MATTER OF FACT AND SENTIMENT.
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Said Augustus, as he gazed from Mrs. Partington's
little window, his finger pensively resting upon a cracked
china teapot upon the sill, — “Here is a spot in which
to cultivate the flowers of poesy; here the imagination
may soar on unrestricted wing; here balmy zephyrs
rising from embowering roses waft ambrosial sweets” —
“Them is beans planted in the window,” said the old
lady, interrupting him. “What you say is very true;
there 's nothing better for a sore than balmy-gilead buds
in rum; and it 's so handy to have 'em in a temperance
neighborhood, too, where people are too good to keep
rum in the house themselves, but leave it all to be
borryed of the neighbors. How glad I am always to
have it for 'em! They are so kind, too, always advising
me to give up keeping it in the house; but, dear me,
what would the poor creturs do if I should? I may be
committing sin in keeping it; but a bad use of a thing
makes all the trouble after all.”
Augustus was moved; but there was so much of the
“earth earthy” in her remark that he was silent.
“I should like to know what he meant about embowelling
roses,” murmured she to herself; “peppermint
would be better if he has the colic.”
She looked at him earnestly, but there seemed no
token of pain, and she forbore to speak.
-- 154 -- p677-175
COMMISERATION FOR CLERKS.
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SHOPKEEPERS is not enough
thought of,” said Mrs.
Partington, after having
been out making some
purchases. “How they
do toil and how they suffer!
One dear pretty
young man, with a nice black coat
on and a gold chain and a starched
collar, with a carrivan on his neck,
told me with tears in his eyes that
he was selling to me at less than he
gave for it; and I bought it out of
pity, though I knowed I could get it five cents a yard
cheaper next door. Talk about Moses being executed on
one string, indeed! These poor creturs are Rogerses,
every one of 'em, by the yard-stick, and are all the time
a dying.”
There 's a constant flow of the milk of compassion in
her breast-inexhaustible; like the purse of the gentleman
in the story, the more that is taken from it the
more remains. The allusion to Moses was drawn from
an advertisement of a prodigy violinist, who was to play
a violin solo, from the oratorio of “Moses,” upon one
string.
-- 155 -- p677-176
THE BOUQUET.
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“Look here!” exclaimed Mrs. Partington, in a tone
of triumph, as she returned from answering the door-bell,
bearing in her withered hand a bouquet of generous
proportions and exquisite beauty, with her name written
in fair characters upon an accompanying card. “Look
here, at the bucket of flowers somebody has sent me.
How charmingly it smells, as well as looks! And the
colors is all blinded together, too, so prettily!”
At this stage of her admiration, a small billet dropped
upon the floor.
“And here,” she continued, “is a letter besides,
written in a beautiful hand, from somebody with ornamental
corners.” “From your valentine, Timothy
Toby,” closed the missive.
She said not another word, took one more inspiration
from the “bucket,” and busied herself in preparing the
large-mouthed honey-bottle for its accommodation. It
might have been from the projecting lily spear, it might
have been from a grain of subtle maccaboy coming in
contact with her eye, and it might have been from some
deeper cause, but a tear escaped the area of the right
eye of her specs, and stood for an instant in pellucid
lustre on her cheek-bone, before passing away through
the channels time had worn in her face.
-- 156 -- p677-177
MRS. PARTINGTON ON VENTILATION.
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“We have got a new venerator on our meeting-house,”
said Mrs. Partington; “but how on airth they
can contrive to climb up there to let the execrations go
out is more than I can see into. But it is sich a nice
intervention for keeping a house warm!”
“What sort of a ventilator is it?” asked we, anxious
to get an inkling of the old lady's philosophy.
“It is one of the Emissary's,” replied she, sagely,
“and it is ever so much better than Professor Epsom's,
because a room is kept so warm and comfortable by it, —
not the least danger of taking cold from draughts of
too fresh air. It will be a great accusation in cold
weather.”
“But how will it do in summer?” we again asked.
The dame, for a moment, was puzzled. She had not
thought of this contingency.
“O!” cried she, after a few moments' reflection, aided
by the merest trifle of maccaboy, at the same time proffering
us the box; “I suppose, then, they will stop it
up altogether, and open the windows.”
It was an idea worthy of the profound black bonnet
and far-seeing specs before us. She left us then. We
watched her from the window, and felt anxious about
her rheumatism, as we saw her right foot sink in
a puddle, in an attempt to reach a Canton street
omnibus.
-- 157 -- p677-178
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Any one who breathes the suffocating air of our concert
rooms, will be reminded of Mrs. Partington's “venerator”
for keeping a room warm.
OUR RELATIONS WITH MEXICO.
“Our relations with Mexico!” said Mrs. Partington,
contemplatively, and her glance turned upward to the
wall, where the portrait of the deceased corporal, in
rigid pasteboard, looked straight forward, as if indicating
a bee-line of duty that she should fellow, — a sort of
pictorial cynosure, to which she always looked for guidance.
“Our relations with Mexico!” said she; “some
of the poor creaturs, maybe, left there in the late hospitalities,
too poor to get back. If I was President Pierce,
now, I 'd send right away and bring 'em all home by
express. The Mexicans had better not trouble any of
our relations, I can tell 'em!”
Of course she could tell 'em. There was no doubt of
it. Mrs. Sled believed she could, and Ike, who was
busy in transforming the old lady's new clothes-stick
into a bat, did n't say a word. If there is a weakness in
Mrs. P.'s character, — and as a chronicler we should be
false to our trust to say that there was not, — that
weakness is love for her relations; continually manifesting
itself in blue yarn stockings and souchong tea.
-- 158 -- p677-179
THE FIRST OF APRIL.
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“I never see the like!” said Mrs. Partington, as
she slammed to the front door, with a noise and jar that
set everything to dancing in the house, and the timid
crockery stood with chattering teeth upon the little
“buffet” in the corner. It was wrong in her to say she
had never seen the like, for this was the fifth time that
she had been called to the door by a violent ringing,
within half an hour, and had found no one there.
Hence anger — so rarely an occupant of her mind, but
so justifiable now — prompted the slamming of the door
and the remark, “I never see the like!”
It was the first of April, and the occurrence was the
more annoying for this reason. She stood still by the
door and watched stealthily for the intruder; tapped her
box easily and regaled her olfactories with a dusty oblation,
and held still. The peal of the bell again startled
her by its vehemence. She opened the door and looked
out, but no one was to be seen. As she turned away,
a string attached to the bell-wire, extending from the
banister, met her gaze, and, sitting quietly upon the
stairs, with a grin on his face that had a world of meaning
in it and a world of fun in it, sat Ike! How the
spectacles sparkled in the rays of her indignation! She
went for the rod, which had long rested on the shelf,
but it had been manufactured three days before into an
-- 159 -- p677-180
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arrow by Ike, and, as the chance of finding it diminished,
her anger cooled like hot iron in the air, and the rogue
escaped.
AN INQUIRY ANSWERED.
“Does Isaac manifest any taste for poetry, Mrs.
Partington?” asked the schoolmaster's wife, while conversing
on the merits of the youthful Partington. The
old lady was basting a chicken that her friends had sent
her from the country.
“O, yes!” said the old lady, smiling; “he is very
partially fond of poultry, and it always seems as if he
can't get enough of it.” The old spit turned by the
fire-place in response to her answer while the basting
was going on.
“I mean,” said the lady, “does he show any of the
divine afflatus?”
The old lady thought a moment. “As for the divine
flatness — I don't know about it. He 's had all the
complaints of children, and when he was a baby he fell
and broke the cartridge of his nose; but I hardly think
he 's had this that you speak of.”
The roasting chicken hissed and sputtered, and Mrs.
Partington basted it again.
-- 160 -- p677-181
BAILED OUT.
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“So, our neighbor, Mr. Guzzle, has been arranged at
the bar for drunkardice,” said Mrs. Partington; and she
sighed as she thought of his wife and children at home,
with the cold weather close at hand, and the searching
winds intruding through the chinks in the windows and
waving the tattered curtain like a banner, where the
little ones stood shivering by the faint embers. “God
forgive him and pity them!” said she, in a tone of
voice tremulous with emotion.
“But he was bailed out,” said Ike, who had devoured
the residue of the paragraph, and laid the paper in a pan
of liquid custard that the dame was preparing for
Thanksgiving, and sat swinging the oven door to and fro
as if to fan the fire that crackled and blazed within.
“Bailed out, was he?” said she; “well, I should
think it would have been cheaper to have pumped him
out, for, when our cellar was filled, arter the city fathers
had degraded the street, we had to have it pumped out,
though there was n't half so much in it as he has swilled
down.”
She paused and reached up on the high shelves of the
closet for her pie plates, while Ike busied himself in
tasting the various preparations. The dame thought
that was the smallest quart of sweet cidier she had ever
seen.
-- 161 -- p677-182
HAVE YOU GOT A BABY?
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A bachelor friend of ours was riding, upon a time,
through the state, when he overtook a little girl and
boy, apparently on their way to school. The little girl
appeared to be five or six years old, and was as beautiful
as a fairy. Her eyes were lit up with a gleam of intense
happiness, and her cheeks glowed with the hues of
health. Our bachelor looked at her for a moment admiringly.
She met his glance with a smile, and with an
eager voice saluted him with,
“Have you got a baby?”
He was struck aback by the question, and something
like a regret stole over his mind as he looked upon the
animated and beautiful little face before him.
“No,” he answered.
“Well,” she replied, drawing her tiny form proudly
up, “we have,” and passed on, still smiling, to tell the
joyous news to the next one she might meet.
What a world of happiness to her was concentrated in
that one idea — the baby! And in her joy she felt as
if all must have the same delight as herself; and it was
a matter of affectiionate pride to her, that lifted her little
heart above the reach of ordinary care; for in the baby
was her world, and what else had she to crave? Such
was the reflection of our friend, and he remembered it
long enough to tell it to us.
-- 162 -- p677-183
A HOME TRUTH.
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“What a to-do they make about treating the slaves
bad at the south!” said Mrs. Partington; and everybody
strained their ears to catch an opinion that perhaps was
fraught with the destiny of millions. There was a slight
tremor in her voice, a sort of rumbling before the
“bustin” of the volcano, and her eye looked troubled
as a lake by a fitful gust. “What a to-do they do make
about it, to be sure! But some of our folks don't do much
better. I know a poor old colored man here in Boston
that they treat jest like a nigger. People a'n't no better
than scribes, pharisees, and hippogriffs, that say one thing
and do another.”
There is truth in thy remarks, O, most estimable Mrs.
P.! Our philanthropy, we fear, if weighed in the just
balance, would be found often sadly wanting.
A SEASONABLE PUN.
“Fine gloves, them!” said old Roger, as he held out
his hand, encased in a new pair he had just bought. An
assent was expressed. “But,” continued he, “can you
tell me why a man is more likely to get taken in, while
buying gloves in winter than in summer?” They
could n't. “I 'll tell you, then; it 's because they are
more apt to get worsted.”
-- 163 -- p677-184
VARICOSE VEINS.
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“What is the matter with Mrs. Jewks, doctor?”
asked Mrs. Partington, as Dr. Bolus passed her house.
