authors who have added the vice of elocution to the weakness of dialect verse-making, are often at a loss for a sympathetic audience. whilst it is true that literary people are apt to bear with a good deal of patience the mutually offered inflictions incident to meeting one another, they draw the line at dialect recitations; and, as a rule, stubbornly refuse to be bored with a fantastic rendition of “when johnny got spanked by a mule,” or “livery-stable bob,” or “samantha’s courtin’,” or “over the ridge to the pest-house,” no matter how dear a friend may offer the scourge. circumstances alter cases, however, and although neither carleton, nor riley, nor yet burdette, nor bill nye (those really irresistible and wholly delightful humorists), had come to hotel helicon, there was a certain relief for those of the guests who had not joined the luckless pedestrians, in hearing miss amelia lotus nebeker recite a long poem written in new jersey patois.
miss nebeker was very hard of hearing, almost stone deaf, indeed, which affliction lent a pathetic effect even to her humor. she was rather stout, decidedly short, and had a way of making wry faces with a view to adding comicality to certain turns of her new jersey phraseology, and yet she was somewhat of a bore at times. possibly she wished to read too often and sometimes upon very unsuitable occasions. it was mrs. bridges who once said that, if the minister at a funeral should ask some one to say a few appropriate words, miss nebeker, if present, would immediately clear her throat and begin reciting “a jerseyman’s jewsharp.” “and if she once got started you’d never be able to stop her, for she’s as deaf as an adder.”
it was during the rainstorm, while those of the guests who had not gone to the hermit’s hut with cattleton, were in the cool and spacious parlor of the hotel, that something was said about charles dickens reading from his own works. strangely enough, although the remark was uttered in a low key and at some distance from miss nebeker, she responded at once with an offer to give them a new rendering of the jerseyman’s jewsharp. lucas, the historian, objected vigorously, but she insisted upon interpreting his words and gestures as emphatic applause of her proposition. she arose while he was saying:
“oh now, that’s too much, we’re tired of the jangling of that old harp; give us a rest!”
this unexpected and surprising slang from so grave and dignified a man set everybody to laughing. miss nebeker bowed in smiling[120] acknowledgement of what appeared to her to be a flattering anticipation of her humor, and taking her manuscript from some hiding-place in her drapery, made a grimace and began to read. mrs. philpot’s cat, in the absence of its mistress, had taken up with the elocutionist and now came to rub and purr around her feet while she recited. this was a small matter, but in school or church or lecture-hall, small matters attract attention. the fact that the cat now and again mewed plaintively set some of the audience to smiling and even to laughing.
such apparent approval of her new rendition thrilled miss nebeker to her heart’s core. her voice deepened, her intonations caught the spirit of her mood, and she read wildly well.
every one who has even a smattering of the patois current in new jersey, will understand how effective it might be made in the larynx of a cunning elocutionist; and then whoever has had the delicious experience of hearing a genuine jerseyman play on the jewsharp will naturally jump to a correct conclusion concerning the pathos of the subject which miss nebeker had in hand. she felt its influence and threw all her power into it. heavy as she was, she arose on her tip-toes at the turning point of the story and gesticulated vehemently.
the cat, taken by surprise, leaped aside a pace or two and glared in a half-frightened way, with each separate hair on its tail set stiffly. of course there was more laughter which the reader took as applause.
“a brace of cats!” exclaimed the historian. “a brace of cats!”
nobody knew what he meant, but the laughing increased, simply for the reason that there was nothing to laugh at.
discovering pretty soon that miss nebeker really meant no harm by her manœuvres, the cat went back to rub and purr at her feet. then miss nebeker let down her heel on the cat’s tail, at the same time beginning with the pathetic part of the jerseyman’s jewsharp.
the unearthly squall that poor puss gave forth was wholly lost on the excited elocutionist, but it quite upset the audience, who, not wishing to appear rude, used their handkerchiefs freely.
miss nebeker paused to give full effect to a touching line.
