Part 9

“Gewillikins! When I heered him talkin’ like that, didn’t I begin to squirm and fidget around on my cheer! I wished then I had never seen the place, more especially the long-eared mule. But I see I was in for it, as the boy said when he got his head stuck in the cream jar. Thar was no way of gittin’ out without comin’ right down to beggin’ off, and I was too consumin’ proud to do that, you know, if I was sartain of bein’ cut up into as many pieces as a boardin’-house pie.

“Jest then the landlord came back and sed the room was ready, but remarked that it was a leetle slippery yet. He sed, for a lean man he never did see a feller that had so much blood into him as that Tuscaloosan had. Beckonin’ me to the counter he ses:—

“‘You mout as well settle your bill now before you go in thar; it may be more satisfactory to you to have the settlin’ of your own affairs, and it’ll save me the trouble of huntin’ over your effects arter you’re dead.’

“‘All right,’ I ses, ‘now, if you say so; but it’s ginnerally admitted that sure things sometimes git mi’ty slippery all to wunst, and perhaps somebody’s goggles may prove blue in the mornin’ that were bought for green uns at night.’

“I didn’t want to let any of ’em think I was skeered, though, by jingo! I felt sartin of bein’ minced up, and the cold chills were jest streakin’ all over me.

“So we started for the room, which was about twelve feet square and dark as pitch.

“The landlord held the door open until we were in opposite corners with our knives out. Then he shut and locked it and left us to work out our own salvation, as the missionary did the South Sea Islanders when he overheerd ’em talkin’ about the best way of cookin’ him the next mornin’.

“Wasn’t it dark in thar though? and still? you could have heered a lizard a-breathin’ in thar, it was so quiet.

“I allowed Glass-eyed Bill was expectin’ that I would go a-shufflin’ and a-huntin’ around for him, but I had no sich foolish notion. I cal’lated if thar was any findin’ to be done he’d have to do it, for I was detarmined to stand right thar till I’d drop in my tracks before I’d go a-s’archin’ around for him.

“I commenced breathin’ about twice a minute, and not makin’ any more noise at it than a wall-bug, nuther. But for all that I heered him a-movin’ over towards me. I’ll allers think that Cranebow had a nose onto him like a setter dog, for he somehow or another got right over thar whar I was standin’. Pooty soon I felt somethin’ a-stingin’ along my forehead thar, and I suspected at once that it was the knife that was feelin’ around for me; so I reckoned it wouldn’t be long until he was a-proddin’ of it somewhere else, and like the boy with the candy bag, I cal’lated the fust poke was everythin’; so I made one sudden and detarmined plunge and a sort of upward rip, at the same time, cal’latin’ to do all the damage I could right at once while I was about it.

“He heered me start, and thought to squat down before I got the knife into him I reckon. Though his intentions were good he only spread the disaster, like the gal who tried to put the fire out with the corn broom, for as he was gwine down the knife was rizin’, and the result was truly astonishin’. I’ll be smashed if he didn’t fly open from eend to eend like a ripe pea pod. It was done so alfired quick too, that he didn’t realize how bad he was hurt I think. Ses he, ‘We’ll try that over ag’in, stranger.’ As he spoke, he started to git up, but fell away seemin’ly in two different directions.

“‘Not on this side, we won’t,’ I ses, as I went huntin’ around for the door.

“I was surprised as much as him at the way things had turned out, for when I stepped into that room I looked on it as steppin’ into another world. When the door was found I commenced knockin’, and pooty soon the landlord came and opened it. He couldn’t see me at fust, but allowed it was the bully that was thar, of course, and ses he:—

“‘You made pooty quick work of it this time; that feller won’t want to buy any more mules arter this, I take it.’

“‘No,’ ses I, steppin’ out, ‘nor claim a critter that doesn’t belong to him nuther.’

“‘What!’ he cried, jumpin’ back with a look upon his face that told me at once he was mi’ty displeased at the way things war developin’, ‘is it you? whar’s Glass-eyed Bill?’ he contin’ed, shadin’ his eyes with his hand and peerin’ into the darkness.

