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Title: Merry Tales

Author: Mark Twain

Editor: Arthur Griffin Stedman

Release date: December 10, 2019 [eBook #60900]
                Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERRY TALES ***

                    Fiction, Fact, and Fancy Series

                        EDITED BY ARTHUR STEDMAN


                              MERRY TALES




                    Fiction, Fact, and Fancy Series.


        MERRY TALES.

                               BY MARK TWAIN.

        THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND HIS EASTERN NEIGHBORS.

                            BY POULTNEY BIGELOW.

        SELECTED POEMS.

                              BY WALT WHITMAN.

        DON FINIMONDONE: CALABRIAN SKETCHES.

                           BY ELISABETH CAVAZZA.

                    _Other Volumes to be Announced._


              Bound in Illuminated Cloth, each, 75 Cents.

      ⁂ _For Sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid, on receipt
                     of price, by the Publishers_,

                   CHAS. L. WEBSTER & CO., NEW YORK.




                              MERRY TALES

                                   BY

                               MARK TWAIN


                                New York
                        CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO.
                                  1892




                            Copyright, 1892,
                        CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO.
                        (_All rights reserved._)


                                PRESS OF
                           JENKINS & MCCOWAN,
                               NEW YORK.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             EDITOR’S NOTE.


The projector of this Series has had in mind the evident desire of our
people, largely occupied with material affairs, for reading in a shape
adapted to the amount of time at their disposal. Until recently this
desire has been satisfied chiefly from foreign sources. Many reprints
and translations of the little classics of other literatures than our
own have been made, and much good has been done in this way. On the
other hand, a great deal of rubbish has been distributed in the same
fashion, to the undoubted injury of our popular taste.

Now that a reasonable copyright law allows the publication of the better
class of native literature at moderate prices, it has seemed fitting
that these volumes should consist mainly of works by American writers.
As its title indicates, the “Fiction, Fact, and Fancy Series” will
include not only fiction and poetry, but such essays, monographs, and
biographical sketches as may appear, from time to time, to be called
for.

To no writer can the term “American” more justly be applied than to the
humorist whose “Merry Tales” are here presented. It was in an effort to
devise some novel method of bringing these stories, new and old, before
the public, that this Series had its origin. But, aside from this, those
among us who can gather figs of thistles are so few in number as to make
their presence eminently desirable.

 NEW YORK, March, 1892.


_Acknowledgment should be made to the Century Company, and to Messrs.
Harper & Brothers, for kind permission to reprint several of these
stories from the “Century” and “Harper’s Magazine.”_




                               CONTENTS.


                                                         PAGE
          THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED,    9

          THE INVALID’S STORY,                             51

          LUCK,                                            66

          THE CAPTAIN’S STORY,                             76

          A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE,                            85

          MRS. MCWILLIAMS AND THE LIGHTNING,              144

          MEISTERSCHAFT,                                  161




                              MERRY TALES.




             THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED.


You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is
it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started
out to do something in it, but didn’t? Thousands entered the war, got
just a taste of it, and then stepped out again, permanently. These, by
their very numbers, are respectable, and are therefore entitled to a
sort of voice,—not a loud one, but a modest one; not a boastful one, but
an apologetic one. They ought not to be allowed much space among better
people—people who did something—I grant that; but they ought at least to
be allowed to state why they didn’t do anything, and also to explain the
process by which they didn’t do anything. Surely this kind of light must
have a sort of value.

Out West there was a good deal of confusion in men’s minds during the
first months of the great trouble—a good deal of unsettledness, of
leaning first this way, then that, then the other way. It was hard for
us to get our bearings. I call to mind an instance of this. I was
piloting on the Mississippi when the news came that South Carolina had
gone out of the Union on the 20th of December, 1860. My pilot-mate was a
New Yorker. He was strong for the Union; so was I. But he would not
listen to me with any patience; my loyalty was smirched, to his eye,
because my father had owned slaves. I said, in palliation of this dark
fact, that I had heard my father say, some years before he died, that
slavery was a great wrong, and that he would free the solitary negro he
then owned if he could think it right to give away the property of the
family when he was so straitened in means. My mate retorted that a mere
impulse was nothing—anybody could pretend to a good impulse; and went on
decrying my Unionism and libeling my ancestry. A month later the
secession atmosphere had considerably thickened on the Lower
Mississippi, and I became a rebel; so did he. We were together in New
Orleans, the 26th of January, when Louisiana went out of the Union. He
did his full share of the rebel shouting, but was bitterly opposed to
letting me do mine. He said that I came of bad stock—of a father who had
been willing to set slaves free. In the following summer he was piloting
a Federal gun-boat and shouting for the Union again, and I was in the
Confederate army. I held his note for some borrowed money. He was one of
the most upright men I ever knew; but he repudiated that note without
hesitation, because I was a rebel, and the son of a man who owned
slaves.

In that summer—of 1861—the first wash of the wave of war broke upon the
shores of Missouri. Our State was invaded by the Union forces. They took
possession of St. Louis, Jefferson Barracks, and some other points. The
Governor, Claib Jackson, issued his proclamation calling out fifty
thousand militia to repel the invader.

I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been
spent—Hannibal, Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret
place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One Tom
Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of no military
experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no
first lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen
of us. By the advice of an innocent connected with the organization, we
called ourselves the Marion Rangers. I do not remember that any one
found fault with the name. I did not; I thought it sounded quite well.
The young fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a fair sample of
the kind of stuff we were made of. He was young, ignorant, good-natured,
well-meaning, trivial, full of romance, and given to reading chivalric
novels and singing forlorn love-ditties. He had some pathetic little
nickel-plated aristocratic instincts, and detested his name, which was
Dunlap; detested it, partly because it was nearly as common in that
region as Smith, but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to his ear.
So he tried to ennoble it by writing it in this way: _d’Unlap_. That
contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave the new
name the same old pronunciation—emphasis on the front end of it. He then
did the bravest thing that can be imagined,—a thing to make one shiver
when one remembers how the world is given to resenting shams and
affectations; he began to write his name so: _d’Un Lap_. And he waited
patiently through the long storm of mud that was flung at this work of
art, and he had his reward at last; for he lived to see that name
accepted, and the emphasis put where he wanted it, by people who had
known him all his life, and to whom the tribe of Dunlaps had been as
familiar as the rain and the sunshine for forty years. So sure of
victory at last is the courage that can wait. He said he had found, by
consulting some ancient French chronicles, that the name was rightly and
originally written d’Un Lap; and said that if it were translated into
English it would mean Peterson: _Lap_, Latin or Greek, he said, for
stone or rock, same as the French _pierre_, that is to say, Peter; _d’_,
of or from; _un_, a or one; hence, d’Un Lap, of or from a stone or a
Peter; that is to say, one who is the son of a stone, the son of a
Peter—Peterson. Our militia company were not learned, and the
explanation confused them; so they called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved
useful to us in his way; he named our camps for us, and he generally
struck a name that was “no slouch,” as the boys said.

That is one sample of us. Another was Ed Stevens, son of the town
jeweler,—trim-built, handsome, graceful, neat as a cat; bright,
educated, but given over entirely to fun. There was nothing serious in
life to him. As far as he was concerned, this military expedition of
ours was simply a holiday. I should say that about half of us looked
upon it in the same way; not consciously, perhaps, but unconsciously. We
did not think; we were not capable of it. As for myself, I was full of
unreasoning joy to be done with turning out of bed at midnight and four
in the morning, for a while; grateful to have a change, new scenes, new
occupations, a new interest. In my thoughts that was as far as I went; I
did not go into the details; as a rule one doesn’t at twenty-four.

Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith’s apprentice. This vast donkey
had some pluck, of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart; at one
time he would knock a horse down for some impropriety, and at another he
would get homesick and cry. However, he had one ultimate credit to his
account which some of us hadn’t: he stuck to the war, and was killed in
battle at last.

Jo Bowers, another sample, was a huge, good-natured, flax-headed lubber;
lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature; an
experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar,
and yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training,
but was allowed to come up just any way. This life was serious enough to
him, and seldom satisfactory. But he was a good fellow anyway, and the
boys all liked him. He was made orderly sergeant; Stevens was made
corporal.

These samples will answer—and they are quite fair ones. Well, this herd
of cattle started for the war. What could you expect of them? They did
as well as they knew how, but really what was justly to be expected of
them? Nothing, I should say. That is what they did.

We waited for a dark night, for caution and secrecy were necessary;
then, toward midnight, we stole in couples and from various directions
to the Griffith place, beyond the town; from that point we set out
together on foot. Hannibal lies at the extreme southeastern corner of
Marion County, on the Mississippi River; our objective point was the
hamlet of New London, ten miles away, in Ralls County.

The first hour was all fun, all idle nonsense and laughter. But that
could not be kept up. The steady trudging came to be like work; the play
had somehow oozed out of it; the stillness of the woods and the
somberness of the night began to throw a depressing influence over the
spirits of the boys, and presently the talking died out and each person
shut himself up in his own thoughts. During the last half of the second
hour nobody said a word.

Now we approached a log farm-house where, according to report, there was
a guard of five Union soldiers. Lyman called a halt; and there, in the
deep gloom of the overhanging branches, he began to whisper a plan of
assault upon that house, which made the gloom more depressing than it
was before. It was a crucial moment; we realized, with a cold
suddenness, that here was no jest—we were standing face to face with
actual war. We were equal to the occasion. In our response there was no
hesitation, no indecision: we said that if Lyman wanted to meddle with
those soldiers, he could go ahead and do it; but if he waited for us to
follow him, he would wait a long time.

Lyman urged, pleaded, tried to shame us, but it had no effect. Our
course was plain, our minds were made up: we would flank the
farm-house—go out around. And that is what we did.

We struck into the woods and entered upon a rough time, stumbling over
roots, getting tangled in vines, and torn by briers. At last we reached
an open place in a safe region, and sat down, blown and hot, to cool off
and nurse our scratches and bruises. Lyman was annoyed, but the rest of
us were cheerful; we had flanked the farm-house, we had made our first
military movement, and it was a success; we had nothing to fret about,
we were feeling just the other way. Horse-play and laughing began again;
the expedition was become a holiday frolic once more.

Then we had two more hours of dull trudging and ultimate silence and
depression; then, about dawn, we straggled into New London, soiled,
heel-blistered, fagged with our little march, and all of us except
Stevens in a sour and raspy humor and privately down on the war. We
stacked our shabby old shot-guns in Colonel Ralls’s barn, and then went
in a body and breakfasted with that veteran of the Mexican War.
Afterwards he took us to a distant meadow, and there in the shade of a
tree we listened to an old-fashioned speech from him, full of gunpowder
and glory, full of that adjective-piling, mixed metaphor, and windy
declamation which was regarded as eloquence in that ancient time and
that remote region; and then he swore us on the Bible to be faithful to
the State of Missouri and drive all invaders from her soil, no matter
whence they might come or under what flag they might march. This mixed
us considerably, and we could not make out just what service we were
embarked in; but Colonel Ralls, the practiced politician and
phrase-juggler, was not similarly in doubt; he knew quite clearly that
he had invested us in the cause of the Southern Confederacy. He closed
the solemnities by belting around me the sword which his neighbor,
Colonel Brown, had worn at Buena Vista and Molino del Rey; and he
accompanied this act with another impressive blast.

Then we formed in line of battle and marched four miles to a shady and
pleasant piece of woods on the border of the far-reaching expanses of a
flowery prairie. It was an enchanting region for war—our kind of war.

We pierced the forest about half a mile, and took up a strong position,
with some low, rocky, and wooded hills behind us, and a purling, limpid
creek in front. Straightway half the command were in swimming, and the
other half fishing. The ass with the French name gave this position a
romantic title, but it was too long, so the boys shortened and
simplified it to Camp Ralls.

We occupied an old maple-sugar camp, whose half-rotted troughs were
still propped against the trees. A long corn-crib served for sleeping
quarters for the battalion. On our left, half a mile away, was Mason’s
farm and house; and he was a friend to the cause. Shortly after noon the
farmers began to arrive from several directions, with mules and horses
for our use, and these they lent us for as long as the war might last,
which they judged would be about three months. The animals were of all
sizes, all colors, and all breeds. They were mainly young and frisky,
and nobody in the command could stay on them long at a time; for we were
town boys, and ignorant of horsemanship. The creature that fell to my
share was a very small mule, and yet so quick and active that it could
throw me without difficulty; and it did this whenever I got on it. Then
it would bray—stretching its neck out, laying its ears back, and
spreading its jaws till you could see down to its works. It was a
disagreeable animal, in every way. If I took it by the bridle and tried
to lead it off the grounds, it would sit down and brace back, and no one
could budge it. However, I was not entirely destitute of military
resources, and I did presently manage to spoil this game; for I had seen
many a steamboat aground in my time, and knew a trick or two which even
a grounded mule would be obliged to respect. There was a well by the
corn-crib; so I substituted thirty fathom of rope for the bridle, and
fetched him home with the windlass.

I will anticipate here sufficiently to say that we did learn to ride,
after some days’ practice, but never well. We could not learn to like
our animals; they were not choice ones, and most of them had annoying
peculiarities of one kind or another. Stevens’s horse would carry him,
when he was not noticing, under the huge excrescences which form on the
trunks of oak-trees, and wipe him out of the saddle; in this way Stevens
got several bad hurts. Sergeant Bowers’s horse was very large and tall,
with slim, long legs, and looked like a railroad bridge. His size
enabled him to reach all about, and as far as he wanted to, with his
head; so he was always biting Bowers’s legs. On the march, in the sun,
Bowers slept a good deal; and as soon as the horse recognized that he
was asleep he would reach around and bite him on the leg. His legs were
black and blue with bites. This was the only thing that could ever make
him swear, but this always did; whenever the horse bit him he always
swore, and of course Stevens, who laughed at everything, laughed at
this, and would even get into such convulsions over it as to lose his
balance and fall off his horse; and then Bowers, already irritated by
the pain of the horse-bite, would resent the laughter with hard
language, and there would be a quarrel; so that horse made no end of
trouble and bad blood in the command.

However, I will get back to where I was—our first afternoon in the sugar
camp. The sugar-troughs came very handy as horse-troughs, and we had
plenty of corn to fill them with. I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed my
mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be dry-nurse to a
mule, it wouldn’t take me very long to find out my mistake. I believed
that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about
everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered
Smith, the blacksmith’s apprentice, to feed the mule; but he merely gave
me a large, cold, sarcastic grin, such as an ostensibly seven-year-old
horse gives you when you lift his lip and find he is fourteen, and
turned his back on me. I then went to the captain, and asked if it was
not right and proper and military for me to have an orderly. He said it
was, but as there was only one orderly in the corps, it was but right
that he himself should have Bowers on his staff. Bowers said he wouldn’t
serve on anybody’s staff; and if anybody thought he could make him, let
him try it. So, of course, the thing had to be dropped; there was no
other way.

Next, nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no
dinner. We lazied the rest of the pleasant afternoon away, some dozing
under the trees, some smoking cob-pipes and talking sweethearts and war,
some playing games. By late supper-time all hands were famished; and to
meet the difficulty all hands turned to, on an equal footing, and
gathered wood, built fires, and cooked the meal. Afterward everything
was smooth for a while; then trouble broke out between the corporal and
the sergeant, each claiming to rank the other. Nobody knew which was the
higher office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of
both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has
many troubles and vexations which probably do not occur in the regular
army at all. However, with the song-singing and yarn-spinning around the
camp-fire, everything presently became serene again; and by and by we
raked the corn down level in one end of the crib, and all went to bed on
it, tying a horse to the door, so that he would neigh if any one tried
to get in.[1]

Footnote 1:

  It was always my impression that that was what the horse was there
  for, and I know that it was also the impression of at least one other
  of the command, for we talked about it at the time, and admired the
  military ingenuity of the device; but when I was out West three years
  ago I was told by Mr. A. G. Fuqua, a member of our company, that the
  horse was his, that the leaving him tied at the door was a matter of
  mere forgetfulness, and that to attribute it to intelligent invention
  was to give him quite too much credit. In support of his position, he
  called my attention to the suggestive fact that the artifice was not
  employed again. I had not thought of that before.

We had some horsemanship drill every forenoon; then, afternoons, we rode
off here and there in squads a few miles, and visited the farmers’
girls, and had a youthful good time, and got an honest good dinner or
supper, and then home again to camp, happy and content.

For a time, life was idly delicious, it was perfect; there was nothing
to mar it. Then came some farmers with an alarm one day. They said it
was rumored that the enemy were advancing in our direction, from over
Hyde’s prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us, and general
consternation. It was a rude awakening from our pleasant trance. The
rumor was but a rumor—nothing definite about it; so, in the confusion,
we did not know which way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating at
all, in these uncertain circumstances; but he found that if he tried to
maintain that attitude he would fare badly, for the command were in no
humor to put up with insubordination. So he yielded the point and called
a council of war—to consist of himself and the three other officers; but
the privates made such a fuss about being left out, that we had to allow
them to remain, for they were already present, and doing the most of the
talking too. The question was, which way to retreat; but all were so
flurried that nobody seemed to have even a guess to offer. Except Lyman.
He explained in a few calm words, that inasmuch as the enemy were
approaching from over Hyde’s prairie, our course was simple: all we had
to do was not to retreat _toward_ him; any other direction would answer
our needs perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how true this was, and
how wise; so Lyman got a great many compliments. It was now decided that
we should fall back on Mason’s farm.

It was after dark by this time, and as we could not know how soon the
enemy might arrive, it did not seem best to try to take the horses and
things with us; so we only took the guns and ammunition, and started at
once. The route was very rough and hilly and rocky, and presently the
night grew very black and rain began to fall; so we had a troublesome
time of it, struggling and stumbling along in the dark; and soon some
person slipped and fell, and then the next person behind stumbled over
him and fell, and so did the rest, one after the other; and then Bowers
came with the keg of powder in his arms, whilst the command were all
mixed together, arms and legs, on the muddy slope; and so he fell, of
course, with the keg, and this started the whole detachment down the
hill in a body, and they landed in the brook at the bottom in a pile,
and each that was undermost pulling the hair and scratching and biting
those that were on top of him; and those that were being scratched and
bitten, scratching and biting the rest in their turn, and all saying
they would die before they would ever go to war again if they ever got
out of this brook this time, and the invader might rot for all they
cared, and the country along with him—and all such talk as that, which
was dismal to hear and take part in, in such smothered, low voices, and
such a grisly dark place and so wet, and the enemy may be coming any
moment.

The keg of powder was lost, and the guns too; so the growling and
complaining continued straight along whilst the brigade pawed around the
pasty hillside and slopped around in the brook hunting for these things;
consequently we lost considerable time at this; and then we heard a
sound, and held our breath and listened, and it seemed to be the enemy
coming, though it could have been a cow, for it had a cough like a cow;
but we did not wait, but left a couple of guns behind and struck out for
Mason’s again as briskly as we could scramble along in the dark. But we
got lost presently among the rugged little ravines, and wasted a deal of
time finding the way again, so it was after nine when we reached Mason’s
stile at last; and then before we could open our mouths to give the
countersign, several dogs came bounding over the fence, with great riot
and noise, and each of them took a soldier by the slack of his trousers
and began to back away with him. We could not shoot the dogs without
endangering the persons they were attached to; so we had to look on,
helpless, at what was perhaps the most mortifying spectacle of the civil
war. There was light enough, and to spare, for the Masons had now run
out on the porch with candles in their hands. The old man and his son
came and undid the dogs without difficulty, all but Bowers’s; but they
couldn’t undo his dog, they didn’t know his combination; he was of the
bull kind, and seemed to be set with a Yale time-lock; but they got him
loose at last with some scalding water, of which Bowers got his share
and returned thanks. Peterson Dunlap afterwards made up a fine name for
this engagement, and also for the night march which preceded it, but
both have long ago faded out of my memory.

We now went into the house, and they began to ask us a world of
questions, whereby it presently came out that we did not know anything
concerning who or what we were running from; so the old gentleman made
himself very frank, and said we were a curious breed of soldiers, and
guessed we could be depended on to end up the war in time, because no
government could stand the expense of the shoe-leather we should cost it
trying to follow us around. “Marion _Rangers_! good name, b’gosh!” said
he. And wanted to know why we hadn’t had a picket-guard at the place
where the road entered the prairie, and why we hadn’t sent out a
scouting party to spy out the enemy and bring us an account of his
strength, and so on, before jumping up and stampeding out of a strong
position upon a mere vague rumor—and so on, and so forth, till he made
us all feel shabbier than the dogs had done, not half so
enthusiastically welcome. So we went to bed shamed and low-spirited;
except Stevens. Soon Stevens began to devise a garment for Bowers which
could be made to automatically display his battle-scars to the grateful,
or conceal them from the envious, according to his occasions; but Bowers
was in no humor for this, so there was a fight, and when it was over
Stevens had some battle-scars of his own to think about.

Then we got a little sleep. But after all we had gone through, our
activities were not over for the night; for about two o’clock in the
morning we heard a shout of warning from down the lane, accompanied by a
chorus from all the dogs, and in a moment everybody was up and flying
around to find out what the alarm was about. The alarmist was a horseman
who gave notice that a detachment of Union soldiers was on its way from
Hannibal with orders to capture and hang any bands like ours which it
could find, and said we had no time to lose. Farmer Mason was in a
flurry this time, himself. He hurried us out of the house with all
haste, and sent one of his negroes with us to show us where to hide
ourselves and our tell-tale guns among the ravines half a mile away. It
was raining heavily.

