XI.

And one,—ye fayrest mayde of all,— To cheere his wayninge life, Shall be, when Springe ye flowers shall bringe, Ye Pedagogue his wife!

_John Godfrey Saxe._

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_SETTLING UNDER DIFFICULTIES._

STRANGERS visiting the beautiful city of Burlington have not failed to notice that one of the handsomest young men they meet is very bald, and they fall into the usual error of attributing this premature baldness to dissipation. But such is not the case. This young man, one of the most exemplary Bible-class scholars in the city, went to a Baptist sociable out in West Hill one night about two years ago. He escorted three charming girls, with angelic countenances and human appetites, out to the refreshment table, let them eat all they wanted, and then found he had left his pocket-book at home, and a deaf man that he had never seen before at the cashier’s desk. The young man with his face aflame, bent down, and said softly—

“I am ashamed to say I have no change with——”

“Hey——?” shouted the cashier.

“I regret to say,” the young man repeated in a little louder key, “that I have unfortunately come away without any change to——”

“Change two?” chirped the old man. “Oh, yes; I can change five if you want it.”

“No,” the young man explained in a terrible penetrating whisper, for half-a-dozen people were crowding up behind him, impatient to pay their bills and get away, “I don’t want any change, because——”

“Oh, don’t want no change?” the deaf man cried gleefully. “’Bleeged to ye, ’bleeged to ye. ’Taint often we get such generous donations. Pass over your bill.”

“No, no,” the young man explained, “I have no funds——”

“Oh, yes, plenty of fun,” the deaf man replied, growing tired of the conversation, and noticing the long line of people waiting with money in their hands; “but I haven’t got time to talk about it now. Settle, and move on.”

“But,” the young man gasped out, “I have no money——”

“Go Monday?” queried the deaf cashier. “I don’t care when you go; you must pay, and let these other people come up.”

“I have no money!” the mortified young man shouted, ready to sink into the earth, while the people all around him, and especially the three girls he had treated, were giggling and chuckling audibly.

“Owe money?” the cashier said; “of course you do; 2.75 dollars.”

“I can’t pay!” the youth screamed, and by turning his pockets inside out, and yelling his poverty to the heavens, he finally made the deaf man understand. And then he had to shriek his full name three times, while his ears fairly rung with the half-stifled laughter that was breaking out all around him; and he had to scream out where he worked, and roar when he would pay, and he couldn’t get the deaf man to understand him until some of the church members came up to see what the uproar was, and, recognising their young friend, made it all right with the cashier. And the young man went out into the night and clubbed himself, and shred his locks away ontil he was as bald as an egg.

_Robert J. Burdette._

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_MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S CATASTROPHE._

A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco pedler by trade, was on his way from Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker’s Falls, on Salmon River. He had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk, on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favour he used to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the country lassies of New England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little grey mare. It being nearly seven o’clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to reach the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of a hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary, yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day.

“Good morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when within speaking distance. “You go a pretty good jog. What’s the latest news at Parker’s Falls?”

The man pulled the broad brim of a grey hat over his eyes, and answered rather sullenly that he did not come from Parker’s Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day’s journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his inquiry.

“Well, then,” rejoined Dominicus Pike, “let’s have the latest news where you did come from. I’m not particular about Parker’s Falls. Any place will answer.”

[Illustration: “AT LAST MOUNTING ON THE STEP OF THE CART, HE WHISPERED IN THE EAR OF DOMINICUS.”]

Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him—

“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he. “Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o’clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to a branch of a St. Michael’s pear-tree, where nobody would find him till the morning.”

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the stranger betook himself to his journey again with more speed than ever, not even turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. The pedler whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long-nines, and a great deal of pig-tail, ladies’ twist, and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o’clock the preceding night; and yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when in all probability poor Mr. Higginbotham’s own family had just discovered his corpse hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots to travel at such a rate.

“Ill news flies fast, they say,” thought Dominicus Pike; “but this beats railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the President’s message.”

The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made a mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country store along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified audiences. He found himself invariably the first bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline, till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall with the money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe, hinting, what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece, who was now keeping school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good and driving bargains for his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker’s Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half-an-hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer, who had arrived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in a corner smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded he rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus, and stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt.

“Will you make affidavit,” demanded he in the tone of a country justice taking an examination, “that old Squire Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and found hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?”

“I tell the story as I heard it,” answered Dominicus, dropping his half-burnt cigar. “I don’t say that I saw the thing done, so I can’t take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way.”