“‘He’s lyin’ around in thar somewhar,’ I answered careless like, jest that way. ‘The head-half of him is nigh the door here, paralyzed, I reckon, but the leg part is somewhere over in the corner thar whar ye hear the kickin’; you mout as well be gettin’ yer bucket and dust-pan ready, for you’ll have quite a job gettin’ all the pieces together ag’in, I’m thinkin’,’ I contin’ed, just that indifferent way, and walkin’ out towards the bar-room as I spoke.

“You never did see a feller so set back in your life. He looked at me as though I had as many heads onto me as the beast we read about in the Scripters. I’ll allers believe that he was in cahoot with old Glass-eye, and jist kept him thar to pick quarrels with strangers so they could have the pickin’ over of thar effects.

“Arter washin’ my hands and plasterin’ up the cut on my forehead a little, I went out and saddled the mule, and the crowd all came out to see me gwine off. I reckon if I had stopped in the village I could have had things about my own way for some time. Before I rode off I turned round to ’em and ses:—

“‘When you git so frightened of a bully ag’in that you daren’t sneeze within forty feet of him, jest send for me, and I’ll open him up ready for saltin’ while you’d be wipin’ your mouth.’

“With that I rode off, and left ’em all starin’ at each other, and then arter me, as though wonderin’ who or what I was, anyhow.”

ROLLER SKATING.

Oh! skating, roller skating now, of pastimes takes the lead; No more we take the moonlight sail, or mount the prancing steed, No more to fair, or carnival, no more to masquerade, No more along the lengthy bridge, the thousands promenade, No more we see Othello rave, and roll his jealous eyes, Or Hamlet leaping in the grave, where loved Ophelia lies, Or see the boasting Falstaff sheath his blade in Percy’s corse, Or hear the baffled Richard shout, “My kingdom for a horse!” In vain the minstrels shake the bones, and tell the funny tale, Their blazoned bill, or blatant band, to draw the public fail; For those, who still their millions hide, and those at ruin’s brink, Alike throw business cares aside, and hasten to the Rink. Talk of your bounding horseback rides, or of the grace indeed. A maiden shows when she bestrides the frail velocipede; I charge ye, if you’d see a maid when graceful she appears, Go see her on the roller skates, as round the Rink she steers.

A TERRIBLE NOSE.

I was to-day brought in contact with an old gentleman named Bickerstaff, who keeps a crockery store in the village where I am visiting. This Bickerstaff is the unfortunate possessor of the queerest-looking nose I have yet encountered.

It was not the original intention of Providence that he should follow such a proboscis through life, for there was a time when he, like other men, had a forerunner ornamental as well as useful. But through an accident, the nose he now bears in all its deformity was shoved upon him.

It seems one day, while furiously pursuing a little urchin who had mischievously put a stone through a glass jar by the door, he ran his face against the end of a scantling a boy was carrying past on his shoulder, and set his nose well up on his forehead in a triangular lump.

Strange to say, no inducements that the surgeon could hold out served to coax it back to its former position. His wife, who was young, and rather prepossessing in appearance, worried terribly about it. She finally left him, and went to live with her mother, and immediately set about obtaining a divorce from him.

She would, in all probability, have obtained it, if she had not died before the case was properly laid before the commissioners; because she was capable of doing better, and when you come to see the nose with which she wished to sever her connections, you could hardly blame her. Old Bickerstaff, to tell the honest truth, did look like the very old Nick in masquerade costume.

His nose, as it reposed between his eyebrows, displayed an enormous pair of nostrils large as front-door keyholes. At a short distance a person would think he had four eyes in his head. He was the living terror of the school children who daily passed his place of business. They either scurried past on the run, or with their hands over their eyes.

Even among creeping infants—who had often shrunk back from the threshold as old Bickerstaff passed the door—he was known as the Boo; and there was no danger of them crawling into the street while he remained in the vicinity.