She had been watching for him for half an hour through
a chink in the door, and people who detected the end of
a nose thrust out of the chink aforesaid, stopped an
instant to look at it, strongly inclined to touch it and see
what it was.
“She is troubled with varicose veins, mem,” replied
the doctor, blandly.
“Do tell!” cried the old lady; “well, that accounts
for her very coarse behavior, then, and it is n't any fault
o' her'n, arter all, poor woman, 'cause what is to be will
be, and if one has very coarse veins what can one
expect? Ah, we are none of us better than we ought to
be!”
“Good morning, mem,” said Dr. Bolus, as he turned
away, and the old lady shut the door.
“No better than we ought to be!” What an original
remark, and how candid the admission! The little
front entry heard it, and the broad stair that led to the
chamber heard it, and Ike heard it, as he sat in the
kitchen, daubing up the old lady's Pembroke table with
flour paste, in an attempt to make a kite out of a choicely-saved
copy of the Puritan Recorder. “We are no better
than we ought to be” — generally.
-- 164 -- p677-185
MRS. PARTINGTON ON VACATION.
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“Five weeks' vexation in August!” said Mrs. Partington,
when she heard that the school had a vacation
for five weeks; “five weeks' vexation! It is a trying
season for mothers, and wearing and tearing to their
patience and the jackets and trousers of the children.
Talk about the relaxing from study! I don't believe
it 's half as bad as the green apples they get in the
country. But I do love to see the little dears enjoying
themselves, frisking about like pigs in clover, as happy
as the days is long. What an idea of freedom there is
in a little boy with his face and hair full of molasses and
fun and good-nature! Be still, you good-for-nothing!”
cried she, as Ike attempted to take her snuff-box; “Be
still, I say!”
But it was not in anger; for she felt in her capacious
pocket, and, from away down under her snuff-box, and
thimbles, and bone-buttons, and needles, and pin-cushions,
and beeswax, she brought up a ball of variegated
hues, and smiled as she gave it into his eager hand, and
bade him be a good boy.
-- 165 -- p677-186
TORCHLIGHT PATRIOTISM.
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HOORAY! hooray!” yelled
Ike, as he dashed in at the
front-door with a lighted
torch, swinging it over his
head, and spattering the
oily fluid around upon the
tables and chairs, a drop
even falling upon the snow-white
table-cover that lay
folded up on a shelf. The
smoke of the torch filled
the kitchen, and rolled
along the snow-white ceiling
in murky volume, to the great annoyance of Mrs.
Partington, who always said if there was anything on
“airth” that she held in utter “excrescence,” it was
“ile.”
“What 's to pay now?” said the dame rising, and
she heard, through the floor, the noise made by the
“unterrified democracy” in torchlight procession assembled.
Paul was a democrat, and her sympathy kept time
with the martial music.
“Quite a furor,” said we to her as we recognized her.
A tremendous cheer interrupted us.
“A few roar,” said she, smiling, “I think it is a good
many roar. Ah!” continued she, “I do love to see the
-- 166 -- p677-187
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unclarified democracy in possession, with their torches a
blazing and their patrickism a busting.”
She felt patriotic. Her face was momentarily lit up
with the emotions of her soul and the light of a Roman
candle, and then the venerable countenance melted away
in the darkness, as the candle, after making a great effort
to sustain itself, became exhausted and snuffed itself out.
MRS. PARTINGTON ON SUFFRAGE.
“How these men do talk about exercising their right
of sufferings!” said Mrs. Partington; “as if nobody in
the world suffered but themselves. They don't think of
our sufferings. We, poor creturs, must suffer and say
nothing about it, and drink cheap tea, and be troubled
with the children, and scour and scrub our souls out;
and we never say a thing about it. But a man comes on
regularly, once a year, like a Farmer's Almanac, and
grumbles about his sufferings; and it 's only then jest to
choose a governor, arter all. These men are hard creturs
to find out, and a'n't worth much after you have
found 'em out.”
This was intended as a lesson to Margaret, who was
working Charlotte and Werter on a blue ground, at her
side; but Margaret had her own idea of the matter, and
remained silent.
-- 167 -- p677-188
DOWN WITH THE TYRANT.
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“Ha! ha! Down with the tyrant! Death to the
Spaniard!” shouted Ike, as he rushed into the kitchen,
brandishing Paul's old artillery sword that had hung so
long on the wall. He struck an attitude, and then struck
the upright portion of the stove funnel till it rung with
the blow, and Mrs. Partington, with amazement on her
countenance and the glass lamp in her hand, stood looking
at him. Ike had been reading the thrilling tale of
the “Black Avenger, or the Pirate of the Spanish
Main,” and his “intellects,” as Sir Hugh Evans might
say, were absorbed by the horrible.
“Don't, Isaac, dear,” said Mrs. Partington, and she
spoke in a gentle, but firm tone. “You are very scarifying,
and it don't look well to see a young boy acting so.
It comes, I know, of reading them yellow cupboard
books. You should read good ones; and if you won't
touch that again I will let you have my big Bible, king
James's aversion, with the beautiful pictures. I declare,
I don't know what I shall do with you if you carry on
so. I am afraid I shall have to send you to a geological
cemetery to get the old sancho out of you.”
The point of the sword was lowered as it was making
a passage for a dark spot in the centre panel of the door;
the eye of the boy, so fiercely lit by the spirit of the
“Black Avenger,” became mild and laughing, as he
said he was only “making b'lieve,” and Mrs. Partington
gave him a penny as she disarmed him. What a visible
-- 168 -- p677-189
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emotion of peanuts became manifest as he grasped the
copper and made tracks for the door, and climbed over
the snow drifts to reach the grocer's opposite!
MRS. PARTINGTON AND THE CLERK.
“Is the steamer signified, sir?” asked Mrs. Partington
at the telegraph station.
“Yes 'm,” replied the clerk, who was busily engaged
turning over the leaves of his day-book.
“Can you tell me,” continued she, “if the queen's
encroachment has taken place yet?”
“Some say she is encroaching all the time,” said the
clerk, looking pleasantly at the old lady, and evidently
pleased with his own smartness.
“That is n't possible,” responded the venerable dame;
“but,” said she to herself, “how could he be expected
to know about such things? and yet there is no reason
why he should n't, for all the bars to science, 'notamy
and them things, is let down now-a-days, and Natur is
shown all undressed, like a puppet-show, sixpence a
sight!”
“Good morning, sir,” said she, as he bowed her out;
and as she passed down the stairs her mind, grasping the
manifold subjects of the telegraph, queen, and facilities
in science, became oblivious in a fog.
-- 169 -- p677-190
THOUGHT FOR THANKSGIVING DAY.
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This day, long celebrated in New England, again
returns, amid whose festivities the heart expands itself
and awakes anew to cheerful life. Though the whole
year has bound it with selfish fetters, and it has pursued
unremittingly its aim of worldly gain or worldly advancement,
on this day all the avenues to its genialities
are thrown open, and troops of kindly feelings, long
strangers, come thronging back to their early home, as
their possessors return, on this glad season, and revisit
the source from whence they sprung.
It is a time of glee and a time of thankfulness, — the
twin feelings of the season. The joy of meeting after
long separation; the gathering of friendly faces about
the generous board; the hilarious song and the graceful
dance; the sports of childhood, and the heart-mingling
of youth old enough and willing to love, — all are worship,
and offerings of thankfulness, where sweet innocence
lends its charm.
It was known, months ago, that Tom was to come
home from the city to Thanksgiving. He had been gone
a whole year, and when his great red face had disappeared
it seemed for a while as if the sun had ceased to
shine. His first letter was an event in the lives of “the
old folks at home,” and Tom's sisters; and Tom's sisters
had to carry the letter all round the neighborhood, that
people might see how well he could write, and what
-- 170 --
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proper words he used, and how he crossed his t's and
minded his i's. But Tom has written many letters since,
and the novelty has worn off; but the affection around
the old homestead is as bright as ever. And Tom is
actually coming home to Thanksgiving, and the girls
will pinch his red cheeks and tease him with their kindnesses
as they used to do. His last letter tells his
father that he must have the mare at the depot by six
o'clock. The girls insist that they will drive down to
meet him; they 're not afraid of a horse, not they,
and go they will. The house is swept, and the wood is
piled up in the best-room fire-place, and the floor is
newly sanded, and the chair with the new tidy that
'Bella has knit is in its place for Master Tom when
he comes; for Tom has got to be a character, and it
is a question if more preparation could be made for a
king's reception. The old folks talk of his coming, and
a softer expression than usual mingles in their voices,
and the clock is watched for the hour of his appearing.
Here they are at last! And the red-faced boy gets out.
Father! Mother! God bless you both! — and he is a
child again, — the child of the old homestead, — and
he loves every stick in the old house better than ever
before.
It is not time to talk yet about the big city, — that is
reserved for the evening, when they are seated round the
cheerful fire. Now he must answer the questions about
his health, and if his last stockings fitted, and what he
thought when he heard his aunt Deborah had got married,
and if his cousin John had given him the little
Bible his old schoolmistress sent him, — they knew he
-- 171 --
[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]
had, because Tom had said so in a letter home, — and if
he heard that his cousin Sally had got a baby!
Heavens! how the questions pour in upon him, and
will, until he gets his turn to ask, and theirs comes to
answer.
This is a picture-sample of a thousand such. Freights
of happiness are borne on every railroad car; the steam
whistle of the locomotive conveys a thrill of pleasure to
many a listening heart; the hum of business palls the
ear that listens for happiness, and the shutters are put
up for one day, — the heart's jubilee.
Though sin and excess may mark and mar its hilarity,
an aggregate of joy remains to it commensurate with
the virtue that remains to us. The noise of the turkey
is heard in the land; ovations are made to the genius of
plenty; groaning tables pave the way to groaning
stomachs, and thankfulness works its way out between
the scant apertures left in compact stomach stowage.
Heaven give the rich heart to help the poor, and to
make them thankful on this day, in spite of the three
hundred and sixty-four other days of hardship and privation!
-- 172 -- p677-193
PEACE INCULCATED.
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“Better is a crust of bread and quietness therewith
than a stollid ox and strife,” said Mrs. Partington, as she
heard the noise of wrangling in a neighbor's house. It
was a Sunday morning, and Ike was cleaning his shoes
by the door with the clothes-brush. “Why can't folks
live in peace, without distention? How much people
have to answer for that causes animosity in a neighborhood!
Thank Heaven, I 've never done anything of the
kind that my conscience acquits me of.”
With what a feeling this was uttered! And the sunlight
came into the window, and looked through her specs
down into her soul, and it was as calm there as the bottom
of a well, not disturbed by Ike's whistling “Old
Dan Tucker” as an accompaniment to his brush.
HUMAN NATURE.
Seat eleven millionaires in an omnibus, and seat
between them one old woman who has but five coppers
in the world, which she intends to invest in that one
ride. When the collector comes in, and the old lady
takes out her antique wallet to pay him, it is curious to
observe the avidity and eagerness with which the millionaires
watch her operations, and peep over to catch a
glimpse at the interior of the wallet. That is human
nature.
-- 173 -- p677-194
MR. STEADFAST'S SOLILOQUY.
