The “Orchids” were as tough a crowdAs Boston anywhere allowed;It was a club of wicked men—The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten;They drank their soda colored green,They talked of “Art,” and “Philistine,”They wore buff “wescoats,” and their hairIt used to make the waiters stare!They were so shockingly behavedAnd Boston thought themsodepraved,Policemen, stationed at the door,Would raid them every hour or more!They used to smoke (!) and laugh out loud (!)They were a very devilish crowd!They formed a Cult, far subtler, brainier,Than ordinary Anglomania,For all as Jacobites were reckoned,And gaily toasted Charles the Second!(What would the Bonnie Charlie say,If he could see that crowd to-day?)Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadubWas Regent of the Orchids’ Club;A wild Bohemian was he,And spent his money fast and free.He thought no more of spending dimesOn some debauch of pickled limes,Than you would think of spending nickelsTo buy a pint of German pickles!The Boston maiden passed him byWith sidelong glances of her eye,She dared not speak (hewasso wild),Yet worshiped this Lotharian child.Fitz-Willieboy was soblasé,He burned aTranscriptup one day!The Orchids fashioned all their styleOn Flubadub’s infernal guile.That awful Boston oath was his—Heused to ’jaculate, “Gee Whiz!”He showed them that immoral haunt.The dirty Chinese Restaurant,And there they’d find him, even whenIt got to be as late as ten!He ate choppedsuey(with a fork),You should have heard the villain talkOf onereporterthat he knew (!)An artist, and an actor, too!!!The Orchids went from bad to worse,Made epigrams—attempted verse!Boston was horrified and shockedTo hear the way those Orchids mocked;For they made fun of Boston ways,And called good men Provincial Jays!The end must come to such a story,Gone is the wicked Orchids’ glory,The room was raided by police,One night, for breaches of the Peace(There had been laughter, long and loud,In Boston this is not allowed),And there, the sergeant of the squadFound awful evidence—my God!—Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub,The Regent of the Orchids’ Club,Had written on the window-sill,This shocking outrage—“Beacon H—ll!”In “The Burgess Nonsense Book”
The “Orchids” were as tough a crowdAs Boston anywhere allowed;It was a club of wicked men—The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten;They drank their soda colored green,They talked of “Art,” and “Philistine,”They wore buff “wescoats,” and their hairIt used to make the waiters stare!They were so shockingly behavedAnd Boston thought themsodepraved,Policemen, stationed at the door,Would raid them every hour or more!They used to smoke (!) and laugh out loud (!)They were a very devilish crowd!They formed a Cult, far subtler, brainier,Than ordinary Anglomania,For all as Jacobites were reckoned,And gaily toasted Charles the Second!(What would the Bonnie Charlie say,If he could see that crowd to-day?)Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadubWas Regent of the Orchids’ Club;A wild Bohemian was he,And spent his money fast and free.He thought no more of spending dimesOn some debauch of pickled limes,Than you would think of spending nickelsTo buy a pint of German pickles!The Boston maiden passed him byWith sidelong glances of her eye,She dared not speak (hewasso wild),Yet worshiped this Lotharian child.Fitz-Willieboy was soblasé,He burned aTranscriptup one day!The Orchids fashioned all their styleOn Flubadub’s infernal guile.That awful Boston oath was his—Heused to ’jaculate, “Gee Whiz!”He showed them that immoral haunt.The dirty Chinese Restaurant,And there they’d find him, even whenIt got to be as late as ten!He ate choppedsuey(with a fork),You should have heard the villain talkOf onereporterthat he knew (!)An artist, and an actor, too!!!The Orchids went from bad to worse,Made epigrams—attempted verse!Boston was horrified and shockedTo hear the way those Orchids mocked;For they made fun of Boston ways,And called good men Provincial Jays!The end must come to such a story,Gone is the wicked Orchids’ glory,The room was raided by police,One night, for breaches of the Peace(There had been laughter, long and loud,In Boston this is not allowed),And there, the sergeant of the squadFound awful evidence—my God!—Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub,The Regent of the Orchids’ Club,Had written on the window-sill,This shocking outrage—“Beacon H—ll!”In “The Burgess Nonsense Book”
The “Orchids” were as tough a crowd
As Boston anywhere allowed;
It was a club of wicked men—
The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten;
They drank their soda colored green,
They talked of “Art,” and “Philistine,”
They wore buff “wescoats,” and their hair
It used to make the waiters stare!
They were so shockingly behaved
And Boston thought themsodepraved,
Policemen, stationed at the door,
Would raid them every hour or more!
They used to smoke (!) and laugh out loud (!)
They were a very devilish crowd!
They formed a Cult, far subtler, brainier,
Than ordinary Anglomania,
For all as Jacobites were reckoned,
And gaily toasted Charles the Second!
(What would the Bonnie Charlie say,
If he could see that crowd to-day?)
Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub
Was Regent of the Orchids’ Club;
A wild Bohemian was he,
And spent his money fast and free.
He thought no more of spending dimes
On some debauch of pickled limes,
Than you would think of spending nickels
To buy a pint of German pickles!
The Boston maiden passed him by
With sidelong glances of her eye,
She dared not speak (hewasso wild),
Yet worshiped this Lotharian child.
Fitz-Willieboy was soblasé,
He burned aTranscriptup one day!
The Orchids fashioned all their style
On Flubadub’s infernal guile.
That awful Boston oath was his—
Heused to ’jaculate, “Gee Whiz!”
He showed them that immoral haunt.
The dirty Chinese Restaurant,
And there they’d find him, even when
It got to be as late as ten!
He ate choppedsuey(with a fork),
You should have heard the villain talk
Of onereporterthat he knew (!)
An artist, and an actor, too!!!
The Orchids went from bad to worse,
Made epigrams—attempted verse!
