The Wit of Women

by Kate Sanborn

  “Thank God, I am not as my fellow-men!”

  Her pastor loved as a pastor might—

  His house that was built on a golden rock;

  He pointed it out as a shining light

  To the lesser lambs of his fleecy flock.

  The stilts were a help to the church, no doubt,

  They kindled its self-expiring embers,

  So that before the season was out

  It gained a dozen excellent members.

  Mrs. Mackerel gave a superb soiree,

  Standing on stilts to receive her guests;

  The gas-lights mimicked the glowing day

  So well, that the birds, in their flowery nests,

  Almost burst their beautiful breasts,

  Trilling away their musical stories

  In Mrs. Mackerel’s conservatories.

  She received on stilts; a distant bow

  Was all the loftiest could attain—

  Though some of her friends she did allow

  To kiss the hem of her jewelled train.

  One gentleman screamed himself quite hoarse

  Requesting her to dance; which, of course,

  Couldn’t be done on stilts, as she

  Halloed down to him rather scornfully.

  The fact is, when Mackerel kept a shop,

  His wife was very fond of a hop,

  And now, as the music swelled and rose,

  She felt a tingling in her toes,

  A restless, tickling, funny sensation

  Which didn’t agree with her exaltation.

  When the maddened music was at its height,

  And the waltz was wildest—behold, a sight!

  The stilts began to hop and twirl

  Like the saucy feet of a ballet-girl.

  And their haughty owner, through the air,

  Was spin, spin, spinning everywhere.

  Everybody got out of the way

  To give the dangerous stilts fair play.

  In every corner, at every door,

  With faces looking like unfilled blanks,

  They watched the stilts at their airy pranks,

  Giving them, unrequested, the floor.

  They never had glittered so bright before;

  The light it flew in flashing splinters

  Away from those burning, revolving centres;

  While the gems on the lady’s flying skirts

  Gave out their light in jets and spirts.

  Poor Mackerel gazed in mute dismay

  At this unprecedented display.

  “Oh, stop, love, stop!” he cried at last;

  But she only flew more wild and fast,

  While the flutes and fiddles, bugle and drum,

  Followed as if their time had come.

  She went at such a bewildering pace

  Nobody saw the lady’s face,

  But only a ring of emerald light

  From the crown she wore on that fatal night.

  Whether the stilts were propelling her,

  Or she the stilts, none could aver.

  Around and around the magnificent hall

  Mrs. Mackerel danced at her own grand ball.

  “As the twig is bent the tree’s inclined;”

  This must have been a case in kind.

  “What’s in the blood will sometimes show—”

  ‘Round and around the wild stilts go.

  It had been whispered many a time

  That when poor Mack was in his prime

  Keeping that little retail store,

  He had fallen in love with a ballet-girl,

  Who gave up fame’s entrancing whirl

  To be his own, and the world’s no more.

  She made him a faithful, prudent wife—

  Ambitious, however, all her life.

  Could it be that the soft, alluring waltz

  Had carried her back to a former age,

  Making her memory play her false,

  Till she dreamed herself on the gaudy stage?

  Her crown a tinsel crown—her guests

  The pit that gazes with praise and jests?

  “Pride,” they say, “must have a fall—”

  Mrs. Mackerel was very proud—

  And now she danced at her own grand ball,

  While the music swelled more fast and loud.

  The gazers shuddered with mute affright,

  For the stilts burned now with a bluish light,

  While a glimmering, phosphorescent glow

  Did out of the lady’s garments flow.

  And what was that very peculiar smell?

  Fish, or brimstone? no one could tell.

  Stronger and stronger the odor grew,

  And the stilts and the lady burned more blue;

  ‘Round and around the long saloon,

  While Mackerel gazed in a partial swoon,

  She approached the throng, or circled from it,

  With a flaming train like the last great comet;

  Till at length the crowd

  All groaned aloud.

  For her exit she made from her own grand ball

  Out of the window, stilts and all.

  None of the guests can really say

  How she looked when she vanished away.

  Some declare that she carried sail

  On a flying fish with a lambent tail;

  And some are sure she went out of the room

  Riding her stilts like a witch a broom,

  While a phosphorent odor followed her track:

  Be this as it may, she never came back.