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Well, my mind 's at last made up. I 'm going against
rum, this 'lection. I 've made up my mind on that pint,
and there 's no shaking me. When I say my mind 's
made up, folks may know what to depend upon. Yes, I
go against rum. It 's time we looked about us. It 's
time the people got their eyes open to the evil, — and
I 'm one of 'em. But (stopping suddenly) the party!—
what would the party say? I did n't think of that before.
The party, of course, must be looked to. What
could we do without party? Where would the Union be,
and our institutions and what-do-ye-call-its, if it was n't
for the party, I should like to know? Party is our egeus,
our pal-pal-what 's his name. But I can't go against rum
without going against party. If I vote against rum, and
the temperance inspectors and constables and things are
chosen, where would our institutions be, and our destiny
as a nation, and the respect of people abroad, who we
don't care a copper about? And then, if I vote for party,
and rum triumphs, it would go on, undermining our moral
institutions and our physical constitutions. So, hang
me, betwixt 'em both, if I know what to do! I have it.
I 'll make a compromise between cold water and rum, and
make it half rum and the other half rum-and-water.
That 's the ticket, and my mind 's made up to vote it
When my mind 's made up, there 's no moving me!
-- 174 -- p677-195
MRS. PARTINGTON RURALIZING.
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Mrs. Partington and Ike were huckleberrying in the
country, and a large swamp was wearily canvassed to
find the quart which she bore in her five-quart pail.
She despaired of filling it.
“Look here, aunt,” said Ike, in a sort of confidential
whisper, “look in there and see what a lot of 'em.”
There was a smile upon the face of the boy, that
betokened mischief, or it might have been a gleam of
satisfaction at the prospect of filling the pail; but certainly
a smile was round the little mouth, and the eye caught
it, and a roguish twinkle like a sunbeam lay sparkling
there.
“I see!” said the old lady, and a moment later the
log-cabin bonnet, borrowed for the occasion, was seen
above the tops of the bushes, its restlessness indicating
its wearer's activity. Ike remained outside.
Fizz-z-z — Buzz-z-z! — what was that? — a humblebee,
as we are a sinner. Another and another. The log
cabin was besieged, and Mrs. Partington rushed frantically
from the bushes, swinging the tin pail and crying
“Shoo! shoo!” with all her might. It was a trying
time for the widow of Corporal Paul. And Ike did not
escape, for a big humblebee attacked him, and he roared
heartily with a sting upon his cheek. The laugh disappeared.
At the recital of their troubles at home, people
-- 175 -- p677-196
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regarded the matter as a trick of Ike's; but how could he
have known about the humblebee's nest being in there?
Mrs. Partington avowed that she “never was so frustrated
by anything in her born days,” and the people
believed her. She thinks, notwithstanding the bees, that
she would like to have a “villain” in the country, and
become an “amatory” farmer.
VENTILATION.
In the course of his rambles in the country, Mr.
Spotgam called at a poor-looking house by the road-side
to inquire the whereabouts of a trout brook which he
supposed to be in the vicinity. Some pretty children
attracted his attention, and he stepped inside the door to
play with them, and invest a few cents in their affection.
Their father came in a moment afterwards, and appeared
somewhat confused to find a stranger in his humble
domicile.
“Warm, sir,” said he, wiping his forehead; “wife,
throw up the window, and let us have a mouthful of fresh
air.”
Mr. Spotgam looked at the window about to be
thrown up, and saw with pain that every square of glass
had been broken out. His mind turned to a nice mathematical
calculation, in which he endeavored to make out
the difference between the quantity of air received through
an open window and one with no glass in it, and gave it
up in despair.
-- 176 -- p677-197
LETTER FROM IKE, IN THE COUNTRY.
[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]
Hilltop, Sept. 10, 1852.
DEAR Bob — I wish you
was up here, and the
way we would train you
would n't be slow. There
is boys enough up here,
but they don't know
nothing. When I first
come they did n't know
how to play jack-stones!
But you 'd better believe
I soon made 'em
fly round. I 've found
enough to do since I 've been here. We 've got a boat,
and we go out swimming every day. The boat tips over
ever so easy, and don't you think, the other day,
when we were out with the girls, we tipped over right
where the water was overhead, and we all had to get
onto her bottom. I was n't at all skeered, though everybody
said they knowed I did it on purpose. But you
know I would n't.
We 've had some prime fun out a gunning. We did n't
kill anything only some tame pigeons; but we put some
green beans into the gun and shot the dog, and he ki-hi'd
just as if he did n't like it. I can fire at a mark first-rate.
I wish you could see the goose I made with wheel-grease
-- 177 --
[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]
on the newly-painted barn-door, — it's peppered brim full
of holes. There 's lots of apples and peaches, and if you
was here we 'd be in among 'em. There 's some over
there in the pasture just like some in our garden, but
them in the pasture is best, and they belong to the old
captain, and he 's a cross old fellow, and I should like to
fix him, cause he set his dog on me t' other day, because
I fired an apple at one of his hens, and broke a square of
glass. He 's a real cross old chap, and has n't got no
friends.
There 's some fine ponds here, and lots of mud turtles,
but all that is humbug about their leaving their shell
when you put a coal of fire onto their backs, because
I 've tried it. It makes 'em go it, though, I tell you.
Our dog is first-rate for catching of 'em, and I got a
dozen of 'em t' other day to bring home, and put 'em in
a barrel, and forgot all about 'em, and there they stayed
for ten days. I put 'em in the water again, and away
they went. Don't you think, Bob, I caught a big bull
paddock and harnessed him the other day, and you should
have seen him kick when I let him go.
I don't like the oxen they have here, because they
don't laugh, and when they are hauling anything they
seem to do it unwilling like, and look surly and cross.
Reasoning with 'em don't do no good. I ride the horse
to water and drive the geese out of the corn. Up in the
corn yesterday I found what I thought was a great big
water-melon, and when I got over the wall and cut it
it turned out to be a green punkin.
They have begun to make sweet cider, and I don't see
-- 178 -- p677-199
[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]
what people ever want to make sour cider for when this
is so nice.
I s'pose school begins soon, and the old woman will
want me to come home; but I don't want to a mite.
Tell Jim Jones I 've swapped my jackknife, and got
a bran-new hawkey that I cut myself in the bushes.
Good-by, Bob. Write to me if you 've had any fun
this summer, and I am yours in clover.
Ike Partington.
OUT OF PLACE.
“Does your arm pain you much, sir?” asked a
young lady of a gentleman who had seated himself near
her, in a mixed assembly, and thrown his arm across the
back of her chair, and slightly touched her neck.
“No, miss, it does not; but why do you ask?”
“I noticed it was considerably out of place, sir,” replied
she; “that 's all.”
The arm was removed.
-- 179 -- p677-200
TENDER NAMES.
[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]
There are people, in the romantic period of their lives,
who delight in bestowing tender terms upon objects of
their affection, borrowed from the pretty things of nature
or fancy, such as “My Rose Bud,” “My Pink,” “My
Diamond,” “My Lily,” or some such nice and delicate
name. Of all that we have ever heard, however, the
Irish term, “My Bloomer,” sounds to us the best.
These terms are all well enough when used in private
endearment, but when uttered in the presence of others
they operate with a most nauseating effect. Fancy a
man, brimfull of the charms of his Dulcinea, to whom he
has given some romantic appellative, coming into a tailor's
shop, among the forty girls there employed, of whom his
heart's hope is one, and asking if his “Rose Bud” is
present, or addressing her as his “Rose Bud,” if she be
there. If the girl has any sense she will prove a “Rose
Bud” with a thorn when she gets him out somewhere.
We had a friend who was smitten with this mania for
pretty names, and had adopted the romantic one of “My
Light” for his idol; and for several years she had lighted
his path and his pocket in the way that lovers understand.
It grew near the period when the word was to
be spoken that should make them “one flesh,” when,
calling at her dwelling one evening, he asked the house-girl,
who met him in the entry, if his “Light” was
in.
-- 180 -- p677-201
[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]
“No,” said she, “your light has just gone out —
with Mr. —,” naming an old rival.
Jealous pains seized him; he rushed to his boarding-house,
dashed madly up stairs, three at a time, opened
his drawer, and, seizing a — pen, wrote a letter that
extinguished his “Light” forever. It was a severe blow
to his spirit, and in six months from the time of his
disappointment the poor fellow committed matrimony
with another and a more steady “Light,” the flame of
which burns undimmed even now.
LEARNING TO RELISH IT.
We were surprised to see Mr. Slow at an opera one
evening. Leaning over the back of his seat, we remarked
that we had an impression that he did n't like
opera music.
“I never did,” said he, “till lately; but I 've been
eddicating for it. It can be done. Talk about natur's
having all to do with it! that 's all humbug. Natur
don't have any more to do with it than she does with
learnin us to eat tomatoes, nor sardines, nor olives, —
but by eddication we come to like 'em. That 's jest the
way with opery music. The first time you don't like it;
then you get another taste, and it 's better; then you go
a little further, and it 's first-rate. There 's nothing like
eddication. Natur is well enough in her place, but
eddication does the job.”
Mr. Slow looked grave as he uttered this oracular
wisdom, and his auditors admired.
-- 181 -- p677-202
PHLEBOTOMY A DISEASE.
[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]
“Do you think people are troubled as much with
fleabottomry, now, doctor, as they used to be before they
diskivered the anti-bug bedstead?” asked Mrs. Partington
of the doctor of the old school who attended upon
the family where she was staying.
“Phlebotomy, madam,” said the doctor gravely, “is
a remedy, not a disease.”
“Well, well,” replied she, “no wonder one gets 'em
mixed up, there is so many of 'em. We never heard in
old times of tonsors in the throat, or embargoes in the
head, or neurology all over us, or consternation in the
bowels, as we do now-a-days. But it 's an ill wind that
don't blow nobody no good, and the doctors flourish on
it like a green baize tree. But of course they don't
have anything to do with it, — they can't make them
come or go.”
The doctor stepped out with a genteel bow, and the
old lady watched him till his cabriolet had turned the
corner, her mind revolving the intricate subject of cause
and effect.
-- 182 -- p677-203
HIRSUTE ORNAMENTS.
[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]
“Well!” said Mrs. Partington, as she leaned forward,
with her hands resting on the window ledge, and
peered out into the street through a chink in the blinds.
It was n't a deep well, expressive of content or satisfaction,
but it was an ejaculatory well, that found expression
at some object which she had witnessed in the
street. “Well,” said she, “I hope that man is married,
I declare I do; because, if he is n't, I 'm sure he never
will be, for a dreadfuler looking creature I never did see,
with them mustychokes on his mouth — nobody would n't
have him. I 've heerd 'em say that Heaven's best gift
to man was woman; I should say that the next best gift
was a razor to such a man as that. Folks did n't take
pride in looking bad in old times!”
She turned thoughtfully to the wall, where hung in
military rigidity that profile, the cherished gem of bygone
art, the counterfeit presentment of manly grace.
“Ah, Paul!” sighed the dame, “you was an ornament
of your specie, and the cheapest among ten thousand, or
more!” She emphasised the “more,” as if the contrast
was very great indeed between Paul and him who
had passed. But the profile took no notice of what she
said; its gaze, chained to perpetual straightforwardness,
looked never to the right or left; though, at times, she
said it bore a kinder expression about the mouth. But
this must have been her fancy, which gave to every
object she looked upon the hues of her own benignity.