“But I can take mine,” said the farmer, “that if Squire Higginbotham was murdered the night before last, I drank a bottle of bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbour of mine he called me into his store as I was riding by and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. He didn’t seem to know any more about his own murder than I did.”

“Why, then, it can’t be a fact!” exclaimed Dominicus Pike.

“I guess he’d have mentioned if it was,” said the old farmer, and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in the mouth.

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water and went to bed, where, all night long, he dreamt of hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree. To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham’s), Dominicus rose in the grey of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart, and trotted swiftly away towards Parker’s Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to hear it. But he met neither ox-team, light waggon, chaise, horseman, nor foot-traveller, till just as he crossed Salmon River a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick.

“Good morning, mister,” said the pedler, reining in his mare; “if you come from Kimballton or that neighbourhood maybe you can tell me the real facts about the affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago by an Irishman and a nigger?”

Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden question the Ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while shaking and stammering he thus replied—

“No! no! There was no coloured man! It was an Irishman that hanged him last night at eight o’clock. I came away at seven! His folks can’t have looked for him in the orchard yet.”

Scarcely had the yellow man spoken when he interrupted himself, and though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a pace which would have kept the pedler’s mare on a sharp trot. Dominicus stared after him in great perplexity. If the murder had not been committed till Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it, in all its circumstances, on Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham’s corpse were not yet discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above thirty miles distance, to know that he was hanging in the orchard, especially as he had left Kimballton before the unfortunate man was hanged at all? These ambiguous circumstances, with the stranger’s surprise and terror, made Dominicus think of raising a hue and cry after him, as an accomplice in the murder, since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated.

“But let the poor devil go,” thought the pedler. “I don’t want his black blood on my head; and hanging the nigger won’t unhang Mr. Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman! It’s a sin, I know; but I should hate to have him come to life a second time, and give me the lie!”

With these meditations Dominicus Pike drove into the street of Parker’s Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as three cotton factories and a slitting-mill can make it. The machinery was not in motion, and but a few of the shop doors unbarred, when he alighted in the stable-yard of the tavern, and made it his first business to order the mare four quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr. Higginbotham’s catastrophe to the ostler. He deemed it advisable, however, not to be too positive as to the date of the direful fact, and also to be uncertain whether it was perpetrated by an Irishman and a mulatto, or by the son of Erin alone. Neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority, or that of any other person; but mentioned it as a report generally diffused.

The story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees, and became so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence it originated. Mr. Higginbotham was as well known at Parker’s Falls as any citizen of the place, being part-owner of the slitting-mill, and a considerable stockholder in the cotton factories. The inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested in his fate. Such was the excitement that the _Parker’s Falls Gazette_ anticipated its regular day of publication, and came out with half a form of blank paper and a column of double pica emphasised with capitals, and headed HORRID MURDER OF MR. HIGGINBOTHAM! Among other dreadful details, the printed account described the mark of the cord round the dead man’s neck, and stated the number of thousand dollars of which he had been robbed. There was much pathos also about the affliction of his niece, who had gone from one fainting fit to another, ever since her uncle was found hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree with his pockets inside out. The village poet likewise commemorated the young lady’s grief in seventeen stanzas of a ballad. The select-men held a meeting, and in consideration of Mr. Higginbotham’s claims on the town, determined to issue handbills offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of his murderers and the recovery of the stolen property.

Meanwhile the whole population of Parker’s Falls, consisting of shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory girls, mill-men and school-boys, rushed into the street, and kept up such a terrible loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the cotton machines, which refrained from their usual din out of respect to the deceased. Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown, his untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult. Our friend Dominicus, in his vanity of heart, forgot his intended precautions, and, mounting on the town pump, announced himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and had just began a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a field-preacher when the mail stage drove into the village street. It had travelled all night, and must have shifted horses at Kimballton at three in the morning.

“Now we shall hear all the particulars,” shouted the crowd.

The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. Every man assailed them with separate questions all propounded at once. The couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady.

“Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old Mr. Higginbotham!” bawled the mob. “What is the coroner’s verdict? Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham’s niece come out of her fainting fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!”

The coachman said not a word, except to swear awfully at the ostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did, after learning the cause of the excitement, was to produce a large red pocket-book. Meanwhile, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer’s, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth, that Dominicus would almost as lieves have heard a love-tale from it as a tale of murder.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the mill-men, and the factory girls, “I can assure you that some unaccountable mistake, or more probably, a wilful falsehood, maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham’s credit, has excited this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o’clock this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the murder, had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong as Mr. Higginbotham’s own oral testimony in the negative. Here is a note relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts, which was delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten o’clock last evening.”

