Chapter 5

She gave me back my large, round half dollar and told me that she was already weary. She asked me to excuse her. She was willing to unveil the future to me in her poor, weak way, but she could not guarantee to let a large flood of light into the darkened basement of a benighted mind for half a dollar.

"You can tell me what year and on what day of the month you were born," said Mme. La Foy, "and I will outline your life to you. I generally require a lock of the hair, but in your case we will dispense with it."

I told her when I was born and the circumstances as well as I could recall them.

"This brings you under Venus, Mercury and Mars. These three planets were in conjunction at the time of your birth. You were born when the sign was wrong and you have had more or less trouble ever since. Had you been born when the sign was in the head or the heart, instead of the feet, you would not have spread out over the ground so much.

"Your health is very good, as is the health of those generally who are born under the same auspices that you were. People who are born under the reign of the crab are apt to be cancerous. You, however, have great lung power and wonderful gastric possibilities. Yet, at times, you would be easily upset. A strong cyclone that would unroof a court-house or tip over a through train would also upset you, in spite of your broad, firm feet if the wind got behind one of your ears.

"You will be married early, and you will be very happy, though your wife will not enjoy herself very much. Your wife will be much happier during her second marriage.

"You will prosper better in business matters without forming any partnerships. Do not go into partnership with a small, dark man who has neuralgia and a fine yacht. He has abundant means, but he will go through you like an electric shock.

"Tuesdays and Saturdays will be your most fortunate days on which to borrow money of men with light hair. Mondays and Thursdays will be your best days for approaching dark men.

"Look out for a low-set man accompanied by an office cat, both of whom are engaged in the newspaper business. He is crafty and bald-headed on his father's side. He prints the only paper that contains the full text of his speeches at testimonials and dinners given to other people. Do not loan him money on any account.

"You would succeed as well a musician or an inventor, but you would not do well as a poet. You have all the keen sensibility and strong passion of a poet, but you haven't the hair. Do not try poesy.

"In the future I see you very prosperous. You are on the lecture platform speaking. Large crowds of people are jostling each other at the box-office and trying to get their money back.

"Then I see you riding behind a flexible horse that must have cost a large sum of money. You are smoking a cigar that has never been in use before. Then Venus bisects the orbit of Mars and I see you going home with your head tied up in the lap robe, you and your spirited horse in the same ambulance."

"But do you see anything for me in the future, Mme. La Foy?" I asked, taking my feet off the table, the better to watch her features, "anything that would seem to indicate political preferment, a reward for past services to my country, as it were?"

"No, not clearly. But wait a moment. Your horoscope begins to get a little more intelligent. I see you at the door of the Senate Chamber. You are counting over your money and looking sadly at a schedule of prices. Then you turn sorrowfully away and decide to buy a seat in the House instead. Many years after I see you in the Senate. You are there day after day attending to your duties. You are there early, before any one else, and I see you pacing back and forth, up and down the aisles, sweeping out the Senate Chamber and dusting off the seats and rejuvenating the cuspidors."

"Does this horoscope which you are using this season give you any idea as to whether money matters will be scarce with me next week or otherwise, and if so what I had better do about it?"

"Towards the last of the week you will experience considerable monetary prostration, but just as you have become despondent, at the very tail end of the week, the horizon will clear up and a slight, dark gentleman, with wide trousers, who is a total stranger to you, will loan you quite a sum of money, with the understanding that it is to be repaid on Monday."

"Then you would not advise me to go to Coney Island until the week after next?"

"Certainly not."

"Would it be etiquette in dancing a quadrille to swing a young person of the opposite sex twice round at a select party when you are but slightly acquainted, but feel quite confident that her partner is unarmed?"

"Yes."

"Does your horoscope tell a person what to do with raspberry jelly that will not jell?"

"No, not at the present prices."

"So you predict an early marriage, with threatening weather and strong prevailing easterly winds along the Gulf States?"