-- 183 -- p677-204
MRS. PARTINGTON AND PROBATE.
[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]
“O, what trials a poor widow has to go through!”
sighed Mrs. Partington, rocking herself in a melancholy
way, and holding the morsel of maccaboy untasted
between her thumb and finger; “terrible trials; and O,
what a hardship it is to be executioner to an intestine
estate — where enviable people are trying every way to
overcome the widow's might; where it 's probe it, probe
it, probe it, all the time, and the more you probe it the
worse it seems! The poor widow never gets justice, for
if she gets all, she don't get half enough. I have had
one trial of it, and if ever I should marry again, if it
should so please Providence to order it, I 'll make my
husband fabricate his will before he orders his wedding-cake; —
I 'll take Time by the foretop, as Solomon says,
you may depend upon it.”
She here revived a little, and the subtle powder passed
to its destination, and reported itself home by an emphatic
sneeze.
Extract from a great unwritten poem of 1051 verses,
entitled “Ye Constabel”: —
“Ye constabel from one man took
A large and ample fee,
I 'll now take one from ye t'other side,
Said ye constabel, said he.”
-- 184 -- p677-205
DOMESTIC PURITY IMPUGNED.
[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]
“Have you got any rooms to let here, marm?” said
a little man to Mrs. Partington, who occupied half of a
house, the other half of which was to let, and to whom
was entrusted the care of answering the door-bell.
The rooms were shown.
“They are not large,” said the little man, depreciatingly.
“No, sir,” replied she, “they are not very ruminous;
but here are two little bed-rooms contagious that perhaps
you did n't see.”
He looked in, and, in a supercilious tone, muttered,
“Bugs!” implying want of cleanliness, — a reflection
on the purity of the premises in her charge!
There is a point, as she says, where patience ceases to
be virtuous, and she had found it. Indignation choked
her utterance; and the little man fortunately departed
before it found vent. It was great, the way in which
she slammed the door to after him, and ejaculated
“Bugs!” till the empty rooms in echoing it seemed full
of bugs. It was a sublime moral spectacle.
-- 185 -- p677-206
DID IT HURT YOU MUCH?
[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]
Whilom there did dwell a barber in one of the most
populous streets of this city, the hues of whose insignia
by the street door, red and white, were typical often of
his customer's chins as they came under his professional
hand. Suds was a little fellow, but many a huge six-footer
did he have, unresisting, by the nose, and many a
fierce eye quailed beneath the gleam of that blade whose
edge so many had keenly felt. It was a sublime spectacle
to behold him while enjoying his momentary triumph, —
his face absolutely shiny between the combined
influence of sweat and exultation, — his razor, urged by
the fervor of his excitation, whirling through seas of
snowy lather with the rapidity of thought, — his customer,
meanwhile, with eyes shut, and breath suspended, awaiting
tremblingly the blow that should send him forth
noseless, a scoff and a reproach among men; though,
thanks to mighty science, such calamity seldom happened.
A farmer, who resided in the vicinity of the city, and
supplied the people thereof with fruit, was excessively
annoyed by the boys, who would climb upon his wagon
and bite his apples, while inquiring the price, and pretending
a desire to purchase. He took a big and fearful
oath, one day, — he was a very crabbed man, — that the
first boy who that day took a bite should likewise take a
cut with it; he swore it on his whip!
-- 186 --
[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]
He jogged on undisturbed; the urchins read “whip-lash”
in his demeanor, and judiciously gave him a wide
berth. But Fate, that generally has to bear the odium
of causing all evil, — that by many is deemed a sort of
subordinate Providence, who, in conjunction with Luck,
another genius of the same kidney, takes the destiny of
men to work out by the job, — pulled the reins directly
opposite the barber's door.
Now, Mrs. Suds had that very day charged Mr. S. to
procure some fruit, — she did “long so to eat an apple,”—
and he, as he was looking out of his window, his last
customer having departed, was minded of her request, as
the wagon, with its rich and tempting load, stopped
within the range of his vision. He was fond of apples
himself, and, running hastily out, he stepped upon the
wagon wheel, took up an apple, and bit it, and at the
same time inquired the price.
Fatal bite! — to Suds fatal as the first bite in Paradise
was to Adam. A whistling sound he heard in the
air, and then the whip, stinging with the malignity of
concentrated spite, fell quick upon his unguarded shoulders,
to his deep shame, and astonishment, and pain.
Jumping down as quick as he could, he stood on the
pavement, an injured and indignant man, and fiercely
demanded the cause of the outrage.
The farmer had mistaken him for a boy, and, profuse
of apology, endeavored to appease the little lion of the
brush by stating his annoyance by the boys, to say
nothing of his loss by biters, and his determination to
put a stop to it by the summary means he had given
Suds a taste of. Suds was a reasonable man, and
-- 187 --
[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]
admitted that the farmer was nearly right, even while he
shrugged his shoulders with the remembered pain, and
they parted on as good terms as the circumstances would
admit of.
Unfortunately for the peace of the little man, a neighbor,
who loved to stir up Suds, had seen the castigation,
and each day as he came to be shaved would he ask
with the tenderest solicitude, “Did it hurt you much?”—
always after shaving, however; for his nose would
certainly have been in the way during the agitation the
question produced, had he asked it before. That question,
so sneeringly asked! Human nature could n't stand it,
patience could n't stand it, Suds could n't stand it; and
that question was a declaration of war with all who put
it to him. Continual dropping will wear a stone.
One day Suds was splitting wood in the back yard,—
like a dentist working away among the old stumps, —
fretting at the unrivable tenacity with which they held
together, when, sticking his axe into one apparently
on the point of yielding, he swung it above his head to
bring it down upon a block, and thus force the axe
effectively through the tough fibres. The axe, with the
wood adhering, was raised aloft, — the blow was about to
be struck, but, slipping from the iron, the block took
another direction, and fell heavily upon the hatless poll
of the unfortunate barber.
His wife had seen the whole proceeding from the
window, and, rushing out to ascertain the extent of the
damage, she anxiously inquired, “Mr. Suds, did it
hurt you much?” To say that fire flashed from his
eyes would be inadequate, — chain-lightning alone could
-- 188 --
[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]
typify the glance he gave the solicitous Mrs. S. — and a
small thunderbolt like a billet of wood darted upon the
wings of a fierce anathema at her devoted head. She
dodged the missile, and a smashed window remained a
monument of his passion.
Poor Suds! he soon removed from that locality, and
the little shop where he shaved, and sheared, and suffered
is obliterated by the huge granite piles that indicate
the progressiveness of commerce.
-- 189 -- p677-210
“FARE, MA'AM. ”
[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]
HOW do you do, dear?”
said Mrs. Partington,
smilingly, shaking
hands with Burbank, in
the Dock-square omnibus,
as he held out his
five dexter digits towards
her.
“Fare, ma'am!” said
he, in reply to her inquiry.
“Well, I 'm shore,
I 'm glad of it, and
how are the folks at home?”
“Fare, ma'am!” continued he, still extending his hand.
The passengers were interested.
“How do you like Boston?” screamed she, as the
omnibus rattled over the stones.
“Fare, ma'am!” shouted he without drawing back his
hand; “I want you to pay me for your ride!”
“O!” murmured she, “I thought it was some one
that knowed me,” and rummaged down in the bottom of
her reticule for a ticket, finding at last five copper cents
tied up in the corner of her handkerchief — the “last
war” handkerchief, with the stars and stripes involved
in it, and the action of the Constitution and Guerriere
-- 190 -- p677-211
[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]
stamped upon it. But the smile she had given him at
first was not withdrawn — there was no allowance made
for mistakes at that counter — and he went out, with a
lighter heart and a heavier pocket, to catch t' other coach.
PAYING PROMPTLY.
“If there is any place in this world where I like to
ransack business more than another,” said Mrs. Partington,
with animation, untying from the corner of her handkerchief
a sum of money she had just received, “if there 's
any place better than another it 's a bank. There 's no
dillydalliance, and beating down, and bothering you with
a thousand questions, till you don't know whether your
heels are up or your head is down; all you have to do is
to put your bill on the counter, and they pay it without
saying a word.”
The old lady had presented a check for a quarter's
pension-money, received on account of Paul, who, in the
“last war,” served a fortnight in fortifying Boston
harbor, and got mortar in his eyes, which hurt his
“visionary organs” so that he took to glasses.
-- 191 -- p677-212
“MEMENTO MORY. ”
[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]
Before Old Roger left boarding at No. 47, he forfeited
all regard of the quiet inmates of the house by the
perpetration of the following atrocity, which was the
true reason of his leaving, and not the quality of the
bread-pudding, as many believed. Mory, the Kilby
street clerk, got married, and moved off. It had always
been a custom with Mory to pile his dishes up in a
curious manner, after he had used them, — cups, saucers,
plates, in a heterogeneous heap. A day or two after
his departure from the house, Old Roger was observed
piling his cup and saucer and plates in the same manner,
and he took those of his neighbor to add to the pile.
The boarders watched him silently, in much surprise,
and one of them, a little bolder than the rest, ventured
to ask him what he was doing that for.
“O,” said Roger, very placidly, crowning the pile he
had made with the cover of the sugar-bowl, “I am only
erecting a memento Mory.”
Mr. Blifkins, the serious man, exhorted the more
volatile boarders on the impropriety of laughing at such
an outrageously sacrilegious use of a respectable dead
language. From that day Roger had cold shoulder for
dinner, and the coldness of the landlady became suddenly
manifest in cold potatoes, and in the rheumatic
condition of his room attic; so he left.
-- 192 -- p677-213
MESMERISM.
[figure description] Page 192.[end figure description]
“Do you believe in mesmerism?” we asked of Mrs.
Partington, as she dropped alongside of us yesterday
morning, like a jolly old seventy-four.
“Believe what?” said she, sitting down in the other
chair.
The question involved an answer from us of some
fifteen minutes' length, running through the whole of
mesmerism, clairvoyance, and psychological phenomena,
like a knitting-needle running through a ball of yarn.
“O, yes,” said she, “I believe all of that, and I know
a case in pint, to prove it. When Miss Jeems had her
silver-plated spoons extracted, — that was her mother's
afore her, and she sot a sight by 'em, — she come away
to Boston to see a miserymiser, I b'leve you call it.
Well, he told her jest where her spoons was, and who
stole 'em, and all about it, and the color of his hair, and
all that. Well, she gin him a dollar, and when she got
home she went right where the spoons was, and could n't
find a thing about 'em. No, no, that is n't the story,
nuther; 't is about Sally Sprague and her beau. You
see” —
At this instant the door opened, and company came
in, and Mrs. Partington, pleading an excuse that she
wanted to tend one of the “adversary meetings,” subsided,
like a wave upon the shore.
-- 193 -- p677-214
A SLIGHT MISTAKE.
[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]
Mr. Verigreen, passing by the entrance to a hall
where some sable minstrels were exhibiting, saw a black
fellow coming out through the arch. Mr. V. stopped
and looked at him earnestly, at which the colored gentleman
was rather indignant, and demanded what he was
looking at.
