The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI

About the way we loved. I wouldn't care
To ever wake again if I could still
Dream we was there forever on the hill.

XXVII

It's over now; the blow has fell at last;
It seems as though the sun can't shine no more,
And nothing looks the way it did before;
The glad thoughts that I used to think are past.
Her desk's shut up to-day, the lid's locked fast;
The keys where she typewrote are still; her chair
Looks sad and lonesome standin' empty there—
I'd like to let the tears come if I dast.

This morning when the boss come in he found
A letter that he'd got from her, and so
He read it over twice and turned around
And said: "The little fool's got married!" Oh,
It seemed as if I'd sink down through the ground,
And never peep no more—I didn't, though.

MR. DOOLEY ON THE GAME OF FOOTBALL

BY FINLEY PETER DUNNE

"Whin I was a young man," said Mr. Dooley, "an' that was a long time ago,—but not so long ago as manny iv me inimies'd like to believe, if I had anny inimies,—I played fut-ball, but 'twas not th' fut-ball I see whin th' Brothers' school an' th' Saint Aloysius Tigers played las' week on th' pee-raries.

"Whin I was a la-ad, iv a Sundah afthernoon we'd get out in th' field where th' oats'd been cut away, an' we'd choose up sides. Wan cap'n'd pick one man, an' th' other another. 'I choose Dooley,' 'I choose O'Connor,' 'I choose Dimpsey,' 'I choose Riordan,' an' so on till there was twinty-five or thirty on a side. Thin wan cap'n'd kick th' ball, an' all our side'd r-run at it an' kick it back; an' thin wan iv th' other side'd kick it to us, an' afther awhile th' game'd get so timpischous that all th' la-ads iv both sides'd be in wan pile, kickin' away at wan or th' other or at th' ball or at th' impire, who was mos'ly a la-ad that cudden't play an' that come out less able to play thin he was whin he wint in. An', if anny wan laid hands on th' ball, he was kicked be ivry wan else an' be th' impire. We played fr'm noon till dark, an' kicked th' ball all th' way home in the moonlight.

"That was futball, an' I was a great wan to play it. I'd think nawthin' iv histin' th' ball two hundherd feet in th' air, an' wanst I give it such a boost that I stove in th' ribs iv th' Prowtestant minister—bad luck to him, he was a kind man—that was lookin' on fr'm a hedge. I was th' finest player in th' whole county, I was so.

"But this here game that I've been seein' ivry time th' pagan fistival iv Thanksgivin' comes ar-round, sure it ain't th' game I played. I seen th' Dorgan la-ad comin' up th' sthreet yesterdah in his futball clothes,—a pair iv matthresses on his legs, a pillow behind, a mask over his nose, an' a bushel measure iv hair on his head. He was followed by thee men with bottles, Dr. Ryan, an' th' Dorgan fam'ly. I jined thim. They was a big crowd on th' peerary,—a bigger crowd than ye cud get to go f'r to see a prize fight. Both sides had their frinds that give th' colledge cries. Says wan crowd: 'Take an ax, an ax, an ax to thim. Hooroo, hooroo, hellabaloo. Christyan Bro-others!' an' th' other says, 'Hit thim, saw thim, gnaw thim, chaw thim, Saint Alo-ysius!' Well, afther awhile they got down to wur-ruk. 'Sivin, eighteen, two, four,' says a la-ad. I've seen people go mad over figures durin' th' free silver campaign, but I niver see figures make a man want f'r to go out an' kill his fellow-men befure. But these here figures had th' same effect on th' la-ads that a mintion iv Lord Castlereagh'd have on their fathers. Wan la-ad hauled off, an' give a la-ad acrost fr'm him a punch in th' stomach. His frind acrost th' way caught him in th' ear. Th' cinter rush iv th' Saint Aloysiuses took a runnin' jump at th' left lung iv wan iv th' Christyan Brothers, an' wint to th' grass with him. Four Christyan Brothers leaped most crooly at four Saint Aloysiuses, an' rolled thim. Th' cap'n iv th' Saint Aloysiuses he took th' cap'n iv th' Christyan Brothers be th' leg, an' he pounded th' pile with him as I've seen a section hand tamp th' thrack. All this time young Dorgan was standin' back, takin' no hand in th' affray. All iv a suddent he give a cry iv rage, an' jumped feet foremost into th' pile. 'Down!' says th' impire. 'Faith, they are all iv that,' says I. 'Will iver they get up?' 'They will,' says ol' man Dorgan. 'Ye can't stop thim,' says he.

