Section 8 of Life and Sings of Mrs. Partington. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Life and Sings of Mrs. Partington and others are the family by B.P. Shillaber. Section 8. Letter from Ike in the country. Hilltop, September 10th, 1852 Dear Bob, I wish you was up here and the way we would train you wouldn't be slow. There is boys enough up here but they don't know nothing. When I first come they didn't know how to play jackstones. But you better believe I soon made them fly around. I've found enough to do it since I've been here. We've got a boat and we go out swimming every day. The boat tips ever so easy and don't you think the other day when we were out with the girls we tipped over right where the water was overhead and we all had to get on to her bottom. I wasn't at all scared though everybody said they know they did it on purpose. But you know I wouldn't. We've had some prime fun out of gunning.  I can fire at a mock first rate. I wish you could see the goose I made with the real grease on the newly painted barn door.  There's lots of apples and peaches and if you was here we'd be in among them. There's some over there in the pasture just like some in our garden but them in the pastures is best. And they belong to the old captain and he's a crosshole fellow and I should like to fix him cause he set his dog on me the other day because I fired an apple at one of his hens and broke a square of glass. He's a real crosshole chap and hasn't got no friends. There's some fine ponds here and lots of mud turtles but all that is humbug about they're leaving their shell when you put a coal of fire onto their backs because I've tried it.  Our dog is first straight for catching of him and I got a dozen of them the other day to bring home and put him in a barrel and forgot all about him and there they stayed for ten days. I put him in the water again and away they went. Don't you think Bob? I caught a big bull paddock and harnessed him the other day and you should have seen him kick when I let him go. I don't like the oxen they have here because they don't laugh and when they're hauling anything they seem to do it unwillingly and look silly and cross. Reasoning with them don't do no good. I ride the horse to water and drive the geese out of the corn. Up in the corn yesterday I found what I thought was a great big watermelon and when I got over the wall and cut it it turned out to be a green pumpkin. They have begun to make sweet cider and I don't see what people ever want to make sour cider for when this is so nice. I suppose school begins soon and the old woman will want me to come home but I don't want to a mite. Theljum Jones has swapped my jackknife and got a brand new hockey and that I cut myself in the bushes. Goodbye Bob. Write to me if you've had any fun this summer and I'm yours and clover. Ike Partington. Out of place. Does your arm pain you much, sir? Asked a young lady of a gentleman who had seated himself near her in a mixed assembly and thrown his arm across the back of her chair and slightly touched her neck. No miss, it does not. But why do you ask? I noticed it was considerably out of place, sir, replied she. That's all. The arm was removed. Tender names. There are people in the romantic period of their lives who delight in bestowing tender terms upon objects of their affection borrowed from the pretty things of nature or fancy such as my rose-butt, my pink, my diamond, my lily or some such nice and delicate name. Of all that we have ever heard, however, the Irish term my bloomer sounds to us the best. These terms are well enough when used in private endeament but when uttered in the presence of others they operate with the most nauseating effect. Fancy a man, brimful of the charms of his dilsinia to whom he has given some romantic evaluative coming into a tailor shop among the forty girls there employed of whom his heart's hope is won and asking if his rose-butt is present or addressing her as its rose-butt if she be there. If the doll has any sense she will prove a rose-butt with a thorn when she gets him out somewhere. We had a friend who was smitten with his mania for pretty names and adopted the romantic one of my light for his idol. And for several years she had lighted his path in his pocket in the way that lovers understand. It grew near the period when the word was to be spoken that should make them one flesh when calling at her dwelling one evening he asked the house girl who met him in the entry if his light was in. No, said she. Your light has just gone out with Mr... naming an old rival. Jealous pain seized him. He rushed to his boarding house, dashed madly upstairs, three at a time, opened his drawer and, seizing a pen, wrote a letter that extinguished his light forever.  Learning to relish it. We were surprised to see Mr... slow at an opera one evening. Leaning over the back of his seat we remarked that we had an impression that he didn't like opera music. I never did, said he, till lately but I've been educating for it. It can't be done. Talk about nature is having all to do with it. That's all humbug. Nature don't have anything more to do with it than she does with learning us. To eat tomatoes, nor sardines, nor olives, but by education we come to like him. That's just the way with opera music. The first time you don't like it then you get another taste and it's better then you go a little further and it's for straight. There's nothing like education. Nature is well enough in her place but education just a job. Mr. slow looked grave as he uttered this oracular wisdom and his auditors admired. Feel about to me a disease. Do you think people are troubled as much with flea bottomery? Now doctor, as they used to before they discovered the anti-bug bedstead as Mrs. Partington of the family doctor of the old school who attended upon the family where she was staying. Flea bottomy madam said the doctor gravely is a remedy, not a disease. Well well replied she no wonder one gets them mixed up there is so many of them. We never heard in all times of taunts as in the truth or embargoes in the head or neurology all over us consternation in the bowels as we do nowadays. But it's an elven that don't blow nobody no good and the doctors flourish on it like a green base tree. But of course they don't have anything to do with it they can make them come or go. The doctor stepped out with a gentile bow and the old lady watched him tell his cabriolet hat turned the corner her mind revolving the intricate subject of cause and effect. Her suit ornaments well said Mrs. Partington as she leaned forward with her hands resting on the window ledge and peered out into the street through a chink in the blinds. It wasn't a deep well expressive of content or satisfaction but it was an ejaculatory bell that found expression at some object which she had witnessed in the street. Well said she I hope that man is married I declare I do because if he isn't I'm sure he never will be for a dreadful or looking creature I never did see with the musty chokes on his mouth nobody wouldn't have him I've heard him say that heaven's best gift to man was woman I should say that the next best gift was a razor to such a man as that folks didn't take pride in looking bad in all times she turned thoughtfully to the wall where hung in military rigidity that profiled the cherished gem of bygone art the counterfeit presentment of manly grace Ah, Paul sighed today he was an ornament of your species and the cheapest among ten thousand or more she emphasized the more as if the contrast was very great indeed between Paul and him who had passed but the profile took no notice of what she said its gaze chained to perpetual straightforwardness looked never to the right or left though at times she said it bore a kinder expression about the mouth but this must have been her fancy which gave to every object she looked upon the hues of her own benignity Mrs. Partington and probate oh, what trials a poor widow has to go through sighed Mrs. Partington rocking herself in a melancholy way and holding the morsel of macaboy untasted between her thumb and finger terrible trials and oh, what a hardship it is to be executioner to an intersting a state where enviable people are trying every way to overcome the widow's might where it's probate probate probate all the time and the more you probate the worse it seems the poor widow never gets justice for if she gets all she don't get half enough I've had one trial of it and if I ever should marry again if it should so please Providence to order it I'll make my husband fabricate his wool before he orders his wedding cake I'll take time by the foretop as Solomon says it will depend upon it she here revived a little and a subtle powder passed to its destination and reported itself home by an emphatic sneeze extract from a great unwritten poem of 1,051 verses entitled Ye constable ye constable from one man took a large and ample fee I'll now take one from ye the other side said ye constable said he domestic purity impugned impugned have ye got any rooms to let here, mom said a little man to Mrs. Bartington who occupied half of a house the other half of which was to let into whom was interested the care of answering the doorbell the rooms were shown they're not large said the little man depresiatingly no sir replied she they're not very roominess but here are two little bedrooms contagious that perhaps you didn't see he looked in and in a super silly stone muttered bugs implying amount of cleanliness a reflection on the purity of the premises in her charge there is a point as she says where patient sees us to be virtuous and she had found it indignation choked her utterance and the little man fortunately departed before it found vent it was great the way in which she slammed the door to after him and ejaculated bugs till the empty rooms in a coin it seemed full of bugs it was a sublime moral spectacle did it hurt you much? will on there to dwell a barber in one of the most populous streets of the city the hues of whose insignia by the street door red and white were typical often of his customers chins as they came under his professional hand suds was a little fellow but many a huge six-footer did he have unresisting by the nose and many a fierce eye quailed beneath the gleam of that blade whose edge so many had keenly felt it was a sublime spectacle to behold him while enjoying his momentary triumph his face absolutely shiny between the combined influence of sweat and exaltation his razor urged by the fervor of his excitation whirling through seas a snowy lather with the rapidity of thought his customer meanwhile with eyes shut and breath suspended awaiting tremblingly the blow that should send him forth no less a scoff and a reproach among men though thanks to mighty science such a calamity seldom happened a farmer who recited in the vicinity of the city and supplied the people thereof with fruit was excessively annoyed by the boys who would climb upon his wagon and bite his apples while inquiring the price and pretending a desire to purchase he took a big and fearful ult one day he was a very crabbing man that the first boy who that day took a bite should likewise take a cut with it he swore it on his whip he dropped on undisturbed the urchins read whip flash in his demeanor and judiciously gave him a white berth but fate that generally has to bear the odium of causing all evil that by many is deemed a sort of subordinate providence who in conjunction with luck he takes the destiny of men to work out by the job pull the reins directly opposite the barber's door now Mrs. Sots had that very day charged Mr. S to procure some fruit she did long so to eat an apple