  Since then, her friends of the gold-fish fry

  Are in a state of unpleasant suspense,

  Afraid, that unless they unselfishly try

  To make better use of their dollars and sense

  To chasten their pride, and their manners mend,

  They may meet a similar shocking end.

  —_Cosmopolitan Art Journal._

  JUST SO.

  BY METTA VICTORIA VICTOR.

  A youth and maid, one winter night,

  Were sitting in the corner;

  His name, we’re told, was Joshua White,

  And hers was Patience Warner.

  Not much the pretty maiden said,

  Beside the young man sitting;

  Her cheeks were flushed a rosy red,

  Her eyes bent on her knitting.

  Nor could he guess what thoughts of him

  Were to her bosom flocking,

  As her fair fingers, swift and slim,

  Flew round and round the stocking.

  While, as for Joshua, bashful youth,

  His words grew few and fewer;

  Though all the time, to tell the truth,

  His chair edged nearer to her.

  Meantime her ball of yarn gave out,

  She knit so fast and steady;

  And he must give his aid, no doubt,

  To get another ready.

  He held the skein; of course the thread

  Got tangled, snarled and twisted;

  “Have Patience!” cried the artless maid,

  To him who her assisted.

  Good chance was this for tongue-tied churl

  To shorten all palaver;

  “Have Patience!” cried he, “dearest girl!

  And may I really have her?”

  The deed was done; no more, that night,

  Clicked needles in the corner:—

  And she is Mrs. Joshua White

  That once was Patience Warner.

  THE INVENTOR’S WIFE.

  BY E.T. CORBETT.

  It’s easy to talk of the patience of Job. Humph! Job had nothin’

  to try him;

  Ef he’d been married to ‘Bijah Brown, folks wouldn’t have dared

  come nigh him.

  Trials, indeed! Now I’ll tell you what—ef you want to be sick

  of your life,

  Jest come and change places with me a spell, for I’m an

  inventor’s wife. />
  And sech inventions! I’m never sure when I take up my coffee-pot,

  That ‘Bijah hain’t been “improvin’” it, and it mayn’t go off

  like a shot.

  Why, didn’t he make me a cradle once that would keep itself

  a-rockin’,

  And didn’t it pitch the baby out, and wasn’t his head bruised

  shockin’?

  And there was his “patent peeler,” too, a wonderful thing I’ll say;

  But it hed one fault—it never stopped till the apple was peeled away.

  As for locks and clocks, and mowin’ machines, and reapers, and all

  such trash,

  Why, ‘Bijah’s invented heaps of them, but they don’t bring in no cash!

  Law! that don’t worry him—not at all; he’s the aggravatinest man—

  He’ll set in his little workshop there, and whistle and think and plan,

  Inventin’ a Jews harp to go by steam, or a new-fangled powder-horn,

  While the children’s goin’ barefoot to school, and the weeds is

  chokin’ our corn.

  When ‘Bijah and me kep’ company, he wasn’t like this, you know;

  Our folks all thought he was dreadful smart—but that was years ago.

  He was handsome as any pictur’ then, and he had such a glib,

  bright way—

  I never thought that a time would come when I’d rue my weddin’-day;

  But when I’ve been forced to chop the wood, and tend to the

  farm beside,

  And look at ‘Bijah a-settin’ there, I’ve jest dropped down and cried.

  We lost the hull of our turnip crop while he was inventin’ a gun,

  But I counted it one of my marcies when it bust before ‘twas done.

  So he turned it into a “burglar alarm.” It ought to give

  thieves a fright—

  ‘Twould scare an honest man out of his wits, ef he sot it

  off at night.

  Sometimes I wonder ef ‘Bijah’s crazy, he does such curious things.

  Have I told you about his bedstead yit? ‘Twas full of wheels

  and springs;

  It hed a key to wind it up, and a clock-face at the head;

  All you did was to turn them hands, and at any hour you said

  That bed got up and shook itself, and bounced you on the floor,

  And then shet up, jest like a box, so you couldn’t sleep any more.

  Wa’al, ‘Bijah he fixed it all complete, and he sot it at

  half-past five,

  But he hadn’t more ‘n got into it, when—dear me! sakes alive!

