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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].
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A SINGULAR FACT.

Them are very fat critters,” remarked Mrs. Partington,
as she stood viewing a yoke of splendid steers.

“Yes 'm,” replied the farmer, “and, would you believe
it, mum, they were fattened on nothin' but oat
straw, and it had n't been threshed, neither.”

“You don't say so!” said she, and, for a moment,
doubt of the probability of the story occupied her mind;
it was but for a moment. “Well, I never!” continued
she, and turned aside to admire the beauties of a new
cider-press.

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p677-316 A HIT AT THE TIMES.

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Bred by steam-power!” screamed Mrs. Partington,
as she heard Isaac commence a paragraph about making
bread by steam. She laid down her work, placed her
hands upon her lap, and looked broadly at the boy
through her specs. “Bred by steam!” said she; “what
will the world do next? I wonder if this is one of the
labor-saving inventions, now. But I see what it will end
in. People are fast enough now, in all conscience; but
what will they do when they come to be bred by steam-power,
if they act according to their bringing up? Ah,
Isaac, people may be faster now, but they are no better
than they used to be!”

Isaac explained that it was a new mode of making
bread. She looked at him steadily for a moment, when,
taking a thumb and finger full, she put the cover on
the box, resumed her knitting, and told Isaac to go
on, which he did.

-- 288 --

p677-317 THE POOR PRINTER.

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THE poor printer — poor in
purse, we mean — reduced
to penury and rags, and
asking alms about the
printing-offices, is a melancholy
sight. There is
enough in one such spectacle
to give any man the
“double-breasted horrors”
for a whole day. There is
a most woe-begone, miserable
hopelessness in him,
as he asks your aid in the name of his profession, — of
printing, — the noble art that he, perhaps, may have
honored in his better days. Bad luck, or worse liquor, —
often symptoms of the latter predominate, — combined
with a want of self-respect, have reduced him to his
present condition. He is no common beggar. There is
a something in his tone, as he asks for your aid, that tells
plainly it is not his true vocation; that he is forcing his
nature into a most unnatural current in asking for assistance.
He has none of the small lies that appear ready-framed
on the lips of common beggars. No volcanoes
have poured their burning lavas on his head or other
property; no furious tornadoes have swept away his
earthly hopes and homestead, and driven him forth a

-- 289 --

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wanderer; no overwhelming tide has pursued him relentlessly
in other lands to give him a fortune here. But he
stands before you, and his appearance pleads for him.
He looks like a low case, dusty and pied, or a form
picked for sorts and squabbling under the accumulation
of indulged dust. There is persuasion in his seedy coat,
buttoned to the chin — a coat in which a dim gentility
struggles to overcome the poverty-clouds or cobwebs that
mar it; there is persuasion in the hat, that venerable tile,
whose form of three fashions past indicates certainly as
an almanac the date of the declension of his golden days;
there is persuasion in his familiar look at things, and the
air that says, “This is nothing new to me — I 've seen
all this before;” there is persuasion much more in the
tone of the voice that asks the gift, as if it were a loan,
or the return of some money in your keeping for him.
There is no servility in his asking, and his story is a
direct recital of his troubles. He is sick, has a disorder
in his head, his wife is dead, his hope has all fled, for days
has n't seen a bed, nor had one mouthful of bread, and is
quite famish-ed. What a recital! and you cry, “Nuf
ced!” and the quarter comes at once from your yielding
purse. What a comfortable reflection it is, as we place
the coin in his extended hand! and it forces home a question
of great moment, drawn from a contingency that grows,
some think, out of the nature of the art, “Whose turn
will come next?” and the richest of the journeymen feels
more humble as he ponders on what may happen.

-- 290 --

p677-319 MR. SLOW ON GRAVE TOPICS.

