Quartering Upon Friends
City-bred people have a pious horror of the country in winter, and no
great regard for country visitors at any time, however much they may
"let on" to the contrary.
In rushing hot weather, when the bricks and mortar, the stagnated,
oven-like air of the crowded city threatens to bake, parboil, or give
the "citizens" the yellow fever, then we are very apt to think of plain
Aunt Polly, rough-hewed Uncle John
smock-frocked cousins, nephews, and nieces, at their rural homes, amid
the fragrant meadows and umbrageous woods; the cool, silver streams and
murmuring brooks of the glorious country. Then, the poetic sunbeams and
moonshine of fancy bring to the eye and heart all or a part of the
glories and beauties, uses and purposes in which God has invested the
ruraldom.
Now, our country friends are mostly desirous, candidly so, to have their
city friends come and see them--not merely pop visits, but bring your
whole family, and stay a month! This they may do, and will do, and can
afford it, as it is more convenient to one's pocket-book, on a farm, to
quarter a platoon of your friends than to perform the same operation
in the city, where it is apt to give your purse the tick-dollar-owe in
no time.
It was not long since, during the prevalence of a hot summer, that Mrs.
Triangle one morning said to her stewing husband, who was in no wise
troubled with a surplus of the circulating medium--
"Triangle, it's on-possible for us to keep the children well and quiet
through this dreadful hot weather. We must go into the country. The
Joneses and Pigwigginses and Macwackinses, and--and--everybody has gone
out into the country, and we must go, too; why can't we?"
"Why can't we?" mechanically echoed Triangle, who just then was deeply
absorbed in a problem as to whether or not, considering the prices of
coal, potatoes, house-rents, leather, and "dry goods," he would fetch up
in prison or the poor-house first! It was a momentous question, and to
his wife's proposal of a fresh detail of domestic expense, Triangle
responded--
"Why can't we?"
"Yes, that's what I'd like to know--why can't we?"
"We can't, Mrs. Triangle," decidedly answered her lord and master.
Now Mrs. T., being but a woman, very naturally went on to give Mr. T. a
Caudle lecture half an hour long, winding up with one of those
time-honored perquisites of the female sex--a good cry.
Poor Triangle put on his hat and marched down to his bake-oven of an
"office," to plan business and smoke his cigar. Triangle came home to
tea, and saw at a glance that something must be done. Mrs. Triangle was
to be "compromised," or far hotter than even the hot, hot weather would
be his domicile for the balance of the season. Triangle thought it over,
as he nibbled his toast and sipped his hot Souchong.
"My dear," said he, pushing aside his cup, and tilting himself upon the
"hind legs" of his chair--"business is very dull, the weather is
intolerable, I know you and the children would be much benefitted by a
trip into the country--why can't we go?"
"Why can't we?--that's what I'd like to know!" was the ready response of
Mrs. T.
"Well, we can go. My friend Jingo has as fine a place in the country as
ever was, anywhere; he has asked me again and again to come down in the
summer, and bring all the family. Now we'll go; Jingo will be delighted
to see us; and we'll have a good, pleasant time, I'll warrant."
Mrs. Triangle was delighted; soon all the clouds of her temper were
dispersed, and like people "cut out for each other," Triangle and his
wife sat and planned the details of the tour to Jingo Hill Farm.
Frederic Antonio Gustavus was to be rigged out in new boots, hat, and
breeches. Maria Evangeline Roxana Matilda was to be fitted out in Polka
boots, gipsey bonnet, and Bloomer pantalettes, with an entire invoice of
handkerchiefs, scarfs, ribbons, gloves, and hosiery for "mother," little
Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, and the baby, Henry Rinaldo
Mercutio. After three days' onslaught upon poor Triangle's pockets, with
any quantity of "fuss and feathers," Mrs. Triangle pronounced the
caravan ready to move. But just as all was ready, Bridget Durfy, the
maid-of-all-work, who was to accompany them on the expedition as
supervisor of the children, threw up her engagement.
"Plaze the pigs," said Biddy; "it's mesilf as niver likes the counthry,
at all; an' I'll jist be afther not goin', ma'm, wid yez!"
Here was a go--or rather a "no go!" Triangle had bought tickets for all,
and ordered the carriage at four; it was now three P. M., of a hot,
roasting day. It would be "on-possible," as Mrs. T. said, to go without
a girl; so poor, sweltering Triangle rushed down to the "Intelligence
Office," where, from the sweating mass of female humanity awaiting a
market for their time and labor, Triangle selected a stout, hearty Irish
blonde, warranted perfect, capable, kind, honest, and the Lord only
knows how many virtues the keeper of an "Intelligence Office" will not
swear belong to one of their stock in trade.
