Part 11

His adopted mother ran and called the other inmates of the house to hear Abe talk, and with delight a boy who spoke English said that he was talking Gringo, all right. On being asked if he was speaking English, he said, in clear accents, “I guess so. Sure!”

To-day scores of people are going back and forth to see the wonder. The physicians who pronounced the boy a mute appear to look upon him as a phenomenon, and one of the men, who rather likes the little chap, said to him, “Who taught you to speak?” The boy answered, “Americans. Sure!”

Hurrah! Much excitement prevails in the neighborhood, and Abe Lincoln is the hero of the hour.

STRANGER THAN FICTION.

Thirty-five years ago a whaling ship dropped anchor in the Bay of Panama and the captain and crew came ashore to see the sights. The mate of the ship, one Cyrus Pratt, a native of New Bedford, Mass., fell in love with a beautiful senorita named Marie Bennares. They were married, and soon after this Cyrus was obliged to sail away. With many tears and much love, the couple parted, with vows to become reunited in the near future. Cyrus intended to leave the ship at San Francisco and come back in haste to his darling Marie. But circumstances played strange freaks with the pair. In less than a year Cyrus returned, with a light of expectation in his eyes and love of a burning sort in his heart.

Marie had gone to live with relatives in Bogota. He set out for that distant city, but fell ill with fever and spent many months among Indians, who were kind to him and nursed him through the period of weakness incidental to such an illness. When he reached Bogota it was to find that Marie had gone to Jamaica. He followed, to find that she had returned to Panama. Then he followed her to Panama, to find that his sweet Marie had gone to Darien to live with an aunt. By about this time he was “broke,” so he shipped on a barque that was bound for San Francisco. On arriving in that city he was obliged to take a ship bound for China, where he fell in with Chinese pirates. In one way and another he was tossed about the world, but by no possible chance did he get anywhere near Panama until a few weeks ago, when a ship on which he had taken passage from Rio de Janeiro cast anchor in the harbor of Colon. He crossed the Isthmus on the wings of love, to again pursue the bride of his youth. She had taken so strong a hold upon his imagination that he still pictured her as the winsome girl whom he married thirty-five years ago.

On arriving at Panama he wended his way to the old dwelling in the Chiriqui district, where the lovely Marie used to live. He found the house exactly as it looked in the old days. A large, good-natured, smiling, unkempt matron lounged in the doorway. She was surrounded by many children who played about her knees, and upon whom she smiled indulgently. Cyrus Pratt looked at the house from a safe retreat, in the hope of seeing his beautiful Marie emerge, at some time or other, when he expected to clasp her to his bosom, etc. He was sure that the stout woman in the doorway was Marie’s aunt, who had grown larger and fatter in the days that had gone. Day after day he paced at a distance from the dwelling and anxiously watched for his old-time love. Toward evening he observed that a rather dark-skinned man would take a seat near the stout woman, who sat eternally in that doorway. The man would smoke and smoke in silence. At last Cyrus decided to address the smoker and make inquiries about his Marie. He was greeted coolly by the smoker, and on throwing out some hints he discovered that his Marie and the ample unkempt female who sat with folded arms amid the ninas were one and the same.

“Everything happens for the best,” said Cyrus, as he hastened away from the spot. “Who would ever think that my beautiful Marie would look like that at fifty years? How in thunder will she look at sixty?”

“She thinks I died,” said Cyrus to a friend; “or did she think at all?”

“I guess she didn’t think much about you,” consoled his confidante.

Cyrus, unlike Enoch Arden, is having a good time in Panama, and is happily forgetful of that awful tragedy that would have engulfed most men. Marie believes that the husband of her girlhood is dead, and she is happy in the thought that she has another man, that she is the mother of five children and the grandmother of ten. So, after all, every one is in the right. Cyrus at fifty-seven years is apparently in the prime of life; he has $10,000 in his pocket or near at hand, and he is seeing the sights, and incidentally inspecting the balconies, in the hope of seeing another senorita who resembles the lost love of his youth. He says he will take another venture, and his friends are anxiously watching for the event, for Cyrus says that in all his rambles about the world he has never seen any girls as beautiful as the senoritas of Panama.