So saying the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the note, which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or—as some deemed the more probable case of two doubtful ones—that he was so absorbed in worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death. But unexpected evidence was forthcoming. The young lady, after listening to the pedler’s explanations, merely seized a moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at the tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard.

“Good people,” said she, “I am Mr. Higginbotham’s niece.”

[Illustration: “I AM MR. HIGGINBOTHAM’S NIECE.”]

A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so rosy and bright, the same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the authority of the _Parker’s Falls Gazette_, to be lying at death’s door in a fainting fit. But some shrewd fellow had doubted all along whether a young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a rich old uncle.

“You see,” continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, “that this strange story is quite unfounded, as to myself; and I believe I may affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He has the kindness to give me a home in his house, though I contribute to my support by teaching a school. I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of commencement week with a friend, about five miles from Parker’s Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called me to his bedside, and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay my stage fare, and another dollar for my extra expenses. He then laid his pocket-book under his pillow, shook hands with me, and advised me to take some biscuit in my bag, instead of breakfasting on the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I left my beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him so on my return.”

The young lady curtsied at the close of her speech, which was so sensible, and well-worded, and delivered with such grace and propriety, that everybody thought her fit to be Preceptress of the best Academy in the State. But a stranger would have supposed that Mr. Higginbotham was an object of abhorrence at Parker’s Falls, and that a thanksgiving had been proclaimed for his murder, so excessive was the wrath of the inhabitants on learning their mistake. The mill-men resolved to bestow public honours on Dominicus Pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail, or refresh him with an ablution at the town pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of the news. The select-men, by the advice of the lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanour in circulating unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus either from mob law or a court of justice but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his behalf. Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his benefactress, he mounted the green cart and drove out of town under a discharge of artillery from the school-boys, who found plenty of ammunition in the neighbouring clay-pits and mud-holes. As he turned his head, to exchange a farewell glance with Mr. Higginbotham’s niece, a ball, of the consistence of hasty-pudding, hit him slap in the mouth, giving him a most grim aspect. His whole person was so bespattered with the like filthy missiles that he had almost a mind to ride back and supplicate for the threatened ablution at the town pump, for, though not meant in kindness, it would have been a deed of charity.

However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus, and the mud, an emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium, was easily brushed off when dry. Being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his story excited. The handbills of the select-men would cause the commitment of all the vagabonds in the State. The paragraph in the _Parker’s Falls Gazette_ would be reprinted from Maine to Florida, and perhaps form an item in the London newspapers; and many a miser would tremble for his money-bag and life, on learning the catastrophe of Mr. Higginbotham. The pedler meditated with much fervour on the charms of the young school-mistress, and swore that Daniel Webster never spoke nor looked so like an angel as Miss Higginbotham, while defending him from the wrathful populace at Parker’s Falls.

Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike, having all along determined to visit that place, though business had drawn him out of the most direct road from Morristown. As he approached the scene of the supposed murder, he continued to revolve the circumstances in his mind, and was astonished at the aspect which the whole case assumed. Had nothing occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller it might have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently acquainted either with the report or the fact; and there was a mystery in his dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. When to this singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumour tallied with Mr. Higginbotham’s character and habits of life; and that he had an orchard, and a St. Michael’s pear-tree, near which he always passed at nightfalls, the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus doubted whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece’s direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiry along the road, the pedler further learned that Mr. Higginbotham had in his service an Irishman of doubtful character, whom he had hired without a recommendation, on the score of economy.

“May I be hanged myself,” exclaimed Dominicus Pike aloud, on reaching the top of a lonely hill, “if I believe old Higginbotham is unhanged, till I see him with my own eyes, and hear it from his own mouth! And as he’s a real shaver, I’ll have the minister or some other responsible man for an endorser.”

It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on Kimballton turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this name. His little mare was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback, who trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the toll-gatherer, and kept on towards the village. Dominicus was acquainted with the toll-man, and while making change, the usual remarks on the weather passed between them.

“I suppose,” said the pedler, throwing back his whip-lash to bring it down like a feather on the mare’s flank, “you have not seen anything of old Mr. Higginbotham within a day or two?”

