Read Ebook: The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Series 1 by Newell R H Robert Henry

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Ebook has 579 lines and 25775 words, and 12 pages

they die?"

"Yes," says the Mackerel. "That is to say," added the Mackerel, contemplatively, "they sometimes die when there's new and expensive tombstones in fashion."

"Peter Perkins!" says the married chap, with a smile of wild bliss, "I wouldn't miss the happiness I shall feel when my angel returns to her native hevings, for the sake of being twenty bachelors. No!" says the married chap, clutching his bosom, "I've lived on the thought of that air bliss ever since the morning my female pardner threw my box of long-sixes out of the window, and called in the police because I brought a waluable terrier home with me." Here the married chap uncorked his canteen and eyed it with speechless fury.

Tears came to the eyes of the unwomantic Mackerel; he extended his hand, and says he:

"Say no more, Bobby--say no more. If you ain't got the correck idea of Heaven there's no such place on the map."

I give you this touching conversation between two of nature's noblemen, my boy, that you may appreciate that beautiful dispensation of Providence which endows woman with the slighter failings of humanity, yet gives her the power to brighten the mind of inferior man with glorious visions of joy beyond the grave.

My arm has been strengthened in this war, my boy, by the inspiration of woman's courage, and aided by her almost miraculous foresight. Only yesterday, a fair girl of forty-three summers, thoughtfully sent me a box, containing two gross of assorted fish-hooks, three cook-books, one dozen of Tubbses best spool-cotton, three door-plates, a package of patent geranium-roots, two yards of Brussels carpet, Rumford's illustrated work on Perpetual Intoxication, ten bottles of furniture-polish, and some wall-paper. Accompanying these articles, so valuable to a soldier on the march, was a note, in which the kind-hearted girl said that the things were intended for our sick and wounded troops, and were the voluntary tributes of a loyal and dreamy-souled woman. I tried a dose of the furniture-polish, my boy, on a chap that had the measles, and he has felt so much like a sofa ever since, that a coroner's jury will sit on him to-morrow.

The remainder of this susceptible young creature's note, my boy, was calculated to move a heart of stone. She asked if it hurt much to be killed, and said she should think the President might sue Jeff Davis, or commit habeas corpus or some other ridiculous thing, to stop this dreadful, spirit-agonizing war. She said that her deepest heart-throbs and dream-yearnings were for the crimson-consecrated Union, and that she had lavished her most harrowing hope-sobs for its heaven-triumph. She said that she had a friend, named Smith, in the army, and wished I could find him out, and tell him that the human heart, though repining at the absence of the beloved object, may be coldly proud as a scornful statute to the stranger's eye, but pines like a soul-murdered water-lily on the lovely stream of its twilight-brooding contemplations.

Anxious to oblige her, my boy, I asked the General of the Mackerel Brigade if he knew a soldier "of the name of Smith?"

The General thought awhile, and says he:

"Not one. There are many of the name of Sa-mith," says the general, screening his eye from the sun with a bottle, "and the Smythes are numerous; but the Smiths all died as soon as the Prince of Wales came to this country."

This is an age of great aristocracy, my boy, and the name of Smith is confined to tombstones. I once knew a chap named Hobbs, who made knobs, and had a partner named Dobbs; and he never could get married until he changed his title; for what sensitive and delicately-nerved female would marry a man whose business-card read, "Try Hobbs & Dobbs' Knobs?" Finally, he called himself De Hobbs, and wedded a Miss Podger--pronounced Po-gshay. After that, he cut his partner, ordered his friends to cease calling him Jack, and in compliance with the wishes of his wife's family, got out a business-card like this:

JACQUES DE HOBBS, TRY HIS DOOR-PERSUADERS.

But, to return to the women of America, there was one of them came out to our camp not long ago, my boy, with six Saratoga trunks full of moral reading for our troops. She was distributing the cheerful works among the veterans, when she happened to come across Private Jinks, who had just got his rations, and was swearing audibly at the collection of wild beasts he had found in one of his biscuits.

"Young man," says she, in a vinegar manner, "do you want to be damned?"

Private Jinks reflected a moment, and says he:

"Really, mem, I don't know enough about horses to say."

