Ginger Snaps Part 11

Every wife from Maine to Florida knows that. I tell you they expect too much from women and their watches, and it's high "time" they knew it, and got used to having both run like fury one minute, and stand still the next.

Will people who attend lectures and concerts cease drumming with their fingers on the back of seats, or with canes or feet on the floor, till the services begin? One cannot help remarking, in such vicinity, how few persons are really well-bred. Dress certainly is no indication of it, judged by this rule. If a tattoo must be performed, why not go out in the lobby or vestibule, and have the war-dance out? This thing has come to be such an intolerable nuisance, that the paradoxical regulation, "No _gentlemen_ are allowed to smoke in the ladies'

cabin," may as well be imitated by--"No _gentleman_, in a concert or lecture-room, is allowed to drum on the back of a lady's chair before, or after, or during the entertainment."

"_MY DOCTOR._"

You have one, of course; and of course he never opens his mouth without dropping pearls. (I hope the printer will not print this last word _pills_.) _Your_ doctor believes in flannel next the skin, all the year round. Mrs. Jones' doctor, who "knows much more than your doctor," thinks that a person of discretion may occasionally, in the dog-days, lay flannel on the shelf and no coffin be imminent. _Your_ doctor says that young children's necks and shoulders should always be covered, even in warm weather. Mrs. Smith's doctor, who, she says, "stands at the head of his profession" says that is all nonsense, and that children should go through a toughening process, which will render changes of temperature harmless. _Your_ doctor advises you never to cross the street, or go down-stairs, unless accompanied by quinine. Mrs. Smith's doctor tells her if she wants poison she had better get ratsbane, and then she will know what she is swallowing.

Now each of you believe that "_my_ doctor" is infallible; that is a great comfort to you, and very satisfactory to them, especially pocket-wise. "My doctor" hasn't dealt with women so long, and failed to see their blind side. He knows what "brutes" husbands are, and how like flints they will oppose the sea-sh.o.r.e, merely because their wives want to go there. What is the use of "my doctor," unless he comforts you under this affliction, and declares that to be the only place where you can regain your lost appet.i.te? No wonder you like him; no wonder life is a blank to you when his carriage is not before your door. There is healing in the very sight of his beard and moustache; and how much handsomer they are than the "brute's." Ah! had you met "my doctor" years ago, you say; not stopping to reflect, that in that case he would have been attending women who paid fees, and left you, his wife, to some medical friend for pills and consolation. It is better as it is, you see. Well, it _is_ comforting "that he understands you better than anybody else, and seems to know just what you want." And then he shows such an absorbing interest in your symptoms, that you almost feel cured by his sympathy alone, before you swallow a single powder; and, since my ears are out of your reach, I will remark, that well you may, when, half the time, nothing in the world ails you but the want of some absorbing occupation or interest.

Colored water and bread pills are safe prescriptions for that complaint; meantime it wont hurt the "brute" to pay for the wear and tear of the doctor's carriage in coming and going. If "my doctor"

laughs in his sleeve, occasionally, when he thinks what funny creatures women are, you are none the wiser or the angrier for it. He don't dislike, after all, their little cuddlesome, trusting, confiding ways; possibly not so much as his wife does, whose acquaintance you had better not make. As I before remarked, his medical friends can take care of her; it is no business of yours, her disgusting ails and aches.

But what a thing it is when "my doctor" was also "_ma's doctor_"! If he don't know all the ins and outs, then "may the divel fly away wid--him!"

The moral of all this is, that "my doctor's" life is not without its consolations, and the most astonis.h.i.+ng part of it is, that husbands are so blear-eyed to this subject. It wont harm them to hint that in sympathy and courteousness they had better not present too sharp a contrast to "my doctor."

_A WOMAN AT A LECTURE._

If you want to see a woman act more like a goose than she need, watch her when she enters a place of public performance, where the seats are at the mercy of first-comers. Notice her profound survey of the situation, as she stands, preceding her John, who is supposed to know nothing about such things, poised on one foot, while she measures distances, drafts, and acoustics with the eye of a connoisseur. Now she decides! At last she swoops down on _the_ seat in all the house which she prefers. John follows, with the shawl and family umbrella.

