I put the flask back into the saddlepockets without taking a drink, under the advice of my nerves. If she had said "Stranger! to me in the tone of voice she said "Jake!" I would have dropped the flask and gone with the dog. Jake gave me a melancholy but reassuring wink and we sat down again, but there was a great weight upon him. Presently he said: Stranger, what's this local option they're sendin' 'round printens fer, axen you to vote fer an' aginst? I hain't got much larnin' nohow, anyway. I got my specs busted Foth uv July at the barbecuen down to Sandy 'ginst that long-legged Budd Danell's foot ahangen down out uv the flyin' hoss an' I done got nothen spelled out sence. The young uns can't git no larnin', nohow, for the School Directors gits to fightin' 'bout who'll appint the teacher, an' when they gits a teacher some uv the boys an' him hez a differ an' they goes an' burns the school-house down to throw him out uv a job. We've had three uv em burnt down sence Mary Alice thar was borned, an' there's no show for nobody_nary time. It's somethin' 'bout liquor. Does it pertect a man in drinkin' that's fer or aginst?" I explained the matter to him. He studied a while, gave the fire a kick and then said, in a resigned tone: "I don't see as it makes much matter ter the likes uv me, nohow. I'm in favor uv every man heven' his chice, whether he's fer or aginst an' whether he's local or not. Hit's the doen' uv them 'lection people the printens is like thurn." 66 Jake, yer fer? Stranger, if you'r' goin' to put liquor notions inter his head I'll jist hev your critter caught to onet an' you kin git to Sandy." This was cold steel in the viscera. I felt from the tone behind me of Mrs. Jake that I might be at any moment lifted up by her unemployed arm and transported into the dark ness with an empty stomach. I fully agreed with the consoling and mollifying words that came quickly from Jake for my protection: She's powerful temperance-my ole woman is. 66 Silence is gold at a premium with this sort of woman. I knew that, for I had previously been out-talked and sat upon several times by her kind, and was much impressed by experience. Strategy is best, SO I soon had all the children around me and was churning the baby, and finally captured Mrs. Jake by giving her a sure remedy for water-brash and stone bruises; and peace again reigned over all. Nothing, however, roused the spirits of Jake. He took a huge chew of "native" and seemed bent on extinguishing the fire, spitting at it. แ After a homely meal, which had all been cooked in the baker and which would have lost all its seductiveness, hungry as I was, if the water-carrier had not officiated as cook, the little ones became sleepy and disappeared one by one, the light of the fire died down to decent obscurity and, on looking around, I was surprised to find myself with Jake alone. Stranger, I reckon you'r' done tired," he said. You kin take your choice sleepin' this side uv me an' the baby an' Mary Alice an' Ally Althea, or gittin' in with the young'uns in the trunnel bed, an', stranger"-here he lowered his voice to a whisper, somewhat resembling escaping steam- yer the fust creetur as ever got a scald on her in a temperance spell. There's no heft in a-talkin' to her when she's got one uv them spells on. The water-brash physic done it. The stone-bruise physic wuz good. She seed it 'ud come han'y fer the children, but it were the water-brash physic done it. I chose the trundle bed and got in with four as dirty little kickers as ever went to bed with their clothes on and laid all over the bed. I had no doubt about there being a skeleton in that cabin, and I was anxious to know the secret of the spirit that animated it to the suppression of Jake, who was a large, powerful man. The next morning when Jake and myself were getting my mare out of the shelter of fodder shucks piled up about her, preparatory to leaving, and while we were well screened from the cabin, I again produced my flask and offered it to him. He carefully parted the shucks, looked toward the cabin through the hole he made and seeing no one in sight he took it, while a flush of pleasure spread over his face. "Eighteen years ago "-he stopped. I saw his bronzed face turn pale and his hand tremble, as it had the night before. He again handed me the flask, with the same sad, weary look upon his face and said: Stranger, I'm obleeged to you; I darsent; I've promised. The ole woman would smell it, if I swallowed the bottle an' the cork in it: and 'derned ef I wouldn't rather fall off a ridge pole at a barn raisen' than hev her do that. You'r' a feelin' man, stranger; I seed that last night by the way the children took to you, an' the way you made the ole woman soften like; more 'an I've seed this many day-an' the nickles all 'round. I sees you'r' a feelin' man, an' won't think hard on me fer not jinin' you. teacher said it was a com-plee-ment→ whatever that is anyway-an' I said he said she wuz a Hellun; and I didn't care a derned bit whar frum-that was enough. An' she said she'd show me ef I didn't care whar frum, an' a hull lot more, jawen back an' forrid. An' I got mad an' left the cabin here where we'd moved in an' footed it off to Sandy an' got tight. It wuz of a mornin'. I told the boys about it, an' they