We struck down the lane, then across some rocky pasture-land which
offered good advantages for stumbling; consequently we were down in the
mud most of the time, and every time a man went down he blackguarded the
war, and the people that started it, and everybody connected with it,
and gave himself the master dose of all for being so foolish as to go
into it. At last we reached the wooded mouth of a ravine, and there we
huddled ourselves under the streaming trees, and sent the negro back
home. It was a dismal and heart-breaking time. We were like to be
drowned with the rain, deafened with the howling wind and the booming
thunder, and blinded by the lightning. It was indeed a wild night. The
drenching we were getting was misery enough, but a deeper misery still
was the reflection that the halter might end us before we were a day
older. A death of this shameful sort had not occurred to us as being
among the possibilities of war. It took the romance all out of the
campaign, and turned our dreams of glory into a repulsive nightmare. As
for doubting that so barbarous an order had been given, not one of us
did that.

The long night wore itself out at last, and then the negro came to us
with the news that the alarm had manifestly been a false one, and that
breakfast would soon be ready. Straightway we were light-hearted again,
and the world was bright, and life as full of hope and promise as
ever—for we were young then. How long ago that was! Twenty-four years.

The mongrel child of philology named the night’s refuge Camp
Devastation, and no soul objected. The Masons gave us a Missouri country
breakfast, in Missourian abundance, and we needed it: hot biscuits; hot
“wheat bread” prettily criss-crossed in a lattice pattern on top; hot
corn pone; fried chicken; bacon, coffee, eggs, milk, buttermilk,
etc.;—and the world may be confidently challenged to furnish the equal
to such a breakfast, as it is cooked in the South.

We staid several days at Mason’s; and after all these years the memory
of the dulness, the stillness and lifelessness of that slumberous
farm-house still oppresses my spirit as with a sense of the presence of
death and mourning. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about;
there was no interest in life. The male part of the household were away
in the fields all day, the women were busy and out of our sight; there
was no sound but the plaintive wailing of a spinning-wheel, forever
moaning out from some distant room,—the most lonesome sound in nature, a
sound steeped and sodden with homesickness and the emptiness of life.
The family went to bed about dark every night, and as we were not
invited to intrude any new customs, we naturally followed theirs. Those
nights were a hundred years long to youths accustomed to being up till
twelve. We lay awake and miserable till that hour every time, and grew
old and decrepit waiting through the still eternities for the
clock-strikes. This was no place for town boys. So at last it was with
something very like joy that we received news that the enemy were on our
track again. With a new birth of the old warrior spirit, we sprang to
our places in line of battle and fell back on Camp Ralls.

Captain Lyman had taken a hint from Mason’s talk, and he now gave orders
that our camp should be guarded against surprise by the posting of
pickets. I was ordered to place a picket at the forks of the road in
Hyde’s prairie. Night shut down black and threatening. I told Sergeant
Bowers to go out to that place and stay till midnight; and, just as I
was expecting, he said he wouldn’t do it. I tried to get others to go,
but all refused. Some excused themselves on account of the weather; but
the rest were frank enough to say they wouldn’t go in any kind of
weather. This kind of thing sounds odd now, and impossible, but there
was no surprise in it at the time. On the contrary, it seemed a
perfectly natural thing to do. There were scores of little camps
scattered over Missouri where the same thing was happening. These camps
were composed of young men who had been born and reared to a sturdy
independence, and who did not know what it meant to be ordered around by
Tom, Dick, and Harry, whom they had known familiarly all their lives, in
the village or on the farm. It is quite within the probabilities that
this same thing was happening all over the South. James Redpath
recognized the justice of this assumption, and furnished the following
instance in support of it. During a short stay in East Tennessee he was
in a citizen colonel’s tent one day, talking, when a big private
appeared at the door, and without salute or other circumlocution said to
the colonel,—

“Say, Jim, I’m a-goin’ home for a few days.”

“What for?”

“Well, I hain’t b’en there for a right smart while, and I’d like to see
how things is comin’ on.”

“How long are you going to be gone?”

“’Bout two weeks.”

“Well, don’t be gone longer than that; and get back sooner if you can.”

That was all, and the citizen officer resumed his conversation where the
private had broken it off. This was in the first months of the war, of
course. The camps in our part of Missouri were under Brigadier-General
Thomas H. Harris. He was a townsman of ours, a first-rate fellow, and
well liked; but we had all familiarly known him as the sole and
modest-salaried operator in our telegraph office, where he had to send
about one despatch a week in ordinary times, and two when there was a
rush of business; consequently, when he appeared in our midst one day,
on the wing, and delivered a military command of some sort, in a large
military fashion, nobody was surprised at the response which he got from
the assembled soldiery,—

“Oh, now, what’ll you take to _don’t_, Tom Harris!”

It was quite the natural thing. One might justly imagine that we were
hopeless material for war. And so we seemed, in our ignorant state; but
there were those among us who afterward learned the grim trade; learned
to obey like machines; became valuable soldiers; fought all through the
war, and came out at the end with excellent records. One of the very
boys who refused to go out on picket duty that night, and called me an
ass for thinking he would expose himself to danger in such a foolhardy
way, had become distinguished for intrepidity before he was a year
older.

I did secure my picket that night—not by authority, but by diplomacy. I
got Bowers to go, by agreeing to exchange ranks with him for the time
being, and go along and stand the watch with him as his subordinate. We
staid out there a couple of dreary hours in the pitchy darkness and the
rain, with nothing to modify the dreariness but Bowers’s monotonous
growlings at the war and the weather; then we began to nod, and
presently found it next to impossible to stay in the saddle; so we gave
up the tedious job, and went back to the camp without waiting for the
relief guard. We rode into camp without interruption or objection from
anybody, and the enemy could have done the same, for there were no
sentries. Everybody was asleep; at midnight there was nobody to send out
another picket, so none was sent. We never tried to establish a watch at
night again, as far as I remember, but we generally kept a picket out in
the daytime.

In that camp the whole command slept on the corn in the big corn-crib;
and there was usually a general row before morning, for the place was
full of rats, and they would scramble over the boys’ bodies and faces,
annoying and irritating everybody; and now and then they would bite some
one’s toe, and the person who owned the toe would start up and magnify
his English and begin to throw corn in the dark. The ears were half as
heavy as bricks, and when they struck they hurt. The persons struck
would respond, and inside of five minutes every man would be locked in a
death-grip with his neighbor. There was a grievous deal of blood shed in
the corn-crib, but this was all that was spilt while I was in the war.
No, that is not quite true. But for one circumstance it would have been
all. I will come to that now.

Our scares were frequent. Every few days rumors would come that the
enemy were approaching. In these cases we always fell back on some other
camp of ours; we never staid where we were. But the rumors always turned
out to be false; so at last even we began to grow indifferent to them.
One night a negro was sent to our corn-crib with the same old warning:
the enemy was hovering in our neighborhood. We all said let him hover.
We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. It was a fine warlike
resolution, and no doubt we all felt the stir of it in our veins—for a
moment. We had been having a very jolly time, that was full of
horse-play and school-boy hilarity; but that cooled down now, and
presently the fast-waning fire of forced jokes and forced laughs died
out altogether, and the company became silent. Silent and nervous. And
soon uneasy—worried—apprehensive. We had said we would stay, and we were
committed. We could have been persuaded to go, but there was nobody
brave enough to suggest it. An almost noiseless movement presently began
in the dark, by a general but unvoiced impulse. When the movement was
completed, each man knew that he was not the only person who had crept
to the front wall and had his eye at a crack between the logs. No, we
were all there; all there with our hearts in our throats, and staring
out toward the sugar-troughs where the forest foot-path came through. It
was late, and was a deep woodsy stillness everywhere. There was a veiled
moonlight, which was only just strong enough to enable us to mark the
general shape of objects. Presently a muffled sound caught our ears, and
we recognized it as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And right away
a figure appeared in the forest path; it could have been made of smoke,
its mass had so little sharpness of outline. It was a man on horseback;
and it seemed to me that there were others behind him. I got hold of a
gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly
knowing what I was doing, I was so dazed with fright. Somebody said
“Fire!” I pulled the trigger. I seemed to see a hundred flashes and hear
a hundred reports, then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle. My
first feeling was of surprised gratification; my first impulse was an
apprentice-sportsman’s impulse to run and pick up his game. Somebody
said, hardly audibly, “Good—we’ve got him!—wait for the rest.” But the
rest did not come. We waited—listened—still no more came. There was not
a sound, not the whisper of a leaf; just perfect stillness; an uncanny
kind of stillness, which was all the more uncanny on account of the
damp, earthy, late-night smells now rising and pervading it. Then,
wondering, we crept stealthily out, and approached the man. When we got
to him the moon revealed him distinctly. He was lying on his back, with
his arms abroad; his mouth was open and his chest heaving with long
gasps, and his white shirt-front was all splashed with blood. The
thought shot through me that I was a murderer; that I had killed a man—a
man who had never done me any harm. That was the coldest sensation that
ever went through my marrow. I was down by him in a moment, helplessly
stroking his forehead; and I would have given anything then—my own life
freely—to make him again what he had been five minutes before. And all
the boys seemed to be feeling in the same way; they hung over him, full
of pitying interest, and tried all they could to help him, and said all
sorts of regretful things. They had forgotten all about the enemy; they
thought only of this one forlorn unit of the foe. Once my imagination
persuaded me that the dying man gave me a reproachful look out of his
shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I could rather he had stabbed me
than done that. He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep,
about his wife and his child; and I thought with a new despair, “This
thing that I have done does not end with him; it falls upon _them_ too,
and they never did me any harm, any more than he.”

In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war; killed in fair
and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you may say; and yet he was as
sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother.
The boys stood there a half hour sorrowing over him, and recalling the
details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a
spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him
unless he attacked them first. It soon came out that mine was not the
only shot fired; there were five others,—a division of the guilt which
was a grateful relief to me, since it in some degree lightened and
diminished the burden I was carrying. There were six shots fired at
once; but I was not in my right mind at the time, and my heated
imagination had magnified my one shot into a volley.

The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the
country; that was all we ever found out about him. The thought of him
got to preying upon me every night; I could not get rid of it. I could
not drive it away, the taking of that unoffending life seemed such a
wanton thing. And it seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just
that—the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal
animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you
found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. My
campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped
for this awful business; that war was intended for men, and I for a
child’s nurse. I resolved to retire from this avocation of sham
soldiership while I could save some remnant of my self-respect. These
morbid thoughts clung to me against reason; for at bottom I did not
believe I had touched that man. The law of probabilities decreed me
guiltless of his blood; for in all my small experience with guns I had
never hit anything I had tried to hit, and I knew I had done my best to
hit him. Yet there was no solace in the thought. Against a diseased
imagination, demonstration goes for nothing.

The rest of my war experience was of a piece with what I have already
told of it. We kept monotonously falling back upon one camp or another,
and eating up the country. I marvel now at the patience of the farmers
and their families. They ought to have shot us; on the contrary, they
were as hospitably kind and courteous to us as if we had deserved it. In
one of these camps we found Ab Grimes, an Upper Mississippi pilot, who
afterwards became famous as a dare-devil rebel spy, whose career
bristled with desperate adventures. The look and style of his comrades
suggested that they had not come into the war to play, and their deeds
made good the conjecture later. They were fine horsemen and good
revolver-shots; but their favorite arm was the lasso. Each had one at
his pommel, and could snatch a man out of the saddle with it every time,
on a full gallop, at any reasonable distance.

In another camp the chief was a fierce and profane old blacksmith of
sixty, and he had furnished his twenty recruits with gigantic home-made
bowie-knives, to be swung with the two hands, like the _machetes_ of the
Isthmus. It was a grisly spectacle to see that earnest band practicing
their murderous cuts and slashes under the eye of that remorseless old
fanatic.

The last camp which we fell back upon was in a hollow near the village
of Florida, where I was born—in Monroe County. Here we were warned, one
day, that a Union colonel was sweeping down on us with a whole regiment
at his heels. This looked decidedly serious. Our boys went apart and
consulted; then we went back and told the other companies present that
the war was a disappointment to us and we were going to disband. They
were getting ready, themselves, to fall back on some place or other, and
were only waiting for General Tom Harris, who was expected to arrive at
any moment; so they tried to persuade us to wait a little while, but the
majority of us said no, we were accustomed to falling back, and didn’t
need any of Tom Harris’s help; we could get along perfectly well without
him—and save time too. So about half of our fifteen, including myself,
mounted and left on the instant; the others yielded to persuasion and
staid—staid through the war.

An hour later we met General Harris on the road, with two or three
people in his company—his staff, probably, but we could not tell; none
of them were in uniform; uniforms had not come into vogue among us yet.
Harris ordered us back; but we told him there was a Union colonel coming
with a whole regiment in his wake, and it looked as if there was going
to be a disturbance; so we had concluded to go home. He raged a little,
but it was of no use; our minds were made up. We had done our share; had
killed one man, exterminated one army, such as it was; let him go and
kill the rest, and that would end the war. I did not see that brisk
young general again until last year; then he was wearing white hair and
whiskers.

In time I came to know that Union colonel whose coming frightened me out
of the war and crippled the Southern cause to that extent—General Grant.
I came within a few hours of seeing him when he was as unknown as I was
myself; at a time when anybody could have said, “Grant?—Ulysses S.
Grant? I do not remember hearing the name before.” It seems difficult to
realize that there was once a time when such a remark could be
rationally made; but there _was_, and I was within a few miles of the
place and the occasion too, though proceeding in the other direction.

The thoughtful will not throw this war-paper of mine lightly aside as
being valueless. It has this value: it is a not unfair picture of what
went on in many and many a militia camp in the first months of the
rebellion, when the green recruits were without discipline, without the
steadying and heartening influence of trained leaders; when all their
circumstances were new and strange, and charged with exaggerated
terrors, and before the invaluable experience of actual collision in the
field had turned them from rabbits into soldiers. If this side of the
picture of that early day has not before been put into history, then
history has been to that degree incomplete, for it had and has its
rightful place there. There was more Bull Run material scattered through
the early camps of this country than exhibited itself at Bull Run. And
yet it learned its trade presently, and helped to fight the great
battles later. I could have become a soldier myself, if I had waited. I
had got part of it learned; I knew more about retreating than the man
that invented retreating.




                          THE INVALID’S STORY.


I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due to my condition and
sufferings, for I am a bachelor, and only forty-one. It will be hard for
you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, was a hale, hearty man
two short years ago,—a man of iron, a very athlete!—yet such is the
simple truth. But stranger still than this fact is the way in which I
lost my health. I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns
on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter’s night. It is the
actual truth, and I will tell you about it.

I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter’s night, two years ago, I
reached home just after dark, in a driving snow-storm, and the first
thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood
friend and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day before, and
that his last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains
home to his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly
shocked and grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions; I must
start at once. I took the card, marked “Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem,
Wisconsin,” and hurried off through the whistling storm to the railway
station. Arrived there I found the long white-pine box which had been
described to me; I fastened the card to it with some tacks, saw it put
safely aboard the express car, and then ran into the eating-room to
provide myself with a sandwich and some cigars. When I returned,
presently, there was my coffin-box _back again_, apparently, and a young
fellow examining around it, with a card in his hand, and some tacks and
a hammer! I was astonished and puzzled. He began to nail on his card,
and I rushed out to the express car, in a good deal of a state of mind,
to ask for an explanation. But no—there was my box, all right, in the
express car; it hadn’t been disturbed. [The fact is that without my
suspecting it a prodigious mistake had been made. I was carrying off a
box of _guns_ which that young fellow had come to the station to ship to
a rifle company in Peoria, Illinois, and _he_ had got my corpse!] Just
then the conductor sung out “All aboard,” and I jumped into the express
car and got a comfortable seat on a bale of buckets. The expressman was
there, hard at work,—a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest,
good-natured face, and a breezy, practical heartiness in his general
style. As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the car and set a
package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of
my coffin-box—I mean my box of guns. That is to say, I know _now_ that
it was Limburger cheese, but at that time I never had heard of the
article in my life, and of course was wholly ignorant of its character.
Well, we sped through the wild night, the bitter storm raged on, a
cheerless misery stole over me, my heart went down, down, down! The old
expressman made a brisk remark or two about the tempest and the arctic
weather, slammed his sliding doors to, and bolted them, closed his
window down tight, and then went bustling around, here and there and
yonder, setting things to rights, and all the time contentedly humming
“Sweet By and By,” in a low tone, and flatting a good deal. Presently I
began to detect a most evil and searching odor stealing about on the
frozen air. This depressed my spirits still more, because of course I
attributed it to my poor departed friend. There was something infinitely
saddening about his calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb
pathetic way, so it was hard to keep the tears back. Moreover, it
distressed me on account of the old expressman, who, I was afraid, might
notice it. However, he went humming tranquilly on, and gave no sign; and
for this I was grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; and soon I
began to feel more and more uneasy every minute, for every minute that
went by that odor thickened up the more, and got to be more and more
gamy and hard to stand. Presently, having got things arranged to his
satisfaction, the expressman got some wood and made up a tremendous fire
in his stove. This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could not
but feel that it was a mistake. I was sure that the effect would be
deleterious upon my poor departed friend. Thompson—the expressman’s name
was Thompson, as I found out in the course of the night—now went poking
around his car, stopping up whatever stray cracks he could find,
remarking that it didn’t make any difference what kind of a night it was
outside, he calculated to make _us_ comfortable, anyway. I said nothing,
but I believed he was not choosing the right way. Meantime he was
humming to himself just as before; and meantime, too, the stove was
getting hotter and hotter, and the place closer and closer. I felt
myself growing pale and qualmish, but grieved in silence and said
nothing. Soon I noticed that the “Sweet By and By” was gradually fading
out; next it ceased altogether, and there was an ominous stillness.
After a few moments Thompson said,—

“Pfew! I reckon it ain’t no cinnamon ’t I’ve loaded up thish-yer stove
with!”

He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the cof—gun-box, stood over
that Limburger cheese part of a moment, then came back and sat down near
me, looking a good deal impressed. After a contemplative pause, he said,
indicating the box with a gesture,—

“Friend of yourn?”

“Yes,” I said with a sigh.

“He’s pretty ripe, _ain’t_ he!”

Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of minutes, each being
busy with his own thoughts; then Thompson said, in a low, awed voice,—

“Sometimes it’s uncertain whether they’re really gone or not,—_seem_
gone, you know—body warm, joints limber—and so, although you _think_
they’re gone, you don’t really know. I’ve had cases in my car. It’s
perfectly awful, becuz _you_ don’t know what minute they’ll rise up and
look at you!” Then, after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow toward
the box,— “But _he_ ain’t in no trance! No, sir, I go bail for _him_!”

We sat some time, in meditative silence, listening to the wind and the
roar of the train; then Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling,—

“Well-a-well, we’ve all got to go, they ain’t no getting around it. Man
that is born of woman is of few days and far between, as Scriptur’ says.
Yes, you look at it any way you want to, it’s awful solemn and cur’us:
they ain’t _nobody_ can get around it; _all’s_ got to go—just
_everybody_, as you may say. One day you’re hearty and strong”—here he
scrambled to his feet and broke a pane and stretched his nose out at it
a moment or two, then sat down again while I struggled up and thrust my
nose out at the same place, and this we kept on doing every now and
then—“and next day he’s cut down like the grass, and the places which
knowed him then knows him no more forever, as Scriptur’ says.
Yes’ndeedy, it’s awful solemn and cur’us; but we’ve all got to go, one
time or another; they ain’t no getting around it.”

There was another long pause; then,—

“What did he die of?”

I said I didn’t know.

“How long has he ben dead?”

It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the probabilities; so I
said,—

“Two or three days.”

But it did no good; for Thompson received it with an injured look which
plainly said, “Two or three _years_, you mean.” Then he went right
along, placidly ignoring my statement, and gave his views at
considerable length upon the unwisdom of putting off burials too long.
Then he lounged off toward the box, stood a moment, then came back on a
sharp trot and visited the broken pane, observing,—

“’Twould ’a’ ben a dum sight better, all around, if they’d started him
along last summer.”

Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red silk handkerchief, and
began to slowly sway and rock his body like one who is doing his best to
endure the almost unendurable. By this time the fragrance—if you may
call it fragrance—was just about suffocating, as near as you can come at
it. Thompson’s face was turning gray; I knew mine hadn’t any color left
in it. By and by Thompson rested his forehead in his left hand, with his
elbow on his knee, and sort of waved his red handkerchief towards the
box with his other hand, and said,—

“I’ve carried a many a one of ’em,—some of ’em considerable overdue,
too,—but, lordy, he just lays over ’em all!—and does it _easy_. Cap.,
they was heliotrope to _him_!”

This recognition of my poor friend gratified me, in spite of the sad
circumstances, because it had so much the sound of a compliment.

Pretty soon it was plain that something had got to be done. I suggested
cigars. Thompson thought it was a good idea. He said,—

“Likely it’ll modify him some.”

We puffed gingerly along for a while, and tried hard to imagine that
things were improved. But it wasn’t any use. Before very long, and
without any consultation, both cigars were quietly dropped from our
nerveless fingers at the same moment. Thompson said, with a sigh,—

“No, Cap., it don’t modify him worth a cent. Fact is, it makes him
worse, becuz it appears to stir up his ambition. What do you reckon we
better do, now?”