and he as he was looking out of his window his last customer having departed was minded of a request as the wagon with its rich and tempting load he was fond of apples himself and running hastily out he stepped upon the wagon wheel took up an apple and bit it and at the same time inquired the price fatal bite to Sots fatal as the first bite in paradise was to add him a whistling sound he heard in the air and then the whip stinging with the malignity of the concentrated spite fell quick upon his unguarded shoulders to his deep shame an astonishment in pain as quick as he could he stood in the pavement and endured an indignant man and fiercely demanded the cause of the outrage the farmer had mistaken him for a boy and profuse of apology endeavored to appease the little lion of the brush by stating his annoyance by the boys to say nothing of his loss by biters and his determination to put a stop to it by the summary means he had given Sots a taste of Sots was a reasonable man and admitted that the farmer was nearly right and he shrugged his shoulders with the remembered pain and he parted on as good terms as the circumstances would admit of unfortunately for the peace of the little man a neighbor who loved to stir up Sots had seen the castigation and each day as they came to be shaved would he ask with a tenderness solicitude did it hurt you much always after shaving however for his nose would suddenly have been in the way during the agitation the question produced had he asked it before that question so sneeringly asked human nature couldn't stand it patience couldn't stand it Sots couldn't stand it and that question was a declaration of war with all who put it to him continual dropping will wear a stone one day Sots was splitting wood in the backyard like a dentist working away among the old stumps fretting at the unrivable tenacity with which they held together when sticking his axe into one apparently on the point of yielding he swung it about his head to bring it down upon a block and thus forced the axe effectively through the tough fibers the axe with the wood adhering was raised aloft the blow was about to be struck but slipping from the iron the block took another direction and fell heavily upon the hapless pall of the unfortunate barber his wife had seen the whole proceeding from the window and rushed out to ascertain the extent of the damage she anxiously inquired Mr. Sots didn't hurt you much to say that fireflash from his eyes would be inadequate chain lightning alone could typify the glance he gave the solicitous Mrs. S and a small thunderbolt like a bullet of wood darted upon the things of a fierce anathema at her devoted head she dodged the missile and a smashed window remained in the monument of his passion poor Sots he soon removed from that locality and the little shop where he shaved and sheared and suffered is obliterated by the huge grenade piles that indicate the progressiveness of commerce fair ma'am how do you do dear said Mrs. Pottington smilingly shaking hands with Burbank in the dark square omnibus as he held out his five dexter digits towards her fair ma'am said he and replied to her inquiry well I'm sure I'm glad of it and how are the folks at home fair ma'am continued he still extending his hand the passengers were interested how'd you like Boston screamed she as the omnibus rattled over the stones fair ma'am shouted he without drawing back his hand I want you to pay me for your ride oh memory I thought it was someone that know me and rummage down in the bottom of her reticule for a ticket finding at last five copper cents tied up in the corner of a handkerchief the last war handkerchief with the stars and stripes involved in it and the action of the constitution and guerrilla stamped upon it but a smile she had given him at the first was not withdrawn there was no allowance made for mistakes at the counter with a lighter heart and a heavier pocket to cash the other coach paying promptly if there is any place in this world where I like to ransack business more than another said Mrs. Partington with animation untying from the corner of her handkerchief as some of money she had just received if there's any place better than another it's a bank there's no dilly dallians and beating down and bothering you with a thousand questions till you don't know whether your heels are up your head is down all you have to do is put your bill on the counter and they pay it without saying a word the old lady had presented a check for a quarter's pension money received an account of Paul who in the last war served a fortnight in fortifying Boston Harbor and got mortar in his eyes which hurt his visionary organs so that he took to glasses Memento Mori before old Roger left boarding at number 47 he forfeited the quiet inmates of the house by the perpetration of the following atrocity which was the true reason of his leaving and not the quality of the bread pudding as many believed Mori the Kilby street clerk got married and moved off it had always been accustomed with Mori to pile his dishes up in a curious manner after he had used it cups, saucers, plates and a heterogeneous he a day or two after his departure from the house old Roger was absorbed by the pileing his cup and saucer and plates in the same manner and he took those of his neighbor to add to the pile the boarders watched him silently in much surprise and one of them a little bolder than the rest went to ask him what he was doing that for oh said Roger very placidly crowning the pile he had made with the cover of the sugar bowl I'm only erecting a Memento Mori Mr. Bluffkins the serious man exhorted the more volatile boarders on the impropriety of laughing at such an outrageously sacrilegious use of a respectable dead language from that day Roger had cold shoulder for dinner and the coldness of the landlady became suddenly manifest in cold potatoes and in the rheumatic condition of his rheumatic so he left Mesmerism do you believe in mesmerism we asked of Mrs. Partington as she dropped alongside of us yesterday morning like a jolly old 74 believe what said she sitting down in the other chair the question involved an answer from us of some 15 minutes length running through the whole of mesmerism clairvoyance and psychological phenomena like a knitting needle running through a ball of yarn oh yes said she I believe all of that and I know a case and pine to prove it when Miss dreams had her silver plated spoons extracted there was her mother's wife for her and she sought aside by him she come away to bolstern to see a misery miser I believe you call it well he told her just where her spoons was and who stole him and all about it in the color of his hair and all that well she give him a dollar and when she got home she went right where the spoons was and couldn't find a thing about him no no that isn't the story another it says about Sally spray in a boat see at this instant the door opened and company came in and Mrs. Partington pleading an excuse that she wanted to attend one of the adversary meetings subsided like a wave upon the shore a slight mistake Mr. Berry Green passing by the entrance to a hall where some sable minstrels were exhibiting saw a black fellow coming out through the arc Mr. Wee stopped and looked at him earnestly at which the color was rather indignant and demanded what he was looking at nothing particular said Mr. Wee I was just looking to see what a plagny difference there is between you now and last night when you were a singing in there I wouldn't have believed it was the same individual Mr. Wee put his hands in his pocket and walked along considerably true we find it stated in a paper that a well bred woman if surprised in a somewhat careless costume does not try to dodge behind the door to conceal deficiencies nor does she turn red and stammer confused excuses she remains calm and self-possessed and makes up indignity what she may want in decoration this is true the most sensible woman we ever saw was one who when her husband took us home on a washing day to look at his new house never made one word of apology for his sister nor one spec does not to look around old bull's concert old bull's concert said Mrs. Partington glancing up from her knitting as she read the announcement of the grand concert on Saturday evening and she smiled as a ridiculous fancy ran through her mind like a grasshopper in a stubble field of an old bull giving a concert and yet it isn't so very wonderful continued she remember a cat and a cannery that lived together and one or the other of them used to sing beautifully but I wonder what he plays on I suggested that he played on one of his own horns but seemed to be reasonable I am glad he's going to give his concert because when I went out to hear a great artisan play on a violence as they called it though I found out afterwards it was nothing but a fiddle they were going to charge a dollar till I told them I was one of the connections to the post and they let me in I can't think what music an old bull can make I'm sure it must be very aproly as I should think and better fit it for over turns than for pastoral music she closed her critic with a pinch of snuff and got onto her wires again like a telegraphic dispatch and went ahead while I commused himself by scratching his name with a bold nail and magnificent Roman capitals upon the newly painted panel of the kitchen door angular saxons I don't know said Mrs. Partington and the expression considered as a mere abstraction was true for there are some that have more of the world's wisdom and a better knowledge of grammar than the name for the school for her teaching was not one of the letters but let us hear her I don't know said she about these angular saxons being any better than our old fashion ones I had been reading to her an article upon the destiny of the angular saxon race and asked for the race Isaac and a voice fell to a pitch of deep solemnity as she spoke it isn't proper at all for when a funeral goes too quick to say nothing about racing it always is a forerunner sometimes that somebody will die before the years out the old saxons were full fast enough naturally and art of the parish jinn or saxon the surfeited plate for his officious services it spruced him right up and it seemed as if it would have pleased him to bury all of them he was so grateful no no we don't want any angular saxons Isaac when our owner full good enough all right as she was talking had amused himself at time the old lady's snuff box in the corner of his handkerchief and was experimentally swinging it around his head and she seized his box released from the knot dash against the opposite side scattering the pungent powder and plenty of perfusion upon the sanded floor of course he didn't mean to do it and that was all that saved him End of section 8 section 9 what a gas well that is a discovery exclaimed mrs. pottington smilingly and she stood with a small pitcher in her right hand her left resting upon the table and her eyes fixed upon the flame of a glass lamp that spotted a moment and then shot out a light that irradiated every part of the little kitchen and revealed the portrait of Paul upon the wall like a sleep by the fire she spoke to herself it was a way she had she met with no contradiction from that quarter this is a discovery where is Tom Paine and his gas now I should like to know here I've been and filled this lamp up with water and it burns just as well as a real I.O this experiment was perfectly triumphant the problem of light from water was demonstrated and yet with this vast fact revealed to her mrs. pottington with a modesty equal to that of the great philosopher who picked up a pocket full of rocks on