Remarks Part 24

Favored a Higher Fine.

Will Taylor, the son of the present American Consul at Ma.r.s.eilles, was a good deal like other boys while at school in his old home, at Hudson, Wis. One day he called his father into the library, and said:

"Pa, I don't like to tell you, but the teacher and I have had trouble."

"What's the matter now?"

"Well, I cut one of the desks a little with my knife, and the teacher says I've got to pay a dollar or take a lickin'."

"Well, why don't you take the licking and say nothing more about it? I can stand considerable physical pain, so long as it visits our family in that form. Of course, it is not pleasant to be flogged, but you have broken a rule of the school, and I guess you'll have to stand it. I presume that the teacher will in wrath remember mercy, and avoid disabling you so that you can't get your coat on any more."

"But, pa, I feel mighty bad about it already, and if you'd pay my fine I'd never do it again. I know a good deal more about it now, and I will never do it again. A dollar ain't much to you, pa, but it's a heap to a boy that hasn't got a cent. If I could make a dollar as easy as you can, pa, I'd never let my little boy get flogged that way just to save a dollar. If I had a little feller that got licked bekuz I didn't put up for him, I'd hate the sight of money always. I'd feel as if every dollar in my pocket had been taken out of my little kid's back."

"Well, now, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a dollar to save you from punishment this time, but if anything of this kind ever occurs again I'll hold you while the teacher licks you, and then I'll get the teacher to hold you while I lick you. That's the way I feel about that. If you want to go around whittling up our educational inst.i.tutions you can do so; but you will have to purchase them afterward yourself. I don't propose to buy any more damaged school furniture. You probably grasp my meaning, do you not? I send you to school to acquire an education, not to acquire liabilities, so that you can come around and make an a.s.sessment on me. I feel a great interest in you, Willie, but I do not feel as though it should be an a.s.sessable interest. I want to go on, of course, and improve the property, but when I pay my dues on it I want to know that it goes toward development work. I don't want my a.s.sessments to go toward the purchase of a school-desk with American hieroglyphics carved on it.

"I hope that you will bear this in your mind, my son, and beware. It will be greatly to your interest to beware. If I were in your place I would put in a large portion of my time in the beware business."

The boy took the dollar and went thoughtfully away to school, and no more was ever said about the matter until Mr. Taylor learned casually several months later that the Spartan youth had received the walloping and filed away the dollar for future reference. The boy was afterward heard to say that he favored a much heavier fine in cases of that kind. One whipping was sufficient, he said, but he favored a fine of $5. It ought to be severe enough to make it an object.

"I Spy."

Dear reader, do you remember the boy of your school who did the heavy falling through the ice and was always about to break his neck, but managed to live through it all? Do you call to mind the youth who never allowed anybody else to fall out of a tree and break his collar bone when he could attend to it himself? Every school has to secure the services of such a boy before it can succeed, and so our school had one. When I entered the school I saw at a glance that the board had neglected to provide itself with a boy whose duty it was to nearly kill himself every few days in order to keep up the interest so I applied for the position. I secured it without any trouble whatever. The board understood at once from my bearing that I would succeed. And I did not betray the trust they had reposed in me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRINGING IN THE REMAINS.]

Before the first term was over I had tried to climb two trees at once and been carried home on a stretcher; been pulled out of the river with my lungs full of water, and artificial respiration resorted to; been jerked around over the north half of the county by a fractious horse whose halter I had tied to my leg, and which leg is now three inches longer than the other; together with various other little early eccentricities which I cannot at this moment call to mind. My parents at last got so that along about 2 o'clock P.M. they would look anxiously out of the window and say, "Isn't it about time for the boys to get here with William's remains? They generally get here before 2 o'clock."

One day five or six of us were playing "I spy" around our barn. Every body knows how to play "I spy." One shuts his eyes and counts 100, for instance, while the others hide. Then he must find the rest and say "I spy" so-and-so and touch the "goal" before they do. If anybody beats him to the goal the victim has to "blind" over again.