Boston was horrified and shocked
To hear the way those Orchids mocked;
For they made fun of Boston ways,
And called good men Provincial Jays!
The end must come to such a story,
Gone is the wicked Orchids’ glory,
The room was raided by police,
One night, for breaches of the Peace
(There had been laughter, long and loud,
In Boston this is not allowed),
And there, the sergeant of the squad
Found awful evidence—my God!—
Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub,
The Regent of the Orchids’ Club,
Had written on the window-sill,
This shocking outrage—“Beacon H—ll!”
In “The Burgess Nonsense Book”
Of the countless good stories attributed to Artemus Ward, the best one, perhaps, is one which tells of the advice which he gave to a Southern railroad conductor soon after the war. The road was in a wretched condition, and the trains were consequently run at a phenomenally low rate of speed. When the conductor was punching his ticket, Artemus remarked:
“Does this railroad company allow passengers to give it advice, if they do so in a respectful manner?”
The conductor replied in gruff tones that he guessed so.
“Well,” Artemus went on, “it occurred to me that it would be well to detach the cowcatcher from the front of the engine and hitch it to the rear of the train, for you see we are not liable to overtake a cow, but what’s to prevent a cow from strolling into this car and biting a passenger?”
They were placed on exhibition, in a long, imposing row,All who’d borne the name of Spriggins for three centuries or so;From old Amram, who came over in the Pilgrim Fathers’ track,To the late lamented Jane, for whom the family still wore black.They stood upon a hardwood shelf, in rich and proud array,Not disposed, I beg to state, in any grim, offensive way.They were not a row of mummies, standing terrible and tall,Nor a grisly stack of coffins, piled up high along the wall;You never came across a skull, nor stumbled on a bone,Nor a human frame in lattice-work, left rattling there alone;Your nerves would never suffer there from sudden shocks or “turns”—There was nothing but a score or two of classic little urns,Which held their sacred contents, sealed in elegant reserve,Like a ghastly kind of jam, or supernatural preserve.You never, never would suspect that in those graceful rows,The entire Spriggins ancestry could peacefully repose.’Tis a plan that’s most convenient, thus within a little space,To have your relatives condensed, and keep them in a vase;For if you care to travel, why, wherever you may go,You can simply take your family vault along with you, you know.You can have the whole collection sent by Peterson’s express,To be a genteel solace in bereavement and distress.Besides, it is the prettiest end a man could wish himself—To be gathered to his fathers in an urn upon a shelf.There rested all the Spriggins tribe, each in his little urn,On which the names and dates were carved, as each had died in turn;And Spriggins,père, was proud of them, and often went to weep,Beside the sacred shelf on which he one day hoped to sleep.One fatal afternoon it chanced that Spriggins’s youngest son,Whose un-Christian age was seven, and whose Christian name was John,Obtained the key to that small room, and found that sacred storeOf the ashes of his fathers, which he ne’er had seen before.This Johnny was a clever boy, much given to research,His very nose turned up, with interrogatory perch;His head—excuse the slang—was very level, you’ll surmise,But ’twas level where his bump of veneration ought to rise.He knew they were his relatives, within those vases packed,But he didn’t care a button for that interesting fact;All he wanted was to reach those curious urns and take them down.(Alas! the shelf was several feet above his little crown.)There came a sudden avalanche, and flat upon the floorHe lay, sprinkled with the ashes of a century or more!A portion of his grandpa ran in torrents down his neck,And ’round him all his great-great aunts were lying by the peck.He had Pilgrim Fathers in his shoes, all trickling ’round his toes;He had grandmas in his hair, and he had cousins in his nose,And, worst of all, a fragment of the late lamented JaneHad lodged beneath his eyelid, and was causing dreadful pain!But John had lots of courage, and he didn’t stop to cry,Not even with the ashes of his sister in his eye;He only gasped, and quickly rose, and ruefully surveyedThe ruin and confusion that his luckless fall had made.He could sweep up all the ashes, but things never could be fixed,For the worthy house of Spriggins was inextricably mixed!Such stirring up would stagger e’en the very stoutest brain;Why, you couldn’t tell old Amram from the late lamented Jane.The scions of this honored line, all by that little loon,Might just as well have been stirred up, like pudding, with a spoon.’Twas very sad; but Johnny, yielding not to thoughts of gloom,Brought up a chair to stand on, and a dustpan and a broom,And soon that little room was very, very cleanly swept,And urns and ashes all put back, just where they had been kept.You never, never would suspect what that one day had cost,And that in that act each Spriggins’s identity was lost!That night, alas! Pa Spriggins, in a solemn frame of mind,Betook himself to that small room, as oft he felt inclined,And he shut the door, and sat him down, those urns to contemplate,While appropriate reflections chased each other through his pate,For he loved to pensively recount the treasures of the past,And wondered constantly how long the family would last.The place was dark and gloomy—he was shut up there alone,When suddenly—his hair stood up!—he heard a hollow groan!The cover of the largest urn rose up a little way,A mist came forth, which altered to a figure dim and gray.It rose up from the ashes, like the Phenix known of old,But of such an awful bird as this the ancients never told.It bore a distant likeness to the figure of a man,But picture such a nondescript I know I never can.It had a gray old head upon the shoulders of a child;One eye was small and wicked, and the other large and wild.Its hands, its feet, its teeth, its ears, I solemnly declare,You couldn’t pick out two of them that matched to make a pair!One foot was slim and dainty, and the other huge and flat,And it had a woman’s wig on underneath a man’s cocked hat;A waistcoat like George Washington’s, a blazer and a train,That Spriggins knew had once belonged to his departed Jane!He sank upon his bonded knees, with terror quite unmanned;It stood upon its one large foot, and waved its biggest hand,And spake: “Unhappy man,” it said, “for this have we been burned?For this have we been kept here long, so carefully inurned?Oh, see, upon this sacred shelf what dire confusion reigns!Wretch! What have you been doing with your ancestors’ remains?You listen to your father’s voice, but thanks, I fear, to you,It is your uncle Solomon whose mouth it’s speaking through!Oh, tell me who or what I am, and how long I’ve been dead;And tell me if I’ve got my own or some one else’s head;I don’t belong to any special period at all.Am I my Aunt Kiziah, or am I your brother Paul?Oh, Spriggins—Ebenezer J!—Oh, wretch! Oh, fool! Oh, rash!How could you mix our ashes in one vast, ancestral hash?”Thus ending, with a mingled wail of misery and rage,That awful vision ceased to speak, and vanished from the stage,While ghostly groanings issued from the various urns around,But poor old Spriggins heard no more—he swooned upon the ground.And now these mingled embers ’neath memorial marbles lie,And Spriggins and his family will be buried when they die.