the shore of the great ocean of truth smiled with delight at her discovery not one thought of getting out of pain to selling rights mrs. pottington at the opera we were surprised at the opera last evening by having a hand placed upon our shoulder it was a gentle touch altogether unlike certain other touches on the shoulder the eloquent men so much dread it came at a time when we were all absorbed by the melody of the charming santa ag and were provoked at the intrusion will you be kind enough to lend me your observatory asked a voice that we thought we remembered looking around great heavens we cried mrs. pottington it was indeed that estimable but yet it was not for the black bonnet had disappeared origolette adorned her venerable pole beneath which every sprig of wavy grey was securely tucked but the smile was there as warm as a june morning at 9 o'clock she repeated the request to use the pearl and diamond studded opera glass that we had hired at fetridges for 25 cents denominating it an observatory is this the right pocus said she I suppose I shall have to digest it to my side who are visionary orgies are giving out she leveled both barrels at the singers at once and brought them down to her and puzzle lini directed three successive appeals to her tenderness it ain't no use said she as she handed the glass I can't understand better with that I should have bought one of the laboratories at the door she beat time gracefully to the music for a while upon the cover of her snuff box and then went out like an exhausted candle to try and light on Ike who was trading for a jackknife with another boy in the gallery upstairs a slight misapprehension Mrs. Partington was at Thackeray's last lecture Mr. T. had kindly sent her a card admitting one and forgetting the theme of the lecture she leaned over the seat and asked the gentleman before her what the subject was girls mitten stern mem was a reply but he's on stern first Mrs. Partington blushed there was evidently a question agitating her mind as to whether she should tarry and hear a lecture from a person so ridiculously postured that Mr. T. must appear she looked around meditating a retreat but the avenue to escape was blocked up and she thought she might as well stayed out she watched tremblingly for Mr. Thackeray and was much relieved by seeing him standing perpendicularly before her she thought she must have mistaken the meaning of her informant apollyon bonny part when will the world get rid of this apollyon bonny part said Mrs. Partington as I threw down the paper in which she had read a comparison between the 18th boomer and the coup d'etat in the uncertain glimmerings of a memory she confounded the nephew and uncle and her thought took the course the dim reminiscence pointed apollyon bonny part I remember all about him in his 18th blue mare too I always wondered where he got so many of them something like the woolly horse I guess and when he was transplanted to Saint Domingo Isaac folks went up to the king's chapel to sing tedium about it because they were glad of it and now he's come back again with all his blue mares with him the dropping of a stitch brought her down from the new hobby she was writing so furiously and I drew a picture of a blue mare in shock upon the newly washed kitchen floor Mrs. Partington says she don't see why people want to be always struggling for wealth for her part she affirms that all she wants is food and raiment and clothes to wear to meeting Paul and politics with Paul inclined to politics we asked of Mrs. Partington as we saw the old day leading a grand rally handbow at the corner of the grocery store she asked us to wait a moment till she digested her specs inclined to politics said she and her eyes rested upon the period at the end of the last line till she seemed to be meditating at a full stock he was but he wasn't a propaganda nor an oily garkist or an aversionist nor a demigod as some of them are all he wanted was an exercise of his sufferings and the use of elective franchise as he used to say ah heaven rest him he claims she has her eyes rose from the period at the bottom of the and rested on the top of the fence but did he never get an office Mrs. P we asked yes replied she and we found see the tone of her voice had an expression of triumph in it enough to be perceptible like three drops of Paragory in a teaspoon full of water yes he was put one year for a hookrafer and got neglected as we were asking about her opinion of the new constitution of the slaying Jordan and swinging a pint of milk in a tin pail around his head and the old lady forgot her politics and her solitude about ice soiling his new cap a prediction I came running in one day during the slaying season with oh aunt I just now saw a little boy fall right down under a slaying Washington street dear me she screamed horror struck bless my soul did it hurt him much did it kill him instantly oh no aunt replied he it didn't hurt him at all for the slay hadn't any horse in it his face beamed with fun ah you disgrace this boy cried the old lady with a finger raised at the same time with her apron wiping away the mists that the momentary sympathy had gathered in her eyes ah you disgrace you won't die in your bed if you tell such stories there never was a kind of creature than she and as she looked on his good-natured face and sparkling eyes she patted his head and gave him an apple the dessert dessert did you say growled old Roger at a festival supper some time ago to a person who said opposite him at the table who had called for the dessert come over this side my friend and you'll have no occasion to call for it why to dessert and almost a perfect famine here already and has been so all evening don't look at that turkey that is nothing that is only a promise made to the hope and broken to the stomach for human strength cannot divide its members they are unanimously tough and the little man recommended a hand that was rapidly disappearing in the dim distance and mumble cheese comes to alley the cravings of unsatisfied appetite Boston music hall when mrs. partington first visited the new music hall she looked at the structure with great admiration it was in the daytime and the gas burners over the edge of the cornice met her eye turning to mrs. battle gas she sat next to her she remarked that everything seemed excellent except the out-of-the-way place where they drew the nails for the ostriches to hang their coats on and pointed to the ceiling saying she didn't believe they could ever reach them to see all of me princess wassa I credit a Paris the dress makers jewelers and milleners have all been occupied in furnishing the true soul of princess wassa stop Isaac so mrs. partington raising her finger and glancing at him over the top of her spectacle is that so he assured her that it was well continued she and a blush of offended modesty crossed her features like the sun flush on the newly reddened barn door that may be the way they do things in Paris but it isn't modest to begin with a woman has no right to wear him to say again nature and decency and what does she want so many of them for she can't wear but one pair to a time and here she has got all the dress makers making trousers perhaps as if she was going to live long enough to wear them out women ain't what they were once she rose suddenly as she spoke Isaac was upon the back of her chair and daring to tie a string to a nail in the big beam that travels to ceiling was thrown violently against the table breaking three plates and a teacup in his descent stock of the revolution we have little left of the revolutionary stock now said the schoolmaster as he seated himself in mrs. partington's back room and wiped his brow there was a meaning in her spectacles as they glanced upon him responsive to his remark but she said not a word drawing a chair toward her she smilingly stepped up on it and standing on tiptoe reached away back into a closet in which were kept the remnants of past service bottles and paper bags and a heterogeneous mass of odds and ends that would have made the fortune of a showman the blue stockings revealing themselves as she prosecuted her search but the schoolmaster didn't see them not he revolutionary stock said mrs. partington and a voice seen choked by the dust raised in the old cupboard he has one of them and she reached out with a present arms motion an old musket stock here is a relict of the revolution that has survived the time that tired men's souls and poor souls I should think they would have been tired to death with the smell of the powder and balls I keep this up here away from Isaac for fear he should do some mischief with it for I don't want him to have nothing to do with firearms isn't it a relict bless thee mrs. partington and thou art a relict thyself more to be priced in stacks of arms than did thy warm spirit pervade the land war wouldn't be no longer the scourge of the nations and men would not know fighting anymore philosophy of country help people may say what they well about country air being so good for them said mrs. partington and how they fat upon it for my part I should always think it is oh into their vitals air may do for chamomiles and other reptiles that live on it but I know that men must have something substantialer the old lady was resolute in this opinion conflict as it might with general notions she is set in her opinions very and in their expression no wise backward maybe as Solomon says said she but I lived at the pasture age in a country town all one summer and I never heared a turtle singing in the branches I say I never heared it but it may be so too for have seen him in the brooks under the tree where they perhaps dropped off I wish some of our great naturals would look into it with this wish for light the old lady lighted her candle and went to bed the promenade we sat directly in front of mrs. partington at hoolian's concert one night and were pleased to witness the mocked attention that she paid to the performance the first part had been concluded and the fifteen minutes intermission for promenade announced on the bill had been well spent when we felt a finger laid upon the arm that rested upon the back of the next seat and a whispered voice was breathed into our sinister year when is he going to carry it around we looked at her inquiringly and she looked inquiringly back again carried around yes replied she the promenade here it is a refreshment part of the entertainment isn't it we explained her the meaning of the word promenade and with a long drawn ooooh like an extended cypher she sank back into her seat Ike was blowing peas at a gentleman's boot projecting through the lattice work of the gallery mrs. partington in the crowd don't go and I eat I sack said mrs. partington with nervous anxiety on the day of the great railroad jubilee procession as the carriage bearing the big gun came by where she and Ike were standing she had been very nervous all the morn and had made some curious mistakes when the procession first came along she waved her handkerchief at an elder man taking him to be the president and marshal tuki she thought with lord Elgin don't go and I eat it's one of the pesky packs and guns we read off they call peacemakers because they tear people all to pieces and depend upon it I sack if a man got hit once or twice with such a gun as that my idea is that there wouldn't be much left of him oh the wickedness of men that they should learn war and kill people and spoil good clothes and act more like cotton pots and salvages than they do like men they say this mr. paxton has got up a christian parish in London and everybody is going to see it well I hope he will tend it himself and get good