Well, I knew the ground pretty well, and could drop twenty feet out of the barn window and strike on a pile of straw so as to land near the goal, touch it, and let the crowd in free without getting found out. I did this several times and got the blinder, James Bang, pretty mad. After a boy has counted 500 or 600, and worked hard to gather in the crowd, only to get jeered and laughed at by the boys, he loses his temper. It was so with James Cicero Bang. I knew that he almost hated me, and yet I went on. Finally, in the fifth ballot, I saw a good chance to slide down and let the crowd in again as I had done on former occasions. I slipped out of the window and down the side of the barn about two feet, when I was detained unavoidably. There was a "batten" on the barn that was loose at the upper end. I think I was wearing my father's vest on that day, as he was away from home, and I frequently wore his clothes when he was absent. Anyhow the vest was too large, and when I slid down that loose board ran up between the vest and my person in such a way as to suspend me about eighteen feet from the ground, in a prominent but very uncomfortable position.

I remember it quite distinctly. James C. Bang came around where he could see me. He said: "I spy Billy Nye and touch the goal before him." No one came to remove the barn. No one came to sympathize with me in my great sorrow and isolation. Every little while James C. Bang would come around the corner and say: "Oh, I see ye. You needn't think you're out of sight up there. I can see you real plain. You better come down and blind. I can see ye up there!"

I tried to unb.u.t.ton my vest and get down there and lick James, but it was of no use. It was a very trying time. I can remember how I tried to kick myself loose, but failed. Sometimes I would kick the barn and sometimes I would kick a large hole in the horizon. Finally I was rescued by a neighbor who said he didn't want to see a good barn kicked into chaos just to save a long-legged boy that wasn't worth over six bits.

It affords me great pleasure to add that while I am looked up to and madly loved by every one that does not know me, Jas. C. Bang is brevet president of a fractured bank, taking a lonely bridal tour by himself in Europe and waiting for the depositors to die of old age.

The mills of the G.o.ds grind slowly, but they most generally get there with both feet. (Adapted from the French by permission.)

Mark Anthony.

Marcus Antonius, commonly called Mark Antony, was a celebrated Roman general and successful politician, who was born in 83 B.C. His grandfather, on his mother's side, was L. Julius Caesar, and it is thought that to Mark's sagacity in his selection of a mother, much of his subsequent success was due.

Young Antony was rather gay and festive during his early years, and led a life that in any city but Rome would have occasioned talk. He got into a great many youthful sc.r.a.pes, and nothing seemed to please him better than to repeatedly bring his father's gray hairs down in sorrow to the grave. Debauchery was a matter to which he gave much thought, and many a time he was found consuming the midnight oil while pursuing his studies in this line.

At that time Rome was well provided for in the debauchery department, and Mr. Antony became a thorough student of the entire curriculum.

About 57 B.C. he obtained command of the cavalry of Gambinino in Syria and Egypt. He also acted as legate for Caesar in Gaul about 52 B.C., as nearly as I can recall the year. I do not know exactly what a legate is, but it had something to do with the Roman ballet, I understand, and commanded a good salary.

He was also elected, in 50, B.C., as Argus and Tribune-acting as Tribune at night and Argus during the day time, I presume, or he may have been elected Tribune and ex-officio Argus. He was more successful as Tribune than he was in the Argus business.

Early in 49, B.C., he fled to Caesar's camp, and the following year was appointed commander-in-chief. He commanded the left wing of the army at the battle of Pharsalia, and years afterward used to be pa.s.sionately fond of describing it and explaining how he saved the day, and how everybody else was surprised but him, and how he was awakened by hearing one of the enemy's troops, across the river, stealthily pulling on his pantaloons.