FACTION FIGHTS.

It is proverbial that the Irish and Scotch will quarrel whenever they happen to cross the path of each other, just as they quarreled at the battle of the Boyne. There is less bloodshed, of course, but a fierce fire of antagonism burns in the breast of each, and words are exchanged that mean nothing beyond the out-pouring of that temperamental lava for which both races are justly renowned. There has been friction many times between the Irish and Scotch on the Isthmus, especially at Balboa, where, according to rumor, two men, bold, brave and strong, are ever “at it.”

In this particular case the Scotchman is forever crossing the border into the territory over which the Irishman holds sway, and vice-versa. The men on the job have no little amusement listening to the faction fight. “Bad luck to him; he’s been dumpin’ his truck right here in me way agin. Go over an’ tell him to have that road cleared or I’ll be after callin’ up Culebra, so I will,” says the Irishman.

“Go back and tell him that I’ll have it cleared the noo if he’ll keep his muts from sassin’ me when I’m talkie’ to ’em for their own good when they put them piles right where I have to go down to the boat,” answers the Scotchman.

It is needless to say that these messages lose nothing while being carried back and forth. Sometimes verbal messages, when repeated, sound something like this:

“Go over an’ tell that fellow not to fash me wi’ his clather, that I’m takin’ no back talk, the noo from the Irish. May the duvvil take ’em!”

The message heatedly flashed back reads this way: “Ah tell him that ’tis only a man of Irish discint that he’s tryin’ to bully, a man that was born under the Stars and Stripes an’ knows no other flag; a man that fought for the government that he’s now workin’ under.”

And the Scotchman wittily replies: “He’d melt like a snowball in heaven if he was fightin’ under some flags.”

“Say! when is it ever goin’ to stop?” ask their respective clans. “You’d ought to see that Irishman’s eyes rollin’ when he was spittin’ fire this morning. And the Scotchman’s hair was standin’ on end an’ he talked some lingo that no one could understand.”

“That was broad Scotch, sir,” puts in an English subject who knows something of the British Isles.

Sometimes they meet face to face, and the scrap is heated and amusing. With their factions ranged behind them trying to suppress their mirth at so much free fun, they jaw each other to their heart’s content.

“What are all them niggers running for?” asked a man a few days ago. “Are they blasting up there?”

“No, there ain’t no blastin up there. The niggers like to take a run down to the dock to hear the jaw, and, say, they’re eatin’ each other up to-day.”

“Say, boss, the Colonel’s car is comin’,” says a trusted African to his Scottish chief.

“Wull, let it come, an’ dinna ye bother me.”

But an observing person can see that the lava ceases to flow as the noise of the wheels reach the ears of the warring ones.

“Get busy, there, ye fellows, an’ move them piles. Don’t ye see that the Colonel’ll be along here in a minute? There he is now.”

SECOND PART

THE WOES OF THE MANLY ONES.

Say! it’s a limit, the way a guy has got to get through this life; He gets in a scrape if he’s single, and it’s hell to get on with a wife. I’m just like one of a thousand that are into a tangle now, I’d like to get out of it, Gawd knows, yes, but really I don’t know how. In two little rooms on Fourteenth street, things are away askew, Two little brown kiddies their daddy meet, an’ a brown girl white clear through, Wait at the door and wonder why I ain’t like I used to be, While on my heart there’s an awful load, that I try not to let her see. The Colonel says that we guys must go; we ain’t needed here no more; Dredges now are doin’ the work that the shovels done before. An’ I ain’t got a cent of the money saved; I sent it all to the wife, Who went out West with a guy she loved; ’twas that one blighted my life. Five years ago I landed here; I was broke an’ feelin’ sick, An’ the brown girl took an’ loved me up, an’ stuck to me like a brick; An’ now I find it an effort to stick to her likewise; Say! any kind of a female is better than us male guys. Say, lady! don’t you remember them words that Shakespeare said About a feller’s sex settin’ boldly on his head? Why didn’t Gawd make us different when He put us here below; Why did He give me a conscience? That’s what I’d like to know. There’s Loring, an’ Ives an’ Phelan, in the same sort of mess as me; Loring is handsome an’ bad clear through, an’ he laughs an’ says it’s a spree. He laughed last night when he came to the park, an’ sat with me on a bench, An’ he said: “Cut out that mopin’, kid; she’s only a nigger wench.” “But what about them kids?” says I, “ain’t they part of my flesh and blood?” “It’s been that way with us guys,” says he, “since the time of the ark an’ flood. If you take the bunch to New Orleans, you’ll all get landed in gaol For a crime that ain’t no crime at all, an’ ye can’t get out on bail. Leave her on Fourteenth street,” says he, with a laugh that was loud an’ rude, “An’ some old Dutch guy will blow in some day an’ will take care of the whole darn brood.” But I know that she’ll curse me if I go, an’ I know that them curses fall; God knows in my life there’s enough of woe; an’ she’s human, after all.

