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COLLIER "MEMORIAL EDITION"
"JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY COMPLETE WORKS"

Vol 10, Part 3

MRS. MILLER.......................................................................... 2623

AT ZEKESBURY....................................................................... 2640

A CALLER FROM BOONE....................................................... 2658

THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY.................................................... 2670

DIALECT IN LITERATURE.......................................................................................  2674

MRS. MILLER

OHN B. McKINNEY, Attorney and Counselor at Law, as his sign read, was, for many reasons, a fortunate man. For many other reasons he was not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain opponents often strove witheringly to designate him, "the son of his father," since that sound old gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that sec­tion, with but one son and heir to supplant him, in time, in the role of "county god," and haply perpet­uate the prouder title of "the biggest taxpayer on the assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate as it would seem, was doubtless the indirect occa­sion of a liberal percentage of all John's misfor­tunes. From his earliest school-days in the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college, the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and abet­ting me in the ostensible practise of my chosen pro­fession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor at that !" At the utterance of his self-depreciating statement, John

2623

2624                            MRS. MILLER

generally jerked his legs down from the top of his desk ; and rising and kicking his chair back to the wall he would stump around his littered office till the manila carpet steamed with dust. Then he would wildly break away, seeking refuge either in the open street, or in his room at the old-time tav­ern, The Eagle House, "where," he would say, "I have lodged and boarded, I do solemnly asseverate, for a long, unbroken, middle-aged eternity of ten years, and can yet assert, in the words of the more fortunately-dying Webster, that 'I still live' !"

Extravagantly satirical as he was at times, John had always an indefinable drollery about him that made him agreeable company to his friends, at least ; and such an admiring friend he had con­stantly at hand in the person of Bert Haines. Both were Bohemians in natural tendency, and, though John was far in Bert's advance in point of age, he found the young man "just the kind of a fellow to have around ;" while Bert, in turn, held his senior in profound esteem—looked up to him, in fact, and even in his eccentricities strove to pattern himself after him. And so it was,, when summer days were dull and tedious, these two could muse and doze the hours away together ; and when the nights were long, and dark, and deep, and beautiful, they could drift out in the noonlight of the stars, and with "the soft complaining flute" and "warbling lute," "lay the pipes," as John would say, for their enduring popu­larity with the girls ! And it was immediately sub­sequent to one of these romantic excursions, when

MRS. MILLER                        2625

the belated pair, at two o'clock in the morning, had skulked up a ,side stairway of the old hotel, and gained John's room, with nothing more serious hap­pening than Bert falling over a trunk and smashing his guitar,—just after such a night of romance and adventure it was that, in the seclusion of John's room, Bert had something of especial import to communicate.

"Mack," he said, as that worthy anathematized a spiteful match, and then sucked his finger.

"Blast the all-fired old torch !" said John, wrestling with the lamp-flue, and turning on a welcome flame at last. "Well, you said `Mack' Why don't you go on? And don't bawl at the top of your lungs, either. You've already succeeded in waking every boarder in the house with that guitar, and you want to make amends now by letting them go to sleep again !"

"But my dear fellow," said Bert with forced calmness, "you're the fellow that's making all the no i se—and—"

"Why, you howling dervish !" interrupted John, with a feigned air of pleased surprise and admira­tion. "But let's drop controversy. Throw the fragments of your guitar in the wood-box there, and proceed with the opening proposition."

"What I was going to say was this," said Bert, with a half-desperate enunciation ; "I'm getting tired of this way of living—clean, dead-tired, and fagged out, and sick of the whole artificial busi­ness !"

MRS. MILLER                        2627

life for the benedict's. Going to hunt out a good sensible girl and marry her." And as the young man concluded this desperate avowal he jerked the bow of his cravat into a hard knot, kicked his hat under the bed, and threw himself on the sofa like an old suit.

John stared at him with absolute compassion. "Poor devil," he said half musingly, "I know just how he feels

"Ring in the wind his wedding chimes,

Smile, villagers, at every door;

Old churchyards stuffed with buried crimes,

Be clad in sunshine o'er and o'er.—"

"Oh, here !" exclaimed the wretched Bert, jump­ing to his feet ; "let up on that dismal recitative. It would make a dog howl to hear that !"

"Then you 'let up' on that suicidal talk of marry­ing," replied John, "and all that harangue of in­coherency about your growing old. Why, my dear fellow, you're at least a dozen years my junior, and look at me !" and John glanced at himself in the glass with a feeble pride, noting the gray sparse­ness of his side-hair, and its plaintive dearth on top. "Of course I've got to admit," he continued, "that my hair is gradually evaporating; but for all that, I'm 'still in the ring,' don't you know ; as young in society, for the matter of that, as your­self ! And this is just the reason why I don't want you to blight every prospect in your life by marry­ing at your age—especially a womari—I mean the

2628                            MRS. MILLER

kind of woman you'd be sure to fancy at your age." "Didn't I say 'a good sensible girl' was the kind I had selected ?" Bert remonstrated.

"Oh !" exclaimed John, "you've selected her, then ?—and without one word to me !" he ended, rebukingly.

"Well, hang it all !" said Bert impatiently ; "I knew how you were, and just how you'd talk me out of it ; and I made up my mind that for once, at least, I'd follow the dictations of a heart that—however capricious in youthful frivolities—should beat, in manhood, loyal to itself and loyal to its own affinity."

"Go it ! Fire away ! Farewell, vain world !" ex­claimed the excited John.—"Trade your soul off for a pair of ear-bobs and a button-hook—a hank of jute hair and a box of lily-white! I've buried not less than ten old chums this way, and here's an­other nominated for the tomb."

"But you've got no reason about you," began Bert,—"I want to"

"And so do I 'want to,' " broke in John finally, —"I want to get some sleep.—So 'register' and come to bed.—And lie up on edge, too, when you do come—'cause this old catafalque-of-a-bed is just about as narrow as your views of single blessed­ness ! Peace ! Not another word! Pile in! Pile in ! I'm three-parts sick, anyhow, and I want rest !" And very truly he spoke.

It was a bright morning when the slothful John was aroused by a long vociferous pounding on the

MRS. MILLER                        2629

door. He started up in bed to find himself alone—the victim of his wrathful irony having evidently risen and fled away while his pitiless tormentor slept—"Doubtless to accomplish at once that ne­farious intent as set forth by his unblushing con­fession of last night," mused the miserable John. And he ground his fingers in the corners of his swollen eyes, and leered grimly in the glass at the feverish orbs, blood-shot, blurred and aching.

The pounding on the door continued. John looked at his watch ; it was only eight o'clock.

"Hi, there !" he called viciously. "What do you mean, anyhow ?" he went on, elevating his voice again ; "shaking a man out of bed when he's just dropping into his first sleep ?"

"I mean that you're going to get up ; that's what !" replied a firm female voice. "It's eight o'clock, and I want to put your room in order ; and I'm not going to wait all day about it, either ! Get up and go down to your breakfast, and let me have the room !" And the clamor at the door was industriously re­newed.

"Say !" called John querulously, hurrying on his clothes, "Say, you !"

"There's no 'say' about it !" responded the de­termined voice : "I've heard about you and your ways around this house, and I'm not going to put up with it ! You'll not lie in bed till high noon when I've got to keep your room in proper order !"

"Oh, ho !" bawled John intelligently : "reckon you're the new invasion here ? Doubtless you're

2630                              MRS. MILLER

that girl that's been hanging up the new window-blinds that won't roll, and disguising the pillows with clean slips, and hennin' round among my books and papers on the table here, and aging me generally till I don't know my own handwriting by the time I find it ! Oh, yes, you're going to revo­lutionize things here ; you're going to introduce promptness, and system, and order. See you've even filled the wash-pitcher and tucked two starched towels through the handle. Haven't got any tin towels, have you ? I rather like this new soap, too ! So solid and durable, you know ; warranted not to raise a lather. Might as well wash one's hands with a door-knob !"

And as John's voice grumbled away into the sullen silence again, the determined voice without responded : "Oh, you can growl away to your heart's content, Mr. McKinney, but I want you to understand distinctly that I'm not going to hu­mor you in any of your old bachelor, sluggardly, slovenly ways, and whims and notions. And I want you to understand, too, that I'm not hired help in this house, nor a chambermaid, nor anything of the kind. I'm the landlady here ; and I'll give you just ten minutes more to get down to your break­fast, or you'll not get any—that's all !" And as the reversed cuff John was in the act of buttoning slid from his wrist and rolled under the dresser, he heard a stiff rustling of starched muslin flouncing past the door, and the quick italicized patter of de­termined gaiters down the hall.

MRS. MILLER                        2631

"Look here," said John to the bright-faced boy in the hotel office, a half hour later. "It seems the house here's been changing hands again."

"Yes, sir," said the boy, closing the cigar case, and handing him a lighted match. "Well, the new landlord, whoever he is," continued John, patron­izingly, "is a good one. Leastwise, he knows what's good to eat, and how to serve it."

The boy laughed timidly,—"It ain't a 'landlord,' though—it's a landlady ; it's my mother."

"Ah," said John, dallying with the change the boy had pushed toward him. "Your mother, eh ? And where's your father ?"

"He's dead," said the boy.

"And what's this for ?" abruptly asked John, ex­amining his change.

"That's your change," said the boy : "You got three for a quarter, and gave me a half."