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“'BIMELECH, my son,” said Mr. Slow, shaking his
head with oracular and owl-like profundity, “it isn't
well to know too much, my boy; your father never did—
he know'd too much for that. Thoughts is perplexin',
and the human mind, 'Bimelech, is too precious a thing
to be wore out with too much friction. Don't abuse the
gifts of nater, my son, 'cause nater's one of 'em, she is.
Don't inwestigate anything new, my boy, 'cause there's
a thousand old things of more consekence to look arter—
the first of which is number one. New notions perplexes
the mind, dear—there's full enough fools in the world
who like to look arter sich things, without your troublin'
your precious head about 'em—'t wouldn't be a cent of
benefit to you. Call 'em all humbug and moonshine,
and them as believes 'em lunatics and scoundrels, and
that 'll save you a good many discussions, and give you
a character for dignity and prudence; and prudent folks
make money. Phelosophy and scions, and them things,
is humbugs, and everything is humbug but money. Mind, I tell ye.” Mr. Slow ceased, overcome by his own elo- quence.

-- 291 --

p677-320 PAYING AN OLD DEBT.

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Working out a debt is often called “working a dead
horse,” and we think not inaptly, the more especially
when a man is poor, with a family depending upon him
for support; then a pickaxe becomes a weary thing, and
every shovel-full of dirt weighs four times as much as
when the heart of the laborer is cheered by the hope of
the dollar ahead. But it is well to pay one's debts;
though it is far better not to owe anything, — a piece of
advice that Saint Paul utters with great earnestness, as
if he were practically sensible of the disadvantage of
indebtedness.

A man who had run up a long score at a shop for
liquor, cigars, and other creature comforts, found himself
utterly unable to pay a stiver of it. In vain was he urged
to pay the bill, and in vain was he threatened if he
did n't; he had n't any money, — the true secret of his
getting in debt in the first place, — and the creditor gave
it up. At last he thought he would compromise the
matter, and let the man work the debt out. The creditor
had a large pile of wood in his barn, several cords
of it, nicely sawed and split, and he forthwith set the
debtor at work to throw the wood into the street and
then pile it back again, at the rate of a shilling an hour,
until the whole debt should be wiped out. The man
took hold with a will, and, in a short time the wood was
all in the street; then it went back with equal celerity,

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and then out again and then in; everybody wondering
what it could mean. Some charitably intimated that he
was crazy, and others, equally charitable, said he was
drunk. He toiled on thus the whole day, throwing the
wood back and forth, but every hour seemed full sixty
minutes longer than its predecessor, as he watched the
clock on the old church in the neighborhood. He was
working a dead horse, and it was hard making him go.
But the longest road must have an end, and the hour
neared when the labor and debt would cease together,
and, as the hammer of the clock told the hour of his
release, the freed man threw the last stick of wood into
the street with a shout of triumph. The shout brought
the owner of the wood to the door, who found his late
debtor putting on his coat to go away.

“Halloo!” said he, “you are not going away without
putting the wood back again, are you?”

“I 'll put it back again for a shilling an hour,” said
the man.

The proprietor of the wood saw that he had been done,
but good-naturedly told his late debtor to go ahead and
put it back. He went about it; but, strange to say, it
took him just three times as long to put it back as it did
to throw it out.

Mrs. Partington having been asked what the consequences
would be if an irresistible should come in
contact with an immovable body, replied that she thought
one or t' other of 'em would get hurt.

-- 293 --

p677-322 OPERATIC REBUKE.

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I can't catch the malady!” said Mrs. Partington, at
the opera, as she stood upon tiptoe, in the lobby of the
Howard Athenæum, in vain attempting to look over the
heads before her. She had received a ticket, but it
secured nothing but an outside position, and she had
gone wandering round like a jolly planet, without any
particular orbit. Ike was in the gallery, eating a penny's
worth of pea-nuts, and throwing the shells into the
parquet below. “I can't catch the malady of the uproar,
and more 'n half the words are all Dutch to me.
This is the first opiatic performance I ever went to, and
if I can't get a seat, I can't stand it to come agin.”

She said it very firmly. As she was going down the
stairs, a young gentleman, with curly hair, reached over
the banisters, and blandly informed her that he could
furnish her with a seat. She turned her benevolent
spectacles, and face attached, towards him, and told him
it was rather late, after the evening had half gone, to
think of politeness.

It was a picture! The young curly head bending over
the banister, and the spectacles, and the black bonnet,
and the widow of Corporal Paul, on the stairs looking up.
It was sublime!

