For several months previous to last summer Judge Twiddler's family obtained milk from Mr. Biles, the most prominent milk-dealer in the village. The prevailing impression among the Twiddlers was that Mr. Biles supplied an exceedingly thin and watery fluid; and one day when the judge stepped over to pay his quarterly bill he determined to make complaint. He found Mr. Biles in the yard mending the valve of his pump; and when the judge made a jocular remark to the effect that the dairy must be in a bad way when the pump was out of order, Mr. Biles, rising with his hammer in his hand, said,
"Oh, I ain't going to deny that we water the milk. I don't mind the joking about it. But all I say is that when people say we do it from mercenary motives they slander the profession. No, sir; when I put water in the milk, I do it out of kindness for the people who drink it. I do it because I'm philanthropic—because I'm sensitive and can't bear to see folks suffer. Now, s'pos'n a cow is bilious or something, and it makes her milk unwholesome. I give it a dash or two of water, and up it comes to the usual level. Water's the only thing that'll do it. Or s'pos'n that cow eats a pison vine in the woods; am I going to let my innocent customers be killed by it for the sake of saving a little labor at the pump? No, sir; I slush in a few quarts of water, neutralize the pison, and there she is as right as a trivet.
"But you take the best milk that ever was, and it ain't fit for the human stomach as it comes from the cow. It has too much caseine in it. Prof. Huxley says that millions of poor ignorant men and women are murdered every year by loading down weak stomachs with caseine. It sucks up the gastric juice, he says, and gets daubed all around over the membranes until the pores are choked, and then the first thing you know the man suddenly curls all up and dies. He says that out yer in Asia, where the milkmen are not as conscientious as we are, there are whole cemeteries chock full of people that have died of caseine, and that before long all that country will be one vast burying-ground if they don't ameliorate the milk. When I think of the responsibility resting on me, is it singular that I look at this old pump and wonder that people don't come and silver plate it and put my statue on it? I tell you, sir, that that humble pump with the cast-iron handle is the only thing that stands betwixt you and sudden death.
"And besides that, you know how kinder flat raw milk tastes—kinder insipid and mean. Now, Prof. Huxley, he says that there is only one thing that will vivify milk and make it luxurious to the palate, and that is water. Give it a few jerks under the pump, and out it comes sparkling and delicious, like nectar. I dunno how it is, but Prof. Huxley says that it undergoes some kinder chemical change that nothing else'll bring about but a flavoring of fine old pump-water. You know the doctors all water the milk for babies. They know mighty well if they didn't those young ones'd shrink all up and sorter fade away. Nature is the best judge. What makes cows drink so much water? Instinct, sir—instinct. Something whispers to 'em that if they don't sluice in a little water that caseine'd make 'em giddy and eat 'em up. Now, what's the odds whether I put in the water or the cow does? She's only a poor brute beast, and might often drink too little; but when I go at it, I bring the mighty human intellect to bear on the subject; I am guided by reason, and I can water that milk so's it'll have the greatest possible effect.
"Now, there's chalk. I know some people have an idea that it's wrong to fix up your milk with chalk. But that's only mere blind bigotry. What is chalk? A substance provided by beneficent nature for healing the ills of the human body. A cow don't eat chalk because it's not needed by her. Poor uneducated animal! she can't grasp these higher problems, and she goes on nibbling sour-grass and other things, and filling her milk with acid, which destroys human membranes and induces colic. Then science comes to the rescue. Professor Huxley tells us that chalk cures acidity. Consequently, I get some chalk, stir it in my cans and save the membranes of my customers without charging them a cent for it—actually give it away; and yet they talk about us milkmen 'sif we were buccaneers and enemies of the race.
"But I don't care. My conscience is clear. I know mighty well that I have a high and holy mission to perform, and I'm going to perform it if they burn me at the stake. What do I care how much this pump costs me if it spreads blessings through the community? What difference does it make to a man of honor like me if chalk is six cents a pound so long as I know that without it there wouldn't be a membrane in this community? Now, look at the thing in the right light, and you'll believe me that before another century rolls around a grateful universe will worship the memory of the first milkman who ever had a pump and who doctored his milk with chalk. It will, unless justice is never to have her own."
Then Mr. Biles rigged the sucker in the pump, toned up a few cans of milk, corrected the acidity, and went into the house to receipt the judge's bill.
Mr. Biles' theory interested the judge, but the argument did not convince him. And so the judge resolved to buy a cow and obtain pure milk, without regard for the alleged views of Professor Huxley. Accordingly, he purchased a cow of a man named Smith, who lives over at the Rising Sun. She was warranted to be fresh and a first-rate milker. When Judge Twiddler got her home, he asked his hired man, Mooney, if he knew how to milk a cow, and Mooney said of course he did. The animal, therefore, was consigned to Mooney's care. On the next day, however, Mooney came into the house to see the judge, and he said,
"Judge, that man cheated you in that cow. Why, she's the awfullest old beast that ever stood on four legs Dry as punk; hasn't got a drop of milk in her. That's a positive fact. I've been trying to milk her for three or four hours, and can't get a drop. Might as well attempt to milk a clothes-horse. Regular fraud!"
"This is very extraordinary," exclaimed the judge.
"Yes, sir; and she's wicked. I never saw such a disposition in a cow. Why, while I was working with her she kicked like a flint-lock musket; butted and rared around. I'd rather fool with a tiger than with a cow like that."
So the judge drove over to the Rising Sun to see Smith about it; and when he complained that Smith had sold him a worthless and vicious beast, and a dry cow at that, Smith said there must be some mistake about it. He agreed to go back with the judge and investigate the matter. When they reached the judge's stable, Mooney was not about, but Smith descended from the wagon, approached the cow, and, to the astonishment of the judge, milked her without the slightest difficulty, the cow meantime remaining perfectly quiet, and even breaking out now and then into what the judge thought looked like smiles of satisfaction. And then the judge went out to hunt up his hired man. He said to him,
"Mooney, what did you mean by telling me that our cow was dry and ugly? You said you couldn't milk her, but Mr. Smith does so without any difficulty, and the cow remains perfectly passive."
"I'd like to see him do it," said Mooney, incredulously.
Then Smith sat down and proceeded to perform the operation again. When he began, Mooney exclaimed,
"Why, my gracious! that isn't the way you milk a cow, is it?"
"Of course it is," replied Smith. "How else would you do it?"
"Well, well! and that's the wayyoumilk, is it? I see now I didn't go about it exactly right. Why, you know, I never had much experience at the business; I was brought up in town, and, be George, when I tackled her, I threw her over on her back and tried to milk her with a clothes-pin. I see now I was wrong. We live and learn, don't we?"
[Illustration: THE JUDGE'S COW]
So Smith went home, and the cow remained, and the judge's man waxes stronger in experience with the mysteries of existence daily.
