Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

"I believe that yellow hen of ours wants to set."

"Oh, don't bother me with such nonsense as that now! Do keep quiet and go to sleep."

Then Mr. Fogg started his sheep again and commenced to count. He got up to one hundred and twenty, and was feeling as if he would drop off at any moment, when, just as his one hundred and twenty-first sheep was about to take that fence, the baby began to cry.

"Hang that child!" he shouted at Mrs. Fogg. "Why don't you tend to it and put it to sleep? Hush, you little imp, or I'll spank you!"

When Mrs. Fogg had quieted it, Mr. Fogg, although a little nervous and excited, concluded to try it again. Turning on the imaginary mutton, he began. Only sixty-four sheep had slid over the fence, when Fogg's aunt knocked at the door and asked if he was awake. When she learned that he was, she said she believed he had forgotten to close the back shutters, and she thought she heard burglars in the yard.

Then Mr. Fogg arose in wrath and went down to see about it. He ascertained that the shutters were closed, as usual, and as he returned to bed he resolved that his aunt should leave the house for good in the morning, or he would. However, he thought he might as well give the almanac-plan another trial; and setting the sheep in motion, he began to count. This time he reached two hundred and forty, and would probably have got to sleep before the three hundredth sheep jumped, had not Mix's new dog, in the next yard, suddenly become home-sick and begun to express his feelings in a series of prolonged and exasperating howls.

Mr. Fogg was indignant. Neglecting the sheep, he leaped from bed and began to bombard Mix's new dog with boots, soap-cups and every loose object he could lay his hands on. He hit the animal at last with a plaster bust of Daniel Webster, and induced the dog to retreat to the stable and think about home in silence.

It seemed almost ridiculous to resume those sheep again, but he determined to give the almanac-man one more chance, and soon as they began to jump the fence he began to count, and after seeing the eighty-second sheep safely over he was gliding gently in the land of dreams, when Mrs. Fogg rolled out of bed and fell on the floor with such violence that she waked the baby and started it crying, while Mr. Fogg's aunt came down stairs four steps at a time to ask if they felt that earthquake.

The situation was too awful for words. Mr. Fogg regarded it for a minute with speechless indignation, and then, seizing a pillow, he went over to the sofa in the back sitting-room and lay down.

He fell asleep in ten minutes without the assistance of the almanac, but he dreamed all night that he was being butted around the equator by a Cotswold ram, and he woke in the morning with a terrific headache and a conviction that sheep are good enough for wool and chops, but not worth anything as a narcotic.