=71
Fargo'S'SE




BEING
8 ~rmif hu^t &.r:aimC^^tlxT lemab
OF THE
DOINGS -OF A REMAT.KABLE PEOPLE, UNDER MORE
REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCES, AND C-IRONICLED IN A MOST REMARKABLE MANNER,
BY THE AUTHOR,
JAMES M. BAILEY,
" THE DANBURY NEWS MAN;"
AND
CAREFULLY COMPILED WITH A PAIR OF EIGHT-DOLLAR
SHEARS, BY THE COMPILER.
T I I R T Y-T l r R D T II  U S A N D.
BOSTON:
SHEPARD  AND  GILL.
1873.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
BY SHEPARD & GILL,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
RAND, AVERY, & Co., PRINTERS,
3 CORNHILL, BOSTON.
Brown Type-Setting Machine Company,




WHY I WROTE A BOOK.
To the friends of The -News, who may take up
this work, the question may come,-Why did he
write a book?  It is a -natural inquiry. It has
assailed hundreds before our day; it will afflict
hundreds in the years to conme. And probably
there is no form of interrogation so loaded with
subtile torture as this very one, unless it is to be
asked for a light in a strange depot by a man you
had just selected out of seventeen thousand as the
man to be the most likely to have a match. Various
authors have various reasons for bringing out a
book, and this reason may or may not be the reason they give to the world; I know not, and care
not. It is not for me to judge the world, unless
I am elected.
~




4                INTR OD UCTION.
It is a matter which lies between the author
and his own conscience, and I know  of no place
where it would be less likely to be crowded. But
my reason for writing a book is so novel, so different from all others, that the public may be pardoned for feeling an intense desire to know it.
Some have written a book for money; I have not.
Some for fame; I have not.  Some for love; I
have not.  Some for kindlings; I have. not. I
have not written a book for any of these reasons,
or all of them  combined.  In fact, gentle borrower, I have not written a book at all- I have
merely clipped it.
Yours truly,
THE CLIPPER.
S OME WHA T INTR ODUCTORY.
TrIS work is designed to while away a stray
hour which the borrower may have at odd times
The matter has been carefully selected with a
view to suiting all cases and conditions.  Within




INTR ODUCTIONV                5
its covers the banker may find relief-although it
is extremely doubtful; and here is something for
the farmer, the artizan, the undertaker, the laborer
in the mines, the porter, the merchant, the student, the man of leisure, the hackman, etc. The
matter was written at odd times, although generally right after pay-day, and is submitted to the
borrower with a great deal of timidity, but with
the earnest hope that it may be the humble means
of making money.
If in its perusal one single (or even married)
borrower is made purer and better, and his life
made to appear brighter, and his soul lifted up
generally, I shall sincerely rejoice to hear its
Address me at Danbury, enclosing a stamp.
"6THE DANBURY NEWS MAN."








LIFE IN DANBURY.
SKETCHES.












\\\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \''., ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ RH
61A
~~!~~~   ~       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~  ~~li~!
AN \ARLY MARTYR.
AN EARLY MARTYR




SKETCHES.
AN EARLY MARTYR.'
As this account pertains mostly to the iagwheel of a saw mill, there may be people who
will think I ought to know what a rag-wheel is,
and be able to throw a good deal of interesting
light on its origin and history. Fortunately, I
don't know  anything about it. A  rag-wheel
may be some part of the floor of a saw mill, or
adapted to its roof, or only something to keep
the boys from  fooling with the saw. I know
nothing about it. I only know that this is a sad
account to write, and that I, like the public,
would much rather that some one else would do
it.
The owner of the saw mill in question was
Abner Pierce. He was a man who was fond of
9




10            LIFE IN DANBURY.
hunting foxes, and kept eight men employed about
his farm and mill. The rag-wheel becoming impaired anld unsafe from age or wear, or both,
needed replacing, and he employed a carpenter
from a place twenty miles distant to make a new
rag-wheel.
The carpenter who came twenty miles to make
a rag wheel for Abner Pierce, was a stranger to
that gentleman. His name was Zebulon Watts.
He brought a man with him to do the work,
volunteering to attack the bossing of the job single handed and unaided. Watts was mentally
and physically remarkable. He was not a worker,
but a designer. He could plan work for any number of men to perform, and stand around handy
to see that they did it. He was a man fond of
the law, and when a party refused to pay him
for work, his delight was almost hysteric. He
then sued them, plead his own case, covered
everybody with mud, and retired defeated. IIe
couldn't help but think a man was trying to beat
him  in an underhanded manner if he paid him
cash down without equivocation of any kind.
Physically, he was not adapted to heavy labor.




SKETCHES,                  11
He was about five feet high and about four feet
square. He wore a Shanghai overcoat, which rathel
impaired the natural outlines of his figure, and a
huge cap made from the fur of a horse, with a
forepiece that stood straight out like the step to
a stage-coach. It may be mentioned, in passing,
that Mr. Watts didn't know any more about a
rag-wheel than I do, and the iliformation the
assistant possessed on the same subject was considerably hampered by limits.  But while I am
painfully aware of my ignorance, it never for an
instant occurred to Mr. Watts that he didn't
know anything about the matter.
He took charge of the manufacture of that ragwheel with all the confidence in the world, and
laid his plans, and made his estimates, and set
the man to work getting out the stuff, and walked
around with his hands in his pockets, and talked
about religion and the legislature.
And so day passed into day and time rolled
on.
On1 the evening preceding the close of the job,
Pierce, as was his custom, had all his help,
including the carpenters, in the large, old-fasi




12,z        LIFE IN DANVB UR Y.
ioned kitchen. It was a cold November night,
and a large and very grateful fire roared and
snapped  in  the yawning  fireplace.  The men
sat there until ten o'clock, talking about fox
hunting and public schools, and then retired to
their respective  couches, each man drawing  off
his boots and. leaving them  in front of the fireplace.  In a short time the house was as quiet as
a pot of paint, and the flicker of the dying fire
created fantastic shadows among the eleven pairs
of boots.
At two o'clock one of the men was awakened
by a glare of light in his eyes, and bounding to
the window saw that the mill was on fire.  The
alarm  was at once given.  Pierce heard it, and
was the first in his clothes.  Then he darted for
the kitchen to get his boots.  He was a man of
great nervous susceptibility, and not at any time
unpleasantly particular about his language.  It
was very dark in the kitchen-so dark that but a
dim outline of the walls could be seen.  But he
was in a hurry-there was no time to strike a
light.  He made a plunge for the first bcot he
could reach, tried it part way on,- discovered it




SKETCHES.                    3
was originally  made for another man, flung it
across the room, and swooped down on another.
No  better  success.  Threw  that, and  swore.
Grabbed another.  Swore again.  Made several
attempts to get his foot into the third  boot.
Foot kept slipping  outside.  Threw  that, and
swore again.  Fourth boot had no straps to it.
Dropped that at once.  Then he tried some more;
kept trying them  as rapidly as he could find
them, and all the time his property was being
licked up by the dreadful flames, and the perspiration was rolling into his eyes, and his feet
were smarting  under the exertions they  were
forced into.  And all the while he kept pouring
forth the most ridiculous cursing anybody ever
heard, and finally, in a perfect shriek of profanity,
he dashed out of the house in his stocking feet,
and across a cornfield full of bristling  stubble,
and shed woolen yarn and blood at every jump.
He had barely got out of the kitchen, when the
men came tearing in, crazed by excitement, and
looking' for their boots.
"Smitten Washington! where is my boots?"
shrieked Watts.  And then following the example




4              LIFE IN DANBURY.
of the others, he dropped down on the floor, and
began to feel around for them.  Then ensued a
scene that beggars all description. Ten men in a
dark room, spasmodically and insanely endeavoring to get into a pair of boots belonging to other
parties, and each one carefully flinging the wrong
boot straight ahead, and snatching for another,
and swearing and screaming all the time, and hopping round on one foot, and bumping each other
over, like so many unhappy and incurable maniacs. Some two or three secured a boot apiece
and started for the mill; others went entirely unprotected; while old Watts, with a presence of
mind that was truly remarkable, gathered up an
armful of them, and went bounding across that
corn lot with the speed of an alligator.
All possible agencies were used to subdue the
fire, but it had such headway that the prospect
was dubious enough.  Mr. Watts carefully deposited his new Shanghai coat on a pile of slabs, and
seizing a pint-pail that had been used for drink-.
ing cider from, dashed recklessly down the bank
to the creek, and in a few minutes returned with
the pail half full, and madly dashed the contents