Away went Triangle, sweating and swearing; the Irish maiden, swinging a
bundle in one hand and a flaring bandanna in the other, following
after her patron with a duck-waddle; and finally the carriage came; all
got in but Triangle, who started on foot to the depot, carrying his
double-barrelled gun and leading an ugly dog, which he rejoiced in
believing was a full-blooded setter, though the best posted
dog-fanciers assured him it was a cross between a tan-yard cur and a
sheep-stealer! But, after a world of motion and commotion--on the part
of Triangle, about the dog, tickets and baggage, and Mrs. Triangle,
about the children, satchels, her new gown, and the sleepy Irish
girl--they found themselves whisked over the rails, and after some three
hours' carriage, they were dumped down in the vicinity of Jingo Hall,
where they found the "private conveyance" of the proprietor of Jingo
Hill Farm waiting to carry them, bandbox and bundle, rag-tag and
bobtail, to Jingo Hall.
The carriage being overfull, Triangle concluded to walk up, stretch his
legs, try his dog and gun, and have a pop at the game. But, alas, for
the villanous dog; no sooner had he got loose and scampered off up the
road, than he sees a flock of sheep some distance across the fields, and
away he pitched. The sheep ran, he after the sheep; and poor Triangle
after his dog.
"Hay! you Ponto--here--hay--Ponto-o-o! Hey, boy, come here, you dog--hi!
hi!--do you hear-r-r?"
But Ponto was off, and after a run of half a mile, he came up with a
lamb, and before Triangle could come to the rescue, Ponto had opened the
campaign by killing sheep! Triangle was so put out about it that in
wrath he up with his gun and was about to terminate the existence of the
dog, but compromised the matter by hitting him a whack across the back
with the barrels of his shooting-iron; in doing so, he broke off the
stock, clean as a whistle! It is useless to deny that Triangle was
mad; that he swore equal to an Erie Canal boatman; and that his fury so
alarmed the dog that he took to his heels and went--as Triangle
hoped--anywhere, head foremost.
down 'baby' upon the grass, and made fight with 'the spiteful
craturs.'"--Page 169.]
With a face as long as a boot-jack, quite tuckered out and disgusted
with things as far as he had got, Triangle reached Jingo Hall, where he
met the warm welcome of his friend, Major Jingo, and soon recuperated
his good humor and physical activity by the contents of the Major's
"well-stocked" wine-cellar. Ashamed of the facts of the case, Triangle
trumped up a cock-and-bull story about the dog and gun.
After a season, the Triangles got settled away, and the first day or two
passed without anything extraordinary turning up, if we may except the
upturning of several flower-pots and hen's nests by the children. But
the third day opened ominously. Triangle's dog was found with one of the
Major's dead lambs under convoy, and the Irish hostler had caught him,
tied him up in the stable, and given him such a dressing that Ponto's
soul-case was nearly beaten out of him!
The next item was a yowl in the garden! Everybody rushed out--Mrs.
Triangle in her excitement, lest something had happened to "baby," and
Nora, the girl, struck the centre-table, upset the "Astral," and not
only demolished that ancient piece of furniture, but spilled enough
thick oil over the gilt-edged literature, table-cloth, and carpet, to
make a barrel of soft soap.
The Irish girl came bounding, screeching forth! She had been sauntering
through the garden, and ran against the bee-hives, when a bee up and at
her. With a presence of mind truly unparalleled, she laid down "baby"
upon the grass, and made fight with "the spiteful craturs;" and of
course she got her hands full, was beset by tens and hundreds, and was
stung in as many places by the pugnacious "divils." Nora was done for.
She went to bed; "baby" was found all right, laughing "fit to break its
yitty hearty party, at naughty Nora Dory," as Mrs. Triangle very
naturally expressed it.
These two tableaux had hardly reached their climax, when in rushed
Frederic Antonio Gustavus, with his capacious apron full of "birds he
killed in the yard, down by the barns." Poor Jingo! and we may add, poor
Mrs. Jingo! for a favorite brood of the finest fowls in the country had
been exterminated by the chivalrous young Triangle, and in the bloom of
his heroic act he dropped the dead game at the feet of his
horror-stricken mother, and astonished father, and the Jingos.
That night the effect of stuffing with green fruit to utter suffocation
manifested itself in a general and alarming cholera-morbus among the
junior Triangles, and the whole house was up in arms.
In the midst of this, a fresh clamor broke out in Nora's chamber. A huge
bat had got into her room, and so alarmed her, that she yelled worse,
louder, and longer than seven evil ones.
It was a night of horror to the whole family--to everybody in and about
Jingo Hall. The dogs set up a howl; the children bawled, cried, and took
on; the Irish girl screeched; gin and laudanum, peppermint and
"lollypops," the de'il to pay and no pitch hot.
