“‘Who washes the dishes?’ says I.
“‘We employ the same agent that prepares the food an’ sets the table — ‘lectricity;’ says Missus Downditch. ‘But it’s time fer the theatre; would you like to attend it, Mrs. Bilkins, ‘afore you retire for the night?’
“‘You bet!’ says I, ‘I want to take in the whole aggregation’ afore I leaves. It’ll make the folks in Aberdeen sick when I tells ‘em about it.’
“Mr. Downditch touched a button on his vest an’ shrugged his shoulders by ‘lectricity.
“‘It ain’t any more’n any on ‘em can have,’ says he, ‘if they puts down artesian wells and utilizes the water properly. I bid you good evenin’, Mrs. Bilkins.’
“As the chairs of us three ladies moved away I saw Mr. Downditch press a vest button an’ open his mouth, an’ the next instant a lighted cigar was in his mouth an’ he was puffin’ away contentedly. I tell you I wished I could bring that vest home to you boarders! It would surprise you. But I s’pose Downditch couldn’t spare it. Well, the room we was wheeled to was furnished jest like a Oproar House. ‘It’s a model o’ the Madison Square theatre,’ says Mrs. Downditch. A big phonograph played the overture, an’ then the characters o’ the play come out an’ acted. They was all dummies with phonographs inside of’em, an’ the power was furnished by the artesian well. It was a good show though, an’ after it was over I bid the ladies good-night.
“‘When you git to your room,’ says Missus Downditch, ‘tech that’ air button on the side o’ your chair.’
“Then the chair started an’ wheeled me through the halls till it finally entered a good sized room. The only piece o’ furniture in it were the bed, but that was a corker. The head of it was as high as the ceilin’ an’ was sunk inter the wall, an’jest above the piliers was a row o’ buttons. It had a lace cover an’ looked so soft I wished I didn’t have to undress ‘afore I got inter it. But I remembered what Missus Downditch had said, so I pressed the button on the chair. Instantly a number o’ steel arms shot out an’ undressed me in a jiffy, an’ flung a embroidered night gownd over my head an’ there I was! Before I had recovered from my surprise the blame thing lifted me up an’ shot me inter bed, the bed clothes turnin’ down jest before I landed. The bed was nice an’ warm, bein’ heated by ‘lectricity. As my head touched the pillow it set off a music box that played ‘Hard Times come agin no more,’ until I was fast asleep. I woke up in the mornin’ feelin’ as happy as an editor who’s got a new subscriber, an’ lay thinkin’ what a glorious thing artesian wells is. As I did so my eye caught the row o’ buttons on the head-board. I teched one an’ a large box-like lookin’ thing swooped out in front o’ me, with a rubber tube hangin’ to it which plumped inter my mouth. The box had several buttons labelled coffee, tea, chocolate, rum-punch, water, an’ so forth. In spite o’ me I winked at the one as said rum-punch, an’ it was so delicately adjusted that it set the thing off, an’ I tell you it was a drink worthy o’ Taubman. I teched the next button an’ my face was washed in a jiffy. The next one brushed my hair an’ done it up; the next one shot me outer bed plump inter the chair. By techin’ the same button I did last night I was dressed and then the chair moved away toward the breakfast room.
“Mr. Downditch greeted me with a smile an’ asked me if I had rested well. I told him I had, an’ then I sot to work on the best breakfast I ever tackled. Mr. Downditch then excused himself as he had some business to ‘tend to, and he bid me good by with a smile an’ left.
“‘What a nice man your husband is,’ says I to Misus Downditch. ‘He’s alius smilin’.’
“‘Oh, yes,’ says she, ‘he smiles by’ lectricity.’
“Well, after that I kept my thoughts to myself, fer fear the ‘lectricity should get hold o’ them. I come away soon after breakfast an’ after a long journey here I am! Now, gentlemen, don’t look at me so queer. I ain’t crazy by a long shot. I’ve jest told you the plain facts. An’ now let me ask you, do you think, after all that luxury, that I’ll be content to settle down an’ wash dishes agin? Never! This ‘ere establishment is a goin’ to have a artesian well with electricity attachments, if it takes every dollar I’ve got in Hagerty’s to sink it!”
She Tells the Boarders How to Make a fortune
10 January 1891
“The fools,” said our landlady, as she mashed the potatoes vigorously, “ain’t all dead yet.”
“No,” said Tom, with a half sigh. “I realize that every day that I linger in Aberdeen when I should be in some better country.”
“Fiddlesticks!” ejaculated Mrs. Bilkins fiercely, “that’s just what I was a talkin’ about. To think of the idjuts leavin’ Aberdeen just at the time when her troubles is about over, nearly makes me sick.”