said I oughten to take no sass from her nary time, an' ef I wanted to lick an Eastern man, 'twas none of her business, an' I oughter know how to manage a woman, an' kinder hissed me on an' sicked me up, till I lit out fer home purty mad. I wuz hevin' a bottle 'long an' kep' gettin' tighter an' tighter. Jist as I got thar by them bars you sees thar, I wuz feelin' as big as a poplar log an' sot that I was goin' to boss my shanty an' any woman that ever lived. So I gins a whoop an' straightens myself I knew that the way to get at the secret up's well's I could fer wobblin' an' breaks of the skeleton was to look hurt. So I off a paw-paw stick an' inter the cabin I did, in order to keep him talking. He goes. I jist thought I'd show her I wuz continued: "Looks like, when she gits sot an' meant business, so I smashes her over the water-brash-from the physic dishes an' told her I'd take no sass, no you've give her-maybe she won't be so how. I took down the lookin'-glass an' I bossy an' boastified, an' you'll hev done jumped on it, an' I told her I wuz goin' me a mighty favor a mighty favor. A ter be boss all the time. I tore up her West Virginia native cannot be hurried any weddin' sun-bonnet an' told her ef she more than can a canal boat. I saw that wanted ter be a Hellun she couldn't be he would come around to what I wanted to one in that cabin, an' if the teacher said know in the course of the morning if left it wuz a com-plee-ment I could lick him, alone, so I waited. At last he said: "I'll or her, either, an' I started for her-for tell you how 'twas, but I-I would not by this time I wuz rale mad an' ugly an' if you wasn't a feelin' man an' me obleeged things wuz a spinnen. But thar she stood, to you. Afore we wuz married-the ole not sayin' a word, with her han's on her woman an' me-I used to spree about a hips and her elbow jints stickin' out like deal and there wasn't no better man in jug hannels, an' lookin' straight into my the hull kentry. No man 'ud step out in face, an' hern wuz as red ez that chicken's the public road and gin up the law on me gills thar. I kinder supled an' stepped an' fight me. At picnics or barbecuen back, an' I stepped right inter the lookin'or night meetin', when I had a few drinks glass frame, an' my feet got knotted somein me an' wanted to fight, I wuz a hull how or other, an' I gin a swirl, an' when flail, stick an' suple, and tuk nothin' from I lighted I lit on the bed, on top uv the no man no time. Well, I tuk to sparkin' new tow linen, humspun sheets her Mag-that's the ole woman. She was a mother gin her to git married in, with rousin' gal, heap bigger than she is now my boots on, an' thar I laid. The next -what with children an' water-brash an' thing I knowed I wuz nigh smothered sich. I licked a feller from the East clar an' I couldn't move hand ner foot. I out uv his shiny clothes-down to Sandy thought there'd been buryin' an' I wuz -fer sayen she wuz a Hellun, a Hellun the feller in the coffin, an' that sorter uv Troy; an' that sort uv settled it, an' sobered me up a bit. I seed it wuz we wuz jined to onct. Jist two weeks kinder light like, an' not dark, ez they arterwards we hed a fallen out about what say graves is. So I yells loud ez I could, the feller meant. She said the school-Mag!' an' I heerd her answer, 'What's the matter?' close 'long side on me. But her v'ice didn't sound nateral; it were kinder smothered an' sot like. I'gin to shake. Where am I?' I sez; an' she told me: Yer stitched up in my new humspun sheets ez my mother gin me, an' you got in drunk with your boots on, an' I'm goin' ter settle with you.' "Derned if she hadn't sewed me up tight as a sassage, and with her sayin' that down came the allfiredest whack! uv a hickory saplin'-a two-hander squar' across my back. For she'd sewed me in an' turned me right side up for lickin' an' stitched me down to the ticken tight as wax-end sewens. I tried to roll, but it were no use. Up an' down went the saplin'-I kin hear it whiz yit. I yelled an' hollered an' tried to tear the tarnel kiver, but it were genuine humspun, an' an' onrip me.' An' then she onripped me with the pints on her scissors-kinder slow an' oncertain like-an' I was afeered to move, fear she'd think I wuz more lively than I wuz. Bimeby I crawled out ur them humspuns jist like one ur them locusts out ur his shell an' thar wasn't an inch in me that hadn't a mis'ry inter it for a month arterwards. An', stranger, I hain't took a drap uv liquor these goin' on nineteen year; for she's powerful temperance-powerful.” As I rode away I heard him utter: "A man mought git dry though in eighteen year.' TOBE HODGE (Charles McIlvain). no more tear in it than a side uv sole "NOT TO COUNTERFEIT BEING leather; an' she'd stitched me in goodi. SICK." [MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE was born near Bordeaux in 1533, the third son of parents in comfortable circumstances; his father's naine was Pierre Eyquem. His early education was at the school of Guienne, where George Buchanan was a professor at the time. About 1550 we find Montaigne in Paris, a city which he loved with all a Frenchman's devotion. After a varied career as courtier, philosopher, soldier, and author, he died 13th September, 1591, aged fifty-eight years. Montaigne is best known