They were placed on exhibition, in a long, imposing row,All who’d borne the name of Spriggins for three centuries or so;From old Amram, who came over in the Pilgrim Fathers’ track,To the late lamented Jane, for whom the family still wore black.They stood upon a hardwood shelf, in rich and proud array,Not disposed, I beg to state, in any grim, offensive way.They were not a row of mummies, standing terrible and tall,Nor a grisly stack of coffins, piled up high along the wall;You never came across a skull, nor stumbled on a bone,Nor a human frame in lattice-work, left rattling there alone;Your nerves would never suffer there from sudden shocks or “turns”—There was nothing but a score or two of classic little urns,Which held their sacred contents, sealed in elegant reserve,Like a ghastly kind of jam, or supernatural preserve.You never, never would suspect that in those graceful rows,The entire Spriggins ancestry could peacefully repose.’Tis a plan that’s most convenient, thus within a little space,To have your relatives condensed, and keep them in a vase;For if you care to travel, why, wherever you may go,You can simply take your family vault along with you, you know.You can have the whole collection sent by Peterson’s express,To be a genteel solace in bereavement and distress.Besides, it is the prettiest end a man could wish himself—To be gathered to his fathers in an urn upon a shelf.There rested all the Spriggins tribe, each in his little urn,On which the names and dates were carved, as each had died in turn;And Spriggins,père, was proud of them, and often went to weep,Beside the sacred shelf on which he one day hoped to sleep.One fatal afternoon it chanced that Spriggins’s youngest son,Whose un-Christian age was seven, and whose Christian name was John,Obtained the key to that small room, and found that sacred storeOf the ashes of his fathers, which he ne’er had seen before.This Johnny was a clever boy, much given to research,His very nose turned up, with interrogatory perch;His head—excuse the slang—was very level, you’ll surmise,But ’twas level where his bump of veneration ought to rise.He knew they were his relatives, within those vases packed,But he didn’t care a button for that interesting fact;All he wanted was to reach those curious urns and take them down.(Alas! the shelf was several feet above his little crown.)There came a sudden avalanche, and flat upon the floorHe lay, sprinkled with the ashes of a century or more!A portion of his grandpa ran in torrents down his neck,And ’round him all his great-great aunts were lying by the peck.He had Pilgrim Fathers in his shoes, all trickling ’round his toes;He had grandmas in his hair, and he had cousins in his nose,And, worst of all, a fragment of the late lamented JaneHad lodged beneath his eyelid, and was causing dreadful pain!But John had lots of courage, and he didn’t stop to cry,Not even with the ashes of his sister in his eye;He only gasped, and quickly rose, and ruefully surveyedThe ruin and confusion that his luckless fall had made.He could sweep up all the ashes, but things never could be fixed,For the worthy house of Spriggins was inextricably mixed!Such stirring up would stagger e’en the very stoutest brain;Why, you couldn’t tell old Amram from the late lamented Jane.The scions of this honored line, all by that little loon,Might just as well have been stirred up, like pudding, with a spoon.’Twas very sad; but Johnny, yielding not to thoughts of gloom,Brought up a chair to stand on, and a dustpan and a broom,And soon that little room was very, very cleanly swept,And urns and ashes all put back, just where they had been kept.You never, never would suspect what that one day had cost,And that in that act each Spriggins’s identity was lost!That night, alas! Pa Spriggins, in a solemn frame of mind,Betook himself to that small room, as oft he felt inclined,And he shut the door, and sat him down, those urns to contemplate,While appropriate reflections chased each other through his pate,For he loved to pensively recount the treasures of the past,And wondered constantly how long the family would last.The place was dark and gloomy—he was shut up there alone,When suddenly—his hair stood up!—he heard a hollow groan!The cover of the largest urn rose up a little way,A mist came forth, which altered to a figure dim and gray.It rose up from the ashes, like the Phenix known of old,But of such an awful bird as this the ancients never told.It bore a distant likeness to the figure of a man,But picture such a nondescript I know I never can.It had a gray old head upon the shoulders of a child;One eye was small and wicked, and the other large and wild.Its hands, its feet, its teeth, its ears, I solemnly declare,You couldn’t pick out two of them that matched to make a pair!One foot was slim and dainty, and the other huge and flat,And it had a woman’s wig on underneath a man’s cocked hat;A waistcoat like George Washington’s, a blazer and a train,That Spriggins knew had once belonged to his departed Jane!He sank upon his bonded knees, with terror quite unmanned;It stood upon its one large foot, and waved its biggest hand,And spake: “Unhappy man,” it said, “for this have we been burned?For this have we been kept here long, so carefully inurned?Oh, see, upon this sacred shelf what dire confusion reigns!Wretch! What have you been doing with your ancestors’ remains?You listen to your father’s voice, but thanks, I fear, to you,It is your uncle Solomon whose mouth it’s speaking through!Oh, tell me who or what I am, and how long I’ve been dead;And tell me if I’ve got my own or some one else’s head;I don’t belong to any special period at all.Am I my Aunt Kiziah, or am I your brother Paul?Oh, Spriggins—Ebenezer J!—Oh, wretch! Oh, fool! Oh, rash!How could you mix our ashes in one vast, ancestral hash?”Thus ending, with a mingled wail of misery and rage,That awful vision ceased to speak, and vanished from the stage,While ghostly groanings issued from the various urns around,But poor old Spriggins heard no more—he swooned upon the ground.And now these mingled embers ’neath memorial marbles lie,And Spriggins and his family will be buried when they die.