“Why should one stay?” demanded Tom; “with the same amount of energy it requires to earn a crust here, I could get a full loaf anywhere else. Why should I stay? Do I owe anything to Aberdeen?”
“Prap’s not,” replied our landlady, putting the dinner upon the table, and sharpening the carver upon her instep, “but you owe suthin’ to yourself, certain. There’s ben hard times here, that goes without tellin’ but the hard times is about over. We are as sure o’ gittin’ a crop next year as we are o’ livin’ til the time comes. It might a ben better to hav’ gone away two year ago, when the troubles begun, but to go now, when they’s about over, is rank foolishness. Before you can hardly git settled in some other locality, you’ll be startled by the news o’ the crops in South Dakoty, by reports o’ the thousands flockin’ in to the most fertile country on the yearth, of the artesian wells goin’ down until the ground is like a peppar box, of the rapid rise in real estate until in no other country will land bring so high a price as in the basin o’ the Jim river. Tom, jest lem’me tell you a secret.
“All the money that I earnt in the last ten year in Aberdeen I’ve been a puttin’ inter land. The other day I got a quarter section near Bath fer a hundred dollars — — wuth five thousand any day, an’ yisterday I took a feller’s mortgage an’ his land an’ giv’ him enough to get out o’ the country with, — an’ all it’ll cost me is the interest on the mortgage! I’m a holdin’ that quarter fer eight thousan’ dollers, an’ I’ll git that fer it inside o’ two year. I wasn’t very rich when I hed a few hundred dollers laid by from keepin’ boardin’ house, but today, when I think that I’ve turned nearly every hundred inter a quarter section o’ land, I tell ye it makes me feel like a second Jay Gould. ‘Afore a year is out there’ll be a big cry fer land in the Jim River valley, an’ by holdin’ to it a little while longer my fortune is made. Gentlemen, there’s goin’ ter be the biggest excitement in these parts the west has ever knowd. If ye leave here, you’ll want to git back as quick as the Lord’ll let you, an’ if you stay, — why you’ve got the biggest chance to make money you ever had or ever will have. I ain’t much ofa prophet, usually, but I’ll stake my reputation that before one year is past Aberdeen will be so busy and boomin’ she won’t know herself, an’ the dull times will be forgot an’ never brought to mind. Write that in yer hat an’ don’ fergit I said it. More steak, Kernel?”
Choice Selections from Her Rambling Remarks
17 January 1891
“There’s a horrible tale of suffering come to light,” said the doctor at the breakfast table the other morning.
“What is it?” inquired our landlady, always interested in relieving the distressed.
“Why, the police found a poor collector lying on a marble doorstep in Aberdeen almost frozen and starved to death, and a prominent citizen, who is building an addition to his house to accommodate his bills, took him in and cared for him and took up a collection to send him to Pierre.”
“Yes, I heerd tell o’ that,” said our landlady, “an’ I’ve writ a little pome on the teching incident. It reads like this:
THE COLLECTOR
“He enters the room with a pensive air an’ takes off his hat an’ slicks his hair, an’ places his little bill
right where t’will meet his wictim’s stony stare. An’ the wictim he says, ‘I guess that’s square, an’ quite kerrect, but I declare, I hain’t a penny o’ cash to spare. Jest call agin — ta, ta! — ah there!’ An’ the collector goes out in the winter air, an’ under his breath he swears a swear. An’ says, if the lord will let him git there he’ll hie to a country where a crop failure’s rare.
“An’ fer my part,” concluded our landlady, “I’m willin’ to see him go.”
“Sioux Falls is gittin’ everything,” said our landlady the other day. “She’s got the State Fair now, an’ you bet she’ll keep it.”
“Aberdeen usually gets something,” remarked the Colonel in an aggravated voice.
“So she does,” agreed our landlady. “Sence we got a Commercial Club Aberdeen usually gits left! It ain’t so comfortin’ a reflection as a mirror in a barroom, but it’s the condensed essence o’ truth jest the same!”
“If I was Billy Kidd,” said our landlady, as she mixed the pancakes, “I’d change my name.”
“To what?” queried Tom.
“Well, at fust I thought he could change it to Cap. Kidd because he roved, ye know, an’ Billy he might do likewise. But as that would suggest freebootin’ to the people, perhaps that wouldn’t be healthy for him. Then there’s Billy Goat — — that’s a commoner name nor Billy Kidd, an’ would be a sort o’ scapegoat from the late onpleasantness.”
“You’re rather hard on the poor fellow,” said Tom.
