The Wit and Humor of America Volume VII Part 14

den dey come back an' tell Mistah Tarr'pin dat dey reckon dey done fix Mistah Tukkey dis time.

"'W'at you done wid him?' sezee.

"'We ain' ketch 'im,' dey ses, 'we lef' dat fer you, dat ain' ow'

bizness, but we done fix him up so't you kin do de ketchin' yo'se'f.'

"'W'at has you done to him, den?' sezee.

"'Son', dey ses, 'we done putt a lot er li'l bones in his laigs, an' dat gwine slow him up might'ly, an' we 'pends on you ter do de res', 'kase we knows dat you is a gre't chieft.'

"Den Tarr'pin amble long 'bout his bizness an' neener stop ner res'

ontwel he met up wid Tukkey onct mo'. He ax fer his by'ud an' wattles ag'in, but Tukkey jes' turnt an' stept out f'um dat, Tarr'pin atter him.

But seem lak de cunjerers thought Mistah Tarr'pin wuz faster'n w'at he wuz, er dat Mistah Tukkey 'z slower'n w'at _he_ wuz, 'kase Tarr'pin ain'

nuver ketch up wid him yit, an' w'ats mo', de tarr'pins is still doin'

widout by'uds an' wattles an' de gobblers is still wearin' 'em an'

swellin' roun' showin' off ter de gals, steppin' ez high ez ef dem li'l bones w'at de cunjerers putt dar wan't still in der laigs, an' struttin'

lak dey wuz sayin' ter ev'y pusson dey meets:

_'Cle'r outen de way fer ol' Dan Tucker, You'se too late ter git yo' supper.'"_

THE CRITIC

BY WILLIAM J. LAMPTON

Behold The Critic, bold and cold, Who sits in judgment on The twilight and the dawn Of literature, And, eminently sure, Informs his age What printed page Is destined to be great.

His word is Fate, And what he writes Is greater far Than all the books He writes of are.

His pen Is dipped in boom Or doom; And when He says one book is rot, And that another's not, That ends it. He Is pure infallibility, And any book he judges must Be blessed or cussed By all mankind, Except the blind Who will not see The master's modest mastery.

His fiat stands Against the uplifted hands Of thousands who protest And buy the books That they like best; But what of that?

He knows where he is at, And they don't. And why Shouldn't he be high Above them as the clouds Are high above the brooks, For G.o.d, He made the Critic, And man, he makes the books.

See?

Gee whiz, What a puissant potentate the Critic is.

THE a.s.sOCIATED WIDOWS

BY KATHARINE M. ROOF

The confirmed bachelor sat apart, fairly submerged by a sea of Sunday papers; yet a peripheral consciousness of the ladies' presence was revealed in his embryonic smile.

He folded over a voluminous sheet containing an account of the latest murder, and glanced at a half-page picture, labeled, "The Scene of the Crime."

"Was there ever yet a woman that could keep a secret," he demanded, apparently of the newspaper. "Now, if this poor fellow had only kept his little plans to himself--but, of course, he had to go and tell some woman."

"Looks like the man didn't know how to keep his secret that time,"

returned Mrs. Pendleton with a smile calculated to soften harsh judgments against her s.e.x.

"There are some secrets woman can keep," observed Elsie Howard. Her gaze happened to rest upon Mrs. Pendleton's golden hair.

"For instance," demanded the confirmed bachelor. (His name was Barlow.)

"Oh--her age for one thing." Elsie withdrew her observant short-sighted eyes from Mrs. Pendleton's crowning glory, and a smile barely touched the corners of her expressively inexpressive mouth. Mrs. Pendleton glanced up, faintly suspicious of that last remark.

Mr. Barlow laughed uproariously. In the two years that he had been a "guest" in Mrs. Howard's boarding-house he had come to regard Miss Elsie as a wit, and it was his habit--like the Italians at the opera--to give his applause before the closing phrases were delivered.

"I guess that's right. You hit it that time. That's one secret a woman can keep." He chuckled appreciatively.

Mrs. Pendleton laughed less spontaneously than usual and said, "It certainly was a dangerous subject," that "she had been looking for silver hairs amongst the gold herself lately." And again Elsie's eyes were attracted to the hairs under discussion. For three months now she had questioned that hair. At night it seemed above reproach in its infantile fairness, but in the crude unkind daylight there was a garish insistence about it that troubled the eye.

At that moment the door opened and Mrs. Hilary came in with her bonnet on. She glanced around with frigid greeting.

"So I'm not late to dinner after all. I had thought you would be at table. The tram was so slow I was sorry I had not walked and saved the fare." She spoke with an irrational rising and falling of syllables that at once proclaimed her nationality. She was a short, compact little woman with rosy cheeks, abundant hair and a small tight mouth. Mrs.

Hilary was a miniature painter by choice and a wife and mother by accident. She was subject to lapses in which she unquestionably forgot the twins' existence. She recalled them suddenly now.

"Has any one seen Gladys and Gwendolen? Dear, dear, I wonder where they are. They wouldn't go to church with me. Those children are such a responsibility."

"But they are such happy children," said gentle little Mrs. Howard, who had come in at the beginning of this speech. In her heart Mrs. Howard dreaded the long-legged, all-pervasive twins, but she pitied the widowed and impoverished little artist. "So sad," she was wont to say to her intimates in describing her lodger, "a young widow left all alone in a foreign country."

"But one would hardly call America a foreign country to an Englishwoman," one friend had interpolated at this point.

"Yes, I know," Mrs. Howard had acknowledged, "but she _seems_ foreign.

Her husband was an American, I believe, and he evidently left her with almost nothing. He must have been very unkind to her, she has such a dislike of Americans. She wasn't able to give the regular price for the rooms, but I couldn't refuse her--I felt so sorry for her."

Mrs. Howard liked to "feel sorry for" people. Yet she was apt to find herself at sea in attempting to sympathize with Mrs. Hilary. She was a sweet-faced, tired-looking little woman with a vague smile and dreamy eyes. About five years ago Mrs. Howard had had "reverses" and had been forced by necessity to live to violate the sanct.i.ty of her hearth and home; grossly speaking, she had been obliged to take boarders, no feasible alternative seeming to suggest itself. The old house in Eleventh Street, in which she had embarked upon this cheerless career, had never been a home for her or her daughter. Yet an irrepressible sociability of nature enabled her to find a certain pleasure in the life impossible to her more reserved daughter.

As they all sat around now in the parlor, into which the smell of the Sunday turkey had somehow penetrated, a few more guests wandered in and sat about provisionally on the impracticable parlor furniture, waiting for the dinner signal. Mrs. Howard bravely tried to keep up the simulation of social interchange with which she ever pathetically strove to elevate the boarding-house intercourse into the decency of a chosen a.s.sociation.

Suddenly there came a thump and a crash against the door and the twins burst in, their jackets unb.u.t.toned, their dusty picture hats awry.

"Oh! mater, mater!" they cried tumultuously, dancing about her.

"Such sport, mater. We fed the elephant."

"And the rabbits--"

"And a monkey carried off Gwendolen's gloves--"

"Children," exclaimed Mrs. Hilary impotently, looking from one to the other, "where _have_ you been?" (She p.r.o.nounced it bean.)

"To the park, mater--"

"To see the animals--"