I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had to be swallowing and
swallowing, all the time, and did not like to trust myself to speak.
Thompson fell to maundering, in a desultory and low-spirited way, about
the miserable experiences of this night; and he got to referring to my
poor friend by various titles,—sometimes military ones, sometimes civil
ones; and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend’s effectiveness grew,
Thompson promoted him accordingly,—gave him a bigger title. Finally he
said,—

“I’ve got an idea. Suppos’n we buckle down to it and give the Colonel a
bit of a shove towards t’other end of the car?—about ten foot, say. He
wouldn’t have so much influence, then, don’t you reckon?”

I said it was a good scheme. So we took in a good fresh breath at the
broken pane, calculating to hold it till we got through; then we went
there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a grip on the box.
Thompson nodded “All ready,” and then we threw ourselves forward with
all our might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down with his nose on
the cheese, and his breath got loose. He gagged and gasped, and
floundered up and made a break for the door, pawing the air and saying,
hoarsely, “Don’t hender me!—gimme the road! I’m a-dying; gimme the
road!” Out on the cold platform I sat down and held his head a while,
and he revived. Presently he said,—

“Do you reckon we started the Gen’rul any?”

I said no; we hadn’t budged him.

“Well, then, _that_ idea’s up the flume. We got to think up something
else. He’s suited wher’ he is, I reckon; and if that’s the way he feels
about it, and has made up his mind that he don’t wish to be disturbed,
you bet he’s a-going to have his own way in the business. Yes, better
leave him right wher’ he is, long as he wants it so; becuz he holds all
the trumps, don’t you know, and so it stands to reason that the man that
lays out to alter his plans for him is going to get left.”

But we couldn’t stay out there in that mad storm; we should have frozen
to death. So we went in again and shut the door, and began to suffer
once more and take turns at the break in the window. By and by, as we
were starting away from a station where we had stopped a moment Thompson
pranced in cheerily, and exclaimed,—

“We’re all right, now! I reckon we’ve got the Commodore this time. I
judge I’ve got the stuff here that’ll take the tuck out of him.”

It was carbolic acid. He had a carboy of it. He sprinkled it all around
everywhere; in fact he drenched everything with it, rifle-box, cheese
and all. Then we sat down, feeling pretty hopeful. But it wasn’t for
long. You see the two perfumes began to mix, and then—well, pretty soon
we made a break for the door; and out there Thompson swabbed his face
with his bandanna and said in a kind of disheartened way,—

“It ain’t no use. We can’t buck agin _him_. He just utilizes everything
we put up to modify him with, and gives it his own flavor and plays it
back on us. Why, Cap., don’t you know, it’s as much as a hundred times
worse in there now than it was when he first got a-going. I never _did_
see one of ’em warm up to his work so, and take such a dumnation
interest in it. No, sir, I never did, as long as I’ve ben on the road;
and I’ve carried a many a one of ’em, as I was telling you.”

We went in again, after we were frozen pretty stiff; but my, we couldn’t
_stay_ in, now. So we just waltzed back and forth, freezing, and
thawing, and stifling, by turns. In about an hour we stopped at another
station; and as we left it Thompson came in with a bag, and said,—

“Cap., I’m a-going to chance him once more,—just this once; and if we
don’t fetch him this time, the thing for us to do, is to just throw up
the sponge and withdraw from the canvass. That’s the way _I_ put it up.”

He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, and dried apples, and leaf
tobacco, and rags, and old shoes, and sulphur, and assafœtida, and one
thing or another; and he piled them on a breadth of sheet iron in the
middle of the floor, and set fire to them. When they got well started, I
couldn’t see, myself, how even the corpse could stand it. All that went
before was just simply poetry to that smell,—but mind you, the original
smell stood up out of it just as sublime as ever,—fact is, these other
smells just seemed to give it a better hold; and my, how rich it was! I
didn’t make these reflections there—there wasn’t time—made them on the
platform. And breaking for the platform, Thompson got suffocated and
fell; and before I got him dragged out, which I did by the collar, I was
mighty near gone myself. When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly,—

“We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to do it. They ain’t no other way.
The Governor wants to travel alone, and he’s fixed so he can outvote
us.”

And presently he added,—

“And don’t you know, we’re _pisoned_. It’s _our_ last trip, you can make
up your mind to it. Typhoid fever is what’s going to come of this. I
feel it a-coming right now. Yes, sir, we’re elected, just as sure as
you’re born.”

We were taken from the platform an hour later, frozen and insensible, at
the next station, and I went straight off into a virulent fever, and
never knew anything again for three weeks. I found out, then, that I had
spent that awful night with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of
innocent cheese; but the news was too late to save _me_; imagination had
done its work, and my health was permanently shattered; neither Bermuda
nor any other land can ever bring it back to me. This is my last trip; I
am on my way home to die.




                                LUCK.[2]


It was at a banquet in London in honor of one of the two or three
conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For
reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and
titles, and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby, Y.C.,
K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name!
There sat the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many
thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name
shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battle-field, to remain
forever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and
look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the
reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that
expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his
greatness—unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened upon
him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of
the breasts of those people and flowing toward him.

Footnote 2:

  [NOTE.—This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was
  an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched for its
  truth.—M. T.]

The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine—clergyman now,
but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field, and as
an instructor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I
have been talking about, a veiled and singular light glimmered in his
eyes, and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me—indicating
the hero of the banquet with a gesture,—

“Privately—he’s an absolute fool.”

This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been
Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been
greater. Two things I was well aware of: that the Reverend was a man of
strict veracity, and that his judgment of men was good. Therefore I
knew, beyond doubt or question, that the world was mistaken about this
hero: he _was_ a fool. So I meant to find out, at a convenient moment,
how the Reverend, all solitary and alone, had discovered the secret.


Some days later the opportunity came, and this is what the Reverend told
me:

About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at
Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby
underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with
pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely,
while he—why, dear me, he didn’t know _anything_, so to speak. He was
evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so it was
exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image,
and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for
stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his
behalf. I said to myself, when he comes to be examined again, he will be
flung over, of course; so it will be simply a harmless act of charity to
ease his fall as much as I can. I took him aside, and found that he knew
a little of Cæsar’s history; and as he didn’t know anything else, I went
to work and drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line of stock
questions concerning Cæsar which I knew would be used. If you’ll believe
me, he went through with flying colors on examination day! He went
through on that purely superficial “cram,” and got compliments too,
while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By
some strangely lucky accident—an accident not likely to happen twice in
a century—he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his
drill.

It was stupefying. Well, all through his course I stood by him, with
something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled child;
and he always saved himself—just by miracle, apparently.

Now of course the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was
mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could; so I
drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him, just on
the line of questions which the examiners would be most likely to use,
and then launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the
result: to my consternation, he took the first prize! And with it he got
a perfect ovation in the way of compliments.

Sleep? There was no more sleep for me for a week. My conscience tortured
me day and night. What I had done I had done purely through charity, and
only to ease the poor youth’s fall—I never had dreamed of any such
preposterous result as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and
miserable as the creator of Frankenstein. Here was a woodenhead whom I
had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious
responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his
responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity.

The Crimean war had just broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I
said to myself: we couldn’t have peace and give this donkey a chance to
die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it
made me reel when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy
in a marching regiment! Better men grow old and gray in the service
before they climb to a sublimity like that. And who could ever have
foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on
such green and inadequate shoulders? I could just barely have stood it
if they had made him a cornet; but a captain—think of it! I thought my
hair would turn white.

Consider what I did—I who so loved repose and inaction. I said to
myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along
with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took
my poor little capital that I had saved up through years of work and
grinding economy, and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his
regiment, and away we went to the field.

And there—oh dear, it was awful. Blunders?—why, he never did anything
_but_ blunder. But, you see, nobody was in the fellow’s secret—everybody
had him focussed wrong, and necessarily misinterpreted his performance
every time—consequently they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations
of genius; they did, honestly! His mildest blunders were enough to make
a man in his right mind cry; and they did make me cry—and rage and rave
too, privately. And the thing that kept me always in a sweat of
apprehension was the fact that every fresh blunder he made increased the
lustre of his reputation! I kept saying to myself, he’ll get so high,
that when discovery does finally come, it will be like the sun falling
out of the sky.

He went right along up, from grade to grade, over the dead bodies of his
superiors, until at last, in the hottest moment of the battle of ****
down went our colonel, and my heart jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby
was next in rank! Now for it, said I; we’ll all land in Sheol in ten
minutes, sure.

The battle was awfully hot; the allies were steadily giving way all over
the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital; a blunder
now must be destruction. At this crucial moment, what does this immortal
fool do but detach the regiment from its place and order a charge over a
neighboring hill where there wasn’t a suggestion of an enemy! “There you
go!” I said to myself; “this _is_ the end at last.”

And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the
insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find?
An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve! And what happened? We
were eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no; those Russians argued that
no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It
must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was
detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went,
pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and
we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russian centre in the
field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous
rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned into a
sweeping and splendid victory! Marshal Canrobert looked on, dizzy with
astonishment, admiration, and delight; and sent right off for Scoresby,
and hugged him, and decorated him on the field, in presence of all the
armies!

And what was Scoresby’s blunder that time? Merely the mistaking his
right hand for his left—that was all. An order had come to him to fall
back and support our right; and instead, he fell _forward_ and went over
the hill to the left. But the name he won that day as a marvellous
military genius filled the world with his glory, and that glory will
never fade while history books last.

He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man can
be, but he doesn’t know enough to come in when it rains. Now that is
absolutely true. He is the supremest ass in the universe; and until half
an hour ago nobody knew it but himself and me. He has been pursued, day
by day and year by year, by a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness.
He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for a generation; he has
littered his whole military life with blunders, and yet has never
committed one that didn’t make him a knight or a baronet or a lord or
something. Look at his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic and
foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of some
shouting stupidity or other; and taken together, they are proof that the
very best thing in all this world that can befall a man is to be born
lucky. I say again, as I said at the banquet, Scoresby’s an absolute
fool.




                          THE CAPTAIN’S STORY.


There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about old Captain “Hurricane”
Jones, of the Pacific Ocean,—peace to his ashes! Two or three of us
present had known him; I, particularly well, for I had made four
sea-voyages with him. He was a very remarkable man. He was born on a
ship; he picked up what little education he had among his shipmates; he
began life in the forecastle, and climbed grade by grade to the
captaincy. More than fifty years of his sixty-five were spent at sea. He
had sailed all oceans, seen all lands, and borrowed a tint from all
climates. When a man has been fifty years at sea, he necessarily knows
nothing of men, nothing of the world but its surface, nothing of the
world’s thought, nothing of the world’s learning but its A B C, and that
blurred and distorted by the unfocussed lenses of an untrained mind.
Such a man is only a gray and bearded child. That is what old Hurricane
Jones was,—simply an innocent, lovable old infant. When his spirit was
in repose he was as sweet and gentle as a girl; when his wrath was up he
was a hurricane that made his nickname seem tamely descriptive. He was
formidable in a fight, for he was of powerful build and dauntless
courage. He was frescoed from head to heel with pictures and mottoes
tattooed in red and blue India ink. I was with him one voyage when he
got his last vacant space tattooed; this vacant space was around his
left ankle. During three days he stumped about the ship with his ankle
bare and swollen, and this legend gleaming red and angry out from a
clouding of India ink: “Virtue is its own R’d.” (There was a lack of
room.) He was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like a fish-woman.
He considered swearing blameless, because sailors would not understand
an order unillumined by it. He was a profound Biblical scholar,—that is,
he thought he was. He believed everything in the Bible, but he had his
own methods of arriving at his beliefs. He was of the “advanced” school
of thinkers, and applied natural laws to the interpretation of all
miracles, somewhat on the plan of the people who make the six days of
creation six geological epochs, and so forth. Without being aware of it,
he was a rather severe satire on modern scientific religionists. Such a
man as I have been describing is rabidly fond of disquisition and
argument; one knows that without being told it.

One trip the captain had a clergyman on board, but did not know he was a
clergyman, since the passenger list did not betray the fact. He took a
great liking to this Rev. Mr. Peters, and talked with him a great deal:
told him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal history, and wove
a glittering streak of profanity through his garrulous fabric that was
refreshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecorated
speech. One day the captain said, “Peters, do you ever read the Bible?”

“Well—yes.”

“I judge it ain’t often, by the way you say it. Now, you tackle it in
dead earnest once, and you’ll find it’ll pay. Don’t you get discouraged,
but hang right on. First, you won’t understand it; but by and by things
will begin to clear up, and then you wouldn’t lay it down to eat.”

“Yes, I have heard that said.”

“And it’s so, too. There ain’t a book that begins with it. It lays over
’em all, Peters. There’s some pretty tough things in it,—there ain’t any
getting around that,—but you stick to them and think them out, and when
once you get on the inside everything’s plain as day.”

“The miracles, too, captain?”

“Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Every one of them. Now, there’s that
business with the prophets of Baal; like enough that stumped you?”

“Well, I don’t know but—”

“Own up, now; it stumped you. Well, I don’t wonder. You hadn’t had any
experience in ravelling such things out, and naturally it was too many
for you. Would you like to have me explain that thing to you, and show
you how to get at the meat of these matters?”

“Indeed, I would, captain, if you don’t mind.”

Then the captain proceeded as follows: “I’ll do it with pleasure. First,
you see, I read and read, and thought and thought, till I got to
understand what sort of people they were in the old Bible times, and
then after that it was clear and easy. Now, this was the way I put it
up, concerning Isaac[3] and the prophets of Baal. There was some mighty
sharp men amongst the public characters of that old ancient day, and
Isaac was one of them. Isaac had his failings,—plenty of them, too; it
ain’t for me to apologize for Isaac; he played on the prophets of Baal,
and like enough he was justifiable, considering the odds that was
against him. No, all I say is, ’t wa’n’t any miracle, and that I’ll show
you so’s’t you can see it yourself.

Footnote 3:

  This is the captain’s own mistake.

“Well, times had been getting rougher and rougher for prophets,—that is,
prophets of Isaac’s denomination. There were four hundred and fifty
prophets of Baal in the community, and only one Presbyterian; that is,
if Isaac _was_ a Presbyterian, which I reckon he was, but it don’t say.
Naturally, the prophets of Baal took all the trade. Isaac was pretty
low-spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal of a man, and no doubt he
went a-prophesying around, letting on to be doing a land-office
business, but ’t wa’n’t any use; he couldn’t run any opposition to
amount to anything. By and by things got desperate with him; he sets his
head to work and thinks it all out, and then what does he do? Why, he
begins to throw out hints that the other parties are this and that and
t’other,—nothing very definite, may be, but just kind of undermining
their reputation in a quiet way. This made talk, of course, and finally
got to the king. The king asked Isaac what he meant by his talk. Says
Isaac, ‘Oh, nothing particular; only, can they pray down fire from
heaven on an altar? It ain’t much, maybe, your majesty, only can they
_do_ it? That’s the idea.’ So the king was a good deal disturbed, and he
went to the prophets of Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he had
an altar ready, _they_ were ready; and they intimated he better get it
insured, too.

“So next morning all the children of Israel and their parents and the
other people gathered themselves together. Well, here was that great
crowd of prophets of Baal packed together on one side, and Isaac walking
up and down all alone on the other, putting up his job. When time was
called, Isaac let on to be comfortable and indifferent; told the other
team to take the first innings. So they went at it, the whole four
hundred and fifty, praying around the altar, very hopeful, and doing
their level best. They prayed an hour,—two hours,—three hours,—and so
on, plumb till noon. It wa’n’t any use; they had n’t took a trick. Of
course they felt kind of ashamed before all those people, and well they
might. Now, what would a magnanimous man do? Keep still, wouldn’t he? Of
course. What did Isaac do? He gravelled the prophets of Baal every way
he could think of. Says he, ‘You don’t speak up loud enough; your god’s
asleep, like enough, or may be he’s taking a walk; you want to holler,
you know,’—or words to that effect; I don’t recollect the exact
language. Mind, I don’t apologize for Isaac; he had his faults.

“Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best they knew how all the
afternoon, and never raised a spark. At last, about sundown, they were
all tuckered out, and they owned up and quit.

“What does Isaac do, now? He steps up and says to some friends of his,
there, ‘Pour four barrels of water on the altar!’ Everybody was
astonished; for the other side had prayed at it dry, you know, and got
whitewashed. They poured it on. Says he, ‘Heave on four more barrels.’
Then he says, ‘Heave on four more.’ Twelve barrels, you see, altogether.
The water ran all over the altar, and all down the sides, and filled up
a trench around it that would hold a couple of hogsheads,—‘measures,’ it
says; I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some of the people were going
to put on their things and go, for they allowed he was crazy. They
didn’t know Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray: he strung along,
and strung along, about the heathen in distant lands, and about the
sister churches, and about the state and the country at large, and about
those that’s in authority in the government, and all the usual
programme, you know, till everybody had got tired and gone to thinking
about something else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody was
noticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the under side of his
leg, and pff! up the whole thing blazes like a house afire! Twelve
barrels of _water_? _Petroleum_, sir, PETROLEUM! that’s what it was!”

“Petroleum, captain?”

“Yes, sir; the country was full of it. Isaac knew all about that. You
read the Bible. Don’t you worry about the tough places. They ain’t tough
when you come to think them out and throw light on them. There ain’t a
thing in the Bible but what is true; all you want is to go prayerfully
to work and cipher out how ’t was done.”




                         A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE.


This is the story which the Major told me, as nearly as I can recall
it:—

In the winter of 1862–3, I was commandant of Fort Trumbull, at New
London, Conn. Maybe our life there was not so brisk as life at “the
front”; still it was brisk enough, in its way—one’s brains didn’t cake
together there for lack of something to keep them stirring. For one
thing, all the Northern atmosphere at that time was thick with
mysterious rumors—rumors to the effect that rebel spies were flitting
everywhere, and getting ready to blow up our Northern forts, burn our
hotels, send infected clothing into our towns, and all that sort of
thing. You remember it. All this had a tendency to keep us awake, and
knock the traditional dulness out of garrison life. Besides, ours was a
recruiting station—which is the same as saying we hadn’t any time to
waste in dozing, or dreaming, or fooling around. Why, with all our
watchfulness, fifty per cent. of a day’s recruits would leak out of our
hands and give us the slip the same night. The bounties were so
prodigious that a recruit could pay a sentinel three or four hundred
dollars to let him escape, and still have enough of his bounty-money
left to constitute a fortune for a poor man. Yes, as I said before, our
life was not drowsy.

Well, one day I was in my quarters alone, doing some writing, when a
pale and ragged lad of fourteen or fifteen entered, made a neat bow, and
said,—

“I believe recruits are received here?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please enlist me, sir?”

“Dear me, no! You are too young, my boy, and too small.”

A disappointed look came into his face, and quickly deepened into an
expression of despondency. He turned slowly away, as if to go;
hesitated, then faced me again, and said, in a tone which went to my
heart,—

“I have no home, and not a friend in the world. If you _could_ only
enlist me!”

But of course the thing was out of the question, and I said so as gently
as I could. Then I told him to sit down by the stove and warm himself,
and added,—

“You shall have something to eat, presently. You are hungry?”

He did not answer; he did not need to; the gratitude in his big soft
eyes was more eloquent than any words could have been. He sat down by
the stove, and I went on writing. Occasionally I took a furtive glance
at him. I noticed that his clothes and shoes, although soiled and
damaged, were of good style and material. This fact was suggestive. To
it I added the facts that his voice was low and musical; his eyes deep
and melancholy; his carriage and address gentlemanly; evidently the poor
chap was in trouble. As a result, I was interested.

However, I became absorbed in my work, by and by, and forgot all about
the boy. I don’t know how long this lasted; but, at length, I happened
to look up. The boy’s back was toward me, but his face was turned in
such a way that I could see one of his cheeks—and down that cheek a rill
of noiseless tears was flowing.

“God bless my soul!” I said to myself; “I forgot the poor rat was
starving.” Then I made amends for my brutality by saying to him, “Come
along, my lad; you shall dine with _me_; I am alone to-day.”

He gave me another of those grateful looks, and a happy light broke in
his face. At the table he stood with his hand on his chair-back until I
was seated, then seated himself. I took up my knife and fork and—well, I
simply held them, and kept still; for the boy had inclined his head and
was saying a silent grace. A thousand hallowed memories of home and my
childhood poured in upon me, and I sighed to think how far I had drifted
from religion and its balm for hurt minds, its comfort and solace and
support.

