A FEW IDIOTISMS
I
THE FOUR-MASTED CAT-BOAT
AN ETCHING OF THE SEA, BY A LANDLUBBER
The sea lay low in the offing, and as far as the eye could reach, immense white-caps rode upon it as quietly as pond-lilies on the bosom of a lake.
Fleecy clouds dotted the sky, and far off toward the horizon a full-rigged four-masted cat-boat lugged and luffed in the calm evening breezes. Her sails were piped to larboard, starboard, and port; and as she rolled steadily along in the heavy wash and undertow, her companion-light, already kindled, shed a delicate ray across the bay to where the dull red disk of the sun was dipping its colors.
Her cordage lay astern, in the neat coils that seamen know so well how to make. The anchor had been weighed this half-hour, and the figures put down in the log; for Captain Bliffton was not a man to put off doing anything that lay in the day’s watch.
Away to eastward, two tiny black clouds stole along as if they were diffident strangers in the sky, and were anxious to be gone. Now and again came the report of some sunset gun from the forts that lined the coast, and sea-robins flew with harsh cries athwart the sloop of fishing-boats that were beating to windward with gaffed topsails.
“Davy Jones’ll have a busy day to-morrow,” growled Tom Bowsline, the first boatswain’s mate.
“Meaning them clouds is windy?” answered the steward, with a glance to leeward.
“The same,” answered the other, shaking out a reef, and preparing to batten the tarpaulins. “What dinged fools them fellers on the sloop of fishin’-ships is! They’ve got their studdin’sails gaffed and the mizzentops aft of the gangway; an’ if I know a marlinspike from a martingale, we’re goin’ to have as pretty a blow as ever came out of the south.”
And, indeed, it did look to be flying in the face of Providence, for the mackerel-ships, to the last one, were tugging and straining to catch the slightest zephyr, with their yard-arms close-hauled and their poop-decks flush with the fo’c’sle.
The form of the captain of the cat-boat was now visible on the stairs leading to the upper deck. It needed but one keen glance in the direction of the black clouds—no longer strangers, but now perfectly at home and getting ugly—to determine his course. “Unship the spinnaker-boom, you dogs, and be quick about it! Luff, you idiot, luff!” The boatswain’s first mate loved nothing better than to luff, and he luffed; and the good ship, true to her keel, bore away to northward, her back scuppers oozing at every joint.
“That was ez neat a bit of seamanship ez I ever see,” said Tom Bowsline, taking a huge bite of oakum. “Shiver my timbers! if my rivets don’t tremble with joy when I see good work.”
“Douse your gab, and man the taff-rail!” yelled the captain; and Tom flew to obey him. “Light the top-lights!”
A couple of sailors to whom the trick is a mere bagatelle run nimbly out on the stern-sprit and execute his order; and none too soon, for darkness is closing in over the face of the waters, and the clouds come on apace.
A rumble of thunder, followed by a blinding flash, betokens that the squall is at hand. The captain springs adown the poop, and in a hoarse voice yells out: “Lower the maintop; loosen the shrouds; luff a little—steady! Cut the main-brace, and clear away the halyards. If we don’t look alive, we’ll look pretty durn dead in two shakes of a capstan-bar. All hands abaft for a glass of grog.”
The wild rush of sailors’ feet, the creaking of ropes, the curses of those in the rear, together with the hoarse cries of the gulls and the booming of the thunder, made up a scene that beggars description. Every trough of the sea was followed by a crest as formidable, and the salt spray had an indescribable brackish taste like bilge-water and ginger-ale.
After the crew had finished their grog they had time to look to starboard of the port watch, and there they beheld what filled them with pity. The entire sloop of mackerel-ships lay with their keels up.
“I knowed they’d catch it if they gaffed their studdin’sails,” said Tom, as he shifted the quid of oakum.
The full moon rose suddenly at the exact spot where the sun had set. The thunder made off, muttering. The cat-boat, close-rigged from hand-rail to taff-rail, scudded under bare poles, with the churning motion peculiar to pinnaces, and the crew involuntarily broke into the chorus of that good old sea-song:
The wind blows fresh, and our scuppers are astern.
II
THE POOR WAS MAD
A FAIRY SHTORY FOR LITTLE CHILDHER
Wance upon a toime the poor was virry poor indade, an’ so they wint to a rich leddy that was that rich that she had goold finger-nails, an’ was that beautifil that it ’u’d mek you dopey to luke at her. An’ the poor asht her would she give thim the parin’s of her goold finger-nails fer to sell. An’ she said she would that, an’ that ivery Chuesdeh she did be afther a-parin’ her nails. So of a Chuesdeh the poor kem an’ they tuke the goold parin’s to a jewel-ery man, an’ he gev thim good money fer thim. Wasn’t she the koind leddy, childher? Well, wan day she forgot to pare her nails, an’ so they had nothin’ to sell. An’ the poor was mad, an’ they wint an’ kilt the leddy intoirely. An’ whin she was kilt, sorra bit would the nails grow upon her, an’ they saw they was silly to kill her. So they wint out to sairch fer a leddy wid silver finger-nails. An’ they found her, an’ she was that beautifil that her face was all the colors of the rainbow an’ two more besides. An’ the poor asht her would she give thim the parin’s of her silver finger-nails fer to sell. An’ she said that she would that, an’ that ivery Chuesdeh she did be afther a-parin’ her nails. So of a Chuesdeh the poor kem an’ they tuke the silver parin’s to the jewel-ery man, an’ he gev thim pretty good money fer thim, but not nair as good as fer the goold. But he was the cute jewel-ery man, wasn’t he, childher? Well, wan day she forgot to pare her nails, an’ so they had nothin’ to sell. An’ the poor was mad, an’ they wint an’ kilt the leddy intoirely. An’ whin she was kilt, sorra bit would the nails grow upon her, an’ they saw they was silly to kill her. So they wint out to sairch for a leddy wid tin finger-nails. An’ they found her, an’ she was that beautifil that she would mek you ristless. An’ the poor asht her would she give thim the parin’s of her tin finger-nails fer to sell. An’ she said she would that, an’ that ivery Chuesdeh she did be afther a-parin’ her nails. So of a Chuesdeh the poor kem. An’ did they git the tin nails, childher? Sure, that’s where y’ are out. They did not, fer the leddy had lost a finger in a mowin’-machine, an’ she didn’t have tin finger-nails at arl, at arl—only noine.
