Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Volume I Part 10

"We're all a set of stupid fools To think the skipper knows by _tasting_ What ground he's on--Nantucket schools Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!"

And so he took the well-greased lead And rubbed it o'er a box of earth That stood on deck--a parsnip-bed---- And then he sought the skipper's berth.

"Where are we now, sir? Please to taste."

The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, Then ope'd his eyes in wondrous haste, And then upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed and tore his hair, Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden, _"Nantucket's sunk, and here we are_ _Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!"_

JAMES T. FIELDS.

THE WEDDING JOURNEY

_He_: Dearest, if I had known this tunnel was so long, I'd have given you a jolly hug.

_She_: Didn't you? Why, somebody did!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE

Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in newspapers under the t.i.tle, "From Our Foreign Correspondent," does any harm? Why, no, I don't know that it does. I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or "Gulliver's Travels" do.

Sometimes the writers compile _too_ carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies and stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers the other day which contains a number of improbabilities and, I suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you would like to hear it. Ah, this is it; it is headed

"OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE

"This island is now the property of the Stamford family--having been won, it is said, in a raffle by Sir ---- Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South Sea scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.'

This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these lat.i.tudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in winter.

"The princ.i.p.al vegetable productions of the island are the pepper tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an addition to that delightful condiment. (Note received from Dr. D. P.) It is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the kind called _natives_ in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct, refused to touch them, and confined themselves entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over. This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to be very skilful in the _cuisine_ peculiar to the island.

"During the season of gathering pepper, the persons employed are subject to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these attacks that the unfortunate subjects of them are often driven backward for great distances at immense speed, on the well-known principle of the aeolipile. Not being able to see where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks, or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As during the whole pepper harvest they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the _pepper-fever_, as it is called, cudgeled another most severely for appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species of swine called the _Peccavi_ by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mohammedan Buddhists.

"The bread tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to Europe and America under the familiar name of _maccaroni_. The smaller twigs are called _vermicelli_. They have a decided animal flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them. Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favorite habitat of a very dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being boiled. The government of the island, therefore, never allows a stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out. These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives among us. It, therefore, always contains many of these insects, which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that accidents from this source are comparatively rare.

"The fruit of the bread tree consists princ.i.p.ally of hot rolls. The b.u.t.tered-m.u.f.fin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoanut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoanut exuding from the hybrid in the shape of b.u.t.ter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with cold----"

There--I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many of these statements are highly improbable. No, I shall not mention the paper.--_The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table._

MUSIC-POUNDING

The old Master was talking about a concert he had been to hear.

--I don't like your chopped music anyway. That woman--she had more sense in her little finger than forty medical societies--Florence Nightingale--says that the music you _pour_ out is good for sick folks, and the music you _pound_ out isn't. Not that exactly, but something like it. I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. She gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the keyboard, from the growling end to the little squeaky one.

Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black-and-white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop--so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood-and-ivory anvils--don't talk to me; I know the difference between a bullfrog and a wood-thrush.--_The Poet at the Breakfast Table._

"That is rather a shabby pair of trousers you have on, for a man in your position."

"Yes, sir; but clothes do not make the man. What if my trousers are shabby and worn? They cover a warm heart, sir."

FREDERICK S. COZZENS

LIVING IN THE COUNTRY

It is a good thing to live in the country. To escape from the prison-walls of the metropolis--the great brickery we call "the city"--and to live amid blossoms and leaves, in shadow and sunshine, in moonlight and starlight, in rain, mist, dew, h.o.a.rfrost, and drought, out in the open campaign and under the blue dome that is bounded by the horizon only. It is a good thing to have a well with dripping buckets, a porch with honey-buds and sweet-bells, a hive embroidered with nimble bees, a sun-dial mossed over, ivy up to the eaves, curtains of dimity, a tumbler of fresh flowers in your bedroom, a rooster on the roof, and a dog under the piazza.

When Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s and I moved into the country, with our heads full of fresh b.u.t.ter, and cool, crisp radishes for tea; with ideas entirely lucid respecting milk, and a looseness of calculation as to the number in family it would take a good laying hen to supply with fresh eggs every morning; when Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s and I moved into the country, we found some preconceived notions had to be abandoned, and some departures made from the plans we had laid down in the little back parlor of Avenue G.

One of the first achievements in the country is early rising: with the lark--with the sun--while the dew is on the gra.s.s, "under the opening eye-lids of the morn," and so forth. Early rising! What can be done with five or six o'clock in town? What may not be done at those hours in the country? With the hoe, the rake, the dibble, the spade, the watering-pot? To plant, prune, drill, transplant, graft, train, and sprinkle! Mrs. S. and I agreed to rise _early_ in the country.

Richard and Robin were two pretty men, They laid in bed till the clock struck ten; Up jumped Richard and looked at the sky; O, Brother Robin, the sun's _very_ high!