As our meal progressed, I observed that young Wicklow—Robert Wicklow was
his full name—knew what to do with his napkin; and—well, in a word, I
observed that he was a boy of good breeding; never mind the details. He
had a simple frankness, too, which won upon me. We talked mainly about
himself, and I had no difficulty in getting his history out of him. When
he spoke of his having been born and reared in Louisiana, I warmed to
him decidedly, for I had spent some time down there. I knew all the
“coast” region of the Mississippi, and loved it, and had not been long
enough away from it for my interest in it to begin to pale. The very
names that fell from his lips sounded good to me,—so good that I steered
the talk in directions that would bring them out. Baton Rouge,
Plaquemine, Donaldsonville, Sixty-mile Point, Bonnet-Carre, the
Stock-Landing, Carrollton, the Steamship Landing, the Steamboat Landing,
New Orleans, Tchoupitoulas Street, the Esplanade, the Rue des Bons
Enfants, the St. Charles Hotel, the Tivoli Circle, the Shell Road, Lake
Pontchartrain; and it was particularly delightful to me to hear once
more of the “R. E. Lee,” the “Natchez,” the “Eclipse,” the “General
Quitman,” the “Duncan F. Kenner,” and other old familiar steamboats. It
was almost as good as being back there, these names so vividly
reproduced in my mind the look of the things they stood for. Briefly,
this was little Wicklow’s history:—

When the war broke out, he and his invalid aunt and his father were
living near Baton Rouge, on a great and rich plantation which had been
in the family for fifty years. The father was a Union man. He was
persecuted in all sorts of ways, but clung to his principles. At last,
one night, masked men burned his mansion down, and the family had to fly
for their lives. They were hunted from place to place, and learned all
there was to know about poverty, hunger, and distress. The invalid aunt
found relief at last: misery and exposure killed her; she died in an
open field, like a tramp, the rain beating upon her and the thunder
booming overhead. Not long afterward, the father was captured by an
armed band; and while the son begged and pleaded, the victim was strung
up before his face. [At this point a baleful light shone in the youth’s
eyes, and he said, with the manner of one who talks to himself: “If I
cannot be enlisted, no matter—I shall find a way—I shall find a way.”]
As soon as the father was pronounced dead, the son was told that if he
was not out of that region within twenty-four hours, it would go hard
with him. That night he crept to the riverside and hid himself near a
plantation landing. By and by the “Duncan F. Kenner” stopped there, and
he swam out and concealed himself in the yawl that was dragging at her
stern. Before daylight the boat reached the Stock-Landing, and he
slipped ashore. He walked the three miles which lay between that point
and the house of an uncle of his in Good-Children Street, in New
Orleans, and then his troubles were over for the time being. But this
uncle was a Union man, too, and before very long he concluded that he
had better leave the South. So he and young Wicklow slipped out of the
country on board a sailing vessel, and in due time reached New York.
They put up at the Astor House. Young Wicklow had a good time of it for
a while, strolling up and down Broadway, and observing the strange
Northern sights; but in the end a change came,—and not for the better.
The uncle had been cheerful at first, but now he began to look troubled
and despondent; moreover, he became moody and irritable; talked of money
giving out, and no way to get more,—“not enough left for one, let alone
two.” Then, one morning, he was missing—did not come to breakfast. The
boy inquired at the office, and was told that the uncle had paid his
bill the night before and gone away—to Boston, the clerk believed, but
was not certain.

The lad was alone and friendless. He did not know what to do, but
concluded he had better try to follow and find his uncle. He went down
to the steamboat landing; learned that the trifle of money in his pocket
would not carry him to Boston; however, it would carry him to New
London; so he took passage for that port, resolving to trust to
Providence to furnish him means to travel the rest of the way. He had
now been wandering about the streets of New London three days and
nights, getting a bite and a nap here and there for charity’s sake. But
he had given up at last; courage and hope were both gone. If he could
enlist, nobody could be more thankful; if he could not get in as a
soldier, couldn’t he be a drummer-boy? Ah, he would work _so_ hard to
please, and would be so grateful!

Well, there’s the history of young Wicklow, just as he told it to me,
barring details. I said,—

“My boy, you are among friends, now,—don’t you be troubled any more.”
How his eyes glistened! I called in Sergeant John Rayburn,—he was from
Hartford; lives in Hartford yet; maybe you know him,—and said, “Rayburn,
quarter this boy with the musicians. I am going to enroll him as a
drummer-boy, and I want you to look after him and see that he is well
treated.”

Well, of course, intercourse between the commandant of the post and the
drummer-boy came to an end, now; but the poor little friendless chap lay
heavy on my heart, just the same. I kept on the lookout, hoping to see
him brighten up and begin to be cheery and gay; but no, the days went
by, and there was no change. He associated with nobody; he was always
absent-minded, always thinking; his face was always sad. One morning
Rayburn asked leave to speak to me privately. Said he,—

“I hope I don’t offend, sir; but the truth is, the musicians are in such
a sweat it seems as if somebody’s _got_ to speak.”

“Why, what is the trouble?”

“It’s the Wicklow boy, sir. The musicians are down on him to an extent
you can’t imagine.”

“Well, go on, go on. What has he been doing?”

“Prayin’, sir.”

“Praying!”

“Yes, sir; the musicians haven’t any peace of their life for that boy’s
prayin’. First thing in the morning he’s at it; noons he’s at it; and
nights—well, _nights_ he just lays into ’em like all possessed! Sleep?
Bless you, they _can’t_ sleep: he’s got the floor, as the sayin’ is, and
then when he once gets his supplication-mill a-goin’, there just simply
ain’t any let-up _to_ him. He starts in with the band-master, and he
prays for him; next he takes the head bugler, and he prays for him; next
the bass drum, and he scoops _him_ in; and so on, right straight through
the band, givin’ them all a show, and takin’ that amount of interest in
it which would make you think he thought he warn’t but a little while
for this world, and believed he couldn’t be happy in heaven without he
had a brass band along, and wanted to pick ’em out for himself, so he
could depend on ’em to do up the national tunes in a style suitin’ to
the place. Well, sir, heavin’ boots at him don’t have no effect; it’s
dark in there; and, besides, he don’t pray fair, anyway, but kneels down
behind the big drum; so it don’t make no difference if they _rain_ boots
at him, _he_ don’t give a dern—warbles right along, same as if it was
applause. They sing out, ‘Oh, dry up!’ ‘Give us a rest!’ ‘Shoot him!’
‘Oh, take a walk!’ and all sorts of such things. But what of it? It
don’t phaze him. _He_ don’t mind it.” After a pause: “Kind of a good
little fool, too; gits up in the mornin’ and carts all that stock of
boots back, and sorts ’em out and sets each man’s pair where they
belong. And they’ve been throwed at him so much now, that he knows every
boot in the band,—can sort ’em out with his eyes shut.”

After another pause, which I forebore to interrupt,—

“But the roughest thing about it is, that when he’s done prayin’,—when
he ever _does_ get done,—he pipes up and begins to _sing_. Well, you
know what a honey kind of a voice he’s got when he talks; you know how
it would persuade a cast-iron dog to come down off of a doorstep and
lick his hand. Now if you’ll take my word for it, sir, it ain’t a
circumstance to his singin’! Flute music is harsh to that boy’s singin’.
Oh, he just gurgles it out so soft and sweet and low, there in the dark,
that it makes you think you are in heaven.”

“What is there ‘rough’ about that?”

“Ah, that’s just it, sir. You hear him sing

                 “‘Just as I am—poor, wretched, blind,’

—just you hear him sing that, once, and see if you don’t melt all up and
the water come into your eyes! I don’t care _what_ he sings, it goes
plum straight home to you—it goes deep down to where you _live_—and it
fetches you every time! Just you hear him sing:—

             “‘Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay,
             Wait not till to-morrow, yield thee to-day;
                         Grieve not that love
                         Which, from above’—

and so on. It makes a body feel like the wickedest, ungratefulest brute
that walks. And when he sings them songs of his about home, and mother,
and childhood, and old friends dead and gone, it fetches everything
before your face that you’ve ever loved and lost in all your life—and
it’s just beautiful, it’s just divine to listen to, sir—but, Lord, Lord,
the heart-break of it! The band—well, they all cry—every rascal of them
blubbers, and don’t try to hide it, either; and first you know, that
very gang that’s been slammin’ boots at that boy will skip out of their
bunks all of a sudden, and rush over in the dark and hug him! Yes, they
do—and slobber all over him, and call him pet names, and beg him to
forgive them. And just at that time, if a regiment was to offer to hurt
a hair of that cub’s head, they’d go for that regiment, if it was a
whole army corps!”

Another pause.

“Is that all?” said I.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, dear me, what is the complaint? What do they want done?”

“Done? Why, bless you, sir, they want you to stop him from _singin’_.”

“What an idea! You said his music was divine.”

“That’s just it. It’s _too_ divine. Mortal man can’t stand it. It stirs
a body up so; it turns a body inside out; it racks his feelin’s all to
rags; it makes him feel bad and wicked, and not fit for any place but
perdition. It keeps a body in such an everlastin’ state of repentin’,
that nothin’ don’t taste good and there ain’t no comfort in life. And
then the _cryin’_, you see—every mornin’ they are ashamed to look one
another in the face.”

“Well, this is an odd case, and a singular complaint. So they really
want the singing stopped?”

“Yes, sir, that is the idea. They don’t wish to ask too much; they would
like powerful well to have the prayin’ shut down on, or leastways
trimmed off around the edges; but the main thing’s the singin’. If they
can only get the singin’ choked off, they think they can stand the
prayin’, rough as it is to be bullyragged so much that way.”

I told the sergeant I would take the matter under consideration. That
night I crept into the musicians’ quarters and listened. The sergeant
had not overstated the case. I heard the praying voice pleading in the
dark; I heard the execrations of the harassed men; I heard the rain of
boots whiz through the air, and bang and thump around the big drum. The
thing touched me, but it amused me, too. By and by, after an impressive
silence, came the singing. Lord, the pathos of it, the enchantment of
it! Nothing in the world was ever so sweet, so gracious, so tender, so
holy, so moving. I made my stay very brief; I was beginning to
experience emotions of a sort not proper to the commandant of a
fortress.

Next day I issued orders which stopped the praying and singing. Then
followed three or four days which were so full of bounty-jumping
excitements and irritations that I never once thought of my drummer-boy.
But now comes Sergeant Rayburn, one morning, and says,—

“That new boy acts mighty strange, sir.”

“How?”

“Well, sir, he’s all the time writing.”

“Writing? What does he write—letters?”

“I don’t know, sir; but whenever he’s off duty, he is always poking and
nosing around the fort, all by himself,—blest if I think there’s a hole
or corner in it he hasn’t been into,—and every little while he outs with
pencil and paper and scribbles something down.”

This gave me a most unpleasant sensation. I wanted to scoff at it, but
it was not a time to scoff at _anything_ that had the least suspicious
tinge about it. Things were happening all around us, in the North, then,
that warned us to be always on the alert, and always suspecting. I
recalled to mind the suggestive fact that this boy was from the
South,—the extreme South, Louisiana,—and the thought was not of a
reassuring nature, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, it cost me a
pang to give the orders which I now gave to Rayburn. I felt like a
father who plots to expose his own child to shame and injury. I told
Rayburn to keep quiet, bide his time, and get me some of those writings
whenever he could manage it without the boy’s finding it out. And I
charged him not to do anything which might let the boy discover that he
was being watched. I also ordered that he allow the lad his usual
liberties, but that he be followed at a distance when he went out into
the town.

During the next two days, Rayburn reported to me several times. No
success. The boy was still writing, but he always pocketed his paper
with a careless air whenever Rayburn appeared in his vicinity. He had
gone twice to an old deserted stable in the town, remained a minute or
two, and come out again. One could not pooh-pooh these things—they had
an evil look. I was obliged to confess to myself that I was getting
uneasy. I went into my private quarters and sent for my second in
command—an officer of intelligence and judgment, son of General James
Watson Webb. He was surprised and troubled. We had a long talk over the
matter, and came to the conclusion that it would be worth while to
institute a secret search. I determined to take charge of that myself.
So I had myself called at two in the morning; and, pretty soon after, I
was in the musicians’ quarters, crawling along the floor on my stomach
among the snorers. I reached my slumbering waif’s bunk at last, without
disturbing anybody, captured his clothes and kit, and crawled stealthily
back again. When I got to my own quarters, I found Webb there, waiting
and eager to know the result. We made search immediately. The clothes
were a disappointment. In the pockets we found blank paper and a pencil;
nothing else, except a jackknife and such queer odds and ends and
useless trifles as boys hoard and value. We turned to the kit hopefully.
Nothing there but a rebuke for us!—a little Bible with this written on
the fly-leaf: “Stranger, be kind to my boy, for his mother’s sake.”

I looked at Webb—he dropped his eyes; he looked at me—I dropped mine.
Neither spoke. I put the book reverently back in its place. Presently
Webb got up and went away, without remark. After a little I nerved
myself up to my unpalatable job, and took the plunder back to where it
belonged, crawling on my stomach as before. It seemed the peculiarly
appropriate attitude for the business I was in.

I was most honestly glad when it was over and done with.

About noon next day Rayburn came, as usual, to report. I cut him short.
I said,—

“Let this nonsense be dropped. We are making a bugaboo out of a poor
little cub who has got no more harm in him than a hymn-book.”

The sergeant looked surprised, and said,—

“Well, you know it was your orders, sir, and I’ve got some of the
writing.”

“And what does it amount to? How did you get it?”

“I peeped through the key-hole, and see him writing. So when I judged he
was about done, I made a sort of a little cough, and I see him crumple
it up and throw it in the fire, and look all around to see if anybody
was coming. Then he settled back as comfortable and careless as
anything. Then I comes in, and passes the time of day pleasantly, and
sends him of an errand. He never looked uneasy, but went right along. It
was a coal-fire and new-built; the writing had gone over behind a chunk,
out of sight; but I got it out; there it is; it ain’t hardly scorched,
you see.”

I glanced at the paper and took in a sentence or two. Then I dismissed
the sergeant and told him to send Webb to me. Here is the paper in
full:—

                                              “FORT TRUMBULL, the 8th.

  “COLONEL,—I was mistaken as to the calibre of the three guns I ended
  my list with. They are 18–pounders; all the rest of the armament is
  as I stated. The garrison remains as before reported, except that
  the two light infantry companies that were to be detached for
  service at the front are to stay here for the present—can’t find out
  for how long, just now, but will soon. We are satisfied that, all
  things considered, matters had better be postponed un—”

There it broke off—there is where Rayburn coughed and interrupted the
writer. All my affection for the boy, all my respect for him and charity
for his forlorn condition, withered in a moment under the blight of this
revelation of cold-blooded baseness.

But never mind about that. Here was business,—business that required
profound and immediate attention, too. Webb and I turned the subject
over and over, and examined it all around. Webb said,—

“What a pity he was interrupted! Something is going to be postponed
until—when? And what _is_ the something? Possibly he would have
mentioned it, the pious little reptile!”

“Yes,” I said, “we have missed a trick. And who is ‘_we_,’ in the
letter? Is it conspirators inside the fort or outside?”

That “we” was uncomfortably suggestive. However, it was not worth while
to be guessing around that, so we proceeded to matters more practical.
In the first place, we decided to double the sentries and keep the
strictest possible watch. Next, we thought of calling Wicklow in and
making him divulge everything; but that did not seem wisest until other
methods should fail. We must have some more of the writings; so we began
to plan to that end. And now we had an idea: Wicklow never went to the
post-office,—perhaps the deserted stable was his post-office. We sent
for my confidential clerk—a young German named Sterne, who was a sort of
natural detective—and told him all about the case and ordered him to go
to work on it. Within the hour we got word that Wicklow was writing
again. Shortly afterward, word came that he had asked leave to go out
into the town. He was detained awhile, and meantime Sterne hurried off
and concealed himself in the stable. By and by he saw Wicklow saunter
in, look about him, then hide something under some rubbish in a corner,
and take leisurely leave again. Sterne pounced upon the hidden article—a
letter—and brought it to us. It had no superscription and no signature.
It repeated what we had already read, and then went on to say:—

  “We think it best to postpone till the two companies are gone. I
  mean the four inside think so; have not communicated with the
  others—afraid of attracting attention. I say four because we have
  lost two; they had hardly enlisted and got inside when they were
  shipped off to the front. It will be absolutely necessary to have
  two in their places. The two that went were the brothers from
  Thirty-mile Point. I have something of the greatest importance to
  reveal, but must not trust it to this method of communication; will
  try the other.”

“The little scoundrel!” said Webb; “who _could_ have supposed he was a
spy? However, never mind about that; let us add up our particulars, such
as they are, and see how the case stands to date. First, we’ve got a
rebel spy in our midst, whom we know; secondly, we’ve got three more in
our midst whom we don’t know; thirdly, these spies have been introduced
among us through the simple and easy process of enlisting as soldiers in
the Union army—and evidently two of them have got sold at it, and been
shipped off to the front; fourthly, there are assistant spies
‘outside’—number indefinite; fifthly, Wicklow has very important matter
which he is afraid to communicate by the ‘present method’—will ‘try the
other.’ That is the case, as it now stands. Shall we collar Wicklow and
make him confess? Or shall we catch the person who removes the letters
from the stable and make _him_ tell? Or shall we keep still and find out
more?”

We decided upon the last course. We judged that we did not need to
proceed to summary measures now, since it was evident that the
conspirators were likely to wait till those two light infantry companies
were out of the way. We fortified Sterne with pretty ample powers, and
told him to use his best endeavors to find out Wicklow’s “other method”
of communication. We meant to play a bold game; and to this end we
proposed to keep the spies in an unsuspecting state as long as possible.
So we ordered Sterne to return to the stable immediately, and, if he
found the coast clear, to conceal Wicklow’s letter where it was before,
and leave it there for the conspirators to get.

The night closed down without further event. It was cold and dark and
sleety, with a raw wind blowing; still I turned out of my warm bed
several times during the night, and went the rounds in person, to see
that all was right and that every sentry was on the alert. I always
found them wide awake and watchful; evidently whispers of mysterious
dangers had been floating about, and the doubling of the guards had been
a kind of indorsement of those rumors. Once, toward morning, I
encountered Webb, breasting his way against the bitter wind, and learned
then that he, also, had been the rounds several times to see that all
was going right.

Next day’s events hurried things up somewhat. Wicklow wrote another
letter; Sterne preceded him to the stable and saw him deposit it;
captured it as soon as Wicklow was out of the way, then slipped out and
followed the little spy at a distance, with a detective in plain clothes
at his own heels, for we thought it judicious to have the law’s
assistance handy in case of need. Wicklow went to the railway station,
and waited around till the train from New York came in, then stood
scanning the faces of the crowd as they poured out of the cars.
Presently an aged gentleman, with green goggles and a cane, came limping
along, stopped in Wicklow’s neighborhood, and began to look about him
expectantly. In an instant Wicklow darted forward, thrust an envelope
into his hand, then glided away and disappeared in the throng. The next
instant Sterne had snatched the letter; and as he hurried past the
detective, he said: “Follow the old gentleman—don’t lose sight of him.”
Then Sterne skurried out with the crowd, and came straight to the fort.

We sat with closed doors, and instructed the guard outside to allow no
interruption.

First we opened the letter captured at the stable. It read as follows:—

  “HOLY ALLIANCE,—Found, in the usual gun, commands from the Master,
  left there last night, which set aside the instructions heretofore
  received from the subordinate quarter. Have left in the gun the
  usual indication that the commands reached the proper hand—”

Webb, interrupting: “Isn’t the boy under constant surveillance now?”

I said yes; he had been under strict surveillance ever since the
capturing of his former letter.

“Then how could he put anything into a gun, or take anything out of it,
and not get caught?”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t like the look of that very well.”

“I don’t, either,” said Webb. “It simply means that there are
conspirators among the very sentinels. Without their connivance in some
way or other, the thing couldn’t have been done.”

I sent for Rayburn, and ordered him to examine the batteries and see
what he could find. The reading of the letter was then resumed:—

  “The new commands are peremptory, and require that the MMMM shall be
  FFFFF at 3 o’clock to-morrow morning. Two hundred will arrive, in
  small parties, by train and otherwise, from various directions, and
  will be at appointed place at right time. I will distribute the sign
  to-day. Success is apparently sure, though something must have got
  out, for the sentries have been doubled, and the chiefs went the
  rounds last night several times. W. W. comes from southerly to-day
  and will receive secret orders—by the other method. All six of you
  must be in 166 at sharp 2 A. M. You will find B. B. there, who will
  give you detailed instructions. Password same as last time, only
  reversed—put first syllable last and last syllable first. REMEMBER
  XXXX. Do not forget. Be of good heart; before the next sun rises you
  will be heroes; your fame will be permanent; you will have added a
  deathless page to history. Amen.”

“Thunder and Mars,” said Webb, “but we are getting into mighty hot
quarters, as I look at it!”

I said there was no question but that things were beginning to wear a
most serious aspect. Said I,—

“A desperate enterprise is on foot, that is plain enough. To-night is
the time set for it,—that, also, is plain. The exact nature of the
enterprise—I mean the manner of it—is hidden away under those blind
bunches of M’s and F’s, but the end and aim, I judge, is the surprise
and capture of the post. We must move quick and sharp now. I think
nothing can be gained by continuing our clandestine policy as regards
Wicklow. We _must_ know, and as soon as possible, too, where ‘166’ is
located, so that we can make a descent upon the gang there at 2 A. M.;
and doubtless the quickest way to get that information will be to force
it out of that boy. But first of all, and before we make any important
move, I must lay the facts before the War Department, and ask for
plenary powers.”

The despatch was prepared in cipher to go over the wires; I read it,
approved it, and sent it along.

We presently finished discussing the letter which was under
consideration, and then opened the one which had been snatched from the
lame gentleman. It contained nothing but a couple of perfectly blank
sheets of note-paper! It was a chilly check to our hot eagerness and
expectancy. We felt as blank as the paper, for a moment, and twice as
foolish. But it was for a moment only; for, of course, we immediately
afterward thought of “sympathetic ink.” We held the paper close to the
fire and watched for the characters to come out, under the influence of
the heat; but nothing appeared but some faint tracings, which we could
make nothing of. We then called in the surgeon, and sent him off with
orders to apply every test he was acquainted with till he got the right
one, and report the contents of the letter to me the instant he brought
them to the surface. This check was a confounded annoyance, and we
naturally chafed under the delay; for we had fully expected to get out
of that letter some of the most important secrets of the plot.

Now appeared Sergeant Rayburn, and drew from his pocket a piece of twine
string about a foot long, with three knots tied in it, and held it up.