and repent of the evil he has done but I'm sure I hope he won't have any such machines as that ever to help his preaching the noise of the passing crowd drowned half her remarks and at that moment a marshal backed his horse near where she and I stood with a command to her to stand back it was astonishing how the flies or something troubled at marshal's horse all the while he stood there a serious matter there was a serious accident happening down here just now and said Ike running in hastily dear me cried mrs. pattington dropping her knitting work and starting from her seat in great alarm what upon earth was it Isaac was anybody killed or had their legs and limbs broke or what oh replied here giving his top a tremendous twirl that's centered around among the chairs at a great rate oh no it was only a man capsized a box of candles that's all that Isaac reproachfully he will break her heart one of these days her mind at the first alarm had flown among her balsams and bandages and lints that had lain up security since the poor boy next door had cut his toe off and to be thus lowered down from her hope of usefulness was too bad but Ike went out with his top laughing all the while and the old lady subsided into the old armchair and went on with her knitting ancient and modern remedies that the contrast did they don't doctor folks now as my physician learned me said mrs. pattington sagesly tapping her snuff box by the coach of a friend lying in disposed her gesture was very expressive and the profundity of a whole med fact beamed from her spectacles she took a pinch of favel subtle macabre in her fingers and shut the box and laid it away in her capacious pocket then with her closed forefinger and thumb raised went on with her remarks they don't subscribe for folks now I used to my doctor used to tell me and he never lost any of his patients but once and that was an old man of 97 whose days were shortened because he happened with strength to swallow used to tell me and I've been with him thousands of times with sick folks he used to tell me first said he give him apisac to clear the stomach then give him purgatory to clear the bowels then put a blister on the neck of the headaches and have him blooded if there is a tenderness of the blood to the head and put whole to the feet or to soaking him in hot water there wasn't none of your homer pathies or nor hydra pathies nor no other pathies then and what was done might be sure it would either kill or cure she inhaled the dust with great action and the patient who lay making squares and diamonds out of the roses on the room paper thank God and took courage as heartily as Saint Paul did when he saw the three taverns that he had fallen upon a physical mildness Mr. Slow in the moon Mr. Slow and Abby Melec were out looking upon the moon as they gleamed about them in the sky the moon as they gazed passed behind a dark cloud the edge of which gleamed like silver how beautiful said Abby Melec yes my son said Mr. Slow solemnly that ears well got up some people say they have brighter places than arm but I say that's all moonshine look at it bill melec as it hangs up there now as bright as a dollar and don't you believe any of the gambling stories about it's being green cheese the father asked Abby Melec his son isn't the story true about the man in the moon setting Lee son certainly said Mr. Slow looking down at him that's all true that is because it's in the primer Abby Melec was satisfied so was Mr. Slow my little boy perhaps he is no wise different from everybody's little boy it is that he's no taller or thicker or heavier than 10,000 other boys who have had existence and been the idol of doting papas and mamas and maiden arms he's not an original boy in a single particular I don't claim him as such he eats very much the same way and very much the same food as the young gentleman of his age sleep the same cries the same and makes up the same outrageous faces that cast droid I don't care if he isn't different but every parent has a right in fact he is bound to think his boy better than everybody's boy by a law of nature that nobody no contravening will admit of none if everybody sees in the picture I draw off my boy a sketch of his own let him remember it is my boy still and not flatter himself that he has a prodigy that knows no equal my boy has the glory of more than a year of months to brag off through which he has devoted to taking steps in the immediate initiation of locomotion and excels in little maneuvers and engineering of his own adoption steering verily among chairs and tables and though frequently breaching to and foundering under a press of eagerness and circumnavigating the kitchen he invariably comes up alright and forgets minor adversities in the grand triumph my boy is a living proof of the great truth of gravitation as the unlucky circumstances kick him out of bed or throws him from a chair he invariably strikes the floor and my boy has had nox enough on his head to realize a fate with regard to his profundity equal to that of captain Cuddle in the renowned Bunspe for the same reason my boy understands the moral of a rip thus young, will reveal the rod in terror over the back of shrinking sisterhood nor even spare maternity in his experimental philosophy my boy knows very well how to manage it when the slop pale is within reach and nothing pleases him more than a plentiful ablution in soaps or greasy dishwater my boy delights in experimenting in hydraulics now is saying to administer hydropathy by the dip her fold to a healthy floor now self-syncs stockings into the water bucket and now putting the hairbrush into the sink my boy fills his father's boot with incongruities that do not belong there and looks on greatly as the load is shaken out wondering, apparently why his father don't let it stay my boy watches his chance to pull a dish or a cup or a saucer no matter which from the table he seems to have an antipathy against crockery and vivid visions of sundered pairs remind his father of the havoc he has made in the once respectable service here a white and there a blue, some cracked no-less, handle less, stare him in the face my boy despises all conventional rules and unheaths his sways and that will limit will, republicanism speaks to every act independence in every look freedom in every motion my boy is very decidedly partial to an ash hole a spot by him of all others to be craved he glories in an ash hole their word, his inclination every points David of old in his utmost bowl couldn't have gone deeper into the ashes a stowpan is a good substitute for the ash hole, there is a luxury in stirring the gritty dust about a clean carpet that is not to be overlooked and never is there is fun in hearing it crunch beneath the feet of his mother and fun too in filling his mouth with the fragments I have thought, from my boy's predisposition to pick up gravel, that he required it to aid digestion my boy rejoices in a dirty face no Mohawk chief in the pride of war pain could feel more magnificent than my boy under an application of molasses or anything he is not particular and no Mohawk could fight harder to prevent its being wiped off my boy takes the sugar very readily he was very quick in taking to this seemed instinctive with him I have heard of people having a sweet tooth I verily believe the whole of my boys he has but four are all sweet my boy is all exacting in his demands demands sure enough as imperious as those of a prince and his brow frowns and his little voice rings again if his demands are not complied with principally confined however to the matter of victuals my boy is everything that is affectionate a laugh and kisses mourning and even sacrifice and his bright black eyes and rosy cheeks glowing in the sunlight of a happy heart his voice greets me as I come from labour and his arms encircle my neck and his sweet embrace and his cheek reposes against mine in the fullness of childish love and then I feel that my little boy is better than everybody's and I can't be made to begin to believe at such times but that everybody must think so in short as Mr. McAlber might say my boy is a trump card in my domestic pack my little boy that little boy of whom it was our delight and pride to speak is no more his sweet spirit had fled from the earth and left an aching void in our heart in an anguish which will be hard to L.A. the music of his voice is still the mild beaming of his eyes is crunched to the darkness of death his arms are no more outstretched upon loving impulses nor his step speedy in affections, errants the happiness of his smile will no more be its blessed contagion to our own spirit nor the home places to be made again pleasant by his bright presence we were a lot that he should depart there were a thousand ties that bound him to us we could not concede that a flower so fair and full of promise should wither and dive all within our grasp we fancied that we could hedge him round with our love and that the grim archer would not find access to our fold through the diligence of our watchfulness we had forgotten that the brightest and fairest are oftenest victims of inexorable death and that the rosy age robes of today's joy may be asserted tomorrow by the sable drapery of affliction there was much to endear him to us perhaps no more however than every child possesses to a parent he was pretty cautious to an extraordinary degree and his little life was full of childish manliness that made everybody love him who looked upon him he was still warm upon our cheek and his smile still bright in our memory replete with love and trust we were sanguine of a fruitful future for him and we had associated him with many schemes of happy usefulness in coming life and with foolish pride boasted of indications that promised all we hoped alas how dark it seems though as we recalled dear little fellow in his dreamless rest he was smiling as we laid him beneath the coffin lid as the spirit in parting had stamped its triumph on the cold lips over the dominion of death that little boy was our idol and they were those well meaning people too who would expostulate and shake their heads gravely and say that we loved him too much as if such a thing were possible where a being of such qualities was making constant drafts upon our affection it is our greatest consolation that we loved him so well that there was no sin to a limit to the love we felt for him that his happiness and our own were so promoted by that affection that it was almost like the pangs of death to relinquish him to the grave it seems almost a sin to weep over the young and beautiful dead but it must be a colder philosophy than ours to repress tears when bending over the lifeless form of a dear child we may know that the pains of earth are exchanged for joys of heaven we may admit the selfishness of our world that would interpose itself between the dead and their happiness we may listen to and allow the truth of gospel solace and cling to the hope of a happy and endless mating in regions beyond the grave but what can fill the void which their dreary absence makes in the circle which they blessed where every association tends to recall them thus it seems when the heart is first bereft when the sorrow is new and we sit down in our lone chamber to think of it and brood over it but we know that affliction must happen by time or it would be unbearable and there are many reflections that the mind draws from its own stores to yield at a comfort memory forgets nothing of the departed but the woe of separation and every association connected with them becomes pleasant and joyous we see them with their angel plumage on we feel them around us upon viewless wings pelling our minds