IX
"I've just been reading a book," began the Idiot.
"I thought you looked rather pale," said the School-master.
"Yes," returned the Idiot, cheerfully, "it made me feel pale. It was about the pleasures of country life; and when I contrasted rural blessedness as it was there depicted with urban life as we live it, I felt as if my youth were being thrown away. I still feel as if I were wasting my sweetness on the desert air."
"Why don't you move?" queried the Bibliomaniac, suggestively.
"If I were purely selfish I should do so at once, but I am, like my good friend Mr. Whitechoker, a slave to duty. I deem it my duty to stay here to keep the School-master fully informed in the various branches of knowledge which are day by day opened up, many of which seem to be so far beyond the reach of one of his conservative habits; to assist Mr. Whitechoker in his crusades against vice at this table and elsewhere; to give the Bibliomaniac the benefit of my advice in regard to those precious little tomes he no longer buys—to make life worth the living for all of you, to say nothing of enabling Mrs. Smithers to keep up the extraordinarily high standard of this house by means of the hard-earned stipend I pay to her every Monday morning."
"Every Monday?" queried the School-master.
"Every Monday," returned the Idiot. "That is, of course, every Monday that I pay. The things one gets to eat in the country, the air one breathes, the utter freedom from restraint, the thousand and more things one enjoys in the suburbs that are not attainable here—it is these that make my heart yearn for the open."
"Well, it's all rot," said the School-master, impatiently. "Country life is ideal only in books. Books do not tell of running for trains through blinding snowstorms; writers do not expatiate on the delights of waking on cold winter nights and finding your piano and parlor furniture afloat because of bursted pipes, with the plumber, like Sheridan at Winchester, twenty miles away. They are dumb on the subject of the ecstasy one feels when pushing a twenty-pound lawn-mower up and down a weed patch at the end of a wearisome hot summer's day. They are silent—"
"Don't get excited, Mr. Pedagog, please," interrupted the Idiot. "I am not contemplating leaving you and Mrs. Smithers, but I do pine for a little garden of my own, where I could raise an occasional can of tomatoes. I dream sometimes of getting milk fresh from the pump, instead of twenty-four hours after it has been drawn, as we do here. In my musings it seems to me to be almost idyllic to have known a spring chicken in his infancy; to have watched a hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its native heath before its muscles became adamant, and before chopped-up celery tops steeped in vinegar were poured upon it in the hope of hypnotizing boarders into the belief that spring lamb and mint-sauce lay before them. What care I how hard it is to rise every morning before six in winter to thaw out the boiler, so long as the night coming finds me seated in the genial glow of the gas log! What man is he that would complain of having to bale out his cellar every week, if, on the other hand, that cellar gains thereby a fertility that keeps its floor sheeny, soft, and green—an interior tennis-court—from spring to spring, causing the gladsome click of the lawn-mower to be heard within its walls all through the still watches of the winter day? I tell you, sir, it is the life to lead, that of our rural brother. I do not believe that in this whole vast city there is a cellar like that—an in-door garden-patch, as it were."
"No," returned the Doctor; "and it is a good thing there isn't. There is enough sickness in the world without bringing any of your rus ideas in urbe. I've lived in the country, sir, and I assure you it is not what it is written up to be. Country life is misery, melancholy, and malaria."
"You must have struck a profitable section, Doctor," returned the Idiot, taking possession of three steaming buckwheat cakes to the dismay of Mr. Whitechoker, who was about to reach out for them himself. "And I should have supposed that your good business sense would have restrained you from leaving."
"Then the countryman is poor—always poor," continued the Doctor, ignoring the Idiot's sarcastic comments.
"Ah! that accounts for it," observed the Idiot. "I see why you did not stay; for what shall it profit a man to save a patient if practice, like virtue, is to be its own reward?"
"Your suggestion, sir," retorted the Doctor, "betrays an unhealthy frame of mind."
"That's all right, Doctor," returned the Idiot; "but please do not diagnose the case any further. I can't afford an expert opinion as to my mental condition. But to return to our subject: you two gentlemen appear to have had unhappy experiences in country life—quite different from those of a friend of mine who owns a farm. He doesn't have to run for trains; he is independent of plumbers, because the only pipes in his house are for smoking purposes. The farm produces corn enough to keep his family supplied all the year round and to sell a balance at a profit. Oats and wheat are harvested to an extent which keeps the cattle and declares dividends besides. He never suffers from the cold or heat. He is never afraid of losing his house or barns by fire, because the whole fire department of the neighboring village is, to a man, in love with the house-keeper's daughter, and is always on hand in force. The chickens are the envy and pride of the county, and there are so many of them that they have to take turns in going to roost. The pigs are the most intelligent of their kind, and are so happy they never grunt. In fact, everything is lovely and cheap, the only thing that hangs high being the goose."