THE FLIGHT OF THE MANLY ONES.

Loring and Ives and Phelan went off to Colon last night, And the women on Fourteenth street are sad, and the kids are filled with fright! At eight last evening Loring came to bid his child “good-bye”; He picked her up and he kissed her, and you ought to hear him sigh. “Gee! you’re a pretty kid,” says he, in a tone of voice that was sad; “Your lips and your skin are mighty good; it’s a pity your hair is bad.” Then he looked in the baby’s eyes a while, and he says in a voice of despair: “I hate to leave this poor little child; there’s my mother’s image there!”

The brown one was crying to beat the band, And Loring, he looked wild, And says he to her, a kind of off-hand, “Woman! look after your child! This is no time for sentiment; bring the money you’ve kept for me; And God help you if you have it spent,” says he, as he winked at me.

He counted the money out to her--five hundred and forty-five, And says he, “If you divvy this up with a guy I’ll come and skin you alive. Take the kid from this place of stench, for I’m coming back some day-- Not to see you, you doggone wench--to take my child away.”

Two Voodoos were sitting and looking on; they intended to give him some dope That would make him sleep till the train had gone, After that there’d be little hope That he’d ever wake to things again--that are wholesome and clean and good. He’d thirst for low life without twinge of pain, if the Voodoos got dope to his blood.

Well, then we went out to Corozal, where the others were taking the train, And a white girl waited for Loring there, and her tears fell down like rain. He didn’t seem to mind it at all; in fact, he looked rather proud, When a married woman ran up to him and kissed him before the crowd. Then Phelan and Ives, in an awful fright, got into the train mighty quick, For their women from Fourteenth street were there, and each had a gun and a brick. Gee! it’s the limit, the way we guys will tamper with women’s lives, When we have nothing in mind but to leave them behind, like Loring and Phelan and Ives.

A WORD TO THE SLANDERED ONES.

Gee! girl, you’re looking sad, but it’s hardly worth your while; You’ve heard the slander; it’s mighty bad, but hold up your head and smile. Keep cool, lest your hair turns grey; no matter how keen your sorrow, The man who slandered you so to-day will slander some other to-morrow. He is only a tiny atom of dirt, like the rest of his kind of earth; His slanderous words may rankle and hurt, but ’twas envy that gave them birth. If you have no brother or kindred man, why expect to see fun? Seek your retreat where no vultures meet, and lead your life like a nun. You’re only a sex, and your presence vex the things that as man you know; You’ve lost your good name, though you’re not to blame--a vulture would have it so. More than two thousand miles away is the class into which you were born; The class where a man is a man each day, and your kind is not subject of scorn. The things called men, who bandied your name over their glasses of booze, Who made you the butt of their poker game, have nothing themselves to lose. They of female kind, whom they happen to meet, do not to your sphere; And most of the guys that you see on the street are subject to fits that are queer.

MRS. WITH’S AFFINITY.

A Man named Mike Maginity Was Mrs. With’s affinity, And Mrs. Brown moved out of town, Away from that vicinity.

Then a mut named Jim O’Flarity, In a burst of fool garality, Told Mr. With there was no mith In Mrs. With’s hilarity.

Mr. With was watchful then; He polished up his gun, and when The soul mate came he fired to maim, Like many other foolish men.

With is in the penitentiary, Without the least retrenchery, And calm and still, on Monkey Hill, Poor Mike will spend the century.