But the cow was not a perfect animal, after all. Among other things, Smith assured the judge that she had a splendid appetite. He said that she was the easiest cow with her feed that he ever saw; she would eat almost anything, and she was generally hungry.
At the end of the first week after she came, Mrs. Twiddler concluded to churn. The hired man spent the whole day at the crank, and about sunset the butter came. They got it out, and found that there was almost half a pound. Then Mrs. Twiddler began to see how economical it was to make her own butter. A half pound at the store cost thirty cents. The wages of that man for one day were one dollar, and so the butter was costing about three dollars a pound, without counting the keep of the cow. When they tried the butter, it was so poor that they couldn't eat it, and they gave it to the man to grease the wheelbarrow with. It seemed somewhat luxurious and princely to maintain a cow for the purpose of supplying grease at three dollars a pound for the wheelbarrow, but it was hard to see precisely where the profits came in. After about a fortnight the cow seemed so unhappy in the stable that the judge turned her out in the yard.
The first night she was loose she upset the grape-arbor with her horns and ate four young peach trees and a dwarf pear tree down to the roots. The next day they gave her as much hay as she would eat, and it seemed likely that her appetite was appeased. But an hour or two afterward she swallowed six croquet-balls that were lying upon the grass, and ate half a table-cloth and a pair of drawers from the clothes-line. That evening her milk seemed thin, and the judge attributed it to the indigestibility of the table-cloth.
During the night she must have got to walking in her sleep, for she climbed over the fence; and when she was discovered, she was swallowing one of Mrs. Twiddler's hoopskirts. That evening she ran dry and didn't give any milk at all. The judge thought the exercise she had taken must have been too severe, and probably the hoopskirt was not sufficiently nutritious. It was comforting, however, to reflect that she was less expensive, from the latter point of view, when she was dry than when she was fresh. Next morning she ate the spout off the watering-pot, and then put her head in the kitchen window and devoured two dinner-plates and the cream-jug. Then she went out and lay down on the strawberry-bed to think. While there something about Judge Twiddler's boy seemed to exasperate her; and when he came over into the yard after his ball, she inserted her horns into his trowsers and flung him across the fence. Then she went to the stable and ate a litter of pups and three feet of the trace-chain.
The judge felt certain that her former owner didn't deceive him when he said her appetite was good. She had hunger enough for a drove of cattle and a couple of flocks of sheep. That day the judge went after the butcher to get him to buy her. When he returned with him, she had just eaten the monkey-wrench and the screw-driver, and she was trying to put away a fence-paling. The butcher said she was a fair-enough sort of cow, but she was too thin. He said he would buy her if the judge would feed her up and fatten her; and the judge said he would try. He gave her that night food enough for four cows, and she consumed it as if she had been upon half rations for a month. When she finished, she got up, reached for the hired man's straw hat, ate it, and then, bolting out into the garden, she put away the honeysuckle vine and a coil of India-rubber hose. The man said that if it was his cow he would kill her; and the judge told him that he had perhaps better just knock her on the head in the morning.
During the night she had another attack of somnambulism, and while wandering about she ate the door-mat from the front porch, bit off all the fancy-work on top of the cast-iron gate, swallowed six loose bricks that were piled up against the house, and then had a fit among the rose bushes. When the judge came down in the morning, she seemed to be breathing her last, but she had strength enough left to seize a newspaper that the judge held in his hand; and when that was down, she gave three or four kicks and rolled over and expired. It cost the judge three dollars to have the carcase removed. Since then he has bought his butter and milk and given up all kinds of live-stock.
Some of the public officers of Millburg are interesting in their way. The civil service system of the village is based upon the principle that if there is any particular function that a given man is wholly unfitted to perform he should be chosen to perform it. The result is that the business of our very small government goes plunging along in the most surprising manner, with a promise that it will end some day in chaos and revolution—of course upon a diminutive scale.
A representative man is Mr. Bones, the solitary night-watchman of the town. One of the duties of Mr. Bones is to light the street-lamps. It is an operation which does not require any very extraordinary effort of the intellect; but during a part of the summer the mind of Mr. Bones did not seem to be equal to the strain placed upon it by this duty. It was observed that whenever there were bright moonlight nights Mr. Bones would have all the lamps burning from early in the evening until dawn, while upon the nights when there was no moon he would not light them at all, and the streets would be as dark as tar. At last people began to complain about it, and one day one of the supervisors called to see Mr. Bones about it. He remarked to him,
"Mr. Bones, people are finding fault because you light up on moonlight nights and don't light the lamps when it is dark. I'd like you to manage the thing a little better."
"It struck me as being singular, too, but I can't help it. I've got instructions to follow the almanac, and I'm going to follow it."
"Did the almanac say there'd be no moon last night?"
"Yes, it did."
"Well, the moon was shining, though, and at its full."
"I know," said Mr. Bones, "and that's what gits me. How in the thunder the moon kin shine when the almanac says it won't beats me out. Perhaps there's something the matter with the moon; got shoved off her course may be."
"I guess not."
"Well, it's changed off somehow, and I've got to have something regular to go by. I'm going by what the almanac says; and if the moon's going to shuffle around kinder loose and not foller the almanac, that's its lookout. If the almanac says no moon, then I'm bound to light the lamps if there's millions of moons shining in the sky. Them's my orders, and I'll mind 'em."
"How d'you know the almanac is not wrong?"
"Because I know it ain't. It was always right before."
"Let's look at it."
"There it is. Look there, now. Don't it say full moon on the 20th? and this yer's only the 9th, and yet it's full moon now."
"That's so; and—Er—er—Less—see Er-er—Mr. Bones, do you know what year this almanac is for?"
"Why, 1876, of course."
"No, it isn't; it's for 1866. It's ten years old."
"Oh no! 1866! Well, now, it is. I declare! 1866! Why, merciful Moses! I got the wrong one off the shelf, and I've been depending on it for three months! No wonder the lamps was wrong. Well, that beats everything."
Then Mr. Bones tore up the almanac and got one for 1876, and ever since that time the lamp-lighting department has given tolerable satisfaction.
But it is as a night-watchman that Mr. Bones shines with surpassing splendor. When he first entered the service, he was very anxious to make a good impression on Colonel Coffin, the burgess and head of the village government; and the first night upon which he went on duty Colonel Coffin was awakened about half-past twelve by a furious ring at his door-bell. He looked out of the window and perceived the watchman, who said,
"She's all right. Nobody's broke in. I've got my eye on things. You kin depend on me."
The colonel thought he was one of the most faithful watchmen he ever saw, and he returned serenely to bed. On the following night, just after twelve, there was another energetic ring at the bell; and when the burgess raised the window, the watchman said,
"Your girls ain't left the window-shutters open and the house is not afire. All right as a trivet while I'm around, you bet!"