"Well, you just keep it," said John, sliding back the change. "It's for good luck, you know, my boy. Same as drinking your long life and prosperity. And, oh yes, by the way, you may tell your mother I'll have a friend to dinner with me to-day."

"Yes, sir, and thank you, sir," said the beaming boy.

"Handsome boy !" mused John, as he walked down street. "Takes that from his father, though, I'll wager my existence !"

Upon his office desk John found a hastily written note. It was addressed in the well-known hand of his old chum. He eyed the missive apprehensively,

x.-9

2632                             MRS. MILLER

and there was a positive pathos in his voice as he said aloud, "It's our divorce. I feel it !" The note, headed, "At the Office, Four in Morning," ran like

this :

"Dear Mack—I left you slumbering so soundly that, by noon, when you waken, I hope, in your re­freshed state, you will look more tolerantly on my intentions as partially confided to you this night. I will not see you here again to say good-by. I wanted to, but was afraid to 'rouse the sleeping lion.' I will not close my eyes to-night—fact is, I haven't time. Our serenade at Josie's was a pre­arranged signal by which she is to be ready and at the station for the five morning train. You may re­member the lighting of three consecutive matches at her window before the igniting of her lamp. That meant, 'Thrice dearest one, I'll meet thee at the depot at four-thirty sharp.' So, my dear Mack, this is to inform you that, even as you read, Josie and I have eloped. It is all the old man's fault, yet I forgive him. Hope he'll return the favor. Josie predicts he will, inside of a week—or two weeks, anyhow. Good-by, Mack, old boy ; and let a fellow down as easy as you can. Affectionately,

"BERT."

"Heavens !" exclaimed John, stifling the note in his hand and stalking tragically around the room. "Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen viper ? An ingrate ? A wolf in sheep's clothing? An orang-outang in gent's furnishings ?"

"Was you calling me, sir ?" asked a voice at the door. It was the janitor.

MRS. MILLER                        2633

"No !" thundered John ; "Quit my sight ! get out of my way ! No, no, Thompson, I don't mean that," he called after him. "Here's a half-dollar for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and tell anybody that wants to see me that I've been set upon, and sacked and assassinated in cold blood ; and I've fled to my father's in the country, and am lying there in the convulsions of dissolution, bab­bling of green fields and running brooks, and thirst­ing for the life of every woman that comes in gun­shot !" And then, more like a confirmed invalid than a man in the strength and pride of his prime, he crept down into the street again, and thence back to his hotel.

Dejectedly and painfully climbing to his room, he encountered, on the landing above, a little woman in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit of crisp muslin. He tried to evade her, but in vain. She looked him squarely in the face—occasioning him the dubious impression of either needing shaving _,very badly, or having egg-stains on his chin.

"You're the gentleman in Number II, I believe?" Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill ?"

He nodded confusedly.

"Mr. McKinney is your name, I think," she queried, with a pretty elevation of the eyebrows.

"Yes, ma'am," said John rather abjectly. "You see, ma'am—But I beg pardon," he went on stam­meringly, and with a very awkward bow—"I beg pardon, but I am addressing—ah—the—ah—the—"

2634                               MRS. MILLER

"You are addressing the new landlady," she in­terpolated pleasantly. "Mrs. Miller is my name. I think we should be friends, Mr. McKinney, since I hear that you are one of the oldest patrons of the house."

"Thank you—thank you !" said John, completely embarrassed. "Yes, indeed !—ha, ha. Oh, yes­yes—really, we must be quite old friends, I assure you, M rs.—M rs.—"

"Mrs. Miller," smilingly prompted the little woman.

"Yes, ah, yes,—Mrs. Miller. Lovely morning, Mrs. Miller," said John, edging past her and back­ing toward his room.

But as Mrs. Miller was laughing outright, for some mysterious reason, and gave no affirmation in response to his proposition as to the quality of the weather, John, utterly abashed and nonplused, darted into his room and closed the door. "Deu­cedly extraordinary woman !" he thought ; "wonder what's her idea !"

He remained locked in his room till the dinner-hour ; and, when he promptly emerged for that oc­casion, there was a very noticeable improvement in his personal appearance, in point of dress, at least, though there still lingered about his smoothly-shaven features a certain haggard, care-worn, anx­ious look that would not out.

Next his own at the table he found a chair tilted forward, as though in reservation for some honored guest. What did it mean? Oh, he remembered

MRS. MILLER                        2635

now. Told the boy to tell his mother he would have a friend to dine with him. Bert—and, blast the fel­low !--was, doubtless, dining then with a far prefer­able companion—his wife—in a palace-car on the P., C. & St. L., a hundred miles away. The thought was maddening. Of course, now, the landlady would have material for a new assault. And how could he avert it ? A despairing film blurred his sight for the moment—then the eyes flashed dar­ingly. "I will meet it like a man !" he said, men­tally—"yea, like a State's Attorney,—I will invite it ! Let her do her worst !"

He called a servant, giving some message in an undertone.

"Yes, sir," said the agreeable servant, "I'll go right away, sir," and left the room.

Five minutes elapsed, and then a voice at his shoulder startled him :          ‑

"Did you send for me, Mr. McKinney? What is it I can do ?"

"You are very kind, Mrs.—Mrs.—"

"Mrs. Miller," said the lady, with a smile that he remembered.

"Now, please spare me even the mildest of re­bukes. I deserve your censure, but I can't stand it —I can't positively !" and there was a pleading look in John's lifted eyes that changed the little woman's smile to an expression of real solicitude. "I have sent for you," continued John, "to ask of you three great favors. Please be seated while I enumerate them. First—I want you to forgive and

2636                              MRS. MILLER

forget that ill-natured, uncalled-for grumbling of mine this morning when you awakened me."

"Why, certainly," said the landlady, again smil­ing, though quite seriously.

"I thank you," said John with dignity. "And, second," he continued—"I want your assurance that my extreme confusion and awkwardness on the oc­casion of our meeting later were rightly inter­preted."

"Certainly—certainly," said the landlady with the kindliest sympathy.

"I am grateful—utterly," said John, with newer dignity. "And then," he went on,—"after inform­ing you that it is impossible for the best friend I have in the world to be with me at this hour, as intended, I want you to do me the very great honor of dining with me. Will you ?"

"Why, certainly," said the charming little land­lady—"and a thousand thanks besides ! But tell me something of your friend," she continued, as they were being served. "What is he like—and what is his name—and where is he ?"

"Well," said John warily,—"he's like all young fellows of his age. He's quite young, you know—not over thirty, I should say—a mere boy, in fact, but clever—talented—versatile."

"—Unmarried, of course," said the chatty little woman.

"Oh, yes !" said John, in a matter-of-course tone —but he caught himself abruptly—then stared in­tently at his napkin—glanced evasively at the side‑

MRS. MILLER                        2637

face of his questioner, and said,—"Oh, yes ! Yes, indeed ! He's unmarried.—Old bachelor like my­self, you know. Ha! Ha!"

"So he's not like the young man here that dis­tinguished himself last night ?" said the little woman archly.

The fork in John's hand, half-lifted to his lips, faltered and fell back toward his plate.

"Why, what's that ?" said John in a strange voice ; "I hadn't heard anything about it—I mean I haven't heard anything about any young man. What was 0"

"Haven't heard anything about the elopement ?" exclaimed the little woman in astonishment.—"Why it's been the talk of the town all morning. Elopement in high life—son of a grain-dealer, name of Hines, or Himes, or something, and a preacher's daughter—Josie somebody—didn't catch her last name. Wonder if you don't know the parties—Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?"

"Oh, no—not at all !" said John : "Don't mention it. Ha—ha! Just eating too rapidly, that's all. Go on with—you were saying that Bert and Josie had really eloped."

"What 'Bert' ?" asked the little woman quickly.

"Why, did I say art ?" said John, with a guilty look. "I meant Haines, of course, you know—Haines and Josie.—And did they really elope ?"

"That's the report," answered the little woman, as though deliberating some important evidence ; "and they say, too, that the plot of the runaway

2638                    MRS. MILLER

was quite ingenious. It seems the young lovers were assisted in their flight by some old fellow—f riend of the young man's—Why, Mr. McKinney, you are ill, surely ?"

John's face was as ashen.

"No—no !" he gasped painfully : "Go on—go on ! Tell me more about the—the—the old fellow —the old reprobate! And is he still at large ?"

"Yes," said the little woman, anxiously regarding the strange demeanor of her companion. "They say, though, that the law can do nothing with him, and that this fact only intensifies the agony of the broken-hearted parents—for it seems they have, till now, regarded him both as a gentleman and family friend in whom"

"I really am ill," moaned John, waveringly rising to his feet ; "but I beg you not to be alarmed. Tell your little boy to come to my room, where I will retire at once, if you'll excuse me, and send for my physician. It is simply a nervous attack. I am often troubled so ; and only perfect quiet and se­clusion restores me. You have done me a great honor, Mrs."—("Mrs. Miller," sighed the sym­pathetic little woman)—"Mrs. Miller,—and I thank you more than I have words to express." He bowed limply, turned through a side door opening on a stair,.and tottered to his room.

During the three weeks' illness through which he passed, John had every attention—much more, in­deed, than he had consciousness to appreciate. For

MRS. MILLER                        2639

the most part his mind wandered, and he talked of curious things, and laughed hysterically, and sere­naded mermaids that dwelt in grassy seas of dew, and were bald-headed like himself. He played upon a fourteen-jointed flute of solid gold, with diamond holes, and keys carved out of thawless ice. His old father came at first to take him home ; but he could not be moved, the doctor said.