with good influences and blessed recollections free from the sorrows and temptations and sins of the earth and with the whole year of love they are still ministering to us it is one of the amenities of grief that it pours itself out unchecked and everybody who has a little boy like this we have lost will readily excuse this fond and mournful prolixity this justifiable lamentation but we should all go home to our father's house to our father's house in the skies where the hope of our souls shall have no blight our love no broken ties we should roam on the banks of the river and bathe in its blissful tide and one of the joys of our heaven shall be the little boy that died to talk of a man worth his millions giving a few thousands of dollars and charity is well enough said old Roger he should be praised for it but what is this act compared with that of the poor woman who buys a pint of oil from her own hard earnings and carries it in a broken necked bottle to a sick neighbor poorer than herself to cheer many hours of the night what is this act compared with her I should like to know not that and he snapped his fingers and felt sustained in his high estimate of the poor woman's small donation Mrs. Partington on remedies this is an age of innervation in medicine sure enough said Mrs. Partington as she glanced at the column of new and remarkable specifics why will people run after metaphysics when by taking some simple purgatory they can get well so soon it's all nonsense it is and if people instead of dosing themselves with calamity and bitters would only take exercise and air a little more and wash themselves with care in a crash towel they would be all the better for it she said this on her own experience as for diet drink and summer beverages Mrs. P is very noted a new instrument when is he going to bring on the violin Mrs. Partington turned to her neighbor at the melody after listening through the first part of old world's concert that's it ma'am which he is now playing on why that's a fiddle ain't it good gracious why can't they call things by their right names and she left the hall saying to the doorkeeper as she passed that is only a fiddle after all end of section nine section number ten of life and scenes of Mrs. Partington this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org life and scenes of Mrs. Partington and others of the family by B. B. Schiller-Behr section ten criticism a small crowd catted before a window recently to admire the figure of a cat which was there as a for public inspection nearly everyone was delighted with its likeness to life but still, said Augustus there are faults in it it is far from perfect in the foreshortening of that part now and the expression of the eye too is bad besides the mouth is too far down under the chin while the whiskers look as if they were coming out of her ears it is too short too but as if to obviate this defect the figure stretched itself and rolled over in the sun it is a cat I wow it is alive shouted Ike delightedly clapping his hands why it's only a cat after all, said Mrs. Partington as she surveyed it through her specs but Augustus moved on disappointed that nature had fallen so far short of his ideas of perfection in the manufacture of cats Bleak House Dickens is fast getting along to the denouncement of the Bleak House, said Mrs. Partington she saw a paragraph mentioning the approaching denouement of the story well, I should think he would have denounced it long ago and had it prepared for I don't believe they could have made him pay one mill of rent unless he did it at his own auction Bleak House indeed and Mr. Dickens in a poor man too with the ailments enough on him to perinize a whole hospital himself the picture of the good Samaritan haining the wounded Jew a court bottle of Sarsaparilla bitters attracted her attention and she delivered Ike a private lecture on the humanities while he sat pulling the cat's tail in the dark side of the chimney corner admiration for eloquence Dear me, how fluidly he does talk, said Mrs. Partington recently at a temperance lecture I am always rejoiced when he mounts the nostril for his eloquence warms me in every nerve and cartridge of my body word agrees itself couldn't be more smooth than his blessed tongue is and she wiped his spectacles with a cotton bandana and never took her eyes from the speaker during the whole hour he was on the stand Naves of the Crystal Palace Well said Mrs. Partington as Ike read the paragraph from the post that the decorators were on the two naves of the Crystal Palace she passed at the well before she went further into it and Ike stopped reading to hear what she had to say and chewed up a part of the paper into his fit balls which he amused himself with the pie throwing at the old white pine dresser in the corner Well said she this is the same well we left sometimes since I am glad they are taking time by the fire lock and looking out to the naves at forehand Naves in the Christian parish indeed but they will get in the best that can be done there's many of one ideas say in all parishes that has a sanctuary in his face but with the cloak of hypocrisy in his heart and the old lady looked up at the black-framed ancient picture Susanna and the eldest and patted her boss reflectively Mr. Bisbee's confession it was a right promise that I Jeremiah Bisbee had made to the youngest misteel to gallant her to church I knew that she would be offended if I did not comply and yet how I filmed the previous evening's amusement had extended well towards daylight and a more Mr. Bully feeling fellow than myself never to drows himself had the sound of breakfast bell on a Sunday morning but the promise was made in the glory of a new pair of plate pants and a red velvet vest Mr. Bully's visite the modest beauty of Miss Seraphima in the reverend Mr. Blunt's church I had no seat there but my cousins the Mrs. Titmarsh who owned a pew in the Broad Isle had many times invited me to sit with them informing me that there was plenty of room and I determined to avail myself of their invitation the pew was a very respectable one I knew as I had heard them many times describe it as having heavy drapery and all the other essentials of gentile worship just as they had inherited it from the deek and their uncle I had heard them describe to the occupants of adjacent pews and had been given to understand that the augurs and spigs in the aforesaid occupants were the most respectable people in town and that they felt rather envious at the superior position of our pew for so the young ladies 47 if they were a day called it the day was bright the pants fitted to a charm the red vest cleaned in the sun my coat was neatly brushed with an unexceptionable hat and a pair of brilliant boots I felt myself to be some the sleepy feeling with which the morning commenced was overcome by the momentary excitement of walking and talking with a charming girl a triumph over somnus that I thought truly wonderful we reached the church a large venerable sleeping pile having a good many pews in it it was characteristic I believe of churches generally there was a langer upon the still air of the old church that struck me sleepily as I took my seat in the spacious high-backed pew the monotonous tall of the bell sounded like a lullaby and the swelling note to the big organ which rose like incense to the roof and pervaded the house gave me a qualm that my boasted triumph outside would not be of permanent duration opposed to the somnol and influences within as ill luck would have it we had a very dull preacher a duller I never knew tried in common place about originality or fervor and insufferably long I felt sleepy at the propounding of the text which was as near as I remember sleep on and take your rest and every wakeful feeling within me began to grow heavy about the eyes at the injunction I struggled against slumber as a man overboard would struggle with the tide my eyelids juped in spite of me and when I would open them they felt as if they were interlaced with sticks and my sleepy soul seemed looking through a grating of wicked work the eyes of my cousins, the Mrs. Titmarsh were wide open upon me the bright eyes of Seraphima were upon me the eyes of the augurs and spigs were upon me for the Mrs. Titmarsh had informed me in a whisper that they were here in full force and that the new plaid pants and the red vest in Seraphima's new bonnet a charming thing by the way would produce a tremendous envy among their opponents in the adjacent pew in my sleepy reflections I saw the utter disgrace that would attend upon my cousins the Titmarsh's if I misbehaved I thought upon them positively more than upon my own shame I thought of the horror they would feel where I have to speak aloud or laugh or tumble down or commit any extravagance in a dream all of the tricks I had ever practiced in my sleep came up before me frightfully magnified I would practice some of them over again or get up on the backs of the pews and go around as a minor footsit over the tiles in the opera I struggled manfully with sleep but I found I couldn't hold out long hum hum long that long sermon upon my honour I don't believe I heard a word of it besides the text unless it were the word sleep which seemed profusely scattered like poppies along the Titmarsh's way I found myself rapidly sinking the faces by which I was surrounded by melting away the auglars and the specks were becoming oblivious in the preacher just taking the form of a huge black beetle impaled on a pin with humming a dull drone on one continuous key when mustering Joseph's illusion I roused myself thrust my hand hastily into my pocket to pull out my handkerchief then the auglars and specks were all looking and so were the Mrs. Titmarsh and Serfima when I blushed to say it though is the means of mine becoming a reformed man and a tolerable member of society and the father of a large family when I pulled my handkerchief out a pack of cards a deposit of the previous night came leaping out with it and as evacuated by the devil who invented them they doubted about in almost as many directions as there were cards presently showing themselves in the holy house to my utter confusion of face had my worst enemies seen me then he must have pitied me I was wide awake now the concentrated redness of every red card was painted upon my face and the blackness of every black one was transferred to my heart the spots on the cards to my heated fancy seemed bigger than a cartwheel I heard a suppressed hitter among the auglars and the specks just then the eldest Mrs. Titmarsh fainted Heaven be tanked for this says I here is an opening and seizing the unconscious spinster I made for the door as speedily as possible placing her in charge of the sexton I ran with all haste for the doctor strange that those medical gentlemen should be away at such a time I left an urgent order on the slate of six of them and was told at five of six an hour afterwards met in consultation on the steps of Reverend Mr. Blunt's church as I said before I have now reformed and sit just in the shadow of life's afternoon looking back over the events of its morning rejoicing with hopeful trust that the errors of youth may not be carried forward to the amount of mature age if repentance make atonement for the past the Mrs. Titmarsh's forgave me and Sarah Fema in a long life of devoted attention on my part has quite forgot that Sunday's mortification Germania Band how'd you like the music Mrs. P asked a neighbor of the old lady as she stood listening to the Germania Band one evening on the common and beating time on the cover of her snuff box beautiful reply she enraptured beautiful it seems almost like the music of