Nervously-inclined women also avoided him. They would cut across the road when they saw him coming toward them, or turn back, feeling their pockets as though they had forgotten something, and hurry back to go round some other way.

Dogs never barked at him. If they happened to be engaged in that pastime when he hove in sight, they would slope off the demonstration into a yelp. And as if they had suddenly recollected that they were wanted at home about that time, they tucked their tails between their legs and dusted away at a lively rate. Hitched horses even snorted lustily and pulled hard upon their halters when old Bickerstaff shuffled by.

The old gentleman had a pew in the church directly in front of the pulpit, and the first time he attended divine worship after his nose had been set up, he threw the minister out of his discourse altogether. He couldn’t keep run of what he wanted to say, no way he could fix it. He had Jonah swallowing the whale, instead of the whale doing the job for Jonah.

No matter how much he endeavored to keep his eyes in some other direction, they would invariably wander back to rest upon that terrible sight, and then he would be off the track again in a twinkling. The next day the trustees of the church waited on Bickerstaff, and in the most polite manner possible requested him to exchange his pew for one farther removed from the pulpit.

The old fellow—who, by the way, had considerable temper—flew off the handle at once, and in the most unchristian-like language denounced the church and the doctrine that would draw the line of demarkation between fair faces and plain.

He informed the trustees if the parson didn’t like the looks of his congregation, he could turn his pulpit around facing the other way. Yet, though he was rough in his speech, and given to storming considerably when his pride was touched, he was not altogether lacking in those qualities which go far to make up your real man; and when the trustees offered to give him the side pew _rent free_, his voice at once grew low, and in a becoming manner he accepted the situation. After that, things were not quite as bad. The minister occasionally got a quartering view of him, but the odd-looking disfigurement didn’t strike him with full force. Still, I was informed, the Reverend gentleman’s discourse was principally addressed to the hearers on the other side of the church, thereafter.

But—to his credit be it mentioned—he always turned in the direction of old Bickerstaff when he closed his eyes in prayer.

A MASKED BATTERY.

I learn by an evening paper that an old lady in the lower part of the city to-day, while burning some cast-off garments, threw an old vest belonging to her son-in-law into the fireplace. A Remington rifle cartridge happened to be slumbering in one of the pockets. It awakened, and therefrom hangs a piece of crape.

This draws me on to fasten upon paper an incident that happened in the mountains some years ago. I was spending a few days in the mines at the time, with a friend named Colyer, who was working a claim back of Sonora.

He had three partners in the concern. One was an old fellow named Twitchell, who at some time in his life had been a judge in a supreme court in one of the Southwestern States—I forget which. At all events, they called him “Judge,” and he bore the title with becoming dignity.

Another was a dark-looking, one-eyed Swede, who wore a large green patch over the empty socket. This seemed to add a double brilliancy and fire to the other optic, and gave to him rather a ferocious appearance. He would have passed anywhere for a buccaneer of at least fifteen years’ cruising. Yet he was quite a mild and peaceable man, for all his demoniacal aspect. The third was a Vermonter, named Theodore Arthur Willoughby Spooner, called Spoon, for short. They occupied a small log cabin near their claim, and were like miners generally, hopeful, if not happy.

One evening Theodore Arthur Willoughby Spooner was rummaging over some old articles left in the cabin by a former occupant. Among them he found an odd-looking pistol which the rust of years had rendered worthless. The weapon was an uncommon one. I never saw anything like it before or since, and it is my daily prayer that I never may. It was a ten-shooter; with nine chambers for bullets, and a tenth and larger barrel for throwing buckshot, slugs, walnuts, small onions, or potatoes. In fact it was capable of receiving almost anything not exceeding a billiard ball in size. Such an awe-inspiring shooting iron would be invaluable to a footpad or road agent. It was particularly suited for men of this stripe; for the man who would not blanch, settle down on his knees and surrender up his valuables when that battery was leveled at his head, must be brave indeed.