III
A PECULIAR INDUSTRY
The sign in front of the dingy little office on a side-street, through which I was walking, read:
JO COSE AND JOCK EWLAH
FUNSMITHS
Being of an inquisitive turn of mind, I went in. A little dried-up man, who introduced himself as Mr. Cose, greeted me cheerily. He said that Mr. Ewlah was out at lunch, but he’d be pleased to do what he could for me.
“What is the nature of your calling?” asked I.
“It is you who are calling,” said he, averting his eyes. Then he assumed the voice and manner of a “lecturer” in a dime museum, and rattled along as follows:
“We are in the joke business. Original and second-hand jokes bought and sold. Old jokes made over as good as new. Good old stand-bys altered to suit the times. Jokes cleaned and made ready for the press. We do not press them ourselves. Joke expanders for sale cheap. Also patent padders for stories—”
I interrupted the flow of his talk to ask him if there was much demand for the padders.
“Young man,” said he, “do you keep up with current literature?”
Then he went over to a shelf on which stood a long line of bottles of the size of cod-liver-oil bottles, and taking one down, he said: “Now, here is Jokoleine, of which we are the sole agents. This will make a poor joke salable, and is in pretty general use in the city, although some editors will not buy a joke that smells of it.”
I noticed a tall, black-haired, Svengalic-looking person in an inner room, and I asked Mr. Cose who he was.
“That is our hypnotizer. The most callous editors succumb to his gaze. Take him with you when you have anything to sell. We rent him at a low figure, considering how useful he is. He has had a busy season, and is tired out, but that is what we pay him for. If he were to die you’d notice a difference in many of the periodicals. The poorer the material, the better pleased he is to place it. It flatters his vanity.”
I assured him that I was something of a hypnotist myself, and, thanking him for his courtesy, was about to come away, when he picked up what looked like a box of tacks and said:
“Here are points for pointless jokes. We don’t have much sale for them. Most persons prefer an application of Jokoleine. A recent issue of a comic weekly had sixty jokes and but one point, showing conclusively that points are out of fashion in some editorial rooms.
“A man came in yesterday,” rattled on the senior member, “and asked if we bought hand-made jokes, and before we could stop him he said that by hand-made jokes he meant jokes about servant-girls. We gave him the address of ‘Punch.’”
At this point I shook hands with Mr. Cose, and as I left he was saying: “For a suitable consideration we will guarantee to call anything a joke that you may bring in, and we will place it without hypnotic aid or the use of Jokoleine. It has been done before.”
And as I came away from the sound of his voice, I reflected that it had.
IV
GRIGGS’S MIND
The other day I met Griggs on the cars. Griggs is the man with the mind. Other people have minds, but they’re not like Griggs’s. He lives in Rutherford, New Jersey, and is, like me, a commuter, and as neither of us plays cards nor is interested in politics, and as we have tabooed the weather as a topic, it almost always happens that when we meet, we, or rather he, falls back on his mind as subject for conversation. For my part, my daily newspaper would be all-sufficient for my needs on the way to town; but it pleases Griggs to talk, and it’s bad for my eyes to read on the cars, so I shut them up and cultivate the air of listening, the while Griggs discourses.
I had recently read in the Contributors’ Club of the “Atlantic,” an article by a woman, who said that the letters of the alphabet seemed to be variously colored in her mind; that is, her mental picture gave to one letter a green hue, to another red, and so on. I spoke of this to Griggs, and he was much interested. He said that the sound of a cornet was always red to him. I asked him whether it made any difference who blew it, but Griggs scorns to notice puns, and he answered: “Not a particle. I don’t pretend to explain it, but it is so. Likewise, to me the color of scarlet tastes salt, while crimson is sweet.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him in amazement. It sounded like a bit out of “Alice in Wonderland.” Then I remembered that it was Griggs who was talking, and that he has a mind. When I don’t understand something about Griggs, I lay it to his mind and think no more about it. So I shut my eyes again and listened.
“By the way,” said he, “how does time run in your mind?”
“Why, I never thought of its running at all, although it passes quickly enough, for the most part!”
“But hasn’t it some general direction? Up or down, north or south, east or west?”
“Griggs,” said I, “is this your mind?”
“Yes,” said he.
“Well, go ahead; fire it off; unfold your kinks!” said I, leaning back in my seat; “but kindly remember that I have no mind, and if you can’t put it in words of one syllable, talk slowly so that I can follow you.”
He promised to put it as plainly as though he were talking to his youngest, aged three; and, with this assurance, my cerebrum braced itself, so to speak, and awaited the onslaught.
“My idea of the direction of time in all its divisions and subdivisions is as follows—”
“Say, Griggs,” said I, “let’s go into the smoker. A little oil of nicotine always makes my brain work easier.”
When we were seated in the smoker, and had each lighted a cigar, he went on:
“Assuming that I am facing the north, far in the southwest is the Garden of Eden and the early years of recorded time. Moving eastward run the centuries, and the years to come and the end of the world are in the far east.”
I felt slightly bewizzled, but I gripped the seat in front of me and said nothing.
“My mental picture of the months of the year is that January is far to the north. The months follow in a more or less zigzag, easterly movement, until we find that July and August have strayed far south. But the autumn months zigzag back, so that by the time December sweeps coldly by she is twelve months east of January, and then the new January starts on a road of similar direction. You still observe that the current of time sets toward me instead of away from me.”
What could I do but observe that it did? I had the inside seat, and Griggs has an insistent way about him, so I generally observe just when he asks me to, and thus avoid friction. Then, too, I always feel flattered when Griggs condescends to talk at me and reveal the wonders of his mind. So I observed heartily, and puffed away at my cigar, while he continued:
“The direction of the week-days is rather hazy in my mind—”
I begged him not to feel low-spirited about it—that it would probably seem clear to him before long; but I don’t think he heard me, for he went right on: “But it is a somewhat undulatory movement from west to east, Sundays being on the crest of each wave. Coming to the hours, I picture them as running, like the famous mouse, ‘down the clock,’ the early day-light being highest. The minutes and seconds refuse to be marshaled into line, but go ticking on to eternity helter-skelter, yet none the less inevitably.”
I rather admired the independence of the minutes and seconds in refusing to be ordered about even by his mind; but, of course, I didn’t tell him so. On the contrary, I congratulated him on the highly poetic way in which he was voicing his sentiments.
