MODERN FICTION IS UNRELIABLE
Modern fiction has reached that pass where the twentieth chapter may wind up with a funeral of twins. Death or dyspepsia may befall the hero at any moment, and the old-time schedule has been abandoned. It is as delightfully surprising as prospecting for a quartz lead. You may discover a bonanza or sit down on a tarantula at any moment. You may tumble out of an ore bucket and reach the foot of the shaft with your shoulder blade in your pistol pocket, or you may sit down on an ostensibly extinct blast to think over your past life and the next moment go crashing through the milky way without clothes enough to keep off the night air.
CHESTNUT-BURR XXXIX – SOME FACTS OF SCIENCE
An Interesting Diary – Corn and Small Fruits Suffer – A Fourth of July Dinner – A Good Ice Cream Country – The Diary Abruptly Ends.
A reporter sent out to find the North Pole some years ago, has just been heard from. An exploring party recently found portions of his remains in latitude 4-11-14, longitude sou'west by sou' from the pole, and near the remains the following fragment of a diary: July 1, 1884. – Have just been out searching for a sunstroke and signs of a thaw. Saw nothing but ice floe and snow as far as the eye could reach. Think we will have snow this evening unless the wind changes.
July 2. – Spent the forenoon exploring to the northwest for right of way for a new equatorial and North Pole railroad that I think would be of immense value to commerce. The grade is easy and the expense would be slight. Ate my last dog to-day. Had intended him for the 4th, but got too hungry, and ate him raw with vinegar. I wish I was at home eating pie.
July 3. – We had quite a frost last night, and it looks this morning as though the corn and small fruits must have suffered. It is now two weeks since the last of the crew died and left me alone. Ate the leather ends of my suspenders to-day for dinner. I did not need the suspenders, anyway, for by tightening up my pants I find they will stay on all right, and I don't look for any ladies to call, so that even if my pants came off by some oversight or other, nobody would be shocked.
July 4. – Saved up some tar roofing and a bottle of mucilage for my Fourth of July dinner, and gorged myself to day. The exercises were very poorly attended and the celebration rather a failure. It is clouding up in the west, and I'm afraid we're going to have snow. Seems to me we're having an all-fired late spring here this year.
July 5. – Didn't drink a drop yesterday. It was the quietest Fourth I ever put in. I never felt so little remorse over the way I celebrated as I do to-day. I didn't do a thing yesterday that I was ashamed of except to eat the remainder of a box of shoe blacking for supper. To-day I ate my last boot-heel, stewed. Looks as though we might have a hard winter.
July 6. – Feel a little apprehension about something to eat. My credit is all right here, but there is no competition, and prices are therefore very high. Ice, however, is still firm. This would be a good ice-cream country if there were any demand, but the country is so sparsely settled that a man feels as lonesome here as a greenbacker at a presidential election. Ate a pound of cotton waste soaked in machine oil, to-day. There is nothing left for to-morrow but ice-water and an old pocket-book for dinner. Looks as though we might have snow.
July 7. – This is a good, cool place to spend the summer if provisions were more plenty. I am wearing a seal-skin undershirt, with three woolen overshirts and two bear-skin vests, to-day, and when the dew begins to fall I have to put on my buffalo ulster to keep off the night air. I wish I was home. It seems pretty lonesome here since the other boys died. I do not know what I will get for dinner to-morrow, unless the neighbors bring in something. A big bear is coming down the hatchway as I write. I wish I could eat him. It would be the first square meal for two months. It is, however, a little mixed whether I will eat him or he eat me. It will be a cold day for me if he —
Here the diary breaks off abruptly, and from the chewed-up appearance of the book, we are led to entertain a horrible fear as to his safety.
A HAT DEPOSIT IN THE BLACK HILLS
An old hunter was out among the Black Hills, east of town, last summer, hunting for cotton-tails and sage hens, and he ran across a little gulch where the abrupt rocks closed together and formed a little atmospheric eddy, so to speak. There in that lonely reservoir he found what he at first considered a petrified hat store. It was a genuine deposit of escaped straw hats and plug hats that the frolicsome zephyrs had caught up and carried for ten miles, until this natural hat-rack had secured them. Of course there were other articles of apparel, and some debilitated umbrellas, but the deposit seemed to assay mostly hats.