They were placed on exhibition, in a long, imposing row,All who’d borne the name of Spriggins for three centuries or so;From old Amram, who came over in the Pilgrim Fathers’ track,To the late lamented Jane, for whom the family still wore black.They stood upon a hardwood shelf, in rich and proud array,Not disposed, I beg to state, in any grim, offensive way.They were not a row of mummies, standing terrible and tall,Nor a grisly stack of coffins, piled up high along the wall;You never came across a skull, nor stumbled on a bone,Nor a human frame in lattice-work, left rattling there alone;Your nerves would never suffer there from sudden shocks or “turns”—There was nothing but a score or two of classic little urns,Which held their sacred contents, sealed in elegant reserve,Like a ghastly kind of jam, or supernatural preserve.You never, never would suspect that in those graceful rows,The entire Spriggins ancestry could peacefully repose.’Tis a plan that’s most convenient, thus within a little space,To have your relatives condensed, and keep them in a vase;For if you care to travel, why, wherever you may go,You can simply take your family vault along with you, you know.You can have the whole collection sent by Peterson’s express,To be a genteel solace in bereavement and distress.Besides, it is the prettiest end a man could wish himself—To be gathered to his fathers in an urn upon a shelf.
They were placed on exhibition, in a long, imposing row,
All who’d borne the name of Spriggins for three centuries or so;
From old Amram, who came over in the Pilgrim Fathers’ track,
To the late lamented Jane, for whom the family still wore black.
They stood upon a hardwood shelf, in rich and proud array,
Not disposed, I beg to state, in any grim, offensive way.
They were not a row of mummies, standing terrible and tall,
Nor a grisly stack of coffins, piled up high along the wall;
You never came across a skull, nor stumbled on a bone,
Nor a human frame in lattice-work, left rattling there alone;
Your nerves would never suffer there from sudden shocks or “turns”—
There was nothing but a score or two of classic little urns,
Which held their sacred contents, sealed in elegant reserve,
Like a ghastly kind of jam, or supernatural preserve.
You never, never would suspect that in those graceful rows,
The entire Spriggins ancestry could peacefully repose.
’Tis a plan that’s most convenient, thus within a little space,
To have your relatives condensed, and keep them in a vase;
For if you care to travel, why, wherever you may go,
You can simply take your family vault along with you, you know.
You can have the whole collection sent by Peterson’s express,
To be a genteel solace in bereavement and distress.
Besides, it is the prettiest end a man could wish himself—
To be gathered to his fathers in an urn upon a shelf.
There rested all the Spriggins tribe, each in his little urn,On which the names and dates were carved, as each had died in turn;And Spriggins,père, was proud of them, and often went to weep,Beside the sacred shelf on which he one day hoped to sleep.One fatal afternoon it chanced that Spriggins’s youngest son,Whose un-Christian age was seven, and whose Christian name was John,Obtained the key to that small room, and found that sacred storeOf the ashes of his fathers, which he ne’er had seen before.This Johnny was a clever boy, much given to research,His very nose turned up, with interrogatory perch;His head—excuse the slang—was very level, you’ll surmise,But ’twas level where his bump of veneration ought to rise.He knew they were his relatives, within those vases packed,But he didn’t care a button for that interesting fact;All he wanted was to reach those curious urns and take them down.(Alas! the shelf was several feet above his little crown.)There came a sudden avalanche, and flat upon the floorHe lay, sprinkled with the ashes of a century or more!A portion of his grandpa ran in torrents down his neck,And ’round him all his great-great aunts were lying by the peck.He had Pilgrim Fathers in his shoes, all trickling ’round his toes;He had grandmas in his hair, and he had cousins in his nose,And, worst of all, a fragment of the late lamented JaneHad lodged beneath his eyelid, and was causing dreadful pain!But John had lots of courage, and he didn’t stop to cry,Not even with the ashes of his sister in his eye;He only gasped, and quickly rose, and ruefully surveyedThe ruin and confusion that his luckless fall had made.He could sweep up all the ashes, but things never could be fixed,For the worthy house of Spriggins was inextricably mixed!Such stirring up would stagger e’en the very stoutest brain;Why, you couldn’t tell old Amram from the late lamented Jane.The scions of this honored line, all by that little loon,Might just as well have been stirred up, like pudding, with a spoon.’Twas very sad; but Johnny, yielding not to thoughts of gloom,Brought up a chair to stand on, and a dustpan and a broom,And soon that little room was very, very cleanly swept,And urns and ashes all put back, just where they had been kept.You never, never would suspect what that one day had cost,And that in that act each Spriggins’s identity was lost!
There rested all the Spriggins tribe, each in his little urn,
On which the names and dates were carved, as each had died in turn;
And Spriggins,père, was proud of them, and often went to weep,
Beside the sacred shelf on which he one day hoped to sleep.
One fatal afternoon it chanced that Spriggins’s youngest son,
Whose un-Christian age was seven, and whose Christian name was John,
Obtained the key to that small room, and found that sacred store
Of the ashes of his fathers, which he ne’er had seen before.
This Johnny was a clever boy, much given to research,
His very nose turned up, with interrogatory perch;
His head—excuse the slang—was very level, you’ll surmise,
But ’twas level where his bump of veneration ought to rise.
