The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (ebook reader online .txt) 📖
- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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"I'll tell you how," suggested Presidio. "Let Mr. Holt be the one to tell Mr. Curtis. He deserves the privilege of informing the governor."
"The very thing, Holt, old chap!" cried Carrington. "Will you do it?"
"You're awfully kind," answered Holt, "but I think this old friend could do it with more art and understanding."
"What, my Willie?" cried Willie's wife. "He'll do it to the Queen's taste. Won't you, Willie?"
"I will, in company with Mr. Holt—my friend and your admirer. He sits in front every night," he added, in explanation to Carrington.
As the carriage with the happy pair drove away to the station, Presidio, with compulsive ardor, took the arm of Mr. Francis Holt; and together they marched up the avenue to inform Mr. Curtis of the marriage of his daughter.[Pg 1239]
TWO CASES OF GRIP BY M. QUAD"What's this! What's this!" exclaimed Mr. Bowser, as he came home the other evening and found Mrs. Bowser lying on the sofa and looking very much distressed.
"The doctor says it's the grip—a second attack," she explained. "I was taken with a chill and headache about noon and—"
"Grip? Second attack? That's all nonsense, Mrs. Bowser! Nobody can have the grip a second time."
"But the doctor says so."
"Then the doctor is an idiot, and I'll tell him so to his face. I know what's the matter with you. You've been walking around the backyard barefoot or doing some other foolish thing. I expected it, however. No woman is happy unless she's flat down about half the time. How on earth any of your sex manage to live to be twenty years old is a mystery to me. The average woman has no more sense than a rag baby."
"I haven't been careless," she replied.
"I know better! Of course you have! If you hadn't been you wouldn't be where you are. Grip be hanged! Well, it's only right that you should suffer for it. Call it what you wish, but don't expect any sympathy from me. While I use every precaution to preserve my health, you go sloshing around in your bare feet, or sit on a cake of ice to read a dime novel, or do some other tomfool[Pg 1240] thing to flatten you out. I refuse to sympathize with you, Mrs. Bowser—absolutely and teetotally refuse to utter one word of pity."
Mrs. Bowser had nothing to say in reply. Mr. Bowser ate his dinner alone, took advantage of the occasion to drive a few nails and make a great noise, and by and by went off to his club and was gone until midnight. Next morning Mrs. Bowser felt a bit better and made a heroic attempt to be about until he started for the office.
The only reference he made to her illness was to say:
"If you live to be three hundred years old, you may possibly learn something about the laws of health and be able to keep out of bed three days in a week."
Mrs. Bowser was all right at the end of three or four days, and nothing more was said. Then one afternoon at three o'clock a carriage drove up and a stranger assisted Mr. Bowser into the house. He was looking pale and ghastly, and his chin quivered, and his knees wabbled.
"What is it, Mr. Bowser?" she exclaimed, as she met him at the door.
"Bed—doctor—death!" he gasped in reply.
Mrs. Bowser got him to bed and examined him for bullet holes or knife wounds. There were none. He had no broken limbs. He hadn't fallen off a horse or been half drowned. When she had satisfied herself on these points, she asked:
"How were you taken?"
"W-with a c-chill!" he gasped—"with a c-chill and a b-backache!"
"I thought so. Mr. Bowser, you have the grip—a second attack. As I have some medicine left, there's no need to send for the doctor. I'll have you all right in a day or two."
"Get the doctor at once," wailed Mr. Bowser, "or I'm[Pg 1241] a dead man! Such a backache! So cold! Mrs. Bowser, if I should d-die, I hope—"
Emotion overcame Mr. Bowser, and he could say no more. The doctor came and pronounced it a second attack of the grip, but a very mild one. When he had departed, Mrs. Bowser didn't accuse Mr. Bowser with putting on his summer flannels a month too soon; with forgetting his umbrella and getting soaked through; with leaving his rubbers at home and having damp feet all day. She didn't express her wonder that he hadn't died years ago, nor predict that when he reached the age of Methuselah he would know better than to roll in snow-banks or stand around in mud puddles. She didn't kick over chairs or slam doors or leave him alone. When Mr. Bowser shed tears, she wiped them away. When he moaned, she held his hand. When he said he felt that the grim specter was near, and wanted to kiss the baby good-by, she cheered him with the prediction that he would be a great deal better next day.
Mr. Bowser didn't get up next day, though the doctor said he could. He lay in bed and sighed and uttered sorrowful moans and groans. He wanted toast and preserves; he had to have help to turn over; he worried about a relapse; he had to have a damp cloth on his forehead; he wanted to have a council of doctors, and he read the copy of his last will and testament over three times.