-- 294 --

p677-323 “SMITH & —. ”

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It gives us a mournful feeling every time the above
sign, on a business street, meets our eye. It is simply
a white pine sign, with the letters upon it done in
black. There is nothing peculiar in its construction;
but the blank termination, with the ampersand, — once
the connecting character of a prosperous firm, maybe,
but now seeming to exist only with reference to some
future contingency, — denotes separation, and thus, as
indicating this, the sign becomes an important “sign of
the times.” The name that formerly graced it, though
no longer needed there, is still to be traced through the
white coat spread over it, as if yet asserting its claim to
consideration. “Alas! poor ghost!” It is better to
let Smith have it all to himself.

What caused the separation? Did the “Jones,”
whom we see dimly through the white lead, which covers
him like a shroud, “shuffle off this mortal coil,” and
leave Smith there alone, like a boy tilting on one end of
a plank? Had Jones a wife and children; and do they
yet look up wistfully at the sign as they pass it by, as if
with a sort of undefined hope in their minds that Jones
may be in there somewhere now? Or do they weep as
they gaze upon it at its suggestion of their own loneliness?
Or has the widow forgotten, long ago, the man
under the mould, and another Jones, with another name,
taken his place in the domestic firm? Or does she yet

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stand, like the ampersand on the sign, beckoning some
other Jones to write his name on the blank space in her
heart, and begin anew?

It may have been a separation in strife, where uncongeniality
of mind, temper, and habits, engendered bitterness,
and the hours flew by freighted with mutual curses
upon the ill-starred union of “Smith & Jones,” and
separation was the result. How happy were they, maybe,
at the beginning, as they sat down to talk over their
business schemes, while Hope held her candle for them
as they ciphered out a path to fortune through the
intricacies of trade, — talking as lovers talk; never
dreaming, like lovers, that the elements might exist in
themselves for the destruction of their hopes and happiness!
We can fancy the bitter days, the reproaches,
abuse, and violence, that ended in the painter's brush
upon the sign, and the announcement in the Post, of
“dissolution.” But why is that ampersand left there?
Does Smith, with his bitter experience, want another
Jones to torment him?

Perhaps Smith & Jones were well-meaning men, who
tried the firm on and found it unable to carry double,
and then divided, good-naturedly, and are now carrying
on trade, each by himself, and each happy in a knowledge
of the good qualities of the other; each ready to
endorse the other's note; each having for the other a
cordial salutation when meeting, and “How are ye,
Smith?” and “How are ye, Jones?” sounding heartily,
as if they meant something more than the words
usually imply, and inquiring about each other's business
with as much earnestness as formerly, when together;

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each referring to that time with satisfaction, and speaking
of “my old partner Smith” or “Jones,” with
affection and respect. It is some comfort to conjure up
a picture like this, and we regret that “Jones” should
be “cut off” in his goodness.

“Smith & —!” We don't like to see it, any
how. If “Smith” should choose to let his name stand
there forever, as now, he may do so if he can, — nobody
can hinder him, or will want to. But Smith should not
allow that ampersand to remain there, as if hinting at
something it is afraid to say, — trembling upon the verge
of it, and holding back without venturing upon it. The
bond is broken that united the twain, and why should
Mr. Smith offend our chaste eye by leaving that ampersand
to drag along behind his name, now there is no use
for it, like the end of a broken chain beneath a cart?

Pull away, ma'am, pull away!” said old Roger,
in the omnibus, as he saw a heavy lady dragging vigorously
at the check-string; “another such a jerk as that
and he must come through.”

“Through where?” asked she sharply.

“Why, through the hole there, to be sure; you
were trying to get him through it, was n't you?”

“No, I was n't; I was only stopping the horses, Mr.
Impudence.”

“O,” said the old gentleman, “was that all? excuse
me.”

She got out, and the 'bus moved on.

-- 297 --

p677-326 A WOMAN THAT ONE COULD LOVE.

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Now, there is a woman that one could love,” said
old Roger, delightedly, as he saw a figure, arrayed in
the full feather of fashion, in a window in Washington
street. “A long life could be spent very quietly in
such company; no quarrelling for precedence; no jealousy;
no strife of any kind; no teasing for dress and
follies, till one's purse-strings ache in sympathy with
aching heart-strings, at unchecked extravagance. Even
I could love such a woman as that.”