He knew they were his relatives, within those vases packed,
But he didn’t care a button for that interesting fact;
All he wanted was to reach those curious urns and take them down.
(Alas! the shelf was several feet above his little crown.)
There came a sudden avalanche, and flat upon the floor
He lay, sprinkled with the ashes of a century or more!
A portion of his grandpa ran in torrents down his neck,
And ’round him all his great-great aunts were lying by the peck.
He had Pilgrim Fathers in his shoes, all trickling ’round his toes;
He had grandmas in his hair, and he had cousins in his nose,
And, worst of all, a fragment of the late lamented Jane
Had lodged beneath his eyelid, and was causing dreadful pain!
But John had lots of courage, and he didn’t stop to cry,
Not even with the ashes of his sister in his eye;
He only gasped, and quickly rose, and ruefully surveyed
The ruin and confusion that his luckless fall had made.
He could sweep up all the ashes, but things never could be fixed,
For the worthy house of Spriggins was inextricably mixed!
Such stirring up would stagger e’en the very stoutest brain;
Why, you couldn’t tell old Amram from the late lamented Jane.
The scions of this honored line, all by that little loon,
Might just as well have been stirred up, like pudding, with a spoon.
’Twas very sad; but Johnny, yielding not to thoughts of gloom,
Brought up a chair to stand on, and a dustpan and a broom,
And soon that little room was very, very cleanly swept,
And urns and ashes all put back, just where they had been kept.
You never, never would suspect what that one day had cost,
And that in that act each Spriggins’s identity was lost!
That night, alas! Pa Spriggins, in a solemn frame of mind,Betook himself to that small room, as oft he felt inclined,And he shut the door, and sat him down, those urns to contemplate,While appropriate reflections chased each other through his pate,For he loved to pensively recount the treasures of the past,And wondered constantly how long the family would last.The place was dark and gloomy—he was shut up there alone,When suddenly—his hair stood up!—he heard a hollow groan!The cover of the largest urn rose up a little way,A mist came forth, which altered to a figure dim and gray.It rose up from the ashes, like the Phenix known of old,But of such an awful bird as this the ancients never told.It bore a distant likeness to the figure of a man,But picture such a nondescript I know I never can.It had a gray old head upon the shoulders of a child;One eye was small and wicked, and the other large and wild.Its hands, its feet, its teeth, its ears, I solemnly declare,You couldn’t pick out two of them that matched to make a pair!One foot was slim and dainty, and the other huge and flat,And it had a woman’s wig on underneath a man’s cocked hat;A waistcoat like George Washington’s, a blazer and a train,That Spriggins knew had once belonged to his departed Jane!He sank upon his bonded knees, with terror quite unmanned;It stood upon its one large foot, and waved its biggest hand,And spake: “Unhappy man,” it said, “for this have we been burned?For this have we been kept here long, so carefully inurned?Oh, see, upon this sacred shelf what dire confusion reigns!Wretch! What have you been doing with your ancestors’ remains?You listen to your father’s voice, but thanks, I fear, to you,It is your uncle Solomon whose mouth it’s speaking through!Oh, tell me who or what I am, and how long I’ve been dead;And tell me if I’ve got my own or some one else’s head;I don’t belong to any special period at all.Am I my Aunt Kiziah, or am I your brother Paul?Oh, Spriggins—Ebenezer J!—Oh, wretch! Oh, fool! Oh, rash!How could you mix our ashes in one vast, ancestral hash?”Thus ending, with a mingled wail of misery and rage,That awful vision ceased to speak, and vanished from the stage,While ghostly groanings issued from the various urns around,But poor old Spriggins heard no more—he swooned upon the ground.
That night, alas! Pa Spriggins, in a solemn frame of mind,
Betook himself to that small room, as oft he felt inclined,
And he shut the door, and sat him down, those urns to contemplate,
While appropriate reflections chased each other through his pate,
For he loved to pensively recount the treasures of the past,
And wondered constantly how long the family would last.
The place was dark and gloomy—he was shut up there alone,
When suddenly—his hair stood up!—he heard a hollow groan!
The cover of the largest urn rose up a little way,
A mist came forth, which altered to a figure dim and gray.
It rose up from the ashes, like the Phenix known of old,
But of such an awful bird as this the ancients never told.
It bore a distant likeness to the figure of a man,
But picture such a nondescript I know I never can.
It had a gray old head upon the shoulders of a child;
One eye was small and wicked, and the other large and wild.
Its hands, its feet, its teeth, its ears, I solemnly declare,
You couldn’t pick out two of them that matched to make a pair!
One foot was slim and dainty, and the other huge and flat,
And it had a woman’s wig on underneath a man’s cocked hat;
A waistcoat like George Washington’s, a blazer and a train,
That Spriggins knew had once belonged to his departed Jane!
He sank upon his bonded knees, with terror quite unmanned;
It stood upon its one large foot, and waved its biggest hand,
And spake: “Unhappy man,” it said, “for this have we been burned?
For this have we been kept here long, so carefully inurned?
Oh, see, upon this sacred shelf what dire confusion reigns!
Wretch! What have you been doing with your ancestors’ remains?
You listen to your father’s voice, but thanks, I fear, to you,
It is your uncle Solomon whose mouth it’s speaking through!
Oh, tell me who or what I am, and how long I’ve been dead;
And tell me if I’ve got my own or some one else’s head;
I don’t belong to any special period at all.
Am I my Aunt Kiziah, or am I your brother Paul?
Oh, Spriggins—Ebenezer J!—Oh, wretch! Oh, fool! Oh, rash!
How could you mix our ashes in one vast, ancestral hash?”
Thus ending, with a mingled wail of misery and rage,
That awful vision ceased to speak, and vanished from the stage,
While ghostly groanings issued from the various urns around,
But poor old Spriggins heard no more—he swooned upon the ground.