After we had examined it for some time and vainly endeavored to raise the hammer, the one-eyed Swede took it. In trying to revolve the chambers he dropped it unswervingly upon Judge Twitchell’s favorite corn. It weighed about as much as a good-sized anvil, and no person who had experienced the peculiar sensation that shoots along the nerves from an injured corn, could blame the Judge for indulging in a little profanity about that time.

Smarting under the contusion he grabbed the instrument and in an erring moment flung it into the fire.

Not a man of that little assemblage but would have given his day’s pan-out to have the pistol out of the flames again; but neither wished to assume the responsibility of poking for it. The confounded thing hadn’t been fully canvassed, and we didn’t know whether or not it was loaded or which way it was aiming. It might be pointing out at the door, or up the chimney, or it might be leveled at a fellow’s very vitals; there was a sort of creeping uncertainty about the whole thing that was calculated to inspire solemn and serious reflection, and make us sit uneasily upon our stools.

We were not long in doubt, however, for in ten seconds after the villainous-looking mitrailleuse settled into the glowing embers, there was no foot of space, no nook or corner within the wooden walls of that humble dwelling, that was a good place for a man to be who was not fully prepared to exchange worlds.

File firing commenced on the right of the fireplace, under cover of burning brands. There was a sharp report, a cloud of ashes and a shower of coals, and amid the general din the stem and bowl of the meerschaum in the teeth of Theodore Arthur Willoughby Spooner dissolved partnership at once and forever.

At the same instant the old water pitcher jumped from the table mortally wounded in the abdomen.

During the next few moments there was extraordinary ground and lofty tumbling inside the cabin.

Not because I was possessed of greater fear, or less courage, than any of the party, but because I felt that I had more to live for, I was the first to reach the open air. The “Judge” was following close at my heels, but in his blind haste he tripped in the doorway and blocked the passage. It was at this critical moment that the leap-frog performance commenced.

The antics of Chirini’s circus troupe, during their most brilliant achievements, dwindled into mere schoolboy exercise when compared with the gymnastic efforts of the excited miners. Out came my friend Colyer over the prostrate form of the Judge, and the one-eyed Swede over Colyer, his hair erect and his one dilated eye standing in bold relief from his dark face, like the ornamental stud on a horse’s blinker. Last though not least interested or frightened, came Theodore Arthur Willoughby Spooner, sailing like a flying squirrel over the one-eyed Swede. In the meantime the pistol was jumping about in the fire like a fish in a scoop-net, showering bullets in every direction.

The clock hung silent upon the wall, having received a charge of buckshot full in the face, and the dog lay dead upon the hearthstone. “Chickens come home to roost,” saith the old proverb, and indeed it would seem so, for poor Judge Twitchell, whose rashness brought about the whole calamity, received a parting salute, a farewell shot, just as he had gathered himself on all fours to make a final lunge from the fusillade within. Fortunately the wound was not a fatal one, though severe enough to keep his memory green for weeks.

Some time elapsed before any person would venture back into the cabin after the firing ceased. No one had kept count of the shots or knew at what moment the battery might open again. We probably would have remained out all night rather than take any chances, but the coals which had been thrown over the cabin, started a brisk fire in half a dozen different places, and we were obliged to run some risks to extinguish the flames and save the place.

THE PRIZE I DIDN’T WIN.

Who hath contended for a prize? Who hath stood in front of an armed host with a noble emulation warming his breast? Who, with one eye glancing along the barrel to the target in the distance, and the other closed upon the world, hath pressed carefully upon the decisive trigger? And who hath seen the glittering bone of contention passing away into other hands than his at the close of the contest? If such a person there be, then can he sympathize with me in this, my dark hour of despondency.