Antony married Fulvia, the widow of a successful demagogue named P. Clodius. This marriage could hardly be regarded as a success. It would have been better for the widow if she had remained Mrs. P. Clodius, for Mark Antony was one of those old-fashioned Romans who favored the utmost lat.i.tude among men, but heartily enjoyed seeing an unfaithful woman burned at the stake. In those days the Roman girl had nothing to do but live a pure and blameless life, so that she could marry a shattered Roman rake who had succeeded in shunning a blameless life himself, and at last, when he was sick of all kinds of depravity and needed a good, careful wife to take care of him, would come with his dappled, sin-sick soul and shattered const.i.tution, and his vast acquisitions of debts, and ask to be loved by a n.o.ble young woman. Nothing pleased a blase Roman so well as to have a young and beautiful girl, with eyes like liquid night, to take the job of reforming him. I frequently get up in the night to congratulate myself that I was not born, 2,000 years ago, a Roman girl.

The historian continues to say, that though Mr. Antony continued to live a life of licentious lawlessness, that occasioned talk even in Rome, he was singularly successful in politics.

He was very successful at funerals, also, and his off-hand obituary works were sought for far and wide. His impromptu remarks at the grave of Caesar, as afterward reported by Mr. Shakespeare, from memory, attracted general notice and made the funeral a highly enjoyable affair. After this no a.s.sa.s.sination could be regarded as a success, unless Mark Antony could be secured to come and deliver his justly celebrated eulogy.

About 43, B.C., Antony, Octavius and Lepidus formed a co-partnership under the firm name and style of Antony, Octavius & Co., for the purpose of doing a general, all-round triumvirate business and dealing in Roman republican pelts. The firm succeeded in making republicanism extremely odious, and for years a republican hardly dared to go out after dark to feed the horse, lest he be jumped on by a myrmidon and a.s.sa.s.sinated. It was about this time that Cicero had a misunderstanding with Mark's myrmidons and went home packed in ice.

Mark Antony, when the firm of Antony, Octavius & Co. settled up its affairs, received as his share the Asiatic provinces and Egypt. It was at this time that he met Cleopatra at an Egyptian sociable and fell in love with her. Falling in love with fair women and speaking pieces over new-made graves seemed to be Mark's normal condition. He got into a quarrel with Octavius and settled it by marrying Octavia, Octavius' sister, but this was not a love match, for he at once returned to Cleopatra, the author of Cleopatra's needle and other works.

This love for Cleopatra was no doubt the cause of his final overthrow, for he frequently went over to see her when he should have been at home killing invaders. He ceased to care about slashing around in carnage, and preferred to turn Cleopatra's music for her while she knocked out the teeth of her old upright piano and sang to him in a low, pa.s.sionate, vox humana tone.

So, at last, the great cemetery declaimer and long distance a.s.sa.s.sin, Mark Antony, was driven out of his vast dominions after a big naval defeat at Actium, in September, 31 B.C., retreated to Alexandria, called for more reinforcements and didn't get them. Deserted by his fleet, and reduced to a hand-me-down suit of clothes and a two-year-old plug hat, he wrote a poetic wail addressed to Cleopatra and sent it to the Alexandria papers; then, closing the door and hanging up his pantaloons on a nail so as to reduce the sag in the knees, he blew out the gas and climbed over the high board fence which stands forever between the sombre present and the dark blue, mysterious ultimatum.

Man Overbored.

"Speaking about prohibition," said Misery Brown one day, while we sat lying on the damp of the Blue Tail Fly, "I am p.r.o.ne to allow that the more you prohibit, the more you-all at once-discover that you have more or less failed to prohibit.

"Now, you can win a man over to your way of thinking, sometimes, but you mustn't do it with the b.u.t.t-end of a telegraph-pole. You might convert him that way, perhaps, but the mental shock and phrenological concussion of the argument might be disastrous to the convert himself.

"A man once said to me that rum was the devil's drink, that Satan's home was filled with the odor of hot rum, that perdition was soaked with spiced rum and rum punch. 'You wot not,' said he, 'the ruin rum has rot. Why, Misery Brown,' said he, 'rum is my bete noir.' I said I didn't care what he used it for, he'd always find it very warming to the system. I told him he could use it for a hot bete noir, or a blanc mange, or any of those fancy drinks; I didn't care.