Just then we came into the station, and an acquaintance of his buttonholed him and lugged him off, for Griggs is quite a favorite, in spite of his mind. I was sorry, for I had wanted to ask him where the moments and instants seem bound for in his brain. I did manage, just as we were leaving the boat at Chambers Street, to tell him that I was going to be in the Augustan part of the city at noon, and would be pleased to take him out to lunch, if he ran across me; but he must have mistaken the month, as I ate my luncheon alone. I dare say he understood me to say January, and wandered all over Harlem looking for me. How unpleasant it must be to have a mind!
V
THE SIGNALS OF GRIGGS
You may remember Griggs as the man who had a mind. At the time that I wrote about that useful member of his make-up he was living out in New Jersey; but he was finally brought to see the error of his ways, and took the top flat in a nine-story house without an elevator, ’way up-town.
The other evening I went to call on the Griggses. He had not yet come home, but his wife let me in and helped me to a sofa to recover from the effects of my climb. I have been up the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and Popocatepetl, but I never felt so exhausted as I did after walking up those nine frightful flights. And Mrs. Griggs told me that she thought nothing of running up- and down-stairs a dozen times a day, which was a sad commentary on her truthfulness.
After I was there a few minutes, trying to get used to the notes of two lusty and country-bred children (offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Griggs), there came a feeble and dejected ring at the front-door bell. Mrs. Griggs hastened to the kitchen,—they do not keep a servant (that was their trouble in New Jersey, but now they don’t want to),—and after pressing the electric button that opened the front door, she said: “That’s poor Mr. Griggs. He must be feeling bad to-night, and I must put the children to bed before he gets up, as he is too nervous to stand their noise.”
I was somewhat astonished, but she ripped the clothes off of her buds of promise and popped them into bed with a skill and rapidity that would have secured her a position on the vaudeville stage. After they were covered up she returned to me. Of course Mr. Griggs had not yet arrived, and I asked her how she knew he was tired.
“Why, we have a code of signals. Mr. Griggs invented them. When he has done well down-town, he taps out a merry peal on the bell, and then I tell the children to greet him at the hall door and prepare for a romp. When the bell rings sharply I know that he is in no humor for fun, but will tolerate the children if they are quiet. But when he rings slowly and faintly, as he did to-night, I always put the dears to bed, as I know he has had bad luck and is worn out.”
As she spoke, Griggs opened the hall door and staggered in, weak from his superhuman climb and worn out from his day’s work. I said: “Good-by, old man; I’ll call some day when you’re going to give the bell the glad hand. You seem cozily situated.” And then I came down in the dumb-waiter, although I suppose it was risky.
What a great thing is an electric bell! But how much greater is an inventive mind like that of Griggs.
VI
À LA SHERLOCK HOLMES
Jones and I recently had occasion to take a drive of four or five miles in upper Connecticut. We were met at the station by Farmer Phelps, who soon had us snugly wrapped in robes and speeding over the frozen highway in a sleigh. It was bitter cold weather—the thermometer reading 3° above zero. We had come up from Philadelphia, and to us such extreme cold was a novelty, which is all we could say for it.
As we rode along, Jones fell to talking about Conan Doyle’s detective stories, of which we were both great admirers—the more so as Doyle has declared Philadelphia to be the greatest American city. It turned out that Mr. Phelps was familiar with the “‘Meemoirs’ of Sherlock Holmes,” and he thought there was some “pretty slick reasonin’” in it. “My girl,” said he, “got the book out er the library an’ read it aout laoud to my woman an’ me. But of course this Doyle had it all cut an’ dried afore he writ it. He worked backwards an’ kivered up his tracks, an’ then started afresh, an’ it seems more wonderful to the reader than it reely is.”
“I don’t know,” said Jones; “I’ve done a little in the observation line since I began to read him, and it’s astonishing how much a man can learn from inanimate objects, if he uses his eyes and his brain to good purpose. I rarely make a mistake.”
Just then we drove past an outbuilding. The door of it was shut. In front of it, in a straight row and equidistant from each other, lay seven cakes of ice, thawed out of a water-pan.
“There,” said Jones; “what do we gather from those seven cakes of ice and that closed door?”
I gave it up.
Mr. Phelps said nothing.
Jones waited impressively a moment, and then said quite glibly: “The man who lives there keeps a flock of twelve hens—not Leghorns, but probably Plymouth Rocks or some Asiatic variety. He attends to them himself, and has good success with them, although this is the seventh day of extremely cold weather.”
I gazed at him in admiration.
Mr. Phelps said nothing.
“How do you make it all out, Jones?” said I.
“Well, those cakes of ice were evidently formed in a hens’ drinking-pan. They are solid. The water froze a little all day long, and froze solid in the night. It was thawed out in the morning and left lying there, and the pan was refilled. There are seven cakes of ice; therefore there has been a week of very cold weather. They are side by side: from this we gather that it was a methodical man who attended to them; evidently no hireling, but the goodman himself. Methodical in little things, methodical in greater ones; and method spells success with hens. The thickness of the ice also proves that comparatively little water was drunk; consequently he keeps a small flock. Twelve is the model number among advanced poultrymen, and he is evidently one. Then, the clearness of the ice shows that the hens are not excitable Leghorns, but fowl of a more sluggish kind, although whether Plymouth Rocks or Brahmas or Langshans, I can’t say. Leghorns are so wild that they are apt to stampede through the water and roil it. The closed door shows he has the good sense to keep them shut up in cold weather.
“To sum up, then, this wide-awake poultryman has had wonderful success, in spite of a week of exceptionally cold weather, from his flock of a dozen hens of some large breed. How’s that, Mr. Phelps? Isn’t it almost equal to Doyle?”
“Yes; but not accordin’ to Hoyle, ez ye might say,” said he. “Your reasonin’ is good, but it ain’t quite borne aout by the fac’s. In the fust place, this is the fust reel cold day we’ve hed this winter. Secon’ly, they ain’t no boss to the place, fer she’s a woman. Thirdly, my haouse is the nex’ one to this, an’ my boy an’ hers hez be’n makin’ those ice-cakes fer fun in some old cream-pans. Don’t take long to freeze solid in this weather. An’, las’ly, it ain’t a hen-haouse, but an ice-haouse.”
The sun rode with unusual quietness through the heavens. We heard no song of bird. The winds were whist. All nature was silent.