The literary agent was greatly shocked, but recovered in time to hand the warrior a small book, and told him to read it and be saved.

It was a small and enlivening volume, my boy, written by a missionary lately served up for breakfast by the Emperor of Glorygoolia, and entitled "The Fire that Never is Quenched."

Jinks looked at the book, and says he:

"What district is that fire in?"

The daughter of the Republic bit off a small piece of cough candy, and says she:

"It's down below, young man, where you bid fair to go."

"And will it never be put out?" says Private Jinks.

The deeply-affected crinoline shook her head until all her combs rattled, and says she:

"No, young man; it will burn, and burn, young man."

"Then I'm safe enough!" says Private Jinks, slapping his knee; "for I'm a member of Forty Hose, and if that air fire is to keep burning, they'll have to have a paid Fire Department down there, and shut us fellows out."

The daughter of the Republic instantly left him, my boy; and when next I saw her, she was arguing with one of the chaplains, who pretended to believe that firemen sometimes went to Heaven.

Woman, my boy, is an angel in disguise; and if she had wings what a rise there would be in bonnets!

Yours, for the next Philharmonic,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

CITING A NOTABLE CASE OF VOLUNTEER SURGERY, AND GIVING AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF "COTTON SEMINARY."

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 25th, 1862.

There is a certain something about a sick-room, my boy, that makes me think seriously of my latter end, and recognize physicians as true heroes of the bottle-field. The subdued swearing of the sufferer on his bed, the muffled tread of the venerable nurse, as she comes into the room to make sure that the brandy recommended by the doctor is not too mild for the patient, the sepulchral shout of the regimental cat as she recognizes the tread of Jacob Barker, the sergeant's bull-terrier, outside; all these are things to make the spectator remember that we are but dust, and that to return to dust is our dustiny.

Early in the week, my boy, a noble member of the Pennsylvania Mud-larks was made sick in a strange manner. A draft of picked men from certain regiments was ordered for a perilous expedition down the river. You may be aware, my boy, that a draft is always dangerous to delicate constitutions; and, as the Mud-lark happened to burst into a profuse perspiration about the time he found himself standing in this draft, he, of course, took such a violent cold that he had to be put to bed directly. I went to see him, my boy; and whilst he was relating to me some affecting anecdotes of the time when he used to keep a bar, a member of the Medical Staff of the United States of America came in to see the patient.

This venerable surgeon first deposited a large saw, a hatchet, and two pick-axes on the table, and then says he:

"How do you find yourself, boy?"

The Mud-lark took a small chew of tobacco with a melancholy air, and says he:

"I think I've got the guitar in my head, Mr. Saw-bones, and am about to join the angel choir."

"I see how it is," says the surgeon, thoughtfully; "you think you've got the guitar, when it's only the drum of your ear that is affected. Well," says the surgeon, with sudden pleasantness, as he reached after his saw and one of the pick-axes, "I must amputate your left leg at once."

The Mud-lark curled himself up in bed like a wounded anaconda, and says he:

"I don't see it in that light."

"Well," says the surgeon, in a sprightly manner, "then suppose I put a fly-blister on your stomick, and only amputate your right arm?"

The surgeon was formerly a blacksmith, my boy, and got his diploma by inventing some pills with iron in them. He proved that the blood of six healthy men contained enough iron to make six horse-shoes, and then invented the pills to cure hoarseness.

The sick chap reflected on what his medical adviser had said, and then says he:

"Your words convince me that my situation must be dangerous. I must see some relative before I permit myself to be dissected."

"Whom would you wish me to send for?" says the surgeon.

"My grandmother, my dear old grandmother," said the Mud-lark, with much feeling.

The surgeon took me cautiously aside, and says he:

"My poor patient has a cold in his head, and his life depends, perhaps, on the gratification of his wishes. You have heard him ask for his grandmother," says the surgeon, softly, "and as his grandmother lives too far away to be sent for, we must practice a little harmless deception. We must send for Secretary Welles of the Navy Department, and introduce him as the grandmother. My patient will never know the difference."

I took the hint, my boy, and went after the Secretary; but the latter was so busy examining a model of Noah's Ark that he could not be seen. Happily, however, the patient recovered while the surgeon was getting his saw filed, and was well enough last night to reconnoitre in force.

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