CHESTNUT-BURR XL – SORROWS OF A ONE-LEGGED MAN
The Man with a Cork Leg and a Chastened Air – Remarks on Home Government – A Happy Time in Contemplation – A Wife's Prerogatives – What is to Become of the One-Legged Minority?
Yesterday morning, while the main guy of the sanctum was putting some carbolic acid in the paste pot, and unlimbering his genius, and turning his lyre preparatory to yanking loose a few stanzas on the midsummer cucumber, a man with a cork leg, and the chastened air of one who is second lieutenant in the home circle under the able and efficient command of his wife, came softly in and sat down on a volume containing the complete poems of Noah webster.
He waited patiently till he could catch the eye of the speaker, humming softly to himself —
"Green grows the grave by the wild, dashing river
Where sleeps the brave with his arrow and quiver."
When the time had arrived for the lodge to open up unfinished business, communications and new business, he ran his wooden leg through the rounds of a chair and said:
"I desire to make a few remarks on the subject of home government, and the rights a husband may have which his wife is bound to respect."
"Yes; but we don't enter the family circle with our all-pervading influence. We simply attack evils of a public or general nature. You should pour your tale of woe into the ears of an attorney. He will dish out the required balm to you at so much per balm."
"I know, but this is not strictly a case for the courts. It's a case which raises the question of the husband's priority, and agitates the whole social fabric.
"Last week I celebrated my 43d birthday, or I started to celebrate it, and circumstances over which I had no control arose and busted the programme, as mapped out by the committee of arrangements.
"It was the intention of the party, consisting of myself and several others of our most eminent men, to go over to Sabille canyon with a mountain wagon and a pair of pinto plugs for a little wholesome recreation. We had some weapons for slaying the frolicsome jack rabbit and the timid sage hen, and had provided ourselves against every possible rattlesnake contingency also. We had taken more precautions in this direction, perhaps, than in any other, and were in shape to enjoy the wild grandeur of the eternal hills without fear from the poisonous reptile of the rugged gulches and alkali bottoms of this picturesque western country.
"We were all loaded up in good shape for the trip and drove around to my house to get a camp kettle and some lemons. I went into the pantry to get a couple of pounds of sugar and a nutmeg.
"My wife met me in the pantry and roughly and brutally smelled of my breath.
"This was not the prerogative of a true wife, but she weighs 200 and is middling resolute, so I allowed her to do so, although every man's breath is his own property, and if he allows his wife to take advantage of her marital vows to smell his breath on the most unlooked-for occasions, what is to become of our boasted freedom?
"I then went upstairs into a closet after a lap robe and a pillow to use in case any of us got sunstruck.
"My wife came in just then, and as I started away with the pillow, she tripped me up so I fell inside the closet, and before I could recover from my surprise, she sat down on me in such a solemn and impressive manner that my eyes hung out on my cheeks like the bronze door knobs on a Pullman car.
"There I was in the impenetrable gloom of a closet, with the trusting companion of my home life flattening out my stomach till I could feel my watch chain against my spinal column. She then unscrewed my cork leg in a mechanical kind of a way and locked it up in the bureau drawer, putting the key in her pocket.
"After that she fastened the closet door on the outside, and told the party that I would be unable, owing to the inclemency of the weather, to take part in the exercises at Sabille canyon.
"All through that long, long, weary day, I stood around on one leg and looked out of the window, thinking what a potent spell is exerted over the wooden-legged man by an able-bodied wife.
"It is a question, sir, which is of vital interest to us all. Must the one-legged minority continue thus to subserve the interests of the two-legged majority? I ask you, as the representative of the all civilizing, all leveling, all powerful and all jewhillikin press, how long the cork-limbed, taxation-without-representation masses must limp around the house and sew carpet rags, writhing in the death-like grip of a two-legged oligarchy?"
