My bed was soon surrounded by the whole family, chattering away, wild with joy, and imprinting scores of kisses on my lips, cheeks and forehead. The excitement proved too severe for me in my weak condition, and had not the timely arrival of the physician intervened to clear my chamber of every intruder, except Mamma Betty, as we all called the nurse, these pages in all probability would never have arrested the reader's eye. As it was, I suddenly grew very sick and faint; everything around me assumed a deep green tinge, and I fell into a deathlike swoon.
Another morning's sun was shining cheerily in at my window, when consciousness again returned. The doctor was soon at my side, and instead of prescribing physic as a remedy, requested my sister to sit at my bedside, and read in a low tone any interesting little story she might select. He cautioned her not to mention, even in the most casual manner, Mormonism, St. Louis, or the Moselle, which order she most implicitly obeyed; nor could all my ingenuity extract a solitary remark in relation to either.
My sister was not very long in making a selection; for, supposing what delighted herself would not fail to amuse me, she brought in a manuscript, carefully folded, and proceeded at once to narrate its history. It was written by my father, as a sort of model or sampler for my brothers and sisters, which they were to imitate when composition-day came round, instead of "hammering away," as he called it, on moral essays and metaphysical commonplaces. It was styled
THE KING OF THE NINE-PINS: A MYTH.
Heinrich Schwarz, or Black Hal, as he was wont to be called, was an old toper, but he was possessed of infinite good humor, and related a great many very queer stories, the truth of which no one, that I ever heard of, had the hardihood to doubt; for Black Hal had an uncommon share of "Teutonic pluck" about him, and was at times very unceremonious in the display of it. But Hal had a weakness—it was not liquor, for that was his strength—which he never denied; Hal was too fond of nine-pins. He had told me, in confidence, that "many a time and oft" he had rolled incessantly for weeks together. I think I heard him say that he once rolled for a month, day and night, without stopping a single moment to eat or to drink, or even to catch his breath.
I did not question his veracity at the time; but since, on reflection, the fact seems almost incredible; and were it not that this sketch might accidentally fall in his way, I might be tempted to show philosophically that such a thing could not possibly be. And yet I have read of very long fasts in my day—that, for instance, of Captain Riley in the Great Sahara, and others, which will readily occur to the reader. But I must not episodize, or I shall not reach my story.
Black Hal was sitting late one afternoon in a Nine-Pin Alley, in the little town of Kaatskill, in the State of New York—it is true, for he said so—when a tremendous thunder-storm invested his retreat. His companions, one by one, had left him, until, rising from his seat and gazing around, he discovered that he was alone. The alley-keeper, too, could nowhere be found, and the boys who were employed to set up the pins had disappeared with the rest. It was growing very late, and Hal had a long walk, and he thought it most prudent to get ready to start home. The lightning glared in at the door and windows most vividly, and the heavy thunder crashed and rumbled and roared louder than he had ever heard it before. The rain, too, now commenced to batter down tremendously, and just as night set in, Hal had just got ready to set out. Hal first felt uneasy, next unhappy, and finally miserable. If he had but a boy to talk to! I'm afraid Hal began to grow scared. A verse that he learned in his boyhood, across the wide sea, came unasked into his mind. It always came there precisely at the time he did not desire its company. It ran thus:
"Oh! for the might of dread Odin
The powers upon him shed,
For a sail in the good ship Skidbladnir,[A-236]
And a talk with Mimir's head!"[B-236]
[A-236] The ship Skidbladnir was the property of Odin. He could sail in it on the most dangerous seas, and yet could fold it up and carry it in his pocket.
[B-236] Mimir's head was always the companion of Odin. When he desired to know what was transpiring in distant countries, he inquired of Mimir, and always received a correct reply.