The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wit of Women, by Kate Sanborn

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.

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.

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.

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.

A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT.

O Sextant of the meetinouse which sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fiers,
And lites the gas, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
In which case it smells orful—wus than lampile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dies
To the grief of survivin' pardners, and sweeps paths,
And for these servaces gits $100 per annum;
Wich them that thinks deer let 'em try it;
Gittin up before starlite in all wethers, and
Kindlin' fiers when the wether is as cold
As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlins
(I wouldn't be hierd to do it for no sum);
But o Sextant there are one kermodity
Wuth more than gold which don't cost nuthin;
Wuth more than anything except the Sole of man!
I mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are!
O it is plenty out o' dores, so plenty it doant no
What on airth to do with itself, but flize about
Scatterin leaves and bloin off men's hats;
In short its jest as free as Are out dores;
But O Sextant! in our church its scarce as piety,
Scarce as bankbills when ajunts beg for mishuns,
Which sum say is purty often, taint nuthin to me,
What I give aint nuthing to nobody; but O Sextant!
You shet 500 men women and children
Speshily the latter, up in a tite place,
Sum has bad breths, none of em aint too sweet,
Sum is fevery, sum is scroflus, sum has bad teeth
And sum haint none, and sum aint over clean;
But evry one of em brethes in and out and in
Say 50 times a minnet, or 1 million and a half breths an hour;
Now how long will a church full of are last at that rate?
I ask you; say fifteen minnets, and then what's to be did?
Why then they must breth it all over agin,
And then agin and so on, till each has took it down
At least ten times and let it up agin, and what's more,
The same individible doant have the privilege
Of breathin his own are and no one else,
Each one must take wotever comes to him,
O Sextant! doant you know our lungs is belluses
To blo the fier of life and keep it from
Going out: und how can bellusses blo without wind?
And aint wind are? I put it to your konshens,
Are is the same to us as milk to babies,
Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox,
Or roots and airbs unto an Injun doctor,
Or little pills unto an omepath,
Or Boze to girls. Are is for us to brethe.
What signifize who preaches ef I cant brethe?
What's Pol? What's Pollus to sinners who are ded?
Ded for want of breth! Why Sextant when we dye
Its only coz we cant brethe no more—that's all.
And now O Sextant? let me beg of you
To let a little are into our cherch
(Pewer are is sertin proper for the pews);
And dew it week days and on Sundays tew—
It aint much trobble—only make a hoal,
And then the are will come in of itself
(It love to come in where it can git warm).
And O how it will rouze the people up
And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps
And yorns and fijits as effectool
As wind on the dry boans the Profit tels of.

—Christian Weekly.

CHAPTER IX.

A MODERN MINERVA.

'Twas the height of the gay season, and I cannot tell the reason,
But at a dinner party given by Mrs. Major Thwing
It became my pleasant duty to take out a famous beauty—
The prettiest woman present. I was happy as a king.

Her dress beyond a question was an artist's best creation;
A miracle of loveliness was she from crown to toe.
Her smile was sweet as could be, her voice just as it should be—
Not high, and sharp, and wiry, but musical and low.

Her hair was soft and flossy, golden, plentiful and glossy;
Her eyes, so blue and sunny, shone with every inward grace;
I could see that every fellow in the room was really yellow
With jealousy, and wished himself that moment in my place.

As the turtle soup we tasted, like a gallant man I hasted
To pay some pretty tribute to this muslin, silk, and gauze;
But she turned and softly asked me—and I own the question tasked me—
What were my fixed opinions on the present Suffrage laws.

I admired a lovely blossom resting on her gentle bosom;
The remark I thought a safe one—I could hardly made a worse;
With a smile like any Venus, she gave me its name and genus,
And opened very calmly a botanical discourse.

But I speedily recovered. As her taper fingers hovered,
Like a tender benediction, in a little bit of fish,
Further to impair digestion, she brought up the Eastern Question.
By that time I fully echoed that other fellow's wish.

And, as sure as I'm a sinner, right on through that endless dinner
Did she talk of moral science, of politics and law,
Of natural selection, of Free Trade and Protection,
Till I came to look upon her with a sort of solemn awe.

Just to hear the lovely woman, looking more divine than human,
Talk with such discrimination of Ingersoll and Cook,
With such a childish, sweet smile, quoting Huxley, Mill, and Carlyle—
It was quite a revelation—it was better than a book.

Chemistry and mathematics, agriculture and chromatics,
Music, painting, sculpture—she knew all the tricks of speech;
Bas-relief and chiaroscuro, and at last the Indian Bureau—
She discussed it quite serenely, as she trifled with a peach.

I have seen some dreadful creatures, with vinegary features,
With their fearful store of learning set me sadly in eclipse;
But I'm ready quite to swear if I have ever heard the Tariff
Or the Eastern Question settled by such a pair of lips.

Never saw I a dainty maiden so remarkably o'erladen
From lip to tip of finger with the love of books and men;
Quite in confidence I say it, and I trust you'll not betray it,
But I pray to gracious heaven that I never may again.

—Chicago Tribune.

THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA BROWN.

