Out of the Hurly-Burly Part 28

During this operation I maintained a condition of profound repose. No man will ever know how quiet I was. It is doubtful if any human being ever before became so thoroughly still until his immortal soul went to the land of everlasting rest.

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When the ceremony was ended, the dog lay down close to the chair. As soon as I felt certain that the animal was asleep, I thought I would go home without seeing Mr. Magruder; but when I attempted to rise, the dog leaped up and growled so fiercely that I sat down again at once. Then I thought perhaps it would be better _not_ to go home. It occurred to me, however, that it would be as well to call some one to remove the dog, in case circ.u.mstances should make it desirable for me to depart. But at the very first shout the animal jumped to his feet, gave a fiendish bark and began to take a few more inquisitorial smells at my legs. And whenever I shuffled my feet, or attempted to turn the _Argus_ over in order to continue an article on to the following page, or made the slightest movement, that infamous dog was up and at me. Once, when I was positively compelled to sneeze, I thought, from the indignation boisterously manifested by the dog, that my hour at last had come.

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Finally, Cooley's dog, which happened to be in the neighborhood, became engaged in an angry controversy with another dog in the street in front of me. Magruder's dog was wide awake in a moment; and after turning a regretful glance at me, as if he knew he was deliberately and foolishly throwing away a chance of obtaining several glorious bites, he dashed down the walk and over the fence for the purpose of partic.i.p.ating in the discussion between his two friends.

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I did not actually run, because that would not have been dignified, and the servant-girl, looking from the kitchen window, and not understanding the nature of the emergency, might have suspected me of emotional insanity. But I walked rapidly--very rapidly--to the rear fence of the yard, and climbed over it. As I reached the top of the fence, I saw the dog coming at full gallop down the yard. He was probably chagrined, but I did not remain to see how he bore it. I went directly home. Mr. Parker may manage his own love affairs in the future. I shall not approach Mr.

Magruder upon this disagreeable subject again. I have enough to do to attend to my own business.

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When I reached home, I found Judge Pitman waiting for me. He came in for the purpose of borrowing my axe for a few moments. As we went around to the rear of the house to get it, the judge said:

"I reckon you don't use no terbacker, do you?"

"I smoke sometimes; that is all."

"Well, I was jist feelin' 's if I wanted a chaw, an' I thought p'rhaps you might have one about you. Seein' Cooley over there on his porch put me in mind of it."

"That is rather a singular circ.u.mstance. Why should a view of Cooley suggest such a thing?"

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"'Tis kinder sing'lar; but you see," said the judge, "Cooley was a-tellin' me yesterday mornin' about somethin' that occurred the day before at his house. The old woman is opposed to his chawin', an' she makes it stormy for him when he does. So he never uses no terbacker 'round home, an' he told her he'd given it up. The other day, just as he was goin' in to supper, he pulled out his handkercher, an' out come a plug of terbacker 'long with it. He didn't know it, but directly Mrs.

Cooley lit on it, an' she walked up to him an' wanted to know if it was his. It was a little rough, you understand, but he had presence of mind enough to turn to his boy and say, 'Great Heavens! is it possible you've begun to chaw this ornary stuff? What d'you mean by sich conduct?

Haven't I told you often enough to let terbacker alone? Commere to me this minute, you rascal!' Cooley licked him like the nation, an' then threw the terbacker out the winder onto the porch, where he could git it agin in the mornin'."

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"That was pretty severe treatment of the boy."

"An' Cooley says to me, 'By gracious, judge! s'pose'n my children had all been girls! It makes an old father's heart glad when he thinks he has a boy he can depend upon at sich times!' Healthy old parent, ain't he?"

"The word 'healthy' hardly expresses with sufficient vigor the infamy of his conduct."

"Cooley never did treat that there boy right," said the judge, as he seated himself on the saw-horse in the woodshed and locked his hands over one of his knees, evidently with the intention to have some sociable conversation. "He never behaved like a father to him. He brought up that there child to lie. That echo business, f'r instance; it was scand'lus in him."

"To what do you refer?"

