Robert Merry's Museum, Volumes I-II (1841)

by Various

I forgot to tell you another very curious thing about the mouth, and that is, that it laughs! I believe dogs, and cats, and pigs, and hens, and geese, never laugh; but children laugh, and old people too, sometimes.

It is well enough to laugh, at proper times. I love to see children laugh in their play. I love to see them laugh when I tell a funny story.

But I never like to see any one laugh at the misfortune of another. Tell me, little reader, did your mouth ever laugh at another child because he was poor? or because he was poorly dressed? or because he fell down and hurt himself? or because he happened to know less than you do?

If your mouth has ever done any of these naughty things, I pray you, little reader, teach your mouth better manners.

Peter Pilgrim’s Account of his Schoolmates. No. 3.

One of my schoolmates, named Dick Dashall, was a wild rattle-headed fellow, always sure to get into mischief, but slow enough to get out of the quagmire. His parents and brothers were poor farming people, who had hard work to make both ends meet, and could ill afford even the very trifling cost attending Dick’s education. Dick had been intended for the hard-working profession of a farmer, but that honest calling did not at all jump with his restless humor. He never could see the fun and philosophy of rising with the dawn, and “yoking up” to follow the plough through the field, or the iron harrow over the furrows. He did not like the tedious work of planting corn and potatoes, and still less the more laborious employ of “covering up” or “hilling up,” or getting in the crops; nor did he relish any of the various details of hay-making and harvesting. He had no objection, however, to the merry husking frolic, for then, in the general sport and confusion, he managed to avoid work himself, while he listened with both his big ears to the diverting tales that were often on such occasions related by those present. He disliked as much the tedious employment of riding the old cart-horse in the plough, as he delighted in scampering away on his bare back all over the country side, when he could contrive to get possession of the poor beast. And when he did accomplish that desired object, never was the dull animal so worked by his owners; for away the madcap would ride, without saddle, bridle, spur or stirrup, guiding him only with an old rope, and urging him on with a big bludgeon of a stick, with which he failed not well to belabor the ribs of his steed, till they fairly bled and ached again. At length, one of his runaway frolics terminated fatally to the poor brute, whom he attempted to swim across a rapid and deep river near the village, in which essay the horse was drowned, and Dick only escaped by skilful swimming, which was almost the only valuable accomplishment that he possessed.

Dick seemed to be filled with the very evil spirit of all mischief. The book and task were perfectly odious to him, and if left to follow his own inclination, he never would have learned either to read or write; indeed, as it was, his best attempts with the pen looked more like pot-hooks and fish-hooks than good civilized letters. No mortal could have deciphered them. And then his copybook was one blotch of ink from beginning to end. His arithmetic and grammar books, though showing, by their numerous thumb-marks and “dog’s-ears,” that they had been pretty thoroughly handled by his seldom-washed fingers, were about as intelligible to him as so many volumes of Greek or Arabic; the deep lore contained in their pages was much too profound for his understanding, and never did any ideas from them penetrate the thickness and dulness of his brain; or, if they ever by any chance found an entrance there, they must have laid in a torpid state, for no one could ever discover that such scraps of knowledge existed in his head, through the outlet of the tongue and voice.

But though Dick could not inscribe legible characters with his pen, yet he had a sort of natural talent for drawing rude sketches with pencil, pen, or even a bit of charcoal; and most ridiculous and striking caricatures would he produce with them. The droll expression and awkward figure of the old pedagogue himself furnished him with a fertile subject for his wit, and various and laughable were the burlesque representations he gave of him. Every scrap of paper that he could lay hands on, every piece of broken slate, and even the very walls of the school-house and the board fences in the neighborhood, were covered with all sorts of strange figures, hit off, too, with no little talent and humor. This love for sketching and caricaturing seemed to be the peculiar bent of his genius, and it proved to him and his mates a source of great amusement.

When the term of his instruction had well-nigh expired, and it became necessary for him to decide to what species of employment he should devote his talents and attention, it happened that an itinerant portrait-painter strolled into the village, and, taking the best room of the inn, announced, through a staring painted placard at the window, that he was ready to paint, for a small consideration, the portraits of the good people of the place, in a most artist-like and expeditious manner. Nor was he long without his patrons. First the squire, and then the parson and his lady, and the doctor with his lady, and a half-score of children, and then many of the most substantial farmers and tradesmen of the vicinity, were seen to enter at the inn-door, and in a few days return to their several homes, each one bearing in his hands a large highly-colored piece of canvass, in which one might perhaps detect some remote likeness to the bearer or some of his family. Finally, the worthy innkeeper himself, with his rosy-faced dame, and some half-dozen overgrown daughters, figured in full-length beauty, in one mingled group, upon the artist’s canvass; and presently a span-new sign-board of “the white horse” was seen creaking and swinging in all the freshness of new paint from the tall sign-post at the tavern door. This flaming specimen of the fine arts proved a great object of admiration and remark with all the grown gossips and little children of the village, till at length, the “nine days” having elapsed, the wonder ceased.

Dick very soon made the acquaintance, and gained the good will of the artist, first by running on all his errands, in his communication with his patrons, and afterwards by his unfeigned expressions of admiration at the inspection of the “artist’s gallery,” which comprised a few dauby copies of the old masters, and a number of unpaid and unclaimed portraits from the artist’s own easel. Before the worthy artist took leave of the village, Dick had so far ingratiated himself into his favor, that he agreed to take him with him, and impart to him all the knowledge of his art that he was able to give, receiving in return due assistance from Dick, as a sort of artist-of-all-work, which phrase might be understood to comprise any and all kinds of menial occupation. But Dick was deeply smitten with the love of painting, and eagerly caught at this golden opportunity of ridding himself from the irksome drudgery of book and task, and learn to be a painter of faces himself, while at the same time he should have some opportunity of seeing in his rambles not a little of the men and manners of the world.