Around The Tea-Table Part 7

As night came on the self-adjusting couches spread themselves on either side; patent bootjacks rolled up and took your boots off; unseen fingers tucked the damask covers all about you, and the porter took your pocket-book to keep till morning, returning it then with twice what you had in it at nightfall. After a while the train slackens to one hundred and seventy-five miles an hour, and the conductor, in his dream, announces that they are coming near the terminus. More brakes are dropped and they are running but ninety miles the hour; and some one, looking out of the window, says, "How slow we go!" "Yes," says the conductor, "we are holding up." Now they have almost stopped, going at only seventy miles the hour.

The long line of depot lamps are flas.h.i.+ng along the track. On the platform of the station are the lovers who are waiting for their betrothed, and parents who have come down to greet their children, returned with a fortune, and wives who have not been able to eat or drink since their spouses went away three weeks before. As the cus.h.i.+oned train flashes into the depot and stops, wedding bells peal, and the gong of many banquets sounds, and white arms are flung about necks, reckless of mistake, and innumerable percussions of affection echo through the depot, so crisp and loud that they wake the conductor, who thought that the boisterous smack was on his own cheek, but finds that he is nothing but a bachelor railroad man, with a lantern, at midnight getting out into a snow bank.

Application: Get an easy position when you sleep, if you have any choice between angels and gorgons. At midnight, seizing a chair, I ran into the next room, resolving to kill, at the first stroke, the ruffian who was murdering a member of my household. But there was no ruffian. The sweet girl had, during the day, been reading of St. Bartholomew's ma.s.sacre, and was now lying on her back, dreaming it all over again. When dreams find anyone lying flat on the back, they cry out, "Here is a flat surface on which to skate and play ball," and from scalp to toe they sport themselves. The hardest nag in all the world to ride is the nightmare.

Many think that sleep is lost time. But the style of your work will be mightily affected by the style of your slumber. Sound Asleep is sister of Wide Awake. Adam was the only man who ever lost a rib by napping too soundly; but when he woke up, he found that, instead of the twelve ribs with which he started, he really had nigh two dozen. By this I prove that sleep is not subtraction, but addition. This very night may that angel put balm on both your eyelids five minutes after you touch the pillow!

CHAPTER XXII.

PUSH & PULL.

We have long been acquainted with a business firm whose praises have never been sung. I doubt whether their names are ever mentioned on Exchange. They seem to be doing more business and have more branch houses than the Stewarts or Lippincotts. You see their names almost everywhere on the door.

It is the firm of Push & Pull. They generally have one of their partners'

names on outside of the door, and the other on the inside: "Push" on the outside and "Pull" on the inside. I have found their business-houses in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, London and Edinburgh. It is under my eye, whether I go to buy a hat, a shawl, or a paper of pins, or watch, or ream of foolscap. They are in all kinds of business; and from the way they branch out, and put up new stores, and multiply their signboards on the outside and inside of doors, I conclude that the largest business firm on earth to-day is Push & Pull.

When these gentlemen join the church, they make things go along vigorously.

The roof stops leaking; a new carpet blooms on the church floor; the fresco is retouched; the high pulpit is lowered till it comes into the same climate with the pew; strangers are courteously seated; the salary of the minister is paid before he gets hopelessly in debt to butcher and baker; and all is right, financially and spiritually, because Push & Pull have connected themselves with the enterprise.

A new parsonage is to be built, but the movement does not get started.

Eight or ten men of slow circulation of blood and stagnant liver put their hands on the undertaking, but it will not budge. The proposed improvement is about to fail when Push comes up behind it and gives it a shove, and Pull goes in front and lays into the traces; and, lo! the enterprise advances, the goal is reached! And all the people who had talked about the improvement, but done nothing toward it, invite the strangers who come to town to go up and see "our" parsonage.