Mrs. With, in fetch array, And many kinds of wretchery, Was sent away one summer day-- Deported home through treachery.

THE TANGO SKIRT AND THE WOMAN.

We had a jolly holdup in the Central house last night, and the way that Tango skirt was hung put the women in a fright. A preacher took a snapshot of that violent expose, and sent it off to Comstock, to New York, U. S. A. ’Twas fun to see the women steer their husbands out the door, and Murtha said, “We’ll be doggoned if we’ll dance here any more.” ---- bowed his head and blushed, and wore a look of shame, and the management felt awful, and said we’re not to blame. The captains and lieutenants said that Tango was a sin, while the roughnecks and the vultures sat ’round and wore a grin. The learned judges from the Zone to the balconies went to look, and the only baldhead not around was that of Colonel Took. Poor Deeps and Jimmy Terry came in to take a squint; the dancers acted merry, but finally took a hint that their dancing was unseeming, as the females all were hurt, and Deeps put on his glasses to diagnose that skirt. He said ’twas sixteen inches wide, and just above the knee there’s nothing but horizon, as every one can see; there’s not a bit of cotton cloth, nor a tiny bit of lace--nothing but the electric light a-shining through the space. Then he turned to order drinks up, for the waiter came to him, and Terry he got busy and diagnosed a limb. There were shouts and shrieks of feeling and echoes of applause; men were drunk and reeling, went forth with loud haw-haws. The persons we call human, when all is said and done, at the antics of a woman looked on and called it fun.

AN EPIC OF THE ZONE.

Percy Beckle went out walking in the silent hours of night; the neighbors all were talking, and his wife was filled with fright. She would sit beside the window, her lone watch to keep, and would tell her friends and children he was walking in his sleep. She married him in Pottsville, for better or for worse; he was a hard-shell Baptist, and didn’t smoke or curse; but he entered in the service of the U. S. Government, passed examination and to Panama was sent.

When the doctors looked him over it was found he had no brain, so they put him as a gumshoe on an early morning train, and there he met a charmer whose skin was very brown; for a year she took his coin away, and then she turned him down.

He then became a Redman, a thing he shouldn’t do, and later thought it better to become a Kangaroo. He started chasing petticoats wherever one he saw, and the Kangaroos got after him; ’twas so against their law(?). Meantime his wife was hungry and his babies had no shoes; the Redmen took and threw him out, he didn’t pay his dues; his poor wife took to drinking, to while the time away, and Mrs. C. L. E. sent her to Brooklyn, U. S. A.

Now, Percy kept the chase up for nigh another year; his business was to ascertain if females acted queer. The women feared to speak or look, they hated him so much, but Percy knew them like a book, being Pennsylvania Dutch.

He would go to Sam’s on Sundays, and to the Central, too, and would sit and tell the vultures of the many things he knew. If he saw a female passing he would bow and scrape and smile, and if she turned her nose up he would criticize her style. (The brute!)

At last he went and sickened, he was feeling very sad; the plots he made had thickened, and the women all were mad. Decks said he had nephritis. They all pronounced him ill. But he died of feminitis, and he lies on Money Hill.

THE VULTURES ON THE ZONE.

To all the jolly roughnecks and pushers of the pen, a short and pungent lecture I will give. Just take this bit of doggerel, and read it if you’re men, and use it as a lesson while you live. If you go to Sam’s on Sunday, and you meet a smirking guy with commissary silk hose on his feet, if he smiles from ear to ear, make up your mind to hear a story that is anything but sweet. He will say I met last night Bill Smith’s wife, that’s right, an’, say, that woman, she just follers me around, while poor Bill is all alone, for she never is at home, and any guy can get her if he’s sound. If your blood is red, my son, you will take and draw your gun, and aim it at the gizzard of the brute, or you’ll punch his booby head till he wishes he was dead and make of him a spectacle that’s cute.

A chump that talks of women is nothing that is human; make up your mind he’s just a low-down liar, who wouldn’t stand a chance to win a passing glance from women who just live for men to hire. By the hundreds on the Zone this class of vultures roam; they are ever on the watch to pick a flaw; they covet neighbors’ wives who are living decent lives, and to save their coin they’d break the moral law.