Two weeks of John's illness had worn away, when a very serious-looking young man, in a travel­ing duster, and a high hat, came up the stairs to see him. A handsome young lady was clinging to his arm. It was Bert and Josie. She had guessed the very date of their forgiveness. John awoke even clearer in mind than usual that afternoon. He recognized his old chum at a glance, and Josie­now Bert's wife. Yes, he comprehended that. He was holding a hand of each when another figure en­tered. His thin white fingers loosened their clasp, and he held a hand toward the newcomer. "Here," he said, "is my best friend in the world—Bert, you and Josie will love her, I know ; for this is Mrs.­Mrs."—"Mrs. Miller," said the radiant little woman. —"Yes,—Mrs. Miller," said John, very proudly.

AT ZEKESBURY

HE little town, as I recall it, was of just enough dignity and dearth of the same to be an ordi­nary county seat in Indiana—"The Grand Old Hoosier State," as it was used to being howlingly referred to by the forensic stump orator from the old stand in the court-house yard—a political cam­paign being the wildest delight that Zekesbury might ever hope to call its own.

Through years the fitful happenings of the town and its vicinity went on the same—the same ! An­nually about one circus ventured in, and vanished, and was gone, even as a passing trumpet-blast ; the usual rainy season swelled the "Crick," the driftage choking at "the covered bridge," and backing water till the old road looked amphibious ; and crowds of curious townfolk struggled down to look upon the watery wonder, and lean awestruck above it, and spit in it, and turn mutely home again.

The usual formula of incidents peculiar to an uneventful town and its vicinity : The countryman from "Jessup's Crossing," with the corn-stalk coffin-measure, loped into town, his steaming little gray­and-red-flecked "roadster" gurgitating, as it were,

2640

AT ZEKESBURY                     2641

with that mysterious utterance that ever has com­manded and ever must evoke the wonder and be­wilderment of every boy ; the small-pox rumor became prevalent betimes, and the subtle aroma of the asafetida-bag permeated the graded schools "from turret to foundation-stone" ; the still recur­ring expose of the poor-house management ; the farm-hand, with the scythe across his shoulder, struck dead by lightning; the long-drawn quarrel between the rival editors culminating in one of them assaulting the other with a "sidestick," and the other kicking the one down-stairs and thenceward ad libitum; the tramp, suppositiously stealing a ride, found dead on the railroad ; the grand jury return­ing a sensational indictment against a bar-tender non est; the Temperance outbreak ; the "Revival ;" the Church Festival ; and the "Free Lectures on Phrenology, and Marvels of Mesmerism," at the town hall. It was during the time of the last-men­tioned sensation, and directly through this scien­tific investigation, that I came upon two of the town's most remarkable characters. And however meager my outline of them may prove, my material for the sketch is most accurate in every detail, and no deviation from the cold facts of the case shall influence any line of my report.

For some years prior to this odd experience I had been connected with a daily paper at the state capital ; and latterly a prolonged session of the legislature, where I specially reported, having told threateningly upon my health, I took both the

2642                   AT ZEKESBURY

advantage of a brief vacation, and the invitation of a young bachelor senator, to get out of the city for a while, and bask my respiratory organs in the re­vivifying rural air of Zekesbury—the home of my new friend.

"It'll pay you to get out here," he said cordially, meeting me at the little station, "and I'm glad you've come, for you'll find no end of odd characters to amuse you." And under the very pleasant spon­sorship of my senatorial friend, I was placed at once on genial terms with half the citizens of the little town—from the shirt-sleeved nabob of the county office to the droll wag of the favorite loafing­place—the rules and by-laws of which resort, by the way, being rudely charcoaled on the wall above the cutter's bench, and somewhat artistically cul­minating in an original dialect legend which ran thus :

instunce, now, when some folks gits To relyin' on theyr wits,

Ten to one they git too smart

And sPi/e it all, right at the start! Feller wants to jest go slow

And do his thinkin' first, you know. 'F I can't think up somepin' good,

I set still and chaw my Good!

And it was at this inviting rendezvous, two or three evenings following my arrival, that the gen­eral crowd, acting upon the random proposition of one of the boys, rose as a man and wended its hi­larious way to the town hall.

AT ZEKESBURY                     2643

"Phrenology," said the little, old, bald-headed lec­turer and mesmerist, thumbing the egg-shaped head of a young man I remembered to have met that af­ternoon in some law office "phrenology," repeated the Professor—"or rather the term phrenology—is derived from two Greek words signifying mind and discourse; hence we find embodied in phrenol­ogy-proper, the science of intellectual measurement, together with the capacity of intelligent communi­cation of the varying mental forces and their flexi­bilities, etc., etc. The study, then, of phrenology is, to simplify it wholly—is, I say, the general contem­plation of the workings of the mind as made mani­fest through the certain corresponding depressions and protuberances of the human skull when, of course, in a healthy state of action and development, as we find the conditions exemplified in the subject before us."

Here the "subject" vaguely smiled.

"You recognize that mug, don't you ?" whispered my friend. "It's that coruscating young ass, you know, Hedrick—in Cummings' office—trying to study law and literature at the same time, and tampering with 'The Monster that Annually,' don't you know ?—where we found the two young stu­dents scuffling round the office, and smelling of pep­permint ?—Hedrick, you know, and Sweeney. Sweeney, the slim chap, with the pallid face, and frog-eyes, and clammy hands ! You remember I told you 'there was a pair of 'em' ? Well, they're up to something here to-night. Hedrick, there on

2644                            AT ZEKESBURY

the stage in front ; and Sweeney—don't you see ?_ with the gang on the rear seats."

"Phrenology—again," continued the lecturer, "is, we may say, a species of mental geography, as it were ; which—by a study of the skull—leads also to a study of the brain within, even as geology naturally follows the initial contemplation of the earth's surface. The brain, thurfur, or intellectual retort, as we may say, natively exerts a molding influence on the skull contour ; thurfur is the expert in phrenology most readily enabled to accurately locate the multitudinous intellectual forces, and most exactingly estimate, as well, the sequent char­acter of each subject submitted to his scrutiny. As, in the example before us—a young man, doubtless well known in your midst, though, I may say, an entire stranger to myself—I venture to disclose some characteristic trends and tendencies, as indi­cated by this phrenological depression and develop­ment of the skull proper, as later we will show, through the mesmeric condition, the accuracy of our mental diagnosis."

Throughout the latter part of this speech my friend nudged me spasmodically, whispering some­thing which was jostled out of intelligent utterance by some inward spasm of laughter.

"In this head," said the Professor, straddling his malleable fingers across the young man's bumpy brow—"In this head we find Ideality large—abnor­mally large, in fact ; thurby indicating—taken in conjunction with a like development of the per‑

AT ZEKESBURY                    2645

ceptive qualities—language following, as well, in the prominent eye—thurby indicating, I say, our sub­ject as especially endowed with a love for the beau­tiful—the sublime—the elevating—the refined and delicate—the lofty and superb—in nature, and in all the sublimated attributes of the human heart and beatific soul. In fact, we find this young man pos­sessed of such natural gifts as would befit him for the exalted career of the sculptor, the actor, the artist, or the poet—any ideal calling ; in fact, any calling but a practical, matter-of-fact vocation ; though in poetry he would seem to best succeed."

"Well," said my friend seriously, "he's feeling for the boy !" Then laughingly : "Hedrick has writ­ten some rhymes for the county papers, and Sweeney once introduced him, at an Old Settlers' Meeting, as 'The Best Poet in Center Township,' and never cracked a smile ! Always after each other that way, but the best friends in the world. Sweeney's strong suit is elocution. He has a native ability that way by no means ordinary, but even that gift he abuses and distorts simply to produce grotesque, and often­times, ridiculous effects. For instance, nothing more delights him than to loathfully' consent to answer a request, at The Mite Society, some eve­ning, for 'an appropriate selection,' and then, with an elaborate introduction of the same, and an ex­alted tribute to the refined genius of the author, proceed with a most gruesome rendition of 'Alonzo The Brave and The Fair Imogene,' in a way to coagulate the blood and curl the hair of his fair

2646                          AT ZEKESBURY

listeners with abject terror. Pale as a corpse, you know, and with that cadaverous face, lit with those malignant-looking eyes, his slender figure, and his long thin legs and arms and hands, and his whole diabolical talent and adroitness brought into play--why, I want to say to you, it's enough to scare 'em to death ! Never a smile from him, though, till he and Hedrick are safe out into the night again—then, of course, they hug each other and howl over it like Modocs ! But pardon ; I'm interrupting the lecture. Listen."

"A lack of continuity, however," continued the Professor, "and an undue love of approbation, would, measurably, at least, tend to retard the young man's progress toward the consummation of any loftier ambition, I fear ; yet as we have inti­mated, if the subject were appropriately educated to the need's demand, he could doubtless produce a high order of both prose and poetry—especially the latter—though he could very illy bear being laughed at for his pains."

"He's dead wrong there," said my friend ; "Hed­rick enjoys being laughed at ; he's used to it—gets fat on it !"

"Is fond of his friends," continued the Professor, "and the heartier they are the better ; might even be convivially inclined—if so tempted—but prudent —in a degree," loiteringly concluded the speaker, as though unable to find the exact bump with which to bolster up the last named attribute.