So was Jones.
VII
MY SPANISH PARROT
I have two maiden aunts living down in Maine, on the edge of the woods. Their father was a deaf-and-dumb woodsman, and their mother died when they were small, and they hardly see a soul from one year’s end to the other. The consequence is, they’re the simplest, dearest old creatures one ever saw. They don’t know what evil means. They pass their days knitting and working in their garden. The quarterly visits of the itinerant preacher who deals out the gospel in that region, and my occasional trips up there, constitute the only chances they have of mingling with the outside world, and they’re as happy and unsophisticated as birds.
A year ago I took up a parrot that I’d bought of a sailor. The bird had a cold when I got it, and wasn’t saying a word; but the sailor vouched for its character, and I thought it would be a novelty and company for the old ladies, so I took it along. They’d never seen a parrot before, and they couldn’t thank me enough. I told them that when it got over its cold it would talk; and then it occurred to me that as the sailor of which I bought it was a Spaniard, the bird would be likely to speak that tongue. “So you’ll be able to learn Spanish,” said I; and they were mightily pleased at the notion.
In about two months I received a letter from Aunt Linda, saying that the bird was the greatest company in the world, and they didn’t know what they’d do without him. “And,” wrote my aunt, “the bird is a great talker of Spanish, and we have learned much of that strange tongue.”
I was amused at the idea of those maiden aunts of mine talking Spanish, and the next week, being in the vicinity, I took the stage over to where they live, about fifteen miles from any railroad.
They saw me alight, and came out to meet me—two pretty, sweet, prim-looking old ladies. I kissed them both heartily, and then Aunt Linda said, in her gentle voice: “I’m so glad you’ve come, you dear old blankety-blank blank blank boy. That’s Spanish.”
I nearly fell off my perch, but I managed to keep a straight face, and then dear Aunt Jane said softly and proudly: “Why the blankety-blank blank don’t you come to see us oftener, you blankety-blank blank boy?”
It made my blood run cold to hear the oaths those innocent creatures poured out on me all day. The parrot followed me around, and perked his head on one side, as much as to say, “Aren’t they apt pupils?” but he never opened his mouth to talk—and there really wasn’t any need. They kept me supplied with conversation on their quiet doings, all interlarded with their new-found “Spanish,” until it was time to go to bed.
I hadn’t the heart to tell them that the tongue in which they were so fluent was not Spanish; and as their hearts were as pure as a baby’s, and they saw no one, I said nothing; but when I left, early next morning, I was careful to bid them good-by out of ear-shot of the stage-coach, and it’s lucky I did, for the torrent of billingsgate that they poured fondly over me would have caused the occupants of the coach to think entirely unwarranted things of the old ladies.
As I climbed up to the seat by the driver, a man got out of the stage and walked up to the house.
“Good heavens! who’s that?” I asked of the driver.
“Thet,” said he, “is the Methody preacher makin’ his quarterly visit to th’ old ladies.”
VIII
“TO MEET MR. CAVENDISH”
The card read, “To meet Mr. Cavendish.” I had not been in Boston long, and I must confess to a poor head for names, so I had no idea who Mr. Cavendish was or what he had done, but as he was to be at Mrs. Emerson’s, I knew he had done something.
There were only five guests there, besides Mr. Cavendish, when I arrived, and after we were introduced it so happened that Cavendish and I found ourselves talking together.
He looked tired, so I said as a starter: “Don’t you find your work exhausting?” I thought I’d play “twenty questions” with him, and determine what he had done.
“Sometimes it is, very. The expenditure of force fairly makes my throat ache.”
It was easy. He was probably a Wagnerian singer.
“I suppose you have to be very careful about your throat.”
“Why, no,” he said; “I never think about my throat.”
He wasn’t a singer.
“Well, you’re in love with your art.”
He smiled. “Yes, I’m in love with it.”
I was in despair. What was he?
But now I would nail him. “What are your methods of work, Mr. Cavendish?”
“Oh, I don’t spend much time in over-elaboration. My brush-strokes are very broad.”
Ah, a painter! “Exactly,” I said. “You like a free hand.”
He said: “After all, the words are everything.”
Ah, a writer! “Yes,” said I; “your words are everything to the public.”
“I hope so. I try to make them so,” he said modestly.
Now I felt easier, and proceeded to praise him specifically.
“Which do you like best—to make your public laugh or cry? or do you aim to instruct it?”
“It is easy to make persons laugh, so I suppose I like rather to bring them to tears. As for instruction, there are those who say it is not our province to instruct.”
“But you do all three, Mr. Cavendish.”
He bowed as if he thought I had hit it.
I said: “To those who are familiar with your work there is something that makes you just the man to pick up for a quarter of an hour.”
His blank expression showed that I had made some mistake. He is a tall, portly man, and he seemed alarmed at the prospect of being picked up. A fall would be serious.
“I don’t quite get your meaning, but I suppose you refer to the men about town who stray in for a few minutes.”
It seemed a queer way to express it, but I replied: “Oh, yes; just to browse. You repay browsing, Mr. Cavendish.”
He smiled reminiscently. “Speaking of browsing, when I was told to go ahead on Richelieu, I browsed a long time in the British Museum getting up data.”
What, a painter, after all? I forgot all else he had said, and told him I thought he was as happy as Sargent or Whistler.
“Yes; I don’t let little things worry me much. Sometimes the paint gives out at a critical time in a small town.”
Good heaven! Why should the paint give out in a small town at a critical time? Was he a painter, after all? Could he be a traveling sign-painter?
“Does it bother you to work up in the air?”
“That’s an original way of putting it,” said he, with a genial laugh. “To play to the grand stand, as it were. Oh, no; a man must do more or less of that to succeed.”
I was shocked. “You surely don’t believe in desecrating nature! Sermons in stones, if you will, but not sermons on stones. You wouldn’t letter the Palisades if you had a chance, would you?”
He edged away from me, and said:
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t letter the Palisades, although I dare say my man of affairs would be glad to.”
Then I gave up. His man of affairs! He must be a gentleman of leisure to have a man of affairs.
And then up came Ticknor Fields, the dramatic critic, and said: “How do you do, Mr. Cavendish? Let me congratulate you upon your success as Richelieu. At last a successor to Booth has been found.”
I went and drank a glass of iced water. My throat was dry.