And now these mingled embers ’neath memorial marbles lie,And Spriggins and his family will be buried when they die.
And now these mingled embers ’neath memorial marbles lie,
And Spriggins and his family will be buried when they die.
The fact that the “Slab City” parents object to clay-modeling in the schools is illustrated in the following note sent to a teacher in one of the Tenth Ward schools:
Miss ——: John kem home yesterday wid his clothes covered wid mud. He said you put him to work mixing clay when he ought to be learning to read an’ write. Me man carries th’ hod, an’ God knows I hev enuf trouble wid his clothes in th’ wash widout scraping John’s coat. If he comes home like this agin I’ll send him back ter yez to wash his clothes.Mrs. O’R——
Miss ——: John kem home yesterday wid his clothes covered wid mud. He said you put him to work mixing clay when he ought to be learning to read an’ write. Me man carries th’ hod, an’ God knows I hev enuf trouble wid his clothes in th’ wash widout scraping John’s coat. If he comes home like this agin I’ll send him back ter yez to wash his clothes.
Mrs. O’R——
Here is one from a Brownsville mother who objects to physical culture:
Miss Brown: You must stop teach my Lizzie fisical torture she needs yet readin’ an’ figors mit sums more as that, if I want her to do jumpin’ I kin make her jump.Mrs. Canavowsky.
Miss Brown: You must stop teach my Lizzie fisical torture she needs yet readin’ an’ figors mit sums more as that, if I want her to do jumpin’ I kin make her jump.
Mrs. Canavowsky.
The number of parents who object to the temperance plank in the educational platform is greater than the number of objectors to any other class of study in Williamsburg. Here is a copy of a note sent to a teacher in the Stagg Street school:
Miss ——: My boy tells me that when I trink beer der overcoat vrom my stummack gets to thick. Please be so kind and don’t intervere in my family afairs.Mr. Chris ——
Miss ——: My boy tells me that when I trink beer der overcoat vrom my stummack gets to thick. Please be so kind and don’t intervere in my family afairs.
Mr. Chris ——
Here is a sample on the same subject sent to a teacher in the Maujer Street school:
Dear Teacher: You should mine your own bizniss an’ not tell Jake he should not trink bier, so long he lif he trinks the bier an’ he trinks it yen wen bill rains is ded, if you interfer some more I go on the bored of edcation.W. S.
Dear Teacher: You should mine your own bizniss an’ not tell Jake he should not trink bier, so long he lif he trinks the bier an’ he trinks it yen wen bill rains is ded, if you interfer some more I go on the bored of edcation.
W. S.
In this school the teachers are often compelled to listen to long arguments on the excise question, and the parents who call around to argue become greatly excited when told that the children are taught not to taste alcoholic liquors. One little boy told his teacher that his mother had given him orders to get up and leave the classroom during the hour for discussing the alcohol question. The teacher told the boy to ask his mother to call around at the schoolhouse. She wrote this note instead:
Teacher: John says you want to see me. I have a bier saloon and nine children. Bizness is good in morning an’ aft’noon. How can I come?
Teacher: John says you want to see me. I have a bier saloon and nine children. Bizness is good in morning an’ aft’noon. How can I come?
The Pickleville parents as a rule never omit the “obliging” end of a note, as will be seen in the following, sent to a teacher of the Wall Street school:
Dear Teacher: Pleas excus Fritz for staying home he had der meesells to oblige his father.J. B.
Dear Teacher: Pleas excus Fritz for staying home he had der meesells to oblige his father.
J. B.
And here is another of the obliging kind:
Teacher: Please excuse Henny for not comeing in school as he died from the car run-over on Tuesday. By doing so you will greatly oblige his loving mother.
Teacher: Please excuse Henny for not comeing in school as he died from the car run-over on Tuesday. By doing so you will greatly oblige his loving mother.
Here is one sent to the Brownsville school:
Dear Miss Baker: Please excuse Rachael for being away those two days her grandmother died to oblige her mother.Mrs. Renski.
Dear Miss Baker: Please excuse Rachael for being away those two days her grandmother died to oblige her mother.
Mrs. Renski.
The child mentioned in the following note was neither German nor Irish. But he is back in school after a battle with the doctors:
Miss ——: Frank could not come these three weeks because he had the amonia and information of the vowels.Mrs. Smith.
Miss ——: Frank could not come these three weeks because he had the amonia and information of the vowels.
Mrs. Smith.
The notes sent are sometimes written on scented paper, and as a rule these are misspelled. Here is a scented-paper sample:
Teacher: You must excuse my girl for not coming to school, she was sick and lade in a common dose state for tree days.Mrs. W.
Teacher: You must excuse my girl for not coming to school, she was sick and lade in a common dose state for tree days.
Mrs. W.
In this same school a teacher received the following:
Miss ——: Please let Willie home at 2 o’clock. I take him out for a little pleasure to see his grandfather’s grave.Mrs. R.
Miss ——: Please let Willie home at 2 o’clock. I take him out for a little pleasure to see his grandfather’s grave.
Mrs. R.
Still another mother wrote the following:
Miss ——: Please be so kind an’ knock hell out of Sol when he gives too much lip to oblige his mother.
Miss ——: Please be so kind an’ knock hell out of Sol when he gives too much lip to oblige his mother.
Don’t visit the commonplace Winnepesauke,Or the rivulet Onoquinapaskeasanognog,Nor climb to the summit of bare Moosilauke,And look eastward toward the clear Umbagog;But come into Maine to the Welokennebacock,Or to the saucy little river Essiqualsagook,Or still smaller stream of Chinquassabunticook,Then visit me last on the great Anasagunticook.