Early rising in the country is not an instinct; it is a sentiment, and must be cultivated.

A friend recommended me to send to the south side of Long Island for some very prolific potatoes--the real hippopotamus breed. Down went my man, and what, with expenses of horse-hire, tavern bills, toll-gates, and breaking a wagon, the hippopotami cost as much apiece as pineapples.

They were fine potatoes, though, with comely features, and large, languishing eyes, that promised increase of family without delay. As I worked my own garden (for which I hired a landscape gardener at two dollars per day to give me instructions), I concluded that the object of my first experiment in early rising should be the planting of the hippopotamuses. I accordingly arose next morning at five, and it rained!

I rose next day at five, and it rained! The next, and it rained! It rained for two weeks! We had splendid potatoes every day for dinner. "My dear," said I to Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s, "where did you get these fine potatoes?" "Why," said she, innocently, "out of that basket from Long Island!" The last of the hippopotamuses were before me, peeled, and boiled, and mashed, and baked, with a nice thin brown crust on the top.

I was more successful afterward. I did get some fine seed-potatoes in the ground. But something was the matter; at the end of the season I did not get as many out as I had put in.

Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s, who is a notable housewife, said to me one day, "Now, my dear, we shall soon have plenty of eggs, for I have been buying a lot of young chickens." There they were, each one with as many feathers as a gra.s.shopper, and a chirp not louder. Of course, we looked forward with pleasant hopes to the period when the first cackle should announce the milk-white egg, warmly deposited in the hay which we had provided bountifully. They grew finely, and one day I ventured to remark that our hens had remarkably large combs, to which Mrs. S. replied, "Yes, indeed, she had observed that; but if I wanted to have a real treat I ought to get up early in the morning and hear them crow." "Crow!" said I, faintly, "our hens crowing! Then, by 'the c.o.c.k that crowed in the morn, to wake the priest all shaven and shorn,' we might as well give up all hopes of having any eggs," said I; "for as sure as you live, Mrs. S., our hens are all roosters!" And so they were roosters! They grew up and fought with the neighbors' chickens, until there was not a whole pair of eyes on either side of the fence.

A _dog_ is a good thing to have in the country. I have one which I raised from a pup. He is a good, stout fellow, and a hearty barker and feeder. The man of whom I bought him said he was thoroughbred, but he begins to have a mongrel look about him. He is a good watch-dog, though; for the moment he sees any suspicious-looking person about the premises he comes right into the kitchen and gets behind the stove. First, we kept him in the house, and he scratched all night to get out. Then we turned him out, and he scratched all night to get in. Then we tied him up at the back of the garden, and he howled so that our neighbour shot at him twice before daybreak. Finally we gave him away, and he came back; and now he is just recovering from a fit, in which he has torn up the patch that has been sown for our spring radishes.

A good, strong gate is a necessary article for your garden. A good, strong, heavy gate, with a dislocated hinge, so that it will neither open nor shut. Such a one have I. The grounds before my fence are in common, and all the neighbors' cows pasture there. I remarked to Mrs.

S., as we stood at the window in a June sunset, how placid and picturesque the cattle looked, as they strolled about, cropping the green herbage. Next morning I found the innocent creatures in my garden. They had not left a green thing in it. The corn in the milk, the beans on the poles, the young cabbages, the tender lettuce, even the thriving shoots on my young fruit trees had vanished. And there they were, looking quietly on the ruin they had made. Our watch-dog, too, was foregathering with them. It was too much; so I got a large stick and drove them all out, except a young heifer, whom I chased all over the flower-beds, breaking down my trellises, my woodbines and sweet-briers, my roses and petunias, until I cornered her in the hotbed. I had to call for a.s.sistance to extricate her from the sashes, and her owner has sued me for damages. I believe I shall move in town.

Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s and I have concluded to try it once more; we are going to give the country another chance. After all, birds in the spring are lovely. First come little s...o...b..rds, _avant-couriers_ of the feathered army; then bluebirds in national uniforms, just graduated, perhaps, from the ornithological corps of cadets with high honors in the topographical cla.s.s; then follows a detachment of flying artillery--swallows; sand-martens, sappers and miners, begin their mines and countermines under the sandy parapets; then cedar birds, in trim jackets faced with yellow--aha, dragoons! And then the great rank and file of infantry, robins, wrens, sparrows, chipping-birds; and lastly--the band!

From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring The wild bird choirs--burst of the woodland band, --who mid the blossoms sing; Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall and grand, Pillared with oaks, and roofed with Heaven's own hand.

There, there, that is Mario. Hear that magnificent chest note from the chestnuts! then a crescendo, falling in silence--_a plomb!_

Hush! he begins again with a low, liquid monotone, mounting by degrees and swelling into an infinitude of melody--the whole grove dilating, as it were, with exquisite epithalamium.