Triangle felt relieved when daylight came, and had it not been Sunday,
he would have packed up and put back for the prosy office and stagnated
quietude of the city. But it was Sunday, and after the children, Irish
girl, and dogs had been partially quieted, down the carriage came to the
door, and as many as could get into it of the Jingos and Triangles,
rolled off to meeting.
Triangle and Jingo went to escape the din and noise of dressing "the
babies," &c.; and after the service was over, poor Triangle was taken
aside by a tall, bony man, who reported himself in no very ceremonious
manner as the proprietor of a flock of sheep scared to death, and one
rare lamb killed--"by your dog!" Triangle owned to the soft impeachment,
and "compromised" for a V.
Returned to Jingo Hall, another coup d'etat all around the lot had
broken out. Evangeline Roxana Matilda Triangle had disappeared. The
baby, Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, had fallen from a swing in the
grove and dislocated her wrist, and flattened her pretty nose quite to
her pretty face. Baby was very ill, and from the groans issuing from
Nora's attic, it was not on-possible that she was sick as she could
be. A general search took place for Evangeline Roxana Matilda, while
Maj. Jingo mounted a horse and rode over to the village, to bring down a
doctor for Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, "the baby," and--Nora
Dougherty.
A glance at the Irish girl convinced poor tried Triangle that she was
a case--of small-pox.
Maj. Jingo returned, but without a medical adviser; the village
Esculapius having gone off to the city. Things looked gloomy enough.
Triangle felt "chawed up," and wished he had been roasted alive in the
city before venturing upon such a trip. But he felt he had a duty to
perform, and he determined to put it through.
"Major, I'm very sorry, but the fact is"----
"Never mind, never mind, my dear fellow--no trouble to us."
"But," chokingly continued poor Triangle, "but, Major, the fact is,
I--a--you've got a large family"----
"Never mind, my dear boy; don't say any more about it."
"But to have the--a--the--small-pox"----
"What?" gasped the Major--"the--a"----
"Small-pox!" seriously enough responded Triangle.
"Small-pox! Who? Where?"
"Our Irish girl--up stairs--awful!"
"O, good Lord! Irish--up stairs--small-pox!" reiterated the really
alarmed proprietor of Jingo Hall.
"I wouldn't have"--said Triangle.
"The small-pox in my house"--echoed Jingo.
"For all the blessed countries in the world!" passionately exclaimed
Triangle.
"Heavens!" exclaimed the Major; "my wife has a greater dread of
small-pox than yellow fever, or death itself!"
"What's to be done?" said poor Triangle.
"Remove the girl to an out-house, instantly!" said the Major, pacing up
and down, in great furore.
"That's best, Major; go move her, at once."
"Me? Me move her, sir?" said Jingo.
"Why who will, Major?" responded Triangle.
"Who? Why, you, of course."
"Me?" exclaimed Triangle--"me? endanger my life, and the lives of all my
family--me? No, sir, I'll--I'll--I'll be hanged if I do!"
"Blur a' nouns, zur!" bawled the Irish hostler, as he came trotting up
to the front veranda, where Triangle and Jingo were discussing the
transportation of small-pox--
"Blur a' nouns--the dog's loose!"
"Curse the dog!" said the Major.
"But, zur, it's raving mad, he is!"
"Mad! my dog?" cries Triangle.
"A mad dog, too!" exclaims the Major, in horror.
"O, too bad--horrible--wish I'd never seen"----
"Get your gun, quick--come on!" cried the Major.
"But, my dear Major, my gun's broke all to smash. O! that I had shot the
blasted brute instead of breaking my gun!"
"Come on--never mind--seize a club, fork, or anything, and hunt around
for the cursed dog. He'll bite some of our people, horses, or cattle."
And away ran the Major, with a bit of stick about the size of a
fence-rail. Paddy made himself scarce, and Triangle, in agony, flew
around to hunt up his daughter, whom they found asleep in a
summer-house.
Mrs. Major Jingo, when she heard that the Irish girl had introduced the
small-pox on Jingo Hill, liked to have fainted away; but, conquering her
weakness, she ordered the carriage, and bundled herself and four
children into it, so full of terror and alarm that she never so much as
said--"Take care of yourself, Mrs. Triangle!" Maj. Jingo returned, after
a fruitless search for Triangle's mad dog, and just as he entered the
hall, the Irish girl came rushing down stairs, crying--
"O! murther, murther! I'm dead as a door-nail, entirely, wid dese pains
in my face. Be gorra! O, murther!"
One look at the swollen and truly frightful face of the girl put the
Major to his taps; and stopping but a moment to tell Triangle to make
out the best he could, he left.
Next morning, bag and baggage, the Triangles vamosed. The poor girl
having recovered from her attack of the bees, which had led to the alarm
of small-pox, looked quite respectable. Never did a party enjoy home
more completely than the Triangles after that. Triangle has a holy
horror of trips to the country, and the Jingos are down on visitors from
the city.