the seraps I think the Germania Band the sweetest of any of them can you tell me said she in a big whisper which is Mr. Bergamot the name of Berg was associated with her rapy and hence her solitude she was told that Mr. Bergman belonged to the Germania Society and the leader of Germania Serenaders was Mr. Schnapp a smile lit up her face she was akin to Mr. Aromatic Schnapps the gentleman that imported so much gin her ear was arrested by the strains of the music and the black bonnet waved in unison with a waltzing measure as Isaac set upon the grats in contemplation of a dark stale before him wondering what the effect would be if he should stick a pin in it a good suggestion Mrs. Chang and Ng those interesting exotics from whose land all the golden fountains softened the laurels and singing trees the grace to a juvenile literature were derived were much gratified by an introduction to Mrs. Boddington one of whom assured her that he had heard of her in sea many years ago but the other didn't recollect about it uninforming her of their intention to go to Saratoga or Newport the coming summer the old aim wondered at their determination how crowded you will be said she accommodations are so scarce though I dare say you could upon an emergency bed the suggestion was a happy one all the difficulty was removed in an instant and the dual gentlemen smiled a tanky with his forelips and Mrs. Boddington waved a parting benediction to him with a green cotton umbrella as he disappeared in the crowd catching an omnibus if you want to take a bus send Mr. Swings in his oracular manner you must be amazingly sly you mustn't go bolly up to him because they will certainly be full room for 12 and 17 inside or the driver won't see you if you shake your umbrella okay not him never so much buses are queer critters very queer it takes something of a man to understand their nature when you want one there ain't one coming put your head out in the rain and look every which way you can't see hide nor hair of one wait till the next one comes that folds those the next then you get a little miffed and says you I'll walk start in the rain get wet almost where you want to go long comes one of them like blazes lots of room looking at you as much as to say see hero boy don't you wish you had waited and this by like a racer if you see a bus a little ways ahead and run yourself into a fever to catch it two to one it'll be the wrong bus and you'll have to walk out to roll another way to do is this adjust as if you don't care a snap whether you ride or not be indifferent and one will come right along don't be about getting a seat and there'll be plenty of room conclude that you'll walk and you may have a whole bus to yourself that's the way to come it over saying which and shaking his head profoundly mr. Sphinx you're tired like in a new position I got a situation to blow an organ in town and one Sunday a stranger organist took it in his head that he would try the instrument a little after the congregation was dismissed he expressed his desire to the boy who consented to blow for there are few more obliging boys than Ike when he's well used he pumped away vigorously for some time until his arm ached when peeping around the corner of the organ he asked if he might go now no, said the organist curtly and kept on drumming away among the dainty airs that he was taking upon himself now thundering among the bass notes and now glancing playfully amid the tender trolls of the pianistimos when confusion to a few comments the breath of the organ gave out and the music flattened to a dying in dismal squeal holloa! cried the performer don't get asleep, there blow away but no response attended his command he grew red blow away I say he cried louder still no response angrily and inharmoniously the man of music arose and looked for Ike he was not there in the mad man of melody as he glanced from the window caught a distanced view of a pair of juvenile coattails unpopular doctrine I was surprised Mr. Roger to see you speaking with that creature said Miss Perim significantly emphasizing the word why madam asked the old man because she's a low, wild creature of the town said she was peely he took her hand within his own and looked her calmly in the eye as he replied call her not wild call her miserable rather and as such she is more worthy of your regard and pity for though she may have sadly erred she is still not all depraved that old spark of sympathy in her heart is there yet unquenched have seen her not long since watch by the sick work for the needy and give her money for the relief take her own bread and give it to a poor fellow in prison and comfort a little child in its sinless sorrow have seen this and bad as you think she is I can honour her for her good virtues my dear madam gain her good qualities and add them to your own perfections before presuming to sit in judgment on her bad ones besides do you know what temptation is, ma'am were you ever tempted the frosty look which met his own seemed to render such a question unnecessary and he released her hand gently advising her to exercise more of charity in her estimate of character benevolence Philanthropos the day after the great railroad Jubilee appeared in public with two excessively black eyes it seems that was going by one of our principal hotels when a large delegation arrived from out of town and hearing the remark awful his heart was touched and mounting upon a post he asked the crowd if they wouldn't like to have a nice house to stop at where every man could have a room to himself and every accommodation he could desire the response was yes well so the good man with emotion well if I heard of any such I will let you know the people were strangers and did not understand the benevolence of his intentions and one or two of them expressed their disapprobation in a striking manner which marked the good man's pleasant exterior as about described on the day of the above celebration a large locomotive was brought to a standstill in Washington street in consequence of one of the wheels giving out belonging to the car it was on Philanthropos with an eye always to the interest of the mechanic seeing the danger to which the engine was exposed while sentry rounded all night to prevent the boys from running away with it it was an act for which he should have been honoured but the workman called him and asked for his pains when they came the next morning to take it away his indignation for a moment was awakened the spares succeeded of ever being able to benefit his race when a small voice whispered his conscience will you abandon an eternal principal because crude humanity fails to appreciate your efforts and he responded promptly to the question and turned away in search of new objects for the exercise of his benevolence mysterious action of rats as for the rats said mrs. pottington as she missed several sizes of cake the disappearance of which she imputed to them it ain't no use to try to get rid of them they're rather like the worm and anecdote and even chlorosis supplement they don't make up a face at it must be the rats continued she thoughtfully and took a large thumb and forefinger full of wrapy to help her deliberation the eyes act that took the cake because he's a perfect prodigal of virtue and wouldn't deceive me so for I might leave a house full of bread with him and even touch it I accept that demurely with his right foot upon his left knee thinking what a capital sunglass one eye of the old lady's speck would make while the chaser crumbs was visible about his mouth it is weird that not even chlorosive supplement nor anything weaker than a padlock would save mrs. pottington's cake when will the father of waters come along as mrs. pottington she started looking at a panorama of the Mississippi in the last hours of its exhibition the father of waters replied the individual addressed why, this is it that you're seeing before you goodness me, is it said she, why I've digested my specks to look after a big man with a dropsy and it's nothing but a river after all how I wish they'd call things by their proper names there was something of disappointment in her tone but when afterwards she mocked to herself I wonder if that water will wash it was a beautiful tribute from benevolence to genius entered at the custom house said mrs. pottington pondering on the expression I don't see how the vessels ever got in but I'm glad that the collector cleared him right out again he'll learn them better manners next time I think provisions of the constitution provisions of the constitution said mrs. pottington with an earnest air and tone for my part I should be glad to see him heaven into all of us knows provisions as cares enough and dear enough and if they can turn the constitution to so good a use I'm glad of it anything that will have a tenderness to cheapen the necessities of life and here she laid her finger on the cover of her box and looked earnestly at a cracked sugar bowl in the buffet in the corner containing the onion seeds and the bone buttons and the scarlet beans and the pieces of twine long gathered from accumulated paper tea bags I am agreeable to it and if they can turn the constitution and all the ships of water carrying provisions I am sure they will do more good than they do now a good many of them she here ran down like an 8 o'clock and she smiled as I crushed him with his arms full of votes and his face full of fun and molasses candy and asked her if he shouldn't give her a tick-bicket severe but just dolly-prime a spinster indeed said mrs. pottington as she heard her unmarried neighbor in the back parlor team does I shall let you know what upon she spins but straight on for she is getting from morning to night the wheel she spins on would be harder to find a great deal than the fifth wheel of a coach oh she could be severe could mrs. pottington but it was generally a commingling of the bitter and sweet the warm word and molasses in her rebukes that tempered acidity and made reproof wholesome mrs. pottington and piety teak and snarl and exhortation would often allure to the place where prayer is wanted to be made ah said mrs. pottington to herself there's nothing like humility in a christian I'm glad you confess it I don't know a place under the canister of heaven where prayer is wanted more to be made than here and I hope you'll be forgiven for the rancorous butter you sold me yesterday she was a simple-minded woman was mrs. p and was apt to get the world mixed up in with her devotion believing somehow that christian duty prescribed worldly justice she hadn't been long a member bricks and straw Dr. Dick had discovered a striking analogy between the brick making operations of the israelites in Egypt and those of the present day in the first instance straw was required in the manufacture of a perfect brick and the latter straw is an essential thing as is shown in the imbibation of juleps and element in the manufacture of modern bricks were straws invariably used the doctor asked when Egypt was like a dry lemon presuming the answer will not be forthcoming he says after the jews it is supposed he means jews medallic prospects I don't see said mrs. pottington as I came home from the examination and threw his books into one chair and his jacket in another and his cap on the floor saying that he didn't get the medal I don't see why you didn't get the medal for certainly a more melson boy he never knew but never mind dear when the time comes round again you'll get it what hope there was in her remark for him and he took courage in one of the old ladies donuts and sat wiping his feet on a clean stocking that the table was preparing to darn that lay by her side