"Why, afore Cooley come yer to live he kep' a hotel up in the Lehigh Valley--a fas.h.i.+onable kinder tavern, I reckon; an' there was another man about two miles furder up who had a bigger hotel. You could stand on this other man's porch an' make a splendid echo by whistlin' or hollerin'. You could hear the noise agin a dozen times. Leastways, Cooley told me so. Well, Cooley, you know, hated like pisin to be beaten on that echo, an' so he kinder concluded to git one up for himself. He made that there boy of his'n go over on the mountain across the river an' hide among the bushes, an' then he would take people up on the roof of the house and holler, an' the boy would holler back agin. He told everybody that the echo could only be heard on the roof, an' he kep' the trap door locked, so's n.o.body would find him out."

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"That was a poor kind of a swindle."

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"Yes, sir. Well, that boy, you 'bserve, gradually got rusty in the business an' tired of it, an' sometimes he'd take another boy over with him, an' they'd git to playin' an' forgit to answer. It was embarra.s.sin'

for Cooley, an' the secret begun to leak out. But one day the whole concern was bu'sted. Cooley took a lot of folks from the city, among 'em some o' them newspaper people, an' for a while the boy worked all right, But he had another feller with him, and he kep' a-repeatin' things that n.o.body said. Cooley stood it for a while, though he was mad as fury; an'

at last, when somebody tried to start the echo, there was no answer.

They all thought it was mighty queer, but after callin' a good many times, the boy come out in full view an' yelled back, 'I'm not a-goin'

to answer any more. Bill Johnson won't gimme my knife, an' I won't holler till I git it; blamed if I do.' Cooley tells me that the manner in which he sailed across the creek after that child was somethin'

awful to behold. But it knocked him, sir. It closed him up. Them newspaper men started the thing on him, an' they run him so hard that he had to quit. He sold out and come yer to live. But is it any wonder that boy's spiled? Cooley'd spile a blessed young angel the way he goes on.

But I must say good-mornin'. Much obleeged for the axe. Good-bye."

And the judge went home meditating upon Cooley's unfitness for the duties of a parent. I would like to know if that echo story is true. I have no doubt the judge received it from Cooley, but it sounds as if the latter ingenious gentleman might have wrenched it from his imagination.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CERTIFICATE CONCERNING PITMAN'S HAIR--UNENDURABLE PERSECUTION--A WARNING TO MEN WITH BALDHEADED FRIENDS--AN EXPLANATION--THE SLANDERER DISCOVERED--BENJAMIN P. GUNN--A MODEL LIFE INSURANCE AGENT.

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I have been the victim of a somewhat singular persecution for several weeks past. When we came here to live, Judge Pitman was partially bald.

Somebody induced him to apply to his head a hair restorative made by a Chicago man named Pulsifer. After using this liquid for a few months, the judge was gratified to find that his hair had returned; and as he naturally regarded the remedy with admiration, he concluded that it would be simply fair to give expression to his feelings in some form. As I happened to be familiar with all the facts of the case, the judge induced me to draw up a certificate affirming them over my signature.

This he mailed to Pulsifer. I have not yet ceased to regret the weakness which permitted me to stand sponsor for Judge Pitman's hair. Of course, Pulsifer immediately inserted the certificate, with my name and residence attached to it, in half the papers in the country, as a displayed advertis.e.m.e.nt, beginning with the words, "HOPE FOR THE BALDHEADED; THE MOST REMARKABLE CURE ON RECORD," in the largest capital letters.

I have had faith in advertising since that time. And Pulsifer had confidence in it too, for he wrote to me to know what I would take to get him up a series of similar certificates of cures performed by his other patent medicines. He had a corn-salve which dragged a little in its sales, and he was prepared to offer me a commission if I would write him a strong letter to the effect that six or eight frightful corns had been eradicated from my feet with his admirable preparation. He was in a position, also, to do something handsome if I could describe a few miraculous cures that had been effected by his Rheumatic Lotion, or if I would name certain ruined stomachs which had, as it were, been born again through the influence of Pulsifer's Herb Bitters; and from the manner in which he wrote, I think he would have taken me into partners.h.i.+p if I had consented to write an a.s.surance that his Ready Relief had healed a bad leg of eighteen years' standing, and that I could never feel that my duty was honorably performed until he sent me a dozen bottles more for distribution among my friends whose legs were in that defective and tiresome condition. I was obliged to decline Pulsifer's generous offer.