"Yes, sir."

"And is there no way that this early marriage may be evaded?"

"No, not unless you put it off till later in life."

"Thank you," I said, rising and looking out the window over a broad sweep of undulating alley and wind-swept roofing, "and now, how much are you out on this?"

"Sir!"

"What's the damage?"

"Oh, one dollar."

"But don't you advertise to read the past, present and future for fifty cents?"

"Well, that is where a person has had other information before in his life and has some knowledge to begin with; but where I fill up a vacant mind entirely and store it with facts of all kinds and stock it up so that it can do business for itself, I charge a dollar. I cannot thoroughly refit and refurnish a mental tenement from the ground up for fifty cents."

I do not think we have as good "Astrologists" now as we used to have. Astrologists cannot crawl under the tent and pry into the future as they could three or four thousand years ago.

Mr. Silberberg

I like me yet dot leedle chile Vich climb my lap up in to-day, Unt took my cheap cigair avay, Unt laugh and kiss me purty whvile,-- Possescially I like dose mout' Vich taste his moder's like--unt so, Off my cigair it gone glean out --Yust let it go!

Vat I caire den for anyding? Der paper schlip out fon my hand, And all my odvairtizement stand, Mitout new changements boddering; I only dink--I have me dis Von leedle boy to pet unt love Unt play me vit, unt hug unt kiss-- Unt dot's enough!

Der plans unt pairposes I vear Out in der vorld all fades avay; Unt vit der beeznid of der day I got me den no time to spare; Der caires of trade vas caires no more-- Dem cash accounds dey dodge me by, Unt vit my chile I roll der floor, Unt laugh unt gry!

Ah! frient! dem childens is der ones Dot got some happy times--you bet!-- Dot's vy ven I been grooved up yet I vish I vould been leedle vonce! Unt ven dot leetle roozter tries Dem baby-tricks I used to do, My mout it vater, unt my eyes Dey vater too!

Unt all der summertime unt spring Of childhood it come back to me, So dot it vas a dream I see Ven I yust look at anyding, Unt ven dot leedle boy run by, I dink "dot's me," fon hour to hour Schtill chasing yet dose butterfly Fon flower to flower!

Oxpose I vas lots money vairt, Mit blenty schtone-front schtore to rent Unt mor'gages at twelf per-cent, Unt diamonds in my ruffled shairt,-- I make a'signment of all dot, Unt tairn it over mit a schmile, Obber you please--but don'd forgot I keep dot chile!

Spirits at Home

(THE FAMILY)

There was Father, and Mother, and Emmy, and Jane And Lou, and Ellen, and John and me-- And father was killed in the war, and Lou She died of consumption, and John did too, And Emmy she went with the pleurisy.

(THE SPIRITS)

Father believed in 'em all his life-- But Mother, at first, she'd shake her head-- Till after the battle of Champion Hill, When many a flag in the winder-sill Had crape mixed in with the white and red!

I used to doubt 'em myself till then-- But me and Mother was satisfied When Ellen she set, and Father came And rapped "God bless you!" and Mother's name, And "The flag's up here!" And we just all cried!

Used to come often after that, And talk to us--just as he used to do, Pleasantest kind! And once, for John, He said he was "lonesome but wouldn't let on-- Fear Mother would worry, and Emmy and Lou."

But Lou was the bravest girl on earth-- For all she never was hale and strong She'd have her fun! With her voice clean lost She'd laugh and joke us that when she crossed To father, _we'd_ all come taggin' along.

Died--just that way! And the raps was thick _That_ night, as they often since occur, Extry loud. And when Lou got back She said it was Father and her--and "whack!" She tuck the table--and we knowed _her_!

John and Emmy, in five years more, Both had went.--And it seemed like fate!-- For the old home it burnt down,--but Jane And me and Ellen we built again The new house, here, on the old estate.