“Nothin' pertickler,” said Mr. V. “I was jest lookin
ter see what a plaguy difference there is betwixt you
now, and last night, when you wor a singin in there. I
would n't a b'leeved it was the same individooal.”
Mr. V. put his hands in his pockets and walked along.
CONSIDERABLY TRUE.
We find it stated in a paper that a well-bred woman,
if surprised in a somewhat careless costume, does not try
to dodge behind a door to conceal deficiencies, nor does
she turn red and stammer confused excuses. She
remains calm and self-possessed, and makes up in dignity
what she may want in decoration. This is true. The
most sensible woman we ever saw was one who, when her
husband took us home on a washing day to look at his
new house, never made one word of apology for the confusion
that existed, nor once begged us not to “look
round.”
-- 194 -- p677-215
OLD BULL'S CONCERT.
[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]
“Old Bull's concert!” said Mrs. Partington, glancing
up from her knitting as she read the announcement
of the grand concert on Saturday evening, and she smiled
as the ridiculous fancy ran through her mind, like a grass-hopper
in a stubble field, of an old bull giving a concert.
“And yet it is n't so very wonderful,” continued she,
“for I remember a cat and canary that lived together,
and one or t' other of 'em used to sing beautifully. But
I wonder what he plays on.”
Ike suggested that he played on one of his own horns,
which seemed to be reasonable.
“I am glad he is going to give his concert, because,
when I went down to hear a great artisan play on a
violence, as they called it, though I found out afterwards
it was nothing but a fiddle, they were going to charge a
dollar till I told 'em I was one of the connections of the
Post, and they let me in. I can't think what music an
old bull can make, I 'm sure. It must be very uproarious,
I should think, and better fitted for overturns than
for pastureal music.”
She closed her critique with a pinch of snuff, and got
on to her wires again like a telegraphic despatch, and
went ahead, while Ike amused himself by scratching his
name with a board nail in magnificent Roman capitals
upon the newly-painted panel of the kitchen door.
-- 195 -- p677-216
ANGULAR SAXONS.
[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]
“I don't know,” said Mrs. Partington, and the expression,
considered as a mere abstraction, was true, for
there are some that have more of the world's wisdom
and a better knowledge of grammar than the dame; for
the school for her teaching was not one of letters.
But let us hear her. “I don't know,” said she, “about
these Angular Saxons being any better than our old-fashioned
ones.”
Ike had been reading to her an article upon the destiny
of the Anglo-Saxon race.
“And as for the race, Isaac,” and her voice fell to a
pitch of deep solemnity as she spoke, “it is n't proper at
all; for when a funeral goes too quick — to say nothing
about racing — it always is a forerunner, sometimes,
that somebody 'll die before the year 's out. The old
saxons were full fast enough, naturally; and arter the
parish gin our saxon the surfeit of plate for his officious
services, it spruced him right up, and it seemed as if it
would have pleased him to bury all of 'em, he was so
grateful. No, no, we don't want any Angular Saxons,
Isaac, when our own are full good enough.”
Ike, as she was talking, had amused himself with
tying the old lady's snuff-box in the corner of his handkerchief
and was experimentally swinging it around his
head; and she ceased just as the box, released from the
knot, dashed against the opposite side, scattering the
-- 196 -- p677-217
[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]
pungent powder in plenteous profusion upon the sanded
floor. Of course he did n't mean to do it, and that was
all that saved him.
WATER GAS.
“Well, that is a discovery!” exclaimed Mrs. Partington,
smilingly; and she stood with a small pitcher in
her right hand, her left resting upon the table, and her
eyes fixed upon the flame of a glass lamp, that sputtered
a moment and then shot out a light that irradiated every
part of the little kitchen, and revealed the portrait of
Paul upon the wall, and Ike asleep by the fire. She
spoke to herself; it was a way she had; she met with
no contradiction from that quarter. “This is a discovery!
Where is Tom Paine and his gas now, I should like
to know? Here I 've been and filled this lamp up with
water, and it burns just as well as the real ile.”
The experiment was perfectly triumphant; the problem
of light from water was demonstrated; and yet,
with this vast fact revealed to her, Mrs. Partington, with
a modesty equal to that of the great philosopher who
picked up a pocket-ful of rocks on the shore of the
great ocean of truth, smiled with delight at her discovery,
nor once thought of getting out a patent or selling
rights.
-- 197 -- p677-218
MRS. PARTINGTON AT THE OPERA.
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We were surprised, at the opera, last evening, by
having a hand placed upon our shoulder. It was a
gentle touch; altogether unlike certain other touches on
the shoulder that delinquent men so much dread. It
came at a time when we were all absorbed by the melody
of the charming Sontag, and were provoked at the intrusion.
“Will you be kind enough to lend me your observatory?”
asked a voice that we thought we remembered.
Looking round, “Great heavens!” we cried, “Mrs.
Partington!”
It was, indeed, that estimable dame, but yet it was
not; for the black bonnet had disappeared, and a new
rigolette adorned her venerable poll, beneath which every
sprig of wavy gray was securely tucked. But the smile
was there, as warm as a June morning at nine o'clock.
She repeated the request to use the pearl and diamond-studded
opera-glass, that we had hired at Fetridge's for
twenty-five cents, — denominating it an “observatory.”
“Is this the right pocus?” said she; “I s'pose I shall
have to digest it to my sight, for my poor visionary orgies
are giving out.”
She levelled both barrels at the singers at once, and
brought them down to her, and Pozzolini directed three
successive appeals to her tenderness.
“It a'n't no use,” said she, as she handed the glass;
-- 198 -- p677-219
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“I can't understand better with that, — I should have
bought one of the lab'ratories at the door.”
She beat time gracefully to the music for a while upon
the cover of her snuff-box, and then went out, like an
exhausted candle, to try and light on Ike, who was
trading for a jacknife with another boy on the gallery
stairs.
A SLIGHT MISAPPREHENSION.
Mrs. Partington was at Thackeray's last lecture, —
Mr. T. had kindly sent her a card, admitting one, — and,
forgetting the theme of the lecture, she leaned over the
seat and asked the gentleman before her what the subject
was.
“Goldsmith and Sterne, mem,” was the reply; “but
he is on Sterne, first.”
Mrs. Partington blushed. There was evidently a
question agitating her mind as to whether she should
tarry and hear a lecture from a person so ridiculously
postured as Mr. T. must appear. She looked around,
meditating a retreat; but the avenue to escape was blocked
up, and she thought she might as well stay it out.
She watched tremblingly for Mr. Thackeray, and was
much relieved by seeing him standing perpendicularly
before her. She thought she must have mistaken the
meaning of her informant.
-- 199 -- p677-220
APOLLYON BONYPART.
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“When will the world get rid of this Apollyon Bonypart?”
said Mrs. Partington, as Ike threw down the
paper in which he had read a comparison between the
“18th Brumaire” and the “coup d'etat.” In the uncertain
glimmerings of her memory, she confounded the
nephew and uncle, and her thought took the course the
dim reminiscence pointed.
“Apollyon Bonypart! I remember all about him,
and his eighteenth blue mare too. I always wondered
where he got so many of 'em, — something like the
woolly horse, I guess, — and when he was transplanted
to Saint Domingo, Isaac, folks went up to the King's
Chapel to sing tedium about it, because they were glad
of it. And now he 's come back agin, with all his blue
mares with him.”
The dropping of a stitch brought her down from the
new hobby she was riding so furiously, and Ike drew a
picture of a blue mare, in chalk, upon the newly-washed
kitchen floor.
Mrs. Partington says she don't see why people
want to be always struggling for wealth; for her part,
she affirms that all she wants is food and raiment and
clothes to wear to meeting.
-- 200 -- p677-221
PAUL AND POLITICS.
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WAS Paul inclined to politics?”
we asked of Mrs.
Partington, as we saw the
old dame reading a “grand
rally” hand-bill at the
corner of the grocery store.
She asked us to wait a
moment till she “digested”
her specs. “Inclined to
politics!” said she, and
her eyes rested upon the
period at the end of the
last line, till she seemed
to be meditating a full stop. “He was; but he was n't a
propergander, nor an oilygarchist, or an avaritionist, nor
a demigod, as some of 'em are; all he wanted was an exercise
of his sufferings and the use of his elective French
eyes, as he used to say. Ah, Heaven rest him!” exclaimed
she, as her eyes rose from the period at the bottom
of the bill and rested on the top of the fence. “But did
he never get an office, Mrs. P.?” we asked. “Yes,
replied she, and we fancied the tone of her voice had an
expression of triumph in it — enough to be perceptible,
like three drops of paregoric in a teaspoonful of water —
“yes, he was put one year for a hogreefer, and got
neglected.” As we were about asking her opinion of the
-- 201 -- p677-222
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new constitution, Ike came along whistling “Jordan”
and swinging a pint of milk, in a tin pail, around his
head, and the old lady forgot her politics in her solicitude
about Ike's soiling his new cap.
A PREDICTION.
Ike came running in one day during the sleighing
season, with, “O, aunt, I just now saw a little boy fall
right down under a sleigh in Washington-street!”
“Dear me!” she screamed, horror-struck; “bless
my soul! did it hurt him much? did it kill him instantly?”
“O, no, aunt!” replied he; “it did n't hurt him at
all, for the sleigh had n't any horse in it.”
His face beamed with fun.
“Ah, you disgraceless boy!” cried the old lady, with
her finger raised, at the same time with her apron wiping
away the mists that the momentary sympathy had gathered
in her eyes; “ah, you disgraceless boy! you won't
die in your bed if you tell such stories!”
There never was a kinder creature than she; and, as
she looked on his good-natured face and sparkling eyes,
she patted his head and gave him an apple.
-- 202 -- p677-223
THE DESSERT.
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“Desert, did you say?” growled old Roger, at a
festival supper some time ago, to a person who sat opposite
him at the table, who had called for the dessert;
“come over this side, my friend, and you 'll have no
occasion to call for it. It 's quite a desert, and almost
a perfect famine here already, and has been so all the
evening. Don't look at that turkey — that is nothing —
that is only a promise made to the hope and broken to
the stomach; for human strength cannot divide its members—
they are unanimously tough.” And the little
man recommenced ogling a ham that was rapidly disappearing
in the dim distance, and mumbled cheese crumbs
to allay the cravings of unsatisfied appetite.
BOSTON MUSIC HALL.
When Mrs. Partington first visited the new Music
Hall, she looked at the structure with great admiration.
It was in the day-time, and the gas burners over the
edge of the cornice met her eye. Turning to Mrs. Battlegash,
who sat next to her, she remarked that everything
seemed excellent “except the out-of-the-way place
where they driv the nails for the ostriches to hang their
coats on,” and pointed to the ceiling, saying she did n't
believe they could ever reach them.
-- 203 -- p677-224
TROUSSEAU OF PRINCESS WASA.
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Ike read, “At Paris, the dressmakers, jewellers,
and milliners have all been occupied in furnishing the
trousseau of the Princess Wasa.”
“Stop, Isaac,” said Mrs. Partington, raising her
finger, and glancing at him over the top of her spectacles;
“is that so?”
He assured her that it was.