“Yes,” answered the toll-gatherer; “he passed the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk. He’s been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff’s sale there. The old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me; but to-night he nodded, as if to say, ‘Charge my toll,’ and jogged on, for wherever he goes, he must always be at home by eight o’clock.”

“So they tell me,” said Dominicus.

“I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,” continued the toll-gatherer. “Says I to myself to-night, he’s more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.”

The pedler strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed to recognise the rear of Mr. Higginbotham; and through the evening shadows, and amid the dust from the horse’s feet, the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial, as if the shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness and grey light. Dominicus shivered.

“Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the other world, by way of Kimballton turnpike,” thought he.

He shook the reins and rode forward, keeping about the same distance in the rear of the grey old shadow, till the latter was concealed by a bend of the road. On reaching this point the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two taverns, clustered around the meeting-house steeple. On his left was a stone wall and a gate, the boundary of a wood-lot, beyond which lay an orchard; further still, a mowing-field, and, last of all, a house. These were the premises of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike, and Dominicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped short by instinct, for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.

“For the soul of me I cannot get by this gate,” said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man again till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael pear-tree!”

He leaped from the cart, gave the reins a turn round the gate-post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if Old Nick were chasing behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight, and as each deep stroke fell, Dominicus gave a fresh bound and flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary centre of the orchard, he saw the fated pear-tree. One great branch stretched from the old contorted trunk across the path and threw the darkest shadow on that one spot. But something seemed to struggle beneath the branch!

[Illustration: “HE RUSHED FORWARD, PROSTRATED A STURDY IRISHMAN WITH THE BUTT END OF HIS WHIP.”]

The pedler had never pretended to more courage than befits a man of peaceable occupation, nor could he account for his valour on this awful emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated a sturdy Irishman with the butt end of his whip, and found—not indeed hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree, but trembling beneath it, with a halter round his neck—the old, identical Mr. Higginbotham.

“Mr. Higginbotham,” said Dominicus tremulously, “you’re an honest man, and I’ll take your word for it. Have you been hanged or not?”

If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain the simple machinery by which this coming event was made to cast its shadow before. Three men had plotted the robbery and murder of Mr. Higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the third was in the act of perpetration when a champion, blindly obeying the call of fate, like the heroes of old romance, appeared in the person of Dominicus Pike.

It only remains to say that Mr. Higginbotham took the pedler into high favour, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty school-mistress, and settled his whole property on their children, allowing themselves the interest. In due time the old gentleman capped the climax of his favours by dying a Christian death, in bed, since which melancholy event Dominicus Pike has removed from Kimballton and established a large tobacco factory in my native village.

_Nathaniel Hawthorne._

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_GOING TO CALIFORNIA._

“DEAR me!” exclaimed Mrs. Partington sorrowfully, “how much a man will bear, and how far he will go, to get the soddered dross, as Parson Martin called it when he refused the beggar a sixpence, for fear it might lead him into extravagance! Everybody is going to California and Chagrin arter gold. Cousin Jones and the three Smiths have gone; and Mr. Chip, the carpenter, has left his wife and seven children, and a blessed old mother-in-law, to seek his fortin, too. This is the strangest yet, and I don’t see how he could have done it; it looks so ongrateful to treat Heaven’s blessings so lightly. But there we are told that the love of money is the root of all evil, and how true it is! for they are now rooting arter it, like pigs arter ground-nuts. Why, it is a perfect money mania among everybody!”

[Illustration: “AS SHE PENSIVELY WATCHED A SMALL MUG OF CIDER.”]

And she shook her head doubtingly, as she pensively watched a small mug of cider, with an apple in it, simmering by the winter fire. She was somewhat fond of drink made in this way.

_Benjamin Penhallon Shillaber_ (“_Mrs. Partington_”).

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“_ROUGHING IT._”

ANOTHER night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came by-and-by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly without visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand were more than three miles away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed a-top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted occasionally at our frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears back and scamper faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away, and levelled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us for things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it thrills me through and through to think of the life, the gladness and the wild sense of freedom, that used to make the blood dance in my veins on those fine overland mornings!

Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the regular _cayote_ (pronounced ky-_o_-te) of the farther deserts. And if it _was_, he was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick- and sorry-looking skeleton, with a grey wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that for ever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of want. He is _always_ hungry. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologising for it. And he is _so_ homely!—so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—another fifty and stop again; and finally the grey of his gliding body blends with the grey of the sagebrush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels, and puts such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon that by the time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minié rifle, and by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by the time you have “drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing but an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where he is now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about speed. The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambition, and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck further to the front, and pant more fiercely, and stick his tail out straighter behind, and move his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and broader, and higher and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across the level plain! And all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is; and next he notices that he is getting fagged, and that the cayote actually has to slacken speed a little to keep from running away from him—and _then_ that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This “spurt” finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: “Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub—business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day”—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!

