A THANKSGIVING GROWL.
Oh, dear! do put some more chips on the fire,
And hurry up that oven! Just my luck—
To have the bread slack. Set that plate up higher!
And for goodness’ sake do clear this truck
Away! Frogs’ legs and marbles on my moulding-board!
What next I wonder? John Henry, wash your face;
And do get out from under foot, “Afford more
Cream?” Used all you had? If that’s the case,
Skim all the pans. Do step a little spryer!
I wish I hadn’t asked so many folks
To spend Thanksgiving. Good gracious! poke the fire
And put some water on. Lord, how it smokes!
I never was so tired in all my life!
And there’s the cake to frost, and dough to mix
For tarts. I can’t cut pumpkin with this knife!
Some women’s husbands know enough to fix
The kitchen tools; but, for all mine would care,
I might tear pumpkin with my teeth. John Henry,
If you don’t plant yourself on that ‘ere chair,
I’ll set you down so hard that you’ll agree
You’re stuck for good. Them cranberries are sour,
And taste like gall beside. Hand me some flour,
And do fly round. John Henry, wipe your nose!
I wonder how ‘twill be when I am dead?
“How my nose’ll be?” Yes, how your nose’ll be,
And how your back‘ll be. If that ain’t red
I’ll miss my guess. I don’t expect you’ll see—
You nor your father neither—what I’ve done
And suffered in this house. As true’s I live
Them pesky fowl ain’t stuffed! The biggest one
Will hold two loaves of bread. Say, wipe that sieve,
And hand it here. You are the slowest poke
In all Fairmount. Lor’! there’s Deacon Gubben’s wife!
She’ll be here to-morrow. That pan can soak
A little while. I never in my life
Saw such a lazy critter as she is.
If she stayed home, there wouldn’t be a thing
To eat. You bet she’ll fill up here! “It’s riz?”
Well, so it has. John Henry! Good king!
How did that boy get out? You saw him go
With both fists full of raisins and a pile
Behind him, and you never let me know!
There! you’ve talked so much I clean forgot the rye.
I wonder if the Governor had to slave
As I do, if he would be so pesky fresh about
Thanksgiving Day? He’d been in his grave
With half my work. What, get along without
An Indian pudding? Well, that would be
A novelty. No friend or foe shall say
I’m close, or haven’t as much variety
As other folks. There! I think I see my way
Quite clear. The onions are to peel. Let’s see:
Turnips, potatoes, apples there to stew,
This squash to bake, and lick John Henry!
And after that—I really think I’m through.
CHAPTER VII.
PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY.
Mrs. Alice Wellington Rollins, in those interesting articles in the Critic which induced me to look further, says:
“We claim high rank for the humor of women because it is almost exclusively of this higher, imaginative type. A woman rarely tells an anecdote, or hoards up a good story, or comes in and describes to you something funny that she has seen. Her humor is like a flash of lightning from a clear sky, coming when you least expect it, when it could not have been premeditated, and when, to the average consciousness, there is not the slightest provocation to humor, possessing thus in the very highest degree that element of surprise which is not only a factor in all humor, but to our mind the most important factor. You tell her that you cannot spend the winter with her because you have promised to spend it with some one else, and she exclaims: ‘Oh, Ellen! why were you not born twins!’ She has, perhaps, recently built for herself a most charming home, and coming to see yours, which happens to be just a trifle more luxurious and charming, she remarks as she turns away: ‘All I can say is, when you want to see squalor, come and visit me in Oxford Street!’ She puts down her heavy coffee-cup of stone-china with its untasted coffee at a little country inn, saying, with a sigh: ‘It’s no use; I can’t get at it; it’s like trying to drink over a stone wall.’ She writes in a letter: ‘We parted this morning with mutual satisfaction; that is, I suppose we did; I know my satisfaction was mutual enough for two.’ She asks her little restless daughter in the most insinuating tones if she would not like to sit in papa’s lap and have him tell her a story; and when the little daughter responds with a most uncompromising ‘no!’ turns her inducement into a threat, and remarks with severity: ‘Well, be a good girl, or you will have to!’ She complains, when you have kept her waiting while you were buying undersleeves, that you must have bought ‘undersleeves enough for a centipede.’ You ask how poor Mr. X–- is—the disconsolate widower who a fortnight ago was completely prostrated by his wife’s death, and are told in calm and even tones that he is ‘beginning to take notice.’ You tell her that one of the best fellows in the class has been unjustly expelled, and that the class are to wear crape on their left arms for thirty days, and that you only hope that the President will meet you in the college-yard and ask why you wear it; to all of which she replies soothingly, ‘I wouldn’t do that, Henry; for the President might tell you not to mourn, as your friend was not lost, only gone before.’ You tell her of your stunned sensation on finding some of your literary work complimented in the Nation, and she exclaims: ‘I should think so! It must be like meeting an Indian and seeing him put his hand into his no-pocket to draw out a scented pocket-handkerchief, instead of a tomahawk.’ Or she writes that two Sunday-schools are trying to do all the good they can, but that each is determined at any cost to do more good than the other.”
I have selected several specimens of this higher type of humor.
Mrs. Ellen H. Rollins was pre-eminently gifted in this direction. The humor in her exquisite “New England Bygones” is so interwoven with the simple pathos of her memories that it cannot be detached without detriment to both. But I will venture to select three sketches from
OLD-TIME CHILD LIFE.
BY E.H. ARR.
Betsy had the reddest hair of any girl I ever knew. It was quite short in front, and she had a way of twisting it, on either temple, into two little buttons, which she fastened with pins. The rest of it she brought quite far up on the top of her head, where she kept it in place with a large-sized horn comb. Her face was covered with freckles, and her eyes, in winter, were apt to be inflamed. She always seemed to have a mop in her hand, and she had no respect for paint. She was as neat as old Dame Safford herself, and was continually “straightening things out,” as she called it. Her temper, like her hair, was somewhat fiery; and when her work did not suit her, she was prone to a gloomy view of life. If she was to be believed, things were always “going to wrack and ruin” about the house; and she had a queer way of taking time by the forelock. In the morning it was “going on to twelve o’clock,” and at noon it was “going on to midnight.”
She kept her six kitchen chairs in a row on one side of the room, and as many flatirons in a line on the mantelpiece. Everything where she was had, she said, to “stand just so;” and woe to the child who carried crookedness into her straight lines! Betsy had a manner of her own, and made a wonderful kind of a courtesy, with which her skirts puffed out all around like a cheese. She always courtesied to Parson Meeker when she met him, and said: “I hope to see you well, sir.” Once she courtesied in a prayer-meeting to a man who offered her a chair, and told him, in a shrill voice, to “keep his setting,” though she was “ever so much obleeged” to him. This was when she was under conviction, and Parson Meeker said he thought she had met with a change of heart. Father Lathem’s wife hoped so too, for then “there would be a chance of having some Long-noses and Pudding-sweets left over in the orchard.”