"It took some time f'r to pry thim off. Near ivry man iv th' Saint Aloysiuses was tied in a knot around wan iv th' Christyan Brothers. On'y wan iv thim remained on th' field. He was lyin' face down, with his nose in th' mud. 'He's kilt,' says I. 'I think he is,' says Dorgan, with a merry smile. 'Twas my boy Jimmy done it, too,' says he. 'He'll be arrested f'r murdher,' says I. 'He will not,' says he. 'There's on'y wan polisman in town cud take him, an' he's down town doin' th' same f'r somebody,' he says. Well, they carried th' corpse to th' side, an' took th' ball out iv his stomach with a monkey wrinch, an' th' game was rayshumed. 'Sivin, sixteen, eight, eleven,' says Saint Aloysius; an' young Dorgan started to run down th' field. They was another young la-ad r-runnin' in fr-ront iv Dorgan; an', as fast as wan iv th' Christyan Brothers come up an' got in th' way, this here young Saint Aloysius grabbed him be th' hair iv th' head an' th' sole iv th' fut, an' thrun him over his shoulder. 'What's that la-ad doin'?' says I. 'Interfering' says he. 'I shud think he was,' says I, 'an' most impudent,' I says. ''Tis such interference as this,' I says, 'that breaks up fam'lies'; an' I come away.

"'Tis a noble sport, an' I'm glad to see us Irish ar-re gettin' into it. Whin we larn it thruly, we'll teach thim colledge joods fr'm th' pie belt a thrick or two."

"We have already," said Mr. Hennessy. "They'se a team up in Wisconsin with a la-ad be th' name iv Jeremiah Riordan f'r cap'n, an' wan named Patsy O'Dea behind him. They come down here, an' bate th' la-ads fr'm th' Chicawgo Colledge down be th' Midway."

"Iv coorse, they did," said Mr. Dooley. "Iv coorse, they did. An' they cud bate anny collection iv Baptists that iver come out iv a tank."

THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM

BY OCTAVE THANET

After the war was over, the Middle West addressed itself to Culture. Perhaps the husbands and brothers and fathers might still be busy making money; but the women of the West, whose energies and emotions had been mightily roused, found life a little tame when there were no more sanitary commissions, no more great fairs or little fairs for the soldiers, no more intense emotions over printed sheets. Then it was that the Woman's Club lifted a modest finger at the passing car of progress, and unobtrusively boarded it.

Fairport was conservative, as always, but she had no mind to be left behind in the march of feminine fashion. She did not rush to extremes, but she had women's clubs in 1881. The chief of these were the Ladies' Literary Club and the Spinsters' Alliance. Both clubs tackled the same great themes of ethics and art, and allotted a winter to the literature of a nation, except in the case of Greek and Roman literatures, which were not considered able to occupy a whole winter apiece, so they were studied in company. The club possessed a proper complement of officers, and their meetings went from house to house. They were conducted with artless simplicity, in a pleasant, conversational manner, but with due regard to polite forms; and only at a moment of excitement was the chair addressed by her Christian name.

Naturally, the women's clubs were deeply stirred by the first great World's Fair in America. But the whole West was moved. It turned to art with a joyous ardor, the excited happiness of a child that finds a new beauty in the world. Why had we not thought of the artistic regeneration of our sordid life before? Never mind, we would make amends for lost time by spending more money! In very truth the years following the Centennial witnessed an extraordinary awakening of worship of beauty, almost religious in its fervor. Passionate pilgrims ransacked Europe and the Orient; a prodigal horde of their captives, objects of luxury and of art, surged into galleries and museums and households. No cold, critical taste weeded out these adorable aliens. The worst and the best conquered, together. Our architecture, our furniture, our household surroundings were metamorphosed as by enchantment. And the feature of mark in it all was the unparalleled diffusion of the new faith. Not the great cities only; the towns, the villages, the hamlets, caught fire.

Of course, Fairport went to Philadelphia; and Fairport was converted. It followed, at once that the women's clubs of the place should serve most zealously at the altar; and nothing could be more inevitable than that in course of time there should be a concrete manifestation of zeal. Hence the memorable Art Museum, the fame of which to this day will revive, when there is a meeting of the solid and gray-haired matrons who were the light-footed girls of the Alliance, and the talk falls on the old times.

The art collection would give its admirers shivers to-day, but it excited only happy complacency then. The mood of the hour was not critical. The homes of the Fairport gentry held innumerable oil copies of the great masters of different degrees of merit, which they loaned secure of welcome; with them came family treasures so long held in reverence that their artistic value (coldly considered) had been lost to comparison, and the gems of accomplished amateurs who painted flowers on china cups, or of rising young artists who had not as yet risen beyond the circle of trusting friends in town.