“I got it out of a gun on the water-front,” said he. “I took the
tompions out of all the guns and examined close; this string was the
only thing that was in any gun.”

So this bit of string was Wicklow’s “sign” to signify that the
“Master’s” commands had not miscarried. I ordered that every sentinel
who had served near that gun during the past twenty-four hours be put in
confinement at once and separately, and not allowed to communicate with
any one without my privity and consent.

A telegram now came from the Secretary of War. It read as follows:—

  “Suspend _habeas corpus_. Put town under martial law. Make necessary
  arrests. Act with vigor and promptness. Keep the Department
  informed.”

We were now in shape to go to work. I sent out and had the lame
gentleman quietly arrested and as quietly brought into the fort; I
placed him under guard, and forbade speech to him or from him. He was
inclined to bluster at first, but he soon dropped that.

Next came word that Wicklow had been seen to give something to a couple
of our new recruits; and that, as soon as his back was turned, these had
been seized and confined. Upon each was found a small bit of paper,
bearing these words and signs in pencil:—

                      +-------------------------+
                      |  EAGLE’S THIRD FLIGHT.  |
                      |      REMEMBER XXXX.     |
                      |            166.         |
                      +-------------------------+

In accordance with instructions, I telegraphed to the Department, in
cipher, the progress made, and also described the above ticket. We
seemed to be in a strong enough position now to venture to throw off the
mask as regarded Wicklow; so I sent for him. I also sent for and
received back the letter written in sympathetic ink, the surgeon
accompanying it with the information that thus far it had resisted his
tests, but that there were others he could apply when I should be ready
for him to do so.

Presently Wicklow entered. He had a somewhat worn and anxious look, but
he was composed and easy, and if he suspected anything it did not appear
in his face or manner. I allowed him to stand there a moment or two,
then I said pleasantly,—

“My boy, why do you go to that old stable so much?”

He answered, with simple demeanor and without embarrassment,—

“Well, I hardly know, sir; there isn’t any particular reason, except
that I like to be alone, and I amuse myself there.”

“You amuse yourself there, do you?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, as innocently and simply as before.

“Is that all you do there?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, looking up with childlike wonderment in his big
soft eyes.

“You are _sure_?”

“Yes, sir, sure.”

After a pause, I said,—

“Wicklow, why do you write so much?”

“I? I do not write much, sir.”

“You don’t?”

“No, sir. Oh, if you mean scribbling, I _do_ scribble some, for
amusement.”

“What do you do with your scribblings?”

“Nothing, sir—throw them away.”

“Never send them to anybody?”

“No, sir.”

I suddenly thrust before him the letter to the “Colonel.” He started
slightly, but immediately composed himself. A slight tinge spread itself
over his cheek.

“How came you to send _this_ piece of scribbling, then?”

“I nev—never meant any harm, sir.”

“Never meant any harm! You betray the armament and condition of the
post, and mean no harm by it?”

He hung his head and was silent.

“Come, speak up, and stop lying. Whom was this letter intended for?”

He showed signs of distress, now; but quickly collected himself, and
replied, in a tone of deep earnestness,—

“I will tell you the truth, sir—the whole truth. The letter was never
intended for anybody at all. I wrote it only to amuse myself. I see the
error and foolishness of it, now,—but it is the only offence, sir, upon
my honor.”

“Ah, I am glad of that. It is dangerous to be writing such letters. I
hope you are sure this is the only one you wrote?”

“Yes, sir, perfectly sure.”

His hardihood was stupefying. He told that lie with as sincere a
countenance as any creature ever wore. I waited a moment to soothe down
my rising temper, and then said,—

“Wicklow, jog your memory now, and see if you can help me with two or
three little matters which I wish to inquire about.”

“I will do my very best, sir.”

“Then, to begin with—who is ‘the Master’?”

It betrayed him into darting a startled glance at our faces, but that
was all. He was serene again in a moment, and tranquilly answered,—

“I do not know, sir.”

“You do not know?”

“I do not know.”

“You are _sure_ you do not know?”

He tried hard to keep his eyes on mine, but the strain was too great;
his chin sunk slowly toward his breast and he was silent; he stood there
nervously fumbling with a button, an object to command one’s pity, in
spite of his base acts. Presently I broke the stillness with the
question,—

“Who are the ‘Holy Alliance’?”

His body shook visibly, and he made a slight random gesture with his
hands, which to me was like the appeal of a despairing creature for
compassion. But he made no sound. He continued to stand with his face
bent toward the ground. As we sat gazing at him, waiting for him to
speak, we saw the big tears begin to roll down his cheeks. But he
remained silent. After a little, I said,—

“You must answer me, my boy, and you must tell me the truth. Who are the
Holy Alliance?”

He wept on in silence. Presently I said, somewhat sharply,—

“Answer the question!”

He struggled to get command of his voice; and then, looking up
appealingly, forced the words out between his sobs,—

“Oh, have pity on me, sir! I cannot answer it, for I do not know.”

“What!”

“Indeed, sir, I am telling the truth. I never have heard of the Holy
Alliance till this moment. On my honor, sir, this is so.”

“Good heavens! Look at this second letter of yours; there, do you see
those words, ‘_Holy Alliance_?’ What do you say now?”

He gazed up into my face with the hurt look of one upon whom a great
wrong had been wrought, then said, feelingly,—

“This is some cruel joke, sir; and how could they play it upon me, who
have tried all I could to do right, and have never done harm to anybody?
Some one has counterfeited my hand; I never wrote a line of this; I have
never seen this letter before!”

“Oh, you unspeakable liar! Here, what do you say to _this_?”—and I
snatched the sympathetic ink letter from my pocket and thrust it before
his eyes.

His face turned white!—as white as a dead person’s. He wavered slightly
in his tracks, and put his hand against the wall to steady himself.
After a moment he asked, in so faint a voice that it was hardly
audible,—

“Have you-read it?”

Our faces must have answered the truth before my lips could get out a
false “yes,” for I distinctly saw the courage come back into that boy’s
eyes. I waited for him to say something, but he kept silent. So at last
I said,—

“Well, what have you to say as to the revelations in this letter?”

He answered, with perfect composure,—

“Nothing, except that they are entirely harmless and innocent; they can
hurt nobody.”

I was in something of a corner now, as I couldn’t disprove his
assertion. I did not know exactly how to proceed. However, an idea came
to my relief, and I said,—

“You are sure you know nothing about the Master and the Holy Alliance,
and did not write the letter which you say is a forgery?”

“Yes, sir—sure.”

I slowly drew out the knotted twine string and held it up without
speaking. He gazed at it indifferently, then looked at me inquiringly.
My patience was sorely taxed. However, I kept my temper down, and said
in my usual voice,—

“Wicklow, do you see this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

“It seems to be a piece of string.”

“_Seems?_ It _is_ a piece of string. Do you recognize it?”

“No, sir,” he replied, as calmly as the words could be uttered.

His coolness was perfectly wonderful! I paused now for several seconds,
in order that the silence might add impressiveness to what I was about
to say; then I rose and laid my hand on his shoulder, and said gravely,—

“It will do you no good, poor boy, none in the world. This sign to the
‘Master,’ this knotted string, found in one of the guns on the
water-front—”

“Found _in_ the gun! Oh, no, no, no! do not say _in_ the gun, but in a
crack in the tompion!—it _must_ have been in the crack!” and down he
went on his knees and clasped his hands and lifted up a face that was
pitiful to see, so ashy it was, and wild with terror.

“No, it was _in_ the gun.”

“Oh, something has gone wrong! My God, I am lost!” and he sprang up and
darted this way and that, dodging the hands that were put out to catch
him, and doing his best to escape from the place. But of course escape
was impossible. Then he flung himself on his knees again, crying with
all his might, and clasped me around the legs; and so he clung to me and
begged and pleaded, saying, “Oh, have pity on me! Oh, be merciful to me!
Do not betray me; they would not spare my life a moment! Protect me,
save me. I will confess everything!”

It took us some time to quiet him down and modify his fright, and get
him into something like a rational frame of mind. Then I began to
question him, he answering humbly, with downcast eyes, and from time to
time swabbing away his constantly flowing tears.

“So you are at heart a rebel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And a spy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have been acting under distinct orders from outside?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Willingly?”

“Yes, sir.”

“_Gladly_, perhaps?”

“Yes, sir; it would do no good to deny it. The South is my country; my
heart is Southern, and it is all in her cause.”

“Then the tale you told me of your wrongs and the persecution of your
family was made up for the occasion?”

“They—they told me to say it, sir.”

“And you would betray and destroy those who pitied and sheltered you. Do
you comprehend how base you are, you poor misguided thing?”

He replied with sobs only.

“Well, let that pass. To business. Who is the ‘Colonel,’ and where is
he?”

He began to cry hard, and tried to beg off from answering. He said he
would be killed if he told. I threatened to put him in the dark cell and
lock him up if he did not come out with the information. At the same
time I promised to protect him from all harm if he made a clean breast.
For all answer, he closed his mouth firmly and put on a stubborn air
which I could not bring him out of. At last I started with him; but a
single glance into the dark cell converted him. He broke into a passion
of weeping and supplicating, and declared he would tell everything.

So I brought him back, and he named the “Colonel,” and described him
particularly. Said he would be found at the principal hotel in the town,
in citizen’s dress. I had to threaten him again, before he would
describe and name the “Master.” Said the Master would be found at No. 15
Bond Street, New York, passing under the name of R. F. Gaylord. I
telegraphed name and description to the chief of police of the
metropolis, and asked that Gaylord be arrested and held till I could
send for him.

“Now,” said I, “it seems that there are several of the conspirators
‘outside,’ presumably in New London. Name and describe them.”

He named and described three men and two women,—all stopping at the
principal hotel. I sent out quietly, and had them and the “Colonel”
arrested and confined in the fort.

“Next, I want to know all about your three fellow-conspirators who are
here in the fort.”

He was about to dodge me with a falsehood, I thought; but I produced the
mysterious bits of paper which had been found upon two of them, and this
had a salutary effect upon him. I said we had possession of two of the
men, and he must point out the third. This frightened him badly, and he
cried out,—

“Oh, please don’t make me; he would kill me on the spot!”

I said that that was all nonsense; I would have somebody near by to
protect him, and, besides, the men should be assembled without arms. I
ordered all the raw recruits to be mustered, and then the poor trembling
little wretch went out and stepped along down the line, trying to look
as indifferent as possible. Finally he spoke a single word to one of the
men, and before he had gone five steps the man was under arrest.

As soon as Wicklow was with us again, I had those three men brought in.
I made one of them stand forward, and said,—

“Now, Wicklow, mind, not a shade’s divergence from the exact truth. Who
is this man, and what do you know about him?”

Being “in for it,” he cast consequences aside, fastened his eyes on the
man’s face, and spoke straight along without hesitation,—to the
following effect.

“His real name is George Bristow. He is from New Orleans; was second
mate of the coast-packet ‘Capitol,’ two years ago; is a desperate
character, and has served two terms for manslaughter,—one for killing a
deck-hand named Hyde with a capstan-bar, and one for killing a
roustabout for refusing to heave the lead, which is no part of a
roustabout’s business. He is a spy, and was sent here by the Colonel, to
act in that capacity. He was third mate of the ‘St. Nicholas,’ when she
blew up in the neighborhood of Memphis, in ’58, and came near being
lynched for robbing the dead and wounded while they were being taken
ashore in an empty wood-boat.”

And so forth and so on—he gave the man’s biography in full. When he had
finished, I said to the man,—

“What have you to say to this?”

“Barring your presence, sir, it is the infernalest lie that ever was
spoke!”

I sent him back into confinement, and called the others forward in turn.
Same result. The boy gave a detailed history of each, without ever
hesitating for a word or a fact; but all I could get out of either
rascal was the indignant assertion that it was all a lie. They would
confess nothing. I returned them to captivity, and brought out the rest
of my prisoners, one by one. Wicklow told all about them—what towns in
the South they were from, and every detail of their connection with the
conspiracy.

But they all denied his facts, and not one of them confessed a thing.
The men raged, the women cried. According to their stories, they were
all innocent people from out West, and loved the Union above all things
in this world. I locked the gang up, in disgust, and fell to catechising
Wicklow once more.

“Where is No. 166, and who is B. B.?”

But _there_ he was determined to draw the line. Neither coaxing nor
threats had any effect upon him. Time was flying—it was necessary to
institute sharp measures. So I tied him up a-tiptoe by the thumbs. As
the pain increased, it wrung screams from him which were almost more
than I could bear. But I held my ground, and pretty soon he shrieked
out,—

“Oh, _please_ let me down, and I will tell!”

“No—you’ll tell _before_ I let you down.”

Every instant was agony to him, now, so out it came,—

“No. 166, Eagle Hotel!”—naming a wretched tavern down by the water, a
resort of common laborers, ’longshoremen, and less reputable folk.

So I released him, and then demanded to know the object of the
conspiracy.

“To take the fort to-night,” said he, doggedly and sobbing.

“Have I got all the chiefs of the conspiracy?”

“No. You’ve got all except those that are to meet at 166.”

“What does ‘Remember XXXX’ mean?”

No reply.

“What is the password to No. 166?”

No reply.

“What do those bunches of letters mean,—‘FFFFF’ and ‘MMMM’? Answer! or
you will catch it again.”

“I never _will_ answer! I will die first. Now do what you please.”

“Think what you are saying, Wicklow. Is it final?”

He answered steadily, and without a quiver in his voice,—

“It is final. As sure as I love my wronged country and hate everything
this Northern sun shines on, I will die before I will reveal those
things.”

I triced him up by the thumbs again. When the agony was full upon him,
it was heart-breaking to hear the poor thing’s shrieks, but we got
nothing else out of him. To every question he screamed the same reply:
“I can die, and I _will_ die; but I will never tell.”

Well, we had to give it up. We were convinced that he certainly would
die rather than confess. So we took him down and imprisoned him, under
strict guard.

Then for some hours we busied ourselves with sending telegrams to the
War Department, and with making preparations for a descent upon No. 166.

It was stirring times, that black and bitter night. Things had leaked
out, and the whole garrison was on the alert. The sentinels were
trebled, and nobody could move, outside or in, without being brought to
a stand with a musket levelled at his head. However, Webb and I were
less concerned now than we had previously been, because of the fact that
the conspiracy must necessarily be in a pretty crippled condition, since
so many of its principals were in our clutches.

I determined to be at No. 166 in good season, capture and gag B. B., and
be on hand for the rest when they arrived. At about a quarter past one
in the morning I crept out of the fortress with half a dozen stalwart
and gamy U.S. regulars at my heels—and the boy Wicklow, with his hands
tied behind him. I told him we were going to No. 166, and that if I
found he had lied again and was misleading us, he would have to show us
the right place or suffer the consequences.

We approached the tavern stealthily and reconnoitred. A light was
burning in the small bar-room, the rest of the house was dark. I tried
the front door; it yielded, and we softly entered, closing the door
behind us. Then we removed our shoes, and I led the way to the bar-room.
The German landlord sat there, asleep in his chair. I woke him gently,
and told him to take off his boots and precede us; warning him at the
same time to utter no sound. He obeyed without a murmur, but evidently
he was badly frightened. I ordered him to lead the way to 166. We
ascended two or three flights of stairs as softly as a file of cats; and
then, having arrived near the farther end of a long hall, we came to a
door through the glazed transom of which we could discern the glow of a
dim light from within. The landlord felt for me in the dark and
whispered me that that was 166. I tried the door—it was locked on the
inside. I whispered an order to one of my biggest soldiers; we set our
ample shoulders to the door and with one heave we burst it from its
hinges. I caught a half-glimpse of a figure in a bed—saw its head dart
toward the candle; out went the light, and we were in pitch darkness.
With one big bound I lit on that bed and pinned its occupant down with
my knees. My prisoner struggled fiercely, but I got a grip on his throat
with my left hand, and that was a good assistance to my knees in holding
him down. Then straightway I snatched out my revolver, cocked it, and
laid the cold barrel warningly against his cheek.

“Now somebody strike a light!” said I. “I’ve got him safe.”

It was done. The flame of the match burst up. I looked at my captive,
and, by George, it was a young woman!

I let go and got off the bed, feeling pretty sheepish. Everybody stared
stupidly at his neighbor. Nobody had any wit or sense left, so sudden
and overwhelming had been the surprise. The young woman began to cry,
and covered her face with the sheet. The landlord said, meekly,—

“My daughter, she has been doing something that is not right, _nicht
wahr_?”

“Your daughter? Is she your daughter?”

“Oh, yes, she is my daughter. She is just to-night come home from
Cincinnati a little bit sick.”

“Confound it, that boy has lied again. This is not the right 166; this
is not B. B. Now, Wicklow, you will find the correct 166 for us,
or—hello! where is that boy?”

Gone, as sure as guns! And, what is more, we failed to find a trace of
him. Here was an awkward predicament. I cursed my stupidity in not tying
him to one of the men; but it was of no use to bother about that now.
What should I do in the present circumstances?—that was the question.
That girl _might_ be B. B., after all. I did not believe it, but still
it would not answer to take unbelief for proof. So I finally put my men
in a vacant room across the hall from 166, and told them to capture
anybody and everybody that approached the girl’s room, and to keep the
landlord with them, and under strict watch, until further orders. Then I
hurried back to the fort to see if all was right there yet.

Yes, all was right. And all remained right. I stayed up all night to
make sure of that. Nothing happened. I was unspeakably glad to see the
dawn come again, and be able to telegraph the Department that the Stars
and Stripes still floated over Fort Trumbull.

An immense pressure was lifted from my breast. Still I did not relax
vigilance, of course, nor effort either; the case was too grave for
that. I had up my prisoners, one by one, and harried them by the hour,
trying to get them to confess, but it was a failure. They only gnashed
their teeth and tore their hair, and revealed nothing.

About noon came tidings of my missing boy. He had been seen on the road,
tramping westward, some eight miles out, at six in the morning. I
started a cavalry lieutenant and a private on his track at once. They
came in sight of him twenty miles out. He had climbed a fence and was
wearily dragging himself across a slushy field toward a large
old-fashioned mansion in the edge of a village. They rode through a bit
of woods, made a detour, and closed up on the house from the opposite
side; then dismounted and skurried into the kitchen. Nobody there. They
slipped into the next room, which was also unoccupied; the door from
that room into the front or sitting-room was open. They were about to
step through it when they heard a low voice; it was somebody praying. So
they halted reverently, and the lieutenant put his head in and saw an
old man and an old woman kneeling in a corner of that sitting-room. It
was the old man that was praying, and just as he was finishing his
prayer, the Wicklow boy opened the front door and stepped in. Both of
those old people sprang at him and smothered him with embraces,
shouting,—

“Our boy! our darling! God be praised. The lost is found! He that was
dead is alive again!”

Well, sir, what do you think! That young imp was born and reared on that
homestead, and had never been five miles away from it in all his life,
till the fortnight before he loafed into my quarters and gulled me with
that maudlin yarn of his! It’s as true as gospel. That old man was his
father—a learned old retired clergyman; and that old lady was his
mother.

Let me throw in a word or two of explanation concerning that boy and his
performances. It turned out that he was a ravenous devourer of dime
novels and sensation-story papers—therefore, dark mysteries and gaudy
heroisms were just in his line. Then he had read newspaper reports of
the stealthy goings and comings of rebel spies in our midst, and of
their lurid purposes and their two or three startling achievements, till
his imagination was all aflame on that subject. His constant comrade for
some months had been a Yankee youth of much tongue and lively fancy, who
had served for a couple of years as “mud clerk” (that is, subordinate
purser) on certain of the packet-boats plying between New Orleans and
points two or three hundred miles up the Mississippi—hence his easy
facility in handling the names and other details pertaining to that
region. Now I had spent two or three months in that part of the country
before the war; and I knew just enough about it to be easily taken in by
that boy, whereas a born Louisianian would probably have caught him
tripping before he had talked fifteen minutes. Do you know the reason he
said he would rather die than explain certain of his treasonable
enigmas? Simply because he _couldn’t_ explain them!—they had no meaning;
he had fired them out of his imagination without forethought or
afterthought; and so, upon sudden call, he wasn’t able to invent an
explanation of them. For instance, he couldn’t reveal what was hidden in
the “sympathetic ink” letter, for the ample reason that there wasn’t
anything hidden in it; it was blank paper only. He hadn’t put anything
into a gun, and had never intended to—for his letters were all written
to imaginary persons, and when he hid one in the stable he always
removed the one he had put there the day before; so he was not
acquainted with that knotted string, since he was seeing it for the
first time when I showed it to him; but as soon as I had let him find
out where it came from, he straightway adopted it, in his romantic
fashion, and got some fine effects out of it. He invented Mr. “Gaylord;”
there wasn’t any 15 Bond Street, just then—it had been pulled down three
months before. He invented the “Colonel;” he invented the glib histories
of those unfortunates whom I captured and confronted with him; he
invented “B. B.;” he even invented No. 166, one may say, for he didn’t
know there _was_ such a number in the Eagle Hotel until we went there.
He stood ready to invent anybody or anything whenever it was wanted. If
I called for “outside” spies, he promptly described strangers whom he
had seen at the hotel, and whose names he had happened to hear. Ah, he
lived in a gorgeous, mysterious, romantic world during those few
stirring days, and I think it was _real_ to him, and that he enjoyed it
clear down to the bottom of his heart.