"Quite an ideal, no doubt," put in the School-master, scornfully. "I suppose his is one of those model farms with steam-pipes under the walks to melt the snow in winter, and of course there is a vein of coal growing right up into his furnace ready to be lit."
"Yes," observed the Bibliomaniac; "and no doubt the chickens lay eggs in every style—poached, fried, scrambled, and boiled. The weeds in the garden grow so fast, I suppose, that they pull themselves up by the roots; and if there is anything left undone at the end of the day I presume tramps in dress suits, and courtly in manner, spring out of the ground and finish up for him."
"I'll bet he's not on good terms with his neighbors if he has everything you speak of in such perfection. These farmers get frightfully jealous of each other," asserted the Doctor, with a positiveness that seemed to be born of experience.
"He never quarrelled with one of them in his life," returned the Idiot. "He doesn't know them well enough to quarrel with them; in fact, I doubt if he ever sees them at all. He's very exclusive."
"Of course he is a born farmer to get everything the way he has it," suggested Mrs. Smithers.
"No, he isn't. He's a broker," said the Idiot, "and a very successful one. I see him on the street every day."
"Does he employ a man to run the farm?" asked the Clergyman.
"No," returned the Idiot, "he has too much sense and too few dollars to do any such foolish thing as that."
"It must be one of those self-winding stock farms," put in the School-master, scornfully. "But I don't see how he can be a successful broker and make money off his farm at the same time. Your statements do not agree, either. You said he never had to run for trains."
"Well, he never has," returned the Idiot, calmly. "He never goes near his farm. He doesn't have to. It's leased to the husband of the house-keeper whose daughter has a crush on the fire department. He takes his pay in produce, and gets more than if he took it in cash on the basis of the New York vegetable market."
"Then you have got us into an argument about country life that ends—" began the School-master, indignantly.
"That ends where it leaves off," retorted the Idiot, departing with a smile on his lips.
"He's an Idiot from Idaho," asserted the Bibliomaniac.
"Yes; but I'm afraid idiocy is a little contagious," observed the Doctor, with a grin and sidelong glance at the School-master.
X
"Good-morning, gentlemen," said the Idiot, as he seated himself at the breakfast-table and glanced over his mail.
"Good-morning yourself," returned the Poet. "You have an unusually large number of letters this morning. All checks, I hope?"
"Yes," replied the Idiot. "All checks of one kind or another. Mostly checks on ambition—otherwise, rejections from my friends the editors."
"You don't mean to say that you write for the papers?" put in the School-master, with an incredulous smile.
"I try to," returned the Idiot, meekly. "If the papers don't take 'em, I find them useful in curing my genial friend who imbibes of insomnia."
"What do you write—advertisements?" queried the Bibliomaniac.
"No. Advertisement writing is an art to which I dare not aspire. It's too great a tax on the brain," replied the Idiot.
"Tax on what?" asked the Doctor. He was going to squelch the Idiot.
"The brain," returned the latter, not ready to be squelched. "It's a little thing people use to think with, Doctor. I'd advise you to get one." Then he added, "I write poems and foreign letters mostly."
"I did not know that you had ever been abroad," said the clergyman.
"I never have," returned the Idiot.
"Then how, may I ask," said Mr. Whitechoker, severely, "how can you write foreign letters?"
"With my stub pen, of course," replied the Idiot. "How did you suppose—with an oyster-knife?"
The clergyman sighed.
"I should like to hear some of your poems," said the Poet.
"Very well," returned the Idiot. "Here's one that has just returned from the Bengal Monthly. It's about a writer who died some years ago. Shakespeare's his name. You've heard of Shakespeare, haven't you, Mr. Pedagog?" he added.
Then, as there was no answer, he read the verse, which was as follows:
SETTLED
Yes! Shakespeare wrote the plays—'tis clear to me.
Lord Bacon's claim's condemned before the bar.
He'd not have penned, "what fools these mortals be!"
But—more correct—"what fools these mortals are!"
"That's not bad," said the Poet.
"Thanks," returned the Idiot. "I wish you were an editor. I wrote that last spring, and it has been coming back to me at the rate of once a week ever since."
"It is too short," said the Bibliomaniac.
"It's an epigram," said the Idiot. "How many yards long do you think epigrams should be?"
The Bibliomaniac scorned to reply.
"I agree with the Bibliomaniac," said the School-master. "It is too short. People want greater quantity."