The subject blushed vividly—my friend's right

AT ZEKESBURY                      2647

eyelid dropped, and there was a noticeable, though elusive sensation throughout the audience.

"But!" said the Professor explosively, "selecting a directly opposite subject, in conjunction with the study of the one before us [turning to the group at the rear of the stage and beckoning], we may find a newer interest in the practical comparison of these subjects side by side." And the Professor pushed a very pale young man into position.

"Sweeney !" whispered my friend delightedly ; "now look out !"

"In this subject," said the Professor, "we find the practical business head. Square—though small —a trifle light at the base, in fact ; but well bal­anced at the important points at least ; thoughtful eye—wide-awake — crafty—quick—restless—a pol­icy eye, though not denoting language—unless, per­haps, mere business forms and direct statements."

"Fooled again !" whispered my friend ; "and I'm afraid the old man will fail to nest out the fact also that Sweeney is the cold-bloodedest guyer on the face of the earth, and with more diabolical re­sources than a prosecuting attorney; the Professor ought to know this, too, by this time—for these same two chaps have been visiting the old man in his room at the hotel ;—that's what I was trying to tell you a while ago. The old chap thinks he's `playing' the boys, is my idea ; but it's the other way, or I lose my guess."

"Now, under the mesmeric influence—if the two subjects will consent to its administration," said

x.-10

2648                         AT ZEKESBURY

the Professor, after some further tedious preamble, "we may at once determine the fact of my asser­tions, as will be proved by their action while in this peculiar state." Here some apparent remon­strance was met with from both subjects, though amicably overcome by the Professor first manipulat­ing the stolid brow and pallid front of the imper­turbable Sweeney—after which the same mysterious ordeal was loathfully submitted to by Hedrick—though a noticeably longer time was consumed in se­curing his final loss of self-control. At last, however, this curious phenomenon was presented, and there before us stood the two swaying figures, the heads dropped back, the lifted hands, with thumb and finger-tips pressed lightly together, the eyelids lan­guid and half closed, and the features, in appear­ance, wan and humid.

"Now, sir !" said the Professor, leading the limp Sweeney forward, and addressing him in a quick sharp tone of voice.—"Now, sir, you are a great contractor—own large factories, and with untold business interests. Just look out there ! [pointing out across the expectant audience] look there, and see the countless minions toiling servilely at your dread mandates. And yet—ha! ha! See ! see !­They recognize the avaricious greed that would thus grind them in the very dust ; they see, alas ! they see themselves, half-clothed—half-fed, that you may glut your coffers. Half-starved, they listen to the wail of wife and babe, and with eyes upraised in prayer, they see you rolling by in gilded coach, and

AT ZEKESBURY                      2649

swathed in silk attire. But—ha! again ! Look—look ! they are rising in revolt against you! Speak to them before too late ! Appeal to them—quell them with the promise of the just advance of wages they demand !"

The limp figure of Sweeney took on something of a stately and majestic air. With a graceful and commanding gesture of the hand, he advanced a step or two ; then, after a pause of some seconds duration, in which the lifted face grew pale, as it seemed, and the eyes a denser black, he said :

"But yesterday

I looked away

O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay In golden blots,

Inlaid with spots

Of shade and wild forget-me-nots."

The voice was low, but clear, and even musical. The Professor started at the strange utterance, looked extremely confused, and, as the boisterous crowd cried "Hear, hear !" he motioned the sub­ject to continue, with some gasping comment inter­jected, which, if audible, would have run thus : "My God ! It's an inspirational poem 1"

"My head was fair With flaxen hair—"

resumed the subject.

"Yoop-ee !" yelled an irreverent auditor.

"Silence! silence !" commanded the excited Pro‑

2650                  AT ZEKESBURY

fessor in a hoarse whisper ; then, turning enthusi­astically to the subject—"Go on, young man! Go on!—`Thy head was fair with flaxen hair—' "

"My head was fair

With flaxen hair,

And fragrant breezes, faint'and rare, And, warm with drouth

From out the south,

Blew all my curls across my mouth."

The speaker's voice, exquisitely modulated, yet resonant as the twang of a harp, now seemed of it­self to draw and hold each listener ; while a certain extravagance of gesticulation—a fantastic move­ment of both form and feature—seemed very near akin to fascination. And so flowed on the curious utterance :—

"And, cool and sweet,

My naked feet

Found dewy pathways through the wheat;

And out again

Where, down the lane,

The dust was dimpled with the rain."

In the pause following there was a breathlessness almost painful. The poem went on :

"But yesterday

I heard the lay

Of summer birds, when I, as they With breast and wing,

All quivering

With life and love, could only sing.

AT ZEKESBURY                       2651

"My head was leant Where, with it, blent

A maiden's, o'er her instrument;

While all the night, From vale to height,

Was filled with echoes of delight.

"And all our dreams

Were lit with gleams

Of that lost land ^•of reedy streams, Along whose brim

Forever swim

Pan's lilies, laughing up at him."

And still the inspired singer held rapt sway.

"It is wonderful !" I whispered, under breath.

"Of course it is !" answered my friend. "But listen ; there is more :"

"But yesterday!..............

m     blooms of May,

And summer roses—where away?

m     stars 'above;

And lips of love,

And all the honeyed sweets thereof!

"0 lad and lass,

And orchard pass,

And briered lane, and daisied grass!

m     gleam and gloom,

And woodland bloom,

And breezy breaths of all perfume !—

"No more for me

Or mine shall be

Thy raptures—save in memory,

No more—no more—. Till through the Door

Of Glory gleam the days of yore."

2652                          AT ZEKESBURY

This was the evident conclusion of the remark­able utterance, and the Professor was impetuously fluttering his hands about the subject's upward-staring eyes, stroking his temples, and snapping his fingers in his face.

"Well," said Sweeney, as he stood suddenly awakened, and grinning in an idiotic way, "how did the old thing work ?" And it was in the conse­quent hilarity and loud and long applause, perhaps, that the Professor was relieved from the explanation of this rather astounding phenomenon of the ideal­istic workings of a purely practical brain—or, as my impious friend scoffed the incongruity later, in a particularly withering allusion, as the "blank-blanked fallacy, don't you know, of staying the hunger of a howling mob by feeding 'em on spring poetry !"

The tumult of the audience did not cease even with the retirement of Sweeney, and cries of "Hed­rick ! Hedrick !" only subsided with the Professor's high-keyed announcement that the subject was even then endeavoring to make himself heard, but could not until utter quiet was restored, adding the further appeal that the young man had already been a long time under the mesmeric spell, and ought not be so detained for an unnecessary period. "See," he concluded, with an assuring wave of the hand toward the subject, "see ; he is about to address you. Now, quiet !—utter quiet, if you please !"

"Great heavens !" exclaimed my friend stiflingly ; "just look at the boy ! Get on to that position for a

AT ZEKESBURY                     2653

poet ! Even Sweeney has fled from the sight of him !"

And truly, too, it was a grotesque pose the young man had assumed ; not wholly ridiculous either, since the dwarfed position he had settled into seemed more a genuine physical condition than an affected one. The head, back-tilted, and sunk be­tween the shoulders, looked abnormally large, while the features of the face appeared peculiarly child­like—especially the eyes—wakeful and wide apart, and very bright, yet very mild and very artless ; and the drawn and cramped outline of the legs and feet, and of the arms and hands, even to the shrunken, slender-looking fingers, all combined to convey most strikingly to the pained senses the fragile frame and pixy figure of some pitiably afflicted child, un­conscious altogether of the pathos of its own de­formity.

"Now, mark the cuss, Horatio !" gasped my friend.

At first the speaker's voice came very low, and somewhat piping, too, and broken—an eery sort of voice it was, of brittle and erratic timbre and undu­lant inflection. Yet it was beautiful. It had the ring of childhood in it, though the ring was not pure golden, and at times fell echoless. The spirit of its utterance was always clear and pure and crisp and cheery as the twitter of a bird, and yet forever ran an undercadence through it like a low-pleading prayer. Half garrulously, and like a shallow brook

2654                  AT ZEKESBURY

might brawl across a shelvy bottom, the rhythmic little changeling thus began :‑

"I'm thist a little crippled boy, an' never goin' to grow An' git a great big man at all !—'cause Aunty told me so. When I was thist a baby onc't I failed out of the bed

An' got 'The Curv'ture of the Spine'—'at's what the Doc‑

tor said.

I never had no Mother nen—fer my Pa runned away

An' dassn't come back here no more—'cause he was drunk one day

An' stobbed a man in thish-ere town, an' couldn't pay his fine!

An' nen my Ma she died—an' I got 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!"

A few titterings from the younger people in the audience marked the opening stanza, while a certain restlessness, and a changing to more attentive posi­tions seemed the general tendency. The old Pro­fessor, in the meantime, had sunk into one of the empty chairs. The speaker went on with more gai­ety :‑

"I'm nine years old! An' you can't guess how much I weigh, I bet1—

Last birthday I weighed thirty-three !—An' I weigh thirty yet !

I'm awful little fer my size—I'm purt' nigh littler 'an Some babies is !—an' neighbers all calls me 'The Little Man' !

An' Doc one time he laughed an' said: 'I 'spect, first think you know,

You'll have a little spike-tail coat an' travel with a show!' An' nen I laughed—till I looked round an' Aunty was a­cryin'—

Sometimes she acts like that, 'cause I got `Curv'ture of the Spine'!"