To-day I entered the lists with eighty men to compete for a gold watch and chain of two hundred and fifty dollars in value. It was to be presented to the winner by the Governor of the State, at a grand ball in the evening. I, who prided myself that I was no woman with a gun, made a very fair impression upon the target; and fell back. For six long, dragging hours I watched the marksmen striving to beat my score. One by one the good shots whom I had reason to fear stepped forward, discharged their pieces, and fell back cursing their ill luck. At last nearly all had fired, and I in fancy could hear the elegant time-piece ticking in my pocket, and was already preparing the usual impromptu speech with which to thank the generous donor. At this point an individual stepped forward whom I had not included among my dangerous competitors, because on former occasions he failed to hit the broad side of a mountain. Yet to my astonishment he bore off the glittering prize!

I shall always think the devil rode astride of that individual’s bullets and guided them into the target; for while taking aim, the muzzle of his gun was tossing around like the tip of a cow’s horn when she’s grazing in a clover field.

What a picture was I, as I stood that evening at the ball, watching his Excellency presenting the magnificent watch I had for hours together looked upon as mine. Had I not received the premature congratulations of my friends, and been lavish of change at the bar in consequence? And the watch—where was it? I feel that I shall never have the face to look my musket in the muzzle again.

THE COUNTRYMAN’S TOOTH.

Last evening, while sitting in a physician’s office, I was amused by a countryman who entered the office to have a tooth extracted. The doctor took one of the old-fashioned “cant hooks” and went for the molar, but whether it was owing to lack of skill or the patient’s ducking while the instrument was being adjusted, it became fixed directly between two teeth, and after a painful struggle, out they both were drawn. The operator saw he had taken out two masticators instead of one, and before the patient noticed the fact, one was chucked under some papers lying upon the table by his side.

“Jerusalem!” cried the countryman, as soon as he could speak. “I thought by the yankin’ and the torturin’ pain you had hitched the blamed thingamagig onto my back-bone and was a snakin’ it out. Why, bless my soul!” he continued, as he ran his tongue into the awful chasm. “Hain’t you made a mistake, doctor, and pulled out the jaw instead of the tooth? Thar appears to be a ginneral cavin’ in all around thar.”

“Oh, no,” said the doctor; “there is the tormentor, sir,” and he held up the one tooth before the contorted face of the victim in triumph. “Your teeth pull out easy, sir, for their size,” he continued, as he wiped his instruments and put them away.

“They do, eh?” he exclaimed. “Wal, dear help them that have teeth that come out hard. ‘Taint all in the pullin’ nuther, but the incredulous hole they leave ahind ’em when they do come. Why, my teeth seem as far apart as two Sundays to a laborin’ man.”

“The other teeth will crowd over after a while,” said the doctor, encouragingly.

“It may be I’ll git sort of used to it after a while,” he replied, “but I’ll be blowed to the moon, if it doesn’t feel as though my tongue was wabblin’ around in some other person’s mouth about this time;” and he arose from the inquisitorial chair, paid the damages, and left the office.

MINING STOCKS.

The city to-day has been in a state of feverish excitement over dispatches received from the mining regions. The telegrams were fraught with startling intelligence. There has been a rich strike in the Savage mine, and stock is going up accordingly.

When stocks are running high, How natural to sigh, Ah, that I a thousand shares did command, That I might drink champagne, And hold a double rein, And be counted a power in the land.

The streets are crowded with men, women and children. It is certainly—as an old woman remarked at my elbow—easier for a needle to go through a camel’s eye, than for a person to pass through the throng at some of the corners. At present the person who does not own Savage stock is not considered of much account. I, who am always on the alert for new developments, and act upon the moment, make haste to give a sketch of the Savage stock going up.

It is ascending at a lively rate, there is no mistake about that. There is always two sides to a hill, however, and though the lucky stockholder to-day may reach the summit of his expectations, to-morrow may bring a descent that will be something to stand from under. And being possessed of quite a prophetic soul, I anticipate the event, and as a companion piece for the foregoing, give another sketch of the Savage stock coming down, which it will undoubtedly be before many days.

Well, I can exclaim with Banquo’s facetious murderer, “Let it comedown,” the decline cannot destroy my peace, nor deplete my purse.

ODE ON A FLEA.

“A lofty theme, Fit subject for the noblest bard That ever strung a lyre.” —_Coleridge._