“No,” she replied, “I’m very fond o’ him, but he’s too old to be a Kidd any longer an’ I think Billy Goat’ll jest suit him.”
She Reads a Chapter in “Looking Backward” to the Astonished and Interested Boarders
31 January 1891
“This ‘ere,” said our landlady, as she sat by the fire mending the colonel’s socks, “is a world o’ change. Nuthin’ stands still except the dude when he’s a gittin’ his pictur’ took or his moustash waxed, an’ one age succeeds another with lightnin’ like rapidity.”
“It is only,” said Tom, solemnly, “when I feel in my pockets, that I realize there is no change.”
“Everything progresses an’ evolutes an’ merges an’ bubbles an’ emanates an’ convalutes inter suthin’ else. Everything changes — ‘“
“Except the weather,” put in the doctor.
“I never realized,” continued our landlady, ignoring her interruptions, “how liable we was ter change till this mornin’. Ye see, when I was younger I used to be kinder somnambulary — ”
“What?”
“Walked in my sleep, ye know. Well, I thought I’d got all over that until this mornin’. Ye see, I went ter bed kinder worried an’ onsettled last night, an’ I must a had ‘em agin — the somnambularys, I mean, — ’ cause when I woke up this mornin’ I found I’d writ a long letter to my brother Jake in my sleep.”
“Very curious,” remarked the colonel.
“Yes, but the most curiousest thing of all was that I’d writ as if it was 1895, which ain’t fer five year to come.”
“Ah, I see — looking backwards.”
“I should think it were lookin’ a good ways ahead. But that letter had a good many strange things in it an’ I’ve kinder wondered if the prophet’s robe didn’t kind’er fall on me in my sleep an’ lead me to write that ‘air epistal. Fer it’s nearer to a prophecy than anything else.”
“Read us the letter,” suggested the colonel, “it may cheer us up a bit to know how things will be five years from now.”
“Yes — do!” entreated the doctor.
“Werry good,” said Mrs. Bilkins, with a pleased air as she drew a carefully folded document from her bosom. “I’ll fire it off, but don’t you interrupt me, fer I ain’t responsible fer all I say in my sleep. The letter begins this way: — ” DEAR JERRY: — Havin’ jest arrived here in the great metropilis o’ Aberdeen, which is in the Garden of Eden, — formerly state of South Dakoty, I wind up my automatick stenogripher to dictate to you a few lines ‘afore the gong rings. The air ship on which I arove were uncomfortably crowded, havin’ on board a lot o’ passengers from Weisbeer, that new continent lately diskivered by Jim Ringrose at the North Pole. The ship were in charge o’ Capt. Sam Vroom and were two hours late, as usual. Immejudy on my arrival I went to the Creamery Hotel, which Al. Ward has jest opened at ten dollars a day. I got a room on the sixteenth floor as were quite conwenient. Seein’ a stranger’s directory phonograph in the room I touched it off an’ listened to the followin’ while I smoothed my hair: Aberdeen, Garden o’ Eden, the center o’ the wonderful irrigated valley o’ the Jim. The most fertile an’ productive land in the world surrounds this busy metropolis an’ pours its treasures into the city’s marts, from whence they are airshipped to all parts of the world an’ also to Pierre. Aberdeen owes its wonderful growth to irrigation an’ the Buildin’ an’ Loan Association, an’ is the largest city but one on the western continent. Its principal exports is wheat, corn, pertaters, loose gold, diamond dust an’ bond coupons. Hank Williams also sometimes exports a groan. Climate, salubrious. Inhabitants sober an’ friendly, popilation unknown.’
“‘How’s that,’ says I.
“‘Begun countin’ it two year ago an’ ain’t finished yit,’ says the phonograph.” ‘Who’s Mayor,’ says I.
“‘Jim Davis, you fool,’ says the phonograph.
“‘Why d’ye say fool?’ says I.
“‘Because yer so ignorant o’ our great men. I s’pose ye don’t know Congressmen Ed. Mutz an’ Skip Salisbury; ner that Frank Beard is Senator; ner that Cranmer an’ Kennedy is fightin’ fer district attorneyship, while Taub. looks smilin’ly on; ner that the postmaster’s got so busy he’s had ter drop politics, ner nothin’ else. Go ‘long!’
“‘Ye’re a impident phone’,’ says I, ‘an’ I’ll report ye.’ But I went along. After dinner I went out on the big piazzer an’ sot down.
“‘Baum’s Hourly Newspaper!’ yells a feller rushin’ up with a book as thick as yer head.
“‘Why, Georgie Slosser,’ says I, ‘is this you?’