He faintly suggests the possible obstruction of a pillar between the seat she has chosen and the speaker, but he follows. Directly she is seated, and the shawl and umbrella located without inconvenience to themselves, or infringement of the comfort of their neighbors, when she coolly remarks, "John, 'tis true, that pillar _is_ right between me and the speaker." John's ears redden; but he is in public, so he don't say, "Didn't I tell you so?" but rises with shawl and umbrella, the former catching by the fringe on every seat as he pa.s.ses, and the latter slipping to the floor while he tries to disentangle the shawl.

Meantime my lady is on her triumphal march for that "best seat."

Now she alights! It wont do. There's a tall man in front of her; she is always fated to sit behind a tall man. She tries another; there's the phantom pillar again. Yet another; that's the end seat, and every horrid man that comes along will be treading on her dress and knocking her bonnet over her eyes all the evening. Meantime John gets redder in the face; he can't even ease himself with a customary growl. Ah! now she has got the seat at last, and stands beckoning to John to follow.

Her friend Miss Frizzle is beside her, and she is happy. There is only one seat, to be sure, but "John can find one somewhere else, or perhaps he would like to take a walk outside and call for her when lecture is over--only he must be sure to be back in time." So down she sits, while John wanders off for a possible stray seat. Now she draws off the glove that hides her one diamond ring, and settles the bracelet on the wrist of that hand. Then she tumbles up her front hair, lest it might have got smooth coming. Then she picks out the bows of the natty little ribbon under her dimpled chin. It was that chin that victimized John! Then she draws from her pocket her scented pocket-handkerchief and gives it a little incense-waft into the air, magnetizing a young man in front, who turns round to find the owner of that delicious gale from Araby the blest. Then she takes out her opera-gla.s.s and peeps about, not so much that her sight is defective, but that her diamond-ring and gold bracelets gleam prettily in the operation. John, meantime, has found a seat in a draft, and is sitting with bent brows and a turned-up coat-collar--which last is sufficient to make a ruffian of a man without any woman's help--in the back part of the house. Confidences, millinery, mantua-makery, and matinee-y are meanwhile exchanged between his wife and dear Miss Frizzle, who is an acknowledged man-killer, and keeps a private grave-yard of her own for deceased lovers.

Now the lecturer rises. "Pooh! he's an ugly man. Well, they need't look at him; and perhaps he'll be funny--who knows?" He isn't funny.

He is talking about Plato and Epictetus; who the goodness are they?

But there's an end to all things, and so there is to the lecture. Now, John is wanted, and, to tell the truth, for the first time thought of!

Ah, there he is! but how sulky, and how ugly he looks with his coat-collar turned up! He might have some regard to appearances when he goes with _her_. People will think she has such a horrid taste in husbands.

"Why don't you talk?" says the little woman, when they get outside.

"It was too bad you couldn't sit by me, John; I missed you so! but, you see, there was but one seat."--"Not just in that locality, I suppose," muttered John. But the street-lamp just then shone on that cunning little dimpled chin, and its owner said, coaxingly, "O-o-h, now, John! don't be cross with its little wife!" and it's my private opinion he wasn't. Would you have been, sir?

_CAN'T BE SUITED._

Look at those long-faced Christians coming home from church, says Find-Fault; "it is enough to make one sick--gloomy, morose-looking beings. I wonder do they think there is any religion in that? The fact is, religion is played out." Now, Find-Fault _wants_ religion to be played out, so he looks at it always through that pair of spectacles.

If he sees a mistake in that direction, he never thinks, as in other cases, of making reasonable allowance for it. He can understand how really good men may have narrow views of business, or of politics, or of any such secular matters; but if they blunder through narrowness of view on the _religious_ question, he immediately sets them down as hypocrites and pretenders. Now I believe that there is many a "Worthy the Lamb" being sung heartily in heaven to-day, by those mistaken Christians who thought it right to groan and sigh all the time they were on earth. It is a pity, to be sure, especially in view of such people as Find-Fault, that they had not occasionally given us a cheerful chirp before they went, but "religion" still lives all the same.