He did not wait for an answer. He simply gathered up a few of our freshest exchanges and stole softly down the stairs.
We decline to make any comment one way or the other, because we do not know that the country is ripe for the discussion of this question, but it deserves cold, calm, candid thought on the part of all thinking men, to say the least.
THE TRUE POET LOVES SECLUSION
The true poet loves seclusion and soothing rest. That is the secret of his even numbers and smooth cadences. Look at Dryden, and Walt Whitman, and Milton, and Burns, and the Sweet Singer of Michigan. What could any of them have done with the house full of children of the forest who were hankering for a fresh pail of gore for lunch?
A PIE OPENER
A handsome competence is in store for the man who will invent a neat, durable and portable pie opener that will successfully reach the true inwardness of the average, box-toed, Bessemer steel, gooseberry pie which the hired girl casts in her kitchen foundry.
CHESTNUT-BURR XLI – REVELATION IN UTAH
A Vacancy Amongst the Twelve Apostles – The Place Filled by Revelation – How Would this System Work in Politics – There are Drawbacks in this System.
An esteemed and extremely connubial contemporary, says in a recent editorial: "The Latter Day Saints will rejoice to learn that the vacancies which have existed in the quorums ol the twelve apostles and the first seven presidents of seventies are now filled. During the conference recently held, Elder Abram II. Cannon was unanimously chosen to be one of the first seven presidents of seventies, and he was ordained to that office on Monday, October 9. Subsequently! the Lord, by revelation through His servant, President John Taylor, designated by name Brothers George Teasdale and Heber J. Grant, to be ordained to the apostleship, and Brother Seymour B. Young to fill the remaining vacancy in the presidency of the seventies. These brethren were ordained on Monday, October 16, the two apostles, under the hands of the first presidency and twelve, and the other under the hands of the twelve and the presidency of the seventies."
Now, that's a convenient system of politics and civil service. When there is a vacancy, the president, John Taylor, goes into his closet and has a revelation, which settles it all right. If the man appointed vicariously by the Lord is not in every way satisfactory, he may be discharged by the same process. Instead, therefore, of being required to rally a large force of his friends to aid him in getting an appointment, the aspirant arranges solely with the party who runs the revelation business. It will be seen at a glance, therefore, that the man who can get the job of revelating in Zion, has it pretty much his own way. We would not care who made the laws of Utah if we could do its revelating at so much per revelate.
Think of the power it gives a man in a community of blind believers. Imagine, if you please, the glorious possibilities in store for the man who can successfully reveal the word of the Lord in an easy, extemporaneous manner on five minutes' notice.
This prerogative does not confine itself to politics alone. The Impromptu revelator of the Jordan has revelations when he wants to evade the payment of a bill. He gets a divine order also if he desires to marry a beautiful maid or seal the new school ma'am to himself. He has a leverage which he can bring to bear upon the people of his diocese at all times, even more potent than the press, and it does not possess the drawbacks that a newspaper does. You can run an aggressive paper if you want to in this country, and up to the time of the funeral you have a pretty active and enjoyable time, but after the grave has been filled up with the clods of the valley and your widow has drawn her insurance, you naturally ask, "What is the advantage to be gained by this fearless style of journalism?"
Still, even the inspired racket has its drawbacks. Last year a little incident occurred in a Mormon family down in southern Utah, which weighed about nine pounds, and when the ex officio husband, who had been absent two years, returned, he acted kind of wild and surprised, somehow, and as he went through the daily round of his work he could be seen counting his fingers back and forth and looking at the almanac, and adding up little amounts on the side of the barn with a piece of red chalk.
Finally, one of the inspired mob of that part of the vineyard thought it was about time to get a revelation and go down there, so he did so. He sailed up to the de facto husband and quasi parent and solemnly straight ened up some little irregularities as to dates, but the revelation was received with disdain, and the revelator was sent home in an old ore sack and buried in a peach basket.
Sometimes there is, even in Utah, a manifestation of such irreverence and open hostility to the church that it makes us shudder.