“Well,” continued she, and a blush of offended modesty
crossed her features, like the sun-flush on the newly
reddened barn-door; “that may be the way they do
things in Paris, but it is n't modest to begin with. A
woman has no right to wear 'em. 'T is agin natur and
decency. And what does she want so many of 'em for?
She can't wear but one pair to a time, and here she has
got all of the dressmakers making trousers for her, as if
she was going to live long enough to wear 'em out. Ah,
women a'n't what they were once!”
She rose suddenly as she spoke, and Ike, who was
upon the back of her chair, endeavoring to tie a string
to a nail in the big beam that traversed the ceiling, was
thrown violently against the table, breaking three plates
and a teacup in his descent.
-- 204 -- p677-225
STOCK OF THE REVOLUTION.
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“We have little left of the revolutionary stock, now,”
said the schoolmaster, as he seated himself in Mrs. Partington's
back-room, and wiped his brow. There was a
meaning in her spectacles, as they glanced upon him,
responsive to his remark, but she said not a word. Drawing
a chair towards her, she smilingly stepped upon it,
and, standing on tiptoe, reached away back into a closet
in which were kept the remnants of past service, — bottles
and paper bags, and a heterogeneous mass of odds and
ends that would have made the fortune of a showman, —
the blue stockings revealing themselves as she prosecuted
her search; but the schoolmaster did n't see them —
not he.
“Revolutionary stock!” said Mrs. Partington, and
her voice seemed choked by the dust raised in the old
cupboard, “here 's one of 'em!” and she reached out,
with a present-arms motion, an old musket-stock. “Here
is a relict of the revolution that has survived the time
that tired men's souls; and, poor souls! I should think
they would have been tired to death with the smell of
the powder and balls. I keep this up here away from
Isaac, for fear he should do some mischief with it, for I
don't want him to have nothing to do with fire-arms.
Is n't it a relict?”
Bless thee, Mrs. Partington! and thou art a relict,
thyself, more to be prized than stacks of arms; and, did
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thy warm spirit pervade the land, war would be no longer
the scourge of the nations, and men would not know
fighting any more.
PHILOSOPHY OF COUNTRY HEALTH.
“People may say what they will about country air
being so good for 'em,” said Mrs. Partington, “and how
they fat up on it; for my part, I shall always think it is
owin' to the vittles. Air may do for camamiles and
other reptiles that live on it, but I know that men must
have something substanialler.”
The old lady was resolute in this opinion, conflict as
it might with general notions. She is set in her opinions,
very, and in their expression nowise backward.
“It may be as Solomon says,” said she; “but I lived
at the pasturage in a country town all one summer, and
I never heerd a turtle singing in the branches. I say I
never heerd it; but it may be so, too, for I have seen
'em in brooks under the tree, where they perhaps dropped
off. I wish some of our great naturals would look into
it.”
With this wish for light, the old lady lighted her candle
and went to bed.
-- 206 -- p677-231
THE PROMENADE.
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We sat directly in front of Mrs. Partington at Jullien's
concert, one night, and were pleased to witness the marked
attention that she paid to the performance. The first
part had been concluded, and the “fifteen minutes' intermission
for promenade,” announced on the bill, had been
well spent, when we felt a finger laid upon the arm that
rested upon the back of the next seat, and a whispered
voice was breathed into our sinister ear:
“When is he going to carry it round?”
We looked at her inquiringly, and she looked inquiringly
back again.
“Carry it round?”
“Yes,” replied she, “the promenade here. 'T is the
refreshment part of the entertainment, is n't it?”
We explained to her the meaning of the word “promenade,”
and, with a long drawn “O!” like an extended
cipher, she sank back into her seat. Ike was blowing
peas at a gentleman's boot projecting through the lattice
work of the gallery.
-- 207 -- p677-232
MRS. PARTINGTON IN THE CROWD.
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“Don't go anigh it, Isaac,” said Mrs. Partington,
with nervous anxiety, on the day of the great railroad
jubilee procession, as the carriage, bearing the big gun,
came by where she and Ike were standing. She had
been very nervous all the morning, and had made some
curious mistakes. When the procession first came along,
she waved her handkerchief at an alderman, taking
him to be the president; and Marshal Tukey she thought
was Lord Elgin.
“Don't go anigh it, — it 's one of the pesky Paxon
guns we read of; they call 'em peace-makers because
they tear people all to pieces; and, depend upon it,
Isaac, if a man got hit once or twice with such a gun as
that, my idea is, that there would n't be much left of him.
O, the wickedness of men, that they should learn war,
and kill people, and spoil good clothes, and act more like
Kottenpots or salvages than they do like men! They
say this Mr. Paxton has got up a Christian Parish in
London, and everybody is going to see it. Well, I hope
he will tend it himself, and get good, and repent of the
evil he has done. But, I 'm sure, I hope he won't have
any such machines as that, ever, to help his preaching.”
The noise of the passing crowd drowned half her
remarks, and, at that moment, a marshal backed his
horse near where she and Ike stood, with a command to
-- 208 -- p677-233
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her to “stand back.” It was astonishing how the flies,
or something, troubled that marshal's horse all the while
he stood there.
A CEREOUS MATTER.
“There was a cererous accident happened down here,
just now, aunt,” said Ike, running in hastily.
“Dear me!” cried Mrs. Partington, dropping her
knitting-work, and starting from her seat in great alarm;
“what upon airth was it, Isaac? Was anybody killed,
or had their legs and limbs broke, or what?”
“O,” replied he, giving his top a tremendous twirl,
that sent it round among the chairs at a great rate; “O,
no! 't was only a man capsized a box of candles, that 's
all.”
The old lady looked at Isaac reproachfully. He will
break her heart one of these days. Her mind, at the
first alarm, had flown among her balsams, and bandages,
and lints, that had lain in obscurity since the poor boy
next door had cut his toe off; and to be thus lowered
down from her hope of usefulness was too bad. But Ike
went out with his top, laughing all the while, and the
old lady subsided into the old arm-chair, and went on
with her knitting.
-- 209 -- p677-234
ANCIENT AND MODERN REMEDIES CONTRASTED.
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“They don't doctor folks now as my physician learnt
me,” said Mrs. Partington, sagely tapping her snuff-box
by the couch of a friend lying indisposed. Her gesture
was very expressive, and the profundity of a whole Med.
Fac. beamed from her spectacles. She took a pinch of
Farwell's subtle Maccaboy in her fingers, and shut the
box, and laid it away in her capacious pocket, then, with
her closed forefinger and thumb raised, went on with her
remarks, — “They don't subscribe for folks now as they
used to. My doctor used to tell me, — and he never
lost any of his patience but once, and that was an old
man of ninety-seven, whose days were shortened because
he had n't strength to swallow, — he used to tell me, —
and I 've been with him thousands of times with sick
folks, — he used to tell me, first, said he, give 'em
apecac, to clear the stomach; then give 'em purgatory
to clear the bowels; then put a blister on the neck if
the head aches; and have 'em blooded if there is a tenderness
of the blood to the head; and put hot poultices
on to the feet, arter soaking 'em in hot water. There
wan't none of your Homerpathics, nor Hydrapathics, nor
no other pathics then, and what was done might be sure
it would either kill or cure!”
She inhaled the dust with great unction, and the
patient, who lay making squares and diamonds out of the
-- 210 -- p677-235
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roses on the room-paper, “thanked God and took courage,”
as heartily as St. Paul did when he saw the three
taverns, that he had fallen upon times of more physical
mildness.
MR. SLOW IN THE MOON.
Mr. Slow and Abimelech were out looking upon the
moon, as it gleamed above them in the sky. The moon,
as they gazed, passed behind a dark cloud, the edge of
which gleamed like silver.
“How beautiful!” said Abimelech.
“Yes, my son,” said Mr. Slow, solemnly, “that
'ere 's well got up. Some people say they have brighter
moons in other places than our'n, but I say that 's all
moonshine. Look at it, 'Bimelech, as it hangs up there
now, as bright as a dollar, and don't you believe any of
the gammoning stories about its being a green cheese.”
“But, father,” asked Abimelech, his son, “is n't the
story true about the man in the moon?”
“Certingly, my son, certingly,” said Mr. Slow, looking
down at him; “that 's all true, that is, 'cause it 's in
the primer.”
Abimelech was satisfied — so was Mr. Slow.
-- 211 -- p677-236
MY LITTLE BOY.
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PERHAPS he is in no wise different
from everybody's little boy—
I dare say he is no taller,
or thicker, or heavier, than ten
thousand other boys who have
had existence, and been the
idol of doting papas, and mammas,
and maiden aunts. He
is not an original boy in a
single particular — I don't
claim him as such; he eats
very much the same way, and
very much the same food, as
other young gentlemen of his age — sleeps the same, cries
the same, and makes up the same outrageous faces at
castor-oil. I don't care if he is n't different. But every
parent has a right, in fact he is bound, to think his boy
better than everybody's boy, by a law of nature that knows
no contravening — will admit of none. If everybody
sees in the picture I draw of my boy a sketch of his own,
let him remember it is my boy still, and not flatter himself
that he has a prodigy that knows no equal.
My boy has the glory of more than a year of months
to brag of, three of which he has devoted to taking his
steps in the initiatory of locomotion, and excels in little
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manœuvres in engineering, of his own adoption, steering
warily among chairs and tables; and, though frequently
broaching to and foundering under a press of eagerness in
circumnavigating the kitchen, he invariably comes up all
right, and forgets minor adversities in the grand triumph.
My boy is a living proof of the great truth of gravitation,
as, when unlucky circumstance kicks him out of
bed or throws him from a chair, he invariably strikes the
floor; and my boy has had knocks enough on his head to
realize a faith with regard to his profundity equal to
that of Captain Cuttle in the renowned Bunsby, for the
same reason.
My boy understands the moral of a whip. Thus
young, will he wield the rod in terror over the back of
shrinking sisterhood, nor even spare maternity in his
“experimental philosophy.”
My boy knows very well how to manage it when the
slop-pail is within reach, and nothing pleases him more
than a plentiful ablution in soap-suds or greasy dishwater.
My boy delights in experimenting in hydraulics, —
now essaying to administer hydropathy by the dipperfull
to a healthy floor, now sousing stockings into the
water-bucket, and now putting the hair-brush into the
sink.
My boy fills his father's boots with incongruities that
do not belong there, and looks on gravely as the load is
shaken out, wondering, apparently, why his father don't
let it stay.
My boy watches his chance to pull a dish, or a cup,
or a saucer, — no matter which, — from the table; he
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seems to have an antipathy against crockery, and vivid
visions of sundered pairs remind his father daily of the
havoc he has made in the once respectable “service,” —
here a white and there a blue, some cracked, noseless,
handleless, stare him in the face.
My boy despises all conventional rules, and unheeds
the suasion that would limit will; republicanism speaks
through every act, independence in every look, freedom
in every motion.
My boy is very decidedly partial to an ash-hole; it is
a spot by him of all others to be craved; he glories in
an ash-hole; thereward his inclination ever points.