mrs. pottington beating up there's poor hardy lee called again said mrs. pottington on a chair from Cape Cod to Boston the wind was ahead and the vessel had to beat up and the order to put the helm hardly had been heard through the night hardly lee again I declare I should think the poor creature would be completely exasperated with fatigue and I'm certain he hasn't needed blessed mouthful of anything all the while captain do call the poor creature down on nature cannot stand it there was a tremor in her voice as indignant humanity found utterance it ain't christian it's more like the treatment of hot pots of heathen the captain went on deck in a sudden lurch of the vessels and the old lady on her beam ends among some boxes recovering from which forgetfulness of hardy lee ensued and this tag brought her to the wharf a dead shot how'd you feel with such a shocking looking coton sitting young clerk of more pretension than brains one morning I feel said old roger looking at him steadily with one eye half closed as if taking aim at his victim I feel young man as if I had a coton which had been paid for a luxury of feeling which I think you will never experience and then he quietly resumed the reading of the post and the young clerk made no further remark on the subject shocking joke he said old roger to a farmer topping corn that to one branch of your industry you are its worst enemy why asked the farmer because replied he you're always raising shocks with the corn market yes quickly replied the farmer but the market is always saying lend us your years old roger and the farmer smiled at each other as they parted end of section 10 section 11 of the life and sayings of mrs. partington this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Elsie Selwyn life and sayings of mrs. partington and others of the family by a BP Schilliber section 11 writing by thank you by thank you by thank you by thanks again more thanks thanks thanks thanks apprehension did timid insiders feel a threatening rack at the bottom of the steep hills they rattled down, how fearful they would be of never reaching the top of the next hill, from the miserable horses giving out that were attached to the vehicle, how they trembled at the danger of having their brains knocked out against the roof of the low coach, and the rebound that Anon jerked them from their seats as the stage wheel sunk into a cart ret. For this latter alarm, there was considerable cause to judge by a story told us once by one of the professors of the whip. He was riding, he said, one day over the way we were then travelling, and a terrible bad season of the year when the cartwheels had cut the roads up into hideous gullies into which the wheels would plunge to the danger of all who chose to ride, and often the passengers had to get out and lay their shoulders to the work to assist the horses in their exertions to extricate the vehicle from the mud. The day he spoke of, however, he had but one passenger, an elderly gentleman wearing a wig, and feeling his responsibility lessened by his diminished fare, he took less heed as to where he went and dashed along over the road whistling from absence of care, entirely regardless of horses or passenger, determined to achieve the distance to the next stopping place in a time mentally allotted for its performance. But was one of the old-fashioned low-roofed coaches one of the oldest of its class?  It was but an instant before he was extricated from his perilous situation, and one of the sudden lurches of the road he had been forced up through the canvas roof, and this closing around his neck held him there, incapable of helping himself, and he had ridden many miles in this manner before he was discovered. That story is just as true now as I tell it to you, said the driver. Don't doubt it, we replied, but what became of the hat and the wig? I can't say anything about the hat, but I'm very much mistaken if I didn't see that old wig for three seasons used as a genteel residence for a family of crows down the road here. A very singular story, we thought, and think so still. Mrs. Partington looking out. I can't make it out, said Mrs. Partington one morning, when she first moved to the city after the railroad plowshare had upturned her hearstone. I can't make it out, and she reached further out of the window to the imminent danger of the embargo returning again to her head, or of a summer set into the street below. She had caught the sound. Here's Hack, from stentorian lungs under her window, and she could not make out what the sounds meant.   Forseeing things beforehand. I wonder who's coming here today, said Mrs. Partington at the breakfast table, turning her cups and working the tea grounds to their oracular position. It was the 4th of July, and a procession was advertised to pass her door. I wonder who is coming here today.  The cow and the geese must mean the procession, that's clear, but what CAN the big G stand for and the rest of them? It must mean a seventh cousin, Mrs. Tubbs, and it is so kind of helped her remember her poor relations at such time, as she always does. Yes, it must be here, because there's a tub, and the wheelbarrow must run from an omnibus. But what can the cipher be? I guess, though, that doesn't mean anything. Scare up the German Silver Spoons market. We must be hospitable. I dare say she would be to us if she should ever ask us when we should go. The prediction was fulfilled, and the fat lady occupied the front seat in Mrs. Partington's private box. A sinuosity. Old Roger was seated at the dinner table by the side of Sarah Fima, the youngest of the five marriageable daughters.  The old fellow leaned back in his chair and wiped the traces of soup from his mouth, said, as he took the young lady's hand in his own. See this fair hand now, what is a snowflake, and rich with dim-hilled beauties? Sarah Fima smiled. Who is there among you that can tell me why the sweet hand is like the remains of that hawkshin soup before us all? The fair hand was drawn back suddenly. That fair hand compared with a pile pile of beef sinus? The borders were astonished at his audaciousness. Sarah Fima frowned. You can't guess, can you? said the jolly old fellow. Well, continued he, it is because there is such tenderness in it. He pronounced it tenderness, and Sarah Fima smiled, but the borders who had found the meat rather hard didn't see the relevancy of it. They didn't know what tendon meant. No more an account knows about its grandmother. The science of fish. I wonder what this itch theology is? said Mrs. Partington, giving a somewhat novel pronunciation of the old science, as she read the announcement of the lecture by Professor Agassiz. What in the name of old scratch can it be? I suppose it must mean the itch for meddling with politics and things that doesn't concern him, and running down their own country and relations and praising up everybody else, and at war with everything, all the time they are preaching pace. Someone explained that it was the science of fishers. Well, well, said the lady. It's just as well.  He's out of his ailment. She passed over to the deaths and marriages, and I ganged his hook with an afternoon smelting in his eye, and a ball of Mrs. Partington's piping cord in his pocket for contingencies. Internal indebtedness. When I don't hear the eggs, said Mrs. Partington, she said she would be eternally indebted to me. And I guess she will. How can people do so? I would go round the world on all fours of begging me for I'd be guilty of such a thing. Ah, well, I'll take everybody to make a whirl. And she puts in sultris enough to make up for the non-returned eggs. Her neighborhood decidedly taken a rise out of her. Borrowing newspapers. Shall I have the goodness to look at your knees paper one moment, as Mrs. Partington at the grocery store? Certainly, my dear madame, with the greatest reluctance possible, replied the grocer. They exchanged glances, and there was so much of thankfulness in her eye that he almost made up his mind to subscribe for another paper for her express accommodation. Promising children. What a to-do people make because children happen to know something when they're young. So Mrs. Partington, as she read an account of many men who had been distinguished in early years. Now all these together don't know so much, but one half is Dolly Spurge's baby. That is a perfect prodigal to be sure of such an intellect. While it got through its Google ghouls and into its bypass at four or seven months old, and was only a year and a half old, it emptied a snuff box down its precious old grandmother's throat as she was asleep and came nice suffocating the old lady before she could wake up to conscientiousness and spit it out.  The old lady was always eloquent on this topic. She was a believer in prodigies and thought Solomon must have consulted some young mother when he wrote that every generation grows wiser and wiser. Forgiveness of wrong. He called me a termigrant and said I wasn't any better than I should be, said Mrs. Partington as she threw her shawl into the water bucket and her bonnet on the floor on her return from her landlords where she had vainly sought an extension of time for payment of the rent. There never was such an aspiration cast upon one of our family before and there was no such thing in our whole chronology. And there is anti-statuary law for slander. I'll see if he can crave it. The termigrant I don't mind so much but to be called no better than I should be, the mean penny catcher and curmudgeon. But no, that's wrong to tell him names. It makes me most as bad as he is. I'll borrow the money and pay him. I will and show him that I don't bear mallets. And she brightened up in the thought of this mode of revenge, bustling about and putting the house to rights in the best humor in the world. Her conduct was a sermon in seven tracks on the sublime principle of forgiveness of wrong. What kin is that which all Yankees love to recognize and which always has sweet associations connected with it? Why pumpkin to be sure? A negative affirmative. Mr. Tims, a farmer up in the country, had a habit of putting in yes, yes, yes, yes. At every pause in his speaking, which sometimes had a ludicrous effect, the old fellow owned a fine horse which he was very careful of and would never lend or hire him to the most particular of his friends. A youngster of the village who wished the horse for a Sunday ride went over to the old man's house to hire the animal if possible. So, you want my horse, young man? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Said Tims, and you say you'll ride him gently. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and you'll give him plenty of oats. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and rub him down well when you get where you're going. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and we'll give me a dollar for the use of him. Yes, yes, yes, well, upon the whole, you can't have him. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The young man left sorrowing. We see it stated in the prince frequently that vessel is going to California double Cape Horn. If this is the case, by and by, there will not be a single Cape Horn left. Taking pictures. That is a splunted likeness by heaven, exclaimed Augustus rapturously, as Mrs. Partington showed him a capital daguerre type of her own venerable front's piece. Now what is it? She said she's smiling. Now it isn't by heaven itself, but by its sun. Isn't it beautifully done? All the cemetery of its features, and cat strings, and specks. It's brought out as natural as if from a painter's palette. Any young lady now, continued she, he would like to have the liniments of her pretended husband to look out when he is away, could be made happy by this blessed and cheap contrivance of making pictures out of sunshine. She clasped the cover of the picture, paused as if pursuing in her own mind the train of her admiration, and went out like an exploded rocket. Man is born to work, and he must work while it is day. Have a knot? said a great worker, all eternity to work in. Well, said Slug, who didn't love work. If that's the case, what in times the youth's putting in so? I'd just let the youth divide the work, and do part of mine when the coves burst in. Procosity. The elder Smith was somewhat astonished one evening, at finding a berry pie for tea, a rather remarkable thing in his gastronomical experience. For Mr. Smith indulged in few luxuries, for regions which will be understood by people of limited means, was an excellent pie, the shift de au rue, of the culinary skill of Mrs. Smith, who prided herself upon what she could do if she only had the greed inces. Smith, Jr., numbering some three summers, saw opposite his sire, my son, said the olden, during a pause in the work of mastication. Did your mother make this pie today? Certainly, said the precocious youth, she didn't, of course, make it tomorrow. The elder Smith looked mournfully at the miniature edition of himself, then, wiping the crumbs from his mouth and ejaculating, so young, he left the house. Mr. Thimble's Mouse Trap The old gentleman one morning discovered a mouse in his bedchamber. A mouse or a briot was what he held in the utmost dread, and even the idea of getting his hand on one by any accident always gave him a tremor. Seeing the little animal lost in his very bedchamber was most provoking, and reaching for an oak and cane always at the head of his bed, a defense against hostile invaders of this inner shrine, he at once vowed the mouse's destruction, and cane and hand started upon its accomplishment. Said he, between his fixed teeth, as he closed the door and firmly grasped his stick. Now, Mr. Mouse, I've got you. I'll fix your flint for you. And the poor little timid thing running into a corner, the old gentleman leveled a furious blow at him, repeating his threat to fix his flint for him. The offer to fix the flint for the mouse is hardly intelligible in this age of patent matches, but Mr. Thimble lived in thinner box times, when flint and steel were inseparable, and he probably thought that an animal so inclined to steel must have a flint. The blow was wrongly directed, and the mouse escaped to another corner. Another blow and another resulted in the same manner, until at last the mouse, finding cover beneath an antique bureau, the old gentleman was compelled to exert all his generalship to bring him out. But in vain he got down on all fours and looked beneath the bureau. In vain was the cane thrust in the direction of his eyes, the enemy was nowhere to be seen, and Mr. T got up, flushed with the exercise, brushed his knees, and went down to breakfast, wondering where the little animal had gone. After relating the incident, he was calmly engaged in cooling his coffee, when, dropping his cup, he darted from the table into the middle of the floor, dragged half the breakfast things after him, and practiced antics very unbecoming in an elderly gentleman of sixty-two. His family, astonished to see him thus, had insipid ideas of lunatic asylums and straight jackets dart across their minds. The old gentleman, the while, capering about the room like a mad dancing master, shaking his right leg as if St. Vitus had selected this member for his particular favor, regardless of the rest, until, with a tremendous spasmodic kick, out fell the mouse, from where he had secreted himself. It was a long time before Mr. T regained composure. Sometime after, speaking of his activity, Mrs. Thimble remarked, My dear, I didn't think it was in you. Mr. T looked clearly at her as she uttered this, but didn't say anything. Mrs. Partington vs Cookbooks. A beef steak fried in water? So Mrs. Partington, it seems to me, must taste very much as if it was bile. They do have such curious ideas about cooking nowadays, and people have to learn lots about landish names before they know what they've got for dinner. Ah, the good old times was the best. When people seasoned their dishes with flag root and such spices and a poor man's fragile repast was eaten when he knew what he had to be thankful for. What a cook she is, to be sure. And isn't it the cause of rejoicing for a week among the boys in the neighborhood when she fries up a batch of donuts and Ike knows where they are kept?  Ayudhosa, he disclaimed fluidly, explained Mrs. Partington delightedly as she listened to the exercises of the Humptown Intellectual Mutual Improvement Society. Her admiration knew no bounds as a young declaimer with inspiration truly demosthenic launched the flashing beams of his eloquence broadcast among his auditors with thrilling, dazzling burning force, Anon soaring like a rocket into the inferior blue, dashing helter-skelter amidst the stars and harnessing the fiery comments to the car of his genius. Anon scoring the land like a racer, the hot sparks like young lightning marking his aphatonic course, Anon breaking through the terracouche shell and reveling in Hadrian horrors and underground localities somewhere. The voice of Mrs. Partington, whom we left standing on the threshold of her admiration some way back, recalls us to herself, how fluidly he talks. He ought to be a minister, I declare, and how well he would look with a surplus on to be sure. He stands on the nostrum as if he were born and bred in oratory, all his life. I wish the President was here tonight. I know he'd see he was an extraordinary young man, and like us not, in point him, minister extra ordinary instead of some that never preached any at all. The old lady beat time with her fan to his gesticulations, nodding the black bonnet approvingly and smiled as the young man told the world that Franklin had made it a present of the printing press. Outrage! During a concert one night, a reckless individual in the upper gallery of the large hall in which it was held, whose name we did not ascertain, allowed his bill of the concert to slip through his fingers, which, falling below by the rule of gravitation, fell suddenly upon the exposed head of one of our first young men. The effect of the concussion upon an object so tender may be well imagined. Smelling bottles were called for, and none being at hand one young lady applied her glove to the sufferer's nose, which, having been lightly cleansed with turpentine, had the effect of bringing him to. The diabolical perpetrator of the act had the audacity to look over the edge of the gallery and grin at the injury he had done, but before the officer could get to the gallery and arrest him, he had flown. PS, we wish it to be distinctly understood that it was the glove and not the nose that had been cleaned with the turpentine. Ike and the Country During the last winter, Ike was sent to visit some of Mrs. Partington's relatives, who live on the borders of the Great Bay. Squid River, which empties into the bay, is a very beautiful stream in summer, but in winter it is dreary enough, with the tall trees stripped of their foliage, standing, as it were, shivering upon its brink, but it is a rare skating course from Moose Village to the river's junction with the bay. Ike had used up all his resources for fun at the end of the third day. He had snowballed the cattle into a frenzy, caught all the hens in a box trap, tied the pigs together by the legs, sucked all the legs he could find, and was looking around for something else to do while the boys were at school. He was just calculating, as he poised a snowball, how near he could come to attain pigeon on the windowsill without hitting it, when the glass was saved by the appearance of the house cat outside the sacred precinct of the kitchen.  He immediately seized upon her, and expedience, never wanting, soon suggested themselves to him. There were plenty of clamshells about the yard, and selecting for the smoothest he, by the aid of some grafting wax at hand, soon had Tabby beautifully shot with clamshells and on the way to the river. Ike's idea was to learn her to skate. The river was smooth as glass, and a sharp wind blew along its surface towards the bay. Now pause, said Ike as he pushed her upon the ice. Go it! An instinct of danger instantly seized upon her. Her claws, which Ike had found so sharp a short time before, were now useless to her, and with a growl of spite, she swam her caudal appendage to the enormous size which, taking the wind, and held the poor feline like a clipper over the slippery path. The tail stood straight as a top mast, and grew bigger and bigger, and faster and faster flew the animal to which the tail belonged. Ike laughed till he cried to see the cat scuttling before the wind, but now the bay lay before her, and far out over the smooth ice was the blue water of the sea. The result can be guessed, the cat never came back, and everybody wondered what had become of her, and thought it augured ill luck for a cat to leave the house so suddenly. Ike thought so, especially for the cat. Ike's conscious reproached him sadly, but he compromised the matter by leaving the tenets of the barnyard in peace all the while he stayed there, and came home with a pocketful doughnuts and an enviable reputation for propriety. The New Year and Allegory What are your intentions toward Miss New Year? sternly asked the old guardian of years, as time, in the garb of youth, stepped forward to make his proposals. The fair being to whom he aspired stood veiled before him in mystical beauty beside the seer, whose dim eyes had seen the birth and death of thousands of years, and whose beard was white with the frost of centuries, and whose voice creaked with the rust of many ages. Time, buoyant on the hopes of youth, promised much. Their union, he said, would be fruitful of great events. Joy and prosperity would attend upon it. By their union the arms of the weak would be strengthened, the tyrant's power be shorn of its might, the poor and downtrodden be exalted, the desponding be made to sing for joy, abuse be banished from the earth, the wrath of men be restrained, struggle for light be crowned with success.  Alas, alas, he said, the same promises were made by your sire to his fair mother, and broken, as have been all the promises of time since the world began. Where is the fruition of the glorious hopes held out for bygone years? They have found their end in the gloom and disappointment. How can I trust, then, this precious charge to your arms and view of olden failures? Then young time, laying down his hourglass and gaily swinging his side among the few weeds left of the herbage of the old year, made answer with a firm tone and a cheerful air. The violated promises of others should not be the criterion for judging of mine, nor their failure be urged as a presage for my own ill success. Let me prove myself by my acts, and if endeavor may win the goal, my chance is good. Let me try. The old guardian grasped time by the hand approvingly. The hand of the virgin year was placed in his, and as the clock struck the hour of 12, the form in the old sire faded from view in the mystical one, for better or for worse, for joy and sorrow became the wedded bride of time. Personal cleanliness is a virtue, but it is not pleasant to see a man cleaning his teeth with a questionable pocket handkerchief. Neither is it to see a man, however attentive he may be, to the ones of his family, put a beef stocked in the crown of his hat, and fill his trousers pockets with cucumbers. It don't look well.