THE MODEL SLEEPING-CAR
One of these days they will invent a sleeper with a quart of pure air for each person, instead of only a mouthful. If there could be more pure air, and less mahogany corners on which to bump the system, and the porter received a regular salary instead of mobbing the train with a whisk broom, and garroting the passengers for $1 each, life would be more desirable.
CHESTNUT-BURR XLII – THE TONGUE-DESTROYING FRENCH LANGUAGE
The Rue de la Sitting Bull Difficulty in Getting the Drink, You Want – Paris an Old Town – The Exposition Not Very Enjoyable.
I am going to rest myself by writing a few pages in the language spoken in the United States, for I am tired of the infernal lingo of this God-forsaken country and feel like talking in my own mother tongue and on some other subject than the Exposition. I have very foolishly tried to talk a little of this tongue-destroying French, but my teeth are so loose now that I am going to let them tighten up again before I try it any more.
Day before yesterday it was very warm, and I asked two or three friends to step into a big drug store on the Rue de la Sitting Bull, to get a glass of soda. (I don't remember the names of these streets, so in some cases I give them Wyoming names.) I think the man who kept the place probably came from Canada. Most all the people in Paris are Canadians. He came forward, and had a slight attack of delirium tremens, and said:
"Ze vooly voo a la boomerang?"
I patted the soda fountain and said:
"No, not so bad as that, if you please. Just squeeze a little of your truck into a tumbler, and flavor it to suit the boys. As for myself, I will take about two fingers of bug juice in mine to sweeten my breath."
But he didn't understand me. His parents had neglected his education, no doubt, and got him a job in a drug store. So I said:
"Look here, you frog-hunting, red-headed Communist, I will give you just five minutes to fix up my beverage, and if you will put a little tangle-foot into it I will pay you; otherwise I will pick up a pound weight and paralyze you. Now, you understand. Flavor it with spirituous frumenti, old rye, benzine – bay rum – anything! Parley voo, e pluribus unum, sic semper go braugh! Do you understand that?"
But he didn't understand it, so I had to kill him. I am having him stuffed. The taxidermist who is doing the job lives down on the Rue de la Crazy Woman's Fork. I think that is the name of the Rue that he lives on.
Paris is quite an old town. It is older and wickeder than Cheyenne, I think, but I may be prejudiced against the place. It is very warm here this summer, and there are a good many odors that I don't know the names of. It is a great national congress of rare imported smells. I have detected and catalogued 1,350 out of a possible 1,400.
I have not enjoyed the Exposition so much as I thought I was going to; partly because it has been so infernally hot, and partly because I have been a little homesick. I was very homesick on board ship; very homesick indeed. About all the amusement that we had crossing the wide waste of waters was to go and lean over the ship's railing by the hour, and telescope the duodenum into the æsophagus. I used to stand that way and look down into the dark green depths of old ocean, and wonder what mysterious secrets were hidden beneath the green, cold waves and the wide rushing waste of swirling, foamy waters. I learned to love this weird picture at last, and used to go out on deck every morning and swap my breakfast to this priceless panorama for the privilege of watching it all day.
I can't say that I hanker very much for a life on the ocean wave. I am trying to arrange it so as to go home by land. I think I can make up for the additional expense in food. I bought more condemned sustenance, and turned it over to the Atlantic ocean for inspection, than I have eaten since I came here.
CARVING SCHOOLS
They are agitating the matter of instituting carving schools, in the East, so that the rising generation will be able to pass down through the corridors of time without its lap full of dressing and its bosom laden with gravy and remorse. The students at this school will wear barbed-wire masks while practicing. These masks will be similar to those worn by German students, who slice each other up while obtaining an education.
CHESTNUT-BURR XLIV – ONE TOUCH OF NATURE
Terrible Loss of Children – Strange Sympathy of the Health Officer – The Old Man's Defense of his Boys – He Gives Free Utterance to his Heresies.