IX
INSTINCT SUPPLIED TO HENS
A company has just been formed in New Jersey for the purpose of supplying instinct to hens. Such well-known farmers as Frank R. Stockton, Russell Sage, and Bishop Potter are stockholders in it, and if filling a long-felt want is all that is needed, the success of the company is already assured.
No one who has ever dabbled in hens needs to be told that the gallinaceous birds have no instinct whatever. Some have blind luck, but a hen with instincts in good working order would be an anomaly.
I visited Mr. Stockton at his extensive farm in New Jersey in order to find out what I could about the project. I found him in a frock-coat and overalls, training a squash-vine up a maple-tree. He greeted me cordially, and asked me to come and see his tomato-trenches. He also showed me quite an extensive area covered with birch poles for his radishes to climb on. He was very urbane, and willingly told me all about the company.
“No man,” said he, sitting down on one of his largest cucumbers and motioning me to a seat on another, “who has ever kept hens but has wondered why they were not provided with a good commonsense brand of instinct. No animal needs instinct more than a hen. It was to supply this need that our company was formed. You know that if you put a hen on cobblestones, she will brood over them with all the devotion possible, and if at the end of three weeks you put a baby chicken under her, her—what you might term false instinct—will cause her to cluck and call to the cobble to come forth and follow her.”
I admitted the force of his remark, because when a boy I had once set a hen on some green apples, and she had covered them without a murmur for a week, when I took pity on her and replaced them with real eggs. The following day, not liking the feeling of the eggs, she left them, and gathering together the apples that I had left scattered upon the barn floor, she sat on them again.
I told this experience to Mr. Stockton, and he said: “If she’d had a few of our instinct-powders before sitting she would have repudiated the fraud at once. Is it instinct, or the lack of it,” he continued, “that makes a heavy Light Brahma plant a ponderous and feathered foot upon her offspring and listen calmly to their expiring peeps? It’s lack of it; she needs one of our powders.”
I made a mental calculation of the number of chickens that I had seen sacrificed in that way by motherly and good-natured hens who would have felt hurt if you had told them that they did not know how to bring up their young.
We had risen, and were now walking as we talked, and we soon came to Mr. Stockton’s corn-trellises. He is a great believer in climbing, and it was a pretty sight to see his corn waving in the breeze that blew through the trellis netting.
“Poultry-raising would be an unmixed joy,” said he, as he picked a turnip and offered it to me, “if a fellow wasn’t constantly running up against this lack of instinct on the part of the fowls. If a hen had instinct she’d know enough to keep her mouth shut when she laid an egg; but as it is, she cackles away like a woman with a secret, and before she knows it her egg is on the way to the table. But the aim of our company will be to furnish each hen with a sufficient amount of instinct to render her profitable to her master. When she has that instinct she will not sit on her nest long after her eggs have been removed; she will not walk off through the long grass, calling to her brood to follow her, when the chicks have all been swallowed by the treacherous domestic cat; and she will not do the thousand and one things that any hen, no matter what her breed or breeding, will do, as it is.”
I told Mr. Stockton, as I shook hands with him in parting, that there was not a farmer, either amateur or professional, in the whole Union, who would not be glad to purchase a package of his instinct-powders; and as I left the genial granger, he was putting cushions under his watermelons so that they would not get bruised by contact with the earth.
X
A SPRING IDYL
It was a bright morning in early spring—one of the delightful, languorous days that take the sap out of one and make the life of the tramp seem blissful. The maples were just putting forth their delicate crimson leaves, and a warm south wind bore into the city the smell of fresh earth. Ah, what longings were stirred up in the breast of Key, Pattit & Company’s office-boy, country-bred, but pent up in the city for a twelvemonth past! Oh, for one day in the country! He would follow the winding trout-stream from its source in Perkins’s meadow until it emptied into the Naugatuck, and with angleworms dug from the famous spot north of the barn he would lure the coy trout from their shaded lurking-places.
Hark! what was that? The “drowsy tinkling” of a cow-bell—of cow-bells. What sweet music! It drove him wild with longing, as louder and ever louder, and nearer and yet nearer, came the sound of bells. Ah, he could see Jerry, the hired man, driving the cows up the grassy lane. As usual, Betty, the Jersey, was in the lead. And there was greedy Daisy, lingering to crop the rich grass that grew along the lane until Jerry’s “Whe-e-y, whe-e-y!” should bid her hurry on. And there were the twin heifers, Nanny and Fanny, perfectly matched Holsteins. And in the rear, plodding on with dignity and fatness, was Diana, the great Devon.
How the bells jangled! Surely it was not seeming, but actuality. They were right outside on the street.
Impulsively he ran to the office window and looked down with boyish anticipation.
“Jingle-jangle!” went the bells. “Rha-ags, rha-ags, any ol’ rha-ags!” shouted the ragman.
XI
AN INVERTED SPRING IDYL
It was a bright morning in the early spring, a time to call forth poetic fancies in the mind of the most prosaic; and Jack was more imaginative than many boys. He had been spending the winter at his uncle’s in the country, and these warm, languorous days had made him long for New York once more. He sat astride of a maple-branch, on which the crimson leaves were just peeping out. Ah me, what would he not give to be back in the city! He leaned back against the tree-trunk and gave himself over to day-dreams.
The boys on his block were spinning tops. Oh, for a good hard city pavement for just five minutes, that he might do the same. Through the hazy air came the anything but drowsy tinklings of the grip-men’s gongs; a scissors-grinder blew his horn; and the exciting clang of an ambulance-gong split the air as the ambulance rattled over the Belgian blocks. Oh, for an hour of the dear city in the happy springtime! To hear once more the piano-organ and the harp, and the thousand delightful sounds that were so lamentably absent from the country!
What was that? Did he hear bells? Yes, surely it was the ragman. He had never realized how he loved him. He could see the fellow, lean and ragged and bent, pushing his cart, while from his lips came the cry of “Rha-ags! rha-ags!” and from the sagging cord the sweet bells jingled. Yes, surely it was the bells. All thought of the lonely country faded away, and he was once more home; the boys were just around the corner, and the bells were coming nearer.
Their tintinnabulations grew so loud that he waked from his day-dream and saw—not a familiar and beloved city sight, but a tiresome herd of cows coming home to be milked, their harsh bells jangling out of tune.