"Louisa," said the colonel to his wife as he returned to his couch, "that is a splendid watchman, but I think he's just the least bit too enthusiastic."
A couple of nights later, when the door-bell rang at half-past one, the colonel felt somewhat angry, and he determined to stay in bed; but the person on the step below at last began to kick against the front door, when the colonel threw up the window and exclaimed,
"What do you want?"
It was the watchman, and he said,
"You know old Mrs. Biles up the street yer? Well, I've just rung Biles up, and he says her rheumatism ain't no better. Thought you might want to know, so I called. I felt kinder lonesome out here, too."
As Colonel Coffin slammed the sash down he felt mad and murderous. The next night, however, that faithful guardian applied the toe of his boot to the front door with such energy that the colonel leaped from bed, and protruding his head from the window said,
"I wish tograciousyou'd stop kicking up this kind of fuss around here every night! What do you mean, anyhow?"
"Why, I only stopped to tell you that Butterwick has two setter pups, and that I'd get you one if you wanted it. Nothing mean about that, is there?"
The colonel uttered an ejaculatory criticism upon Butterwick and the pups as he closed the window, and a moment later he heard the watchman call up Smith, who lives next door, and remark to him,
"They tell me it's a splendid season for bananas, Mr. Smith."
When Coffin heard Smith hurling objurgations about bananas and watchmen out upon the midnight air, he knew it was immoral, but he felt his heart warm toward Smith. The next time the watchman tried to get the colonel out by ringing and kicking the colonel refused to respond, and finally the watchman banged five barrels of his revolver. Then Coffin came to the window in a rage.
"You eternal idiot," he said, "if you don't stop this racket at night,I'll have you put under bonds to keep the peace."
"Oh, all right," replied the watchman. "I had something important to tell you; but if you don't want to hear it, very well; I kin keep it to myself."
"Well, what is it? Out with it!"
"Why, I heard to-day that the kangaroo down at the Park in the city can't use one of its hind legs. Rough on the Centennial, ain't it?"
Then, as the colonel withdrew in a condition of awful rage, the watchman sauntered up the street to break the news to the rest of the folks. On the next night a gang of burglars broke into Coffin's house and ransacked it from top to bottom. Toward morning Coffin heard them; and hastily dressing himself and seizing his revolver, he proceeded down stairs. The burglars heard him coming and fled. Then the colonel sprang his rattle and summoned the neighbors. When they arrived, the colonel, in the course of conversation, made some remarks about the perfect uselessness of night-watchmen. Thereupon Mr. Potts said,
"I saw that fellow Bones only an hour ago two squares above here, at McGinnis's, routing McGinnis out to tell him that old cheese makes the best bait for catfish."
Mr. Bones was reprimanded, but he remained upon what is facetiously known as "the force." The borough cannot afford to dispense with the services of such an original genius as he.
Our sheriff is a man of rather higher intelligence, but he also has a singular capacity for perpetrating dreadful blunders. Over in the town of Nockamixon one of the churches last year called a clergyman named Rev. Joseph Striker. In the same place, by a most unfortunate coincidence, resides also a prize-fighter named Joseph Striker, and rumors were afloat a few weeks ago that the latter Joseph was about to engage in a contest with a Jersey pugilist for the championship. Our sheriff considered it his duty to warn Joseph against the proposed infraction of the laws, and so he determined to call upon the professor of the art of self-defence. Unhappily, in inquiring the way to the pugilist's house, somebody misunderstood the sheriff, and sent him to the residence of the Rev. Joseph Striker, of whom he had never heard. When Mr. Striker entered the room in answer to the summons, the sheriff said to him familiarly,
"Hello, Joe! How are you?"
Mr. Striker was amazed at this address, but he politely said,
"Good-morning."
"Joe," said the sheriff, throwing his leg lazily over the arm of the chair, "I came round here to see you about that mill with Harry Dingus that they're all talking about. I want you to understand that it can't come off anywheres around here. You know well enough it's against the law, and I ain't a-going to have it."
"Mill! Mill, sir? What on earth do you mean?" asked Mr. Striker, in astonishment. "I do not own any mill, sir. Against the law! I do not understand you, sir."
"Now, see here, Joe," said the sheriff, biting off a piece of tobacco and looking very wise, "that won't go down with me. It's pretty thin, you know. I know well enough that you've put up a thousand dollars on that little affair, and that you've got the whole thing fixed, with Bill Martin for referee. I know you're going down to Pea Patch Island to have it out, and I'm not going to allow it. I'll arrest you as sure as a gun if you try it on, now mind me!"
"Really, sir," said Mr. Striker, "there must be some mistake about—"
"Oh no, there isn't; your name's Joe Striker, isn't it?" asked the sheriff.
"My name is Joseph Striker, certainly."
"I knew it," said the sheriff, spitting on the carpet; "and you see I've got this thing dead to rights. It sha'n't come off; and I'm doing you a favor in blocking the game, because Harry'd curl you all up any way if I let you meet him. I know he's the best man, and you'd just lose your money and get all bunged up besides; so you take my advice now, and quit. You'll be sorry if you don't."
"I do not know what you are referring to," said Mr. Striker. "Your remarks are incomprehensible to me, but your tone is very offensive; and if you have any business with me, I'd thank you to state it at once."
"Joe," said the sheriff, looking at him with a benign smile, "you play it pretty well. Anybody'd think you were innocent as a lamb. But it won't work, Joseph—it won't work, I tell you. I've got a duty to perform, and I'm going to do it; and I pledge you my word, if you and Dingus don't knock off now, I'll arrest you and send you up for ten years as sure as death. I'm in earnest about it."
"What do you mean, sir?" asked Mr. Striker, fiercely.
"Oh, don't you go to putting on any airs about it. Don't you try any strutting before me," said the sheriff; "or I'll put you under bail this very afternoon. Let's see: how long were you in jail the last time? Two years, wasn't it? Well, you go fighting with Dingus and you'll get ten years sure."
"You are certainly crazy!" exclaimed Mr. Striker.
"I don't see what you want to stay at that business for, anyhow," said the sheriff. "Here you are, in a snug home, where you might live in peace and keep respectable. But no, you must associate with low characters, and go to stripping yourself naked and jumping into a ring to get your nose blooded and your head swelled and your body hammered to a jelly; and all for what? Why, for a championship! It's ridiculous. What good'll it do you if you're champion? Why don't you try to be honest and decent, and let prize-fighting alone?"
"This is the most extraordinary conversation I ever listened to," saidMr. Striker. "You evidently take me for a—"
"I take you for Joe Striker; and if you keep on, I'll take you to jail," said the sheriff; with emphasis. "Now, you tell me who's got those stakes and who's your trainer, and I'll put an end to the whole thing."
"You seem to imagine that I am a pugilist," said Mr. Striker. "Let me inform you, sir, that I am a clergyman."