It makes his head swim. He stops and looks all around; climbs the nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to his train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost waggon, and feels unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast for a week. And forasmuch as a year after that, whenever there is a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely glance in that direction without emotion, and apparently observe to himself, “I believe I do not wish any of the pie.”

The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding deserts, along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit, and the raven, and gets an uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist almost wholly on the carcasses of oxen, mules, and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men who have been opulent enough to have something better to butcher than condemned army bacon. He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the desert-frequenting tribes of Indians, will, and they will eat anything they can bite. It is a curious fact that these latter are the only creatures known to history who will eat nitroglycerine and ask for more if they survive.

The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are just as apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he is himself; and when this occurs he has to content himself with sitting off at a little distance watching those people strip off and dig out everything edible, and walk off with it. Then he and the waiting ravens explore the skeleton and polish the bones. It is considered that the cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the desert, testify their blood kinship with each other in that they live together in the waste places of the earth on terms of perfect confidence and friendship, while hating all other creatures and yearning to assist at their funerals. He does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a hundred and fifty to dinner, because he is sure to have three or four days between meals, and he can just as well be travelling and looking at the scenery as lying around doing nothing and adding to the burdens of his parents.

We soon learned to recognise the sharp, vicious bark of the cayote as it came across the murky plain at night to disturb our dreams among the mail-sacks; and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard fortune, made shift to wish him the blessed novelty of a long day’s good luck and a limitless larder the morrow.

_Samuel L. Clemens_ (“_Mark Twain_”).

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_THE HEAD-WRITER._

[Illustration: “‘AND YOU NOTICE MY CORPULENT BUILD?’”]

IT was early in the morning when I heard a great puffing and blowing on the stairs, and pretty soon footsteps sounded in the hall, and a woman’s voice said—

“Now, John Quincy, you want to look as smart as you can!”

The next moment the door opened, and a big fat woman and a small thin boy came into the room. She gave her dress a shake, snatched the boy’s hat off, and then, looking at me, she inquired—

“Is the head-writer in?”

“He is, madam,” I replied.

“Be you him?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, as she sat down on a chair and fanned herself with her handkerchief; “I like to have never got upstairs.”

I smiled and nodded.

“You see that boy thar?” she inquired after a while.

“Your son, I suppose?” I answered; “nice-looking lad.”

“Yes, he’s smart as a fox. There isn’t a thing he don’t know. Why, he isn’t but eight, and he composes poetry, writes letters, and plays tunes on the fiddle!”

“You ought to be proud of him,” I said.

“Wall, we kinder hope he’ll turn out well,” she answered. “Come up here, John Quincy, and speak that piece about that boy who stood on the busted deck.”

“I won’t!” replied the boy in a positive tone.

“He’s a little bashful, you see,” giving me an apologetical smile. “He’s rid fourteen miles this morning, and he doesn’t feel well, anyhow; I shouldn’t wonder if he was troubled with worums.”

“Worms be blowed!” replied John Quincy, chewing away at his hat.

“He’s awful skeard when he’s among strangers,” she went on; “but he’ll git over it in a short time. What I cum in for was to see if you wouldn’t take him and make a head-writer of him.”

“I don’t want to be a durned old bald-headed head-writer!” said John Quincy, picking his teeth with my scissors.

“The young never knows what’s good for ’em,” she went on. “He wants to be a preacher, or a great lawyer, or a big doctor; but he seems to take to writing, and we thought we’d make a head-writer of him. I don’t sopose he’d earn over five or six dollars and board a week for the first year, but I’ve bin told that Gen’ral Jackson didn’t get half that when he begun.”

“Madam,” I commenced, as she stopped for breath, “I’d like to take the boy. He looks as smart as a steel trap, and no doubt he’ll turn out a great man.”

“Then you’ll take him?”

“If you agree as to terms.”

“What is them ter-ums?”

“You see my left eye is out?”

“Yes.”

“Well, your son can never become a great writer unless you put his left eye out. If you will think back you will remember that you never saw a great writer whose left eye was not out. This is a matter of economy. A one-eyed writer only needs half as much light as a man with two eyes, and he isn’t half so apt to discover hair-pins in his butter, and buttons in his oyster soup. The best way to put his eye out is to jab a red-hot needle into it.”