Don’t visit the commonplace Winnepesauke,Or the rivulet Onoquinapaskeasanognog,Nor climb to the summit of bare Moosilauke,And look eastward toward the clear Umbagog;But come into Maine to the Welokennebacock,Or to the saucy little river Essiqualsagook,Or still smaller stream of Chinquassabunticook,Then visit me last on the great Anasagunticook.
Don’t visit the commonplace Winnepesauke,
Or the rivulet Onoquinapaskeasanognog,
Nor climb to the summit of bare Moosilauke,
And look eastward toward the clear Umbagog;
But come into Maine to the Welokennebacock,
Or to the saucy little river Essiqualsagook,
Or still smaller stream of Chinquassabunticook,
Then visit me last on the great Anasagunticook.
From the LondonLancetwe learn that “many years ago a case was recorded by Doctor Otto, of Copenhagen, in which 495 needles passed through the skin of a hysterical girl, who had probably swallowed them during a hysterical paroxysm, but these all emerged from the regions below the diaphragm, and were collected in groups, which gave rise to inflammatory swellings of some size. One of these contained 100 needles. Quite recently Doctor Bigger described before the Society of Surgery of Dublin a case in which more than 300 needles were removed from the body of a woman. It is very remarkable in how few cases the needles were the cause of death, and how slight an interference with function their presence and movement cause.”
It would seem, from the cases on record, that needles in the system rather assist in the digestion and promote longevity.
For instance, we will suppose that the hysterical girl above alluded to, with 495 needles in her stomach, should absorb the midsummer cucumber. Think how interesting those needles would make it for the great colic promoter!
We can imagine the cheerful smile of the cucumber as it enters the stomach, and, bowing cheerfully to the follicles standing around, hangs its hat upon the walls of the stomach, stands its umbrella in a corner, and proceeds to get in its work.
All at once the cucumber looks surprised and grieved about something. It stops in its heaven-born colic generation, and pulls a rusty needle out of its person. Maddened by the pain, it once more attacks the digestive apparatus, and once more accumulates a choice job lot of needles.
Again and again it enters into the unequal contest, each time losing ground and gaining ground, till the poor cucumber, with assorted hardware sticking out in all directions, like the hair on a cat’s tail, at last curls up like a caterpillar and yields up the victory.
Still, this needle business will be expensive to husbands, if wives once acquire the habit and allow it to obtain the mastery over them.
If a wife once permits this demon appetite for cambric needles to get control of the house, it will soon secure a majority in the senate, and then there will be trouble.
The woman who once begins to tamper with cambric needles is not safe. She may think that she has power to control her appetite, but it is only a step to the maddening thirst for the darning-needle, and perhaps to the button-hook and carpet-stretcher.
It is safer and better to crush the first desire for needles than to undertake when it is too late reformation from the abjectslavery to this hellish thirst.
We once knew a sweet young creature, with dewy eye and breath like timothy hay. Her merry laugh rippled out upon the summer air like the joyful music of baldheaded bobolinks.
Everybody loved her, and she loved everybody too. But in a thoughtless moment she swallowed a cambric needle. This did not satisfy her. The cruel thraldom had begun. Whenever she felt depressed and gloomy, there was nothing that would kill her ennui and melancholy but the fatal needle-cushion.
From this she rapidly became more reckless, till there was hardly an hour that she was not under the influence of needles.
If she couldn’t get needles to assuage her mad thirst, she would take hairpins or door-keys. She gradually pined away to a mere skeleton. She could no longer sit on one foot and be happy.
Life for her was filled with opaque gloom and sadness. At last she took an overdose of sheep-shears and monkey-wrenches one day, and on the following morning her soul had lit out for the land of eternal summer.
We should learn from this to shun the maddening needle-cushion as we would a viper, and never tell a lie.
“Say, are you a Mason, or a Nodfellow, or anything?” asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as he went to the cinnamon bag on the shelf and took out a long stick of cinnamon bark to chew.
“Why, yes, of course I am; but what set you to thinking of that?” asked the grocery man, as he went to the desk and charged the boy’s father with a half-pound of cinnamon.
“Well, do the goats bunt when you nishiate a fresh candidate?”
“No, of course not. The goats are cheap ones, that have no life, and we muzzle them, and put pillows over their heads so they can’t hurt anybody,” said the grocery man, as he winked at a brother Oddfellow who was seated on a sugar barrel, looking mysterious. “But why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothin’, only I wish me and my chum had muzzled our goat with a pillow. Pa would have enjoyed his becoming a member of our lodge better. You see, Pa had been telling us how much good the Masons and Oddfellers did, and said we ought to try and grow up good so we could jine the lodges when we got big; and I asked Pa if it would do any hurt for us to have a play lodge in my room, and purtend to nishiate, and Pa said it wouldn’t do any hurt. He said it would improve our mindsand learn us to be men. So my chum and me borried a goat that lives in a livery stable. Say, did you know they keep a goat in a livery stable so the horses won’t get sick? They get used to the smell of the goat, and after that nothing can make them sick but a glue factory. You see, my chum and me had to carry the goat up to my room when Ma and Pa was out riding, and he blatted so we had to tie a handkerchief around his nose, and his feet made such a noise on the floor that we put some baby’s socks on his hoofs.