"Joe," said the sheriff, shaking his head, "it's too bad for you to lie that way—too bad, indeed."
"But Iama clergyman, sir—pastor of the church of St. Sepulchre.Look! here is a letter in my pocket addressed to me."
"You don't really mean to say that you're a preacher named JosephStriker?" exclaimed the sheriff, looking scared.
"Certainly I am. Come up stairs and I'll show you a barrelful of my sermons."
"Well, if this don't beat Nebuchadnezzar!" said the sheriff. "This is awful! Why, I mistook you for Joe Striker, the prize-fighter! I don't know how I ever—A preacher! What an ass I've made of myself! I don't know how to apologize; but if you want to kick me down the front steps, just kick away; I'll bear it like an angel."
Then the sheriff withdrew unkicked, and Mr. Striker went up stairs to finish his Sunday sermon. The sheriff talked of resigning, but he continues to hold on.
* * * * *
Mr. Slingsby, our assessor and tax-collector, holds on too. He is another model member of our civil service. The principal characteristic of Mr. Slingsby is enthusiasm. He has an idea that whenever a man gets anything new it ought to be taxed, and he is always on hand to perform the service. I had about fifteen feet added to one of my chimneys last spring; and when it was done, Slingsby called and assessed it, under the head of "improved real estate," at eighty dollars, and collected two per cent. on it. A few days later, while I was standing by the fence, Slingsby came up and said,
"Beautiful dog you have there."
"Yes; it's a setter."
"Indeed! A setter, hey? The tax on setters is two dollars. I'll collect it now, while I have it on my mind."
I settled the obligation, and the next day Slingsby came around again.He opened the conversation with the remark,
"Billy Jones told me down at the grocery-store that your terrier had had pups."
"Yes."
"A large litter?"
"Four."
"Indeed! Less see: tax is two dollars; four times two is eight—yes, eight dollars tax, please. And hurry up, too, if you can, for they have a new batch of kittens over at Baldwin's, and I want to ketch old Baldwin before he goes out. By the way, when did you put that weathercock on your stable?"
"Yesterday."
"You don't say! Well, hold on, then. Four times two is eight, and four—on the weathercock, you know—is twelve. Twelve dollars is the exact amount."
"What do you mean by four dollars tax on a weathercock? I never heard of such a thing."
"Didn't, hey? Why, she comes in under the head of 'scientific apparatus.' She's put up there to tell which way the wind blows, ain't she? Well, that's scientific intelligence, and the apparatus is liable to tax."
"Mr. Slingsby, that is the most absurd thing I ever heard of. You might just as well talk of taxing Butterwick's twins."
"Butter—You don't mean to say Butterwick has twins? Why, certainly they're taxable. They come in under the head of 'poll-tax.' Three dollars apiece. I'll go right down there. Glad you mentioned it." Then I paid him, and he left with Butterwick's twins on his memorandum-book.
A day or two afterward Mr. Slingsby called to see me, and he said,
"I've got a case that bothers me like thunder. You know Hough the tobacconist? Well, he's just bought a new wooden Indian to stand in front of his store. Now, I have a strong feeling that I ought to tax that figure, but I don't know where to place it. Would it come in as 'statuary'? Somehow that don't seem exactly the thing. I was going to assess it under the head of 'idols,' but the idiots who got up this law haven't got a word in in reference to idols. Think of that, will you? Why, we might have paganism raging all over this country, and we couldn't get a cent out of them. I'd a put that Indian under 'graven images,' only they ain't mentioned, either. I s'pose I could tax the bundle of wooden cigars in his fist as 'tobacco,' but that leaves out the rest of the figure; and he's not liable to poll-tax because he can't even vote. Now, how would it strike you if I levied on him as an 'immigrant'? He was made somewheres else than here, and he came here from there, consequently he's an immigrant. That's my view. What do you think of it?"
I advised him to try it upon that plan, and the next morning Mr. Slingsby and Mr. Hough had a fight on the pavement in front of the Indian because Mr. Slingsby tried to seize the immigrant for unpaid taxes. Slingsby was taken home and put to bed, and the business of collecting taxes was temporarily suspended. But Slingsby will be around again soon with some new and ingenious ideas that he has thought of during his illness.
Mrs. Banger has buried four husbands, and her experience of domestic life in their company was so satisfactory that she recently married a fifth, Mr. Banger. The name of her fourth was McFadden. The name of her first and third was Smyth, while that of her second, oddly enough, was Smith. Soon after her return from her last wedding-tour she was visited by Mr. Toombs, the undertaker, who called ostensibly to correct an error in his last bill. When Mrs. Banger entered the parlor, Mr. Toombs greeted her cordially and said,
"Ah! Mrs. Smy—Banger, I mean; I hope I see you well? Did you have a pleasant trip? Nice weather while you were away; a little backward, maybe, but still comfortable, and likely to make things grow. Cemetery looks beautiful now. I was out there to-day to a burying. Grass is coming up charming on your lot, and I noticed a blackberry bush growing out of Mr. Smyth's grave. He was fond of 'em, I reckon. There they were lying, Smith and Smyth, and McFadden and the other Smyth, all four of them. No woman could have done fairer with those men than you did, ma'am; those mahogany coffins with silver-plated handles were good enough for the patriarchs and prophets, and the President of the United States himself daren't ask anything better than a hearse with real ostrich feathers and horses that are black as ink all over.
"I know when we laid Mr. McFadden out I said to Tim Lafferty, my foreman, that the affection you showed in having that man buried in style almost made me cry; but I never fully realized what woman's love really is till you made me line Mr. Smith's coffin with white satin and let in a French plate-glass skylight over the countenance. That worked on my feelings so that I pretty near forgot to distribute the gloves to the mourners. And Mr. Smith was worthy of it; he deserved it all. He was a man all over, no difference how you looked at him; stoutish, maybe, and took a casket that was thick through, but he was all there, and I know when you lost him it worried you like anything.
"Now, it's none of my business, Mrs. Banger; but casting my eye over those graves to-day, it struck me that I might fix 'em up a little, so's they'd be more comfortable like. I think McFadden wants a few sods over the feet, and Smith's headstone has worked a little out of plumb. He's settled some, I s'pose. I think I'd straighten it up and put a gas-pipe railing around Mr. Smyth. And while you're about it, Mrs. Banger, hadn't you better buy about ten feet beyond Mr. Smith, so's there won't be any scrouging when you bury the next one? I like elbow-room in a cemetery lot, and I pledge you my word it'll be a tight squeeze to get another one in there and leave room for you besides. It can't be done so's to look anyways right, and I know you don't want to take all four of 'em out and make 'em move up, so's to let the rest of you in. Of course it'd cut you up, and it'd cost like everything, too.