“Perhaps you could,” responded a sweet voice at his
side; “but would it love you back again, think you?
There would be no return for your investment of affection
here in this heartless thing, this mere frame; you
should turn your attention to something worthy of your
love, where, for a small outlay of affection, a tenfold
return would be made you in domestic joy.”

“Alas!” said the old bachelor, “where shall I find
this?”

But the beautiful eyes that met his proved how easily
the question might be answered; and, with a melancholy
step, he passed along. He was more a bachelor from
habit than from choice, after all.

-- 298 --

p677-327 INTRODUCING THE WATER.

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BLESS me!” exclaimed
Mrs. Partington,
coming in out of
breath, and dropping
down into a
chair, like a jolly
old kedge anchor,
at the same time
fanning herself with
an imaginary fan.
She did not say
“Bless me,” because
she was in
want of any particular
blessing at that time; it was merely an ejaculation
of hers, expressive of deep emotion. “Bless me!” said
she, “I don't see why the Water Commissionaries were so
much worried and fretted about introducing the Cochituate
water for; I think it is the easiest thing in the world
to get acquainted with. Look at that bonnet, now,”
holding up the antiquated, but well-preserved bit o' crape,
dripping with watery drops, like the umbrella of Aquarius;
“look at that bonnet, now! ruined to all tents and
porpoises by the pesky water-works. Introduce it, indeed!”
continued she, ironically, looking severely at the
wrecked article in her hand, “'ta'n't no use of introducing

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an acquaintance that makes so free with you at first
sight.”

She arose to hang up her bonnet, when Ike, who was
hanging upon the back of her chair, fell heavily against
the window, and thrust the rear portion of his person
through four panes of glass.

“O, Isaac!” said she, “you 'll be the ruination of
me. If I was rich as Creosote I could n't stand it.”

Isaac gathered himself from among the fragments of
glass, and seemed quite tickled with an idea that he could
sell the pieces, in conjunction with a reserve of old iron
and half of the clothes-line and three junk bottles, to
raise funds for the Fourth of July.

-- 300 --

p677-329 RATHER FUNNY.

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Old Roger was standing in State street, and saw an
Irishman rolling a keg of specie from his cart to the
institution for which it was intended.

“There,” said the old fellow to a foreign gentleman
who was standing by him, “there you see the benefit of
our free institutions; there is a man who came to this
country six months ago, as poor as poor could be, and
now, you see, he is actually rolling in riches!”

He said this, and turned round, very red in the face,
and struck his cane several times violently on the sidewalk,
and waited for his friend to explode. Hearing no
sound of cachinnation, he turned and found the gentleman
vainly endeavoring to decipher the emblems on the
Merchants' Exchange. He evidently had n't understood
the joke.

ON ONE STRING.

The Prayer of Moses executed on one string!” said
Mrs. Partington. “Praying, I s'pose, to be cut down.
Poor Moses!” sighed she; “executed on one string!
Well, I don't know as ever I heard of anybody's being
executed on two strings, unless the rope broke;” and
she went on wondering how it could be.

-- 301 --

p677-330 SEEKING THE LIGHT.

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I declare, I don't know what to think on it!” said
Mrs. Partington, as she looked intently into the water-pail.
The attitude was peculiar, and the iron-bowed
specs were on duty, like a sentry on a bridge, keeping a
bright look-out over the water.

“I can't see into it.”

This was wrong if we take it literally, because the water
was as pure and transparent as her own benevolence.

“I can't see into it, and the more I preponderate upon
it, the more I 'm in a bewilderness. How Mr. Paine can
make light of water is more than I can see, — I can't
throw no light on it. I know it 's made of some sort of
gin. My poor Paul's head used to be made light by gin
and water, but it did n't burn, as they say this will.”

Her listeners stood hatless, almost breathless, as her
voice came up through her cap-border, like the steam
from around the cover of a wash-boiler, while Ike put
the experiment to a practical test by pouring a dipper of
water into the stove.

-- 302 --

p677-331 JUDGING VIRTUE BY ITS SMELL.