David of old, in his utmost woe, could n't have gone
deeper into the ashes. A stove-pan is a good substitute
for the ash-hole; there is a luxury in strewing the gritty
dust about a clean carpet, that is not to be overlooked,
and never is; there is fun in hearing it crunch beneath
the feet of his mother, and fun, too, in filling his mouth
with the fragments. I have thought, from my boy's
predisposition to pick up gravel, that he required it to
aid digestion.
My boy rejoices in a dirty face. No Mohawk chief,
in the pride of war-paint, could feel more magnificent
than my boy under an application of molasses, — or anything, —
he is not particular; and no Mohawk would
fight harder to prevent its being wiped off.
My boy takes to sugar very readily; he was very
quick in taking to this; it seemed instinctive with him.
I have heard of people's having a sweet tooth, but I
verily believe the whole of my boy's — he has but four—
are all sweet.
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My boy is all-exacting in his demands, — demands
sure enough, as imperious as those of a prince; and his
brow frowns, and his little voice rings again, if his demands
are not complied with, — principally confined,
however, to the matter of victuals.
My boy is everything that is affectionate; a laugh and
kiss his morning and even sacrifice, and his bright black
eyes and rosy cheeks glowing in the sunlight of a happy
heart. His voice greets me as I come from labor, and
his arms encircle my neck in a sweet embrace, and his
cheek reposes against mine in the fulness of childish
love, and then I feel that my little boy is better than
everybody's, and I can't be made to begin to believe at
such times but that everybody must think so. In short,
as Mr. Micawber might say, my boy is a trump card in
my domestic pack.
-- 215 -- p677-240
MY LITTLE BOY.
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THAT “Little Boy,” of whom it
was our delight and pride to
speak, is no more. His sweet
spirit has fled from the earth,
and left an aching void in our
heart, and an anguish which
will be hard to allay. The
music of his voice is stilled;
the mild beaming of his eyes is
quenched in the darkness of
death; his arms are no more
outstretched upon loving impulses,
nor his step speedy in
affection's errands; the happiness of his smile will no
more impart its blest contagion to our own spirit, nor
the home places be made again pleasant by his bright
presence.
We were loth that he should depart. There were a
thousand ties that bound him to us. We could not conceive
that a flower, so fair and full of promise, should
wither and die while within our grasp. We fancied that
we could hedge him round with our love, and that the
grim archer could not find access to our fold through the
diligence of our watchfulness. We had forgotten that
the brightest and fairest are oftenest the victims of
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inexorable Death, and that the roseate robes of to-day's joy
may be usurped to-morrow by the sable drapery of affliction.
There was much to endear him to us. Perhaps no
more, however, than every child possesses to a parent.
He was precocious to an extraordinary degree, and his
little life was full of childish manliness that made everybody
love him who looked upon him. His kiss is still
warm upon our cheek, and his smile still bright in our
memory, replete with love and trust. We were sanguine
of a fruitful future for him, and we had associated him
with many schemes of happy usefulness in coming life,
and with foolish pride boasted of indications that promised
all we hoped. Alas! how dark it seems now, as we
recall the dear little fellow in his dreamless rest. He
was smiling as we laid him beneath the coffin-lid, as if
the spirit in parting had stamped its triumph, on the cold
lips, over the dominion of Death.
That “Little Boy” was our idol, and there were those—
well-meaning people too — who would expostulate,
and shake their heads gravely, and say that we loved him
too much; as if such a thing were possible, where a
being of such qualities was making constant drafts upon
our affection. It is our greatest consolation that we
loved him so well, — that there was no stint or limit to
the love we felt for him, — that his happiness and our
own were so promoted by that affection, that it was almost
like the pangs of death to relinquish him to the grave.
It seems almost a sin to weep over the young and
beautiful dead; but it must be a colder philosophy than
ours to repress tears when bending over the lifeless form
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of a dear child. We may know that the pains of earth
are exchanged for the joys of heaven; we may admit the
selfishness of our woe, that would interpose itself between
the dead and their happiness; we may listen to and allow
the truth of gospel solaces, and cling to the hope of a
happy and endless meeting in regions beyond the grave;
but what can fill the void which their dreary absence
makes in the circle which they blessed, where every
association tends to recall them?
Thus it seems when the heart is first bereft, when the
sorrow is new, and we sit down in our lone chamber to
think of it and brood over it. But we know that affliction
must become softened by time, or it would be
unbearable. And there are many reflections that the
mind draws from its own stores to yield after-comfort.
Memory forgets nothing of the departed but the woe of
separation, and every association connected with them
becomes pleasant and joyous. We see them, “with their
angel plumage on;” we feel them around us upon viewless
wings, filling our minds with good influences and
blessed recollections; freed from the sorrows and temptations
and sins of earth, and, with a holier love, they are
still ministering to us.
It is one of the immunities of grief that it pour itself
out unchecked; and everybody who has a little boy like
this we have lost will readily excuse this fond and mournful
prolixity — this justifiable lamentation. But
“We shall all go home to our Father's house —
To our Father's house in the skies,
Where the hope of our souls shall have no blight,
Our love no broken ties;
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We shall roam on the banks of the River of Peace,
And bathe in its blissful tide;
And one of the joys of our heaven shall be —
The little boy that died.”
`To talk of a man worth his millions giving a few
thousands of dollars in charity, is well enough,” said
old Roger; “he should be praised for it; but what is
his act compared with that of the poor woman who buys
a pint of oil from her own hard earnings, and carries it
in a broken-necked bottle to a sick neighbor, poorer than
herself, to cheer the gloomy hours of the night? What
is his act compared with hers, I should like to know?
Not that!”
And he snapped his fingers, and felt sustained in his
high estimate of the poor woman's small donation.
-- 219 -- p677-244
MRS. PARTINGTON ON REMEDIES.
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“This is an age of enervation in medicine, sure
enough!” said Mrs. Partington, as she glanced at the
column of new and remarkable specifics; “why will
people run after metaphysics and them nostrums, when,
by taking some simple purgatory, they can get well so
soon? It 's all nonsense, it is, and if people, instead
of dosing themselves with calumny and bitters, would
only take exercise and air a little more, and wash themselves
with care and a crash towel, they would be all the
better for it.”
She said this on her own experience. As for “diet
drink,” and summer beverages, Mrs. P. is very noted.
A NEW INSTRUMENT.
“When is he going to bring on the wioleen?” whispered
Mrs. Partington to a neighbor, at the Melodeon,
after listening through the first part of Ole Bull's concert.
“That 's it, ma'am, which he is now playing on.”
“Why, that 's a fiddle, a'n't it? Good gracious!
why can't they call things by their right names?”
And she left the hall, saying to the door-keeper, as
she passed, that it was only a fiddle after all.
-- 220 -- p677-245
CRITICISM.
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A small crowd gathered before a window, recently,
to admire the figure of a cat which was there as if for
public inspection. Nearly every one was delighted with
its likeness to life.
“But still,” said Augustus, “there are faults in it;
it is far from perfect; observe the defect in the foreshortening
of that paw, now; and the expression of the
eye, too, is bad; besides, the mouth is too far down
under the chin, while the whiskers look as if they were
coming out of her ears. It is too short, too” — but, as
if to obviate this defect, the figure stretched itself, and
rolled over in the sun.
“It is a cat, I vow!” said a bystander.
“It is alive!” shouted Ike, delightedly clapping his
hands.
“Why, it 's only a cat, arter all,” said Mrs. Partington,
as she surveyed it through her specs; but Augustus
moved on, disappointed that nature had fallen so
far short of his ideas of perfection in the manufacture of
cats.
-- 221 -- p677-246
BLEAK HOUSE.
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“Dickens is fast getting along to the denouncement
of the Bleak House,” said Mrs. Partington, as she saw
a paragraph mentioning the approaching denouement of
the story. “Well, I should think he would have
denounced it long ago, and had it prepared, for I don't
believe they could have made him pay one mill of rent
unless he did it at his own auction. Bleak House, indeed;
and Mr. Dickson a poor man, too, with aliments
enough on him to patternise a whole hospital himself!”
The picture of the Good Samaritan handing the wounded
Jew a quart bottle of Sarsaparilla Bitters attracted her
attention, and she delivered Ike a private lecture on the
humanities, while he sat pulling the cat's tail in the dark
side of the chimney-corner.
ADMIRATION FOR ELOQUENCE.
“Dear me, how fluidly he does talk!” said Mrs.
Partington recently at a temperance lecture. “I am
always rejoiced when he mounts the nostril, for his eloquence
warms me in every nerve and cartridge of my
body. Verdigrease itself could n't be more smooth than
his blessed tongue is;” and she wiped her spectacles with
her cotton bandanna, and never took her eyes from the
speaker during the whole hour he was on the stand.
-- 222 -- p677-247
NAVES OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
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“Well,” said Mrs. Partington, as Ike read the paragraph
from the Post that the decorators were at work
on the two naves of the Crystal Palace. She paused at
the “well” before she went further into it, and Ike
stopped reading to hear what she had to say, and chewed
up a part of the paper into spit-balls, which he amused
himself with by throwing at the old white-pine dresser in
the corner. “Well,” said she, — this is the same well we
left some time since, — “I am glad they are taking time
by the fire-lock and looking arter the knaves aforehand.
Knaves in the Christian parish, indeed! But they will
get in, the best that can be done. There 's many a one,
I dessay, in all parishes that has a sanctuary in his face,
but with the cloak of hypocrisy in his heart. Read on,
Isaac.”
And the old lady looked up at the black-framed
ancient picture of Susannah and the elders, and patted
her box reflectively.
-- 223 -- p677-248
MR. BISBEE'S CONFESSION.
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It was a rash promise that I, Jeremiah Bisbee, had
made to the youngest Miss Teel to gallant her to church.
I knew that she would be offended if I did not comply,
and yet how I felt! The previous evening's amusement
had extended well towards daylight, and a more miserably-feeling
fellow than myself never did rouse himself at
the sound of breakfast-bell on a Sunday morning. But
the promise was made, and the glory of a new pair of
plaid pants and a red velvet vest was to blaze beside the
modest beauty of Miss Seraphima in the Rev. Mr. Blunt's
church.
I had no seat there, but my cousins, the Misses Titmarsh,
who owned a pew in the broad aisle, had many
times invited me to sit with them, informing me that
there was plenty of room, and I determined to avail
myself of their invitation. The pew was a very respectable
one, I knew, as I had heard them many times
describe it as having heavy drapery, and all the other
essentials of genteel worship, just as they had inherited
it from the deacon, their uncle. I had heard them
describe, too, the occupants of adjacent pews, and had
been given to understand that the Ogglers and Spighs,
the aforesaid occupants, were the most respectable people
in town, and that they felt rather envious at the superior
position of “our” pew, for so the young ladies (forty-seven
if they were a day) called it.
-- 224 --
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The day was bright, the pants fitted to a charm, the
red vest gleamed in the sun, my coat was neatly brushed,
and, with an unexceptionable hat, and a pair of brilliant
boots, I felt myself to be “some.” The sleepy feeling
with which the morning commenced, was overcome by
the momentary excitement of walking and talking with a
charming girl; a triumph over Somnus that I thought
truly wonderful.