AT ZEKESBURY                     2655

Just in front of me a great broad-shouldered countryman, with a rainy smell in his cumbrous overcoat, cleared his throat vehemently, looked startled at the sound, and again settled forward, his weedy chin resting on the knuckles of his hands as they tightly clutched the seat before him. And it was like being taken into a childish confidence as the quaint speech continued :—

"I set—while Aunty's washin'—on my little long-leg stool, An' watch the little boys an' girls a-skippin' by to school; An' I peck on the winder, an' holler out an' say: `Who wants to fight The Little Man at dares you all to‑

day?'

An' nen the boys climbs on the fence, an' little girls peeks through,

An' they all says: 'Cause you're so big, you think we're 'feard o' you!'

An' nen they yell, an' shake their fist at me, like I shake mine

They're thist in fun, you know, 'cause I got 'Curv'ture of the Spine' !"

"Well," whispered my friend, with rather odd irrelevance, I thought, "of course you see through the scheme of the fellows by this time, don't you?"

"I see nothing," said I, most earnestly, "but a poor little wisp of a child that makes me love him so I dare not think of his dying soon, as he surely must ! There ; listen !" And the plaintive gaiety of the homely poem ran on :—

2656                  AT ZEKESBURY

"At evening, when the ironin"s done, an' Aunty's fixed the fire,

An' filled an' lit the lamp, an' trimmed the wick an' turned it higher,

An' fetched the wood all in fer night, an' locked the kitchen door,

An' stuffed the ole crack where the wind blows in up through the floor

She sets the kittle on the coals, an' biles an' makes the tea, An' fries the liver an' the mush, an' cooks a egg fer me; An' sometimes—when I cough so hard—her elderberry

wine

Don't go so bad fer little boys with `Curv'ture of the Spine'!"

"Look !" whispered my friend, touching me with his elbow. "Look at the Professor !"

"Look at everybody !" said I. And the artless little voice went on again half quaveringly

"But Aunty's all so childish-like on my account, you see, I'm 'most afeard she'll be took down—an"at's what bothers me

!‑

'Cause of my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an' die, I don't know what she'd do in Heaven—till I come, by an' by :—

Fer she's so ust to all my ways, an' ever'thing, you know, An' no one there like me, to nurse an' worry over so !­'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong

an' fine,

They's nary angel 'bout the place with `Curv'ture of the Spine'!"

The old Professor's face was in his handkerchief ; so was my friend's in his ; and so was mine in mine,

AT ZEKESBURY                      2657

as even now my pen drops and I reach for it again.

I half regret joining the mad party that had gath­ered an hour later in the old law office where these two graceless characters held almost nightly revel, the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed banquet whose menu's range confined itself to her­rings, or "blind robins," dried beef, and cheese, with crackers, gingerbread, and sometimes pie ; the whole washed down with anything but

"-Wines that heaven knows when Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun, And kept it through a hundred years of gloom Still glowing in a heart of ruby."

But the affair was memorable. The old Professor was himself lured into it and loudest in his praise of Hedrick's realistic art ; and I yet recall him at the orgie's height, excitedly repulsing the continued slurs and insinuations of the clammy-handed Sweeney, who, still contending against the old man's fulsome praise of his more fortunate rival, at last openly declared that Hedrick was not a poet, not a genius, and in no way worthy to be classed in the same breath with himself—"the gifted but unfor­tunate Sweeney, sir—the unacknowledged author, sir 'y gad, sir !—of the two poems that held you spellbound to-night !"

A CALLER FROM BOONE

BENJ. F. JOHNSON VISITS THE EDITOR

TT was a dim and chill and loveless afternoon in

the late fall of eighty-three when I first saw the genial subject of this hasty sketch. From time to time the daily paper on which I worked had been receiving, among the general literary driftage of amateur essayists, poets and sketch-writers, some conceits in verse that struck the editorial head as decidedly novel ; and, as they were evidently the production of an unlettered man, and an old man, and a farmer at that, they were usually spared the waste-basket, and preserved—not for publication, but to pass from hand to hand among the members of the staff as simply quaint and mirth-provoking specimens of the verdancy of both the venerable author and the Muse inspiring him. Letters as quaint as were the poems invariably accompanied them, and the oddity of these, in fact, had first called attention to the verses. I well remember the gen­eral merriment of the office when the first of the old man's letters was read aloud, and I recall, too, some of his comments on his own verse, verbatim. In one place he said : "I make no doubt you pill find

2658

A CALLER FROM BOONE                2659

some purty sad spots in my poetry, considerin' ; but I hope you will bear in mind that I am a great sufferer with rheumatizum, and have been, off and on, sence the cold New Years. In the main, how­ever," he continued, "I allus aim to write in a cheer­ful, comfortin' sperit, so's of the stuff hangs fire, and don't do no good, it hain't a-goin' to do no harm,—and them's my honest views on poetry."

In another letter, evidently suspecting his poem had not appeared in print because of its dejected tone, he said : "The poetry I herewith send was wrote off on the finest Autumn day I ever laid eyes on ! I never felt better in my life. The morning air was as invigoratin' as bitters with tanzy in it, and the folks at breakfast said they never saw such a' appe­tite on mortal man before. Then I lit out for the barn, and after feedin', I come back and tuck my pen and ink out on the porch, and jest cut loose. I writ and writ till my fingers was that cramped I couldn't hardly let go of the penholder. And the poem I send you is the upshot of it all. Ef you don't find it cheerful enough fer your columns, I'll have to knock under, that's all !" And that poem, as I re­call it, certainly was cheerful enough for publication, only the "copy" was almost undecipherable, and the ink, too, so pale and vague, it was thought best to re­serve the verses, for the time, at least, and later on revise, copy, punctuate, and then print it sometime, as much for the joke of it as anything. But it was still delayed, neglected, and in a week's time almost entirely forgotten. And so it was upon this

2660                  A CALLER FROM BOONE

chill and somber afternoon I speak of that an event occurred which most pleasantly reminded me of both the poem with the "sad spots" in it, and the "cheerful" one, "writ out on the porch" that glori­ous autumn day, that poured its glory through the old man's letter to us.

Outside and in the sanctum the gloom was too oppressive to permit an elevated tendency of either thought or spirit. I could do nothing but sit listless and inert. Paper and pencil were before me, but I could not write—I could not even think coherently, and was on the point of rising and rushing out into the streets for a wild walk, when there came a hesitating knock at the door.

"Come in !" I snarled, grabbing up my pencil and assuming a frightfully industrious air : "Come in !" I almost savagely repeated, "Come in ! And shut the door behind you !" and I dropped my lids, bent my gaze fixedly upon the blank pages before me and began scrawling some disconnected nothings with no head or tail or anything.

"Sir ; howdy," said a low and pleasant voice. And at once, in spite of my perverse resolve, I looked up. I someway felt rebuked.

The speaker was very slowly, noiselessly closing the door. I could hardly face him when he turned around. An old man, of sixty-five, at least, but with a face and an eye of the most cheery and wholesome expression I had ever seen in either youth or age. Over his broad bronzed forehead and white hair he wore a low-crowned, wide-brimmed black felt

A CALLER FROM BOONE              2661

hat, somewhat rusted now, and with the band grease-crusted, and the binding frayed at intervals, and sagging from the threads that held it on. An old-styled frock coat of black, dull brown in streaks, and quite shiny about the collar and lapels. A waist­coat of no describable material or pattern, and a clean white shirt and collar of one piece, with a black string-tie and double bow, which would have been entirely concealed beneath the long white beard but for its having worked around to one side of the neck. The front outline of the face was cleanly shaven, and the beard, growing simply from the under chin and throat, lent the old pioneer the rather singular appearance of having hair ail over him with this luxurious growth pulled out above his collar for mere sample.

I arose and asked the old man to sit down, hand­ing him a chair decorously.

"No—no," he said—"I'm much obleeged. I hain't come in to bother you no more'n I can he'p. All I wanted was to know ef you got my poetry all right. You know I take yer paper," he went on, in an ex­planatory way, "and seein' you printed poetry in it once-in-a-while, I sent you some of mine—neighbors kindo' advised me to," he added apologetically, "and so I sent you some—two or three times I sent you some, but I hain't never seed hide-ner-hair of it in your paper, and as I wus in town to-day, anyhow, I jest thought I'd kindo' drap in and git it back, ef you ain't goin' to print it—'cause I allus save up most the things I write, aimin' sometime to git 'em

2662            A CALLER FROM BOONE

all struck off in pamphlet-form, to kindo' distribit round 'mongst the neighbors, don't you know."

Already I had begun to suspect my visitor's iden­tity, and was mechanically opening the drawer of our poetical department.

"How was your poetry signed ?" I asked.

"Signed by my own name," he answered proudly, —"signed by my own name,—Johnson—Benjamin F. Johnson, of Boone County—this state."

"And is this one of them, Mr. Johnson ?" I asked, unfolding a clumsily-folded manuscript, and closely scrutinizing the verse.

"How does she read ?" Said the old man eagerly, and searching in the meantime for his spectacles. "How does she read ?—Then I can tell you !"