"When a person's dead and buried, it's the fair thing to let him alone, and not to go hustling him around. That's my view, any way; and I say that if I was you, sooner than put Mr. Smith on top of McFadden and Smyth on top of Smith, I'd buy in the whole reservation and lay 'em forty feet apart.
"And howisMr. Banger? Seem in pretty good health? Do you think we are to have him with us long? I hope so; but there's consumption in his family, I believe. Life is mighty uncertain. We don't know what minute we may be called. I'm a forehanded kind of man, and while his wedding-suit was being made I just stepped into the tailor's and ran it over with a tape-measure, so's to get some idea of his size. You'd hardly believe it, but I've got a black walnut casket at the shop that'll fit him as exact as if it had been built for him. It was the luckiest thing. An odd size, too, and wider than we generally make them. I laid it away up stairs for him, to be prepared in case of accident. You've been so clever with me that I feel 'sif I ought to try my best to accommodate you; and I know how women hate to bother about such things when their grief is tearing up their feelings and they are fretting about getting their mourning-clothes in time for the funeral.
"And that's partly what I called to see you about, Mrs. McFa—Banger, I mean. I've got a note to pay in the morning, and the man's pushing me very hard; but I'm cleaned right out. Haven't got a cent. Now, it occurred to me that maybe you'd advance me the money on Mr. Banger's funeral if I'd offer you liberal terms. How does fifteen per cent. strike you? and if he lives for six or seven years, I'll make it twenty. Mind you, I offer the casket and the best trimmings, eight carriages, the finest hearse in the county, and ice enough for three days in the swelteringest weather in August. And I don't mind—well—yes, I'll even agree to throw in a plain tombstone. If you can do that to accommodate a friend, why, I'll—No? Don't want to speculate on it? Oh, very well; I'm sorry, because I know you'd been satisfied with the way I'd have arranged things. But no matter; I s'pose I can go round and borrow elsewhere. Good-morning; drop in some time, and I'll show you that casket."
As Toombs was going out he met Mr. Banger at the door. When he was gone, Banger said,
"My dear, who is that very odd-looking man?"
And Mrs. Banger hesitated a moment, turned very red, and answered,
"That is—that man is—a—a—he is, I believe—a—a—a—a some kind of a—an undertaker."
Then Banger looked gloomy and went up stairs to ponder. But Mrs. Banger felt that she had a duty to perform in taking care that the lot in the cemetery should not fall into such disorder as Mr. Toombs had indicated, and she resolved to call upon Mr. Mix, at his monumental marble-works, to get him to attend to the matter for her. Mr. Mix did not know her, and his ignorance of her past history turned out to be unfortunate. The following conversation occurred between them:
Mrs. Banger. "Mr. Mix, I am anxious to have my cemetery lot fixed up—to put in new tombstones and reset the railing; and I called to see if I could make some satisfactory arrangement with you."
Mix. "Certainly, madam. Tell me precisely what it is you want done."
Mrs. B. "Well, I'd like to have a new tombstone put over the grave of John—my husband, you know—and to have a nice inscription cut in it, 'Here lies John Smyth,' etc., etc. You know what I mean; the usual way, of course, and maybe some kind of a design on the stone like a broken rosebud or something."
Mix. "I understand."
Mrs. B. "Well, then, what'll you charge me for getting up a headstone just like that, out of pretty good white marble, and with a little picture of a torch upside down or a weeping angel on it, and the name of Thomas Smith cut on it?"
Mix. "John Smyth, you mean."
Mrs. B. "No, I mean Thomas."
Mix. "But you said John before."
Mrs. B. "I know, but that was my first husband, and Thomas was my second, and I want a new headstone for each of them. Now, it seems to me, Mr. Mix, that where a person is buying more than one, that way, you ought to make some reduction in the price—throw something off. Though, of course, I want a pretty good article at all the graves. Not anything gorgeous, but neat and tasteful and calculated to please the eye. Mr. Smyth was not a man who was fond of show. Give him a thing comfortable, and he was satisfied. Now, which do you think is the prettiest, to have the name in raised letters in a straight line over the top of the stone, or just to cut the words 'Alexander P. Smyth' in a kind of a semicircle in sunken letters?"
Mix. "Did I understand you to say Alexander P.? Were you referring to John or Thomas?"
Mrs. B. "Of course not. Aleck was my third. I'm not going to neglect his grave while I'm fixing up the rest. I wish to make a complete job of it, Mr. Mix, while I am about it, and I'm willing for you to undertake it if you are reasonable in your charges. Now, what'll you ask me for the lot, the kind I've described, plain but substantial, and sunk about two feet I should think, at the head of each grave? What'll you charge me for them—for the whole four?"
Mix. "Well, I'll put you in those three headstones—"
[Illustration: A TOMBSTONE CONTRACT]
Mrs. B. "Fourheadstones, Mr. Mix, not three."
Mix. "Four, was it? No; there was John and Thomas and Alexander P. That's all you said, I think. Only three."
Mrs. B. "Why, I want one for Adolph too, as a matter of course, the same as the others. I thought you knew I wanted one for Adolph, one made just like John's, only with the name different. Adolph was my fourth husband. He died about three years after I buried Philip, and I'm wearing mourning for him now. Now, please give me your prices for the whole of them."
Mix. "Well, madam, I want to be as reasonable as I can, and I tell you what I'll do. You give me all your work in the future, and I'll put you in those five headstones at hardly anything above cost; say—"
Mrs. B. "Fourheadstones, not five."
Mix. "I think you mentioned five."
Mrs. B. "No; only four."
Mix. "Less see: there was John, and Thomas and Aleck, and Adolph and Philip."
Mrs. B. "Yes, but Aleck and Philip were the same one. His middle name was Philip, and I always called him by it."
Mix. "Mrs. Banger, I'll be much obliged to you if you'll tell me precisely how many husbands you have planted up in that cemetery lot. This thing's getting a little mixed."
Mrs. B. "What do you mean, sir, by saying planted? I never 'planted' anybody. It's disgraceful to use such language."
Mix. "It's a technical term, madam. We always use it, and I don't see as it's going to hurt any old row of fellows named Smyth. Planted is good enough for other men, and it's good enough for them."
Mrs. B. "Old row of—What d'you mean, you impudent vagabond? I wouldn't let you put a headstone on one of my graves if you'd do it for nothing."
Then Mrs. Banger flounced out of the shop, and Mix called after her as she went through the door,
"Lemme know when you go for another man, and I'll throw him in a tombstone for a wedding-present He'll want it soon."
Mrs. Banger subsequently procured the services of a person in the city, and she regards Mr. Mix with something like detestation.