by his celebrated Essays, which take rank as one of the greatest works of any time. Walter Besant says of Montaigne in his French Humor pass over the name of this most remarkable writer, the most original and delightful that France has ever produced. Montaigne is an old-established favorite; he belongs to the world: the older we grow the more we love to read him." we hez 'em yit. She kept on a latherin', an' I could hear her ketch her breathen an' come up with a run fer a harder lick an' I felt ez if I wuz bein' notched an' hammered out like a hoss-shoe nail. Arter a right smart bit of hammerin' she sorter slowed to catch her wind, an' began talkin'. An'-sez she-a-keepin' on with the lickin', but a-mixin' it up with her talkyou'll take no sass, won't you?' Whiz! An' you'r' goin' to be boss, air you?' Whiz! Boss?' Whiz! 'Boss?' Whiz! 'An' you've stamped the lookin'-glass?' An' I b'leeve she licked me more fer that than anything else, but I disremember ists, "my book would be incomplete indeed were it to jist. An' I kin be a Hellun, kin I?' Whack! 'Yes, I kin.' Sish! sish! 'You can lick me? Me? Kin you? Well, I'll git in my licken fust and then see whose goen to be boss in this cabin.' An' she kep' on axin questions an' pilen on me 'till I wuz nigh dead with hurt an' hollerin'. I reckon the only thing that chocked her wuz the saplen ginnen ter guv out. Fer I begged an' 'llowed fer her to stop an' rip me out, an' I hollered enough more'n fifty times. Furder long she sez: 'Now, Jake,' she says, 'will you ever take another drap uv liquor agin?' Never,' says I; I swears it, if you'll stop. "Who's boss?' says she. You be,' says I. 'Oh!!! Who's a Hell-un in the cabin if she wants to be?' 'You,' sez I. Air you sartin you won't fergit what you'se promised many a time?' sez she. 'Never,' sez I, 'only stay chocked We select a brief example of his style from his essay, Not to Counterfeit being Sick. There is an epigram in Martial, and one of the very good ones for he has all sorts-where he pleasantly tells the story of Cælius, who, to avoid making his court to some great men of Rome, to wait their rising, and to attend them abroad, pretended to have the gout; and the better to color this, anointed his legs, and had them lapped up in a great many swathings, and perfectly counterfeited both the gesture and countenance of a gouty person; till in the end, Fortune did him the kindness to make him one indeed. "Tantum cura potest, et ars doloris ! Desit fingere Cælius podagram.”* I think I have read somewhere in Appian, a story like this, of one who to escape the proscriptions of the triumvirs of Rome, and the better to be concealed from the discovery of those who pursued him, having hidden himself in a disguise, would yet add this invention, to counterfeit having but one eye; but when he came to have a little more liberty, and went to take off the plaster he had a great while worn over his eye, he found he had totally lost the sight of it indeed, and that it was absolutely gone. 'Tis possible that the action of sight was dulled from having been so long without exercise, and that the optic power was wholly retired into the other eye for we evidently perceive that the eye we keep shut sends some part of its virtue to its fellow, so that it will swell and grow bigger; and so, inaction, with the heat of ligatures and plasters, might very well have brought some gouty humor upon this dissembler of Martial. Reading in Froissart the vow of a troop of young English gallants, to keep their left eyes bound up till they had arrived in France and performed some notable exploit upon us, I have often been tickled with the conceit suppose it had befallen them as it did the Roman, and they had returned with but one eye apiece to their mistresses, for whose sakes they had made this ridiculous vow. Mothers have reason to rebuke their children when they counterfeit having but one eye, squinting, lameness, or any other personal defect; for, besides that their bodies being then so tender may be subject to take an ill bent, Fortune, I know not how, sometimes seems to delight in taking us at our word; and I have heard several examples related of people who have become really sick, by only feigning to be so. I have always used, whether on horseback or on foot, to carry a stick in my hand, and even to affect doing it with an elegant air; many have threatened that this fancy would one day be turned into necessity: if so, I should be the first of my family to have the gout. But let us a little lengthen this chapter, and add another anecdote concerning blindness. Pliny reports of one who, dreaming he was blind, found himself so indeed in the morning without any preceding infirmity in his eyes. The force of imagination might assist in this case, as I have said elsewhere, and Pliny seems to be of the same opinion; but it is more likely that the motions which the body felt within, of which physicians, if they please, may find out the cause, taking away his sight, were the occasion of his dream. Let us add another story, not very improper for this subject, which Seneca relates in one of his epistles: "You know," says he, writing to Lucilius, "that Harpaste, my wife's fool, is thrown upon me as an hereditary charge, for I have naturally an aversion to those monsters and if I have a mind to laugh at a fool, Í need not seek him far, I can laugh at myself. This fool has suddenly lost her sight: I tell you a strange, but a very true thing; she is not sensible that she is blind, but eternally importunes her keeper to take her abroad, because she says the house is dark. That what we laugh at in her, I pray you to believe, happens to every one of us: no one knows himself to be avaricious or grasping; and again, the blind call for a guide, while we stray of our own accord. I am not ambitious, we say; but a man cannot live otherwise at Rome; I am not wasteful, but the city requires a great outlay; 'tis not my fault if I am choleric-if I have not yet established any certain course of life: 'tis the fault of youth. Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; 'tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured. If we do not betimes begin to see to ourselves, when shall we have provided for so many wounds and evils wherewith we abound? And yet we have a most sweet and charming medicine in philosophy; for of all the rest we are sensible of no pleasure till after the cure: this pleases and heals at once." This is what Seneca says, that has carried me from my subject, but there is advantage in the change. Nat. Hist., vii. 50. † Book I., c. 20. Ep. 50. "VIRGILE TRAVESTI.” [PAUL SCARRON, the celebrated French humorist, was born at Paris, 1610. His father was a man of good family and a counsellor of the parliament. His early life was that of pure bird of pleasure-pleasure of the kind sought after by young gentlemen of epicurean proclivities. When twenty-four he visited Italy, where he did not improve his morals. When twenty-eight, at Carnival time, he disguised himself as a savage, and with other young men got into a serious quarrel-so serious that they had to run for their lives, and only escaped by swimming the Seine. In consequence of this cold bath in February his limbs were paralyzed and twisted, from which he never was cured. In 1652 he met and married Francoise d'Aubigné, then seventeen years of age. "And what is your settlement upon her?" asked the notary at their marriage. "Immortality," said Scarron; "other names may perish; that of Scarron's wife will remain for ever." Perhaps the immortality that the wife of Scarron got from her first husband was palled in the eyes of some by the greater splendor which she derived from her second, for Madame Veuve Scarron became Madame de Maintenon, wife of the Grand Monarque. He died in 1660 in the fiftieth year of his age. From Walter Besant's French Humorists we make the following extract.] In 1648 came out the first instalment of the "Virgile Travesti," which went on at intervals until 1652. Scarron finished the first eight books; and then, growing tired of so sustained an effort, he seems to have given it up altogether. Other literary work also pressed upon him; indeed, his busiest His time was between 1646 and 1653. plays (chiefly from Spanish sources), his novels, his epigrams, his letters, his "Gazette burlesque"-all this work left little time for the Virgil," which, we suspect, was at first considered by Scarron only as the recreation of an idle hour. But it "took as no other book of the time succeeded in doing. Imitators crowded into the field. Ovid, Homer-anybodywas burlesqued; and for a period of twenty years, after which the taste for burlesque died out almost as rapidly as it had grown up, the bookshelves were inundated with travesties, most of them mere stupid imitations of Scarron and floundering attempts at wit, with no claim to admiration except for their unblushing grossness. Of his tales, the one chiefly remembered, because Goldsmith translated it, is the Roman Comique.' I confess to having been bored to the last degree in reading it. Of his plays "Don Japhet de l'Armenie," one of his last, and "Jodelet," his first, are the two best, and are worthy of being read still, were life long enough. Poems he wrote-lines to his mistress, poor fellow-as gay and bright as when he had a dancing leg, as well as a laughing eye, but quite in the conventional gallantry of the time: Adieu, fair Chloris, adieu : After many and many a week, Speak now. Let me go. Close your doors, or open them wide, Love or pity for you and your pride. To laugh in my face, It is all that she grants me Of pity and grace: Can it mean that she wants me? This for five or six months is my pay. Now hear my command, Shut your doors, keep them tight night and day, With a porter at hand Well, I know my own mind. The following is better known. his description of Paris: Houses in labyrinthine maze; It is Here stately shop, there shabby stall. Passengers black, red, gray, and white, The pursed-up prude, the light coquette; Murder and treason dark as night; With clerks, their hands with inkstains wet; A gold-laced coat without a sou, And trembling at a bailiff's sight; A braggart shivering with fear; Pages and lackeys, thieves of night; And 'mid the tumult, noise, and stink of it, There's Paris-Pray, what do you think of it? We are, however, chiefly concerned with his "Virgil.' The burlesque effect, if we analyze the work, is produced, of course, by a perpetual antithesis between the grandeur of the personages and the manner in which |