The Universal Reciter Part 42

But the minute they turned 'round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin'.

Says I, "What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you off here for?"

"I am a meditatin', Samantha."

The wimmen happened to be a lookin' the other way for a minute, and he looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest motions towards 'em; but the minute they looked at him he would pretend to smile that deathly smile.

Says I, "Come, Josiah Allen, we're goin' to have dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain."

"Oh, wal," says he, "a little rain, more or less, hain't a goin' to hinder a man from meditatin'."

I was wore out, and says I: "Do you stop meditatin' this minute, Josiah Allen."

Says he: "I won't stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain't a goin' to break it up."

Says I: "Josiah Allen, come to dinner."

"Oh, I hain't hungry," says he. "The table will probably be full. I had jest as leves wait."

"Table full!" says I. "You know jest as well as I do that we are eatin' on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute."

"Yes, do come," says Miss Bobbet.

"Oh," says he, with that ghastly smile, a pretendin' to joke; "I have got plenty to eat here, I can eat muskeeters."

The air was black with 'em; I couldn't deny it.

"The muskeeters will eat you, more likely," says I. "Look at your face and hands."

"Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don't begrech 'em. I hain't small enough, I hope, to begrech 'em one meal."

Miss Bobbet and the rest turned to go back, and the minute we were alone he said:

"Can't you bring 40 or 50 more wimmen up here? You couldn't come here a minute without a lot of other wimmen tied to your heels!"

I began to see daylight, and then Josiah told me.

It seems he had set down on that bottle of rhaspberry jell. That blue stripe on the side wasn't hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn't fastened my thread properly; so when he got to pullin' at 'em to try to wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein' sewed on a machine, that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he had walked off sideways towards the woods for. Josiah Allen's wife hain't one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned 'em up as well as I could, and I didn't say a word to hurt his feelin's, only I jest said this to him, as I was a fixin' 'em: "Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?" Says I: "You was determined to come."

"Throw that in my face again, will you? What if I wuz? There goes a pin into my leg. I should think I had suffered enough without your stabbin' of me with pins."

"Wal, then, stand still, and not be a caperin' round so. How do you suppose I can do anything with you a tousin' round so?"

"Wal, don't be so agrevatin', then."

I fixed 'em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and then, there they was all covered with jell, too. What to do I didn't know.

But finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up corner-ways, as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind, and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he wouldn't, and I told him if he wouldn't that he must make his own excuses to the company about wearin' the shawl. So he told 'em that he always loved to wear summer shawls; he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink all the time he was a sayin' it.

They all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin' as if he had stole a sheep, and he never took a minute's comfort, nor I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the sh.o.r.e, and so was I. And jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain begun to pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time. My lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bunnet. And I says to Josiah:

"This bunnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy some new ones."

"Wal! wal! who said you wouldn't?" he snapped out.

But it wore on him. Oh, how the rain poured down. Josiah havin'

nothin' but his handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a ap.r.o.n to put on a gettin' dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on to his head. But says he, firmly:

"I hain't proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin' out with a pink ap.r.o.n on for a hat."

"Wal, then," says I, "get as wet as sop if you had ruther."

I didn't say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down, the wind howled at us, the old horse went slow, the rheumatiz laid holt of both of us, and the thought of the new bunnet and dress was a wearin' on Josiah, I knew.

After I had beset him about the ap.r.o.n, we didn't say hardly a word for as much as 13 miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward with the rain a drippin' offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his white pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:

"Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?"

He gave the old mare a awful cut, and says he: "I'd like to know what you want to be so agrevatin' for?"

I didn't multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud puddle, I says to him:

"Mebby you'll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen?"

And I'll bet he will. I hain't afraid to bet a ten-cent bill that that man won't never open his mouth to me again about a PLEASURE EXERTION.

SHAMUs...o...b..IEN, THE BOLD BOY OF GLINGALL--A TALE OF '98

BY SAMUEL LOVER.

Jist afther the war, in the year '98, As soon as the boys wor all scattered and bate, 'Twas the custom, whenever a pisant was got, To hang him by thrial--barrin' sich as was shot.

There was trial by jury goin' on by daylight, There was martial-law hangin' the lavins by night.