But Mrs. Banger herself is not universally beloved. Colonel Coffin knows of one woman who despises her methods and desires her complete repression. A short time after the election of the colonel to the Legislature a lady called to see him at his law-office. When she had closed the door, she sat down and said,
"Colonel, my name is Mooney. I am unmarried—a single woman. I called to see you in reference to pushing a bill through the Legislature for the benefit of maiden ladies such as myself. Let me direct your attention to some extraordinary facts. Statistics tell us that in the entire population of the world there are one-fourth more women than men. In this country the proportion of women to men is slightly larger. In this State there are two and one-eighth women to every man. Now, this outrageous condition of affairs—"
"Excuse me for a moment, madam," said the colonel. "Really, the Legislature can do nothing to improve the matter. It cannot regulate the proportion of the sexes by law."
"I know it," replied Miss Mooney. "That is not what I am coming at. I say that this condition of affairs is grossly unjust. If I had had the management of it, and had been compelled to arrange that there should be more women than men, I certainly should not have had any fractions. There are not only two women for every man, but an eighth of a woman besides, so that ever so many of us women would each belong to eight different men if a fair distribution were made. How do I know, for instance, that an eighth of me does not belong to you? Why, I don't know it; and I say it's awful."
"If such is the case, madam," said the colonel, "I surrender all my rights without waiting for a legislative enactment."
"Excuse me," replied Miss Mooney, "but you do not catch the drift of my remarks. Of course, while the laws against bigamy are in existence, some of those women can never be married, although for my part, when a man has two wives and an eighth of another wife, I call it polygamy. Well, now, the point I want to make is this: When more than half of us can't marry, it's only right that the other half should have a fair chance. There are not men enough to go round, any how, and for gracious' sake let's make them go as far as they honestly will. Well, then, how'll we do it? How'll we make an equitable distribution of those men?"
"Hanged if I know, madam. The Legislature daren't meddle with them."
"I'll tell you how to do it. Listen to me. Shut down on the widows. You hear me! Suppress the widows. Make it death for any widow to marry again. That's my remedy; and there'll never be any justice till it's the law. Just look at it! When a woman has been married once, she's had more than her share of the male population; she's had her own share and the share of another woman and an eighth. Is it right, is it honorable, for that woman to go and marry another man, and take the share of two more women and an eighth? I say, is it just the thing?"
"Well, on the surface it does look a little crooked."
"Crooked is not the word. Colonel Coffin, I know these widows. I have had my eye on them. They've got a way of bursting into a man's feelings and walking off with his affections that fills a modest woman like me with gall and bitterness. You know Mrs. Banger? No? Well, now, look at her, f'r instance. First she married Mr. Smyth, although what on earth he ever saw to admire aboutherI cannot imagine. That was her allowance. Having obtained Smyth, oughtn't she to have stood back and given some other woman a chance—now, oughtn't she?"
"Really, madam, I am hardly able to express an opinion."
"But no. After a while Smyth succumbed. He died. She entombed him, crying, mind you, all the time, as if, having lost Smyth, she wanted to die and join Smyth in the grave and in Paradise. But no sooner was he well settled than she began to flirt with Mr. Smith, and what does he do but yield to her blandishments and marry her? Took her, and seemed to glory in it.
"Now, you'd've thought that she'd've been satisfied with that, when she'd got the share of four women and a quarter. But pretty soon, as luck would have it, Smith, died and she hustledhiminto the grave. And in less than a year afterward I was amazed to hear that she was going to marry another Smyth. I was never more astonished in my life. Positively going to annex a third man, when the supply was too short anyway. Did you ever hear of such impudence? Did you, now?"
"I'll think it over and see if I can remember."
"Well, then, I thought for certainnowthat woman would knock off and give the rest of us some kind of a chance; and when Smyth was killed by cholera and interred, it never entered my head that that widow'd go afteranotherman. But, bless your soul! she'd hardly got into second mourning before she began to pursue Mr. McFadden, and got him. Now, look at it. One woman, no better'n I am, has had the property of eight women and a half, and here I am single and getting on in life, with the chances growing absurdly small. No civilized country ought to tolerate such a thing. It's worse than piracy. You may scuttle a ship or blow her up or run her against the rocks, and no great harm is done, because timber's plenty and you can build another one. But when one woman scuttles three men and then ties to a fourth, what are you going to do about it? You can't go out into the woods and chop down trees and saw them up and tack them together and build a man. Now, can you?"
"That seems to be the common impression, anyway."
"Just so. And I want you to pass a bill through that Legislature to make it a felony for a widow to marry again. I've drawn up a draft of a bill and I'll leave it with you. I've made it retroactive, so that it'll bring that woman Banger up with a short turn and send her after Smith and the others. I don't care to marry, myself, but I want justice. Are you married?"
"Madam, leave the bill with me and I will examine it."
"I say are you married?"
"I—I—married did you say? Oh yes. I've been married for ten years."
"Very well, then; good-morning;" and Miss Mooney withdrew.
"Thunder!" exclaimed the colonel as he shut the door. "If I'd've been single, I believe she'd've proposed on the spot."
It is not considered likely that the Mooney anti-widow bill will be pushed very hard in the Legislature next session.
One evening I met Mr. Potts out upon the turnpike, taking a walk; and I joined him. As we proceeded he became rather confidential. The subject of the mania for collecting bric-a-brac came up; and after an expression of opinion from me respecting the matter, Mr. Potts told the story of his wife's fondness for that kind of thing. He said,
"My wife is the most infatuated bric-a-brac hunter I ever heard of. She's an uncommonly fine woman about most things; loves her children; makes splendid pies; don't fool with any of those fan-dangling ways women have of fixing their hair; and she's an angel for temper. But she beats Mrs. Toodles for going to auctions. She's filled my house with the wildest mess of bric-a-brac and such stuff you ever came across outside of a museum of natural curiosities. She's spent more money for wrecks that wouldn't be allowed in the cellar of a poor-house than'd keep a family in comfort for years.
"You know Scudmore, who sold out the other day? She was there, bidding away like a millionaire. Came home with a wagon-load of things—four albata tea-pots without lids or handles; two posts of a bedstead and three slats; a couple of churns and fourteen second-hand sun-bonnets, and more mournful refuse like that. Said she didn't intend to buy, but she bid on them to run them up to help Mrs. Scudmore, and the auctioneer knocked them down quicker'n a wink. Said it was 'Lot 47,' and she had to take it all. And she said maybe she could make up the sun-bonnets into bibs for the baby and use the tea-pots for preserves. She thought she might make a pretty fair bedstead out of the posts by propping the other ends on a chair; and she said it was a lucky thing she was so forehanded about those churns, because she might have a cow knocked down to her, and then she would be all ready for butter-making. More'n likely she'll buy some old steer and bring him home while she's rummaging around for bric-a-brac.