Up in Polk county, Wis., not long ago, a man who had lost eight children by diphtheria, while the ninth hovered between life and death with the same disease, went to the health officer of the town and asked aid to prevent the spread of the terrible scourge. The health officer was cool and collected. He did not get excited over the anguish of the father whose last child was at the moment hovering upon the outskirts of immortality. He calmly investigated the matter, and never for a moment lost sight of the fact that he was a town officer and a professed Christian.
"You ask aid, I understand," said he, "to prevent the spread of the disease, and also that the town shall assist you in procuring new and necessary clothing, to replace that which you have been compelled to burn in order to stop the further inroads of diphtheria. Am I right?"
The poor man answered affirmatively.
"May I ask if your boys who died were Christian boys, and whether they improved their gospel opportunities and attended the Sabbath school, or whether they were profane and given over to Sabbath-breaking?"
The bereft father said that his boys had never made a profession of Christianity; that they were hardly old enough to do so, and that they might have missed some gospel opportunities owing to the fact that they were poor, and hadn't clothes fit to wear to Sabbath school. Possibly, too, they had met with wicked companions, and had been taught to swear; he could not say but they might have sworn, although he thought they would have turned out to be good boys had they lived.
"I am sorry that the case is so bad," said the health officer. "I am led to believe that God has seen fit to visit you with affliction in order to express His divine disapproval of profanity, and I cannot help you. It ill becomes us poor, weak worms of the dust to meddle with the just judgments of God. Whether as an individual or as a quasi corporation, it is well to allow the Almighty to work out His great plan of salvation, and to avoid all carnal interference with the works of God."
The old man went back to his desolated home and to the bedside of his only living child. I met him yesterday and he told me all about it.
"I am not a professor of religion," said he, "but I tell you, Mr. Nye, I can't believe that this board of health has used me right. Somehow I ain't worried about my little fellers that is gone. They was little fellers, anyway, and they wasn't posted on the plan of salvation, but they was always kind and they always minded me and their mother. If God is using diphtheria agin perfanity this season they didn't know it. They was too young to know about it and I was too poor to take the papers, so I didn't know it nuther, i just thought that Christ was partial to kids like mine, just the same as He used to be 2,000 years ago when the country was new. I admit that my little shavers never went to Sabbath school much, and I wasn't scholar enough to throw much light onto God's system of retribution, but I told 'em to behave themselves, and they did, and we had a good deal of fun together – me and the boys – and they was so bright, and square, and cute that I didn't see how they could fall under divine wrath, and I don't believe they did.
"I could tell you lots of smart little things that they used to do, Mr. nye, but they wa'n't mean and cussed. They was just frolicky and gay sometimes because they felt good. I don't believe God had it in for'em bekuz they was like other boys, do you? Fer if I thought so it would kind o' harden me and the old lady and make us sour on all creation.
"Mind you, I don't kick because I'm left alone here in the woods, and the sun don't seem to shine, and the birds seems a little backward about singin' this spring, and the house is so quiet, and she is still all the time and cries in the night when she thinks I am asleep. All that is tough, Mr. Nye – tough as old Harry, too – but it's so, and I ain't murmurin', but when the board of health says to me that the Ruler of the Universe is makin' a tower of northern Wisconsin, mowin' down little boys with sore throat because they say 'gosh,' I can't believe it.
"I know that people who ain't familiar with the facts will shake their heads and say that I am a child of wrath, but I can't help it. All I can do is to go up there under the trees where them little graves is, and think how all-fired pleasant to me them little, short lives was, and how every one of them little fellers was when he come, poor as I was, and how I rastled with poor crops and pine stumps to buy cloze for'em, and didn't care a cent for style as long as they was well. That's the kind of heretic I am, and if God is like a father that settles it. he wouldn't wipe out my family just to establish discipline, I don't believe. The plan of creation must be on a bigger scale than that, it seems to me, or else it's more or less a fizzle.
"That board of health is better read than I am. It takes the papers and can add up figures, and do lots of things that I can't do; but when them fellers tell me that they represent the town of Balsam Lake and the Kingdom of Heaven, my morbid curiosity is aroused, and I want to see the stiffykits of election."