It's them was hard times for an honest gossoon: If he missed in the judges--he'd meet a dragoon; An' whether the sodgers or judges gev sentence, The divil a much time they allowed for repentance, An' it's many's the fine boy was then on his keepin'

Wid small share iv restin', or atin', or sleepin', An' because they loved Erin, an' scorned to sell it, A prey for the bloodhound, a mark for the bullet-- Unsheltered by night, and unrested by day, With the heath for their barrack, revenge for their pay; An' the bravest an' hardiest boy iv them all Was SHAMUs...o...b..IEN, from the town iv Glingall.

His limbs were well set, an' his body was light, An' the keen-fanged hound had not teeth half so white; But his face was as pale as the face of the dead, And his cheek never warmed with the blush of the red; An' for all that he wasn't an ugly young bye, For the divil himself couldn't blaze with his eye, So droll an' so wicked, so dark and so bright, Like a fire-flash that crosses the depth of the night!

An' he was the best mower that ever has been, An' the illigantest hurler that ever was seen, An' his dancin' was sich that the men used to stare, An' the women turn crazy, he done it so quare; An' by gorra, the whole world gev it into him there.

An' it's he was the boy that was hard to be caught, An' it's often he run, an' it's often he fought, An' it's many the one can remember right well The quare things he done: an' it's often I heerd tell How he lathered the yeomen, himself agin four, An' stretched the two strongest on old Galtimore.

But the fox must sleep sometimes, the wild deer must rest, An' treachery prey on the blood iv the best; Afther many a brave action of power and pride, An' many a hard night on the mountain's bleak side, An' a thousand great dangers and toils over past, In the darkness of night he was taken at last.

Now, SHAMUS, look back on the beautiful moon, For the door of the prison must close on you soon, An' take your last look at her dim lovely light, That falls on the mountain and valley this night; One look at the village, one look at the flood, An' one at the sheltering, far distant wood; Farewell to the forest, farewell to the hill, An' farewell to the friends that will think of you still; Farewell to the pathern, the hurlin' an' wake, And farewell to the girl that would die for your sake, An' twelve sodgers brought him to Maryborough jail, An' the turnkey resaved him, refusin' all bail; The fleet limbs wor chained, an' the sthrong hands wor bound, An' he laid down his length on the cowld prison-ground, An' the dreams of his childhood kem over him there As gentle an' soft as the sweet summer air, An' happy remembrances crowding on ever, As fast as the foam-flakes dhrift down on the river, Bringing fresh to his heart merry days long gone by, Till the tears gathered heavy and thick in his eye.

But the tears didn't fall, for the pride of his heart Would not suffer one drop down his pale cheek to start; An' he sprang to his feet in the dark prison cave, An' he swore with the fierceness that misery gave, By the hopes of the good, an' the cause of the brave, That when he was mouldering in the cold grave His enemies never should have it to boast His scorn of their vengeance one moment was lost; His bosom might bleed, but his cheek should be dhry, For undaunted he lived, and undaunted he'd die.

Well, as soon as a few weeks was over and gone, The terrible day iv the thrial kem on, There was sich a crowd there was scarce room to stand, An' sodgers on guard, an' dhragoons sword-in-hand; An' the court-house so full that the people were bothered, An' attorneys an' criers on the point iv bein' smothered; An' counsellors almost gev over for dead, An' the jury sittin' up in their box overhead; An' the judge settled out so detarmined an' big, With his gown on his back, and an illegant new wig; An' silence was called, an' the minute it was said The court was as still as the heart of the dead, An' they heard but the openin' of one prison lock, An' SHAMUs...o...b..IEN kem into the dock.

For one minute he turned his eye round on the throng, An' he looked at the bars, so firm and so strong, An' he saw that he had not a hope nor a friend, A chance to escape, nor a word to defend; An' he folded his arms as he stood there alone, As calm and as cold as a statue of stone; And they read a big writin', a yard long at laste, An' JIM didn't understand it, nor mind it a taste, An' the judge took a big pinch iv snuff, and he says, "Are you guilty or not, JIM O'BRIEN, av you plase?"

An' all held their breath in the silence of dhread, An' SHAMUs...o...b..IEN made answer and said: "My lord, if you ask me, if in my life-time I thought any treason, or did any crime That should call to my cheek, as I stand alone here, The hot blush of shame, or the coldness of fear, Though I stood by the grave to receive my death-blow Before G.o.d and the world I would answer you, no!