Push & Pull are wide-awake men. They never stand round with their hands in their pockets, as though feeling for money that they cannot find. They have made up their minds that there is a work for them to do; and without wasting any time in reverie, they go to work and do it. They start a "life insurance company." Push is the president, and Pull the secretary. Before you know it, all the people are running in to have their lungs sounded, and to tell how many times they have had the rheumatism; how old they are; whether they ever had fits; and at what age their father and mother expired; and putting all the family secrets on paper, and paying Push & Pull two hundred dollars to read it. When this firm starts a clothing house, they make a great stir in the city. They advertise in such strong and emphatic way that the people are haunted with the matter, and dream about it, and go round the block to avoid that store door, lest they be persuaded in and induced to buy something they cannot afford. But some time the man forgets himself, and finds he is in front of the new clothing store, and, at the first gleaner of goods in the show window, is tempted to enter. Push comes up behind him, and Pull comes up before him, and the man is convinced of the shabbiness of his present appearance--that his hat will not do, that his coat and vest and all the rest of his clothes, clean down to his shoes, are unfit; and before one week is past, a boy runs up the steps of this customer with a pasteboard box marked, "From the clothing establishment of Push & Pull. C.O.D."

These men can do anything they set their hands to--publish a newspaper, lay out a street, build a house, control a railroad, manage a church, revolutionize a city. In fact, any two industrious, honorable, enterprising men can accomplish wonders. One does the out-door work of the store, and the other the indoor work. One leads, the other follows; but both working in one direction, all obstacles are leveled before them.

I wish that more of our young men could graduate from the store of Push & Pull. We have tens of thousands of young men doing nothing. There must be work somewhere if they will only do it. They stand round, with soap locks and scented pocket-handkerchiefs, tipping their hats to the ladies; while, instead of waiting for business to come to them, they ought to go to work and make a business. Here is the ladder of life. The most of those who start at the top of the ladder spend their life in coming down, while those who start at the bottom may go up. Those who are born with a gold spoon in their mouth soon lose the spoon. The two school bullies that used to flourish their silk pocket-handkerchiefs in my face, and with their ivory-handled, four-bladed knives punch holes through my kite--one of them is in the penitentiary, and the other ought to be.

Young man, the road of life is up hill, and our load heavy. Better take off your kid gloves, and patent leathers, and white vest, and ask Push, with his stout shoulder, and Pull, with his strong grip, to help you. Energy, pluck, courage, obstinate determination are to be cultured. Eat strong meat, drop pastries, stop reading sickly novelettes, pray at both ends of the day and in the middle, look a man in the eye when you talk to him, and if you want to be a giant keep your head out of the lap of indulgences that would put a pair of shears through your locks.

If you cannot get the right kind of business partner, marry a good, honest wife. Fine cheeks and handsome curls are very well, but let them be mere incidentals. Let our young men select practical women; there are a few of them left. With such a one you can get on with almost all heavy loads of life. You will be Pull, and she Push; and if you do not get the house built and the fortune established, send me word, and I will tear this article up in such small pieces that no one will ever be able to find it.

Life is earnest work, and cannot be done with the tips of the fingers. We want more crowbars and fewer gold toothpicks. The obstacles before you cannot be looked out of countenance by a quizzing gla.s.s. Let sloth and softliness go to the wall, but three cheers for Push & Pull, and all their branch business houses!

CHAPTER XXIII.

BOSTONIANS.

We ran up to the Boston anniversaries to cast our vote with those good people who are in that city on the side of the right. We like to go to the modern Athens two or three times a year. Among other advantages, Boston always soothes our nerves. It has a quieting effect upon us. The people there are better satisfied than any people we know of. Judging from a few restless spirits who get on some of the erratic platforms of that city, and who fret and fume about things in general, the world has concluded that Boston is at unrest. But you may notice that the most of the restless people who go there are imported speakers, whom Boston hires to come once a year and do for her all the necessary fretting.

The genuine Bostonian is satisfied. He rises moderately early, goes to business without any especial haste, dresses comfortably, talks deliberately, lunches freely, and goes home to his family at plausible hours. He would like to have the world made better, but is not going to make himself sick in trying to cure the moral ailments of others.