"Well, here is quantity for you," said the Idiot. "Quantity as she is not wanted by nine comic papers I wot of. This poem is called:
"THE TURNING OF THE WORM
"'How hard my fate perhaps you'll gather in,
My dearest reader, when I tell you that
I entered into this fair world a twin—
The one was spare enough, the other fat.
"'I was, of course, the lean one of the two,
The homelier as well, and consequently
In ecstasy o'er Jim my parents flew,
And good of me was spoken accident'ly.
"'As boys, we went to school, and Jim, of course,
Was e'er his teacher's favorite, and ranked
Among the lads renowned for moral force,
Whilst I was every day right soundly spanked.
"'Jim had an angel face, but there he stopped.
I never knew a lad who'd sin so oft
And look so like a branch of heaven lopped
From off the parent trunk that grows aloft.
"'I seemed an imp—indeed 'twas often said
That I resembled much Beelzebub.
My face was freckled and my hair was red—
The kind of looking boy that men call scrub.
"'Kind deeds, however, were my constant thought;
In everything I did the best I could;
I said my prayers thrice daily, and I sought
In all my ways to do the right and good.
"'On Saturdays I'd do my Monday's sums,
While Jim would spend the day in search of fun;
He'd sneak away and steal the neighbors' plums,
And, strange to say, to earth was never run.
"'Whilst I, when study-time was haply through,
Would seek my brother in the neighbor's orchard;
Would find the neighbor there with anger blue,
And as the thieving culprit would be tortured.
"'The sums I'd done he'd steal, this lad forsaken,
Then change my work, so that a paltry four
Would be my mark, whilst he had overtaken
The maximum and all the prizes bore.
"'In later years we loved the self-same maid;
We sent her little presents, sweets, bouquets,
For which, alas! 'twas I that always paid;
And Jim the maid now honors and obeys.
"'We entered politics—in different roles,
And for a minor office each did run.
'Twas I was left—left badly at the polls,
Because of fishy things that Jim had done.
"'When Jim went into business and failed,
I signed his notes and freed him from the strife
Which bankruptcy and ruin hath entailed
On them that lead a queer financial life.
"'Then, penniless, I learned that Jim had set
Aside before his failure—hard to tell!—
A half a million dollars on his pet—
His Mrs. Jim—the former lovely Nell.
"'That wearied me of Jim. It may be right
For one to bear another's cross, but I
Quite fail to see it in its proper light,
If that's the rule man should be guided by.
"'And since a fate perverse has had the wit
To mix us up so that the one's deserts
Upon the shoulders of the other sit,
No matter how the other one it hurts,
"'I am resolved to take some mortal's life;
Just when, or where, or how, I do not reck,
So long as law will end this horrid strife
And twist my dear twin brother's sinful neck.'"
"There," said the Idiot, putting down the manuscript. "How's that?"
"I don't like it," said Mr. Whitechoker. "It is immoral and vindictive. You should accept the hardships of life, no matter how unjust. The conclusion of your poem horrifies me, sir. I—"
"Have you tried your hand at dialect poetry?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes; once," said the Idiot. "I sent it to the Great Western Weekly. Oh yes. Here it is. Sent back with thanks. It's an octette written in cigar-box dialect."
"In wh-a-at?" asked the Poet.
"Cigar-box dialect. Here it is:
"'O Manuel garcia alonzo,
Colorado especial H. Clay,
Invincible flora alphonzo,
Cigarette panatella el rey,
Victoria Reina selectas—
O twofer madura grandé—
O conchas oscuro perfectas,
You drive all my sorrows away.'"
"Ingenious, but vicious," said the School-master, who does not smoke.
"Again thanks. How is this for a sonnet?" said the Idiot:
"'When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I now pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think of thee, dear friend!
All losses are restored and sorrows end.'"
"It is bosh!" said the School-master. The Poet smiled quietly.
"Perfect bosh!" repeated the School-master. "And only shows how in weak hands so beautiful a thing as the sonnet can be made ridiculous."
"What's wrong with it?" asked the Idiot.
"It doesn't contain any thought—or if it does, no one can tell what the thought is. Your rhymes are atrocious. Your phraseology is ridiculous. The whole thing is bad. You'll never get anybody to print it."
"I do not intend to try," said the Idiot, meekly.
"You are wise," said the School-master, "to take my advice for once."
"No, it is not your advice that restrains me," said the Idiot, dryly. "It is the fact that this sonnet has already been printed."
"In the name of Letters, where?" cried the School-master.
"In the collected works of William Shakespeare," replied the Idiot, quietly.
The Poet laughed; Mrs. Smithers's eyes filled with tears; and the School-master for once had absolutely nothing to say.