"It reads," said I, studiously conning the old man's bold but bad chirography, and tilting my chair back indolently,—"it reads like this—the first verse does,"—and I very gravely read :—

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole!"—

"Stop ! Stop !" said the old man excitedly—"Stop right there! That's my poetry, but that's not the way to read it by a long shot ! Give it to me !" and he almost snatched it from my hand. "Poetry like this ain't no poetry at all, 'less you read it natchurl and in jest the same sperit 'at it's writ in, don't you understand. It's a' old man a-talkin', rickollect, and a-feelin' kindo' sad, and yit kindo' sorto' good, too, and I opine he wouldn't got that off with a face on him like a' undertaker, and a voice as solemn as a

"The I-Ioss"

A CAILER FROM BOONE               2663

cow-bell after dark ! He'd say it more like this."— And the old man adjusted his spectacles and read :—

"THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE"

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole I whare the crick so still and deep

Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep, And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below Sounded like the laugh of something we onc't list to l.now Before we could remember anything but the eyes Of the angels lookin' out as we left Paradise;

But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle,

And it's hard to part ferever with the old swimmin'-hole."

I clapped my hands in genuine applause. "Read on !" I said,—"Read on! Read all of it !"

The old man's face was radiant as he con­tinued :—

"Oh the old swimmin'-hole! In the happy days of yore, When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore, Oh! it showed me a face in its warm sunny tide

That gazed back at me so gay and glorified,

It made me love myself, as I leaped to caress

My shadder smilin' up at me with sich tenderness.

But them days is past and gone, and old Time's tuck his

toll

From the old man come back to the old swimmin'-hole.

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the long, lazy days

When the humdrum of school made so many "run-a-ways," How pleasant was the jurney down the old dusty lane, Whare the tracks of our bare feet was all printed so plane You could tell by the dent of the heel and the sole They was lots o' fun on hands at the old swimmin'-hole. But the lost joys is past ! Let your tears in sorrow roll Like the rain that ust to dapple up the old swimmin'-hole.

2664            A CALLER FROM BOONE

'Thare the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tali, And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all; And it mottled the worter with amber and gold Till the glad lilies rocked in the ripples that rolled; And the snake-feeder's four gauzy wings fluttered by Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky, Or a wownded apple-blossom in the breeze's controle

As it cut acrost some orchurd to'rds the old swimmin'-hole

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! When I last saw the place, The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face; The bridge of the railroad now crosses the spot Whare the old divin'-log lays sunk and fergot.

And I stray down the banks whare the trees ust to be—But never again will theyr shade shelter me!

And I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul, And dive off in my grave like the old swimmin'-hole."

My applause was long and loud. The old man's interpretation of the poem was a positive revelation, though I was glad enough to conceal from him my moistened eyes by looking through the scraps for other specimens of his verse.

"Here," said I enthusiastically, "is another one, signed 'Benj. F. Johnson,' read me this," and I handed him the poem.

The old man smiled and took the manuscript. "This-here one's on 'The Hass,' he said, simply clearing his throat. "They ain't so much fancy­work about this as the other'n, but they's jest as much fact, you can bet—'cause, they're no animal z-livin"at I love better 'an

A CALLER FROM BOONE                2665

"THE HOSS"

"The hoss he is a splendud beast;

He is man's friend, as heaven desined, And, search the world from west to east, No honester you'll ever find!

"Some calls the hoss 'a pore dumb brute,' And yit, like Him who died fer you, I say, as I theyr charge refute,

Tergive; they know not what they do!'

"No wiser animal makes tracks

Upon these earthly shores, and hence Arose the axium, true as facts, Extoled by all, as 'Good hoss-sense!'

"The hoss is strong, and knows his stren'th,— You hitch him up a time er two

And lash him, and he'll go his len'th

And kick the dashboard out fer you!

"But, treat him allus good and kind, And never strike him with a stick,

Ner aggervate him, and you'll find
He'll never do a hostile trick.

"A hoss whose master tends him right

And worters him with daily care, Will do your biddin' with delight,

And act as docile as you air.

"He'll paw and prance to hear your praise,

Because he's learnt to love you well;
And, though you can't tell what he says,

He'll nicker all he wants to tell.

2666            A CALLER FROM BOONE

"He knows you when you slam the gate At early dawn, upon your way

Unto the barn, and snorts elate,

To git his corn, er oats, er hay.

"He knows you, as the orphant knows

The folks that loves her like theyr own, And raises her and "finds" her clothes,

And "schools" her tel a womern-grown 1

"I claim no boss will harm a man, Ner kick, ner run away, cavort,

Stump-suck, er balk, er 'catamaran,' Ef you'll jest treat him as you ort.

"But when I see the beast abused,

And clubbed around as I've saw some, I want to see his owner noosed,

And jest yanked up like Absolum!

"Of course they's differunce in stock,— A hoss that has a little yeer,

And slender build, and shaller hock, Can beat his shadder, mighty near !

"Whilse one that's thick in neck and chist And big in leg and full in flank,

That tries to race, I still insist

He'll have to take the second rank.

"And I have jest laid back and laughed,
And rolled and wallered in the grass

At fairs, to see some heavy-draft Lead out at first, yit come in last!

"Each boss has his appinted place,-‑

The heavy boss should plow the soil;—The blooded racer, he must race,

And win big wages fer his toil.

A CALLER FROM BOONE                2667

"I never bet—ner never wrought
Upon my feller man to bet

And yit, at times, I've often thought
Of my convictions with regret.

"I bless the hoss from hoof to head—From head to hoof, and tale to mane !­I bless the hoss, as I have said,

From head to hoof, and back again!

"I love my God the first of all,

Then Him that perished on the cross, And next, my wife,—and then I fall Down on my knees and love the hoss."

Again I applauded, handing the old man still another of his poems, and the last received. "Ah !" said he, as his gentle eyes bent on the title ; "this-here's the cheerfullest one of 'em all. This is the one writ, as I wrote you about—on that glorious October morning two weeks ago—I thought your paper would print this-un, shore !"

"Oh, it will print it," I said eagerly ; "and it will print the other two as well ! It will print anything that you may do us the honor to offer, and we'll reward you beside just as you may see fit to desig­nate.—But go on—go on ! Read me the poem."

The old man's eyes were glistening as he re­sponded with the poem entitled

"WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN"

"When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' tur­key-cock,

2668            A CALLER FROM BOONE

And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,

And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; 0, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,

With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful

rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

"They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;

But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock—When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the

shock.

"The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;

The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The flosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!— 0, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the

shock!

A CALLER FROM BOONE                2669

Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider-makin"s over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! . . .

I don't know how to tell it—but of sich a thing could be As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me

I'd d want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock—When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock !"

That was enough ! "Surely," thought I, "here is a diamond in the rough, and a 'gem,' too, 'of purest ray serene' !" I caught the old man's hand and wrung it with positive rapture ; and it is needless to go further in explanation of how the readers of our daily came to an acquaintance through its columns with the crude, unpolished, yet most gentle genius of Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone.

THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY

AS TOLD BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN NEW
YORK CITY

we have had no stories to-night I will L- 3 venture, Mr. President, to tell a story that I have heretofore heard at nearly all the banquets I

have ever attended. It is a story simply, and you must bear with it kindly. It is a story as told by a friend of us all, who is found in all parts of all countries, who is immoderately fond of a funny story, and who, unfortunately, attempts to tell a funny story himself—one that he has been particu­larly delighted with. Well, he is not a story-teller, and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly pathetic. But to such a story as he tells, being a good-natured man and kindly disposed, we have to listen, because we do not want to wound his feel­ings by telling him that we have heard that story a great number of times, and that we have heard it ably told by a great number of people from the time we were children. But, as I say, we can not hurt his feelings. We can not stop him. We can not kill him ; and so the story generally proceeds. He selects a

2670

THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY              2671

very old story always, and generally tells it in about this fashion :‑

I heerd an awful funny thing the other day—ha! ha! I don't know whether I kin git it off er not, but, anyhow, I'll tell it to you. Well !—le's see now how the fool-thing goes. Oh, yes !—W'y, there was a feller one time—it was during the army and this feller that I started in to tell you about was in the war and—ha! ha !—there was a big fight a-goin' on, and this feller was in the fight, and it was a big bat­tle and bullets a-flyin' ever' which way, and bomb­shells a-bu'stin', and cannon-balls a-flyin"round promiskus ; and this feller right in the midst of it, you know, and all excited and het up, and chargin' away ; and the fust thing you know along come a cannon-ball and shot his head off—ha! ha! ha! Hold on here a minute !—no, sir ; I'm a-gittin' ahead of my story ; no, no ; it didn't shoot his head off—I'm gittin' the cart before the horse there—shot his leg off ; that was the way ; shot his leg off ; and down the poor feller drapped, and, of course, in that condition was perfectly he'pless, you know, but yit with presence o' mind enough to know that he was in a dangerous condition of somepin' wasn't done fer him right away. So he seen a comrade a-chargin' by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called him by name—I disremember now what the feller's name was. . . .