Mr. Bowser was all right next morning, however. When Mrs. Bowser asked him how he felt he replied:
"How do I feel? Why, as right as a trivet, of course. When a man takes the care of himself that I do—when he has the nerve and will power I have—he can throw off 'most anything. You would have died, Mrs. Bowser; but I was scarcely affected. It was just a play spell. I'd like to be real sick once just to see how it would seem.[Pg 1242] Cholera, I suppose it was; but outside of feeling a little tired, I wasn't at all affected."
And the dutiful Mrs. Bowser looked at him and swallowed it all and never said a word to hurt his feelings.[Pg 1243]
ALPHABET OF CELEBRITIES BY OLIVER HERFORDHe's invented a clever contrivance for Eve,
Who complained that she never could laugh in her sleeve.
On Omar, that awfully dissolute Persian,
Though secretly longing to join the diversion.
To Rollo and Rembrandt, who wish they were deaf.
The good, and the beautiful, visits the Zoo,
Where he chances on Sappho and Mr. Sardou,
And Socrates, all with the same end in view.
For Washington, Wesley and good Dr. Watts;
His prurient plots pained Wesley and Watts,
But Washington said he "enjoyed them in spots."
[Pg 1244] NONSENSE VERSES BY GELETT BURGESS 1
But One have I;
The Window-Panes are in its sash,—
I wonder why!
2
They hoist me up the Stairs;
I only have to steer them and
They ride me everywheres.
3
See—Elliptical wheels on a Cart!
It looks very fair
In the Picture up there;
But imagine the Ride when you start!
4
I'd rather have Ears than a Nose
And as for my hair,
I'm glad it's all there,
I'll be awfully sad when it goes!
[Pg 1245] 5
I don't so much care for a Door,
But this walking around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore!
[Pg 1246] THE SIEGE OF DJKLXPRWBZ BY IRONQUILL
The Russians came,
And with huge cannon
Did bombard the same.
And rained fat bombshells down,
And blew out every
Vowel in the town.
Becoming somewhat sad,
Surrendered every
Consonant they had.
[Pg 1247] THE GOAT BY R.K. MUNKITTRICK
Where alien cats the larder note,
In solemn grandeur stands the goat.
And while the drafts about him swarm,
He eats the coal to keep him warm.
[Pg 1248] IN DEFENSE OF AN OFFERING BY SEWELL FORD
Gracious! You're not going to smoke again? I do believe, my dear, that you're getting to be a regular, etc., etc. (Voice from across the reading table.)
A slave to tobacco! Not I. Singular, the way you women misuse nouns. I am, rather, a chosen acolyte in the temple of Nicotiana. Daily, aye, thrice daily—well, call it six, then—do I make burnt offering. Now some use censers of clay, others employ censers of rare white earth finely carved and decked with silver and gold. My particular censer, as you see, is a plain, honest briar, a root dug from the banks of the blue Garonne, whose only glory is its grain and color. The original tint, if you remember, was like that of new-cut cedar, but use—I've been smoking this one only two years now—has given it gloss and depth of tone which put the finest mahogany to shame. Let me rub it on my sleeve. Now look!
There are no elaborate mummeries about our service in the temple of Nicotiana. No priest or pastor, no robed muezzin or gowned prelate calls me to the altar. Neither is there fixed hour or prescribed point of the compass towards which I must turn. Whenever the mood comes and the spirit listeth, I make devotion.
There are various methods, numerous brief litanies. Mine is a common and simple one. I take the cut Indian leaf in the left palm, so, and roll it gently about with the right, thus. Next I pack it firmly in the censer's hollow bowl with neither too firm nor too light a pressure. Any[Pg 1249] fire will do. The torch need not be blessed. Thanks, I have a match.
Now we are ready. With the surplus breath of life you draw in the fragrant spirit of the weed. With slow, reluctant outbreathing you loose it on the quiet air. Behold! That which was but a dead thing, lives. Perhaps we have released the soul of some brave red warrior who, long years ago, fell in glorious battle and mingled his dust with the unforgetting earth. Each puff may give everlasting liberty to some dead and gone aboriginal. If you listen you may hear his far-off chant. Through the curling blue wreaths you may catch a glimpse of the happy hunting grounds to which he has now gone. That is the part of the service whose losing or gaining depends upon yourself.
The first whiff is the invocation, the last the benediction. When you knock out the ashes you should feel conscious that you have done a good deed, that the offering has not been made in vain.
Slave! Still that odious word? Well, have it your own way. Worshipers at every shrine have been thus persecuted.[Pg 1250]
HE AND SHE BY IRONQUILLSaid he,
To ever find another man
Like me.
You do,
I'd ever want another man
Like you?
[Pg 1251] THE NOTARY OF PERIGUEUX BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Do not trust thy body with a physician. He'll make thy foolish bones go without flesh in a fortnight, and thy soul walk without a body a sennight after.
Shirley.
You must know, gentlemen, that there lived some years ago, in the city of Périgueux, an honest notary-public, the descendant of a very ancient and broken-down family,
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