“Good grashus!” she exclaimed.

“And you observe that I am bald-headed? You may think that my baldness results from scalp disease, but such is not the case. When a head-writer is bothered to get an idea he scratches his head. Scratching the hair wouldn’t do any good; it’s the scalp he must agitate. The hair is therefore pulled out with a pair of pincers, in order that a man can get right down to the scalp at once, and save time.”

“Can that be possible?”

“All this is strictly true, madam. You also observe that one of my legs is shorter than the other. Without an explanation on my part you would attribute this to some accident. Such is not the case. Every head-writer is located in the fourth storey of the office, and his left leg is shortened three inches to enable him to run up and down stairs. You will have to have a doctor unjoint your son’s leg at the hip, saw it off to the proper length, and then hook it back in its place.”

“Did I ever hear the likes!” she exclaimed.

“And you also observe, madam, that two of my front teeth are gone. You might think they decayed, but such was not the case. They were knocked out with a crowbar in order to enable me to spit ten feet. According to a law enacted at the last Session of Congress, any head-writer who can’t spit ten feet is not entitled to receive Congressional reports free of postage.”

“Can it be so?” she said, her eyes growing larger every moment.

“And you notice my corpulent build?” I went on; “you might think this the result of high-living, but it is not. Every head-writer of any prominence has one of these big stomachs on him. They are all members of a secret society, and they tell each other outside of the lodge-room in this way: I am naturally very tall and thin, but I had to conform to the rules. They cut a hole in my chest and filled me out by stuffing in dry Indian meal. It took two bushels and a peck, and then it lacked a little, and they had to fill up with oatmeal. Now then, madam, you see what your son must go through with, and I leave you to judge whether you will have him learn the head-writer’s trade or not. I like the looks of the boy very much, and if you desire to——”

“I guess we’ll go hum!” she exclaimed, lifting herself off the chair. “I kinder want him to be a head-writer, and yit I think I ought to have a little more talk with his father, who wants him to git to be boss in a saw-mill. I’m ’bleged to you, and if we conclude to have him——”

“Yes, bring him right in, day or night. The first thing will be to unhinge his left leg and——!”

But they were out in the hall, and I heard John Quincy remark: “Head-writer be blowed!”

_C. B. Lewis_ (“_M Quad_”).

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_PELEG W. PONDER; OR, THE POLITICIAN WITHOUT A SIDE._

[Illustration: “HE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK.”]

IT is a curious thing—an unpleasant thing—a very embarrassing sort of thing—but the truth must be told—if not at all times, at least sometimes; and truth now compels the declaration that Peleg W. Ponder, whose character is here portrayed, let him travel in any way, cannot arrive at a conclusion. He never had one of his own. He scarcely knows a conclusion, even if he should chance to see one belonging to other people, and, as for reaching a result, he would never be able to do it, if he could stretch like a giraffe. Results are beyond his compass. And his misfortune is, perhaps, hereditary, his mother’s name having been Mrs. Perplexity Ponder, whose earthly career came to an end while she was in dubitation as to which of the various physicians of the place should be called in. If there had been only one doctor in the town, Perplexity Ponder might have been saved. But there was many—and what could Perplexity do in such a case?

Ponder’s father was run over by a waggon, as he stood debating with himself, in the middle of the road, whether he should escape forward or retreat backward. There were two methods of extrication, and between them both old Ponder became a victim. How then could their worthy son, Peleg, be expected to arrive at a conclusion? He never does.

Yet, for one’s general comfort and particular happiness, there does not appear to be any faculty more desirable than the power of “making up the mind.” Right or wrong, it saves a deal of wear and tear; and it prevents an infinite variety of trouble. Commend us to the individual who chooses upon propositions like a nutcracker—whose promptness of will has a sledge-hammer way with it, and hits nails continually on the head. Genius may be brilliant—talent commanding! but what is genius, or what is talent, if it lack that which we may call the clinching faculty—if it hesitates, veers, and flutters—suffers opportunities to pass, and stumbles at occasion? To reason well is much, no doubt, but reason loses the race if it sits in meditation on the fence when competition rushes by.