"When the Paxtons had their sale in January she was around there, of course, and came home after dinner with the usual dismembered furniture; and when I said to her, 'Emma, why under Heaven did you buy in the mud-dredge and the sausage-stuffer?' she said she thought the sausage-stuffer would do for a cannon for the boys on the Fourth of July, and there was no telling if Charley wouldn't want to be a civil engineer when he grew up, and perhaps he'd get a contract for deepening the channel of the river; and then he'd rise up and bless the foresight of the mother who'd bought a mud-dredge for two dollars and saved it up for him.
"I sold that scoop on Wednesday for old iron for fifteen cents; and I'll bang the head off of Charley if he ever goes to dredging mud or playing cannon with the sausage-stuffer. I won't have my boys carrying on in that way.
"Over there at Robinson's sale I believe she'd've bid on the whole concern if I hadn't come in while she was going it. As it was, she bought an aneroid barometer, three dozen iron skewers, a sacking-bottom and four volumes of Eliza Cook's poems. Said she thought those volumes were some kind of cookery-books, or she wouldn't have bid on them, and the barometer would be valuable to tell us which was north.North, mind you! She thought it indicated the points of the compass. And yet they want to let women vote! I threw in those skewers along with the mud-dredge, and she's used the sacking-bottom twice to patch Charley's pants; and that's all the good we ever got out of that auction.
"But she don't care for utility; it's simply a mania for buying things. We haven't a stove in the house, and yet what does she do at Murphy's sale but bid on sixty-two feet and three elbows of rusty stovepipe and cart it home with four debilitated gingham umbrellas. Said the umbrellas were a bargain because, by putting in new covers and handles and a rib here and there, they would do for birthday presents for her aunts. And the stovepipe could be sent out to the farm to be put around the peach trees to keep the cows off. How in thunder she was ever going to get a stovepipe around a peach tree never crossed her mind. She is just as impractical as a baby.
"When Bailey had the auction at his insurance office, there she was, and, sure enough, that afternoon she landed in our side yard with Bailey's poll-parrot and a circular saw. It amused me. She wanted to use that saw as a dinner-gong, but it was cracked, and so she has turned it into a griddle for muffins. Bailey had taught the parrot to swear so that I was afraid it'd demoralize Charley, and I don't mind telling you in confidence that I killed it by putting bug-poison in a water-cracker.
"Now, I see there's an auction advertised for Friday at Peters'; and Peters has a pyramid of old tomato cans and bric-a-brac of that sort piled up in his back yard. Now, you see if that woman don't bid on those cans until she runs them up to a dollar apiece, and then come lugging them around to our house with some extraordinary idea about loading them up with gunpowder and selling them to the government during the next war for bombshells. If she does, that winds the thing up. I'm a good-natured man, but no woman shall bring home three hundred tomato cans to my house and retain a claim upon my affections. I'll resign first."
My feeling was that he was a little mixed in his notions about bric-a-brac, but that he really had a grievance.
* * * * *
Potts told me, also, that he came home very late one night recently, and when he went up stairs his wife and children were in bed asleep. He undressed as softly as he could, and then, as he felt thirsty, he thought he would get a drink of water. Fortunately, he saw a gobletful standing on the washstand, placed there for him, evidently, by Mrs. Potts. He seized it and drank the liquid in two or three huge gulps, but just as he was draining the goblet he gagged, dropped the glass to the floor, where it was shivered to atoms, while he ejected something from his mouth. He was certain that a live animal of some kind had been in the water, and that he had nearly swallowed it. This theory was confirmed when he saw the object which he spat out go bounding over the floor. He pursued it, kicking a couple of chairs over while doing so, and at last he put his foot on it and held it. Of course Mrs. Potts was wide awake by this time and scared nearly to death, and the baby was screaming at the top of its lungs. Mrs. Potts got out of bed and turned up the gas, and said,
"Mr. Potts, what in the name of common sense is the matter?"
"It's a mouse!" shouted Potts, in an excited manner. "It's a mouse in the goblet. I nearly swallowed it, but I spat it out, and now I've got my foot on it. Get a stick and kill it, quick!"
[Illustration: MR. POTTS' MOUSE]
Mrs. Potts was at first disposed to jump on a chair and scream, for, like all women, she feared a mouse very much more than she did a tiger. But at Potts' solicitation she got the broom and prepared to demolish the mouse when Potts lifted his foot. He drew back, and she aimed a fearful blow at the object and missed it. Then, as it did not move, she took a good look at it. Then she threw down the broom, and after casting a look of scorn at Potts, she said,
"Come to bed, you old fool! that's not a mouse."
"What d'you mean?"
"Why, you simpleton, that's the baby's India-rubber bottle-top that I put in the goblet to keep it sweet. You ought to be ashamed of yourself carrying on in this manner at one o'clock in the morning."
Then Potts turned in. After this he will drink at the pump.
* * * * *
In the course of the conversation I remarked that I had seen some men fixing Potts' roof recently; and when I asked Potts if anything was the matter, he said,
"My roof was shingled originally; but as it leaked, I had the shingles removed and a gravel-and-felt roof put on. The first night after it was finished there was a very high wind, which blew the gravel off with such force that it broke thirty-four panes of glass in Butterwick's house, next door. The wind also tore up the felt and blew it over the edge, so that it hung down over the front of the house like a curtain. Of course it made the rooms pitch-dark, and I did not get up until one o'clock in the afternoon, but lay there wondering how it was the night seemed so long.
"Then I had a tin roof put on, and it did well enough for a while. But whenever there was a heavy rain or the wind was high, it used to rattle all night with a noise like the battle of Gettysburg. At last it began to leak, and a tinner sent a man around to find the hole. He spent a week on that roof, and he spread half a ton of solder over it, but still it leaked. And finally, when the snow came, the water trickled down the wall and ran into an eight-hundred-dollar piano, which will be closed out at a low figure to anybody who wants mahogany kindling-wood. When the tin was removed and the new slate roof was put on, the slates used to get loose and slide down on the head of the hired girl while she was hanging up the clothes. And when the man came to replace the slates, he plunged off the roof and broke four ribs and his leg, whereupon he sued me for damages. And while the case was pending in court a snow-storm came. The snow blew in under the slates, and my oldest boy spent the day with some of his friends snow-balling and sledding in the garret. Then the snow on the garret floor melted and wet the wall-paper down stairs, so that the house became frightfully damp, and we had to move over to the hotel for a fortnight.
"Then I tried the 'Patent Incombustible' roofing, because the man said it would not only keep out the rain, but it was perfectly fireproof. A week after it was on, Butterwick's stable caught fire and flung up a great many sparks. All the houses in the neighborhood, however, escaped—all except mine. My roof was in flames before the stable was done burning; and when the firemen had put it out, they got to fighting on my front stairs, with the result that the banister was broken to splinters, a two-inch stream was played into the parlor for fifteen minutes, and Chief Engineer Johnson bled all over our best carpet.