the cat writhed and rolled and clawed the air and wailed like a lost spirit in its vain endeavor to free its tail; but miss nebeker, all unconscious of the situation, and seeing her hearers convulsed and wiping tears from their faces, redoubled her elocutionary artifices and poured incomparable feeling into her voice.
suddenly the tortured and writhing animal uttered a scream of blood-curdling agony and lunged at miss nebeker’s ankles with tooth and claw.
she was in the midst of the passage where the dying jerseyman lifts himself on his elbow and calls for his trusty jewsharp:
“gi’ me my juice-harp, sarah ann——” she was saying, when of a sudden she screamed[122] louder than the cat and bounded into the air, sending her manuscript in fluttering leaves all over the room.
the cat, with level tail and fiery eyes, sailed through the door-way into the hall, and went as if possessed of a devil, bounding up the stairway to mrs. philpot’s room.
congratulations were in order, and lucas insisted upon bellowing in miss nebeker’s ear his appreciation of the powerful effect produced by the last scene in the little drama.
“if our friends who are out in this rain are finding anything half as entertaining,” he thundered, “they needn’t mind the drenching.”
“but i’m bitten, i’m scratched, i’m hurt,” she exclaimed.
lucas suddenly realized the brutality of his attitude, and hastened to rectify it by collecting the leaves of her manuscript and handing them to her.
“i beg pardon,” he said sincerely, “i hope you are not hurt much.”
“just like a cat,” she cried, “always under somebody’s feet! i do despise them!”
with a burning face and trembling hands she swiftly rearranged the manuscript and assuming the proper attitude asked the audience to be seated again.
“i am bitten and scratched quite severely,” she said, “and am suffering great pain, but if you will resume your places i will begin over again.”
“call that cat back, then, quick!” exclaimed lucas, “it’s the star performer in the play.”
she proceeded forthwith, setting out on a new journey through the tortuous ways of the poem, and held up very well to the end. what she called new jersey patois was a trifle flat when put into verse and she lacked the polished buffoonery of a successful dialect reader, wherefore she failed to get along very successfully with her audience in the absence of the cat; still the reading served to kill a good deal of time, by a mangling process.
the storm was over long ago when she had finished, and the sun was flooding the valley with golden splendor. along the far away mountain ridges some slanting wisps of whitish mist sailed slowly, like aerial yachts riding dark blue billows. the foliage of the trees, lately dusky and drooping, twinkled vividly with a green that was almost dazzling, and the air was deliciously fresh and fragrant.
everybody went out on the veranda for a turn and a deep breath.
the mail had arrived and by a mistake a bundle of letters bearing the card of george dunkirk & co., and addressed to “george dunkirk, esq., hotel helicon, room 24,” was handed to lucas.
the historian gazed at the superscription, adjusted his glasses and gazed again, and slowly the truth crept into his mind. there were ten or fifteen of the letters. evidently some of them, as lucas’s experience suggested, had alien[124] letters inclosed within their envelopes, and thus forwarded by the mailing clerk of the firm had at last come to the senior partner at room 24.
“gaspard dufour, indeed!” lucas exclaimed inwardly. “george dunkirk, rather. this is a pretty kettle of fish!”
he sent the letters up to room 24, to await the return of their proper recipient, and fell to reflecting upon the many, very many and very insulting things that he and nearly all the rest of the hotel guests as well had said in dufour’s hearing about publishers in general and about george dunkirk & co., in particular. his face burned with the heat of the retrospect, as he recalled such phrases as “sleek thief,” “manipulator of copy-right statements,” “cadmean wolf” “ghoul of literary grave-yards,” and a hundred others, applied with utter unrestraint and bandied around, while george dunkirk was sitting by listening to it all!
he called ferris to him and imparted his discovery in a stage whisper.
“the dickens!” was all that gentleman could say, as the full text of his address of the other evening rushed upon him.
“it is awkward, devilish awkward,” remarked lucas, wiping his glasses and nervously readjusting them.
a few minutes later two men rode up to the hotel. one of them was a very quiet-looking fellow who dryly stated that he was the high sheriff of mt. boab county.