In general, the donors' expectation of gratitude was justified, but even so early as 1881 there were limits to artistic credulity; and some offerings drove the club president, Miss Claudia Loraine, and the club secretary, Miss Emma Hopkins, to "the coal hold." This was a wee closet under the stairs, where the coal scuttles were ranged, until they should fare forth to replenish the "base burners" which warmed the Museum home. In real life the name of the Museum's lodgings was Harness Block, and Mr. Harness had proffered the cause of art two empty stores, formerly a fish market and a grocery. As there was no private office (only a wire cage), when Miss Hopkins felt the need of frank speech she signaled Claudia to the coal hole.

She was closeted with her thus on the morning of the second day. The subject of the conference was the last assault on the nerves of the committee, perpetrated by the Miller twins—not in person, but with their china. The china, itself, had the outward semblance of ordinary blue earthen ware of a cheap grade; but the Miller twins were convinced (on the testimony of their dear old minister, who never told a lie in his life, and who had heard the Millers' grandmother say—and everybody knows that she was a saint on earth, and she was ninety years old at the time, and would she be likely to lie almost on her dying bed?—you might call it her dying bed, averred Miss Miller, since she was bedridden for two years before her death, on that same old four-poster bedstead which belonged to her mother, and at last died on it) that the blue ware had been the property of George the Third, had been sold and was on board the ship with the tea which was rifled in Boston Harbor. They had insisted in pasting these royal claims upon the china in the blackest and neatest lettering. The awkward fact that earthenware does not usually grace a royal board, or that the saintly old grandmother mixed up dates and persons in a wonderful way during her latter days, made no difference to her loyal descendants. Each platter with the black chipping betraying plainly its lowly origin, each tea-cup mended with cement, bore the paper-claim pasted securely upon it.

"It took up a whole afternoon," said Miss Tina Miller, "but it's so precious and there might be other blue ware and it might get mixed—you'll insure it, Miss Hopkins? not that money could replace such things, but, at least"—Miss Tina Miller always left her sentences in the air, seemingly too diffident to complete them, once the auditors were assured of their import.

The Millers kept a tiny little house on a tiny little income; but gave of all they had to give, themselves, without stint. They were public-spirited women, if Fairport ever held any such. Although they had neither brothers nor cousins to go to the war, they had picked lint and made bandages and trudged with subscription papers and scrimped for weeks to have money to spend at the patriotic fairs. In consequence they were deeply respected, so respected that it was simply impossible to refuse their unselfish offering of their dearest god.

"I think it just noble of you," said Miss Tina. "Sister and I felt we must help; so we brought the King George china and a little pencil head our sister Euphrosyne did. The one who died, you know. I'm sorry all your—art things—aren't in yet. No, I can't come to-morrow; I shall be very busy—sister may come—thank you."

Both the keen young listeners knew why Miss Tina could not come; it was neither more nor less than the admission fee.

"But I'll take care of that," said Emma to Claudia in the coal hold. "Elly is going to give her and Miss Ally each a season ticket."

"Then we're in for the King George china!" groaned Claudia softly.

"We are," said Emma. "I've put it in a good but not too good a place, and Mr. Winslow is inspecting it now."

"And he knows about china; he's sent lovely things," mourned Claudia.

"Oh, well, he knows about the Miller girls, too," said Emma, smiling; "I think he'll forgive us."

"You'd better go explain," urged Claudia, "and throw in that landscape with the cow that seems to have five legs and belongs to Mr. Harness. Perhaps he'll forgive that, too."

Emma went,—she was an amiable girl. She was not pretty like her sister, Mrs. Raimund, who had married the great railway man and was a power in Chicago society; but there was something in the radiant neatness and good humor of the plain sister which made her pleasant to look upon.

Winslow's mouth and eyes relaxed at her greeting, and he smiled over her official quotation of the Millers' claims.

"King George's table? H'mn; which table, second or third?" His eyes twinkled at Emma, whose own eyes twinkled back.

"They're awfully good women," said she, in a kind of compunction.

"None better," said he.

As he passed on, with his little son at his side, she thought: "He isn't nearly so grim as I used to think."

Mrs. Winslow and Mrs. Winter were a few paces behind. They halted before the china, which Mrs. Winter examined; but Mrs. Winslow's weary eyes lingered hardly a moment before they found some other object on which to rest and leave as briefly.

"It is to be hoped this priceless relic won't be damaged in any way," said Mrs. Winter. "Still"—she bent confidentially toward Emma—"if such a calamity should occur, I know a shop in Chicago where you can get plenty for three dollars and ninety-nine cents."

"I hope nothing will happen to it," said Emma, with stolid reticence.

Mrs. Winslow had not listened, her listless face had been transformed; it was illumined now by the loveliest of smiles; she half put out her hand as a little boy snuggled up to her silken skirts, with a laugh.