XII
AT THE CHESTNUTS’ DINNER
The Hoary Chestnuts were assembling for their annual Christmas dinner. Sweet music was discoursed by the chestnut bell, and, despite their age and many infirmities, the members wore a look of gaiety suitable to so festive an occasion. There was not a young joke among them, excepting a very few special jokes like the Trolley variety and the Cuban War joke, and these, from overwork, were as superannuated-looking as the oldest there. Not a well-known joke but would come. Of course they would all live until the next dinner, for an old joke is immortal; but this yearly gathering was their only chance to meet and shake hands generally, as during the rest of the year they would be scattered through the columns of the dailies and the comic weeklies, and their meetings would be chance ones.
The hearty old Mother-in-law joke chatted gaily with that venerable old lady, I-will-be-a-sister-to-you. The adorable twins, Ballet-girl’s-age and Ballet-girl’s-scant-raiment, were the center of a group made up of the haughty Rich-plumber, the Rejected-manuscript, the Slow-messenger-boy, the Sleeping-watchman, and a good score of Boarding-house jokes. The one called Boarding-house-coffee felt a little stirred up at the false report that he was losing ground, and he had an unsettled look upon his swarthy and senile features. The idea was absurd on the face of it, for undoubtedly he would be printed in every section of the country before the month was out, as he had been any month for decades past. The Summer jokes, including, of course, the star jest, the Summer-girl, looked comparatively fresh, as they were not in use the year round, like Her-father’s-foot, for instance, or that other member of the same family, the Chicago-girl’s-foot, that year in and year out is used as a laugh-producer.
The Boston jokes, icy and reserved, sat apart from the rest, and glared at each other in a near-sighted way. The Freak jokes, on the contrary, were hail-fellow-well-met with every one, and their vulgar laughter could be heard everywhere.
A good deal of sympathy was expressed for Actor-walking-home, for he was so feeble that he had to be helped across the room by Weary Wraggles. The Tramps were out in force. Tickets to the dinner were five dollars, and it was rumored that Dusty Rhodes had worked his way in, but upon reflection the idea will be seen to be preposterous.
There was a strong smell of cloves in the air when the door opened for the entrance of old Between-the-acts. He came arm in arm with that other favorite, Detained-at-the-lodge.
The Farmer jokes came in a little late. Their chores had detained them. But their entrance was hailed with delight by a body of paragraphers who sat in the gallery as representatives of the press, and who had paid many a bill, thanks to the Farmers.
A joke, rather square-cut and with wheels in his head, came in with a “Where is she?” look on his dial, and as soon as he said, “I expected to meter here,” he was recognized as Big-gas-bill. The Wheel jokes were conspicuous by their absence. This was explained on the ground that they were not yet old enough to become Hoary Chestnuts, and, as a relentless paragrapher remarked, “They were tired, anyhow.”
The last ones to arrive were the Cannibal and Tough-missionary; and the chairman of the reception committee having assigned them seats at opposite ends of the table, all sat down, and the annual balloting to determine what had been the most popular joke of the year was begun.
Many voted for themselves, notably the Boston-bean joke and the Rich-plumber; but when the votes were counted, the successful person proved to be neither of these, but a hideously homely woman with a perpetual smirk upon her face.
“Who’s she?” asked one paragrapher of another.
“You don’t know her? Why, that’s My-face-is-my-fortune-then-you-must-be-dead-broke.”
And they crowned her with laurel as unquestionably the most perennially popular joke.
XIII
THE ROUGH WORDS SOCIETY
The other day I passed a house on which there was a sign that read, “The Rough Words Society.” Curious to know what it could mean, I retraced my steps, and met a millionaire whom I had long admired from a distance—he was so rich—just leaving the door. It was a presumptuous thing to do, but I said, “How do you do, sir?” in my best manner. He bowed with some urbanity, and I ventured to ask him whether he could tell me anything about the society whose rooms he had just left. “I thought maybe you were president, sir, or one of the directors.”
“No; I am a subscriber. If you care to hear about it, come down-town with me, as I am in a hurry,” he replied.
A minute later I was actually in a cab with a millionaire! My heart beat hard, but I kept my ears open, and he said:
“You see, a multi-millionaire like myself seldom meets the frank side of people. They are afraid of offending me,” he observed, as we went on our way. “My pastor hangs on my words, my clerks speak in subdued tones, my servants hardly dare address me; and yet, I was once a barefoot boy, and was considered a scapegrace by the village people who to-day bow ceremoniously when I chance to go back to my native place. Well, such sycophancy becomes wearing, and I often used to wish that some one would tell me I lied, or some other wholesome truth.”
I shook my head deprecatingly, whereat he seemed annoyed, but went on: “One day I was passing through the street where you met me, and I saw the sign, and, like yours, my curiosity was excited, and I went in. I found a room somewhat like a telegraph-office in appearance. A very downright, uncompromising-looking man sat at a roll-top desk, while ranged against the wall were several men of exceedingly bluff appearance. ‘Can you tell me what the aims of your society are?’ I asked the man. ‘Certainly I can,’ said he. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t.’ Not a cringe, you see. It was refreshing. ‘Well, will you?’ ‘It depends,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know for? Are you a reporter, or do you want to subscribe?’
“I suddenly divined the purpose of the society, and I said: ‘I want to subscribe. What are your terms?’ ‘A hundred dollars for a fifteen-minute séance, one hundred and fifty dollars for a half-hour, and two hundred dollars for a full hour.’ I handed him a hundred-dollar bill and said: ‘Explain.’ ‘Jack,’ said he, addressing a bullet-headed man who was sitting with his feet up on the railing that divided the room into two parts, ‘give this man a piece of your mind.’ Jack ran through a directory of millionaires containing photographs and short biographical sketches, and when he had found mine he sailed in and talked as plainly as any one could. Didn’t say a word that wasn’t true; but he didn’t mince his language, and he was no more abashed by my position in the world than if I’d still been a barefoot boy. It did me good. He overhauled many of my acts during the last twenty years, and talked to me like a Dutch uncle. Refreshed? Why, a Turkish bath is not in it for comfort! After he’d finished, the manager said I could have an extra in the way of a little billingsgate if I cared to; but, if I was born poor, I have always had gentlemanly instincts, and so I told him I guessed not.