SKETCHES.                  15
over Pierce, and then hurried back for mole. But
all efforts were of no avail. The fire-fiend marched
on without interruption, and in an hour the mill
was destroyed.  Sorrowfully the party turned and
limped home. Mr. Watts went for his coat and
was somewhat startled to find that the fire had
even attacked the pile of slabs, and in its insatiate
fury had completely devoured one tail to the coat.
Then Mr. Watts lifted up his voice and carried
on like a pirate.
It is not necessary to state that the rag-wheel
went up with the flames. It so went. Mr. Watts
returned home with his man, the next day, and in
the seclusion and sacredness of the domestic circle
made out his bill against Pierce.
Pierce refused to pay it.  Watts was delighted,
Pierce said the wheel was but a piece of botchwork.  Watts said he would make him prove it.
And-and he did. The suit went against Watts.
Ile argued, and plead, and perspired, and pranced
around, but it was no use-a venial judge decided
against him.
Then there was another unfortunate phase to
this remarkably painful affair. Not another piece




~~16      kLIFE IN DANB URY.
of cloth could be found in town to match that ravaged coat. Unceasingly did Watts parade the
stores of his native heath, but in vain was piece
after piece of goods comparec to the unsinged tail
of that coat. Nothing would match. The surviving tail was a peculiar green and the nearest
approach to it was a peculiar blue; and so Watts
had to get it, because he couldn't afford to lose
the coat, and, besides, the one tail was becoming
a trifle monotonous to the public.
The new repairs created quite a sensation at
first among the neighbors, but it gradually wore
off, and whenever he appeared with his rainbow
tails, and that coarse fur cap with its threatening
forepiece, they merely observed- I"Hallo! hero
comes the Jack of Clubs."
AN UNFORTUNATE FUNERAL.
YEARS ago, Albany boys entertained a strong
sectional feeling. I remember that those who
lived in the lower part of the city were called
"Creeks," to distinguish them from  those who
lived at the upper end, who were called "Hills."




$KETCHES.                   17
And T remember with striking vividness that an
intense enmity existed between thoe boys.  I
was a "Creek" in those days, andc  as a11 the
cemeteries were in the'liill" country, and as
] was vely fond of military funerals-one of their
best patrons, in fact-I nearly lost the entire use
of one eye by constantly revolving  it around in
search  of the unfriendly "Hills.". As I had
been brought up by Puritan parents, and educated to look upon a liar as the most despisable of
earth's creatures, my risks were rather serious;
for had I been questioned in regard to my position, I should have frankly avowed I was a'Hill."  But I met with no mishaps and grew
so emboldened that I even had the hardihood to
patronize some funerals that were not military or
public; but as they occurred on the Sabbath, I
attended them  because being  surrounded with
Puritanic influence the Sabbath was dreary to me.
It w'as at one of these private funerals where I
]earned how vain and unsatisfactory is this life.
It was during the performance of the last rites,
and I was standing a little in the rear of the
inmediate friends, with an appropriate expreso




18            LIFE IN DANBUR Y.
sion of woe on my face, and about to complete
an arrangement to exchange a broken top for a
knife that had seen better days, when a pLignacious-looking youth of about my age came up,
and kindly inquired —"Are you a Hill or a
Creek?"  Remembering my mother's teachings,
I was just about to admit that I was a "Hill,"
when I became confused by the peculiar way he
doubled his fist, and actually claimed that I was
a "Creek."  This is about all there was of it,
excepting that I was knocked cown and stamped
on, and lost some of my teeth, and had two or
three of my ribs fractured. But I preserved my
honesty, and eventually recovered the top. A
man may lose home, friends, teeth, and everything that makes life dear, but if he remains
truthful, people will respect him-so they say.
MR. STIVER'S HORSE.
THE other morning at breakfast, Mrs. Perkins
observed that Mr. Stiver, in whose house we
live, had been called away, and wanted to know
if I would see to his horse through the day.




SKETCHES.                 19
I knew that Mr. Stiver owned a horse, because
I occasionally saw  him  drive out of the yard,
and I saw the stable every day; but what kind
of a horse I didn't know.  I never went into the
stable for two reasons: in the first place, I had
no desire to; and, secondly, I didn't know as the
horse cared particularly for company.
I never took care of a horse in my life, and
had I been of a less hopeful nature, the charge
Mr. Stiver had left with me might have had a
very depressing effect; but I told Mrs. Perkins I
would do it.
"You know how to take care of a horse, don't
you?" said she.
I gave her a reassuring wink.  In fact I knew
so little about it that I didn't think it safe to
converse more fluently than by winks.
After breakfast I seized a toothpick and walked
out toward the stable.  There was nothing particular to do, as Stiver had given him his brearkfast, and I found him  eating it; so I looked
around.  The  horse looked around, too, and
stared pretty hard at me. There was but little
said on either side. I hunted up the location of




20            LIFE IN DANBIUR Y.
the feed, and then sat down on a peck measure,
and fell to studying the beast. There is a wide
difference in horses. Some of them will kick
you over and never look around to see what
becomes of you. I don't like a disposition like
that, and I wondered if Stiver's horse was one of
them.
When I came home at noon I went straight to
the stable. The animal was there all right.
Stiver hadn't told me what to give him for dinner, and I had not given the subject any thought;
but I went to the oat box and filled the peck
measure, and sallied up to the manger.
When he saw the oats he almost smiled; this
pleased and amused him. I emptied them  into
the trough, and left him above me to admire the
way I parted my hair behind. I just got my
head up in time to save the whole of it. He
had his ears back, his mouth open, and looked
as if he were on the point of committing murder.
I went out and filled the measure again, and
climbed up the side of the stall and emptied it
on top of him. He brought his head up so suddenly at this that I immediately got down, let



SKETCHES.               2
ting go of everything to do it. I struck on the
sharp edge of a barrel, rolled over a couple of
times, and then disappeared under a hay-cutter.
The peck measure went down on the other side,
and got mysteriously tangled up in that animal's
heels, and he went to work at it, and then
ensued the most dreadful noise I everheard in
all my life, and I have been married eighteen
years.
It did seem as if I never would get out from
under that hay-cutter; and all the while I was
struggling and wrenching myself and the cutter
apart, that awful beast was kicking around in
that stall, and making the most appalling sound
imaginable.
When I got out I found Mrs. Perkins at the
door. She had heard the racket, and had sped
out to the stable, her only thought being of me
and three stove lids which she had under her
arm, and one of which she was about to fire at
the beast.
This made me mad.
"Go away, you unfortunate idiot," I shouted;
"do you want to knock my brains out?"  For




22            LIFE IN DANBURY.
I remembered seeing Mrs. Perkins sling a missile once before, and that I nearly lost an eye
by the operation, although standing on the other
side of the house at the time.
She retired at once. And at the same time the
animal quieted down, but there was nothing left
of that peck measure, not even the maker's name.
I followed Mrs. Perkins into the house, and
had her do me up, and then I sat down in a
chair, and fell into a profound strain of meditation. After a while I felt better, and went out
to the stable again. The horse was leaning
against the stable stall, with eyes half closed, and
appeared to be very much engrossed in thought.
"Step off to the left," I said, rubbing his
back.
He didn't step. I got the pitchfork  and
punched him  in the leg with the handle. He
immediately raised up both hind legs at once,
and that fork flew out of my hands, and went
rattling up against the timbers above, and came
down again in an instant, the end of the handle
rapping me with such force on the top of the
head that I sat right down on the floor under the




SKETCIES.                23
impression that I was standing in front of a drug
store in the evening. I went back to the house
and got some more stuff on me. But I couldn't
keep away from that stable. I went out there
again. The thought struck me that what the
horse wanted was exercise. If that thought had
been an empty glycerine can, it would have
saved a windfall of luck for me.
But exercise would tone him down, and exercise him I should. I laughed to myself to think
how I would trounce him around the yard. I
didn't laugh again that afternoon. I got him
unhitched, and then wondered how I was to get
him out of the stall without carrying him out.
I pushed, but he wouldn't budge. I stood looking at him in the face, thinking of something to
say, when he suddenly solved the difficulty by
veering about and plunging for the door. I followed, as a matter of course, because I had a tight
hold on the rope, and hit about every partition
stud worth speaking of on that side of the barn.
Mrs. Perkins was at the window and saw us come
out of the door. She subsequently remarked that
we came out skipping like two innocent children.