Then Find-Fault is not very consistent, even on his own showing.

"_There's_ a pretty minister for you," he says, as he comes out of the Rev. Mr. Spring-morning's church; "there's a pretty minister for you--making his congregation smile during the services! A clergyman shouldn't let himself down that way. It is undignified." You tell him that the clergyman in question believes in a cheerful religion, and wishes to do away with the long-faced Christianity which brings religion into disrepute with just such people as himself. Finding himself in a corner, he only gives you his stereotyped answer, that "religion is played out, anyhow."

Find-Fault isn't a bad man: it only pleases him to be thought so. The other day, in speaking of a man who made great efforts to overcome intemperate habits, and failed, he said, "Poor fellow! somebody ought to take hold and help him to help himself." But, mind you, he never thinks of applying the same rule to a church-member for whom Satan, in a moment of weakness, is too strong; no matter how sincere his repentance, he only says, "_there's your religion again!_"

Not long since, when a man of very bad character was requested by church-members and clergymen to give up his disreputable way of living, Find-Fault said, "Now just see those Christians taking the bread out of that poor devil's mouth, and expecting him to sustain nature on praying and singing."

Afterward, when a purse was made up for just such a person, that he might be able to defy want, and the better to struggle for honesty, Find-Fault remarked, sneeringly, "Reform, indeed! what fellow like that _wouldn't_ reform, even fifty times a year, if the bait of a well-filled purse were put under his nose."

Now what is the use of talking to a man who applies common sense to every subject but that of religion?--who has no doubt that genuine money is in circulation although he has a counterfeit dollar in his pocket, but still persists in denying the existence of true religion because he sometimes meets a hypocrite. Oh, pshaw! None so blind as they who _wont_ see. None so hard to convince as they who are predetermined _not_ to be convinced, come what will.

Would it not be well for the s.e.xtons of our churches, to take the _creak_ out of their Sunday shoes, by wearing them once or twice on a week-day? Some of the most important points in a clergyman's discourse are often lost through the music of the s.e.xton's shoes. A pair of soft slippers, or easy boots, might be raised on subscription and presented to this functionary. Also, if he would not go out in the vestibule to smoke, during service, it would be a relief to many lovers of pure air. Both these suggestions apply equally well to some of the paris.h.i.+oners.

_AUTOGRAPH-HUNTERS._

If there is an intolerable nuisance, it is your persistent autograph-hunter--your man or woman who keeps a stereotyped formula of compliment on hand, "their collection not complete without your distinguished name," &c.; sending it all over the country, to eminent and _notorious_ individuals alike, to swell their precious "collection," as they call it. Now, in the outset, I wish to except requests for this purpose from personal friends, to whom it is always a pleasure to say Yes; but to those who torment you from mercenary motives or from mere curiosity, as they would bottle up an odd insect for their shelf, to amuse an idle hour, I confess to little sympathy.

Nay more, I am unprincipled enough, having long been a martyr, always to pocket the stamp they send, and throw the request in the waste-paper basket. I can conceive that invalids, or very young school-boys or girls, might amuse themselves in this manner; but how a sane adult, in the rush and hurry and turmoil of the maelstrom-life of 1868, can find a moment for such nonsense, or can expect _you_ to find a moment for it, is beyond my comprehension. Now, a lock of hair has some significance--at least, I hope that man thought so, who received from me a curl clipped from a poodle-dog, which at this moment may be labelled with my name. It will be all the same a hundred years hence, as I remarked when I forwarded it to him.

Your autograph-hunter has a funny way of acknowledging "the intrusion," and then going on to pile up the agony by asking, beside your own autograph, that you would "favor him with any from distinguished individuals that you may happen to have in your possession, for which he--or she--will be much obliged," etc.; and I have no doubt they will when I send them!