And a happier family I don't know Of anywheres--unless its _them_-- Father, with all his love for Lou, And her there with him, and healthy, too, And laughin', with John and little Em.

And, first we moved in the new house here, They all dropped in for a long pow-wow. "We like your buildin', of course," Lou said,-- "But wouldn't swop with you to save your head-- For _we_ live in the ghost of the old house, now!"

In an interview which I have just had with myself, I have positively stated, and now repeat, that at neither the St. Louis nor Chicago Convention will my name be presented as a candidate.

But my health is bully.

We are upon the threshold of a most bitter and acrimonious fight. Great wisdom and foresight are needed at this hour, and the true patriot will forget himself and his own interests in his great yearning for the good of his common country and the success of his party. What we need at this time is a leader whose name will not be presented at the convention but whose health is good.

No one has a fuller or better conception of the great duties of the hour than I. How clearly to my mind are the duties of the American citizen outlined to-day! I have never seen with clearer, keener vision the great needs of my country, and my pores have never been more open. Four years ago I was in some doubt relative to certain important questions which now are clearly and satisfactorily settled in my mind. I hesitated then where now I am fully established, and my tongue was coated in the morning when I arose, whereas now I bound lightly from bed, kick out a window, climb to the roof by means of the fire-escape and there rehearse speeches which I will make this fall in case it should be discovered at either of the conventions that my name alone can heal the rupture in the party and prevent its works from falling out.

I think my voice is better also that it was either four, eight, twelve or sixteen years ago, and it does not tire me so much to think of things to say from the tail-gate of a train as it did when I first began to refrain from presenting my name to conventions.

According to my notion, our candidate should be a plain man, a magnetic but hairless patriot, who should be suddenly thought of by a majority of the convention and nominated by acclamation. He should not be a hide-bound politician, but on the contrary he should be greatly startled, while down cellar sprouting potatoes, to learn that he has been nominated. That's the kind of man who always surprises everybody with his sagacity when an emergency arises.

In going down my cellar stairs the committee will do well to avoid stepping on a large and venomous dog who sleeps on the top stair. Or I will tie him in the barn if I can be informed when I am liable to be startled.

I have always thought that the neatest method of calling a man to public life was the one adopted some years since in the case of Cincinnatus. He was one day breaking a pair of nervous red steers in the north field. It was a hot day in July, and he was trying to summer fallow a piece of ground where the jimson weeds grew seven feet high. The plough would not scour, and the steers had turned the yoke twice on him. Cincinnatus had hung his toga on a tamarac pole to strike a furrow by, and hadn't succeeded in getting the plough in more than twice in going across. Dressing as he did in the Roman costume of 458 B. C., the blackberry vines had scratched his massive legs till they were a sight to behold. He had scourged Old Bright and twisted the tail of Bolly till he was sick at heart. All through the long afternoon, wearing a hot, rusty helmet with rabbit-skin ear tabs he had toiled on, when suddenly a majority of the Roman voters climbed over the fence and asked him to become dictator in place of Spurious Melius.

Putting on his toga and buckling an old hame strap around his loins he said: "Gentlemen, if you will wait till I go to the house and get some vaseline on my limbs I will do your dictating for you as low as you have ever had it done." He then left his team standing in the furrow while he served his country in an official capacity for a little over twenty-nine years, after which he went back and resumed his farming.

Though 2,300 years have since passed away and historians have been busy with that epoch ever since, no one has yet discovered the methods by which Cincinnatus organized and executed this, the most successful "People's Movement" of which we are informed.

The great trouble with the modern boom is that it is too precocious. It knows more before it gets its clothes on than the nurse, the physician and its parents. It then dies before the sap starts in the maple forests.

My object in writing this letter is largely to tone down and keep in check any popular movement in my behalf until the weather in more settled. A season-cracked boom is a thing I despise.