Though I met her in the summer, when one's heart lies 'round at ease,
As it were in tennis costume, and a man's not hard to please;
Yet I think at any season to have met her was to love,
While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness of the dove.

At request she read us poems, in a nook among the pines,
And her artless voice lent music to the least melodious lines;
Though she lowered her shadowing lashes, in an earnest reader's wise,
Yet we caught blue gracious glimpses of the heavens that were her eyes.

As in Paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand
That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand,
Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall,
When she said that she should study elocution in the fall.

I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein:
She began with "Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against the paayne,
And the beacon-light a-trrremble—" which, although it made me wince,
Is a thing of cheerful nature to the things she's rendered since.

Having learned the Soulful Quiver, she acquired the Melting Mo-o-an,
And the way she gave "Young Grayhead" would have liquefied a stone;
Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ,
And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew "The Polish Boy."

It's not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul
Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll:
What was I that I should murmur? Yet it gave me grievous pain
When she rose in social gatherings and searched among the slain.

I was forced to look upon her, in my desperation dumb—
Knowing well that when her awful opportunity was come
She would give us battle, murder, sudden death at very least—
As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast.

Once, ah! once I fell a-dreaming; some one played a polonaise
I associated strongly with those happier August days;
And I mused, "I'll speak this evening," recent pangs forgotten quite.
Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: "Curfew SHALL not ring to-night!"

Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy warm romance!
Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in France?
Oh, as she "cull-imbed!" that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down.
I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown!

THE TENDER HEART.

A dozen others equally good must be reserved for that encyclopædia! This specimen, of vers de société rivals Locker or Baker:

PLIGHTED: A.D. 1874.

Nellie, loquitur.
Bless my heart! You've come at last,
Awful glad to see you, dear!
Thought you'd died or something, Belle—
Such an age since you've been here!
My engagement? Gracious! Yes.
Rumor's hit the mark this time.
And the victim? Charley Gray.
Know him, don't you? Well, he's prime.
Such mustachios! splendid style!
Then he's not so horrid fast—
Waltzes like a seraph, too;
Has some fortune—best and last.
Love him? Nonsense. Don't be "soft;"
Pretty much as love now goes;
He's devoted, and in time
I'll get used to him, I 'spose.
First love? Humbug. Don't talk stuff!
Bella Brown, don't be a fool!
Next you'd rave of flames and darts,
Like a chit at boarding-school;
Don't be "miffed." I talked just so
Some two years back. Fact, my dear!
But two seasons kill romance,
Leave one's views of life quite clear.
Why, if Will Latrobe had asked
When he left two years ago,
I'd have thrown up all and gone
Out to Kansas, do you know?
Fancy me a settler's wife!
Blest escape, dear, was it not?
Yes; it's hardly in my line
To enact "Love in a Cot."
Well, you see, I'd had my swing,
Been engaged to eight or ten,
Got to stop some time, of course,
So it don't much matter when.
Auntie hates old maids, and thinks
Every girl should marry young—
On that theme my whole life long
I have heard the changes sung.
So, ma belle, what could I do?
Charley wants a stylish wife.
We'll suit well enough, no fear,
When we settle down for life.
But for love-stuff! See my ring!
Lovely, isn't it? Solitaire.
Nearly made Maud Hinton turn
Green with envy and despair.
Her's ain't half so nice, you see.
Did I write you, Belle, about
How she tried for Charley, till
I sailed in and cut her out?
Now, she's taken Jack McBride,
I believe it's all from pique—
Threw him over once, you know—
Hates me so she'll scarcely speak.
Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that—
Pa won't mind expense at last
I'll be off his hands for good;
Cost a fortune two years past.
My trousseau shall outdo Maud's,
I've carte blanche from Pa, you know—
Mean to have my dress from Worth!
Won't she be just raving though!

—Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 1874.

Women are often extremely humorous in their newspaper letters, excelling in that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle's review of "St. Elmo," or Gail Hamilton's criticism of "The Story of Avis," while Mrs. Rollins, in the Critic, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the public that his "solemn song" is

"Attempt ambitious, with a ray of hope
To pierce the dark abysms of thought, to guide
Its dim ghosts o'er the towering crags of Doubt
Unto the land where Peace and Love abide,
Of flowers and streams, and sun and stars."

"His 'solemn song' is certainly very solemn for a song with so cheerful a purpose. We have rarely read, indeed, a book with so large a proportion of unhappy words in it. Frozen shrouds, souls a-chill with agony, things wan and gray, icy demons, scourging willow-branches, snow-heaped mounds, black and freezing nights, cups of sorrow drained to the lees, etc., are presented in such profusion that to struggle through the 'dark abyss' in search of the 'ray of hope' is much like taking a cup of poison to learn the sweetness of its antidote. Mr. —— in one of his stanzas invites his soul to 'come and walk abroad' with him. If he ever found it possible to walk abroad without his soul, the fact would have been worth chronicling; but if it is true that he only desires to have his soul with him occasionally, we should advise him to walk abroad alone, and invite his soul to sit beside him in the hours he devotes to composition."

Then humor is displayed in the excellent parodies by women—as Grace Greenwood's imitations of various authors, written in her young days, but quite equal to the "Echo Club" of Bayard Taylor. How perfect her mimicry of Mrs. Sigourney!