The Wit and Humor of America Volume I Part 5

Noon-time and June-time, down around the river!

Clean out o' sight o' home, and skulkin' under kivver Of the sycamores, jack-oaks, and swamp-ash and ellum-- Idies all so jumbled up, you kin hardly tell'em!-- _Tired_, you know, but _lovin'_ it, and smilin' jest to think 'at Any sweeter tiredness you'd fairly want to _drink_ it.

Tired o' fishin'--tired o' fun--line out slack and slacker-- All you want in all the world's a little more tobacker!

Hungry, but _a-hidin'_ it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':-- Kingfisher gittin' up and skootin' out o' hearin'; Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is, Wadin' up and down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches!

Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin'

Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen!

Worter, shade and all so mixed, don't know which you'd orter Say, th' _worter_ in the shadder--_shadder_ in the _worter_!

Somebody hollerin'--'way around the bend in Upper Fork--where yer eye kin jes' ketch the endin'

Of the shiney wedge o' wake some muss-rat's a-makin'

With that pesky nose o' his! Then a sniff o' bacon, Corn-bread and 'dock-greens--and little Dave a-shinnin'

'Crost the rocks and mussel-sh.e.l.ls, a-limpin' and a-grinnin', With yer dinner fer ye, and a blessin' from the giver.

Noon-time and June-time down around the river!

A MEDIEVAL DISCOVERER

BY BILL NYE

Galilei, commonly called Galileo, was born at Pisa on the 14th day of February, 1564. He was the man who discovered some of the fundamental principles governing the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its infancy and astronomy was taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in to make a few discoveries and advance some theories which he loved.

He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections, and then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for several years in a band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that his manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in his eye after playing a selection, while he gently up-ended his alto horn and worked the mud-valve as he poured out about a pint of moist melody that had acc.u.mulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand.

At the age of twenty Galileo began to discover. His first discoveries were, of course, clumsy and poorly made, but very soon he commenced to turn out neat and durable discoveries that would stand for years.

It was at this time that he noticed the swinging of a lamp in a church, and, observing that the oscillations were of equal duration, he inferred that this principle might be utilized in the exact measurement of time.

From this little accident, years after, came the clock, one of the most useful of man's dumb friends. And yet there are people who will read this little incident and still hesitate about going to church.

Galileo also invented the thermometer, the microscope and the proportional compa.s.s. He seemed to invent things not for the money to be obtained in that way, but solely for the joy of being first on the ground. He was a man of infinite genius and perseverance. He was also very fair in his treatment of other inventors. Though he did not personally invent the rotary motion of the earth, he heartily indorsed it and said it was a good thing. He also came out in a card in which he said that he believed it to be a good thing, and that he hoped some day to see it applied to the other planets.

He was also the inventor of a telescope that had a magnifying power of thirty times. He presented this to the Venetian senate, and it was used in making appropriations for river and harbor improvements.

By telescopic investigation Galileo discovered the presence of microbes in the moon, but was unable to do anything for it. I have spoken of Mr.

Galileo, informally calling him by his first name, all the way through this article, for I feel so thoroughly acquainted with him, though there was such a striking difference in our ages, that I think I am justified in using his given name while talking of him.

Galileo also sat up nights and visited with Venus through a long telescope which he had made himself from an old bamboo fishing-rod.

But astronomy is a very enervating branch of science. Galileo frequently came down to breakfast with red, heavy eyes, eyes that were swollen full of unshed tears. Still he persevered. Day after day he worked and toiled. Year after year he went on with his task till he had worked out in his own mind the satellites of Jupiter and placed a small tin tag on each one, so that he would know it readily when he saw it again. Then he began to look up Saturn's rings and investigate the freckles on the sun.

He did not stop at trifles, but went bravely on till everybody came for miles to look at him and get him to write something funny in their autograph alb.u.ms. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in the morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful, new-born star, to find his front yard full of alb.u.ms. Some of them were little red alb.u.ms with floral decorations on them, while others were the large plush and alligator alb.u.ms of the affluent. Some were new and had the price-mark still on them, while others were old, foundered alb.u.ms, with a droop in the back and little flecks of egg and gravy on the t.i.tle-page. All came with a request for Galileo "to write a little, witty, characteristic sentiment in them."