Under the best of circumstances, something must be left to hazard. There is a chance in all things. No man can so calculate odds in the affairs of life as to ensure a certainty. The screws and linchpins necessary to our purpose have not the inflexibility of fate; yet they must be trusted at some degree of risk. Our candle may be put out by a puff of wind on the stair, let it be sheltered ever so carefully. Betsy is a good cook, yet beefsteaks have been productive of strangulation. Does it then follow from this that we are never to go to bed, except in the dark, and to abstain from breaking our fast until dinner is announced?

One may pause and reflect too much. There must be action, conclusion, result, or we are a failure, to all intents and purposes—a self-confessed failure—defunct from the beginning. And such was the case with Peleg W. Ponder, who never arrived at a conclusion, or contrived to reach a result. Peleg is always “stumped”—he “don’t know what to think”—he “can’t tell what to say”—an unfinished gentleman, with a mind like a dusty garret, full, as it were, of rickety furniture, yet nothing serviceable—broken-backed chairs—three-legged tables—pitchers without handles—cracked decanters and fractured looking-glasses—that museum of mutilations in which housewifery rejoices, under the vague but never realised hope that these things may eventually “come in play.” Peleg’s opinions lie about the workshop of his brains, in every stage of progress but the last—chips, sticks, and sawdust enough, but no article ready to send home.

Should you meet Peleg in the street with “Good morning, Peleg—how do you find yourself to-day?”

“Well—I don’t know exactly—I’m pretty—no, not very—pray, how do you do yourself?”

Now if a man does not know exactly, or nearly, how he is after being up for several hours, and having had abundant time to investigate the circumstances of his case, it is useless to propound questions of opinion to such an individual. It is useless to attempt it with Peleg. “How do you do?” puzzles him—he is fearful of being too rash, and of making a reply which might not be fully justified by after-reflection. His head may be about to ache, and he has other suspicious feelings.

“People are always asking me how I do, and more than half the time I can’t tell. There’s a good many different sorts of ways of feeling betwixt and between ‘Very sick, I thank you,’ and ‘Half-dead, I’m obliged to you;’ and people won’t stop to hear you explain the matter. They want to know right smack, when you don’t know right smack yourself. Sometimes you feel things a-coming, and just after you feel things a-going. And nobody’s exactly prime all the while. I ain’t, anyhow—I’m kinder so just now, and I’m sorter t’other way just after. Then, some people tell you that you look very well, when you don’t feel very well—how then?”

At table Peleg is not exactly sure what he will take; and sits looking slowly up and down the board, deliberating what he would like, until the rest of the company have finished their repast, there being often nothing left which suits Peleg’s hesitating appetite.

Peleg has never married—not that he is averse to the connubial state—on the contrary, he has a large share of the susceptibilities, and is always partially in love. But female beauty is so various. At one time Peleg is inclined to believe that perfection lies in queenly dignity—the majesty of an empress fills his dreams; and he looks down with disdain on little people. He calls them “squabs” in derogation. But anon, in a more domestic mood, he thinks of fireside happiness and quiet bliss, declining from the epic poetry of loveliness to the household wife, who might be disposed to bring him his slippers, and to darn the hole in his elbow. When in the tragic vein he fancies a brunette; and when the sunshine is on his soul, blue eyes are at a premium. Should woman possess the slightness of a sylph, or should her charms be of the more solid architecture? Ought her countenance to beam in smiles, or will habitual pensiveness be the more interesting? Is sparkling brilliancy to be preferred to gentle sweetness?

“If there wasn’t so many of them, I shouldn’t be so bothered,” said Peleg; “or if they all looked alike, a man couldn’t help himself. But yesterday I wanted this one; to-day, I want that one; and to-morrow I’ll want t’other one; and how can I tell, if I should get this, or that, or t’other, that it wouldn’t soon be somebody else that I really wanted? That’s the difficulty. It always happens so with me. When the lady’s most courted, and thinks I ought to speak out, then I begin to be skeered, for fear I’ve made a mistake, and have been thinking I loved her, when I didn’t. Maybe it’s not the right one—maybe she won’t suit—maybe I might do better—maybe I had better not venture at all. I wish there wasn’t so many ‘maybe’s’ about everything, especially in such affairs. I’ve got at least a dozen unfinished courtships on hand already.”

But all this happened a long time ago; and Peleg has gradually lost sight of his fancy for making an addition to his household. Not that he has concluded, even yet, to remain a bachelor. He would be alarmed at the bare mention of such an idea. He could not consent to be shelved in that decisive manner. But he has subsided from active “looking around” in pursuit of his object, into that calm, irresponsible submissiveness, characteristic of the somewhat elderly bachelor, which waits until she may chance to present herself spontaneously, and “come along” of her own accord. “Some day—some day,” says Peleg; “it will happen some day or other. What’s the use of being in a hurry?”

