To tink he got to hold review
Widout his best Dutch ruff.
Ma’am said she ‘lowed it was de calf
Dat had done chawed it off;
But when de General heard dat ar,
He answered with a scoff;
He said de marks warn’t don’ of teef,
But plainly dose ob shears;
An’ den he showed her to de do’
And cuffed me on ye years.
And when my ma’am arribed at home
She stretched me ‘cross her lap,
Den took de lace away from me
An’ sewed it on her cap.
And when I dies I hope dat dey
Wid it my shroud will trim.
Den when we meets on Judgment Day,
I’ll gib it back to him.
So dat’s my story, Massa Guy,
Maybe I’s little wit;
But I has larned to, when I’m wrong,
Make a clean breast ob it.
Den keep a conscience smooth and white
(You can’t if much you flirt),
And an unruffled bosom, like
De General’s Sunday shirt.
HAT, ULSTER AND ALL.
BY CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES.
John Verity’s Experience.
I saw the congregation rise,
And in it, to my great surprise,
A Kossuth-covered head.
I looked and looked, and looked again,
To make quite sure my sight was plain,
Then to myself I said:
That fellow surely is a Jew,
To whom the Christian faith is new,
Nor is it strange, indeed,
If used to wear his hat in church,
His manners leave him in the lurch
Upon a change of creed.
Joining my friend on going out,
Conjecture soon was put to rout
By smothered laugh of his:
Ha! ha! too good, too good, no Jew,
Dear fellow, but Miss Moll Carew,
Good Christian that she is!
Bad blunder all I have to say,
It is a most unchristian way
To rig Miss Moll Carew—
She has my hat, my cut of hair,
Just such an ulster as I wear,
And heaven knows what else, too.
AUCTION EXTRAORDINARY.
BY LUCRETIA DAVIDSON.
I dreamed a dream in the midst of my slumbers,
And as fast as I dreamed it, it came into numbers;
My thoughts ran along in such beautiful meter,
I’m sure I ne’er saw any poetry sweeter:
It seemed that a law had been recently made
That a tax on old bachelors’ pates should be laid;
And in order to make them all willing to marry,
The tax was as large as a man could well carry.
The bachelors grumbled and said ‘twas no use—
‘Twas horrid injustice and horrid abuse,
And declared that to save their own hearts’ blood from spilling,
Of such a vile tax they would not pay a shilling.
But the rulers determined them still to pursue,
So they set all the old bachelors up at vendue:
A crier was sent through the town to and fro,
To rattle his bell and a trumpet to blow,
And to call out to all he might meet in his way,
“Ho! forty old bachelors sold here to-day!”
And presently all the old maids in the town,
Each in her very best bonnet and gown,
From thirty to sixty, fair, plain, red and pale,
Of every description, all flocked to the sale.
The auctioneer then in his labor began,
And called out aloud, as he held up a man,
“How much for a bachelor? Who wants to buy?”
In a twink, every maiden responsed, “I—I!”
In short, at a highly extravagant price,
The bachelors all were sold off in a trice:
And forty old maidens, some younger, some older,
Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder.
A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT.
BY ARABELLA WILSON.
O Sextant of the meetinouse which sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fiers,
And lites the gas, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
In which case it smells orful—wus than lampile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dies
To the grief of survivin’ pardners, and sweeps paths,
And for these servaces gits $100 per annum;
Wich them that thinks deer let ‘em try it;
Gittin up before starlite in all wethers, and
Kindlin’ fiers when the wether is as cold
As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlins
(I wouldn’t be hierd to do it for no sum);
But o Sextant there are one kermodity
Wuth more than gold which don’t cost nuthin;
Wuth more than anything except the Sole of man!
I mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are!
O it is plenty out o’ dores, so plenty it doant no
What on airth to do with itself, but flize about
Scatterin leaves and bloin off men’s hats;
In short its jest as free as Are out dores;
But O Sextant! in our church its scarce as piety,
Scarce as bankbills when ajunts beg for mishuns,
Which sum say is purty often, taint nuthin to me,
What I give aint nuthing to nobody; but O Sextant!
You shet 500 men women and children
Speshily the latter, up in a tite place,
Sum has bad breths, none of em aint too sweet,
Sum is fevery, sum is scroflus, sum has bad teeth
And sum haint none, and sum aint over clean;
But evry one of em brethes in and out and in
Say 50 times a minnet, or 1 million and a half breths an hour;
Now how long will a church full of are last at that rate?
I ask you; say fifteen minnets, and then what’s to be did?
Why then they must breth it all over agin,
And then agin and so on, till each has took it down
At least ten times and let it up agin, and what’s more,
The same individible doant have the privilege
Of breathin his own are and no one else,
Each one must take wotever comes to him,
O Sextant! doant you know our lungs is belluses
To blo the fier of life and keep it from
Going out: und how can bellusses blo without wind?
And aint wind are? I put it to your konshens,
Are is the same to us as milk to babies,
Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox,
Or roots and airbs unto an Injun doctor,
Or little pills unto an omepath,
Or Boze to girls. Are is for us to brethe.
What signifize who preaches ef I cant brethe?
What’s Pol? What’s Pollus to sinners who are ded?
Ded for want of breth! Why Sextant when we dye
Its only coz we cant brethe no more—that’s all.
And now O Sextant? let me beg of you
To let a little are into our cherch
(Pewer are is sertin proper for the pews);
And dew it week days and on Sundays tew—
It aint much trobble—only make a hoal,
And then the are will come in of itself
(It love to come in where it can git warm).
And O how it will rouze the people up
And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps
And yorns and fijits as effectool
As wind on the dry boans the Profit tels of.
—_Christian Weekly._
CHAPTER IX.
GOOD-NATURED SATIRE.
Women show their sense of humor in ridiculing the foibles of their own sex, as Miss Carlotta Perry seeing the danger of “higher education,” and Helen Gray Cone laughing over the exaggerated ravings and moanings of a stage-struck girl, or the very one-sided sermon of a sentimental goose.
A MODERN MINERVA.
BY CARLOTTA PERRY.
‘Twas the height of the gay season, and I cannot tell the reason,
But at a dinner party given by Mrs. Major Thwing
It became my pleasant duty to take out a famous beauty—
The prettiest woman present. I was happy as a king.
Her dress beyond a question was an artist’s best creation;
A miracle of loveliness was she from crown to toe.
Her smile was sweet as could be, her voice just as it should be—
Not high, and sharp, and wiry, but musical and low.