Galileo was the author of the hydrostatic paradox and other sketches. He was a great reader and a fluent penman. One time he was absent from home, lecturing in Venice for the benefit of the United Aggregation of Mutual Admirers, and did not return for two weeks, so that when he got back he found the front room full of autograph alb.u.ms. It is said that he then demonstrated his great fluency and readiness as a thinker and writer. He waded through the entire lot in two days with only two men from West Pisa to a.s.sist him. Galileo came out of it fresh and youthful, and all of the following night he was closeted with another inventor, a wicker-covered microscope, and a bologna sausage. The investigations were carried on for two weeks, after which Galileo went out to the inebriate asylum and discovered some new styles of reptiles.

Galileo was the author of a little work called "I Discarsi e Dimas-Trazioni Matematiche Intorus a Due Muove Scienze." It was a neat little book, of about the medium height, and sold well on the trains, for the Pisan newsboys on the cars were very affable, as they are now, and when they came and leaned an armful of these books on a pa.s.senger's leg and poured into his ear a long tale about the wonderful beauty of the work, and then pulled in the name of the book from the rear of the last car, where it had been hanging on behind, the pa.s.senger would most always buy it and enough of the name to wrap it up in.

He also discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. He saw that the pendulum at certain seasons of the year looked yellow under the eyes, and that it drooped and did not enter into its work with the old zest.

He began to study the case with the aid of his new bamboo telescope and a wicker-covered microscope. As a result, in ten days he had the pendulum on its feet again.

Galileo was inclined to be liberal in his religious views, more especially in the matter of the Scriptures, claiming that there were pa.s.sages in the Bible which did not literally mean what the translator said they did. This was where Galileo missed it. So long as he discovered stars and isochronisms and such things as that, he succeeded, but when he began to fool with other people's religious beliefs he got into trouble. He was forced to fly from Pisa, we are told by the historian, and we are a.s.sured at the same time that Galileo, who had always been far, far ahead of all compet.i.tors in other things, was equally successful as a fleer.

Galileo received but sixty scudi per year as his salary while at Pisa, and a part of that he took in town orders, worth only sixty cents on the scudi.

WANTED--A COOK

BY ALAN DALE

There was a ring at the front door-bell. Let.i.tia, wrought-up, nervously clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then, alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin, small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in and smiled at me.

"_Talar ni svensk?_" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently, reverently, to Let.i.tia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed I heaved a sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five advertis.e.m.e.nts. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little mouse, too!

"_Talar ni svensk?_" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circ.u.mstances. I had some misgivings on the subject of Let.i.tia and _svensk_, but the universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly hoped that Let.i.tia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment, delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the drawing-room. Let.i.tia was smiling and the hand-maiden sat grim and uninspired.

"I've engaged her, Archie," said Let.i.tia. "She knows nothing, as she has told me in the few words of English that she has picked up, but--you remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate."

I gazed at the maiden, and reflected that while the term "slate" might be perfectly correct, the adjective seemed a bit over-enthusiastic. She was decidely soiled, this quintessence of a quintette of advertis.e.m.e.nts.

I said nothing, anxious not to dampen Let.i.tia's elation.

"She has no references," continued my wife, "as she has never been out before. She is just a simple little Stockholm girl. I like her face immensely, Archie--immensely. She is willing to begin at once, which shows that she is eager, and consequently likely to suit us. Wait for me, Archie, while I take her to the kitchen. _Kom_, Gerda."

Exactly why Let.i.tia couldn't say "Come, Gerda," seemed strange. She probably thought that _Kom_ must be Swedish, and that it sounded well.

She certainly invented _Kom_ on the spur of the Scandinavian moment, and I learned afterward that it was correct. My inspired Let.i.tia! Still, in spite of all, my opinion is that "Come, Gerda," would have done just as well.