  Them wheels began to whizz and whirr! I heard a fearful snap,

  And there was that bedstead with ‘Bijah inside shet up jest

  like a trap!

  I screamed, of course, but ‘twant no use. Then I worked that

  hull long night

  A-tryin’ to open the pesky thing. At last I got in a fright:

  I couldn’t hear his voice inside, and I thought he might be dyin’,

  So I took a crowbar and smashed it in. There was ‘Bijah

  peacefully lyin’,

  Inventin’ a way to git out agin. That was all very well to say,

  But I don’t believe he’d have found it out if I’d left him in all day.

  Now, since I’ve told you my story, do you wonder I’m tired of life,

  Or think it strange I often wish I warn’t an inventor’s wife?

  AN UNRUFFLED BOSOM.

  (_Story of an old Woman who knew Washington._)

  BY LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY.

  An aged negress at her door

  Is sitting in the sun;

  Her day of work is almost o’er,

  Her day of rest begun.

  Her face is black as darkest night,

  Her form is bent and thin,

  And o’er her bony visage tight

  Is stretched her wrinkled skin.

  Her dress is scant and mean; yet still

  About her ebon face

  There flows a soft and creamy frill

  Of costly Mechlin lace.

  What means the contrast strange and wide?

  Its like is seldom seen—

  A pauper’s aged face beside

  The laces of a queen.

  Her mien is stately, proud, and high,

  And yet her look is kind,

  And the calm light within her eye

  Speaks an unruffled mind.

  “Dar comes anodder ob dem tramps,”

  She mumbles low in wrath,

  “I know dose sleek Centennial chaps

  Quick as dey mounts de path.”

  A-axing ob a lady’s age

  I tink is impolite,

  And when dey gins to interview

  I disremembers quite.

  Dar was dat spruce photometer

  Dat tried to take my head,

  And Mr. Squibbs, de porterer,

  Wrote down each word I said.

  Six hundred years I t’ought it was,

  Or else it was sixteen—

  Yes; I’d shook hands wid Washington

  And likewise General Greene.

  I tole him all de generals’ names

  Dar ebber was, I guess,

  From General Lee and La Fayette

  To General Distress.

  Den dar’s dem high-flown ladies

  My old tings came to see;

  Wanted to buy dem some heirlooms

  Of real Aunt Tiquity.

  Says I, “Dat isn’t dis chile’s name,

  Dey calls me Auntie Scraggs,”

  And den I axed dem, by de pound

  How much dey gabe for rags?

  De missionary had de mose

  Insurance of dem all;

  He tole me I was ole, and said,

  Leabes had dar time to fall.

  He simply wished to ax, he said,

  As pastor and as friend,

  If wid unruffled bosom I

  Approached my latter end.

  Now how he knew dat story I

  Should mightily like to know.

  I ‘clar to goodness, Massa Guy,

  If dat ain’t really you!

  You say dat in your wash I sent

  You only one white vest;

  And as you’se passin’ by you t’ought

  You’d call and get de rest.

  Now, Massa Guy, about your shirts,

  At least, it seems to me

  Dat you is more particular

  Dan what you used to be.

  Your family pride is stiff as starch,

  Your blood is mighty blue—

  I nebber spares de indigo

  To make your shirts so, too.

  I uses candle ends, and wax,

  And satin-gloss and paints,

  Until your wristbands shine like to

  De pathway ob de saints.

  But when a gemman sends to me

  Eight white vests eberry week,

  A stain ob har-oil on each one,

  I tinks it’s time to speak.

  When snarled around a button dar’s

  A golden har or so,

  Dat young man’s going to be wed,

  Or someting’s wrong, I know.

  You needn’t laugh, and turn it off

  By axing ‘bout my cap;

  You didn’t use to know nice lace,

  And never cared a snap

  What ‘twas a lady wore. But folks

  Wid teaching learn a lot,

  And dey do say Miss Bella buys

  De best dat’s to be got.

  But if you really want to know,

  I don’t mind telling you

  Jus’ how I come by dis yere lace—

  It’s cur’us, but it’s true.

  My mother washed for Washington

  When I warn’t more’n dat tall;

  I cut one of his shirt-frills off

  To dress my corn-cob doll;

 
And when de General saw de shirt,

  He jus’ was mad enough

  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;