24             LIFE IN DANBURY.
The skipping was entirely unintentional on my
part.  I felt as if I stood on the verge of (ternity.  My legs may have skipped, but my mind
was filled with awe.
I took that animal out to exercise him. He
exercised me before I got through with" it.  He
went around a few times in a circle; then he
stopped suddenly, spread out his fore legs and
looked at me.  Then he leaned forward a little,
and hoisted both hind legs, and threw about two
coal hods of mud over a line full of clothes Mrs.
Perkins had just hung out.
That excellent lady had taken a position at the
window, alnd whenever the evolutions of the awful
beast permitted I caught a glance at her features.
She appeared to be very much interested in the
proceedings; but the instant that the mud flew, she
disappeared from  the window, and a moment
later she appeared on the stoop with a long poker
in her hand, and fire enough in her eye to heat
it red hot.
Just then Stiver's horse stood up on his hind
legs and tried to hug me with the others.  This
scared me.  A horse never shows his strength to




~-;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I,~..'
MR STIVER S HORSE
G'',,- ~~.    ~- ~?~,,'~- -~~., ~~ ~








SKETCHES.                   2.5
such advantage as when he is coming down on
you like a frantic pile driver.  I instantly dodged,
and the cold sweat fairly boiled out of me.
It suddenly came over me that I had once
figureld in a similar position years ago.  My
grandfather owned a little white horse that would
get up from  a meal at Delmonico's to kick the
President of the United States.  He sent me to
the lot one day, alnd unhappily suggested that I
often went after that horse, and suffered all kinds
-of defeat in getting him out of tlhe pasture, but
I had never tried to ride him.  Heaven knows
I never thought of it.  I hladl my usual trouble
with him  that cay.  He tried to jump over me,
and push me down in a mud hole, and finally got
up on his hind legs and came waltzing after me
with facilities enough to convert me into hash,
but I turned and just made for that fence with
all the agony a prospect of instant death could
crowd into me.  If our candidate for the Presidency had run one-half as well, there would be
seventy-five postmasters in Danbury to-day, in.
stead of one.
I got him  out finally, and then he was quiet




26             LIFE IN DAN VBUR Y
enough, and took him up alongside the fence and
got on him. He stopped an instant, one brief
instant, and then tore off down the road at a
frightful speed. I laid down on him and clasped
my hands tightly around his neck, and thought
of my home.  When we got to the stable I was
confident he would stop, but he didn't.  He
drove straight at the door. It was a low door,
just high enough to permit him to go in at lightning speed, but there was no room for me. I
saw if I struck that stable the struggle would be
a very brief one.  I thought this all over in an
instant, and then spreading out my arms and legs,
emitted a scream, and the next moment I was
bounding about in the filth of that stable yard.
All this passed through my mind as Stiver's
horse went up into the air. It frightened Mrs.
Perkins dreadfully.
"Why, you old fool!" she said; "why don't
you get rid of him?"
"How can I?" said I, in desperation.
"Why, there are a thousand ways," said she.
This is just like a woman. How different a
statesman would have answered.




SKETCHES.                 27
But I could think of only two ways to dispose
of the beast. I could either swallow him where
he stood and then sit down on him, or I could
crawl inside of him and kick him to death.
But I was saved either of these expedients by
his coming toward me so abruptly that I dropped
the rope in terror, and then he turned about, and,
kicking me full of mud, shot for the gate, ripping
the clothes line in two, and went on down the
street at a horrible gallop, with two of Mrs.
Perkins's garments, which he hastily snatched
from  the line, floating over his neck in a very
picturesque manner.
So I was afterwards told. I was too full of
mud myself to see the way into the house.
Stiver got his horse all right, and stays at
home to take care of him. Mrs. Perkins has
gone to her mother's to recuperate, and I am
healing as fast as possible.
THE DANB URY P L UMBER.
There are some disadvantages in living on the
second floor. A Danbury housewife thus situated




28              LIFE IN DANBURY.
left a bar of soap on the stairs while she exchanged
a few Vwords with the first floor tenant, and a
plumber who was up stairs mending the pipes
cane down a moment later with several tongs and
wrenches in one hand, and a sheet iron furnace in
the other, and when he reached the immediate
locality of the soap his legs suddenly spread apart,
a look of astonishment stole into his face, and in
an instant his head was half way through the front
door, and his coat tail on fire, and those tongs
and wrenches were up in the air struggling for
clear life with that sheet iron furnace.  He says
-now  that his father forced him  to learn the
trade of plumbing, and that it was not his own
choice.
OUR PROLETARI ATS.
THE Germans are fighting against potatoes,
because they say potatoes do not contain so much
albums as other articles of vegetation.  Potatoes
only have about ten cents' worth of albums while
beans have twenty-two cents' worth of albums to
the square inch.  This makes potatoes feel sick.




SKETCHES.                   29
The French won't eat potatoes unless they are
fried, on account of the lack of albums.  We
think it is albums, but if it ain't, we shall regret
hivingo started this item anyway..There is another
-thing about potatoes we neverbefore thought of.
A German  writer says that its unnourishing qualities is apt to make our proletariats physically
and mentally weak.  You wouldn't hardly believe
it, but there are people that don't care a continental about their proletariats.  But we do.  We
wouldn't have our proletariats run against and
bruised for any amount of money.  And when we
heard that potatoes were things that hurt proletariats we turned our backs on potatoes.  We think
a good deal of our proletariats, every one of them,
and would give five dollars if we knew  what a
proletariat is
GRA TITUDE.
ONE of our benevolent old ladies is not satisfied
with alone comfortably clothing the objects of her
philanthropy, but perseveres in taking an interest
in them  after that.  Wherever she meets them




30             LIFE IN DANBURY.
she is ready to make some pertinent and pleasant
remark, such as, "Why, what a nice comfortablo
dress that of Miss Perkins makes you;"  or,
"Mercy me! how good Uncle Daniel's breeches
fit you," or something else of a like friendly and
considerate nature, which is always keenly appreciated by the recipient, and sometimes by listeners.  Saturday evening a chirk young Miss escorted by her gallant through the crowd on Main
Street caught the eye of the old lady, and her
delighted voice sounded above the noises of the
street as she cried, "Why, gracious goodness,
Almira Ann Boardman! poor dead Miss Pinkney's
basque sets almost as snug to you as if it had been
made for you."  And the old lady rubbed her
nose very pleasantly, while Miss Boardman turned
black with suppressed gratitude.
THE HEN.
THE quintessence of the omnivorous is supposed
to be imaged in the hog; but a hog is a Peabody
among animals along side ofa hen. Hens are by
nature monopolists. When the subject of victuals




SKETCHES.                  31
is mentioned they are evidently listening.  Throw
a handful of corn into a ten-acre lot and every hen
in the enclosure will get a dab at it.  The last
lien on the spot may not secure more than two
kernels, but nothing in the hen's appearance will
indicate that.  It will step around with as much
precision and gratitude as any in the flock, and
wear the most pensive smile you ever saw. A
hen will not eat everything it sees, but it will try
to, and there isn't one of them on the face of this
earth but that can tell you the taste of everything
it has seen within the radius of a half mile of its
house.  It is only when a man has kicked at a
hen and missed it that he begins to understand
how thoroughly hollow and deceitful this world
is; and it is a marvelous fact in this connection
that he will miss the hen if he does kick at it, and
misses it if he don't.
MUMBLETY PEG.
TiE boys on Liberty Street are rather down on
Willie Cliver. They were playing mumblety peg,
all of them  together, Saturday afternoon.  Mam



32             LIFE IN DANBURY.
blety peg is a very exciting game if you are a spectator.  It got on to a little boy named Mose, first.
He got cown on his knees and rooted around in
the earth to get a hold of that peg, with the wisdom  and decorum  of a man forty years old.
When he came up with the peg in his teeth, his
mouth and nose -looked like a vacant asparagus
bed. Willie enjoyed it hugely, and was fairly
insane with delight when three other boys got
caught and wore the newness off their noses and
the enamel from their teeth in the mighty endeavors to encompass the obstinate peg.  Then it got
on to Willie, and the boys whose faces were
smarting acutely under the pressure of preceding
defeats, drove that peg with a velocity that would
have depressed any other boy but Willie; but he
had been educated by religious parents, and when
the peg was fairly settled, he went into the house
t; get his Sunday-School lesson-and while he
was in there looking pure, and good, and attentive, Mose and the three other little boys put up
their shamefully-abused noses and lips and howled
and roared around like mad,




ANGER AND ENUMERATION.
A DANBURY man named Reubens, recently saw
a statement that counting one* hundred when
tempted to speak an angry word would save a
man a great deal of trouble.  This statement
sounded a little singular at first, but the more he
read it over the more favorably he became impressed with it, and finally concluded to adopt it.
Next door to Reubens lives a man who has made
five distinct attempts in the past fortnight to
secure a dinner of green peas, by the first of July,
and every time has been retarded by Reubens's
hens.  The next morning after Reubens made his
resolution this man found his fifth attempt to have
mis-carried.  Then he called on Reubens. He
said —
"What in thunder do you mean by letting your
hens tear up my garden?"
3




