The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories Part 33

He is of the Saxony side.

He speak the french very well.

Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish and english, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan, he speak the frenche as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman. It is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages.

The last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to be a truth when one contracts it and apples it to an individual--provided that that individual is the author of this book, Sehnor Pedro Carolino. I am sure I should not find it difficult "to enjoy well so much several languages"--or even a thousand of them--if he did the translating for me from the originals into his ostensible English.

ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS

Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every trifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravated circ.u.mstances.

If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one, you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able to do it.

You ought never to take your little brother's "chewing-gum" away from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to this time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him with mud--never, on any account, throw mud at him, because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then you obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to the lessons you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will have a tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the skin, in spots.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment.

You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you are indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home from school when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect their little prejudices, and humor their little whims, and put up with their little foibles until they get to crowding you too much.

Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never to "sa.s.s" old people unless they "sa.s.s" you first.

POST-MORTEM POETRY (1)

In Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant to see adopted throughout the land. It is that of appending to published death-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry. Any one who is in the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia LEDGER must frequently be touched by these plaintive tributes to extinguished worth. In Philadelphia, the departure of a child is a circ.u.mstance which is not more surely followed by a burial than by the accustomed solacing poesy in the PUBLIC LEDGER. In that city death loses half its terror because the knowledge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery of verse. For instance, in a late LEDGER I find the following (I change the surname):

DIED

Hawks.--On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim and Laura Hawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.

That merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms are around my neck, No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me.

Dear Lord, how could I give Clara up To any but to Thee?

A child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented. From the LEDGER of the same date I make the following extract, merely changing the surname, as before:

Becket.--On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son of George and Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.

That merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms are round my neck, No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek; These lips are sealed to me.

Dear Lord, how could I give Johnnie up To any but to Thee?

The similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners in these two instances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity of thought which they experienced, and the surprising coincidence of language used by them to give it expression.

In the same journal, of the same date, I find the following (surname suppressed, as before):

Wagner.--On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William L. and Martha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.

That merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms are round my neck, No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me.

Dear Lord, how could I give Ferguson up To any but to Thee?

It is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical thought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the LEDGER and read the poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable depression of the spirits. When we drift further down the column and read the poetry about little Johnnie, the depression and spirits acquires and added emphasis, and we experience tangible suffering. When we saunter along down the column further still and read the poetry about little Ferguson, the word torture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.

In the LEDGER (same copy referred to above) I find the following (I alter surname, as usual):

Welch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch, and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year of her age.

A mother dear, a mother kind, Has gone and left us all behind.

Cease to weep, for tears are vain, Mother dear is out of pain.

Farewell, husband, children dear, Serve thy G.o.d with filial fear, And meet me in the land above, Where all is peace, and joy, and love.

What could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts (without reduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated than is done in the first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more concise and comprehensive program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc., could be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the last stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and better. Another extract:

Ball.--On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John and Sarah F. Ball.