I heard with singular promptness from other medical men. Fillemup & Killem forwarded some of their Hair Tonic, with a request for me to try it on any bald heads I happened to encounter, and report. Doser & Co.

sent on two packages of their Capillary Pills, with a suggestion to the effect that if Pitman lost his hair again he would get it back finally by following the enclosed directions. I also heard from Brown & Bromley, the agents for Johnson's Scalp Awakener. They sent me twelve bottles for distribution among my bald friends; then Smith & Smithson wrote to say that a cask of their Vesuvian Wash for the hair would be delivered in my cellar by the express company; and a man called on me from Jones, Butler & Co. with a proposition to pump out my vinegar barrel, and fill it with Balm of Peru for the gratuitous use of the afflicted in the vicinity.

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But this persecution was simply unalloyed felicity when compared with the suffering that came in other forms. I will not attempt to give the number of the letters I received. I cherish a conviction that the mail received at our post-office doubled the first week after Judge Pitman's cure was announced to a hairless world. I think every bald-headed man in the Tropic of Cancer must have written to me at least twice upon the subject of Pulsifer's Renovator and Pitman's hair. Persons dropped me a line to inquire if Pitman's baldness was hereditary; and if so, if it came from his father's or his mother's side. One man, a phrenologist, sent on a plaster head mapped out into town-lots, with a suggestion that I should ink over the b.u.mps that had been barest and most fertile in the case of Pitman. He said he had a little theory which he wanted to demonstrate. A man in San Francisco wrote to inquire if my Pitman was the same Pitman who came out to California in 1849 with a bald head; and if he was, would I try to collect two dollars Pitman had borrowed from him in that year? The superintendent of a Sunday-school in Vermont forwarded eight pages of foolscap covered with an argument supporting the theory that it was impious to attempt to force hair to grow upon a head which had been made bald, because, although Elisha was bald, we find no record in the Bible that he used renovator of any kind. He warned Pitman to beware of Absalom's fate, and to avoid riding mules out in the woods. A woman in Snyder county, Penna., sent me a poem inspired by the incident, and ent.i.tled "Lines on the Return of Pitman's Hair." A party in Kansas desired to know whether I thought Pulsifer's Renovator could be used beneficially by a man who had been scalped. Two men in New Jersey wrote, in a manner totally irrelevant to the subject, to inquire if I could get each of them a good hired girl. I received a confidential letter from a man who was willing to let me into a "good thing" if I had five hundred dollars cash capital. Mrs. Singerly, of Frankford, related that she had shaved her dog, and shaved him too close, and she would be relieved if I would inform her if the Renovator would make hair grow on a dog. A devoted mother in Rhode Island said her little boy had accidentally drank a bottle of the stuff, and she would go mad unless I could a.s.sure her that there was no danger of her child having his stomach choked up with hair. And over eleven hundred boys inquired what effect the Renovator would have on the growth of whiskers which betrayed an inclination to stagnation.

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But the visitors were a more horrible torment. Bald men came to see me in droves. They persecuted me at home and abroad. If I went to church, the s.e.xton would call me out during the prayers to see a man in the vestibule who wished to ascertain if Pitman merely bathed his head or rubbed the medicine in with a brush. When I went to a party, some bald-headed miscreant would stop me in the midst of the dance to ask if Pitman's hair began to grow in the full of the moon or when it was new.

While I was being shaved, some one would bolt into the shop and insist, as the barber held me by the nose, upon knowing whether Pitman wore ventilators in his hat. If I attended a wedding, as likely as not a bare-headed outlaw would stand by me at the altar and ask if Pitman ever slept in nightcaps; and more than once I was called out of bed at night by wretches who wished to learn, before they left the town, if I thought it hurt the hair to part it behind.

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It became unendurable. I issued orders to the servants to admit to the house no man with a bald head. But that very day a stranger obtained admission to the parlor; and when I went down to see him, he stepped softly around, closed all the doors mysteriously, and asked me, in a whisper, if any one could hear us. Then he pulled off a wig; and handing me a microscope, he requested me to examine his scalp and tell him if there was any hope. I sent him over to see Pitman; and I gloat over the fact that he bored Pitman for two hours with his baldness.

I am sorry now that I ever wrote anything upon the subject of his hair.