The Wit of Women Part 8

Let us not enumerate the manifold perplexities of the morning toilet in a place where every lady realizes most forcibly the condition of the old woman who lived under a broom: "All she wanted was elbow-room." Let us not tell how one gla.s.s is made to answer for thirty fair faces, one ewer and vase for thirty lavations; and--tell it not in Gath--one towel for a company! Let us not intimate how ladies' shoes have, in a night, clandestinely slid into the gentlemen's cabin, and gentlemen's boots elbowed, or, rather, _toed_ their way among ladies' gear, nor recite the exclamations after runaway property that are heard.

"I can't find nothing of Johnny's shoe!" "Here's a shoe in the water-pitcher--is this it?" "My side-combs are gone!" exclaims a nymph with dishevelled curls. "Ma.s.sy! do look at my bonnet!" exclaims an old lady, elevating an article crushed into as many angles as there are pieces in a mince-pie. "I never did sleep _so much together_ in my life," echoes a poor little French lady, whom despair has driven into talking English.

But our shortening paper warns us not to prolong our catalogue of distresses beyond reasonable bounds, and therefore we will close with advising all our friends, who intend to try this way of travelling for _pleasure_, to take a good stock both of patience and clean towels with them, for we think that they will find abundant need for both.

CHAPTER IV.

"SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE.

Next comes Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland with her Western sketches. Many will remember her laughable description of "Borrowing Out West," with its two appropriate mottoes: "Lend me your ears," from Shakespeare, and from Bacon: "Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely."

"'Mother wants your sifter,' said Miss Ianthe Howard, a young lady of six years' standing, attired in a tattered calico thickened with dirt; her unkempt locks straggling from under that hideous subst.i.tute for a bonnet so universal in the Western country--a dirty cotton handkerchief--which is used _ad nauseam_ for all sorts of purposes.

"'Mother wants your sifter, and she says she guesses you can let her have some sugar and tea, 'cause you've got plenty.' This excellent reason, ''cause you've got plenty,' is conclusive as to sharing with neighbors.

"Sieves, smoothing-irons, and churns run about as if they had legs; one bra.s.s kettle is enough for a whole neighborhood, and I could point to a cradle which has rocked half the babies in Montacute.

"For my own part, I have lent my broom, my thread, my tape, my spoons, my cat, my thimble, my scissors, my shawl, my shoes, and have been asked for my combs and brushes, and my husband for his shaving apparatus and pantaloons."

Mrs. Whither, whose "Widow Bedott" is a familiar name, resembles Mrs.

Kirkland in her comic portraitures, which were especially good of their kind, and never betrayed any malice. The "Bedott Papers" first appeared in 1846, and became popular at once. They are good examples of what they simply profess to be: an amusing series of comicalities.

I shall not quote from them, as every one who enjoys that style of humor knows them by heart. It would be as useless as copying "Now I lay me down to sleep," or "Mary had a little lamb," for a child's collection of verses!

There are many authors whom I cannot represent worthily in these brief limits. When, encouraged by the unprecedented popularity of this venture, I prepare an encyclopaedia of the "Wit and Humor of American Women," I can do justice to such writers as "Gail Hamilton" and Miss Alcott, whose "Transcendental Wild Oats" cannot be cut. Rose Terry Cooke thinks her "Knoware" the only funny thing she has ever done. She is greatly mistaken, as I can soon prove. "Knoware" ought to be printed by itself to delight thousands, as her "Deacon's Week" has already done. To search for a few good things in the works of my witty friends is searching not for the time-honored needle in a hay-mow, but for two or three needles of just the right size out of a whole paper of needles.

"The Insanity of Cain," by Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, an inimitable satire on the feebleness of our jury system and the absurd pretence of "temporary insanity," must wait for that encyclopaedia. And her "Miss Molony on the Chinese Question" is known and admired by every one, including the Prince of Wales, who was fairly convulsed by its fun, when brought out by our favorite elocutionist, Miss Sarah Cowell, who had the honor of reading before royalty.