But he made trouble enough for us, and just no end of humiliation. You
see, on account of him we had fifteen or twenty people under arrest and
confinement in the fort, with sentinels before their doors. A lot of the
captives were soldiers and such, and to them I didn’t have to apologize;
but the rest were first-class citizens, from all over the country, and
no amount of apologies was sufficient to satisfy them. They just fumed
and raged and made no end of trouble! And those two ladies,—one was an
Ohio Congressman’s wife, the other a Western bishop’s sister,—well, the
scorn and ridicule and angry tears they poured out on me made up a
keepsake that was likely to make me remember them for a considerable
time,—and I shall. That old lame gentleman with the goggles was a
college president from Philadelphia, who had come up to attend his
nephew’s funeral. He had never seen young Wicklow before, of course.
Well, he not only missed the funeral, and got jailed as a rebel spy, but
Wicklow had stood up there in my quarters and coldly described him as a
counterfeiter, nigger-trader, horse-thief, and fire-bug from the most
notorious rascal-nest in Galveston; and this was a thing which that poor
old gentleman couldn’t seem to get over at all.

And the War Department! But, O my soul, let’s draw the curtain over that
part!

  Note.—I showed my manuscript to the Major, and he said: “Your
  unfamiliarity with military matters has betrayed you into some
  little mistakes. Still, they are picturesque ones—let them go;
  military men will smile at them, the rest won’t detect them. You
  have got the main facts of the history right, and have set them down
  just about as they occurred.”—M. T.




                   MRS. McWILLIAMS AND THE LIGHTNING.


Well, sir,—continued Mr. McWilliams, for this was not the beginning of
his talk;—the fear of lightning is one of the most distressing
infirmities a human being can be afflicted with. It is mostly confined
to women; but now and then you find it in a little dog, and sometimes in
a man. It is a particularly distressing infirmity, for the reason that
it takes the sand out of a person to an extent which no other fear can,
and it can’t be _reasoned_ with, and neither can it be shamed out of a
person. A woman who could face the very devil himself—or a mouse—loses
her grip and goes all to pieces in front of a flash of lightning. Her
fright is something pitiful to see.

Well, as I was telling you, I woke up, with that smothered and
unlocatable cry of “Mortimer! Mortimer!” wailing in my ears; and as soon
as I could scrape my faculties together I reached over in the dark and
then said,—

“Evangeline, is that you calling? What is the matter? Where are you?”

“Shut up in the boot-closet. You ought to be ashamed to lie there and
sleep so, and such an awful storm going on.”

“Why, how _can_ one be ashamed when he is asleep? It is unreasonable; a
man _can’t_ be ashamed when he is asleep, Evangeline.”

“You never try, Mortimer,—you know very well you never try.”

I caught the sound of muffled sobs.

That sound smote dead the sharp speech that was on my lips, and I
changed it to—

“I’m sorry, dear,—I’m truly sorry. I never meant to act so. Come back
and—”

“MORTIMER!”

“Heavens! what is the matter, my love?”

“Do you mean to say you are in that bed yet?”

“Why, of course.”

“Come out of it instantly. I should think you would take some _little_
care of your life, for _my_ sake and the children’s, if you will not for
your own.”

“But my love—”

“Don’t talk to me, Mortimer. You _know_ there is no place so dangerous
as a bed, in such a thunder-storm as this,—all the books say that; yet
there you would lie, and deliberately throw away your life,—for goodness
knows what, unless for the sake of arguing and arguing, and—”

“But, confound it, Evangeline, I’m _not_ in the bed, _now_. I’m—”

[Sentence interrupted by a sudden glare of lightning, followed by a
terrified little scream from Mrs. McWilliams and a tremendous blast of
thunder.]

“There! You see the result. Oh, Mortimer, how _can_ you be so profligate
as to swear at such a time as this?”

“I _didn’t_ swear. And that _wasn’t_ a result of it, any way. It would
have come, just the same, if I hadn’t said a word; and you know very
well, Evangeline,—at least you ought to know,—that when the atmosphere
is charged with electricity—”

“Oh, yes, now argue it, and argue it, and argue it!—I don’t see how you
can act so, when you _know_ there is not a lightning-rod on the place,
and your poor wife and children are absolutely at the mercy of
Providence. What _are_ you doing?—lighting a match at such a time as
this! Are you stark mad?”

“Hang it, woman, where’s the harm? The place is as dark as the inside of
an infidel, and—”

“Put it out! put it out instantly! Are you determined to sacrifice us
all? You _know_ there is nothing attracts lightning like a light.
[_Fzt!—crash! boom—boloom-boom-boom!_] Oh, just hear it! Now you see
what you’ve done!”

“No, I _don’t_ see what I’ve done. A match may attract lightning, for
all I know, but it don’t _cause_ lightning,—I’ll go odds on that. And it
didn’t attract it worth a cent this time; for if that shot was levelled
at my match, it was blessed poor marksmanship,—about an average of none
out of a possible million, I should say. Why, at Dollymount, such
marksmanship as that—”

“For shame, Mortimer! Here we are standing right in the very presence of
death, and yet in so solemn a moment you are capable of using such
language as that. If you have no desire to—Mortimer!”

“Well?”

“Did you say your prayers to-night?”

“I—I—meant to, but I got to trying to cipher out how much twelve times
thirteen is, and—”

[_Fzt!—boom-berroom-boom! bumble-umble bang_-SMASH!]

“Oh, we are lost, beyond all help! How _could_ you neglect such a thing
at such a time as this?”

“But it _wasn’t_ ‘such a time as this.’ There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
How could _I_ know there was going to be all this rumpus and powwow
about a little slip like that? And I don’t think it’s just fair for you
to make so much out of it, any way, seeing it happens so seldom; I
haven’t missed before since I brought on that earthquake, four years
ago.”

“MORTIMER! How you talk! Have you forgotten the yellow fever?”

“My dear, you are always throwing up the yellow fever to me, and I think
it is perfectly unreasonable. You can’t even send a telegraphic message
as far as Memphis without relays, so how is a little devotional slip of
mine going to carry so far? I’ll _stand_ the earthquake, because it was
in the neighborhood; but I’ll be hanged if I’m going to be responsible
for every blamed—”

[_Fzt!_—BOOM _beroom_-boom! boom!—BANG!]

“Oh, dear, dear, dear! I _know_ it struck something, Mortimer. We never
shall see the light of another day; and if it will do you any good to
remember, when we are gone, that your dreadful language—_Mortimer_!”

“WELL! What now?”

“Your voice sounds as if— Mortimer, are you actually standing in front
of that open fireplace?”

“That is the very crime I am committing.”

“Get away from it, this moment. You do seem determined to bring
destruction on us all. Don’t you _know_ that there is no better
conductor for lightning than an open chimney? _Now_ where have you got
to?”

“I’m here by the window.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, have you lost your mind? Clear out from there,
this moment. The very children in arms know it is fatal to stand near a
window in a thunder-storm. Dear, dear, I know I shall never see the
light of another day. Mortimer?”

“Yes?”

“What is that rustling?”

“It’s me.”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to find the upper end of my pantaloons.”

“Quick! throw those things away! I do believe you would deliberately put
on those clothes at such a time as this; yet you know perfectly well
that _all_ authorities agree that woolen stuffs attract lightning. Oh,
dear, dear, it isn’t sufficient that one’s life must be in peril from
natural causes, but you must do everything you can possibly think of to
augment the danger. Oh, _don’t_ sing! What _can_ you be thinking of?”

“Now where’s the harm in it?”

“Mortimer, if I have told you once, I have told you a hundred times,
that singing causes vibrations in the atmosphere which interrupt the
flow of the electric fluid, and—What on _earth_ are you opening that
door for?”

“Goodness gracious, woman, is there is any harm in _that_?”

“_Harm?_ There’s _death_ in it. Anybody that has given this subject any
attention knows that to create a draught is to invite the lightning. You
haven’t half shut it; shut it _tight_,—and do hurry, or we are all
destroyed. Oh, it is an awful thing to be shut up with a lunatic at such
a time as this. Mortimer, what _are_ you doing?”

“Nothing. Just turning on the water. This room is smothering hot and
close. I want to bathe my face and hands.”

“You have certainly parted with the remnant of your mind! Where
lightning strikes any other substance once, it strikes water fifty
times. Do turn it off. Oh, dear, I am sure that nothing in this world
can save us. It does seem to me that—Mortimer, what was that?”

“It was a da—it was a picture. Knocked it down.”

“Then you are close to the wall! I never heard of such imprudence! Don’t
you _know_ that there’s no better conductor for lightning than a wall?
Come away from there! And you came as near as anything to swearing, too.
Oh, how can you be so desperately wicked, and your family in such peril?
Mortimer, did you order a feather bed, as I asked you to do?”

“No. Forgot it.”

“Forgot it! It may cost you your life. If you had a feather bed, now,
and could spread it in the middle of the room and lie on it, you would
be perfectly safe. Come in here,—come quick, before you have a chance to
commit any more frantic indiscretions.”

I tried, but the little closet would not hold us both with the door
shut, unless we could be content to smother. I gasped awhile, then
forced my way out. My wife called out,—

“Mortimer, something _must_ be done for your preservation. Give me that
German book that is on the end of the mantel-piece, and a candle; but
don’t light it; give me a match; I will light it in here. That book has
some directions in it.”

I got the book,—at cost of a vase and some other brittle things; and the
madam shut herself up with her candle. I had a moment’s peace; then she
called out,—

“Mortimer, what was that?”

“Nothing but the cat.”

“The cat! Oh, destruction! Catch her, and shut her up in the wash-stand.
Do be quick, love; cats are _full_ of electricity. I just know my hair
will turn white with this night’s awful perils.”

I heard the muffled sobbings again. But for that, I should not have
moved hand or foot in such a wild enterprise in the dark.

However, I went at my task,—over chairs, and against all sorts of
obstructions, all of them hard ones, too, and most of them with sharp
edges,—and at last I got kitty cooped up in the commode, at an expense
of over four hundred dollars in broken furniture and shins. Then these
muffled words came from the closet:—

“It says the safest thing is to stand on a chair in the middle of the
room, Mortimer; and the legs of the chair must be insulated, with
non-conductors. That is, you must set the legs of the chair in glass
tumblers. [_Fzt!—boom—bang!—smash!_] Oh, hear that! Do hurry, Mortimer,
before you are struck.”

I managed to find and secure the tumblers. I got the last four,—broke
all the rest. I insulated the chair legs, and called for further
instructions.

“Mortimer, it says, ‘Während eines Gewitters entferne man Metalle, wie
z. B., Ringe, Uhren, Schlüssel, etc., von sich und halte sich auch nicht
an solchen Stellen auf, wo viele Metalle bei einander liegen, oder mit
andern Körpern verbunden sind, wie an Herden, Oefen, Eisengittern u.
dgl.’ What does that mean, Mortimer? Does it mean that you must keep
metals _about_ you, or keep them _away_ from you?”

“Well, I hardly know. It appears to be a little mixed. All German advice
is more or less mixed. However, I think that that sentence is mostly in
the dative case, with a little genitive and accusative sifted in, here
and there, for luck; so I reckon it means that you must keep some metals
_about_ you.”

“Yes, that must be it. It stands to reason that it is. They are in the
nature of lightning-rods, you know. Put on your fireman’s helmet,
Mortimer; that is mostly metal.”

I got it and put it on,—a very heavy and clumsy and uncomfortable thing
on a hot night in a close room. Even my night-dress seemed to be more
clothing than I strictly needed.

“Mortimer, I think your middle ought to be protected. Won’t you buckle
on your militia sabre, please?”

I complied.

“Now, Mortimer, you ought to have some way to protect your feet. Do
please put on your spurs.”

I did it,—in silence,—and kept my temper as well as I could.

“Mortimer, it says, ‘Das Gewitter läuten ist sehr gefährlich, weil die
Glocke selbst, sowie der durch das Läuten veranlasste Luftzug und die
Höhe des Thurmes den Blitz anziehen könnten.’ Mortimer, does that mean
that it is dangerous not to ring the church bells during a
thunder-storm?”

“Yes, it seems to mean that,—if that is the past participle of the
nominative case singular, and I reckon it is. Yes, I think it means that
on account of the height of the church tower and the absence of
_Luftzug_ it would be very dangerous (_sehr gefährlich_) not to ring the
bells in time of a storm; and moreover, don’t you see, the very
wording—”

“Never mind that, Mortimer; don’t waste the precious time in talk. Get
the large dinner-bell; it is right there in the hall. Quick, Mortimer
dear; we are almost safe. Oh, dear, I do believe we are going to be
saved, at last!”

Our little summer establishment stands on top of a high range of hills,
overlooking a valley. Several farm-houses are in our neighborhood,—the
nearest some three or four hundred yards away.

When I, mounted on the chair, had been clanging that dreadful bell a
matter of seven or eight minutes, our shutters were suddenly torn open
from without, and a brilliant bull’s-eye lantern was thrust in at the
window, followed by a hoarse inquiry:—

“What in the nation is the matter here?”

The window was full of men’s heads, and the heads were full of eyes that
stared wildly at my night-dress and my warlike accoutrements.

I dropped the bell, skipped down from the chair in confusion, and said,—

“There is nothing the matter, friends,—only a little discomfort on
account of the thunder-storm. I was trying to keep off the lightning.”

“Thunder-storm? Lightning? Why, Mr. McWilliams, have you lost your mind?
It is a beautiful starlight night; there has been no storm.”

I looked out, and I was so astonished I could hardly speak for a while.
Then I said,—

“I do not understand this. We distinctly saw the glow of the flashes
through the curtains and shutters, and heard the thunder.”

One after another of those people lay down on the ground to laugh,—and
two of them died. One of the survivors remarked,—

“Pity you didn’t think to open your blinds and look over to the top of
the high hill yonder. What you heard was cannon; what you saw was the
flash. You see, the telegraph brought some news, just at midnight:
Garfield’s nominated,—and that’s what’s the matter!”

Yes, Mr. Twain, as I was saying in the beginning (said Mr. McWilliams),
the rules for preserving people against lightning are so excellent and
so innumerable that the most incomprehensible thing in the world to me
is how anybody ever manages to get struck.

So saying, he gathered up his satchel and umbrella, and departed; for
the train had reached his town.




[EXPLANATORY. I regard the idea of this play as a valuable invention. I
call it the Patent Universally-Applicable Automatically-Adjustable
Language Drama. This indicates that it is adjustable to any tongue, and
performable in any tongue. The English portions of the play are to
remain just as they are, permanently; but you change the foreign
portions to any language you please, at will. Do you see? You at once
have the same old play in a new tongue. And you can keep on changing it
from language to language, until your private theatrical pupils have
become glib and at home in the speech of all nations. _Zum Beispiel_,
suppose we wish to adjust the play to the French tongue. First, we give
Mrs. Blumenthal and Gretchen French names. Next, we knock the German
Meisterschaft sentences out of the first scene, and replace them with
sentences from the French Meisterschaft-like this, for instance; “Je
voudrais faire des emplettes ce matin; voulez-vous avoir l’obligeance de
venir avec moi chez le tailleur français?” And so on. Wherever you find
German, replace it with French, leaving the English parts undisturbed.
When you come to the long conversation in the second act, turn to any
pamphlet of your French Meisterschaft, and shovel in as much French talk
on _any_ subject as will fill up the gaps left by the expunged German.
Example—page 423 French Meisterschaft:

      On dirait qu’il va faire chaud.
      J’ai chaud.
      J’ai extrêmement chaud.
      Ah! qu’il fait chaud!
      Il fait une chaleur étouffante!
      L’air est brûlant.
      Je meurs de chaleur.
      Il est presque impossible de supporter la chaleur.
      Cela vous fait transpirer.
      Mettons nous à l’ombre.
      Il fait du vent.
      Il fait un vent froid.
      Il fait un temps très-agréable pour se promener aujourd’hui.

And so on, all the way through. It is very easy to adjust the play to
any desired language. Anybody can do it.]




                     MEISTERSCHAFT: IN THREE ACTS.


                           DRAMATIS PERSONÆ:

                     MR. STEPHENSON.
                     MARGARET STEPHENSON.
                     GEORGE FRANKLIN.
                     ANNIE STEPHENSON.
                     WILLIAM JACKSON.
                     MRS. BLUMENTHAL, the Wirthin.
                     GRETCHEN,
                     Kellnerin.




                                 ACT I.


                                SCENE I.

  Scene of the play, the parlor of a small private dwelling in a
  village.

MARGARET. (_Discovered crocheting—has a pamphlet._)

MARGARET. (_Solus._) Dear, dear! it’s dreary enough, to have to study
this impossible German tongue: to be exiled from home and all human
society except a body’s sister in order to do it, is just simply
abscheulich. Here’s only three weeks of the three months gone, and it
seems like three years. I don’t believe I can live through it, and I’m
sure Annie can’t.

(_Refers to her book, and rattles through, several times, like one
memorizing_:) Entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr, können Sie mir vielleicht
sagen, um wie viel Uhr der erste Zug nach Dresden abgeht? (_Makes
mistakes and corrects them._) I just hate Meisterschaft! We may see
people; we can have society: yes, on condition that the conversation
shall be in German, and in German only—every single word of it! Very
kind—oh, very! when neither Annie nor I can put two words together,
except as they are put together for us in Meisterschaft or that idiotic
Ollendorff! (_Refers to book, and memorizes: Mein Bruder hat Ihren Herrn
Vater nicht gesehen, als er gestern in dem Laden des deutschen
Kaufmannes war._) Yes, we can have society, provided we talk German.
What would such a conversation be like! If you should stick to
Meisterschaft, it would change the subject every two minutes; and if you
stuck to Ollendorff, it would be all about your sister’s mother’s good
stocking of thread, or your grandfather’s aunt’s good hammer of the
carpenter, and who’s got it, and there an end. You couldn’t keep up your
interest in such topics. (_Memorizing: Wenn irgend möglich,—möchte ich
noch heute Vormittag dort ankommen, da es mir sehr daran gelegen ist,
einen meiner Geschäftsfreunde zu treffen._) My mind is made up to one
thing: I will be an exile, in spirit and in truth: I will see no one
during these three months. Father is very ingenious—oh, very! thinks he
is, anyway. Thinks he has invented a way to _force_ us to learn to speak
German. He is a dear good soul, and all that; but invention isn’t his
fash’. He will see. (_With eloquent energy._) Why, nothing in the world
shall—Bitte, können Sie mir vielleicht sagen, ob Herr Schmidt mit diesem
Zuge angekommen ist? Oh, dear, dear George—three weeks! It seems a whole
century since I saw him. I wonder if he suspects that I—that I—care for
him——j—just a wee, wee bit? I believe he does. And I believe Will
suspects that Annie cares for _him_ a little, that I do. And I know
perfectly well that they care for _us_. They agree with all our
opinions, no matter what they are; and if they have a prejudice, they
change it, as soon as they see how foolish it is. Dear George! at first
he just couldn’t abide cats; but now, why now he’s just all for cats; he
fairly welters in cats. I never saw such a reform. And it’s just so with
_all_ his principles: he hasn’t got one that he had before. Ah, if all
men were like him, this world would——(_Memorizing: Im Gegentheil, mein
Herr, dieser Stoff is sehr billig. Bitte, sehen Sie sich nur die
Qualität an._) Yes, and what did _they_ go to studying German for, if it
wasn’t an inspiration of the highest and purest sympathy? Any other
explanation is nonsense——why, they’d as soon have thought of studying
American history. (_Turns her back, buries herself in her pamphlet,
first memorizing aloud, until Annie enters, then to herself, rocking to
and fro, and rapidly moving her lips, without uttering a sound._)

  Enter Annie, absorbed in her pamphlet—does not at first see
  Margaret.

ANNIE. (_Memorizing: Er liess mich gestern früh rufen, und sagte mir
dass er einen sehr unangenehmen Brief von Ihrem Lehrer erhalten hatte.
Repeats twice aloud, then to herself, briskly moving her lips._)

M. (_Still not seeing her sister._) Wie geht es Ihrem Herrn
Schwiegervater? Es freut mich sehr, dass Ihre Frau Mutter wieder wohl
ist. (_Repeats. Then mouths in silence._)

(_Annie repeats her sentence a couple of times aloud; then looks up,
working her lips, and discovers Margaret._) Oh, you here! (_Running to
her._) O lovey-dovey, dovey-lovey, I’ve got the gr-reatest news! Guess,
guess, guess! You’ll never guess in a hundred thousand million years—and
more!

M. Oh, tell me, tell me, dearie; don’t keep me in agony.

A. Well, I will. What—do—you—think? _They’re_ here!

M. Wh-a-t! Who? When? Which? Speak!

A. Will and George!

M. Annie Alexandra Victoria Stephenson, what _do_ you mean!

A. As sure as guns!

M. (_Spasmodically unarming and kissing her._) ’Sh! don’t use such
language. O darling, say it again!

A. As sure as guns!

M. I don’t mean that! Tell me again, that—

A. (_Springing up and waltzing about the room._) They’re here—in this
very village—to learn German—for three months! Es sollte mich sehr
freuen wenn Sie—

M. (_Joining in the dance._) Oh, it’s just too lovely for anything!
(_Unconsciously memorizing_:) Es wäre mir lieb wenn Sie morgen mit mir
in die Kirche gehen könnten, aber ich kann selbst nicht gehen, weil ich
Sonntags gewöhnlich krank bin. Juckhe!

A. (_Finishing some unconscious memorizing._)—morgen Mittag bei mir
speisen könnten. Juckhe! Sit down and I’ll tell you all I’ve heard.
(_They sit._) They’re here, and under that same odious law that fetters
us—our tongues, I mean; the metaphor’s faulty, but no matter. They can
go out, and see people, only on condition that they hear and speak
German, and German only.