I inclose my picture, however, which shows that I am so healthy that it keeps me awake nights. I go about the house singing all the time and playing pranks on my grandparents. My eye dances with ill-concealed merriment, and my conversation is just as sparkling as it can be.

I believe that during this campaign we should lay aside politics so far as possible and unite on an unknown, homely, but sparkling man. Let us lay aside all race prejudices and old party feeling and elect a magnetic chump who does not look so very well, but who feels first rate.

Towards the middle of June I shall go away to an obscure place where I cannot be reached. My mail will be forwarded to me by a gentleman who knows how I feel in relation to the wants and needs of the country.

To those who have prospered during the past twenty years let me say they owe it to the perpetuation of the principles and institutions towards the establishment and maintenance of which I have given the best energies of my life. To those who have been unfortunate let me say frankly that they owe it to themselves.

I have never had less malaria or despondency in my system that I have this spring. My cheeks have a delicate bloom on them like a russet apple, and my step is light and elastic. In the morning I arise from my couch and, touching a concealed spring, it becomes an upright piano. I then bathe in a low divan which contains a jointed tank. I then sing until interfered with by property owners and tax-payers who reside near by. After a light breakfast of calf's liver and custard pie I go into the reception-room and wait for people to come and feel my pulse. In the afternoon I lie down on a lounge for two or three hours, wondering in what way I can endear myself to the laboring man. I then dine heartily at my club. In the evening I go to see the amateurs play "Pygmalion and Galatea." As I remain till the play is over, any one can see that I am a very robust man. After I get home I write two or three thousand words in my diary. I then insert myself into the bosom of my piano and sleep, having first removed my clothes and ironed my trousers for future reference.

In closing, let me urge one and all to renewed effort. The prospects for a speedy and unqualified victory at the polls were never more roseate. Let us select a man upon whom we can all unite, a man who has no venom in him, a man who has successfully defied and trampled on the infamous Interstate Commerce act, a man who, though in the full flush and pride and bloom and fluff of life's meridian, still disdains to present his name to the convention.

Lines

ON HEARING A COW BAWL, IN A DEEP FIT OF DEJECTION, ON THE EVENING OF JULY 3, A. D. 18--

Portentous sound! mysteriously vast And awful in the grandeur of refrain That lifts the listener's hair, as it swells past, And pours in turbid currents down the lane.

The small boy at the woodpile, in a dream Slow trails the meat-rind o'er the listless saw; The chickens roosting o'er him on the beam Uplifted their drowsy heads with cootered awe.

The "Gung-oigh" of the pump is strangely stilled; The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic'ly, Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled With one lorn plaint's despotic minstrelsy.

Yet I would join thy sorrowing madrigal, Most melancholy cow, and sing of thee Full-hearted through my tears, for, after all 'Tis very kine of you to sing for me.

Me and Mary

All my feelin's, in the spring Gits so blame contrary I can't think of anything Only me and Mary! "Me and Mary!" all the time, "Me and Mary!" like a rhyme Keeps a-dinging on till I'm Sick o' "Me and Mary!"

"Me and Mary! Ef us two Only was together-- Playin' like we used to do In the Aprile weather!" All the night and all the day I keep wishin' thataway Till I'm gittin' old and gray Jist on "Me and Mary!"

Muddy yit along the pike Sense the winter's freezin' And the orchard's backard-like Bloomin' out this season; Only heerd one bluebird yit-- Nary robin er tomtit; What's the how and why of it? S'pect its "Me and Mary!"

Me and Mary liked the birds-- That is, Mary sorto' Liked them first, and afterwerds W'y I thought I orto. And them birds--ef Mary stood Right here with me as she should-- They'd be singin', them birds would All fer me and Mary!

Birds er not, I'm hopin' some I kin git to plowin': Ef the sun'll only come, And the Lord allowin', Guess to-morry I'll turn in And git down to work agin: This here loaferin' won't win; Not fer me and Mary!