Well, that's got nothin' to do with the story, any­way ; he hollers to him, he did, and says, "Hello, there," he says to him ; "here, I want you to come

2672          THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY

here and give me a lift ; I got my leg shot off, and I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle" —where the doctors always is, you know, during a fight—and he says, "I want you to pack me back there where I can get med-dy-cinal attention er I'm a dead man, fer I got my leg shot off," he says, "and I want you to pack me back there so's the surgeons kin take keer of me." Well—the feller, as luck would have it, ricko'nized him and run to him and throwed down his own musket, so's he could pick him up ; and he stooped down and picked him up and kindo' half-way shouldered him and half-way helt him betwixt his arms like, and then he turned and started back with him—ha! ha! ha! Now, mind, the fight was still a-goin' on—and right at the hot of the fight, and the feller, all ex­cited, you know, like he was, and the soldier that had his leg shot off gittin' kindo' fainty like, and his head kindo' stuck back over the feller's shoulder that was carryin' him. And he hadn't got more'n a couple o' rods with him when another cannon-ball come along and tuk his head off, shore enough !­and the curioust thing about it was—ha! ha !—that the feller was a-packin' him didn't know that he had been hit ag'in at all, and back he went—still carryin' the deceased back—ha! ha! ha !—to where the doctors could take keer of him—as he thought. Well, his cap'n happened to see him, and he thought it was a ruther cur'ous p'ceedin's—a soldier carryin' a dead body out o' the fight—don't you see ? And so he hollers at him, and he says to the soldier, the

THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY             2673

cap'n did, he says, "Hullo, there ; where you goin' with that thing ?" the cap'n said to the soldier who was a-carryin' away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, his head, too, by that time. So he says, "Where you going with that thing ?" the cap'n said to the soldier who was a-carryin' away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, the soldier he stopped—kinder halted, you know, like a private soldier will when his presidin' officer speaks to him—and he says to him, "W'y," he says, "Cap, it's a comrade o' mine and the pore feller has got his leg shot off, and I'm a-packin' him back to where the doctors is ; and there was nobody to he'p him, and the feller would 'a' died in his tracks—er track ruther—if it hadn't a-been fer me, and I'm a-packin' him back where the surgeons can take keer of him ; where he can get medical at­tendance—er his wife's a widder !" he says, "'cause he's got his leg shot off !" Then Cap'n says, "You blame fool you, he's got his head shot off." So then the feller slacked his grip on the body and let it slide down to the ground, and looked at it a minute, all puzzled, you know, and says, "W'y, he told me it was his leg !" Ha! ha! ha 1

DIALECT IN LITERATURE

And the common people heard him gladly

F what shall be said herein of dialect, let it be understood the term dialect referred to is of that general breadth of meaning given it to-day, namely, any speech or vernacular outside of the prescribed form of good English in its present state. The present state of the English is, of course, not any one of its prior states. So first let it be re­marked that it is highly probable that what may have been the best of English once may now by some be counted as a weak, inconsequent patois, ,or dialect.

To be direct, it is the object of this article to show that dialect is not a thing to be despised in any event —that its origin is oftentimes of as royal caste as that of any speech. Listening back, from the stand­point of to-day, even to the divine singing of that old classic master to whom England's late laureate refers as

". . . the first warbler, whose sweet breath

Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth

With sounds that echo still";

2674

DIALECT IN LITERATURE             2675

or to whom Longfellow alludes, in his matchless sonnet, as

^ft. . . the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song"—

Chaucer's verse to us is now as veritably dialect as to that old time it was the chastest English ; and even then his materials were essentially dialect when his song was at best pitch. Again, our present dialect, of most plebeian ancestry, may none the less prove worthy. Mark the recognition of its own personal merit in the great new dictionary, where what was, in our own remembrance, the most outlandish dia­lect, is now good, sound, official English.

Since Literature must embrace all naturally exist­ing materials—physical, mental and spiritual—we have no occasion to urge its acceptance of so-called dialect, for dialect is in Literature, and has been there since the beginning of all written thought and utterance. Strictly speaking, as well as paradox­ically, all verbal expression is more or less dialectic, however grammatical. While usage establishes grammar, it no less establishes so-called dialect. Therefore we may as rightfully refer to "so-called grammar."

It is not really a question of Literature's position toward dialect that we are called upon to consider, but rather how much of Literature's valuable time shall be taken up by this dialectic country cousin. This question Literature her gracious self most

DIALECT IN LITERATURE        2677

from the other any patronizing treatment ; and, per­haps, the more especially does the Unlettered faction reject anything in vaguest likeness of this spirit. Of the two divisions, in graphic summary,—one knows the very core and center of refined civilization, and this only ; the other knows the outlying wilds and suburbs of civilization, and this only. Whose, there­fore, is the greater knowledge, and whose the just right of any whit of self-glorification?

A curious thing, indeed, is this factional pride, as made equally manifest in both forces ; in one, for instance, of the Unlettered forces : The average farmer, or countryman, knows, in reality, a far bet­ter and wider range of diction than he permits him­self to use. He restricts and abridges the vocab­ulary of his speech, fundamentally, for the reason that he fears offending his rural neighbors, to whom a choicer speech might suggest, on his part, an as­sumption—a spirit of conscious superiority, and therewith an implied reflection on their lack of in­telligence and general worthiness. If there is any one text universally known and nurtured of the Un­lettered masses of our common country, it is that which reads, "All men are created equal." There­fore it is a becoming thing when true gentility pre­fers to overlook some variations of the class who, more from lack of cultivation than out of rude in­tent, sometimes almost compel a positive doubt of the nice veracity of the declaration, or at least a grief at the munificent liberality of the so-bequoted statement. The somewhat bewildering position of

2678           DIALECT IN LITERATURE

these conflicting forces leaves us nothing further to consider, but how to make the most and best of the situation so far as Literature may be hurt or helped thereby.

Equally with the perfect English, then, dialect should have full justice done it. Then always it is worthy, and in Literature is thus welcome. The writer of dialect should as reverently venture in its use as in his chastest English. His effort in the scholarly and elegant direction suffers no neglect—he is schooled in that, perhaps, he may explain. Then let him be schooled in dialect before he sets up as an expounder of it—a teacher, forsooth a master ! The real master must not only know each varying light and shade of dialect expression, but he must as minutely know the inner character of the people whose native tongue it is, else his product is simply a pretense—a wilful forgery, a rank abom­ination. Dialect has been and is thus insulted, vili­fied, and degraded, now and continually ; and through this outrage solely, thousands of generous-minded readers have been turned against dialect who otherwise would have loved and blessed it in its real form of crude purity and unstrained sweet-ness

Honey dripping from the comb.

Let no impious faddist, then, assume its just inter­pretation. He may know everything else in the world, but not dialect, nor dialectic people, for both of which he has supreme contempt, which same, be

DIALECT IN LITERATURE            2679

sure, is heartily returned. Such a "superior" per­sonage may even go among these simple country people and abide indefinitely in the midst of them, yet their more righteous contempt never for one in­stant permits them to be their real selves in his pres­ence. In consequence, his most conscientious report of them, their ways, lives, and interests, is abso­lutely of no importance or value in the world. He never knew them, nor will he ever know them. They are not his kind of people, any more than he is their kind of man ; and their disappointment grieves us more than his.

The master in Literature, as in any art, is that "divinely gifted man" who does just obeisance to all living creatures, "both man and beast and bird." It is this master only who, as he writes, can sweep himself aside and leave his humble characters to do the thinking and the talking. This man it is who celebrates his performance—not himself. His work he celebrates because it is not his only, but because he feels it to be the conscientious reproduction of life itself—as he has seen and known and felt it ;—a representation it is of God's own script, translated and transcribed by the worshipful mind and heart and hand of genius. This virtue is impartially de­manded in all art, and genius only can fully an­swer the demand in any art for which we claim perfection. The painter has his expression of it, with no slighting of the dialect element ; so, too, the sculptor, the musician, and the list entire. In the line of Literature and literary material, an illustra‑

x.-12

2680            DIALECT IN LITERATURE

tion of the nice meaning and distinction of the art of dialect will be found in Charles Dudley Warner's comment on George Cable's work, as far back as 1883, referring to the author's own rendition of it from the platform. Mr. Warner says :

While the author was unfolding to his audience a life and society unfamiliar to them and entrancing them with pictures, the reality of which none doubted and the spell of which none cared to escape, it occurred to me that here was the solution of all the pother we have recently got into about the realistic and the ideal schools in fiction. In "Posson Jone," an awkward camp-meeting country preacher is the victim of a vulgar confidence game; the scenes are the street, a drinking-place, a gambling-saloon, a bull-ring, and a calaboose ; there is not a "respectable" character in it. Where shall we look for a more faithful picture of low life? Where shall we find another so vividly set forth in all its sordid details? And yet see how art steps in, with the wand of genius, to make literature ! Over the whole the author has cast an ideal light ; over a picture that, in the hands of a bungling realist, would have been repellent he has thrown the idealizing grace that makes it one of the most charming sketches in the world. Here is nature, as nature only ought to be in literature, elevated but never de­, parted from.

So we find dialect, as a branch of literature, worthy of the high attention and employment of the greatest master in letters—not the merest mountebank. Turn to Dickens, in innumerable passages of pathos : the death of poor Jo, or that of the "Cheap John's" little daughter in her father's arms, on the foot-board of his peddling cart before the jeering of the vulgar mob ; smile moistly, too,

DIALECT IN LITERATURE            2681

at Mr. Sleary's odd philosophies ; or at the trials of Sissy Jupe ; or lift and tower with indignation, giving ear to Stephen Blackpool and the stainless nobility of his cloyed utterances.