The genuine Bostonian is, for the most part, pleased with himself, has confidence that the big elm will last another hundred years, keeps his patriotism fresh by an occasional walk near the meat market under Faneuil Hall, and reads the "Atlantic Monthly." We believe there is less fidgeting in Boston than in any city of the country. We think that the average of human life must be longer there than in most cities. Dyspepsia is a rarity; for when a mutton chop is swallowed of a Bostonian it gives up, knowing that there is no need of fighting against such inexorable digestion.

The ladies of Boston have more color in their cheeks than those of many cities, and walk as though they would live to get round the next corner. It is not so fas.h.i.+onable to be delicate. They are robust in mind and always ready for an argument. State what you consider an indisputable proposition, and they will say: "Yes, but then--" They are not afraid to attack the theology of a minister, or the jurisprudence of a lawyer, or the pharmacy of a doctor. If you do not look out, the Boston woman will throw off her shawl and upset your logic in a public meeting.

We like the men and women of Boston. They have opinions about everything--some of them adverse to your own, but even in that case so well expressed that, in admiration for the rhetoric, you excuse the divergence of sentiment. We never found a half-and-half character in Boston. The people do not wait till they see which way the smoke of their neighbors'

chimneys blows before they make up their own minds.

The most conspicuous book on the parlor table of the hotels of other cities is a book of engravings or a copy of the Bible. In some of the Boston hotels, the prominent book on the parlor table is "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary." You may be left in doubt about the Bostonian's character, but need not doubt his capacity to pa.r.s.e a sentence, or spell without any resemblance of blunder the word "idiosyncrasy."

Boston, having made up its mind, sticks to it. Many years ago it decided that the religious societies ought to hold a public anniversary in June, and it never wavers. New York is tired of these annual demonstrations, and goes elsewhere; but in the early part of every June, Boston puts its umbrella under its arm and starts for Tremont Temple, or Music Hall, determined to find an anniversary, and finds it. You see on the stage the same spectacles that shone on the speakers ten years ago, and the same bald heads, for the solid men of Boston got in the way of wearing their hair thin in front a quarter of a century ago, and all the solid men of Boston will, for the next century, wear their hair thin in front.

There are fewer dandies in Boston than in most cities. Clothes, as a general thing, do not make fun of the people they sit on. The humps on the ladies' backs are not within two feet of being as high as in some of the other cities, and a dromedary could look at them without thinking itself caricatured. You see more of the outlandishness of fas.h.i.+on in one day on Broadway than in a week on any one street of Boston. Doubtless, Boston is just as proud as New York, but her pride is that of brains, and those, from the necessities of the case, are hidden.

Go out on the fas.h.i.+onable drive of Boston, and you find that the horses are round limbed, and look as well satisfied as their owners. A restless man always has a thin horse. He does not give the creature time to eat, wears out on him so many whip lashes, and keeps jerking perpetually at the reins.

Boston horses are, for the most part, fat, feel their oats, and know that the eyes of the world are upon them. You see, we think it no dishonor to a minister to admire good horses, provided he does not trade too often, and impose a case of glanders and bots on his unsophisticated neighbor. We think that, as a minister is set up for an example to his flock, he ought to have the best horse in the congregation. A minister is no more sacred when riding behind a spavined and ringboned nag than when whirling along after a horse that can swallow a mile in 2.30.

The anniversary week in Boston closed by a display of flowers and fruits in Horticultural Hall. It was appropriate that philanthropists and Christians, hot from discussions of moral and religious topics, should go in and take a bath of rose leaves and geraniums. Indeed, I think the sweetest anniversary of the week was that of these flowers. A large rhododendron presided.

Azaleas and verbenas took part in the meeting. The Chinese honeysuckle and clematis joined in the doxology. A magnolia p.r.o.nounced the benediction. And we went home praying for the time when the lily of the valley shall be planted in every heart, and the desert shall blossom as the rose.

CHAPTER XXIV.

JONAH VERSUS THE WHALE.

Unbelievers have often told us that the story of the prophet swallowed by a great fish was an absurdity. They say that, so long in the stomach of the monster, the minister would have been digested. We have no difficulty in this matter. Jonah, was a most unwilling guest of the whale. He wanted to get out. However much he may have liked fish, he did not want it three times a day and all the time. So he kept up a fidget, and a struggle, and a turning over, and he gave the whale no time to a.s.similate him. The man knew that if he was ever to get out he must be in perpetual motion. We know men that are so lethargic they would have given the matter up, and lain down so quietly that in a few hours they would have gone into flukes and fish bones, blow-holes and blubber.