M. Isn’t—that—too lovely!

A. And they’re coming to see us!

M. Darling! (_Kissing her._) But are you sure?

A. Sure as guns—Gatling guns!

M. ’Sh! don’t child, it’s schrecklich! Darling—you aren’t mistaken?

A. As sure as g—batteries!

  They jump up and dance a moment—then—

M. (_With distress._) But, Annie dear!—_we_ can’t talk German—and
neither can they!

A. (_Sorrowfully._) I didn’t think of that.

M. How cruel it is! What can we do?

A. (_After a reflective pause, resolutely._) Margaret—we’ve _got_ to.

M. Got to what?

A. Speak German.

M. Why, how, child?

A. (_Contemplating her pamphlet with earnestness._) I can tell you one
thing. Just give me the blessed privilege: just hinsetzen Will Jackson
here in front of me and I’ll talk German to him as long as this
Meisterschaft holds out to burn.

M. (_Joyously._) Oh, what an elegant idea! You certainly have got a mind
that’s a mine of resources, if ever anybody had one.

A. I’ll skin this Meisterschaft to the last sentence in it!

M. (_With a happy idea._) Why, Annie, it’s the greatest thing in the
world. I’ve been all this time struggling and despairing over these few
little Meisterschaft primers: but as sure as you live, I’ll have the
whole fifteen by heart before this time day after to-morrow. See if I
don’t.

A. And so will I; and I’ll trowel-in a layer of Ollendorff mush between
every couple of courses of Meisterschaft bricks. Juckhe!

M. Hoch! hoch! hoch!

A. Stoss an!

M. Juckhe! Wir werden gleich gute deutsche Schülerinnen werden! Juck——

A. —he!

M. Annie, when are they coming to see us? To-night?

A. No.

M. No? Why not? When are they coming? What are they waiting for? The
idea! I never heard of such a thing! What do you——

A. (_Breaking in._) Wait, wait, wait! give a body a chance. They have
their reasons.

M. Reasons?—what reasons?

A. Well, now, when you stop and think, they’re royal good ones. They’ve
got to talk German when they come, haven’t they? Of course. Well, they
don’t _know_ any German but Wie befinden Sie sich, and Haben Sie gut
geschlafen, and Vater unser, and Ich trinke lieber Bier als Wasser, and
a few little parlor things like that; but when it comes to _talking_,
why, they don’t know a hundred and fifty German words, put them all
together.

M. Oh, I see!

A. So they’re going neither to eat, sleep, smoke, nor speak the truth
till they’ve crammed home the whole fifteen Meisterschafts auswendig!

M. Noble hearts!

A. They’ve given themselves till day after to-morrow, half-past 7 P. M.,
and then they’ll arrive here, loaded.

M. Oh, how lovely, how gorgeous, how beautiful! Some think this world is
made of mud; I think it’s made of rainbows. (_Memorizing._) Wenn irgend
möglich, so möchte ich noch heute Vormittag dort ankommen, da es mir
sehr daran gelegen ist,—Annie, I can learn it just like nothing!

A. So can I. Meisterschaft’s mere fun—I don’t see how it ever could have
seemed difficult. Come! We can be disturbed here: let’s give orders that
we don’t want anything to eat for two days; and are absent to friends,
dead to strangers, and not at home even to nougat-peddlers——

M. Schön! and we’ll lock ourselves into our rooms, and at the end of two
days, whosoever may ask us a Meisterschaft question shall get a
Meisterschaft answer—and hot from the bat!

BOTH. (_Reciting in unison._) Ich habe einen Hut für meinen Sohn, ein
Paar Handschuhe für meinen Bruder, und einen Kamm für mich selbst
gekauft.

                               (Exeunt.)

  Enter MRS. BLUMENTHAL, the Wirthin.

WIRTHIN. (_Solus._) Ach, die armen Mädchen, sie hassen die deutsche
Sprache, drum ist es ganz und gar unmöglich dass sie sie je lernen
können. Es bricht mir ja mein Herz ihre Kummer über die Studien
anzusehen.... Warum haben sie den Entschluss gefasst in ihren Zimmern
ein Paar Tage zu bleiben?... Ja—gewiss—dass versteht sich: sie sind
entmuthigt—arme Kinder!

(_A knock at the door._) Herein!

  Enter Gretchen with card.

G. Er ist schon wieder da, und sagt dass er nur _Sie_ sehen will.
(_Hands the card._) Auch—

WIRTHIN. Gott im Himmel—der Vater der Mädchen! (_Puts the card in her
pocket._) Er wünscht die _Töchter_ nicht zu treffen? Ganz recht; also,
Du schweigst.

G. Zu Befehl.

WIRTHIN. Lass ihn hereinkommen.

G. Ja, Frau Wirthin!

  Exit Gretchen.

WIRTHIN. (_Solus._) Ah—jetzt muss ich ihm die Wahrheit offenbaren.

  Enter Mr. Stephenson.

STEPHENSON. Good morning, Mrs. Blumenthal—keep your seat, keep your
seat, please. I’m only here for a moment—merely to get your report, you
know. (_Seating himself._) Don’t want to see the girls—poor things,
they’d want to go home with me. I’m afraid I couldn’t have the heart to
say no. How’s the German getting along?

WIRTHIN. N-not very well; I was afraid you would ask me that. You see,
they hate it, they don’t take the least interest in it, and there isn’t
anything to incite them to an interest, you see. And so they can’t talk
at all.

S. M-m. That’s bad. I had an idea that they’d get lonesome, and have to
seek society; and then, of course, my plan would work, considering the
cast-iron conditions of it.

WIRTHIN. But it hasn’t so far. I’ve thrown nice company in their
way—I’ve done my very best, in every way I could think of—but it’s no
use; they won’t go out, and they won’t receive anybody. And a body can’t
blame them; they’d be tongue-tied—couldn’t do anything with a German
conversation. Now when I started to learn German—such poor German as I
know—the case was very different: my intended was a German. I was to
live among Germans the rest of my life; and so I _had_ to learn. Why,
bless my heart! I nearly _lost_ the man the first time he asked me—I
thought he was talking about the measles. They were very prevalent at
the time. Told him I didn’t want any in mine. But I found out the
mistake, and I was fixed for him next time... Oh, yes, Mr. Stephenson, a
sweetheart’s a prime incentive!

S. (_Aside._) Good soul! she doesn’t suspect that my plan is a double
scheme—includes a speaking knowledge of German, which I am bound they
shall have, and the keeping them away from those two young
fellows—though if I had known that those boys were going off for a
year’s foreign travel, I—however, the girls would never learn that
language at home; they’re here, and I won’t relent—they’ve got to stick
the three months out. (_Aloud._) So they are making poor progress? Now
tell me—will they learn it—after a sort of fashion, I mean—in the three
months?

WIRTHIN. Well, now, I’ll tell you the only chance I see. Do what I will,
they won’t answer my German with anything but English; if that goes on,
they’ll stand stock still. Now I’m willing to do this: I’ll straighten
everything up, get matters in smooth running order, and day after
to-morrow I’ll go to bed sick, and stay sick three weeks.

S. Good! You are an angel! I see your idea. The servant girl—

WIRTHIN. That’s it; that’s my project. She doesn’t know a word of
English. And Gretchen’s a real good soul, and can talk the slates off a
roof. Her tongue’s just a flutter-mill. I’ll keep my room,—just ailing a
little,—and they’ll never see my face except when they pay their little
duty-visits to me, and then I’ll say English disorders my mind. They’ll
be shut up with Gretchen’s wind-mill, and she’ll just grind them to
powder. Oh, _they’ll_ get a start in the language—sort of a one, sure’s
you live. You come back in three weeks.

S. Bless you, my Retterin! I’ll be here to the day! Get ye to your
sick-room—you shall have treble pay. (_Looking at watch._) Good! I can
just catch my train. Leben Sie wohl! (_Exit._)

WIRTHIN. Leben Sie wohl! mein Herr!




                                ACT II.


                                SCENE I.

  Time, a couple of days later. (The girls discovered with their work
  and primers.)

ANNIE. Was fehlt der Wirthin?

MARGARET. Dass weiss ich nicht. Sie ist schon vor zwei Tagen ins Bett
gegangen—

A. My! how fliessend you speak!

M. Danke schön—und sagte dass sie nicht wohl sei.

A. Good! Oh, no, I don’t mean that! no—only lucky for _us_—glücklich,
you know I mean because it’ll be so much nicer to have them all to
ourselves.

M. Oh, natürlich! Ja! Dass ziehe ich durchaus vor. Do you believe your
Meisterschaft will stay with you, Annie?

A. Well, I know it _is_ with me—every last sentence of it; and a couple
of hods of Ollendorff, too, for emergencies. May be they’ll refuse to
deliver,—right off—at first, you know—der Verlegenheit wegen—aber ich
will sie später herausholen—when I get my hand in—und vergisst Du dass
nicht!

M. Sei nicht grob, Liebste. What shall we talk about first—when they
come?

A. Well—let me see. There’s shopping—and—all that about the trains, you
know,—and going to church—and—buying tickets to London, and Berlin, and
all around—and all that subjunctive stuff about the battle in
Afghanistan, and where the American was said to be born, and so
on—and—and ah—oh, there’s so _many_ things—I don’t think a body can
choose beforehand, because you know the circumstances and the atmosphere
always have so much to do in directing a conversation, especially a
German conversation, which is only a kind of an insurrection, any way. I
believe it’s best to just depend on Prov—(_Glancing at watch, and
gasping_)—half-past—seven!

M. Oh, dear, I’m all of a tremble! Let’s get something ready, Annie!

(_Both fall nervously to reciting_): Entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr,
können Sie mir vielleicht sagen wie ich nach dem norddeutschen Bahnhof
gehe? (_They repeat it several times, losing their grip and mixing it
all up._)

                               (A knock.)

BOTH. Herein! Oh, dear! O der heilige—

  Enter Gretchen.

GRETCHEN (_Ruffled and indignant._) Entschuldigen Sie, meine gnädigsten
Fräulein, es sind zwei junge rasende Herren draussen, die herein wollen,
aber ich habe ihnen geschworen dass—(_Handing the cards._)

M. Du liebe Zeit, they’re here! And of course down goes my back hair!
Stay and receive them, dear, while I—(_Leaving._)

A. I—alone? I won’t! I’ll go with you! (_To_ G.) Lassen Sie die Herren
näher treten; und sagen Sie ihnen dass wir gleich zurückkommen werden.
(_Exit._)

GR. (_Solus._) Was! Sie freuen sich darüber? Und ich sollte wirklich
diese Blödsinnigen, dies grobe Rindvieh hereinlassen? In den hülflosen
Umständen meiner gnädigen jungen Damen?—Unsinn! (_Pause—thinking._)
Wohlan! Ich werde sie mal beschützen! Sollte man nicht glauben, dass sie
einen Sparren zu viel hätten? (_Tapping her skull significantly._) Was
sie mir doch Alles gesagt haben! Der Eine: Guten Morgen! wie geht es
Ihrem Herrn Schwiegervater? Du liebe Zeit! Wie sollte ich einen
Schwiegervater haben können! Und der Andere: “Es thut mir sehr leid dass
Ihr Herr Vater meinen Bruder nicht gesehen hat, als er doch gestern in
dem Laden des deutschen Kaufmannes war!” Potztausendhimmelsdonnerwetter!
Oh, ich war ganz rasend! Wie ich aber rief: “Meine Herren, ich kenne Sie
nicht, und Sie kennen meinen Vater nicht, wissen Sie, denn er ist schon
lange durchgebrannt, und geht nicht beim Tage in einen Laden hinein,
wissen Sie,—und ich habe keinen Schwiegervater, Gott sei Dank, werde
auch nie einen kriegen, werde ueberhaupt, wissen Sie, ein solches Ding
nie haben, nie dulden, nie ausstehen: warum greifen Sie ein Mädchen an,
das nur Unschuld kennt, das Ihnen nie Etwas zu Leide gethan hat?” Dann
haben sie sich beide die Finger in die Ohren gesteckt und gebetet:
“Allmächtiger Gott! Erbarme Dich unser!” (_Pauses._) Nun, ich werde
schon diesen Schurken Einlass gönnen, aber ich werde ein Auge mit ihnen
haben, damit sie sich nicht wie reine Teufel geberden sollen.

(_Exit, grumbling and shaking her head._)

  Enter William and George.

W. My land, what a girl! and what an incredible gift of gabble!—kind of
patent climate-proof compensation-balance self-acting automatic
Meisterschaft—touch her button, and br-r-r! away she goes!

GEO. Never heard anything like it; tongue journaled on ball-bearings! I
wonder what she said; seemed to be swearing, mainly.

W. (_After mumbling Meisterschaft awhile._) Look here, George, this is
awful—come to think—this project: _we_ can’t talk this frantic language.

GEO. I know it, Will, and it _is_ awful; but I can’t live without seeing
Margaret—I’ve endured it as long as I can. I should die if I tried to
hold out longer—and even German is preferable to death.

W. (_Hesitatingly._) Well, I don’t know; it’s a matter of opinion.

GEO. (_Irritably._) It isn’t a matter of opinion either. German _is_
preferable to death.

W. (_Reflectively._) Well, I don’t know—the problem is so sudden—but I
think you may be right: some kinds of death. It is more than likely that
a slow, lingering—well, now, there in Canada in the early times a couple
of centuries ago, the Indians would take a missionary and skin him, and
get some hot ashes and boiling water and one thing and another, and by
and by, that missionary—well, yes, I can see that, by and by, talking
German could be a pleasant change for him.

GEO. Why, of course. Das versteht sich; but _you_ have to always think a
thing out, or you’re not satisfied. But let’s not go to bothering about
thinking out this present business; we’re here, we’re in for it; you are
as moribund to see Annie as I am to see Margaret; you know the terms:
we’ve got to speak German. Now stop your mooning and get at your
Meisterschaft; we’ve got nothing else in the world.

W. Do you think that’ll see us through?

GEO. Why it’s _got_ to. Suppose we wandered out of it and took a chance
at the language on our own responsibility, where the nation would we be?
Up a stump, that’s where. Our only safety is in sticking like wax to the
text.

W. But what can we talk about?

GEO. Why, anything that Meisterschaft talks about. It ain’t our affair.

W. I know; but Meisterschaft talks about everything.

GEO. And yet don’t talk about anything long enough for it to get
embarrassing. Meisterschaft is just splendid for general conversation.

W. Yes, that’s so; but it’s so _blamed_ general! Won’t it sound foolish?

GEO. Foolish? Why, of course; all German sounds foolish.

W. Well, that is true; I didn’t think of that.

GEO. Now, don’t fool around any more. Load up; load up; get ready. Fix
up some sentences; you’ll need them in two minutes now.

(_They walk up and down, moving their lips in dumb-show memorizing._)

W. Look here—when we’ve said all that’s in the book on a topic, and want
to change the subject, how can we say so?—how would a German say it?

GEO. Well, I don’t know. But you know when they mean “Change cars,” they
say _Umsteigen_. Don’t you reckon that will answer?

W. Tip-top! It’s short and goes right to the point; and it’s got a
business whang to it that’s almost American. Umsteigen!—change
subject!—why, it’s the very thing.

GEO. All right, then, _you_ umsteigen—for I hear them coming.

  Enter the girls.

A. TO W. (_With solemnity._) Guten morgen, mein Herr, es freut mich
sehr, Sie zu sehen.

W. Guten morgen, mein Fräulein, es freut mich sehr Sie zu sehen.

(_Margaret and George repeat the same sentences. Then, after an
embarrassing silence, Margaret refers to her book and says_:)

M. Bitte, meine Herren, setzen Sie sich.

THE GENTLEMEN. Danke schön. (_The four seat themselves in couples, the
width of the stage apart, and the two conversations begin. The talk is
not flowing—at any rate at first; there are painful silences all along.
Each couple worry out a remark and a reply: there is a pause of silent
thinking, and then the other couple deliver themselves._)

W. Haben Sie meinen Vater in dem Laden meines Bruders nicht gesehen?

A. Nein, mein Herr, ich habe Ihren Herrn Vater in dem Laden Ihres Herrn
Bruders nicht gesehen.

GEO. Waren Sie gestern Abend im Koncert, oder im Theater?

M. Nein, ich war gestern Abend nicht im Koncert, noch im Theater, ich
war gestern Abend zu Hause.

  General break-down—long pause.

W. Ich störe doch nicht etwa?

A. Sie stören mich durchaus nicht.

GEO. Bitte, lassen Sie sich nicht von mir stören.

M. Aber ich bitte Sie, Sie stören mich durchaus nicht.

W. (_To both girls._) Wen wir Sie stören so gehen wir gleich wieder.

A. O, nein! Gewiss, nein!

M. Im Gegentheil, es freut uns sehr, Sie zu sehen—alle Beide.

W. Schön!

GEO. Gott sei dank!

M. (_Aside._) It’s just lovely!

A. (_Aside._) It’s like a poem.

                                 Pause.

W. Umsteigen!

M. Um—welches?

W. Umsteigen.

GEO. Auf English, change cars—oder subject.

BOTH GIRLS. Wie schön!

W. Wir haben uns die Freiheit genommen, bei Ihnen vorzusprechen.

A. Sie sind sehr gütig.

GEO. Wir wollten uns erkundigen, wie Sie sich befänden.

M. Ich bin Ihnen sehr verbunden—meine Schwester auch.

W. Meine Frau lasst sich Ihnen bestens empfehlen.

A. Ihre _Frau_?

W. (_Examining his book._) Vielleicht habe ich mich geirrt. (_Shows the
place._) Nein, gerade so sagt das Buch.

A. (_Satisfied._) Ganz recht. Aber—

W. Bitte empfehlen Sie mich Ihrem Herrn Bruder.

A. Ah, dass ist viel besser—viel besser. (_Aside._) Wenigstens es wäre
viel besser wenn ich einen Bruder hätte.

GEO. Wie ist es Ihnen gegangen, seitdem ich das Vergnügen hatte, Sie
anderswo zu sehen?

M. Danke bestens, ich befinde mich gewöhnlich ziemlich wohl.

  Gretchen slips in with a gun, and listens.

GEO. (_Still to Margaret._) Befindet sich Ihre Frau Gemahlin wohl?

GR. (_Raising hands and eyes._) _Frau Gemahlin_—heiliger Gott! (_Is like
to betray herself with her smothered laughter and glides out._)

M. Danke sehr, meine Frau ist ganz wohl.

                                 Pause.

W. Dürfen wir vielleicht—umsteigen?

THE OTHERS. Gut!

GEO. (_Aside._) I feel better, now. I’m beginning to catch on.
(_Aloud._) Ich möchte gern morgen früh einige Einkäufe machen und würde
Ihnen sehr verbunden sein, wenn Sie mir den Gefallen thäten, mir die
Namen der besten hiesigen Firmen aufzuschreiben.

M. (_Aside._) How sweet!

W. (_Aside._) Hang it, _I_ was going to say that! That’s one of the
noblest things in the book.

A. Ich möchte Sie gern begleiten, aber es ist mir wirklich heute Morgen
ganz unmöglich auszugehen. (_Aside._) It’s getting as easy as 9 times 7
is 46.

M. Sagen Sie dem Briefträger, wenn’s gefällig ist, er möchte Ihnen den
eingeschriebenen Brief geben lassen.

W. Ich würde Ihnen sehr verbunden sein, wenn Sie diese Schachtel für
mich nach der Post tragen würden, da mir sehr daran liegt einen meiner
Geschäftsfreunde in dem Laden des deutschen Kaufmanns heute Abend
treffen zu können. (_Aside._) All down but nine; set ’m up on the other
alley!

A. Aber Herr Jackson! Sie haben die Sätze gemischt. Es ist unbegreiflich
wie Sie das haben thun können. Zwischen Ihrem ersten Theil und Ihrem
letzten Theil haben Sie ganze fünfzig Seiten übergeschlagen! Jetzt bin
ich ganz verloren. Wie kann man reden, wenn man seinen Platz durchaus
nicht wieder finden kann?

W. Oh, bitte, verzeihen Sie; ich habe dass wirklich nich beabsichtigt.

A. (_Mollified._) Sehr wohl, lassen Sie gut sein. Aber thun Sie es nicht
wieder. Sie müssen ja doch einräumen, dass solche Dinge unerträgliche
Verwirrung mit sich führen.

(_Gretchen slips in again with her gun._)

W. Unzweifelhaft haben Sie Recht, meine holdselige Landsmännin.....
Umsteigen!

  (As George gets fairly into the following, Gretchen draws a bead on
  him, and lets drive at the close, but the gun snaps.)

GEO. Glauben Sie, dass ich ein hübsches Wohnzimmer für mich selbst und
ein kleines Schlafzimmer für meinen Sohn in diesem Hotel für fünfzehn
Mark die Woche bekommen kann, oder würden Sie mir rathen, in einer
Privatwohnung Logis zu nehmen? (_Aside._) That’s a daisy!

GR. (_Aside._) Schade! (_She draws her charge and reloads._)

M. Glauben Sie nicht Sie werden besser thun bei diesem Wetter zu Hause
zu bleiben?

A. Freilich glaube ich, Herr Franklin, Sie werden sich erkälten, wenn
Sie bei diesem unbeständigen Wetter ohne Ueberrock ausgehen.