More
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I'm going to state to you the remarkable adventures of a very remarkable man, who went to market to get a leg of mutton for his Sunday dinner. I have heard, or read somewhere or other, almost similar stories; whether they were real or imaginary, I... The Man That Knew 'em All
If you have ever "been around" some, and taken notice of things, you have doubtless seen the man who knows pretty much every thing and every body! I've seen them frequently. As the old preacher observed to a venerable lady, in reference to fore... The Perils Of Wealth
Money is admitted to be--there is no earthly use of dodging the fact--the lever of the whole world, by which it and its multifarious cargo of men and matters, mountains and mole hills, wit, wisdom, weal, woe, warfare and women, are kept in motion,... The Pigeon Express Man
In nearly all yarns or plays in which Yankees figure, they are supposed to be "a leetle teu darn'd ceute" for almost any body else, creating a heap of fun, and coming out clean ahead; but that even Connecticut Yankees--the cutest and all firedest ... The Question Settled
"Doctor" Gumbo, who "does business" somewhere along shore, met "Prof." White,--a gemman, whose complexion is four shades darker than the famed ace of spades,--a few evenings since, in front of the Blade office, and after the usual formalities of g... The Race Of The Aldermen
In 183-, it chanced in the big city of New York, that the aldermen elect were a sort of tie; that is, so many whigs and so many democrats. Such a thing did not occur often, the democracy usually having the supremacy. They generally had things pret... The Re-union Thanksgiving Story
"Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back."--Isaiah. A portly elderly gentleman, with one hand in his breech... The Science Of Diddling
Jeremy Diddlers have existed from time immemorial down, as traces of them are found in all ancient and modern history, from the Bible to Shakspeare, from Shakspeare to the revelations of George Gordon Byron, who strutted his brief hour, acted his ... The Skipper's Schooner
No better specimen of the genus, genuine Yankee nation, can be found, imagined or described, than the skippers of along shore, from Connecticut river to Eastport, Maine. These critters give full scope to the Hills and Hacketts of the stage, and th... The Story Of Capt Paul
I love to speak, I love to write of the mighty West. I have passed ten happy and partly pleasant years travelling over the immense tracts of land of the West and South. I have, during that time, garnered up endless themes for my pen. It was my cus... The Tribulations Of Incivility
"A gentleman by the name of Collins stopping with you?" "Collins?" was the response. "Yes, Collins, or Collings, I ain't sure which," said the hardy-looking, bronzed seaman, to the gaily-dressed, flippant-mannered, be-whiskered man of vast im... The Troubles Of A Mover
"Mr. Flash in?" "Mr. Flash? Don't know any such person, my son." "Why, he lives here!" continued the boy. "Guess not, my son; I live here." "Well, this is the house, for I brought the things here." "What things?" says our friend, Flann... The Two Johns At The Tremont
It is somewhat curious that more embarrassments, and queer contre temps do not take place in the routine of human affairs, when we find so many persons floating about of one and the same name. It must be shocking to be named John Brown, troublesom... The Vagaries Of Nature
Nature seems to have her fitful, frightful, and funny moods, as well as all her children. Now she gets up a stone bridge, the gigantic proportions and the symmetrical development of which attract great attention from all tourists and historians wh... The Washerwoman's Windfall
Some years ago, there lived, dragged and toiled, in one of our "Middle States," or Southern cities, and old lady, named Landon, the widow of a lost sea captain; and as a dernier resort, occurring in many such cases, with a family of children to pr... The Wolf Slayer
In 1800 the most of the State of Ohio, and nearly all of Indiana, was a dense wilderness, where the gaunt wolf and naked savage were masters of the wild woods and fertile plains, which now, before the sturdy blows of the pioneer's axe, and the far... The Yankee In A Boarding School
"Well, squire, as I wer' tellin' on ye, when I went around pedlin' notions, I met many queer folks; some on 'em so darn'd preoud and sassy, they wouldn't let a feller look at 'em; a-n-d 'd shut their doors and gates, bang into a feller's face, jes... Used Up
I am tempted to believe, that few--very few men can start in the world--say at twenty, with a replete invoice of honesty, free and easy--kind, generous--good-natured disposition, and keep it up, until they greet their fortieth year. There are, dou... Waking Up The Wrong Passenger
In "comparing notes" with a travelled friend, I glean from his stock of information, gathered South-west, a few incidents in the life of a somewhat extensively famed Boston panoramic artist--one of which incidents, at least, is worth rehearsing. S... Wanted A Young Man From The Country
All of our mercantile cities are overrun with young men who have been bred for the counter or desk, and thousands of these genteel young gents find it any thing but an easy matter to find bread or situations half their time, in these crowded marts...