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It smells virtuous,” said Mrs. Partington, as she
smelt of the hartshorn-bottle that had long lain away in
an old-fashioned high closet, before which the old lady
stood, on a tall chair, exploring the dark interior of the
receptacle for “unconsidered trifles.” “It smells virtuous.”
We had often heard of the peculiar odor of
goodness, that rises like frankincense amid an atmosphere
of vice; and here was a practical application that
attested the justness of the term. It was sublime! and
the figure standing there on the high chair, like Truth
on a pedestal, with the specs, and the close cap, and the
blue yarn stockings, formed a subject for a sculptor,
poorer than which had immortalized hundreds.

ABUSES OF THE PRESS.

The printing-press is a great steam-engine,” said
Mrs. Partington; “but I don't believe Dr. Franklin
ever invented it to commit outrages on a poor female
woman like me. It makes me say everything, Mrs.
Sled; and some of the things I know must have been
said when I was out, for I can't remember 'em;” and she
dropped three stitches in her excitement. “They ought
to think,” continued she, “that them who makes sport
of the aged don't never live to grow up.”

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p677-336 MOUSE-HUNTING; AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MRS. PARTINGTON.

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It was midnight, deep and still, in the mansion of
Mrs. Partington, — as it was, very generally, about
town, — on a cold night in March. So profound was
the silence that it awakened Mrs. P., and she raised
herself upon her elbow to listen. No sound greeted her
ears, save the tick of the old wooden clock in the next
room, which stood there in the dark, like an old chrone,
whispering and gibbering to itself. Mrs. Partington relapsed
beneath the folds of the blankets, and had one
eye again well-coaxed towards the realm of dreams, while
the other was holding by a very frail tenure upon the
world of reality, when her ear was saluted by the nibble
of a mouse, directly beneath her chamber window, and
the mouse was evidently gnawing her chamber carpet.

Now, if there is an animal in the catalogue of creation
that she dreads and detests, it is a mouse; and she has
a vague and indefinite idea that rats and mice were made
with especial regard to her individual torment. As she
heard the sound of the nibble by the window, she arose
again upon her elbow, and cried “Shoo! Shoo!” energetically,
several times. The sound ceased, and she
fondly fancied that her trouble was over. Again she
laid herself away as carefully as she would have lain
eggs at forty-five cents a dozen, when, — nibble, nibble,
nibble!
— she once more heard the odious sound by the

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window. “Shoo!” cried the old lady again, at the
same time hurling her shoe at the spot from whence the
sound proceeded, where the little midnight marauder was
carrying on his depredations.

A light burned upon the hearth, — she could n't sleep
without a light, — and she strained her eyes in vain to
catch a glimpse of her tormentor playing about amid the
shadows of the room. All again was silent, and the
clock, giving an admonitory tremble, struck twelve.
Midnight! and Mrs. Partington counted the tintinabulous
knots as they ran off the reel of Time, with a saddened
heart.

Nibble, nibble, nibble! — again that sound. The
old lady sighed, as she hurled the other shoe at her
invisible annoyance. It was all without avail, and
“shooing” was bootless, for the sound came again to
her wakeful ear. At this point her patience gave out,
and, conquering her dread of the cold, she arose and
opened the door of her room that led to a corridor, when,
taking the light in one hand, and a shoe in the other,
she made the circuit of the room, and explored every
nook and cranny in which a mouse could ensconse himself.
She looked under the bed, and under the old chest
of drawers, and under the washstand, and “shooed”
until she could “shoo” no more.

The reader's own imagination, if he has an imagination
skilled in limning, must draw the picture of the old
lady while upon this exploring expedition, “accoutred
as she was,” in search of the ridiculous mouse. We
have our own opinion upon the subject, and must say,—
with all due deference to the years and virtues of

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Mrs. P., and with all regard for personal attractions
very striking in one of her years, — we should judge
that she cut a very queer figure, indeed.

Satisfying herself that the mouse must have left the
room, she closed the door, deposited the light upon the
hearth, and again sought repose. How gratefully a
warm bed feels, when exposure to the night air has
chilled us, as we crawl to its enfolding covert! How
we nestle down, like an infant by its mother's breast,
and own no joy superior to that we feel, — coveting no
regal luxury while revelling in the elysium of feathers!
So felt Mrs. P. as she again ensconced herself in bed.
The clock in the next room struck one.