Now, I know this sounds unamiable; but there is a point when endurance comes to an end, and that is where persistent impertinence begins. Why don't they go to my friend Jack Smith? _He_ is eminent. He will write autographs all day and all night for anybody who wants one, because he considers it a compliment, which I don't, as autographs go; and because Henry Clay never refused--and that would be the very reason I should; and because Jack has the chronic weakness of always saying Yes, when he should say No, and _vice versa_. I am afraid I shall have to buy my postage-stamps after this onslaught, instead of having them found by autograph-hunters, as I have had for some time; but I shall get off cheaply at that, and save temper, time, and ink beside. The mischief of expressing one's opinion on this and kindred subjects, in print, is this: that the rhinoceros-fellows you mean to hit always dodge it, in favor of some kind-hearted, sensitive soul whose feelings you wouldn't wound for a bushel of autographs, though you should have to sit up all night to write them. I didn't mean _you_ at all, my dear sir or madam, because I know _you_ really like me, good-for-nothing as I am; and, after all, it may be that I am only "riled" by that "furniture-polish man," who looked so much like a clergyman that Betty mistook him for one, and thought I really must go down if I were busy, and whose nose I should like to have anointed with his miserable "polish," for wasting one good hour of the morning, trying it on my furniture.

_THE ETIQUETTE OF HOTEL PIAZZAS._

I am not aware that any one has treated this momentous subject. This being the case, permit me to inquire what are the rights of persons occupying rooms on the ground-floors of hotels, or boarding-houses, with windows opening upon the piazzas of the same. Or, in other words, _have_ they any exclusive right to that part of the piazza directly fronting their own windows? May they remonstrate if, while sitting at their window reading or writing, a person draws a chair in front and commences singing "Pop goes the Weasel," with variations; or whistles "Yankee Doodle," for an hour; or _reads aloud_ to a companion some blood-and-thunder novel? Or worse, when a gentleman(?) draws a chair in front of the window, and with his heels on the pillar of the piazza, and his head close to your window, lights an odious pipe, and commences filling your room with its vileness, compelling your immediate retreat, because he prefers the spot opposite to your window to the smoker's end of the piazza: in such case, is it in order for one to request his speedy exit? Is it piazza-etiquette for strangers, who have ascertained "that that is _her_ room" to lean close to the window-sill, the better to observe the habits of the animal inside?

May one, in such circ.u.mstances, in self-defence, close a blind, or drop a curtain, without forfeiting the good opinion of inquiring minds?

Would it be proper, in those who engage piazza-rooms, first to inquire of the landlord if he himself is a smoker, the better to calculate one's chances of sympathy in case of tobacco intruders?

There are alleviations, I am not unaware, to the occupants of piazza-rooms. For instance, when one's blinds are closed upon the unwary, it is interesting to hear a narrative of oneself from the stranger within the gates. Many facts in your history, of which you were before entirely ignorant, are thus brought to your notice, without subscribing to any paper. It is also edifying to learn that your friend, "Mrs. Jones, gives her husband fits;" that "Mr. Smith is a horrible brute, in his own room, to his wife, although always ready to pick up gracefully the handkerchief of any other lady, and return it with the most complimentary little speeches." It is also amusing to know that Mrs. Jenkins' hair is or is not her own; likewise, her complexion. Edifying, also, are statistics about family expenses, and the manner of expending holiday money so as to get the most fun out of it. But when one young man reposes love-confidences in another, beneath your lattice, _then_, my sisters, hold your breath and your sides!--for then shall you know a depth of stupidity in measuring feminine tactics which should richly ent.i.tle its owner to a free pa.s.s into any Lunatic Asylum in the land.

As this is a many-sided subject, let me inquire, were you, the occupant of a piazza-room, ever awakened at the gray dawn, from lovely slumber, by the dragging of chairs and stools across it, and the scratching of mops and brooms? Or were you ever forced to lie in a perspiration of agony, at twelve o'clock at night, while some enterprising individual, in the parlor opposite your door, played with one hand, the inspiring tune of "Lanigan's Ball," or rattled discordantly through "I love but Thee"?

Lest you should forget it, let me repeat the question with which I started. Have occupants of piazza-rooms any exclusive rights in the piece of piazza directly fronting their own windows? If Congress has not adjourned, perhaps it will stop pulling noses to answer.