“‘You bet,’ says he, ‘I’m just coinin’ money. Got the control o’ the sales on this piazzer. Buy a copy? Best paper in Aberdeen.’
“‘Alius was,’ says I, ‘yes, I’ll take one.’
“Well, I sot an’ read all the news an’ noticed that Aberdeen had changed since the great depression of ‘91. Here was an advertisement o’ Narregang’s Bank of Eden, with a capital o’ ten millions an’ a surplus of twenty. I noticed that Waterman’s Aberdeen Band had jest giv’ a successful performance at the court o’ King Stanley, o’ Africa. Here was Scott’s Drug Store offerin’ to sell patent faith cure at ten cents a bottle an’ Scott’s Lymph cure for sour stomachs at a dollar a can. Also that he was goin’ to close out an’ move to Chicago. Here it told how Luke an’ Merten had given a picnic to seven hundred employees, includin’ all but the help in their woolen mills an’ shoe factories at Bath, which couldn’t be spared. Also a report o’ the row the police had tryin’ to keep the crowds away from Beard an’ Gage’s big department store on last market day. There was a pictur’ of McWilliam’s new white marble block on the second page, which showed up finely. Taken altogether, things seemed to be rushin’ in Aberdeen.
“Jest then my attention were arrested by a shout, and a chariot dashed by drawed by ten milk-white steeds.
“‘Who’s that?’ says I to a bystander.
“‘Him?’ says he, ‘why that’s President Crose o’ the Alliance, the biggest man in Eden, an’ the richest.’
“‘Thanks,’ says I, ‘I might a knowed it. But tell me, was that Ed. Lowe that I seed drivin’ the electric car that just passed?’
“‘Probably. It’s a belt line, an’ he allus likes to be in the ring. Good day, ma’am, if you want any other information just consult a phone’.’
“But I sot an’ watched the stream o’ people glide by an’ thought o’ the poor, misguided folks what left Aberdeen a
few years ago, just because a crop failed. If they could a seen ahead they couldn’t been driven away with Kuehnle’s Injun clubs. But p’raps it were best. The no ‘count people was got red of an’ only the solid ones left, such as is the rich folks o’ Aberdeen in 1895. But, dear Jake, I must draw this ‘ere letter to a close. I’ll write more about these wonderful things termorrer.
Yourn sisterly,
Saryann Bilkins
“But,” added our landlady, as she folded the sheet with a sigh, “‘afore I could write more, I waked up, an’ it were too late. Somehow it don’t seem like a dream to me, but more like a vision that may come to pass in proper time.”
She Discusses New Inventions with the Boarders
8 February 1891
“I read in the papers,” said our landlady, as she finished sewing a button on the doctor’s overcoat and bit off the thread, as a woman will, “that the great air ship is goin’ ter be a success, after all.”
“Yes,” said the colonel, by way of reply, “it looks as though they will be able to make it work after they’ve rectified a few mistakes.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Bilkins, “the thing wouldn’t be perfect the first time — — it ain’t in natur’. The cost of sewin’ a yard of cloth on the first machine Howe inwented were six dollars. But he made it work in the end, an’ I’ll bet a cookie to a rat trap that this ‘ere flyin’ machine’ll do the same.”
“If it does,” said Tom, “the railroads will be ruined.”
“An’ serve ‘em right,” exclaimed our landlady, taking her gum from the inside band of the colonel’s Sunday hat; “they’ve beat the people long enough an’ tyranized over ‘em with a rod o’ iron, an’ I, fer one, will be glad to see ‘em shut up shop. A air-ship can call for ye at your own residence, whenever ye hoist a signal flag. People will own their private ships, too, an’ go where they pleases an’ if anyone wants ter quit Dakoty then why they can step inter their airships an’ float around till they come to a place as is got a crop. There’s other things that private airships is good for. You can go on a picnic any time you like an’ take the whole family. The hired man can use it to go arter the cow with, an’ it’ll save him the labor o’ leadin’ her home by hitchin’ her to the ship an’ skimmin’ along the surface o’ the ground. At election time they can make the pollin’ places air ships, an’ when the ballot closes the ships can rise ter a moderate distance where the candidates can watch ‘em, an’ the votes be counted without any chance o’ futher contests. Stanley won’t be anywheres. If a feller wants to explore Africa he can do it with neatness and despatch in his air-ship. If he wants ter go ter the North Pole he can do so — pervided he don’t freeze. A trip to Europe will be as cheap as livin’ to home, fer all you need is a stock o’ pervisions. I tell you there ain’t no end to an air-ship’s usefulness, an’ I’m glad to see ‘em a success.”
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 810