We reached the church, — a large, venerable, sleepy
pile, having a good many pews in it, the latter a characteristic,
I believe, of churches generally. There was a
languor upon the still air of the old church that struck
me sleepily as I took my seat in the spacious, high-backed
pew; the monotonous toll of the bell sounded
like a lullaby, and the swelling notes of the big organ,
which rose like incense to the roof, and pervaded the
house, gave me a qualm that my boasted triumph outside
would not be of permanent duration, opposed to the
somnolent influences within.
As ill luck would have it, we had a very dull preacher,—
a duller I never knew, — trite and common-place,
without originality or fervor, and insufferably long. I
felt sleepy at the propounding of the text, which was, as
near as I remember, “Sleep on, and take your rest;”
and every wakeful feeling within me began to grow
heavy about the eyes at the injunction. I struggled
against slumber, as a man overboard would struggle with
the tide. My eyelids drooped in spite of me, and when
I would open them they felt as if they were interlaced
with sticks, and my sleepy soul seemed looking through
a grating of wicker work. The eyes of my cousins, the
-- 225 --
[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]
Misses Titmarsh, were wide open upon me, the bright
eyes of Seraphima were upon me, the eyes of the Ogglers
and Spighs were upon me, for the Misses Titmarsh had
informed me in a whisper that they were here in full
force, and that the new plaid pants, and the red vest,
and Seraphima's new bonnet, a charming thing, by the
way, would produce a tremendous envy among their
opponents in the adjacent pew.
In my sleepy reflections I saw the utter disgrace that
would attend upon my cousins, the Titmarshes, if I misbehaved.
I thought upon them, positively, more than
upon my own shame. I thought of the horror they
would feel were I to speak aloud, or laugh, or tumble
down, or commit any extravagance in a dream. All of
the tricks I had ever practised in my sleep came up
before me, frightfully magnified. What if I should
practise some of them over again, or get up on the backs
of the pews and go round, as Amina foots it over the
tiles, in the opera?
I struggled manfully with sleep, but I found I
could n't hold out long. Hum-m-m, hummed on that
long sermon! — Upon my honor, I don't believe I heard
a word of it besides the text, unless it were the word
“sleep,” which seemed profusely scattered, like poppies,
along the tedious way. I found myself rapidly sinking.
The faces by which I was surrounded were melting away,
the Ogglers and the Spighs were becoming oblivious,
and the preacher, just taking the form of a huge black
beetle impaled on a pin, was humming a dull drone on
one continuous key, when, mustering resolution, I roused
myself, thrust my hand hastily into my pocket to pull
-- 226 --
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out my handkerchief, when, — the Ogglers and Spighs
were all looking, and so were the Misses Titmarsh and
Seraphima, — when, — I blush to say it, though it was
the means of my becoming a reformed man, and a tolerable
member of society, and the father of a large family,—
when I pulled my handkerchief out, a pack of cards,
a deposit of the previous night, came leaping out with it,
and, as if actuated by the devil who invented them, they
darted about in almost as many directions as there were
cards, brazenly showing themselves in the holy house, to
my utter confusion of face.
Had my worst enemy seen me then, he must have
pitied me. I was wide awake now. The concentrated
redness of every red card was painted upon my face, and
the blackness of every black one was transferred to my
heart. The spots on the cards, to my heated fancy, seemed
bigger than a cart-wheel. I heard a suppressed titter
among the Ogglers and the Spighs. Just then the eldest
Miss Titmarsh fainted. “Heaven be thanked for this!”
says I; “here 's an opening;” and, seizing the unconscious
spinster, I made for the door as speedily as possible.
Placing her in charge of the sexton, I ran with
all haste for the doctor. Strange that those medical
gentlemen should be away at such a time! I left an
urgent order on the slates of six of them, and was told
that five of the six, an hour afterwards, met in consultation
on the steps of Rev. Mr. Blunt's church.
As I said before, I have now reformed, and sit just in
the shadow of life's afternoon, looking back over the
events of its morning, rejoicing with hopeful trust that
the errors of youth may not be carried forward to the
-- 227 -- p677-252
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account of mature age, if repentance make atonement for
the past. The Misses Titmarsh forgave me, and Seraphima,
in a long life of devoted attention on my part, has
quite forgot that Sunday's mortification.
GERMANIA BAND.
“How do you like the music, Mrs. P.?” asked her
neighbor of the old lady, as she stood listening to the
Germania band, one evening on the common, and beating
time on the cover of her snuff-box.
“Beautiful!” replied she, enraptured, “oncommon
beautiful! It seems almost like the music of the syrups.
I think the Geranium band the sweetest of any of 'em.
Can you tell me,” said she, in a big whisper, “which
is Mr. Bergamot?”
The name of Bergamot was associated with her rappee
and hence her solicitude.
She was told that Mr. Bergman belonged to the
Germania Society, and that the leader of the Germania
Serenaders was Mr. Schnapp.
A smile lit up her face, revealed in the declining
twilight, as she asked if he was akin to Mr. Aromatic
Schnapps, the gentleman that imported so much gin.
Her ear was arrested by the strains of the music, and
the black bonnet waved in unison with a waltzing measure,
as Isaac sat upon the grass in contemplation of a
dog's tail before him, wondering what the effect would
be if he should stick a pin in it.
-- 228 -- p677-253
A GOOD SUGGESTION.
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MESSRS. Chang and Eng—
those interesting exotics,
from whose land
all the golden fountains
and talking lauras, and
singing trees that graced
our juvenile literature
were derived — were
much gratified by an introduction
to Mrs. Partington,
one of whom
assured her that he had
heard of her in Siam
many years ago, but the other did n't recollect about it.
On informing her of their intention to go to Saratoga or
Newport the coming summer, the old dame wondered at
the determination.
“How crowded you will be!” said she, “accommodations
are so scarce; though, I dare say, you could,
upon a 'mergency, both sleep in one bed.”
The suggestion was a happy one — all the difficulty
was removed in an instant — and the dual gentleman
smiled a thankee with his four lips, and Mrs. Partington
waved a parting benediction to him with her green cotton
umbrella, as he disappeared in the crowd.
-- 229 -- p677-254
CATCHING AN OMNIBUS.
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“If you want to take a 'bus,” said Mr. Sphynx, in
his oracular manner, “you must be 'mazing sly; you
must n't go boldly up to 'em, 'cause they 'll certingly
be full, — room for twelve, and seventeen inside, — or the
driver won't see you, if you shake your umbrel or cane
at him never so much. 'Buses are queer critters — very
queer; it takes sunthing of a man to understand their
natur. When you want one, there a'n't one coming.
Put your head out in the rain, and look every which
way, you can't see hide nor hair of one. Wait till the
next one comes — that 's full; so 's the next. Then you
get a little miff'd, and says you, `I 'll walk!' Start
in the rain — get wet; when you get almost where you
want to go, 'long comes one of 'em, like blazes — lots
of room — looking at you as much as to say, `See here,
old boy! don't you wish you 'd ha' waited?' and whisks
by like a racer. If you see a 'bus a little ways ahead,
and run yourself into a fever to catch it, two to one it 'll
be the wrong 'bus, and you 'll have to walk, arter all.
Now the way to do is this: — Act jest as if you don't
care a snap whether you ride or not. Be indifferent,
and one 'll come right along; don't be uneasy 'bout
getting a seat, and there 'll be plenty of room; conclude
that you 'll walk, and you may have a whole 'bus to
yourself. That 's the way to come it over 'em!” Saying
which, and shaking his head profoundly, Mr. Sphynx
retired.
-- 230 -- p677-255
IKE IN A NEW POSITION.
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Ike got a situation to blow an organ in town, and one
Sunday a stranger organist took it into his head that he
would try the instrument a little after the congregation
was dismissed. He expressed his desire to the boy, who
consented to blow; for there are few more obliging boys
than Ike when he is well used. He pumped away vigorously
for some time, until his arm ached, when, peeping
round the corner of the organ, he asked if he might
now go.
“No!” said the organist, curtly, and kept on,
drumming away among the dainty airs that he was
taking upon himself, — now thundering among the bass
notes, and now glancing playfully amid the tender trills
of the pianissimos, — when, confusion to a fugue commenced,
the breath of the organ gave out, and the music
flattened to a dying and dismal squeal.
“Holloa!” cried the performer, “don't get asleep
there — blow away!”
But no response attended his command. He grew red.
“Blow away, I say!” he cried, louder.
Still no response.
Angrily and inharmoniously the man of music arose
and looked for Ike. He was not there, and the mad man
of melody, as he glanced from the window, caught a distant
view of a pair of juvenile coat-tails as they disappeared
round a corner.
-- 231 -- p677-256
UNPOPULAR DOCTRINE.
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“I was surprised, Mr. Roger, to see you speaking
with that creature,” said Miss Prim, significantly emphasizing
the word.
“Why, madam?” asked the old man.
“Because she is a low, vile creature of the town,”
said she, waspily.
He took her hand within his own, and looked her
calmly in the eye, as he replied: — “Call her not vile;
call her miserable, rather; and as such she is more worthy
of your regard and pity; for, though she may have sadly
erred, she still is not all depraved; that old spark of
sympathy in her heart is there yet unquenched. I have
seen her not long since watch by the sick, work for the
needy, and give her money for their relief; take her own
bread and give it to a poor felon in prison, and comfort
a little child in its sinless sorrow; — I have seen this,
and, bad as you think she is, I can honor her for her
virtues. My dear madam, gain her good qualities, and
add them to your own perfections, before presuming to
sit in judgment on her bad ones. Besides, do you know
what temptation is, ma'am; were you ever tempted?”
The frosty look which met his own seemed to render
such a question unnecessary, and he released her hand,
gently advising her to exercise more of charity in her
estimate of character.
-- 232 -- p677-257
BENEVOLENCE.
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Philanthropos, the day after the great Railroad
Jubilee, appeared in public with two excessively black
eyes. It seems that he was going by one of our principal
hotels, when a large delegation arrived from out of
town, and hearing the remark, “All full,” his heart was
touched, and, mounting upon a post, he asked the crowd
if they would n't like to have a nice house to stop at,
where every man could have a room to himself, and
every accommodation he could desire. The response was
“Yes.”
“Well,” said the good man, with emotion, “well, if
I hear of any such I will let you know.”
The people were strangers, and did not understand
the benevolence of his intentions, and one or two of them
expressed their disapprobation in a striking manner,
which marred the good man's pleasant exterior, as above
described.
On the day of the above celebration, a large locomotive
was brought to a standstill in Washington street,
in consequence of one of the wheels giving out belonging
to the car it was on. Philanthropos, with an eye
always to the interests of the mechanic, seeing the danger
to which the engine was exposed, walked sentry round
it all night to prevent the boys from running away with
it. It was an act for which he should have been honored;
but the workmen called him an ass for his pains, when
-- 233 -- p677-258
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they came the next morning to take it away. His
indignation for a moment was awakened; despair succeeded
of ever being able to benefit his race; when a
small voice whispered to his conscience: “Will you
abandon an eternal principle because crude humanity
fails to appreciate your efforts?” and he responded
promptly to the question, and turned away in search of
new objects for the exercise of his benevolence.
Shillaber, B. P. (Benjamin Penhallow), 1814-1890 [1854], Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others of the family. (J. C. Derby, New York) [word count] [eaf677T].