34            LIFE IN DAAB UR Y.
Reubens was prompted to call him a mad-snoot,
a new name just coming into general use, but he
remembered his resolution, put down his rage, and
meekly observed,"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight-"
Then the mad neighbor who had been eyeing
this answer with a great deal of suspicion, broke
in again,"'WWhy don't you answer my question, you rascal?"
But still Reubens mair ained his equanimity,
and went on with the test.
"Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
fifteen, sixteen-"
The mad neighbor stared harder than ever.
"Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twentyone  "
"You're a mean skunk," said the mad neighbor,
backing toward the fence.
Reubens's face flushed at this charge, but he
only said,"Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twernty-five, twenty-six-"
At this figure the neighbor got up on the fence




SKETCHES.                 3
in some haste, but suddenly thinking of his peas,
he opened his mouth,-'You mean, low-lived rascal; for two cents I
could knock your cracked head over a barn, and
I would-"'Twenty-seven, twenty-eight," interrupted Reu
bens, "twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two,
thirty-three —"
Here the neighbor broke for the house, and
entering it, violently slammed the door behind
him; but Reubens did not dare let up on the
enumeration, and so he stood out there alone in
his own yard, and kept on counting, while his
burning cheeks and flashing eyes eloquently affirmed his judgment. When he got up into the
eighties his wife came to the door in some
alarm.
"Why, Reubens, man, what is the matter with
you?" she said.  "Do come into the house."
But he didn't let up. She came out to him,
and clung tremblingly to him, but he only looked
into her eyes, and said,"Ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety



386            LIFE IN DANBURY.
six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one
huncred-go into the house, old womail, or I'll
bust ye."
And she went.
FIRST SUNDAY  IN A NEW HOUSE.
THE first Sunday in a new house is a notable
day. There is an entire absence of old landmarks,
and a strange, weird newness on everything, and
you can't find your shaving soap. You start for
a scuttle of coal, but you don't see the scuttle. It
is in the bottom of a barrel in the garret. You
take the dripping pan. When you change your
shirt, you look for it first. It is in one of the
bureau drawers which are piled one upon another,
in the parlor, and you find you have got to lift a
half ton of carpets and feather beds before you can
get down to the drawers. After you have lifted
them  down and searched them  through, it is
remembered by your wife that the desired garment
is in one of the barrels-the one in the shed she
thinks, although it may be the one in the garret,
and yet it would be just like the stupid carman to




SKETCHES.                 37
have carried that barrel down cellar.  You think so
too. You attack one of those barrels, and are
surprised at the result. A bed-quilt comes out
first, then a pie-tin, next a piece of cold ham
neatly done up in your vest and packed away in
the missing scuttle. Below is an assortment of
iron ware and a length of stove-pipe, a half loaf of
bread, a couple of towels, and a rolling pin. You
begin to expect you will eventually come upon a
coal mine, and perhaps some dead friends. Then
you go down in that barrel again, and come up
with a pleasing assortment of stockings and halfemptied medicine bottles. The way you come up
this time leads you to consider the barrel itself.
It has caught in the back of your vest and made
the cloth let go; it took off one-half of one sleeve,
and created a sensation on the back of your hand
as if a bonfire had raged there. It is quite evident the cooper who built that barrel was called
away before he commenced to clinch the nails.
You involuntarily grasp the rolling pin and look
around as if you half expected to see him. Then
you call the girl to repack the barrel, and start
up stairs to look after something that is easier to




8          I;~ZFLIFE IN DANBURY.
find, but finally change your mind, and pass the
balance of the day in digging carpet tacks and
worthless wood from the palms of your feet, and
concocting lies about the wealth of your uncle;
and the moon looks through the window at night,
and touches up with a glow of burnished silver,
several lengths of stove-pipe, a half dozen odd
chairs, a sheet of dingy zinc, and a barrel with
bed-quilts foaming over the top.
THE DANBURY HORSE.
THE Danbury horse has a reputation above all
other animals of the field. The chief claim of the
Danbury horse to public favor and notice is the
facility with which he will run away.  He is
always ready to run away. He will get up in the
night from a refreshing sleep to run away. He
will leave a meal of cream cakes and quail on toast
to run away. He will sacrifice home, happiness,
honor, and other people's property to run away.
And when he gets started nobody ever thinks of
getting in front of him. Once in a while a
stranger attempts it, but there is a fund to furnish




SKETCHES.                ^
ice to pack his body with until his friends can
come on, so there is no harm done. A Danbury
horse is neither a respecter of occasions. He will
run away from a post or an agricultural debate, or
a funeral, and, in a tight pinch, would run away
from a position in the New York custom house.
MORMON ANNIVERSARIES.
BRIGHAM YOUNG is now commencing to realize
something tangible from his matrimonial investments. The anniversaries of those marriages are
commencing to occur with astounding frequency.
First there is a silver wedding, then a wooden
wedding, and a tin wedding, and then another
silver wedding, and, adjoining, a glass wedding,
and then a tin wedding again, and next night still
another silver wedding, and then a linen wedding,
followed by a wooden wedding, which is succeeded
by a glass wedding, and ~o on through the chapter.
The effect on the Mormons-the rank and file of the
faithful-can well be imagined, but the brush in
a ten-acre lot of marrowfat peas couldn't paint it.
The treasury is depleted. The Temple itself is




40             LIFE IN DANBURY.
warmed with three mortgages, and even the Rev.
elation bids fair to ascend the spout. It is no
uncommon thing to see a healthy Mormon skimming toward headquarters, with a silver pitcher
under one arm and a coal-scuttle under the other,
and a pleasing assortment of glass and wooden
ware concealed about him. Our government has
concluded to withdraw its troops.
A. DANGEROUS SAFEGUARD.
TMLEE has been a gun standing behind a cupboard in a Pine-Street residence for the past eight
years. It belonged to the occupant's father, and
was set up there in a loaded condition. Its presence was always an eye-sore to the occupant's
wife, who shared fully with the sex their fear of
fire-arms. So the other day, Friday, we think, she
induced her husband to take it down and fire it
off. He had never fired off a gun that had been
loaded eight years; in fact, he never fired off a
gun at all; so he poked it out of a window and
t ok aim into the garden, without the faintest
shadow of fear. His wife being afraid of fire.




SKIETGHES.                4
arms, stood behind his back and looked over his
shoulder with her eyes shut tightly.  He shut his
eyes, too, and then he pulled the trigger.  What
immediately followed, neither appears to have any
settled idea.  He says he can vaguely remember
hearing a noise of some kind, and has an indistinct impression of passing over something which
must have been his wife, as she was found between
him and the'window by the neighbors who drew
him out of the fire-place.-The fact that one of his
shoulders was set back about two inches, and that
three of her teeth were imbedded in his scalp,
seemed to indicate that in stepping back from the
window he had done so abruptly, and this conclusion, we are glad to say, was verified by both on
being restored to consciousness.
THE BREAD P UD DING.
ONE of the best cement cellar-floors in this town
is that of a Pine-Street resident, and the one who
sincerely and even profanely regrets this fact is
the man himself. His wife left a plate of bread
pldding on the cellar stairs, Saturday, to cool for




42. LIFE IN DANBURY.
dinner, and unknown to her he went down there
for a pitcher of cider. When he and the pudding
met there was a time. His wife heard an awful
crash which almost paralyzed her, but before she
could move to see what was the matter, he came
tearing into the kitchen with one hand on his
pistol pocket, and the other swinging mysteriously in the air, and a streak of steaming pudding
the whole length of his back, and he was shrieking camphor and profanity at every leap.
AMAA TEUR TREE-FELILING.
AN Essex-Street man cut down a shade tree
which was in the way, Monday. When he got it
about ready to fall, he hitched a rope to it, and
his wife and wife's mother and father and himself
got hold of the rope, and went out on the walk,
and commenced to pull it. But the tree didn't
budge. Then he told them to keep pulling while
he took the axe and started it a little. So they
bent all their muscle upon it, and opened their
mouths and poked out their eyes as people always
do on such an occasion, and he hit the tree a good