"I have the 'Impervious Cement Roof' on now, and it seems to do well enough, excepting that it isn't impervious. It lets in the water at eight different places; and whenever there is a shower, I have to rush my family out on the roof to shelter it with umbrellas. I fully expect it will explode some night, or do some other deadly and infamous thing. I am going to put the house up at auction and live in a circus tent."
* * * * *
They had a big excitement over at Potts' the other day about their cat. They heard the cat howling and screeching somewhere around the house for two or three days, but they couldn't find her. Potts used to get up at night, fairly maddened with the noise, and heave things out the back window at random, hoping to hit her and discourage her. But she never seemed to mind them; and although eventually he fired off pretty nearly every movable thing in the house excepting the piano, she continued to shriek and scream in a manner that was simply appalling. At last, one day, Potts made a critical examination of the premises, and, guided by the noise, he finally located the cat in the tin waterspout which descends the north wall of the house. He thinks the cat must have been skylarking on the roof some dark night and accidentally tumbled into the spout.
Potts tried to shake her down by hammering on the spout with a stick; but the more he pounded, the louder she yelled, and the two noises roused the entire neighborhood and attracted the attention of the police. Then he procured a clothes-prop; and ascending to the roof, he endeavored to push the animal out. But the stick was not long enough to reach her. All it was good for was to make her howl more loudly; and it did that. At last Potts concluded to take the spout down and coax the cat out. When he got it on the ground, he peeped in at the end, and he could see the animal's eyes shining like balls of fire far back in the darkness of the hole. After shaking her up for a while without inducing her to move, he made up his mind that she must be jammed in the pipe and unable to budge. He wanted to cut the pipe open, but Butterwick said it would be a pity to spoil such a good spout for a mere cat.
So Potts finally determined to blow her out with powder. He procured a small charge; and pushing it pretty well in with a stick, he "tamped" the end of the spout with clay and lighted the slow-match. Two minutes later there was an explosion, and the tamping-clay flew out and struck Butterwick with some violence in the ribs, curling him all up on the grass by the pump. When he recovered his breath, he got up and said,
"Hang your infernal cat! It's an outrage for you to be endangering the lives of people with your diabolical schemes for getting at a beas' that ought to've been killed long ago."
Then Butterwick sullenly got over the fence and went home, and the cat meanwhile kept up a yowling that made everybody's hair stand on end.
Potts said that he made a mistake in not placing the butt of the spout against something solid. And so, after putting in a couple of pounds of powder, he turned the spout up and rested the end upon the ground, propping it against the pump. Then he lighted the slow-match, and the crowd scattered. There was a loud explosion, a general distribution of fragments of tin around the yard, and then out from the upper end of the spout there sailed something black. It ascended; it went higher and higher and higher, until it was a mere speck; then it came sailing down, down, down, until it struck the earth. It was the cat, singed off, burned to a crisp, looking as if it had been spending the summer in Vesuvius, but apparently still active and hearty; for as soon as it alighted it set up a wild, unearthly screech and darted off for the woodshed, where it continued to howl until Potts went in and killed it with his shotgun. It cost him forty dollars for a new spout, but he says he doesn't grudge the money now that he has stopped that fiendish noise.
* * * * *
Potts' clock got out of order one day last winter and began to strike wrong. That was the cause of the fearful excitement at his house on a certain night. They were all in bed sound asleep at midnight, when the clock suddenly struckfive. The new hired girl, happening to wake just as it began, heard it, and bounced out of bed under the impression that morning had come. And as it is dark at 5 A.M. just at that season, she did not perceive her mistake, but went down into the kitchen and began to get breakfast.
[Illustration: SHOOTING A BURGLAR]
While she was bustling about in a pretty lively manner, Potts happened to wake, and he heard the noise. He opened his room door cautiously and crept softly to the head of the stairs to listen. He could distinctly hear some one moving about the kitchen and dining-room and apparently packing up the china. Accordingly, he went back to his room and woke Mrs. Potts, and gave her orders to spring the rattle out of the front window the moment she heard his gun go off. Then Potts seized his fowling-piece; and going down to the dining-room door, where he could hear the burglars at work, he cocked the gun, aimed it, pushed the door open with the muzzle and fired. Instantly Mrs. Potts sprang the rattle, and before Potts could pick up the lacerated hired girl the front door was burst open by two policemen, who came into the dining-room.
Seeing Potts with a gun, and a bleeding woman on the floor, they imagined that murder had been committed, and one of them trotted Potts off to the station-house, while the other remained to investigate things. Just then the clock struck six. An explanation ensued from the girl, who only had a few bird-shot in her leg, and the policeman left to bring Potts home. He arrived at about three in the morning, just as the clock was striking eight. When the situation was unfolded to him, his first action was to jam the butt of his gun through the clock, whereupon it immediately struck two hundred and forty-three, and then Potts pitched it over the fence. He has a new clock now, and things are working better.
* * * * *
The Pottses celebrated their "iron wedding" one day last winter, and they invited about one hundred and twenty guests to the wedding. Of course each person felt compelled to bring a present of some kind; and each one did. When Mr. and Mrs. Smith came, they handed Potts a pair of flatirons. When Mr. and Mrs. Jones arrived, they also had a pair of flatirons. All hands laughed at the coincidence. And there was even greater merriment when the Browns arrived with two pairs of flatirons. But when Mr. and Mrs. Robinson came in with another pair of flatirons, the laughter became perfectly convulsive.
There was, however, something less amusing about it when the Thompsons arrived with four flatirons wrapped in brown paper. And Potts' face actually looked grave when the three Johnson girls were ushered into the parlor carrying a flatiron apiece. Each one of the succeeding sixty guests brought flatirons, and there was no break in the continuity until old Mr. Curry arrived from Philadelphia with a cast-iron cow-bell. Now, Potts has no earthly use for a cow-bell, and at any other time he would have treated such a present with scorn. But now he was actually grateful to Mr. Curry, and he was about to embrace him, when the Walsinghams came in with the new kind of-double-pointed flatirons with wooden handles. And all the rest of the guests brought the same articles excepting Mr. Rugby, and he had with him a patent stand for holding flatirons. Potts got madder and madder every minute, and by the time the company had all arrived he was nearly insane with rage; and he went up to bed, leaving his wife to entertain the guests. In the morning they counted up the spoils, and found that they had two hundred and thirteen flatirons, one stand and a cow-bell. And now the Pottses have cut the Smiths and Browns and Johnsons and Thompsons and the rest entirely, for they are convinced that there was a preconcerted design to play a trick upon them.
[Illustration: A FLAT-IRON WEDDING]
The fact, however, is that the hardware store in the place had an overstock of flatirons and sold them at an absurdly low figure, and Potts' guests unanimously went for the cheapest thing they could find, as people always do on such occasions. Potts thinks he will not celebrate his "silver wedding."