The crudeness or the homeliness of the dialectic element does not argue its unfitness in any way. Some readers seem to think so ; but they are wrong, and very gravely wrong. Our own brief history as a nation, and our finding and founding and main­taining of it, left our forefathers little time indeed for the delicate cultivation of the arts and graces of refined and scholarly attainments. And there is little wonder, and utter blamelessness on their part, if they lapsed in point of high mental accom­plishments, seeing their attention was so absorbed by propositions looking toward the protection of their rude farm-homes, their meager harvests, and their half-stabled cattle from the dread invasion of the Indian. Then, too, they had their mothers and their wives and little ones to protect, to clothe, to feed, and to die for in this awful line of duty, as hundreds upon hundreds did. These sad facts are here accented and detailed not so much for the sake of being tedious as to indicate more clearly why it was that many of the truly heroic ancestors of "our best people" grew unquestionably dialect of caste —not alone in speech, but in every mental trait and personal address. It is a grievous fart for us to confront, but many of them wore apparel of the commonest, talked loudly, and doubtless said "thisa­way" and "thataway," and "Watch, y' doin' of ?"

2682                DIALECT IN LITERATURE

and "Whur y' goin' at ?"—using dialect even in their prayers to Him who, in His gentle mercy, listened and was pleased ; and who listens verily unto this hour to all like prayers, yet pleased ; yea, haply listens to the refined rhetorical petitions of those who are not pleased.

There is something more at fault than the lan­guage when we turn from or flinch at it ; and, as has been intimated, the wretched fault may be skulkingly hidden away in the ambush of ostensible dialect—that type of dialect so copiously produced by its sole manufacturers, who, utterly stark and bare of the vaguest idea of country life or country people, at once assume that all their "gifted pens" have to do is stupidly to misspell every word ; vul­garly mistreat and besloven every theme, however sacred ; maim, cripple, and disfigure language never in the vocabulary of the countryman—then smuggle these monstrosities of either rhyme or prose some­how into the public print that is innocently to smear them broadcast all over the face of the country they insult.

How different the mind and method of the true intrepreter. As this phrase goes down the man himself arises—the type perfect—Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston, who wrote "The Dukesborough Tales"—an accomplished classical scholar and teacher, yet no less an accomplished master and lover of his native dialect of middle Georgia. He, like Dickens, permits his rustic characters to think, talk, act and live, just as nature designed them. He

DIALECT IN LITERATURE                      2683

does not make the pitiable error of either patroniz­ing or making fun of them. He knows them and he loves them ; and they know and love him in re­turn. Recalling Colonel Johnston's dialectic sketches, with his own presentation of them from the platform, the writer notes a fact that seems singularly to obtain among all true dialect-writers, namely, that they are also endowed with native his­trionic capabilities : Hear, as well as read, Twain, Cable, Johnston, Page, Smith, and all the list with barely an exception.

Did space permit, no better illustration of true dialect sketch and characterization might here be offered than Colonel Johnston's simple story of "Mr. Absalom Billingslea," or the short and simple annals of his like quaint contemporaries, "Mr. Bill Williams" and "Mr. Jonas Lively." The scene is the country and the very little country town, with landscape, atmosphere, simplicity, circumstance—all surroundings and conditions—veritable—everything rural and dialectic, no less than the simple, primi­tive, common, wholesome-hearted men and women who so naturally live and have their blessed being in his stories, just as in the life itself. This is the manifest work of the true dialect writer and ex­pounder. In every detail, the most minute, such work reveals the master-hand and heart of the hu­manitarian as well as artist—the two are indisso­lubly fused—and the result of such just treatment of whatever lowly themes or characters we can but love and loyally approve with all our human hearts.

2684           DIALECT IN LITERATURE

Such masters necessarily are rare, and such ripe perfecting as is here attained may be in part the mellowing result of age and long observation, though it can be based upon the wisest, purest spirit of the man as well as artist.

With no less approval should the work of Joel Chandler Harris be regarded : His touch alike is ever reverential. He has gathered up the bruised and broken voices and the legends of the the slave, and from his child-heart he has affectionately yielded them to us in all their eery beauty and wild loveliness. Through them we are made to glorify the helpless and the weak and to revel in their victories. But, better, we are taught that even in barbaric breasts there dwells inherently the sense of right above wrong—equity above law—and the One Unerring Righteousness Eternal. With equal truth and strength, too, Mr. Harris has treated the dialectic elements of the interior Georgia country—the wilds and fastnesses of the "moonshiners." His tale of Teague Poteet, of some years ago, was contemporaneous with the list of striking mountain stories from that strong and highly gifted Tennes­seean, Miss Murfree, or "Charles Egbert Crad­dock." In the dialectic spirit her stories charm and hold us. Always there is strangely mingled, but most naturally, the gentle nature cropping out amid the most desperate and stoical: the night scene in the isolated mountain cabin, guarded ever without and within from any chance down-swooping of the minions of the red-eyed law ; the great man-group

DIALECT IN LITERATURE           2685

of gentle giants, with rifles never out of arm's-reach, in tender rivalry ranged admiringly around the crowing, wakeful little boy-baby ; the return, at last, of the belated mistress of the house—the sister, to whom all do great, awkward reverence. Jeal­ously snatching up the babe and kissing it, she quer­ulously demands why he has not long ago been put to bed. "He 'lowed he wouldn't go," is the reply.

Thomas Nelson Page, of Virginia, who wrote Meh Lady—a positive classic in the negro dia­lect : his work is veritable—strong and pure and sweet ; and as an oral reader of it the doubly gifted author, in voice and cadence, natural utterance, every possible effect of speech and tone, is doubtless without rival anywhere.

Many more, indeed, than may be mentioned now there are of these real benefactors and preservers of the wayside characters, times, and customs of our ever-shifting history. Needless is it to speak here of the earlier of our workers in the dialectic line—of James Russell Lowell's New England Hosea Big-low, Dr. Eggleston's Hoosier School-Master, or the very rare and quaint, bright prattle of Helen's Babies. In connection with this last let us very seriously inquire what this real child has done that Literature should so persistently refuse to give him an abiding welcome? Since for ages this question seems to have been left unasked, it may be timely now to p^ropound it. Why not the real child in Literature ? The real child is good enough (we all

2686           DIALECT IN LITERATURE

know lie is bad enough) to command our admiring attention and most lively interest in real life, and just as we find him "in the raw." Then why do we deny him any righteous place of recognition in our Literature? From the immemorial advent of our dear old Mother Goose, Literature has been espe­cially catering to the juvenile needs and desires, and yet steadfastly overlooking, all the time, the very principles upon which Nature herself founds and presents this lawless little brood of hers—the chil­dren. It is not the children who are out of order ; it is Literature. And not only is Literature out of order, but she is presumptuous ; she is impudent. She takes Nature's children and revises and corrects them till "their own mother doesn't know them." This is literal fact. So, very many of us are com­ing to inquire, as we've a right, why is the real child excluded from a just hearing in the world of let­ters as he has in the world of fact? For instance, what has the lovely little ragamuffin ever done of sufficient guilt to consign him eternally to the mon­strous penalty of speaking most accurate grammar all the literary hours of the days of the years of his otherwise natural life ?—

"Oh, mother, may I go to school

With brother Charles to-day? The air is very fine and cool;

Oh, mother, say I may !"

—Is this a real boy that would make such a request, and is it the real language he would use? No, we

DIALECT IN LITERATURE            2687

are glad to say that it is not. Simply it is a libel, in every particular, on any boy, however fondly and exactingly trained by parents however zealous for his overdecorous future. Better, indeed, the dubious sentiment of the most trivial nursery jingle, since the latter at least maintains the lawless though wholesome spirit of the child-genuine.—

"Hink! Minx! The old witch winks—The fat begins to fry;

There's nobody home but Jumping Joan, Father and mother and I."

Though even here the impious poet leaves the scar of grammatical knowledge upon childhood's native diction , and so the helpless little fellow is again misrepresented, and his character, to all intents and purposes, is assaulted and maligned outrageously thereby.

Now, in all seriousness, this situation ought not to be permitted to exist, though to change it seems an almost insurmountable task. The general public, very probably, is not aware of the real gravity of the position of the case as even unto this day it exists. Let the public try, then, to contribute the real child to the so-called Child Literature of its country, and have its real child returned as promptly as it dare show its little tousled head in the presence of that scholarly and dignified institution. Then ask why your real child has been spanked back home again, and the wise mentors there will vir­tually tell you that Child Literature wants no real

2688           DIALECT IN LITERATURE

children in it, that the real child's example of de­fective grammar and lack of elegant deportment would furnish to its little patrician patrons sugges­tions very hurtful indeed to their higher morals, tendencies, and ambitions. Then, although the gen­eral public couldn't for the life of it see why or how, and might even be reminded that it was just such a rowdying child itself, and that its father—the Father of his Country—was just such a child ; that Abraham Lincoln was just such a lovable, law­less child, and yet was blessed and chosen in the end for the highest service man may ever render unto man,—all—all this argument would avail not in the least, since the elegantly minded purveyors of Child Literature can not possibly tolerate the presence of any but the refined children—the very proper children—the studiously thoughtful, poetic children •— and these must be kept safe from the contaminating touch of our rough-and-tumble little fellows in "hodden gray," with frowzly heads, be­grimed but laughing faces, and such awful, awful vulgarities of naturalness, and crimes of simplicity, and brazen faith and trust, and love of life and everybody in it. All other real people are getting into Literature ; and without some real children along will they not soon be getting lonesome, too ?