SKETCHES.                4
clip with the axe. But it didn't budge. Then
he jumped over the fence and said,-"Gi' me a
hold of that rope. "  And just then, in a very unexpected manner, the tree came over, and not being
able to catch themselves in time, the entire family
went off the walk, and screaming and kicking into
the mud. The old gentleman lost his spectacles,
the old lady ruined a three-dollar head-dress, the
wife lost her slippers, and the owner of the tree
broke his nose in the middle, and knocked pretty
much all the hide from one ear. Hie says Heaven
is his home.
ONE OF MAN'S GREAT TRIALS.
THERE was an elderly gentleman wending his
way to the barber's shop, Saturday afternoon.
Coming from an opposite direction was an unshaven man. The shop lay between them. The
unshaven man quickened his step; the elderly
man  struck into a trot. Then  the unshaven
stopped to look into a window, and the elderly
man came back to a walk. Up started the unshaven man again, and the elderly man resumed




LIFE IN DANBURY.
his trot. The unshaven man once more slackened
up; so did the elderly man. Then the unshaven
man quickened his gait, and the elderly man once
more struck into a trot, and reached the door
panting and puffing, as' the unshaven man went
by. And yet women are dissatisfied with their
sphere.
THE NELSON-STREET DOG.
A NELSON-STREET man is the unenvied owner
of a dog that is a terror to the neighbors, purely
by its snapping and snarling propensities. He
snaps at everybody, and knows a little something
of the flavor of everybody up that way. It is
estimated that he has cloth enough in him to
make a pair of breeches for every buoy on Long
Island Sound. The other day a youth on that
street loaded up the end of a stick with a mixture
compounded of horse-radish and cayenne pepper,
and commenced shaking it through the fence at
the cur; and the cur flew up and caught the bait
savagely, and the boy drew the stick away so
sharply, that it left all the contents in the animal's




SKETCHES.                  4
mouth, and the animal chewed away on it in awful
exultation for an instant. T-hen it commenced to
stare, and then spit, and howl, and weep, and paw
and roll over, and finally ran under the barn,
where it remained for two days in religious seclusion.  Now, when anybody pokes a stick through
the fence, that dog don't step up.  It merely
looks over that way, as much as to say,' No sea,
soning in mine, if you please."
SCIENTIFIC.
IF there is anybody who thinks Professor Winhiell has been idle while the other astronomers
were at work, he is mistaken.  The Professor now
comes out with a theory that rather overlaps the
others, and  coming from  such an unexpected
source, promises to make a sensation. The Professor has only been in the business a short time,
but he has improved his opportunities.  He says
that the earth is to keep on cooling, and thus
absorb the moisture, and after swallowing the
several oceans, will make one magnificent gulp
and take in the entire. atmosphere.  The next




46            LIFE IN DANBURY.
morning it will commence to whirl through space
at a pace that will by comparison reduce the flight
of a comet to the speed attained by an oyster on
its way to a funeral, and the surface will bake
brown, and shrivel up in heaps, and split open,
and otherwise tend to obstruct business. In view
of this event many people in Danbury have broken
up house-keeping and gone to boarding, and one
man on North Street has traded off a half-ton horse
for a five-barreled telescope.
THE SCIENTISTS.
SCIENTIFIC men are around with trowels, knives,
saws, and hammers, experimenting. As long as
they dig into the ground or break chunks from
boulders there is no particular harm done. But
some of them cut off cats' tails to see what they
are made of, and lift off the tops of dogs' heads to
see their brains beat. This is a very interesting
performance, to the scientific chaps, and would
probably affold a great deal of wholesome recreation to the cats and dogs were they not unhappily
prejudiced   An aged agriculturist from  Stony




SKETCHES.                47
Hill, told us this morning that he saw a dog stumble while running across a field, and that the top
of its head flew off, and rclled into a hole and was
lost. He went over and examined the animal and
found that this piece had been sawed off, and
stuck on again in a bungling manner, with the
result recorded. The dog died before he could
find the piece. Something still more remarkable
than this is the saving of a dead man by replacing
his brain with one taken from a live man. The
man who thus gave up his brain not only refused
to take three pairs of gate hinges and a screw
driver for his intellect, but obligingly held a candle while the operation was going on. Country
people who take scientific men for boarders should
enclose their heads with hoop iron before going to
bed.
DR. HALL'S CALISTHENICS.
DR. HALL says those people who are troubled
with cold feet at bed-time should bend over and
smartly slap the calves of their legs for about five
minutes. This struck a young man who boards




{8             LIFE 1V DANBURY.
on Essex Street, to be about as sensible a piece of
advice as he ever heard.  So he put it to the test
after disrobing himself on Saturday night. He
bent over, and pounded away at himself, and all
the time made a noise with his mouth, like the
hiss of escaping steam.  This noise attracted the
attention of one of the boarders, and he told the
landlady that there must be a fire in that room,
because he could hear it siz, and could hear an
alfired snapping and popping going on in there.
The landlady didn't pause to argue.  She caught
up a pail and plunged for the place at once. The
boarder followed with a gigantic clothes-brush.
Both of them  precipitated'themselves into the
room together.  The advent was so sudden that
the boarder who was warming himself had no
chance to dodge. And there was too much momentum to the landlady and the other boarder to
permit them to. recover themselves in time.  So
there was a collision. The landlady saw it coming
and instinctively held the pail in front of her. But
the disciple of Hall didn't see it, as his back was
to the door and his head nearly to the floor, and
before he could look up, on hearing the door fly




SKETCHILS.                49
open, the visitors were on him, and the contents
of the pail over him, and the three, with pail'and
clothes-brush, came down in a crash together.
How the landlady extricated herself and got out
of that room as quick as she did will always remain
a mystery to the two men who stood there and
glared at each other for some fifteen minutes.
A RECIPE FOR POULTERERS.
The Country Gentleman suggests a way to prevent hens from eating their egos. It is to fill an
egg with a solution of pepper, and put the egg,
back in the nest.  A  Danbury man has tried
this and says it works like a charm.  lIe put a
pretty good dose of pepper in the egg, and placed
it in the nest of the criminal. Pretty soon the
hen came around, and took hold.  It was a brindle animal, with long legs, and somewhat conceited.  It dipped in its bill and inhaled the
delicacy. Then it came out doors. It didn't
gallop out, we don't mean, but it came out-came
out to look at the scenery, and see if it was going
to rain. Its mouth was wide open, and the feath4




60            LIFE IN DANBURY.
ers on the top of its head stood straight llp. Then
it commenced to go around the yard like a circus
horse. Once in a while it would stop and push
out one leg in a tone of astonishment, and then
holler "Fire," and start on again. The other hens
came out to'look on. Soon the hens from the
neighbors came over the fence, and took tip a
position of observation. It was quite evident that
the performance was something entirely new and
unique to them. There is a good deal. of human
nature in hens. When they saw this hen da.nce
around and have all the fun to itself, and heard it
shout "Fire," and couldn't see the conflagration
themselves, they filled up with wrath, and of one
accord sprang upon it, and before the Danbury
man could interfere, the brindle hen with the long
legs was among the things that were. He says the
recipe is effectual.
DRIVING A HEN.
WHEN a woman has a hen to drive into the
coop, she takes hold of her hoops with both hands,
and shakes them quietly toward the delinquent,




SKETCHES.                  5i
and says, 66Shew, there!"  The hen takes one
look at the object, to convince herself that it's a
woman, and then stalls majestically into the coop,
in perfect disgust of the sex.  A man don't do
that way.  He goes out of doors and says, "6It is
singular nobody in this house can drive a hen but
mayself."  And, picking up a stick of wood, hurls
it at the offending biped, and observes, "Get in
there, you thief.'   The hen immediately loses her
reason, and dashes to the opposite end of the
yard.  The man straightway dashes after her.
She comes back again with her head dowxn, her
wings out, and followed by an assortment of stovewood, fruit-cans, and coal-clinkers, with a much..
puffing and very mad man in the rear.  Then she
skims up on the stoop, and under the barn, and
over a fence or two, and around the house, and
back again to the coop, all the while talking as
only an excited hen can talk, and all the while
followed by things convenient for handling, and
by a man whose coat is on the sawbuck, and whose
hat is on the ground, and whose perspiration and
profanity appear to have no limit.  By this time
the other hens have come out to take a hand in tho




52             LIFE IN DANB URI.
debato, and help codge the missiles-and dIen
the man says every hen on the place shall be sold
in the morning, and puts on his things and goes
down the street, and the woman dons her hoops,
and has every one of those hens housed and contented in two minutes, and the only sound heard
on the premises is the hammering by the eldest
boy as he mends the broken pickets.
WHAT DID YOU RUN FOR?
A YOUNG man from one of the suburbs appeared
from a store on West Street, on Saturday noon,
in quest of the family team; but not discerning it,
stepped quickly to the corner of Main StreQt, and
looked up that avenue just in time to detect the
familiar establishment about turning into White
Street on the homeward course. Then he took
his hat in his hand and struck out on the chase at
a speed that was wonderful. A clerk in a store
that he shot by, ran out to see what was the matter,
and finding a man fleeing for dear life, he put
after him. This created a curiosity in a man who
was digging out a gutter, and he forthwith dropped