She was again near the attainment of the state when
dreams are rife, when, close by her chamber-door, outside
she heard that hateful nibble renewed which had
marred her peace before. With a groan she arose, and,
seizing her lamp, she opened the door, and had the satisfaction
to hear the mouse drop, step by step, until he
reached the floor below. Convinced that she was now
rid of him for the night, she returned to bed, and
addressed herself to sleep. The room grew dim, in the
weariness of her spirit, the chest of drawers in the corner
was fast losing its identity and becoming something else;
in a moment more — nibble, nibble, nibble! again
outside of the chamber-door, as the clock in the next
room struck two.

Anger, disappointment, desperation, fired her mind
with a new determination. Once more she arose, but
this time she put on a shoe! — her dexter shoe. Ominous
movement! It is said that when a woman wets her

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finger fleas had better flee. The star of that mouse's
destiny was setting, and was now near the horizon. She
opened the door quickly, and, as she listened a moment,
she heard him drop again from stair to stair, on a speedy
passage down.

The entry below was closely secured, and no door was
open to admit of his escape. This she knew, and a
triumphant gleam shot athwart her features, revealed by
the rays of the lamp. She went slowly down the stairs,
until she arrived at the floor below, where, snugly in a
corner, with his little bead-like black eyes looking up at
her roguishly, was the gnawer of her carpet, and the
annoyer of her comfort. She moved towards him, and
he, not coveting the closer acquaintance, darted by her.
She pursued him to the other end of the entry, and
again he passed by her. Again and again she pursued
him, with no better success. At last, when in most
doubt as to which side would conquer, Fortune, perched
upon the banister, turned the scale in favor of Mrs. P.
The mouse, in an attempt to run by her, presumed too
much upon former success. He came too near her
upraised foot. It fell upon his musipilar beauties, like
an avalanche of snow upon a new tile, and he was dead
forever! Mrs. Partington gazed upon him as he lay
before her. Though she was glad at the result, she
could but sigh at the necessity which impelled the violence;
but for which the mouse might have long continued
a blessing to the society in which he moved.



Slowly and sadly she marched up stairs,
With her shoe all sullied and gory;
And the watch, who saw 't through the front door squares,
Told us this part of the story.

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p677-340

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That mouse did not trouble Mrs. Partington again
that night, and the old clock in the next room struck
three before sleep again visited the eyelids of the relict
of Corporal Paul.

STAR-GAZING.

Out beneath the starry heavings Mr. Slow took his
son, Abimelech, to point out to him — to read to him
from the broad page of nature — the wonders of

“The spacious furnishment on high,”

as he called it.

“All these 'ere stars, my son,” said Mr. S., pointing
up to the studded sky above them, “that you see up
there, stationary and unmovable, marchin' along in sublime
grande'r, and winking at the earth with their jolly
yeller eyes, like gold eagles, them are called fixed
stars;' and” —

“But what 's that, father?” said young Abimelech,
as a meteor, like a racer, darted across the southerly
sky.

Mr. Slow was prompt with his answer.

“That,” said he, “I guess, is one of 'em that 's got
unfixed.

-- 308 --

p677-341 MRS. P. ON MOUNT VESUVIUS.

[figure description] Page 308.[end figure description]

SO there 's been another rupture of
Mount Vociferous!” said Mrs.
Partington, as she put down the
paper and put up her specs. “The
paper tells all about the burning
lather running down the mountain, but it don't tell us
how it got afire. I wonder if it was set fire to. There
are many people full wicked enough to do it, or, perhaps,
it was caused by children playing with frictious matches.
I wish they had sent for our firemen; they would
soon have put a stop to the raging aliment; and I dare
say Mr. Barnacle, and all of 'em, would have gone, for
they are what I call real civil engineers.”

There was a whole broadside of commendation of the
fire department in the impressive gesture accompanying
her words. “Time and space” for a moment became annihilated,
and imagination figured the city engines pouring
their subduing streams upon the flames of Vesuvius,
and “Hold on, seving!” “Break her down, twelve!”
rising above the vain roarings of the smothering crater.

-- 309 --

p677-342
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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].
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