Now I hope you all are wise to the lying, boastful spies, who criticize their betters in the street, who pretend they’re looking sly and who wink the other eye at every decent woman that they meet. When some vulture tries this chaff, just say, “You make me laugh,” and hold him up to ridicule, the guy; you may bet your bottom dollar ’tis some gink that doesn’t holler, that gets the precious favors on the sly.

A FAKER’S FAREWELL.

Farewell, O thou land of sweet sunshine, where I walked with non-sweatable pace; I was fed, I was clothed, and I humbugged; my lady I decked out with grace. From the cake with sugary frosting all covered with raisins I go, to the land where the natives are often addicted to shoveling snow, where I shan’t have a coon right before me to run when I bid for a thing, I go from the land of sweet loafing, where our Uncle George is the king.

Farewell, thou dear land of the Aztec, O, pulga, farewell, to thy sting, to the hum of the social mosquito, that Gorgas could trap while a-wing. Farewell to the nights of gay doing, to the mirth which I had on the sly, some kinds that I now am a-rueing, while our uncle just winked on the sly. When into a new job I sidle, somewhere in Nebraska’s broad space, I ain’t got enough to live idle, but I pray that the Lord give me grace, to find such a cinch unmolested, where no dictator ever shall say: “Your job I’m about to have vested, in a man who will work for his pay.” O! politics, where are the graces the Irish have seen in thy wake? I’ve dropped into many soft places, and was ousted out just for your sake. But no job was ever as downy as this one, the truth here I tell. My bald brow is wrinkled and frowny; dear land of the Aztec, farewell!

IT’S GOT ’EM.

It’s got ’em, yes, it’s got ’em; they’re loco, one and all. There has never been as many since the time of Adam’s fall. The man that lives across the way, the loved one of your soul; the guy who owes you money, all are loco on the whole. Yes, it’s got ’em. Some are off on trotting, and some on love and wine; some are off on politics, and some are off on coin. It’s got ’em; yes, it’s got ’em, in many different ways; the women’s skirts like trousers are, the men are wearing stays. It’s got ’em.

While alighting from the train at night in your grimy khaki pants, don’t wince to see your heart’s delight all togged out for a dance; don’t raise your eyes to look at her; be workmanlike and meek. She smiles on Major Dickelfer, she fears you’re goin’ to speak. For it’s got her.

You’ll find your kids a-cryin’ ’round the brown-skinned hired girl, the neighbors all a-pryin’, and your cassa in a whirl; with rats and bits of finery, with old stockings and old shoes. Don’t go to geetin’ squiffy; ‘twas just the thing you choose. And it’s got you. Don’t fret and fume about it; take your commissary book, go down and get your groceries, and bring them to the cook. Then take your kids an’ wash ’em up an’ change their little frocks; see they get their suppers, then mend your pants and socks. And don’t let it get you.

If your wife throws cups and saucers about your head at night, don’t shriek and call the neighbors in to put ’em in a fright. Don’t call on poor Johannes, and put him in a rage, but fold your arms about your breast, like a hero on the stage. She’s got it.

If your neighbor’s wife is flirting, don’t run to call police, just flirt a little bit yourself or go your way in peace. Don’t go to Sam’s and sit and tell the vultures all she said when you took her for the auto ride to Panama with “Red.” Or she’ll get you.

IT’S HELL.

Ingersoll said that hell would be where men played tag and harps all day, but just a few lines here will tell about some miseries that made a hell. When you work like a brute from morning to night, the result but another man’s joy and delight; when your wife growls late and early, too, and never speaks well of what you do: That’s hell!

When she runs away with another man, though she knows you are doing the best you can, you know it’s because your pay ain’t high, but you make up your mind that it’s best to lie; so when folks ask you the reason why, you say her old mother is going to die. Then, lo! the old woman turns up that night, and your neighbors say: “He’s a liar, all right.” That’s hell.

When some one you wouldn’t let wipe your feet tells to the vultures in the street that to gain your affections they needn’t try, that he’s the petted gink on the sly, and some old gossip who this has heard comes round and tells you every word, your mind and soul are filled with dismay, but because you’re a lady there’s nothing to say. And it’s hell.