The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (summer beach reads .txt) π
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- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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"I'm helping Corona," said Susy, with much complacency. "These architects' things don't look any more like houses than they do like the first proposition in Euclid; and the poor girl is puzzled."
"I'll help you to-morrow, Co," said Tom, who was in too much of a hurry to glance at his wife's plan. But to-morrow Tom went into town by the early train, and when Corona emerged from her "North American Homes," with wild eye and knotted brow, at 5 o'clock p.m., she found Susy crying over a telegram which ran:
Called to California immediately. Those lost cargoes A No. 1 hides turned up. Can't get home to say good-by. Send overcoat and flannels by Simpson on midnight express. Gone four weeks. Love to all.
Tom.
This unexpected event threw Corona entirely upon her own resources; and, after a few days more of patient research, she put on her hat, and stole away at dusk to a builder she knew of down-townβa nice, fatherly man who had once built a piazza for Tom and had just been elected superintendent of the Sunday-school. These combined facts gave Corona confidence to trust her case to his hands. She carried a neat little plan of her own with her, the result of several days' hard labor. Susy's plan she had taken the precaution to cut into paper dolls for the baby. Corona found the good man at home, and in her most business-like manner presented her points.
"Got any plan in yer own head?" asked the builder, hearing her in silence. In silence Corona laid before him the paper which had cost her so much toil.[Pg 63]
It was headed in her clear black hand:
PLAN
FOR A SMALL BUT HAPPY
HOME
This was
CORONA'S PLAN
"Well," said the builder, after a silence,β"well, I've seen worse."
"Thank you," said Corona, faintly.
"How does she set?" asked the builder.
"Who set?" said Corona, a little wildly. She could think of nothing that set but hens.
"Why, the house. Where's the points o' compass?"
"I hadn't thought of those," said Corona.[Pg 64]
"And the chimney," suggested the builder. "Where's your chimneys?"
"I didn't put in any chimneys," said Corona.
"Where did you count on your stairs?" pursued the builder.
"Stairs? Iβforgot the stairs."
"That's natural," said Mr. Timbers. "Had a plan brought me once without an entry or a window to it. It wasn't a woman did it, neither. It was a widower, in the noospaper line. What's your scale?"
"Scale?" asked Corona, without animation.
"Scale of feet. Proportions."
"Oh! I didn't have any scales, but I thought about forty feet front would do. I have but five hundred dollars. A small house must answer."
The builder smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn with the beauty of science.
"There," said Mr. Timbers, "I know a lady built one of those upon her brother-in-law's land. He give her the land, and she just put up the cottage, and they was all as pleasant as pease about it. That's about what I'd recommend to you, if you don't object to the name of it."
"What is the matter with the name?" asked Corona.
"Why," said the builder, hesitating, "it is called the Old Maid's Houseβin the book."
"Mr. Timbers," said Corona, with decision, "why should we seek further than the truth? I will have that house. Pray, draw me the plan at once."[Pg 65]
DISTICHS BY JOHN HAY IThis one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.
II
When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs.
III
As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.
IV
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.[Pg 66]
V
What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first.
VI
Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.
VII
But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.
VIII
Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.
IX
Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.
X
Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.[Pg 67]
XI
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.
XII
Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.
XIII
Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.
XIV
Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.
XV
Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.
XVI
But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud.[Pg 68]
XVII
Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.
XVIII
Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life.
THE QUARREL BY S.E. KISER
In the sea
As any one ever has caught,"
Said he.
"But few of the fishβ
In the sea
Will bite at such bait as you've got,"
Said she.
To-day he is gray, and his line's put away,
But he often looks back with regret;
She's still "in the sea," and how happy she'd be
If he were a fisherman yet!
[Pg 69] A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS BY E.W. HOWE
My Dear SirβOccasionally a gem occurs to me which I am unable to favor you with because of late we are not much together. Appreciating the keen delight with which you have been kind enough to receive my philosophy, I take the liberty of sending herewith a number of ideas which may please and benefit you, and which I have divided into paragraphs with headings.
HAPPINESSI have observed that happiness and brains seldom go together. The pin-headed woman who regards her thin-witted husband as the greatest man in the world, is happy, and much good may it do her. In such cases ignorance is a positive blessing, for good sense would cause the woman to realize her distressed condition. A man who can think he is as "good as anybody" is happy. The fact may be notorious that the man is not so "good as anybody" until he is as industrious, as educated, and as refined as anybody, but he has not brains enough to know this, and, content with conceit, is happy. A man with a brain large enough to understand mankind is always wretched and ashamed of himself.
REPUTATIONReputation is not always desirable. The only thing I[Pg 70] have ever heard said in Twin Mounds concerning Smoky Hill is that good hired girls may be had there.
WOMEN1. Most women seem to love for no other reason than that it is expected of them.
2. I know too much about women to honor them more than they deserve; in fact I know all about them. I visited a place once where doctors are made, and saw them cut up one.
3. A woman loses her power when she allows a man to find out all there is to her; I mean by this that familiarity breeds contempt. I knew a young man once who worked beside a woman in an office, and he never married.
4. If men would only tell what they actually know about women, instead of what they believe or hear, they would receive more credit for chastity than is now the case, for they deserve more.
LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCEAs a people we lack self-confidence. The country is full of men that will readily talk you to death privately, who would run away in alarm if asked to preside at a public meeting. In my Alliance movement I often have trouble in getting out a crowd, every farmer in the neighborhood feeling of so much importance as to fear that if he attends he will be called upon to say something.
IN DISPUTEIn some communities where I have lived the women were mean to their husbands; in others, the husbands[Pg 71] were mean to their wives. It is usually the case that the friends of a wife believe her husband to be a brute, and the friends of the husband believe the wife to possess no other talent than to make him miserable. You can't tell how it is; the evidence is divided.
MANThere is only one grade of men; they are all contemptible. The judge may seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity, induced by the servility of those who expect favors.
OPPORTUNITYYou hear a great many persons regretting lack of opportunity. If every man had opportunity for his desires, this would be a nation of murderers and disgraced women.
EXPECTATIONAlways be ready for that which you do not expect. Nothing that you expect ever happens. You have perhaps observed that when you are waiting for a visitor at the front door, he comes in at the back, and surprises you.
WOMAN'S WORKA woman's work is never done, as the almanacs state, for the reason that she does not go about it in time to finish it.[Pg 72]
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITYIf you can not resist the low impulse to talk about people, say only what you actually know, instead of what you have heard. And, while you are about it, stop and consider whether you are not in need of charity yourself.
NEIGHBORSEvery man overestimates his neighbors, because he does not know them so well as he knows himself. A sensible man despises himself because he knows what a contemptible creature he is. I despise Lytle Biggs, but I happen to know that his neighbors are just as bad.
VIRTUEMen are virtuous because the women are; women are virtuous from necessity.
ASHAMED OF THE TRUTHI believe I never knew any one who was not ashamed of the truth. Did you ever notice that a railroad company numbers its cars from 1,000, instead of from 1?
KNOWING ONLY ONE OF THEMWe are sometimes unable to understand why a pretty little woman marries a fellow we know to be worthless; but the fellow, who knows the
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