The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) by Marshall P. Wilder (sites to read books for free .txt) 📖

sure to be absorbed in your prayer-book, or gazing pensively out of the window at far-off mountains, or buried in meditation, with your sinful head supported by the back of the pew before you. And after the box is gone again, you usually start suddenly and gaze after it with a[Pg 1815] yearning look, mingled with an expression of bitter disappointment (fumbling your cash again meantime), as if you felt you had missed the one grand opportunity for which you had been longing all your life. Now, to do this when you have money in your pockets is mean. But I have seen you do a meaner thing. I refer to your conduct last Sunday, when the contribution box arrived at our pew—and the angry blood rises to my cheek when I remember with what gravity and sweet serenity of countenance you put in fifty cents and took out two dollars and a half.... The Unreliable

Eds. Enterprise—I received the following atrocious document the morning I arrived here. It was from that abandoned profligate, the Unreliable, and I think it speaks for itself:

Carson City, Thursday Morning.
To the Unreliable:

Sir—Observing the driver of the Virginia stage hunting after you this morning, in order to collect his fare, I infer you are in town.

In the paper which you represent, I noticed an article which I took to be an effusion from your muddled brain, stating that I had "cabbaged" a number of valuable articles from you the night I took you out of the streets of Washoe City and permitted you to occupy my bed.

I take this opportunity to inform you that I will compensate you at the rate of $20 per head for every one of these valuable articles that I received from you, providing you will relieve me of their presence. This offer can be either accepted or rejected on your part: but providing you don't see proper to accept it, you had better procure enough lumber to make a box 4x8, and have it made[Pg 1816] as early as possible. Judge Dixon will arrange the preliminaries if you don't accede. An early reply is expected by Reliable.

Not satisfied with wounding my feelings by making the most extraordinary reference to allusions in the above note, he even sent a challenge to fight, in the same envelop with it, hoping to work upon my fears and drive me from the country by intimidation. But I was not to be frightened; I shall remain in the Territory. I guessed his object at once, and determined to accept his challenge, choose weapons and things, and scare him, instead of being scared myself. I wrote a stern reply to him, and offered him mortal combat with boot-jacks at a hundred yards. The effect was more agreeable than I could have hoped for. His hair turned black in a single night, from excess of fear; then he went into a fit of melancholy, and while it lasted he did nothing but sigh, and sob, and snuffle, and slobber, and say "he wished he was in the quiet tomb;" finally he said he would commit suicide—he would say farewell to the cold, cold world, with its cares and troubles, and go to sleep with his fathers, in perdition. Then rose up this young man, and threw his demijohn out of the window, and took up a glass of pure water, and drained it to the dregs. And then he fell to the floor in a swoon. Dr. Tjader was called in, and as soon as he found that the cuss was poisoned, he rushed down to the Magnolia Saloon and got the antidote, and poured it down him. As he was drawing his last breath, he scented the brandy and lingered yet a while on earth, to take a drink with the boys. But for this he would have been no more—or possible a great deal less—in a moment. So he survived; but he has been in a mighty precarious condition ever since. I have been up to see how[Pg 1817] he was getting along two or three times a day.... He is a very sick man; I was up there a while ago, and I could see that his friends had begun to entertain hopes that he would not get over it. As soon as I saw that, all my enmity vanished; I even felt like doing the poor Unreliable a kindness, and showing him, too, how my feelings toward him had changed. So I went and bought him a beautiful coffin, and carried it up and set it down on his bed and told him to climb in when his time was up. Well, sir, you never saw a man so affected by a little act of kindness as he was by that. He let off a sort of war-whoop, and went to kicking things around like a crazy man; and he foamed at the mouth and went out of one fit into another faster than I could take them down in my note-book....

I did not return to Virginia yesterday, on account of the wedding. The parties were Hon. James H. Sturtevant, one of the first Pi-Utes of Nevada, and Miss Emma Curry, daughter of the Hon. A. Curry, who also claims that his is a Pi-Ute family of high antiquity.... I had heard it reported that a marriage was threatened, so felt it my duty to go down there and find out the facts of the case. They said I might stay, as it was me.... I promised not to say anything about the wedding, and I regard that promise as sacred—my word is as good as my bond.... Father Bennett advanced and touched off the high contracting parties with the hymeneal torch (married them, you know), and at the word of command from Curry, the fiddle bows were set in motion, and the plain quadrilles turned loose. Thereupon, some of the most responsible dancing ensued that I ever saw in my life. The dance that Tam O'Shanter witnessed was slow in comparison to it. They kept it up for six hours, and then carried out the exhausted musicians on a shutter, and[Pg 1818] went down to supper. I know they had a fine supper, and plenty of it, but I do not know much else. They drank so much shampin around me that I got confused, and lost the hang of things, as it were.... It was mighty pleasant, jolly and sociable, and I wish to thunder I was married myself. I took a large slice of bridal cake home with me to dream on, and dreamt that I was still a single man, and likely to remain so, if I live and nothing happens—which has given me a greater confidence in dreams than I ever felt before. I cordially wish my newly-married couple all kinds of happiness and prosperity, though.