Now we see men all around us who have been swallowed by monstrous misfortunes. Some of them sit down on a piece of whalebone and give up.

They say: "No use! I will never get back my money, or restore my good name, or recover my health." They float out to sea and are never again heard of.

Others, the moment they go down the throat of some great trouble, begin immediately to plan for egress. They make rapid estimate of the length of the vertebrate, and come to the conclusion how far they are in. They dig up enough spermaceti out of the darkness to make a light, and keep turning this way and that, till the first you know they are out. Determination to get well has much to do with recovered invalidism. Firm will to defeat bankruptcy decides financial deliverance. Never surrender to misfortune or discouragement. You can, if you are spry enough, make it as uncomfortable for the whale as the whale can make it uncomfortable for you. There will be some place where you can brace your foot against his ribs, and some long upper tooth around which you may take hold, and he will be as glad to get rid of you for tenant as you are to get rid of him for landlord. There is a way, if you are determined to find it. All our sympathies are with the plaintiff in the suit of Jonah versus Leviathan.

CHAPTER XXV.

SOMETHING UNDER THE SOFA.

Not more than twenty-five miles from New York city, and not more than two years ago, there stood a church in which occurred a novelty. We promised not to tell; but as we omit all names, we think ourselves warranted in writing the sketch. The sacred edifice had stood more than a hundred years, until the doors were rickety, and often stood open during the secular week.

The window gla.s.s in many places had been broken out. The s.h.i.+ngles were off and the snow drifted in, and the congregation during a shower frequently sat under the droppings of the sanctuary. All of which would have been a matter for sympathy, had it not been for the fact that the people of the neighborhood were nearly all wealthy, and lived in large and comfortable farm houses, making the appearance of their church a fit subject for satire.

The pulpit was giving way with the general wreck, was unpainted, and the upholstery on book-board and sofa seemed calling out with Jew's voice, "Any old clo'? Any old clo'?" One Sabbath, the minister felt some uneasiness under the sofa while the congregation were singing, and could not imagine the cause; but found out the next day that a maternal cat had made her nest there with her group of offspring, who had entered upon mortal life amid these honorable surroundings.

Highly-favored kittens! If they do not turn out well, it will not be the fault of their mother, who took them so early under good influences. In the temple of old the swallow found a nest for herself where she might lay her young; but this is the first time we ever knew of the conference of such honors on the Felis domestica. It could not have been anything mercenary that took the old cat into the pulpit, for "poor as a church mouse" has become proverbial. Nothing but lofty aspirations could have taken her there, and a desire that her young should have advantages of high birth. If in the "Historical Society" there are mummied cats two thousand years old, much more will post-mortem honors be due this ecclesiastical p.u.s.s.y.

We see many churches in city as well as town that need rehabilitation and reconstruction. People of a neighborhood have no right to live in houses better constructed than their church. Better touch up the fresco, and put on a new roof, and tear out the old pews which ignore the shape of a man's back, and supersede the smoky lamps by clarified kerosene or cheap gas brackets. Lower you high pulpit that your preacher may come down from the Mont Blanc of his isolation and solitariness into the same climate of sympathy with his audience. Tear away the old sofa, ragged and spring-broken, on which the pastors of forty years have been obliged to sit, and see whether there are any cats in your antediluvian pulpit.

Would it not be well for us all to look under our church sofas and see if there be anything lurking there that we do not suspect? A cat, in all languages, has been the symbol of deceit and spitefulness, and she is more fit for an ash barrel than a pulpit. Since we heard that story of feline nativity, whenever we see a minister of religion, on some question of Christian reform, skulking behind a barrier, and crawling away into some half-and-half position on the subject of temperance or oppression, and daring not to speak out, instead of making his pulpit a height from which to hurl the truth against the enemies of G.o.d, turning it into a cowardly hiding place, we say, "Another cat in the pulpit."