GR. (_Relieved—aside._) So? Man redet von Ausgehen. Das klingt schon
besser. (_Sits._)

W. (_To A._) Wie theuer haben Sie das gekauft? (_Indicating a part of
her dress._)

A. Das hat achtzehn Mark gekostet.

W. Das ist sehr theuer.

GEO. Ja, obgleich dieser Stoff wunderschön ist und das Muster sehr
geschmackvoll und auch das Vorzüglichste dass es in dieser Art gibt, so
ist es doch furchtbar theuer für einen solchen Artikel.

M. (_Aside._) How sweet is this communion of soul with soul!

A. Im Gegentheil, mein Herr, das ist sehr billig. Sehen Sie sich nur die
Qualität an.

(_They all examine it._)

GEO. Möglicherweise ist es das allerneuste dass man in diesem Stoff hat;
aber das Muster gefällt mir nicht.

                                (Pause.)

W. Umsteigen!

A. Welchen Hund haben Sie? Haben Sie den hübschen Hund des Kaufmanns,
oder den hässlichen Hund der Urgrossmutter des Lehrlings des
bogenbeinigen Zimmermanns?

W. (_Aside._) Oh, come, she’s ringing in a cold deck on us: that’s
Ollendorff.

GEO. Ich habe nicht den Hund des—des—(_Aside._) Stuck! That’s no
Meisterschaft; they don’t play fair. (_Aloud._) Ich habe nicht den Hund
des—des—In unserem Buche leider, gibt es keinen Hund; daher, ob ich auch
gern von solchen Thieren sprechen möchte, ist es mir doch unmöglich,
weil ich nicht vorbereitet bin. Entschuldigen Sie, meine Damen.

GR. (_Aside._) Beim Teufel, sie sind _alle_ blödsinnig geworden. In
meinem Leben habe ich nie ein so närrisches, verfluchtes, verdammtes
Gespräch gehört.

W. Bitte, umsteigen.

  (Run the following rapidly through.)

M. (_Aside._) Oh, I’ve flushed an easy batch! (_Aloud._) Würden Sie mir
erlauben meine Reisetasche hier hinzustellen?

Gr. (_Aside._) Wo ist seine Reisetasche? Ich sehe keine.

W. Bitte sehr.

GEO. Ist meine Reisetasche Ihnen im Wege?

GR. (_Aside._) Und wo ist _seine_ Reisetasche?

A. Erlauben Sie mir Sie von meiner Reisetasche zu befreien.

Gr. (_Aside._) Du Esel!

W. Ganz und gar nicht. (_To Geo._) Es ist sehr schwül in diesem Coupé.

GR. (_Aside._) Coupé.

GEO. Sie haben Recht. Erlauben Sie mir, gefälligst, das Fenster zu
öffnen. Ein wenig Luft würde uns gut thun.

M. Wir fahren sehr rasch.

A. Haben Sie den Namen jener Station gehört?

W. Wie lange halten wir auf dieser Station an?

GEO. Ich reise nach Dresden, Schaffner. Wo muss ich umsteigen?

A. Sie steigen nicht um, Sie bleiben sitzen.

GR. (_Aside._) Sie sind ja alle ganz und gar verrückt! Man denke sich
sie glauben dass sie auf der Eisenbahn reisen.

GEO. (_Aside, to William_) Now brace up; pull all your confidence
together, my boy, and we’ll try that lovely good-bye business a flutter.
I think it’s about the gaudiest thing in the book, if you boom it right
along and don’t get left on a base. It’ll impress the girls. (_Aloud._)
Lassen Sie uns gehen: es ist schon sehr spät, und ich muss morgen ganz
früh aufstehen.

GR. (_Aside-grateful._) Gott sei Dank dass sie endlich gehen. (_Sets her
gun aside._)

W. (_To Geo._) Ich danke Ihnen höflichst für die Ehre die sie mir
erweisen, aber ich kann nicht länger bleiben.

GEO. (_To W._) Entschuldigen Sie mich gütigst, aber ich kann wirklich
nicht länger bleiben.

  Gretchen looks on stupefied.

W. (_To Geo._) Ich habe schon eine Einladung angenommen; ich kann
wirklich nicht länger bleiben.

  Gretchen fingers her gun again.

GEO. (_To W._) Ich muss gehen.

W. (_To Geo._) Wie! Sie wollen schon wieder gehen? Sie sind ja eben erst
gekommen.

M. (_Aside_). It’s just music!

A. (_Aside._) Oh, how lovely they do it!

GEO. (_To W._) Also denken sie doch noch nicht an’s Gehen.

W. (_To Geo._) Es thut mir unendlich leid, aber ich muss nach Hause.
Meine Frau wird sich wundern, was aus mir geworden ist.

GEO. (_To W._) Meine Frau hat keine Ahnung wo ich bin: ich muss wirklich
jetzt fort.

W. (_To Geo._) Dann will ich Sie nicht länger aufhalten; ich bedaure
sehr dass Sie uns einen so kurzen Besuch gemacht haben.

GEO. (_To W._) Adieu—auf recht baldiges Wiedersehen.

W. UMSTEIGEN!

  Great hand-clapping from the girls.

M. (_Aside._) Oh, how perfect! how elegant!

A. (_Aside._) Per-fectly enchanting!

JOYOUS CHORUS. (_All._) Ich habe gehabt, du hast gehabt, er hat gehabt,
wir haben gehabt, ihr habt gehabt, sie haben gehabt.

  Gretchen faints, and tumbles from her chair, and the gun goes off
  with a crash. Each girl, frightened, seizes the protecting hand of
  her sweetheart. Gretchen scrambles up. Tableau.

W. (_Takes out some money—beckons Gretchen to him. George adds money to
the pile._) Hübsches Mädchen (_giving her some of the coins_), hast Du
etwas gesehen?

GR. (_Courtesy—aside._) Der Engel! (_Aloud—impressively._) Ich habe
nichts gesehen.

W. (_More money._) Hast Du etwas gehört?

GR. Ich habe nichts gehört.

W. (_More money._) Und Morgen?

GR. Morgen—wäre es nöthig—bin ich taub und blind.

W. Unvergleichbares Mädchen! Und (_giving the rest of the money_)
darnach?

GR. (_Deep courtesy—aside._) Erzengel! (_Aloud._) Darnach, mein
Gnädigster, betrachten Sie mich also _taub—blind—todt_!

ALL. (_In chorus.—with reverent joy._) Ich habe gehabt, du hast gehabt,
er hat gehabt, wir haben gehabt, ihr habt gehabt, sie haben gehabt!




                                ACT III.


                           Three weeks later.


                                SCENE I.

  Enter Gretchen, and puts her shawl on a chair.

  Brushing around with the traditional feather-duster of the drama.
  Smartly dressed, for she is prosperous.

GR. Wie hätte man sich das vorstellen können! In nur drei Wochen bin ich
schon reich geworden! (_Gets out of her pocket handful after handful of
silver, which she piles on the table, and proceeds to re-pile and count,
occasionally ringing or biting a piece to try its quality._) Oh, dass
(_with a sigh_) die Frau Wirthin nur _ewig_ krank bliebe!.... Diese
edlen jungen Männer—sie sind ja so liebenswürdig! Und so fleissig!—und
so treu! Jeden Morgen kommen sie gerade um drei Viertel auf neun; und
plaudern und schwatzen, und plappern, und schnattern, die jungen Damen
auch; um Schlage zwölf nehmen sie Abschied; um Schlage eins kommen sie
schon wieder, und plaudern und schwatzen und plappern und schnattern;
gerade um sechs Uhr nehmen sie wiederum Abschied; um halb acht kehren
sie noch’emal zurück, und plaudern und schwatzen und plappern und
schnattern bis zehn Uhr, oder vielleicht ein Viertel nach, falls ihre
Uhren nach gehen (und stets gehen sie nach am Ende des Besuchs, aber
stets vor Beginn desselben), und zuweilen unterhalten sich die jungen
Leute beim Spazierengehen; und jeden Sonntag gehen sie dreimal in die
Kirche; und immer plaudern sie, und schwatzen und plappern und
schnattern bis ihnen die Zähnen aus dem Munde fallen. Und _ich_? Durch
Mangel an Uebung, ist mir die Zunge mit Moos belegt worden! Freilich
ist’s mir eine dumme Zeit gewesen. Aber—um Gottes willen, was geht das
mir an? Was soll ich daraus machen? Täglich sagt die Frau Wirthin
“Gretchen” (_dumb-show of paying a piece of money into her hand_), “du
bist eine der besten Sprach-Lehrerinnen der Welt!” Ach, Gott! Und
täglich sagen die edlen jungen Männer, “Gretchen, liebes Kind”
(_money-paying again in dumb-show—three coins_), “bleib’
taub—blind—todt!” und so bleibe ich.... Jetzt wird es ungefähr neun Uhr
sein; bald kommen sie vom Spaziergehen zurück. Also, es wäre gut dass
ich meinem eigenen Schatz einen Besuch abstatte und spazieren gehe.
(_Dons her shawl._)

                                Exit. L.

                           Enter Wirthin. R.

WIRTHIN. That was Mr. Stephenson’s train that just came in. Evidently
the girls are out walking with Gretchen;—can’t find _them_, and _she_
doesn’t seem to be around. (_A ring at the door._) That’s him. I’ll go
see.

                                Exit. R.

                    Enter Stephenson and Wirthin. R.

S. Well, how does sickness seem to agree with you?

WIRTHIN. So well that I’ve never been out of my room since, till I heard
your train come in.

S. Thou miracle of fidelity! Now I argue from that, that the new plan is
working.

WIRTHIN. Working? Mr. Stephenson, you never saw anything like it in the
whole course of your life! It’s absolutely wonderful the way it works.

S. Succeeds? No—you don’t mean it.

WIRTHIN. Indeed I do mean it. I tell you, Mr. Stephenson, that plan was
just an inspiration—that’s what it was. You could teach a cat German by
it.

S. Dear me, this is noble news! Tell me about it.

WIRTHIN. Well, it’s all Gretchen—every bit of it. I told you she was a
jewel. And then the sagacity of that child—why, I never dreamed it was
in her. Sh-she, “Never you ask the young ladies a question—never let
on—just keep mum—leave the whole thing to me,” sh-she.

S. Good! And she justified, did she?

WIRTHIN. Well, sir, the amount of German gabble that that child crammed
into those two girls inside the next forty-eight hours—well, _I_ was
satisfied! So I’ve never asked a question—never _wanted_ to ask any.
I’ve just lain curled up there, happy. The little dears! they’ve flitted
in to see me a moment, every morning and noon and supper-time; and as
sure as I’m sitting here, inside of six days they were clattering German
to me like a house afire!

S. Sp-lendid, splendid!

WIRTHIN. Of course it ain’t grammatical—the inventor of the language
can’t talk grammatical; if the Dative didn’t fetch him the Accusative
would; but it’s German all the same, and don’t you forget it!

S. Go on—go on—this is delicious news—

WIRTHIN. Gretchen, she says to me at the start, “Never you mind about
company for ’em,” sh-she—“I’m company enough.” And I says, “All
right—fix it your own way, child and that she _was_ right is shown by
the fact that to this day they don’t care a straw for any company but
hers.”

S. Dear me; why, it’s admirable!

WIRTHIN. Well, I should think so! They just dote on that hussy—can’t
seem to get enough of her. Gretchen tells me so herself. And the care
she takes of them! She tells me that every time there’s a moonlight
night she coaxes them out for a walk; and if a body can believe her, she
actually bullies them off to church three times every Sunday!

S. Why, the little dev—missionary! Really, she’s a genius!

WIRTHIN. She’s a bud, _I_ tell you! Dear me, how she’s brought those
girls’ health up! Cheeks?—just roses. Gait?—they walk on watch-springs!
And happy?—by the bliss in their eyes, you’d think they’re in Paradise!
Ah, that Gretchen! Just you imagine _our_ trying to achieve these
marvels!

S. You’re right—every time. Those girls—why, all they’d have wanted to
know was what we wanted done—and then they wouldn’t have _done_ it—the
mischievous young rascals!

WIRTHIN. Don’t tell _me_? Bless you, I found that out early—when _I_ was
bossing.

S. Well, I’m im-mensely pleased. _Now_ fetch them down. I’m not afraid
now. They won’t want to go home.

WIRTHIN. Home! I don’t believe you could drag them away from Gretchen
with nine span of horses. But if you want to see them, put on your hat
and come along; they’re out somewhere trapsing along with Gretchen.
(GOING.)

S. I’m with you—lead on.

WIRTHIN. We’ll go out the side door. It’s toward the Anlage.

                             Exit both. L.

                     Enter George and Margaret. R.

  Her head lies upon his shoulder, his arm is about her waist; they
  are steeped in sentiment.

M. (_Turning a fond face up at him._) Du Engel!

G. Liebste! (_Kiss._)

M. Oh, das Liedchen dass Du mir gewidmet hast—es ist so schön, so
wunderschön. Wie hätte ich je geahnt dass Du ein Poet wärest!

G. Mein Schätzchen!—es ist mir lieb wenn Dir die Kleinigkeit gefällt.

M. Ah, es ist mit der zärtlichsten Musik gefüllt—klingt ja so süss und
selig—wie das Flüstern des Sommerwindes die Abenddämmerung hindurch.
Wieder,—Theuerste!—sag’ es wieder.

 G. Du bist wie eine Blume!—
      So schön und hold und rein—
    Ich schau Dich an, und Wehmuth
      Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
    Mir ist als ob ich die Hände
      Aufs Haupt Dir legen sollt,
    Betend dass Gott Dich erhalte,
      So rein und schön und hold.

 M. A-ch! (_Dumb-show sentimentalisms._) Georgie—

G. Kindchen!

M. Warum kommen sie nicht?

G. Dass weiss ich gar nicht. Sie waren—

M. Es wird spät. Wir müssen sie antreiben. Komm!

G. Ich glaube sie werden recht bald ankommen, aber—

                             Exit both. L.

  Enter Gretchen, R., in a state of mind. Slumps into a chair limp
  with despair.

GR. Ach! was wird jetzt aus mir werden! Zufällig habe ich in der Ferne
den verdammten Papa gesehen!—und die Frau Wirthin auch! Oh, diese
Erscheinung,—die hat mir beinahe das Leben genommen. Sie suchen die
jungen Damen—das weiss ich wenn sie diese und die jungen Herren zusammen
fänden—du heiliger Gott! Wenn das geschieht, wären wir Alle ganz und gar
verloren! Ich muss sie gleich finden, und ihr eine Warnung geben!

                                Exit. L.

                        Enter Annie and Will. R.

             Posed like the former couple and sentimental.

A. Ich liebe Dich schon so sehr—Deiner edlen Natur wegen. Dass du dazu
auch ein Dichter bist!—ach, mein Leben ist uebermässig reich geworden!
Wer hätte sich doch einbilden können dass ich einen Mann zu einem so
wunderschönen Gedicht hätte begeistern können!

W. Liebste! Es ist nur eine Kleinigkeit.

A. Nein, nein, es ist ein echtes Wunder! Sage es noch einmal—ich flehe
Dich an.

 W. Du bist wie eine Blume!—
      So schön und hold und rein—
    Ich schau Dich an, und Wehmuth
      Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
    Mir ist als ob ich die Hände
      Aufs Haupt Dir legen sollt,
    Betend dass Gott Dich erhalte,
      So rein und schön und hold.

 A. Ach, es ist himmlisch—einfach himmlisch. (_Kiss._) Schreibt auch
George Gedichte?

W. Oh, ja—zuweilen.

A. Wie schön!

W. (_Aside._) Smouches ’em, same as I do! It was a noble good idea to
play that little thing on her. George wouldn’t ever think of
that—somehow he never had any invention.

A. (_Arranging chairs._) Jetzt will ich bei Dir sitzen bleiben, und Du—

W. (_They sit._) Ja,—und ich—

A. Du wirst mir die alte Geschichte die immer neu bleibt, noch wieder
erzählen.

W. Zum Beispiel, dass ich Dich liebe!

A. Wieder!

W. Ich—sie kommen!

                       Enter George and Margaret.

A. Das macht nichts. Fortan!

(_George unties M.’s bonnet. She re-ties his cravat—interspersings of
love-pats, etc., and dumb-show of love-quarrelings._)

W. Ich liebe Dich.

A. Ach! Noch einmal!

W. Ich habe Dich von Herzen lieb.

A. Ach! Abermals!

W. Bist Du denn noch nicht satt?

A. Nein! (_The other couple sit down, and Margaret begins a re-tying of
the cravat. Enter the Wirthin and Stephenson, he imposing silence with a
sign._) Mich hungert sehr, ich _ver_hungre!

W. Oh, Du armes Kind! (_Lays her head on his shoulder. Dumb-show between
Stephenson and Wirthin._) Und hungert es nicht mich? Du hast mir nicht
einmal gesagt—

A. Dass ich Dich liebe? Mein Eigener! (_Frau Wirthin threatens to
faint—is supported by Stephenson._) Höre mich nur an: Ich liebe Dich,
ich liebe Dich—

                            Enter Gretchen.

GR. (_Tears her hair._) Oh, dass ich in der Hölle wäre!

M. Ich liebe Dich, ich liebe Dich! Ah, ich bin so glücklich dass ich
nicht schlafen kann, nicht lesen kann, nicht reden kann, nicht—

A. Und ich! Ich bin auch so glücklich dass ich nicht speisen kann, nicht
studieren, arbeiten, denken, schreiben—

STEPHENSON. (_To Wirthin—aside._) Oh, there isn’t any mistake about
it—Gretchen’s just a rattling teacher!

WIRTHIN. (_To Stephenson—aside._) I’ll skin her alive when I get my
hands on her!

M. Kommt, alle Verliebte! (_They jump up, join hands, and sing in
chorus_)—

                     Du, Du, wie ich Dich liebe,
                       Du, Du, liebst auch mich!
                     Die, die zärtlichsten Triebe—

S. (_Stepping forward._) Well!

  The girls throw themselves upon his neck with enthusiasm.

THE GIRLS. Why, father!

S. My darlings!

  The young men hesitate a moment, then they add their embrace,
  flinging themselves on Stephenson’s neck, along with the girls.

THE YOUNG MEN. Why, father!

S. (_Struggling._) Oh come, this is too thin!—too quick, I mean. Let go,
you rascals!

GEO. We’ll never let go till you put us on the family list.

M. Right! hold to him!

A. Cling to him, Will!

  Gretchen rushes in and joins the general embrace, but is snatched
  away by the Wirthin, crushed up against the wall and threatened with
  destruction.

S. (_Suffocating._) All right, all right—have it your own way, you
quartette of swindlers!

W. He’s a darling! Three cheers for papa!

EVERYBODY. (_Except Stephenson who bows with hand on heart._)
Hip—hip—hip: hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

GR. Der Tiger—ah-h-h!

WIRTHIN. Sei ruhig, you hussy!

S. Well, I’ve lost a couple of precious daughters, but I’ve gained a
couple of precious scamps to fill up the gap with; so it’s all right.
I’m satisfied, and everybody’s forgiven—(_With mock threats at
Gretchen._)

W. Oh, wir werden für Dich sorgen—du herrliches Gretchen!

GR. Danke schön!

M. (_To Wirthin._) Und für Sie auch; denn wenn Sie nicht so freundlich
gewesen wären, krank zu werden, wie wären wir je so glücklich geworden
wie jetzt?

WIRTHIN. Well, dear, I _was_ kind, but I didn’t mean it. But I ain’t
sorry—not one bit—that I ain’t.

                                Tableau.

S. Come now, the situation is full of hope, and grace, and tender
sentiment. If I had in the least the poetic gift, I know I could
improvise under such an inspiration (_each girl nudges her sweetheart_)
something worthy to—to—is there no poet among us?

  Each youth turns solemnly his back upon the other and raises his
  hands in benediction over his sweetheart’s bowed head.

  Both youths at once.

                     Mir ist als ob ich die Hände
                       Aufs Haupt Dir legen sollt—

  They turn and look reproachfully at each other—the girls contemplate
  them with injured surprise.

S. (_Reflectively._) I think I’ve heard that before somewhere.

WIRTHIN. _(Aside._) Why the very cats in Germany know it!


                                Curtain.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




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------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. P. 171, changed “Entchluss” to “Entschluss”.
 2. P. 175, changed “fleissend” to “fliessend”.
 3. P. 177, changed “norddeutchen” to “norddeutschen”.
 4. P. 178, changed “Ihrer” to “Ihr”.
 5. P. 185, changed “hätte” to “hatte”.
 6. P. 187, changed “Ihnen” to “Sie”.
 7. P. 187, changed “Brieftäger, wenn’s gefällig ist, er möchte Ihnen
      den ein geschriebenen” to “Briefträger, wenn’s gefällig ist, er
      möchte Ihnen den eingeschriebenen”.
 8. P. 187, changed “deutchen” to “deutschen”.
 9. P. 191, changed “Coupè” to “Coupé”.
10. P. 191, changed “got” to “gut”.
11. P. 194 and 195, changed “habet” to “habt”.
12. P. 194, changed “mien gnädgister” to “mein Gnädigster”.
13. P. 201, changed “Poët” to “Poet”.
14. P. 203, changed “sich schon so sehr—Deiner edlen Natur wegen. Dass
      du dazu auch ein Dichter bist!—ach, mein Leben ist uebermässig
      reich geworden! Wir” to “Dich schon so sehr—Deiner edlen Natur
      wegen. Dass du dazu auch ein Dichter bist!—ach, mein Leben ist
      uebermässig reich geworden! Wer”.
15. P. 206, changed “Komm” to “Kommt”.
16. P. 208, changed “Aus” to “Aufs”.
17. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
18. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as
      printed.
19. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers.
20. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.







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