“As I came away, he said: ‘Glad to have you call any time that you feel the need of a few plain truths. We have a minister who says what he thinks in a very trenchant way, and I’m sure you’d be glad to let him give you a raking over. Here’s one of our cards. Drop in any time you’re passing. If, for any reason, you are not able to come, we can send a man to take up his abode in your house, or to give you half-hour talks from the shoulder, and you can have a monthly account with us. Say a good word for us to any of your plutocratic friends who are tired of sycophancy. Good day, old man.’”
I was aghast at what he had told me, and I said: “I wonder at his temerity!”
“Why,” said the millionaire, “I love him for it! After a directors’ meeting, when I have been kotowed to until my gorge rises, I just drop in there, and they tell me unpleasant truths about myself with the utmost freedom,—you see, they keep posted about me,—and I come out feeling a hundred per cent. better. Well, here’s my office. Good day, young man.”
“Good day, sir, and thank you for letting me ride with you.”
He slammed the door as if vexed, and as he approached the door of his office a negro ran to open it, and two office-boys took his coat and hat, and I envied the great man from the bottom of my heart.
XIV
A NEW USE FOR HORSES
I met Scott Bindley the other day. Scott is a great schemer. I think he must be related on his mother’s side to Colonel Sellers. At any rate, there isn’t a day in the year that he doesn’t think of some idea that should interest capital, although capital, somehow, fails to become interested. As soon as he saw me he said:
“Got a great scheme. Small fortune in it for the right parties.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Come into some cheap lunch-place, and I’ll blow myself off to a meal and give you the particulars.”
So it came to pass that we were soon seated in a restaurant which, if cheap, is clean—a combination rarer than need be.
“You’ve probably noticed that the more automobiles there are in use, the more breakdowns there are.”
I could but admit that it was so.
“Well, what is more useless than a broken-down motor-wagon?”
I would have suggested “Two,” but Bindley hates warmed-up jokes, so I refrained and told him that I gave it up.
“It isn’t a conundrum,” said he, irritably. “Nothing in the world is more useless than a broken-down motor. There are some vehicles of a box-like pattern that can be used as hen-houses when they have outlived their initial usefulness, but who wants a hen-house on Fifth Avenue, corner of Twenty-fifth Street, or any other place where a motor vehicle gives out? The more I thought this over, the more I felt that something was needed to make a disabled automobile of some use, and I saw that the man who would supply that something could make money hand over fist. So I devoted a great deal of time to the subject, and at last I hit it. Horses.”
“Horses what?” said I.
“Why, horses to supply the motive power. Horses are getting to be a drug in the market, and can be bought dirt-cheap. That being the case, I am going to interest capitalists in the scheme, and then we will buy up a lot of horses and distribute them at different points in the city. Then, when a man is out in his automobile and breaks down, he will telephone to the nearest station and get a horse. This can easily be hitched to the motor by a contrivance that I intend to patent, and then the horse can drag the wagon to the nearest power-house, where it can be restocked with electricity, or gas, or naphtha, or whatever is wanted. Isn’t it a great scheme? Why, sir, I can see in the future the plan enlarged so that people will always take a horse along with them when they go a-motoring, and, if anything happens, there they are with the good old horse handy. Talk about the horseless age! Why, horses are just entering upon a new sphere of usefulness.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he went on: “I tell you that if I can get the holders of automobile stock to coöperate with me I’ll stop eating at places like this.”
A look of such sweet content overspread his features that I told him to put me down for ten shares as soon as his company was organized. That was a month ago, and I haven’t gotten my stock yet. But motors are becoming stalled every day.
XV
A CALCULATING BORE
My friend Bings is one of those habitual calculators—one of the kind that says if all the teeth that have been extracted since the first dentist began business were to be used for paving purposes in Hades, the good-resolutions contractor would be out of a job for ten thousand years. He thinks in numbers, and if he were a minister he would get all his texts from the same source.
The other day he saw me first on a ferry-boat, and immediately buttonholed me. Said he: “How sad it is to think that so much labor goes for naught!”
I knew that I was in for one of his calculations; but I also knew that it would be useless to try to head him off.
He stroked his beard, and said, with an imitation of thoughtfulness:
“Every day in this Empire State one million human beings go to bed tired because you and I and the rest leave butter on our plates and don’t eat our crusts.”
I told him that I was astonished, but that he would have to elucidate.
“The farmers sow 8,000,000 bushels of useless grain,—grain that eventually goes out to sea on the refuse-scows,—they milk 50,000 cows to no other purpose than to produce sour or spilled milk, they allow their valuable hens to lay 1,654,800,001 eggs that will serve no better purpose than to spatter some would-be Booth or lie neglected in some out-of-the-way corner, while their wives are making 1,008,983 pounds of butter that will be left on the edges of plates and thrown into the refuse-pail. If they didn’t sow the useless grain, or fuss over the hens that lay the unused eggs, or draw the milk that is destined to sour, or make the butter that is to ornament the edges of the china disks, they would be able to go to bed merely healthily tired instead of overworked, and fewer farmers would commit suicide, and fewer farmers’ wives would go insane.”
His eyes gleamed, and I knew that, as he would put it, his pulse was going so fast that if it were revolutions of a locomotive-wheel it would take only so long to go somewhere.
“And what is your remedy for all this?” asked I, with becoming, if mock, interest.
“Let us help ourselves to no more than we want at table, buy our eggs a week earlier, drink our milk the day before, eat our bread before it is too dry, and in six months’ time there will be a reduced State death-rate, more vacancies in the insane asylums, 1,456,608 rosy cheeks where to-day there are that many pale ones—”
Just then the ferry-boat’s gates were lifted, and as we went our several ways, in the hurry that is characteristic of 7,098,111 Americans out of eight millions, I thought that, if all the brains of all the arithmetical cranks were used in place of wood-pulp to make into paper, we writers would get our pads for nothing.
XVI
AN URBAN GAME
A game that is much played in hot weather by persons who are addicted to the department-store habit is called “Where can I find it?” It is played by means of counters, and its duration is often a whole morning in length. To the looker-on it is much like golf, it seems so aimless; and it is aimless, but it has the advantages over golf that it can be played in the city and does not necessitate the services of a caddy. Over a score take a hand in it from first to last, but only one is “it,” and she or he displays the only activity necessary to the game. Only those who are of tough build should undertake to play it on a hot day, as it is extremely debilitating.