“Well, my chum and me practised with that goat until he could bunt the picture of a goat every time. We borried a bock-beer sign from a saloon man and hung it on the back of a chair, and the goat would hit it every time. That night Pa wanted to know what we were doing up in my room, and I told him we were playing lodge, and improving our minds; and Pa said that was right, there was nothing that did boys of our age half so much good as to imitate men, and store by useful nollidge. Then my chum asked Pa if he didn’t want to come up and take the grand bumper degree, and Pa laffed and said he didn’t care if he did, just to encourage us boys in innocent pastime that was so improving to our intellex. We had shut the goat up in a closet in my room, and he had got over blatting; so we took off the handkerchief and he was eating some of my paper collars and skate straps. We went upstairs and told Pato come up pretty soon and give three distinct raps, and when we asked him who comes there he must say, ‘A pilgrim, who wants to join your ancient order and ride the goat.’ Ma wanted to come up, too, but we told her if she come in it would break up the lodge, ’cause a woman couldn’t keep a secret, and we didn’t have any side-saddle for the goat. Say, if you never tried it, the next time you nishiate a man in your Mason’s lodge you sprinkle a little kyan pepper on the goat’s beard just before you turn him loose. You can get three times as much fun to the square inch of goat. You wouldn’t think it was the same goat. Well, we got all fixed, and Pa rapped, and we let him in and told him he must be blindfolded, and he got on his knees a-laffing, and I tied a towel around his eyes, and then I turned him around and made him get down on his hands also, and then his back was right toward the closet sign, and I put the bock-beer sign right against Pa’s clothes. He was a-laffing all the time, and said we boys were as full of fun as they made ’em, and we told him it was a solemn occasion, and we wouldn’t permit no levity, and if he didn’t stop laffing we couldn’t give him the grand bumper degree. Then everything was ready, and my chum had his hand on the closet door, and some kyan pepper in his other hand, and I asked Pa in low bass tones if he felt as though he wanted to turn back, or if he had nerve enough to go ahead and take the degree. Iwarned him that it was full of dangers, as the goat was loaded for bear, and told him he yet had time to retrace his steps if he wanted to. He said he wanted the whole bizness, and we could go ahead with the menagerie. Then I said to Pa that if he had decided to go ahead, and not blame us for the consequences, to repeat after me the following, ‘Bring forth the Royal Bumper and let him Bump.’
“Pa repeated the words, and my chum sprinkled the kyan pepper on the goat’s mustache, and he sneezed once and looked sassy, and then he see the lager-beer goat rearing up, and he started for it just like a crow-catcher, and blatted. Pa is real fat, but he knew he got hit, and he grunted and said, ‘What you boys doin’?’ and then the goat gave him another degree, and Pa pulled off the towel and got up and started for the stairs, and so did the goat; and Ma was at the bottom of the stairs listening, and when I looked over the banisters Pa and Ma and the goat were all in a heap, and Pa was yelling murder, and Ma was screaming fire, and the goat was blatting, and sneezing, and bunting, and the hired girl came into the hall and the goat took after her, and she crossed herself just as the goat struck her and said, ‘Howly mother, protect me!’ and went downstairs the way we boys slide down hill, with both hands on herself, and the goat reared up and blatted, and Pa and Ma went into their room and shut the door, and then my chum and meopened the front door and drove the goat out. The minister, who comes to see Ma every three times a week, was just ringing the bell, and the goat thought he wanted to be nishiated, too, and gave him one for luck, and then went down the sidewalk, blatting, and sneezing, and the minister came in the parlor and said he was stabbed, and then Pa came out of his room with his suspenders hanging down, and he didn’t know the minister was there, and he said cuss words, and Ma cried and told Pa he would go to the bad place sure, and Pa said he didn’t care, he would kill that kussid goat afore he went, and I told Pa the minister was in the parlor, and he and Ma went down and said the weather was propitious for a revival, and it seemed as though an outpouring of the spirit was about to be vouchsafed, and none of them sot down but Ma, cause the goat didn’t hit her, and while they were talking relidgin with their mouths, and kussin’ the goat inwardly, my chum and me adjourned the lodge, and I went and stayed with him all night, and I haven’t been home since. But I don’t believe Pa will lick me, ’cause he said he would not hold us responsible for the consequences. He ordered the goat hisself, and we filled the order, don’t you see? Well, I guess I will go and sneak in the back way, and find out from the hired girl how the land lays. She won’t go back on me, ’cause the goat was not loaded for hired girls. She just happened to get in at the wrong time.Good-by, sir. Remember and give your goat kyan pepper in your lodge.”
The average American at home or abroad does not take kindly to anything that would seem to cast the shadow of a shade upon his native land. A story told one evening at the Richmond Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church by the Rev. George W. Peck might be cited in illustration. An Englishman was traveling through Italy with an American friend, and in the course of their sojournings each maintained the superiority of his own country. Finally, the grand spectacle of Mount Vesuvius in eruption, throwing its brilliant rays across the Bay of Naples, burst upon their astonished gaze. “Now, look at that,” chuckled the Englishman; “you haven’t got anything in America that can come anywhere near that.” “No,” moodily replied the Yankee. “It is true we have not got a Vesuvius, but we have got a waterfall that could put that thing out in less than five minutes.”
An Illinois paper has the following: “The funeral services of the late William P. Lewis were somewhat hurried to enable his estimable and grief-stricken widow to catch the two o’clock train for Chicago, where she goes to visit friends.”
“Fellow-citizens,” said the candidate, “I havefought against the Indians. I have often had no bed but the battle-field, and no canopy but the sky. I have marched over the frozen ground till every step has been marked with blood.”
His story told well, till a dried-up looking voter came to the front.
“Did yer say yer’d fought for the Union?”
“Yes,” replied the candidate.
“And agin the Indians?”
“Yes, many a time.”
“And that you had slept on the ground with only the sky for a kiver?”
“Certainly.”
“And that your feet bled in marching over the frozen ground?”
“That they did,” cried the exultant candidate.
“Then I’ll be darned if you hain’t done enough for your country. Go home and rest. I’ll vote for the other fellow.”
Mrs. L—— had often told Mamie, her four-year-old daughter, that she was never alone, because God was always with her. One day Mrs. L—— was called from the room and left Mamie for a longer time than she expected. When she came back she said pityingly: “Why, Mamie, have you been here alone all the time? I thought some one would come in.” “Oh, I haven’t been alone, mamma,” Mamie answered, “because God has been with me; but,” she added, gravely, “he’sdretfulpoor company.”