I regretfully omit the "Peterkin Letters," by Lucretia P. Hale, and time famous "William Henry Letters," by Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz. The very best bit from Miss Sallie McLean would be how "Grandma Spicer gets Grandpa Ready for Sunday-school," from the "Cape Cod Folks;" but why not save s.p.a.ce for what is not in everybody's mouth and memory? This is equally true of Mrs. Cleaveland's "No Sects in Heaven," which, like Arabella Wilson's "s.e.xtant," goes the rounds of all the papers every other year as a fresh delight.

Marietta Holley, too, must be allowed only a brief quotation. "Samantha"

is a family friend from Mexico to Alaska. Mrs. Metta Victoria Victor, who died recently, has written an immense amount of humorous sketches.

Her "Miss Slimmens," the boarding-house keeper, is a marked character, and will be remembered by many.

I will select a few "samples," unsatisfactory because there is so much more just as good, and then give room for others less familiar.

MISS LUCINDA'S PIG.

BY ROSE TERRY COOKE.

"You don't know of any poor person who'd like to have a pig, do you?"

said Miss Lucinda, wistfully.

"Well, the poorer they was, the quicker they'd eat him up, I guess--ef they could eat such a razor-back."

"Oh, I don't like to think of his being eaten! I wish he could be got rid of some other way. Don't you think he might be killed in his sleep, Israel?"

"I think it's likely it would wake him up," said he, demurely. "Killin'

's killin', and a critter can't sleep over it 's though 'twas the stomachache. I guess he'd kick some, ef he _was_ asleep--and screech some, too!"

"Dear me!" said Miss Lucinda, horrified at the idea. "I wish he could be sent out to run in the woods. Are there any good woods near here, Israel?"

"I don't know but what he'd as lieves be slartered to once as to starve an' be hunted down out in the lots. Besides, there ain't n.o.body as I knows of would like a hog to be a-rootin' round among their turnips and young wheat."

"Well, what I shall do with him I don't know!" despairingly exclaimed Miss Lucinda. "He was such a dear little thing when you bought him, Israel! Do you remember how pink his pretty little nose was--just like a rosebud--and how bright his eyes were, and his cunning legs? And now he's grown so big and fierce! But I can't help liking him, either."

"He's a cute critter, that's sartain; but he does too much rootin' to have a pink nose now, I expect; there's consider'ble on 't, so I guess it looks as well to have it gray. But I don't know no more'n you do what to do abaout it."

"If I could only get rid of him without knowing what became of him!"

exclaimed Miss Lucinda, squeezing her forefinger with great earnestness, and looking both puzzled and pained.

"If Mees Lucinda would pairmit?" said a voice behind her.

She turned round to see Monsieur Leclerc on his crutches, just in the parlor-door.

"I shall, mees, myself dispose of piggie, if it please. I can. I shall have no sound; he shall to go away like a silent snow, to trouble you no more, never!"

"Oh, sir, if you could! But I don't see how!"

"If mees was to see, it would not be to save her pain. I shall have him to go by _magique_ to fiery land."

Fairy-land, probably. But Miss Lucinda did not perceive the _equivoque_.

"Nor yet shall I trouble Meester Israyel. I shall have the aid of myself and one good friend that I have; and some night, when you rise of the morning, he shall not be there."

Miss Lucinda breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"I am greatly obliged--I mean, I shall be," said she.

"Well, I'm glad enough to wash my hands on 't," said Israel. "I shall hanker arter the critter some, but he's a-gettin' too big to be handy; 'n it's one comfort about critters, you ken git rid on 'em somehaow when they're more plague than profit. But folks has got to be let alone, excep' the Lord takes 'em; an' He generally don't see fit."--_From Somebody's Neighbors._

A GIFT HORSE.

BY ROSE TERRY COOKE.

"Well, he no need to ha' done it, Sary. I've told him more'n four times he hadn't ought to pull a gun tow'rds him by the muzzle on't. Now he's up an' did it once for all."

"He won't never have no chance to do it again, Scotty, if you don't hurry up after the doctor," said Sary, wiping her eyes on her dirty calico ap.r.o.n, thereby adding an effective shadow under their redness.

"Well, I'm a-goin', ain't I? But ye know yerself 'twon't do to go so fur on eend, 'thout ye're vittled consider'ble well."