The Humors of Falconbridge Part 22

That night the effect of stuffing with green fruit to utter suffocation manifested itself in a general and alarming cholera-morbus among the junior Triangles, and the whole house was up in arms.

In the midst of this, a fresh clamor broke out in Nora's chamber. A huge bat had got into her room, and so alarmed her, that she yelled worse, louder, and longer than seven evil ones.

It was a night of horror to the whole family--to everybody in and about Jingo Hall. The dogs set up a howl; the children bawled, cried, and took on; the Irish girl screeched; gin and laudanum, peppermint and "lollypops," the de'il to pay and no pitch hot.

Triangle felt relieved when daylight came, and had it not been Sunday, he would have packed up and put back for the prosy office and stagnated quietude of the city. But it was Sunday, and after the children, Irish girl, and dogs had been partially quieted, down the carriage came to the door, and as many as could get into it of the Jingos and Triangles, rolled off to meeting.

Triangle and Jingo went to escape the din and noise of dressing "the babies," &c.; and after the service was over, poor Triangle was taken aside by a tall, bony man, who reported himself in no very ceremonious manner as the proprietor of a flock of sheep scared to death, and one rare lamb killed--"by your dog!" Triangle owned to the soft impeachment, and "compromised" for a V.

Returned to Jingo Hall, another _coup d'etat_ all around the lot had broken out. Evangeline Roxana Matilda Triangle had disappeared. The baby, Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, had fallen from a swing in the grove and dislocated her wrist, and flattened her pretty nose quite to her pretty face. Baby was very ill, and from the groans issuing from Nora's attic, it was not _on-possible_ that she was sick as she could be. A general search took place for Evangeline Roxana Matilda, while Maj. Jingo mounted a horse and rode over to the village, to bring down a doctor for Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, "the baby," and--Nora Dougherty.

A glance at the Irish girl convinced poor _tried_ Triangle that she was a case--of small-pox.

Maj. Jingo returned, but without a medical adviser; the village Esculapius having gone off to the city. Things looked gloomy enough.

Triangle felt "chawed up," and wished he had been roasted alive in the city before venturing upon such a trip. But he felt he had a duty to perform, and he determined to put it through.

"Major, I'm very sorry, but the fact is"----

"Never mind, never mind, my dear fellow--no trouble to us."

"But," chokingly continued poor Triangle, "but, Major, the fact is, I--a--you've got a large family"----

"Never mind, my dear boy; don't say any more about it."

"But to have the--a--the--small-pox"----

"What?" gasped the Major--"the--a"----

"Small-pox!" seriously enough responded Triangle.

"Small-pox! Who? Where?"

"Our Irish girl--up stairs--awful!"

"O, good Lord! Irish--up stairs--small-pox!" reiterated the really alarmed proprietor of Jingo Hall.

"I wouldn't have"--said Triangle.

"The small-pox in my house"--echoed Jingo.

"For all the blessed countries in the world!" pa.s.sionately exclaimed Triangle.

"Heavens!" exclaimed the Major; "my wife has a greater dread of small-pox than yellow fever, or death itself!"

"What's to be done?" said poor Triangle.

"Remove the girl to an out-house, instantly!" said the Major, pacing up and down, in great _furore_.

"That's best, Major; go move her, at once."

"Me? Me move her, sir?" said Jingo.

"Why who will, Major?" responded Triangle.

"Who? Why, you, of course."

"Me?" exclaimed Triangle--"me? endanger my life, and the lives of all my family--me? No, sir, I'll--I'll--I'll be hanged if I do!"

"Blur a' nouns, zur!" bawled the Irish hostler, as he came trotting up to the front veranda, where Triangle and Jingo were discussing the transportation of small-pox--

"Blur a' nouns--the dog's loose!"

"Curse the dog!" said the Major.

"But, zur, it's raving mad, he is!"

"Mad! my dog?" cries Triangle.

"A mad dog, too!" exclaims the Major, in horror.

"O, too bad--horrible--wish I'd never seen"----

"Get your gun, quick--come on!" cried the Major.

"But, my dear Major, my gun's broke all to smash. O! that I had shot the blasted brute instead of breaking my gun!"

"Come on--never mind--seize a club, fork, or anything, and hunt around for the cursed dog. He'll bite some of our people, horses, or cattle."

And away ran the Major, with a bit of stick about the size of a fence-rail. Paddy made himself scarce, and Triangle, in agony, flew around to hunt up his daughter, whom they found asleep in a summer-house.

Mrs. Major Jingo, when she heard that the Irish girl had introduced the small-pox on Jingo Hill, liked to have fainted away; but, conquering her weakness, she ordered the carriage, and bundled herself and four children into it, so full of terror and alarm that she never so much as said--"Take care of yourself, Mrs. Triangle!" Maj. Jingo returned, after a fruitless search for Triangle's mad dog, and just as he entered the hall, the Irish girl came rus.h.i.+ng down stairs, crying--

"O! murther, murther! I'm dead as a door-nail, entirely, wid dese pains in my face. Be gorra! O, murther!"

One look at the swollen and truly frightful face of the girl put the Major to his _taps_; and stopping but a moment to tell Triangle to make out the best he could, he left.

Next morning, bag and baggage, the Triangles _vamosed_. The poor girl having recovered from her attack of the bees, which had led to the alarm of small-pox, looked quite respectable. Never did a party enjoy _home_ more completely than the Triangles after that. Triangle has a holy horror of trips to the country, and the Jingos are down on visitors from the city.

Jake Hinkle's Failings.

In the village of Was.h.i.+ngton, Fayette Co., Ohio, there was a transient sort of a personage, a kind of floating farmer, named Hinkle,--Jacob Hinkle,--commonly called _Old Jake Hinkle_. Jake was, originally, a Dutchman, a Pennsylvania, Lancaster County Dutchman; and that was about _as_ Dutch as Holland and Sour Krout could well make a human "critter."

Well, Jake Hinkle owned, or had squatted on, a small patch of land, just beyond old Mother Rodger's "bottom," that is, about a mile east of the "Rattle Snake Fork" of Paint Creek, which, every thundering fool out West knows, empties itself into--"Big Paint," which finally rolls out into the Muskingum, and thence into the Ohio. Very well, having settled the geographical position of Jake Hinkle, let me go on to state what kind of a critter Jake was, and how it came about that he was p.r.o.nounced dead, one cold morning, and how he came up to town and denied the a.s.sertion.

Jake Hinkle loved corn, lived on it, as most people do in the interior of Ohio and Kentucky; he loved _corn_, but loved corn whiskey more, and this love, many a time, brought Jake up to "the Court House" of Was.h.i.+ngton, through rain, hail and snow, to get a nipper, fill his jug, and go home. Now, in the West it is a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance, perhaps, for grog shops of the village to play all sorts of fantastic tricks upon old codgers who come up to town, or down to town, hitch their horses to the fence, and there let the "critters" stand, from 10 A. M. to 12 P. M., more or less, and longer.

The most popular dodge is, to shave the horse's tail, turn it loose, and let it go home. Of course, _that_ horse is not soon seen in the village again, as a horse with a sh.o.r.ed tail is about the meanest thing to look at, except a singed possum, or a dandy--you ever did see.