, she is florid. Guffin, when he is facetious, says it would be a good investment to let her out in lots. She has a face you could dwell on actually as well as figuratively, and the most lively flea must find it a weary journey from her yard of placid forehead to the foot and a half of solid humanity she calls her chin. She has a neck that Guffin can only fling his arms round once a week, taking a note each day of the point where he leaves off. She has a chest and shoulders you could pitch a tent on.

Once a month the stairs leading to her boudoir have to be repaired, and when a woman like that goes in for acting the consumptive, the result is disappointing.

But she did; so did Miss G., and the next day one or other of them might be encountered about the house gasping and sighing and murmuring very much broken French, and practising faints and back-falls and death-scenes. When Guffin came home the dinner was spoiled; Miss G. was leaning against the banisters of the stairs, one hand pressed against her beating heart, the other scratching her left ear, and her eyes turned upward towards the ceiling in an expression meant to convey unutterable anguish, but which really suggested she was learning to squint; while Mrs. G. awaited her smaller half in the dining-room on the only seat that could accommodate her--the sofa, and looked as consumptive and woe-begone as a woman of her weight possibly could. Guffin had just heard of a failure in the curing trade which touched him, and he was in a morose humor. So when his daughter dragged herself wearily to the table and helped herself with a groan to the potatoes, and when his wife, heaving a monstrous sigh, cut herself a pound and a half or so off the joint, and supplied Guffin with half an ounce or less, he broke into rebellion.

“Look here,” he said, “what are you grunting and groaning about, like a pig in a nightmare?”

“Pig!” shrieked his wife.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” sobbed his daughter.

“Yes, pig,” retaliated Guffin; “it’s a noble animal. You’d neither of you have a shift to your backs if it wasn’t for pigs.”

“You are a brute!” cried Mrs. G. “I shall leave the house this instant. Julia, order the carriage.”

Julia rang the bell with an expression of approaching insanity. The girl responded with an alacrity suggestive of a key-hole performance.

“Marie,” said Julia, “Henri.”

“Well, if you’re hungry,” snarled Guffin, “sit down and eat. What’s Molly got to do with it? Perhaps you don’t like the mutton. Will you have a rasher?”

“Monster, unfeeling monster!” screamed mater-familias. “Let us haste, Julia, to quit this abode of--of--this abode of--this maison du diable, there!” she ejaculated, flinging a parting shot in French at the brutal Guffin.

“You needn’t mind,” said Guffin. “I’m going out myself. Hope you’ll be in your senses when I come back. Get me my hat.”

“Marie,” called Julia from the head of the stairs, “voulez vous bring up la chapeau de mon pere.”