"Isn't it delightful?" cried Let.i.tia, when she joined me later. "I am really enthusiastic at the idea of a Swedish girl. I adore Scandinavia, Archie. It always makes me think of Ibsen. Perhaps Gerda Lyberg--that's her name--will be as interesting as Hedda Gabler, and Mrs. Alving, and Nora, and all those lovely complex Ibsen creatures."

"They were Norwegians, dear," I said gently, anxious not to shatter illusions; "the Ibsen plays deal with Christiania, not with Stockholm."

"But they are so near," declared Let.i.tia, amiable and seraphic once more. "Somehow or other, I invariably mix up Norway and Sweden and Denmark. I know I shall always look upon Gerda as an Ibsen girl, who has come here to 'live her life,' or 'work out her inheritance.' Perhaps, dear, she has some interesting internal disease, or a maggoty brain.

Don't you think, Archie, that the Ibsen inheritances are always most fascinating? A bit morbid, but surely fascinating."

"I prefer a healthy cook, Let.i.tia," I said meditatively, "somebody willing to interest herself in our inheritance, rather than in her own."

"I don't mind what you say now," she pouted, "I am not to be put down by clamor. We really have a cook at last, and I feel more lenient toward you, Archie. Of course I was only joking when I suggested the Ibsen diseases. Gerda Lyberg may have inherited from her ancestors something quite nice and attractive."

"Then you mustn't look upon her as Ibsen, Let.i.tia," I protested. "The Ibsen people never inherit nice things. Their ancestors always bequeath nasty ones. That is where their consistency comes in. They are receptacles for horrors. Personally, if you'll excuse my flippancy, I prefer Norwegian anchovies to Norwegian heroines. It is a mere matter of opinion."

"I'm ashamed of you," retorted Let.i.tia defiantly. "You talk like some of the wretchedly frivolous criticisms, so called, that men like Acton Davies and Alan Dale inflict upon the long-suffering public. They never amuse me. Ibsen may make his heroines the recipients of ugly legacies, but he has never yet cursed them with the odious incubus known as 'a sense of humor.' The people with a sense of humor have something in their brains worse than maggots. We'll drop the subject, Archie. I'm going to learn Swedish. Before Gerda Lyberg has been with us a month I intend to be able to talk fluently. It will be most useful. Next time we go to Europe we'll take in Sweden, and I'll do the piloting. I am going to buy some Swedish books, and study. Won't it be jolly? And just think how melancholy we were this morning, you and I, looking out of that window, and trying to materialize cooks. Wasn't it funny, Archie? What amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!"

Let.i.tia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to leave my household G.o.ds for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could not feel quite as sanguine as Let.i.tia, who seemed to have forgotten the dismal results of the advertis.e.m.e.nt--just one little puny Swedish result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Let.i.tia was as pleased with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a that-or-nothing.

If somebody had dramatized Gerda Lyberg's initial dinner, it would probably have been considered exceedingly droll. As a serious episode, however, its humor, to my mind, lacked spontaneity. Let.i.tia had asked her to cook us a little Swedish meal, so that we could get some idea of Stockholm life, in which, for some reason or other, we were supposed to be deeply interested. Unfortunately I was extremely hungry, and had carefully avoided luncheon in order to give my appet.i.te a chance. We sat down to a huge bowl of cold, greasy soup, in which enormous lumps of meat swam, as though for their life, awaiting rescue at the p.r.o.ngs of a fork. In addition to this epicurean dish was a teeming plate of water-soaked potatoes, delicately boiled. That was all. Let.i.tia said that it was Swedish, and the most annoying part of the entertainment was that I was alone in my critical disapprobation. Let.i.tia was so engrossed with a little Swedish conversation book that she brought to table that she forgot the mere material question of food--forgot everything but the horrible jargon she was studying, and the soiled, wisp-like maiden, who looked more unlike a clean slate than ever.

"What shall I say to her, Archie?" asked Let.i.tia, turning over the pages of her book, as I tried to rescue a block of meat from the cold fat in which it lurked. "Here is a chapter on dinner. 'I am very hungry,' '_Jag ar myckel hungrig_.' Rather pretty, isn't it? Hark at this: '_Kypare gif mig matsedeln och vinlistan._' That means: 'Waiter, give me the bill of fare, and the list of wines.'"