Peleg W. Ponder’s great object is now ambition. His personal affairs are somewhat embarrassed by his lack of enterprise, and he hankers greatly for an office. But which side to join? Ay, there’s the rub! Who will purvey the loaf and fish? for whom shall Peleg shout?

Behold him as he puzzles over the returns of the State elections, labouring in vain to satisfy his mind as to the result of the presidential contest. Stupefied by figures—perplexed by contradictory statements—bothered by the general hurrah; what can Peleg do?

“Who’s going to win? That’s all I want to know,” exclaims the vexed Peleg. “I don’t want to waste my time a-blowing out for the wrong person, and never get a thank’e. What’s the use of that? There’s Simpkins—says I, Simpkins, says I, which is the party that can’t be beat? And Simpkins turns up his nose and tells me every fool knows that—it’s his side—so I hurrah for Simpkins’ side as hard as I can. But then comes Timpkins—Timpkins’ side is t’other side from Simpkins’ side—and Timpkins offers to bet me three levies that his side is the side that can’t be beat. Hurrah! says I, for Timpkins’ side!—and then I can’t tell which side.”

“As for the newspapers, that’s worse still. They not only crow all round, but they cipher it out so clear that both sides must win, if there’s any truth in the ciphering-book; which there isn’t about election time. What’s to be done? I’ve tried going to all the meetings—I’ve hurrahed for everybody—I’ve been in all the processions, and I sit a little while every evening in all sorts of headquarters. I’ve got one kind of documents in one pocket, and t’other kind of documents in t’other pocket; and as I go home at night I sing one sort of song as loud as I can bawl half of the way, and try another sort of song the rest of the way, just to split the difference and show my impartiality. If I only had two notes—a couple of ’em—how nice it would be!

“But the best thing that can be done now, I guess, as my character is established both ways, is to turn in quietly till the row is all over. Nobody will miss me when they are all so busy; and afterwards, when we know all about it, just look for Peleg W. Ponder as he comes down the street, shaking people by the hand, and saying how we have used them up. I can’t say so now, or I would, for I am not perfectly sure yet which is ‘we’ or which is ‘them.’ Time enough when the election is over.”

It will thus be seen that Ponder is a remarkable person. Peter Schlemihl lost his shadow and became memorably unhappy in consequence; but what was his misfortune when compared with that of the man who has no side? What are shadows if weighed against sides? And Peleg is almost afraid that he never will be able to get a side, so unlucky has he been heretofore. He begins to dread that both sides may be defeated; and then, let us ask, what is to become of him? Must he stand aside?

_Joseph C. Neal._

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_THE SHAKERS._

THE Shakers is the strangest religious sex I ever met.

I’D hearn tell of ’em and I’d seen ’em, with their broad brim’d hats and long wastid coats; but I’d never cum into immejit contack with ’em and I’d sot ’em down as lackin intelleck, as I’d never seen ’em to my Show—leastways, if they cum they was disgised in white peple’s close, so I didn’t know ’em.

But in the Spring of 18— I got swampt in the exterior of New York State, one dark and stormy night, when the winds Blue pityusly, and I was forced to tie up with the Shakers.

I was toilin threw the mud, when in the dim vister of the futer I obsarved the gleams of a taller candle. Tiein a hornet’s nest to my off hoss’s tail to kinder encourage him, I soon reached the place. I knockt at the door, which it was opened unto me by a tall, slick-faced, solum lookin individooal, who turn’d out to be a Elder.

“Mr. Shaker,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes shelter of you.”

“Yay,” sed the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another Shaker bein sent to put my hosses and waggin under kiver.

A solum female, lookin sumwhat like a last year’s beanpole stuck into a long meal bag, cum in and axed me was I athurst and did I hunger? to which I urbanely anserd “a few.” She went orf and I endeverd to open a conversashun with the old man.

“Elder, I spect?” sed I.

“Yay,” he sed.

“Helth’s good, I reckon?”

“Yay.”

“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understans his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitus?”

“Yay.”

“Stormy night, sir.”

“Yay.”

“If the storm continners there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”

“Yay.”

“It’s onpleasant when there’s a mess underfoot?”

“Yay.”

“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of weskit you wear, incloodin trimmins?”

“Yay!”

I pawsd a minit, and then, thinkin I’d be faseshus