Ye Sentimental Law Student

Eds. Enterprise—I found the following letter, or Valentine, or whatever it is, lying on the summit, where it had been dropped unintentionally, I think. It was written on a sheet of legal cap, and each line was duly commenced within the red mark which traversed the sheet from top to bottom. Solon appeared to have had some trouble getting his effusion started to suit him. He had begun it, "Know all men by these presents," and scratched it out again; he had substituted, "Now at this day comes the plaintiff, by his attorney," and scratched that out also; he had tried other sentences of like character, and gone on obliterating them, until, through much sorrow and tribulation, he achieved the dedication which stands at the head of his letter, and to his entire satisfaction, I do cheerfully hope. But what a villain a man must be to blend together the beautiful language of love and the infernal phraseology of the law in one and the same sentence! I know but one of God's creatures who would be guilty of such depravity as this: I refer to the Unreliable. I believe the Unreliable to be the very lawyer's-cub who[Pg 1819] sat upon the solitary peak, all soaked in beer and sentiment, and concocted the insipid literary hash I am talking about. The handwriting closely resembles his semi-Chinese tarantula tracks.

Sugar Loaf Peak, February 14, 1863.

To the loveliness to whom these presents shall come, greeting:—This is a lovely day, my own Mary; its unencumbered sunshine reminds me of your happy face, and in the imagination the same doth now appear before me. Such sights and scenes as this ever remind me, the party of the second part, of you, my Mary, the peerless party of the first part. The view from the lonely and segregated mountain peak, of this portion of what is called and known as Creation, with all and singular the hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto appertaining and belonging, is inexpressively grand and inspiring; and I gaze, and gaze, while my soul is filled with holy delight, and my heart expands to receive thy spirit-presence, as aforesaid. Above me is the glory of the sun; around him float the messenger clouds, ready alike to bless the earth with gentle rain, or visit it with lightning, and thunder, and destruction; far below the said sun and the messenger clouds aforesaid, lying prone upon the earth in the verge of the distant horizon, like the burnished shield of a giant, mine eyes behold a lake, which is described and set forth in maps as the Sink of Carson; nearer, in the great plain, I see the Desert, spread abroad like the mantle of a Colossus, glowing by turns, with the warm light of the sun, hereinbefore mentioned, or darkly shaded by the messenger clouds aforesaid; flowing at right angles with said Desert, and adjacent thereto, I see the silver and sinuous thread of the river, commonly called Carson, which winds its tortuous course through the softly tinted valley, and[Pg 1820] disappears amid the gorges of the bleak and snowy mountains—a simile of man!—leaving the pleasant valley of Peace and Virtue to wander among the dark defiles of Sin, beyond the jurisdiction of the kindly beaming sun aforesaid! And about said sun, and the said clouds, and around the said mountains, and over the plain and the river aforesaid, there floats a purple glory—a yellow mist—as airy and beautiful as the bridal veil of a princess, about to be wedded according to the rites and ceremonies pertaining to, and established by, the laws or edicts of the kingdom or principality wherein she doth reside, and whereof she hath been and doth continue to be, a lawful sovereign or subject. Ah! my Mary, it is sublime! it is lovely! I have declared and made known, and by these presents do declare and make known unto you, that the view from Sugar Loaf Peak, as hereinbefore described and set forth, is the loveliest picture with which the hand of the Creator has adorned the earth, according to the best of my knowledge and belief, so help me God.

Given under my hand, and in the spirit-presence of the bright being whose love has restored the light of hope to a soul once groping in the darkness of despair, on the day and year first above written.

(Signed)

Solon Lycurgus.

Law Student, and Notary Public in and for the said County of Storey, and Territory of Nevada.

To Miss Mary Links, Virginia (and may the laws have her in their holy keeping).[Pg 1821]

SETTIN' BY THE FIRE BY FRANK L. STANTON

Never much on stirrin' roun'
(Sich warn't his desire),
Allers certain to be foun'
Settin' by the fire.

When the frost wuz comin' down—
Col' win' creepin' nigher,
Spent each day jest thataway—
Settin' by the fire.

When the dancin' shook the groun'—
Raised the ol' roof higher,
Never swung the gals eroun'—
Sot thar' by the fire.

Same ol' corner night an' day—
Never 'peared to tire;
Not a blessed word to say!
Jest sot by the fire.

When he died, by slow degrees,
Folks said: "He's gone higher;"
But it's my opinion he's
Settin' by the fire.
[Pg 1822]

THE WHISPERER BY IRONQUILL

He never tried to make a speech;
A speech was far beyond his reach.
He didn't even dare to try;