Fer a man that loves, like me, And's afeard to name it, Till some other feller, he Gits the girl--dad-shame-it! Wet er dry, er clouds er sun-- Winter gone, er jist begun-- Out-door work few me er none. No more "Me and Mary!"

Niagara Falls from the Nye Side

ON BOARD THE BOUNDING TRAIN,} LONGITUDE 600 MILES WEST OF A GIVEN POINT.}

I visited Walton, N. Y., last week, a beautiful town in the flank of the Catskills, at the head of the Delaware. It was there in that quiet and picturesque valley that the great philanthropist and ameliator, Jay Gould, first attracted attention. He has a number of relatives there who note with pleasure the fact that Mr. Gould is not frittering away his means during his lifetime.

In the office of Mr. Nish, of Walton, there is a map of the county made by Jay Gould while in the surveying business, and several years before he became a monarch of all he surveyed.

Mr. Gould also laid out the town of Walton. Since that he has laid out other towns, but in a different way. He also plotted other towns. Plotted to lay them out, I mean.

In Franklin there is an old wheelbarrow which Mr. Gould used on his early surveying trips. In this he carried his surveying instruments, his night shirt and manicure set. Connected with the wheel there is an arrangement by which, at night, the young surveyor could tell at a glance, with the aid of a piece of red chalk and a barn door, just how far he had traveled during the day.

This instrument was no doubt the father of the pedometer and the cyclorama, just as the boy is frequently father to the man. It was also no doubt the _avant courier_ of the Dutch clock now used on freight cabooses, which not only shows how far the car has traveled, but also the rate of speed for each mile, the average rainfall and whether the conductor has eaten onions during the day.

This instrument has worked quite a change in railroading since my time. Years ago I can remember when I used to ride in a caboose and enjoy myself, and before good fortune had made me the target of the alert and swift-flying whisk-broom of the palace car, it was my chief joy to catch a freight over the hill from Cheyenne, on the Mountain division. We were not due anywhere until the following day, and so at the top of the mountain we would cut off the caboose and let the train go on. We would then go into the glorious hills and gather sage-hens and cotton-tails. In the summer we would put in the afternoon catching trout in Dale Creek or gathering maiden-hair ferns in the bosky dells. Bosky dells were more plenty there at that time than they are now.

It was a delightful sensation to know that we could loll about in the glorious weather, secure a small string of stark, varnished trout with chapped backs, hanging aimlessly by one gill to a gory willow stringer, and then beat our train home by two hours by letting off the brakes and riding twenty miles in fifteen minutes.

But Mr. Gould saw that we were enjoying ourselves, and so he sat up nights to oppress us. The result is that the freight conductor has very little more fun now than Mr. Gould himself. All the enjoyment that the conductor of "Second Seven" has now is to pull up his train where it will keep the passengers of No. 5 going west from getting a view of the town. He can also, if he be on a night run, get under the window of a sleeping-car at about 1:35 a. m., and make a few desultory remarks about the delinquency of "Third Six" and the lassitude of Skinny Bates who is supposed to brake ahead on No. 11 going west. That is all the fun he has now.

I saw Niagara Falls on Thursday for the first time. The sight is one long to be remembered. I did not go to the falls, but viewed them from the car window in all their might, majesty, power and dominion forever. N. B.--Dominion of Canada.

Niagara Falls plunges from a huge elevation by reason of its inability to remain on the sharp edge of a precipice several feet higher than the point to which the falls are now falling. This causes a noise to make its appearance, and a thick mist, composed of minute particles of wetness, rises to its full height and comes down again afterwards. Words are inadequate to show here, even with the aid of a large, powerful new press, the grandeur, what you may call the vertigo, of Niagara. Everybody from all over the world goes to see and listen to the remarks of this great fall. How convenient and pleasant it is to be a cataract like that and have people come in great crowds to see and hear you! How much better that is than to be a lecturer, for instance, and have to follow people to their homes in order to attract their attention!