To make the game long and interesting, you should enter the store and ask for something a little unusual that you may have seen advertised somewhere. For instance, you go to the glove counter and ask for a preparation for making soup, called “Soupina.” I am not advertising anything, as the name is fictitious, but it will serve to illustrate my meaning. The particular embodiment of haughtiness at the glove counter will think that you mean some kind of soap, and will frigidly direct you to the perfumery department, “pillar No. 8.” You go there simply because it is your move, and you repeat your inquiry, adding that you think it’s put up in bottles.
“Bottled goods,” is the quick rejoinder, “fourth floor.”
The elevator bears you to the grocery department, and you ask for “bottled goods.”
“Pillar 20.”
At pillar No. 20 you are made to realize what a poor worm you are, and you turn to pillar 10, as requested, that being the canned-goods department. That clerk will undoubtedly misunderstand your order and will direct you to the basement, “pillar 15.” You hurry down in the elevator, and come face to face with the mouse-trap counter. How you go from ladies’ underwear to carpets, to furniture, to the telegraph-office, to the dental parlors, to the menagerie, to the restaurant, to the lace goods, to every department known to a modern city under one roof, you can best find out for yourself, but of one thing you may be sure—you will never find “Soupina.”
At last, dazed and heated and leg-weary, you find yourself in the oath-registering room. This is a little room that is in every well-equipped department-store, and fills a long-felt want, for all shoppers, at one time or another, wish to register an oath. Whether you register or not, the game is now over, and you have lost; there is no possibility of winning. And yet, so fascinating is the sport that as soon as you have recovered the use of your muscles you will be eager to play again.
XVII
“DE GUSTIBUS”
It was on one of the cannibal islands, and a family of cannibals were discussing the pleasures of the table on their front piazza while they waited for dinner to be announced. Their eldest daughter, a slim, acidulous-looking girl, just home from boarding-school, and full of fads and “isms,” had said that, for her part, she did not care for human flesh at all, and was of the opinion that pigs or lambs, or even cows, would make just as good eating as the tenderest enemy ever captured or the juiciest missionary ever broiled.
“How disgusting!” said her brother, a lusty young cannibal who had once eaten two Salvation Army lassies at a sitting. “Really, if you get such unpleasant notions at school, it would be better for you to stay at home. My gorge rises at the idea. Ugh!”
“Papa,” said dear little kinky-haired E. Taman, the peacemaker of the family, changing the subject, “why are missionaries better eating than our neighbors and enemies?”
“Probably because they are apt to be cereal-eaters,” said her father, the cannibal chief; “although one of the most delicious missionaries I ever tasted was a Boston lady who had been raised on beans. She was a Unitarian. Your Unitarians generally make good eating. There’s a good deal of the milk of human kindness in them, and that makes them excellent roasters. Now, you take a hard-shell Baptist, and you might as well eat a ‘shore dinner’ at once. They need a heap of steaming, and they’re apt to be watery when all’s said and done. But it must be confessed they have more taste than a wishy-washy agnostic.”
“I think the most unsatisfactory of the lot,” said his wife, “is your Presbyterian. He’s pretty sure to be dry and gnarly, and good for nothing but fricasseeing. But I think that for all-round use, although they haven’t the delicacy of the Unitarian, the Methodist is what you might call the Plymouth Rock of missionaries. He’s generally fat, and he hasn’t danced himself dry, and he’s good for a pot-roast or any old thing. By the way, we’re going to have one to-day. I must go and tell the cook to baste him well.”
The old grandfather, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation, said at this point: “Well, as you know, in my day I have been something of an epicure, and I have tasted every variety of dish known to cannibals. I don’t care for fresh-killed meat, no matter of what denomination it is, and while I don’t wish to be considered a sectarian, yet I do think that if you want a dish that is capable of a good deal of trimming and fancy fixings’ get hold of an Episcopal missionary; and, to me, the chief beauty of the Episcopalian is that he’s apt to be a little high.”
XVIII
“BUFFUM’S BUSTLESS BUFFERS”
I was looking at a rather startling picture in the morning paper of a man who had fallen from a seventh-story window and had been instantly killed. The man in the seat next to me—we were on the elevated—said: “I’ll do away with all those accidents soon.”
I turned and looked at him. He was a lean-faced, hollow-eyed man, full of nervous starts, and quick of speech.
“What do you mean?” asked I, somewhat puzzled.
“Oh, nothing; oh, nothing at all,” he replied, as if sorry he had spoken. “I do not wish to be laughed at. I am no Keely motor man to be laughed at. I spoke without thought.”
I fancied there was a story in him, and so I drew him out, and he said in short, quick sentences, but in so low a tone that I had to strain my ears to hear him:
“I am Burgess Buffum, the inventor of Buffum’s Bustless Buffers.”
He paused with rhetorical effect, and nodded and blinked his eyes; and I, duly impressed, asked him what the buffers were supposed to buff.
“Children at open windows. Painters on scaffolds. Panic-stricken flyers from fires. Mountain-climbers. In fact, all persons whose business or duty or pleasure carries them to unsafe heights. My buffers are filled with air, and you can’t bust ’em. Child can fill ’em. Foot-pump, puff, puff, puff, and there you are. They are made of rubber and weigh next to nothing. Painter at work on scaffold; hears rope breaking; seizes one of my patent buffers; holds it carelessly in his right hand until within five feet of the pavement; then catches it with both hands, holds it in front of him as a shield, and falls with it under him. Merely pleasant titillation. Up at once; mends rope; resumes painting; undertaker foiled; no funeral; money saved; put in bank, or invested in stock in my company—”
“But,” said I, interrupting him, “suppose the buffer isn’t handy?”
“Ah, that’s his lookout. It must be handy. No business to take chances when safeguard is on scaffolding with him. Or child playing on fire-escape; careful mother puts two of my buffers out there; warns child not to fall without one; goes about her work care-free; child feels that it is about to fall; clutches buffer; goes down like painter; pleasant ride; child enjoys it; perfect confidence in my buffer; holds it under him; arrives seated; no deleterious effect; continues play in street. Object-lesson in favor of my invention. Child takes orders for my buffers; gets commission from me. Sells dozens—”
Just then the guard called out, “Forty-second Street!” and a man whom I had not noticed before, but who wore an air of authority, and who sat next to Buffum, rose and, touching him on the arm, said, “Come.”
And before I could get the inventor’s address he had left the train.
But I fancy that
Burgess Buffum, Esq.,
Bloomingdale,
will reach him.