SKETCHES.                 0%
his shovel and joined in with commendable alacrity. And then a milkman, who was getting into
his cart, suddenly changed his mind and went
legging up the street in rear of the others.  Two
merchants talking about materialism dropped the
subject and picked up their heels in the same
direction.  Then five boys instinctively took a
leg in.  These were followed by a number of
elderly people; and before the suburban youth
reached White Street, he became painfully aware
that he was pursued.  This led him to redouble
his exertions, but the increase communicated itself
to the surging mass behind; and when he turned
into White Street, his eyes stood out like billiard
balls, and his hair pointed heavenward mostly.
On this avenue he found himself so sorely pressed
that he jumped into the first open hatchway and
disappeared in the darkness of the cellar. The
panting and eager crowd shot up to the entrance,
and almost into it, and after peering into the
darkness without seeing anything, commenced to
look at each other. Then the silence was broken.
"Who was he?" said one.  "I don't know, " said
another.  "What had he been doing?" asked tho




54             LIFE IN DANBURY.
third. "I don't know," said the fourth. Then they
stared at each other again, and the first man said:
"Don't anybody know who he is?"  No answer.
And then t4e first man, who appeared to be burning
up with curiosity, added, "What in thunder did
you run for then?" "Because I saw the others
run. What did you run for?"' "Well, that's the
reason I run."  This seemed to exhaust the topic,
and the crowd gravely dispersed.
THE NEW BOOTS.
IT is a little singular how well a pair of boots
can be made to fit at the store. You may not be
able to get your foot only part way clown the leg
at the first trial, but that is because your stocking
is sweaty, or you haven't started right; and the
shoemaker suggests that you start again and stand
up to it, and he throws in a little powder from a
pppper-box to aid you.  And so you stand up,
and pound down your foot and partly trip yourself
up, and your eyes stick out in an unpleasant manner, and cvery vein in your body appears to be on
the po)int of bursting, and all the while that dealer




SKETCHES. 
stands around and eyes the operation as intently
as if the whole affair was perfectly new and novel
to him. When your foot has finally struck bottom
there is a faint impression on your mind that you
have stepped into an-open stove; but he removes
it by solemnly observing- that he never saw a
boot fit quite as good as that.  You may suggest
that your toe presses too hard against the front,
or that some of the bones in the side of the foot
are too much smashed, but he says that' is always
the way with a new boot, and that the trouble
will entirely disappear in a few days. Then you
take the old pair under your arm  and start for
home as animated as a relic of 1812, all the while
feeling that the world will not look bright and
happ3 to you again until you have brained that
shoemaker. You limp down town the next day,
and smile all the while with your mouth, while
your eyes look as if you were walking over an
oyster bed barefoot.  When no one is looking,
you kick against a post or some other obstruction,
and showt a fondness for stopping and resting
against something that will sustain your weight.
When you get home at night you go for those old




5  LIFE IN DAN B URY.
boots with an eagerness that cannot be described,
and the remarks you make upon learning that
your wife has disposed of them to a widow woman
in the suburbs, are calculated to immediately
depopulate the earth of women and shoemakers
generally.
THE FAMILY HAMMVER
THERE is one thing no family pretends to do
without,-that is a hammer. And yet there is
nothing that goes to make up the equipment of a
domestic establishment that causes one-half as
much agony and profanity as a hammer. It is
always an old hammer, with a handle that is
inclined to sliver, and always bound to slip. The
face is as round as a full moon and as smooth
as glass. When it strikes a nail full and square,
which it has been known to do, the act will be
found to result from a combination of pure accidents. The family hammer is one of those rare
articles we never profit by. When it glides off a
nail head, and mashes down a couple of fingers,
we unhesitatingly deposit it in the yard, and




SKETCHES.                 57
observe that we will never use it again. But the
blood has hardly dried on the rag before we are
out doors in search of that hammer, and ready tb
make another trial.  The result rarely varies, but
we never profit by it. -The awful weapon goes on
knocking off our nails, and mashing whole joints,
and slipping off the handle to the confusion of
mantel ornaments, and breaking the commandments, -and cutting up an assortment of astounding and unfortunate antics, without let or hindrance. And yet we put up with it, and put the
handle on again, and lay it away where it won't
get lost, and do up our mutilated and smarting
fingers; and yet, if the outrageous thing should
happen to disappear, we kick up a regular hullabooloo until it is found again. Talk about the tyrannizing influence of a bad habit I It is not to be
compared to the family hammer.
STREET LIFE IN D ANBUR Y
OLD Mr. Watson, on Nelson Street, has got a
nice little bill to pay. He sent a man down town.
for a pot of paint and a ladder. The man got the




58             LIFE IN DANBURY.
paint, and then went to a lumber yard after a ladder.  Then he tied the paint pot on the end of
the ladder, and put the ladder on his shoulder.
This was a very smart arrangement, and the man
himself admired it very much.  He started for
home this way, and didn't find any trouble in getting along the first block, because people had an
impression that a long ladder with a pot of yellow
paint dangling on the end of it wasn't exactly the
thing to trifle with, so they balanced along on the
curb stone, or rubbed up against the buildings.
Pretty soon the man saw  somebody in a store he
knew, and lie turned around to speak to him, and
drove one end of the ladder into a millinery case
and knocked the crown-.out of an eighteen-dollar
bonnet.  Then he backed off in affright, and
knocked down two sewing-machine agents with the
other end. Then he started to turn around, and an
old gentleman who was desperately endeavoring to
pull. his wife out of danger, saw the peril, and
shouted out,- "Hi, there! "  But it was too late.
The pot struck against an awning post, tipped to
one side, and the entire contents went over the
aged couple.  This so startled the man tlat he




/ 111 I I iI:11t   ll i
1:iSTET  IE  NDABR
STREET LIFE IN DANBURY








SIE TCHES.                 59
whirled completely around, smashing in an entire
store front, frightening a milkman's team, and
knocking over some thirteen persons who were
actively dodging about to get out of the way. Then
he dropped the ladder and fled into the country
shouting'"Murder" andl'"Fire' at every jump. A
regular ordained painter is now engaged on Mr.
Watson's house.
RAFTING.
RAFTING is the prevailing popular amusement
with juveniles this month.  The boy whose par
ents own the pond, is generally chosen captain of
the craft.  The raft quite frequently consists of a
couple of boards the captain's father has laid
away to season.  The captain stands at the bow
and hollers, and the other officers, whose claim to
the berth principally rests on the fact that they
have dry pants'at home, stand at the stern, and
spatter water on outsiders who are on the shore
with their hands in their breeches' pockets and
guile in their hearts. They thus navigate for
hours at a time, and then fight over the distanco




60             LIFE IN DANBURY.
they have made, and finally go home to see their
parents about it, and are dried with a bed cord,
and put to bed, where they can feel of their
injuries without molestation.
CIRCUS ]DAY IN  DANB URY
A PRETTY fair index of Mr. Barnum's control
over the credulity of an American public, wo
given on Saturday.  The day was unpleasant, tc
use the mildest type of expression, but the streets
were thronged with a mass of people-some of
them coming twenty miles over the very bad roads,
It was an enthusiasm  no rain could damlpen-no
possible combination of circumstances flatten.
There were three tents-two small and one very
large one.  The former enclose the menagerie and
museum-the latter the arena. I attended the
afternoon performance out of curiosity, and the
evening entertainment out of revenge.  I was a
little disappointed in the menagerie, because I had
depended on that and the museum for the bulk of
my. happiness on this occasion.  The most noted
specimens of the forest and jungle were those




SKETCHES.                  61
which appeared on the bills but not in the cages.
Here was a discrepancy I could not reconcile with
the proprietor's well-known honesty and enterprise. I cast a few reproachful glances upon the
specimens that good living and virtuous precepts
had preserved to such a good old age, and passed
to the museum.  There was a visible improvement
in this place.  The mind was illuminated by the
lady who wrote the autograph with her toes, and
the heart made glad by various other articles I
cannot recall to mind.
When I got inside the large tent I was sur.
prised. A sea of faces spread out before an(i
)round me. The tier seats are crowded, the ring
seats are crowded, the gang-ways are crowded.
It is a mass of suffocation, fun, and sweat. I don't
think I ever saw so large an attendance at a prayer
meeting, and I have been to many of them.
I really enjoyed the sight.  Here was one of
the grandest views to be seen.  Myriads of people
of every clime-every temper, disposition, mind,
and heart.  Here, embraced in an area of a few
hundred yards, might be observed"Why  don't that bald-headed  reptile  set