"But the worst time I ever had grappling with the great enemy, I reckon, was in the later years of the war, when I pretty near squashed the rebellion. Grim-visaged war had worn me down pretty well. I played the big tuba in the regimental band, and I began to sigh for peace.

"We had been on the march all summer, it seemed to me. We'd travel through dust ankle-deep all day that was just like ashes, and halt in the red-hot sun five minutes to make coffee. We'd make our coffee in five minutes, and sometimes we'd make it in the middle of the road; but that's neither here nor there.

"We finally found out that we would make a stand in a certain town, and that the Q.M. had two barrels of old and reliable whisky in store. We also found out that we couldn't get any for medical purposes nor anything else All we could do was to suffer on and wait till the war closed. I didn't feel like postponing the thing myself, so I began to investigate. The great foe of humanity was stored in a tobacco-house, and the Q.M. slept three nights between the barrels. The chances for a debauch looked peaked and slim in the extreme. However, there was a bas.e.m.e.nt below, and I got in there one night with a half-inch auger, and two wash-tubs. Later on there was a sound of revelry by night. There was considerable 'on with the dance, let joy be unconfined.'

"The next day there was a spongy appearance to the top of the head, which seemed to be confined to our regiment, as a result of the sudden giving way, as it were, of prohibitory restrictions. It was a very disagreeable day, I remember. All nature seemed clothed in gloom, and R.E. Morse, P.D.Q., seemed to be in charge of the proceedings. Redeyed Regret was everywhere.

"We then proceeded to yearn for the other barrel of woe, that we might pile up some more regret, and have enough misery to last us through the balance of the campaign. We acted on this suggestion, and, with a firm resolve and the same half-inch auger, we stole once more into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the tobacco-house.

"I bored nineteen consecutive holes in the atmosphere, and then an intimate friend of mine bored twenty-seven distinct holes in the floor, only to bore through the bosom of the night. Eleven of us spent the most of the night boring into the floor, and at three o'clock A.M. it looked like a hammock, it was so full of holes. The quartermaster slept on through it all. He slept in a very audible tone of voice, and every now and then we could hear him slumbering on.

"At last we decided that he was sleeping middling close to that barrel, so we began to bore closer to the snore. It was my turn to bore, I remember, and I took the auger with a heavy heart. I bored through the floor, and for the first time bored into something besides oxygen. It was the quartermaster. A wild yell echoed through the southern confederacy, and I pulled out my auger. It had on the point a strawberry mark, and a fragment of one of those old-fashioned woven wire gray shirts, such as quartermasters used to wear.

"I remember that we then left the tobacco-house. In the hurry we forgot two wash-tubs, a half-inch auger, and 980,361 new half-inch auger holes that had never been used."

"Done It A-Purpose."

At Greeley a young man with a faded cardigan jacket and a look of woe got on the train, and as the car was a little crowded he sat in the seat with me. He had that troubled and anxious expression that a rural young man wears when he first rides on the train. When the engine whistled he would almost jump out of that cardigan jacket, and then he would look kind of foolish, like a man who allows his impulses to get the best of him. Most everyone noticed the young man and his cardigan jacket, for the latter had arrived at the stage of droopiness and jaded-across-the-shoulders look that the cheap knit jacket of commerce acquires after awhile, and it had shrunken behind and stretched out in front so that the horizon, as you stood behind the young man, seemed to be bound by the tail of this garment, which started out at the pocket with good intentions and suddenly decided to rise above the young man's shoulder blades.

He seemed so diffident and so frightened among strangers, that I began to talk with him.

"Do you live at Greeley?" I inquired.

"No, sir," he said, in an embarra.s.sed way, as most anyone might in the presence of greatness. "I live on a ranch up the Pandre. I was just at Greeley to see the circus."