62             LIFE IN DANBURY.
down?  cried a coarse voice behind me. I looked
around.  A red-faced, illiterate man was glowing
down upon me from  a tier seat. Passion disturbed his features; the mall was really mad.  I
cast a sorrowful glance upon him  and sat down.
There were fifty or sixty people between me and
the ring. I had not made any calculation for this
when I came, and so I didn't appreciate it.  Occasionally somebody hollered, "Down in front."
Whenever I heard the cry I singled out the author
and bestowed a grateful glance upon him. It was
the finest oration I ever heard, and my appreciation of it was sharpened, I think, by the remarkably uncomfortable position I had got into. I had
an excellent view of the tent, and, once in a while,
of the ridge pole of the giant who stood nearly
opposite. I knew there was something going on
in the ring, but if I had been prostrated on my
dying couch I could not have told what it was.
But I knew whenever a different act commenced,
because the folks in front of me stood up on the
seats, and the folks behind me put their children
on my head, and their umbrellas down my back,
aud remarked audibly to each other,



SKETCHES.                  63
"Was there ever anything like it?"
And I, staring idiotically into the back of the
man in front of me, fervently hoped there was not.
But all things have an end, and the dreary afternoon performance was not an exception.  The last
act was performed; the clown finally convulsed the
audience; the children in the rear were pulled out
of nly hair, and I was permitted to fall over, roll
around, and eventually. get on my feet.  With the
crowd gone I stole back to the tent and took one
fond,- piercing glance at what I had not yet seen,the ring.
The oldest inhtabitant will never forget the
severity of the storm in the evening.  The rain
descended in torrents, the air was chilly and raw,
and the night was one in which all the sores in
your heart are made bare to the sight. I knew
there would be no attendance upon the show, but
I thought I would go over.  When I got there I
found about one thousand people present, mostly
ladies and umbrellas.  They flocked into the tent,
by wax figures, and up to the arena- the umbrellas shining in the light of the lamps, and a thousand irresponsible rivulets falling swiftly.  The




64             LIFE YI DANBURY.
huge crowd looked like a party of immigrants on
their way to colonize the Atlantic Ocean. The
short people labored under a striking disadvantage.  The prongs of the surrounding alpaca
caught in their bonnet strings, and tried to disengage themselves by washing off those articles.
Mlen who had acquired the filthy habit of profanity held the highest position in the party, and
were much sought after.  Everybody sincerely
regretted he had come, and at the same time
renewed his exertions to get close to the ring.
Occasionally some one fell down, and his neighbors stepped on him and walked over him, and
facetiously enquired, "How was that for high?"
Little girls with dazzling patches of fashionable
glory on their heads were jammed, jarred, and
impartially stirred up. The man who held on to
his wife with one hand, five fractious children in
the other, and balanced a ten-shilling umbrella on
his chin, attracted general attention.  The enthusiasm was really sublime during the entire show.
What it would have been if the bulk of the audience could have occasionally seen what was going
on in the ring, the human mind fails to calculate.




SKE TCES.                  65
But the rain came through the canvas in torlnnts,
although several men were sent on the roof with
patches, and the ghastly creariness of the spectacle
became more and more condensed.  The giant
loomed up through the fog and misery like a wart
on a popular man's nose.  The clown retired to
the recesses of the dressing room and wrung himself out, while the great basso player emptied his
instrument over the profane drummer, and the
crowd of disgusted and dilapidated people clawed
and pushed their way out doors.
THE PARTICULAR MAIN
THE particular man makes more trouble and
causes more annoyance and delay than a half dozen
careless people. When he is traveling he puts
his ticket in a place so remarkably secure that not
only dishonest people cannot find it, but he can't
find it himself. This tends to make him confused
in his search and unreliable in his statements to
the conductor, and after working up that worthy
to a degree of misery that borders pretty closely
on to profanity, he either pays his fare over or is
5




66             LIFE IN DANBU 1Y.
put off the train.  After he gets home he put- a
piece in the local paper, which speaks of die road
as a "grinding monopoly."
THE FIRST  9DOG.
IT is a little singular, as fond as I am of dogs,
that I never enjoyed an undisputed title to one
until the other day.  I have frequently, to be
sure, had a dog in my possession when I was e
boy, but the possession was acquired by persua.
siveness, and was but temporary, as my parent on
my father's side entertained morbid prejudice
against dogs, and never missed an opportunity to
show his aversion.
The dog I refer to as being strictly my own,
was one I bought of a man named Robbins, who
lives some distance down town. I gave him two
dollars for the dog, on his own representations.
lie said it was a good animal, but had a little
more of life and energy than were proper in a dog
where there were hens on the premises.  I don't
lkeep hens, so this was no objection in my case.
In the evening, I went down to his place after




SKETCHES.                 67
my purchase. It was a tall cog, with a long
body, long legs, a long neck, and a very short
tail. The color was a dirty yellow. His body
was lank as well as long, which gave the impression that he had missed meals when he did not
design to. I was a little disappointed in his general appearance, but there was a good frame, and
time with plenty of wholesome food would undoubtedly complete a gratifying metamorphosis.
Robbins gave me a good supply of rope, with
which I made my animal fast, and started for
home. We j'ogged along very nicely together.
Occasionally I paused to pat him affectionately,
adding some remark of a confidential nature. In
this way we progressed until we reached the business part of the town. I don't know how to
account for it, but he suddenly stopped, in a
dogged manner, and commenced to rare back and
cut up variously. Perhaps the glare of the lights
confused his mind-perhaps he may have got the
impression I was a butcher, or something of that
sort. Whatever it may have been, he was certainly acting in a strange manner. He pulled
back with wonderful vigor, bracing his feet, and




38             LIFE INV DANBURY.
vibrating his head swiftly.  The skin lopped over
his eyes, while the joints in my body seemed to
turn completely around in their sockets.
He pulled back like this, until I thought his
entire hide would slip over his head, then -he
abruptly came forward, and I struck the pavement
on my back with a velocity that threatened to
destroy my further usefulness in this world.
He did this three or four times within the distance of a block, and finally I suggested if he did
it again I shoiuld feel tempted to kick in some of
his ribs as an experiment.
At this time, three boys gave an unexpected
variety to the performance by getting in the animal's rear, and enlivening him  with a pointed
stick.
He very soon got the impression that the boys
were not actuated by friendly designs, and he
came up nearer to me-and, eventually, went past.
It may be well to remark just here that, when
he went past, he carried a portion of my pantaloon
leVg vrith him-a circumstance many would not
mention, perhaps, but it struck me as being a
very singular proceeding, especially as my leg




SKETCHES.                  69
was next to, and in close proximity with the
cloth.
Ile went ahead so fast that it was nearly iinpossible to restrain him, and went the entire length of
the rope, before I succeeded in checking him
As there were quite a number of people on'the
street at the time, it naturally increased my interest in his movements.
The rope was a bed cord; it was full forty feet
long; the dog was about four feet-in all fortyfour feet. It was a pretty long line of communication to keep up on a crowded thoroughfare,
especially with a mad and hungry dog on the loose
end of it.  He was straining with all his might,
and drawing me along at a rapid but not graceful
gait. When I occasionally got my eyes down to
a level with the walk, it was to discover him
crawling out from under somebody, with various
results. Sometimes, as in the case of very heavy
people, they did not get fairly on their feet, until
I got abreast of them.  These people invariably
called my attention to the subject, and would
have got my fairest views on it, had it been possible to have held up long enough to open my
mouth.




70             LIFE IN DAVNB URY.
I endured these things pleasantly enough; but
when a man and woman both came down together,
and the rope got mysteriously twistea about three
other people, and seesawed them in a wonderfully
fearful manner, I lost all desire to own a dog, and
let go of my end of the rope.
It immediately transpired that no one was
needed there.  The people who were seesawing
across the walk, and shouting for their friends,
were so inconceivably entangled in the rope, that
they held the dog as firmly as a piece of meat
could have done.  The old gentleman and lady
were full as mysteriously mixed, both screaming
vigorously-although it is but fair to state that
the former appeared to take the liveliest interest
in the matter, as he was next to the dog, and in a
very exposed condition, I regret to add.
It at once resolved itself into such an exclusively private affair, that I didn't have the heart
to do anything which would look like interfering,
and so I sat down on a box, and rubbed my leg,
and looked on to see what the party would eventually do.
As it is reasonable to expect, a crowd gathered,




SKETCHES.                 7
and that doog was stepped on and walked over a
number of times, but I can honestly affirm I do
not recollect seeing anyone step on him the second time. There was a great deal of confusion, of
course, and the two elderly people were four or
five minutes, getting up and down, before they
fairly reached their feet. And when the old gentleman did get up, good and square, I was surprised and shocked to observe another gentleman
who was, I presume, the husband of the old lady,
fetch him a clip between the eyes, that sent him
on his back with great speed. Of course, he
didn't know anythingt about the dog and the rope,
but he ought not to have been so hasty. This is
what the people thought, undoubtedly, for they
yelled their disapprobation, and  crowded up
closer, while that wretched dog came back to see
what was now restraining him, but not being able
to distinguish the present source of trouble, he
split the difference and the calf of a new party's
leg, and took off a good share of the tail to the
irate husband's coat.
The vivacity of that animal is the most remarkable thing of this season. He didn't waste any




72            LIFE IN DANBURY.
time on superfluous ceremonies, but rapidly notified all within reach of his intentions, and when
he did get loose, and left, I didn't see anybody
follow him.
I guess they pretty much shared my opinion of
the animal: that the less they had to do with him
the more there would be of them for other purposes.
THE MULTIPLICA TION TABLE.
IT is said there is a boy in Concord, New Hampshire, who can repeat the multiplication table
backwards, and he is only nine years old.
We know that boy. We were never in Concord, but we know him. We lived next door to
that boy when we were a boy, and it is not so long
ago but that we remember him distinctly. He
always went to bed at eight o'clock, and had a
slight cough. He brushed his hair back of his
ears, and carried a store handkerchief, and when
he played marbles it was to win. He always got
home from  school before we did, and employed
the interval in detailing to his mother the "belt



SKETCHES.                T7
ing" that boy next door was getting.  And indeed
we were getting it, but there was no special interest in it for other folks. He was the model boy,
the boy our parents used to point to, and speak
of, in tones of mingled admiration and regret,
while unfitting us for sitting on anything harder
than a poultice.  He never ran away from school,
nor stole money, but he used to throw mud on
old people, when they wern't looking, and unselfishly throw the credit on us. And then to see
that boy come around into our yard with jam on
his bread.-That was the last feather-that was
the climax to all the sorrows our young heart
knew. We could have willingly forgiven everything else, but that jam  upset us. It went right
down into our heart of hearts, and it rankles there
yet. It sent us into the house bawling for jam,
and getting it, but not on our bread. We reaem-'ber that with ghastly distinctnesso
THE EFFECTS OF A SNEEZE.
AN old Danburian, whose sneeze is something
like a thunder bolt, let off a charge on Balmfortb




74             LIFE IN DANBUR Y.
Avenue, Friday afternoon, near to a wag'on in
which a farmer froml Sugar Hollow was sitting
counting money.  The horses were so startled by
the noise that they sprang forward, and started oil
at a mad speed, leavi ng their owner floundering
in the mud and clutching desperately to a roll of
scrip. The old gentleman was amazed at what
had happened, but he was completely dumbfounded when the farmer arose from the mud, and
climbed afence, and looked all around. Then he
came down and went up a tree.  The old gentleman thought he had struck on his head and injured
his brain. Pretty soon the farmer came down
from the tree, and drew a long breath, and said:
"It must have been thunder, but I thought'it was
a gun."
NIGHTMARE.
DR. HALL says that when a person has got a
nightmare he is in danger, and should be awakened
at once, without any reference to the agency. In
this way doctors, we think, do a good deal ot
harim. A young man named Mephitus was lying




SKETCHESS.                    7h
on his back, Sunday afternoon, singing to himself,
and with his eyes closed in a sort of ecstasy over
his efforts, when his father rushed into the room,
and planted a kick in the ribs of the vocalist that
sounded all over the house.  The entire family
were three hours bringing that young man back
to consciousness, but the trouble seems as nothing
ill view of the fact that he might have died had
not his father come in as he did.
WVAI T WHITMA N.
WALT WmHITxN is writing more of his'poetry.
The last is an ode to America.  He intelligently
observes:
What if that gift of gift thou lack'st?
The perfect feminine of thee? The beauty, health, completion
fit for thee?
The mothers fit for thee?
And here he stops.  Not a word of how  the
battle resulted, but just drops cown and leaves
the reader to  imagine the result.  This is the
secret of his success.  His stops make hin popu



76             LIFE IN DANBURY.
lar. The more he stops the more popular he
Ibecomes. If he should stop altogether the public
would give him a monument, and perhaps a hcrse.
AN UNP'LEASANT DISCOVERE.
DR. TRALL, of Philadelphia, has made a very
unpleasant discovery.  In about seven years
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will approach nearer the earth than they have been in
eighteen hundred years, and the result will be a
pestilence.  When Congress has the manliness to
make astronomy an indictable offence, then we
shall have relief from these things, but not before.
It was not a long while since that some one predicted that the earth would be swamped with a
deluge, and you couldn't borrow an umbrella or
a pair of rubbers from  any one. The next idiot
said a comet would strike and demolish the earth
in a twinkling.  Whereupon many excellent people tied their beds and carpets about their premises, and put cotton in their ears, and sat dowin
on the cellar bottom  in dreadful expectation of
the shock.  Hardly had this alarm passed off when




SKETCHES.                 77
another astronomer came around telling people
that the Niagara Falls would be dry in less than
nineteen thousand years, and nothing would do
but that people should hurry right out there for a
farewell look, and in less than twenty-four hours
there wasn't people enough in Danbury to entertain a Japanese hermit.  And now here is Thrall
with four planets and no vaccine matter.  All the
tobacco-chewers are to be killed by these planets,
and young ladies who wear stays, and men who
bet on the wrong horse. If we understand the
old scoundrel correctly the only people saved are
those who drink lemonade out of a dipper and
play copenhagen with their aunts.
SWEAT ING A DOG.
ONE of our citizens owns a pet dog which was
recently taken very sick. A friend prescribed a
sweat, and wrapped the dog up in blankets, and
suspended him over an alcohol bath, and sat down
to wait for the result. The dog's face was cov
ered up so that it could not be seen, but we can
imagine how  he laughed to himself when he




78             LIFE IN DANBURY.
thought the matter all over.  Sweating a dog is a
good deal like bringing clown a weather vane with
a handful of stewed corn, only a trifle harder.
ON HORSE-RADISH.
MR. SWIFT, mail messenger on the Danbury and
Norwalk road, is devotedly attached to horse-radish. In fact, it is the only herb he takes to anyway. The other day, in South Norwalk, he picked
up a handful of parsnips, and finding the price he
bought some. Then he put them  in the mail
room of the car, and smiled serenely on the world.
The dealer learning of Swift's mistake, told the
other folks on the car what had happened, and
before the train arrived in Danbury, Conductor
Pulling slapped himself on the head, as people are
apt to do when suddenly reminded of something,
and said,"There, my folks told me to get some horse
radish in the root when I was at Norwalk, and I
have forgotten all about it."
"Is that so?" said the accommodating Swift, as
a halo of delight illumihated his face.  "Well, I




SKETCHES.                  79
have just bought some myself, and you can have
part of it just as well as not. Help yourself in the
paper there," pointing to his package.
Conductor Pulling gravely removed the wrapper,
and picking up one of the ioots, said,6"Why, that ain't horse-radish; that is parsnip."
"Parsnip!" shrieked Swift, as he dove into the
package, and nervously took a bite.  And the
next moment the parsnips were put off the train,
and Swift commenced to tell about an uncle of his
who had a horse that could open a door with his
foot.  But the boys couldn't help thinking of that
other horse-the radish.
THE ALARM  CLOCK.
AN afflicted son sends us the following account
of how his father played it on a family of tormentors:
It appears that the old gentleman, who lives in
New Fairfield, is troubled by a family in the
neighborhood who are the proud possessors of
some ten or twelve children.  His health is very
poor, and for years he has been an invalid. These




80             LIFE IN DAN rBURY.
children persisted in visiting the house and tor.
meuting him to death with questions and noises.
As al] threats and coa.xings had no effect, the old
gentleman hit upon a singular device for relief
from the trouble.  He has a vigorous old alarm
clock in the house, that when it goes off makes a
noise somewhat like a boiler explosion.  This
clock he set to go off in about fifteen minutes,
and then he called the children in from the yard,
where they were successfully imitating a cat fight,
and commenced to tell them  stories about explosions of gunpowder and glycerine, and of how,
after the explosions, valuable parts of members of
the community were picked up here and there,
sometimes a leg, and then a head, and again an
arm, and so on.  The children warmed up wonderfully in the subject, and permitted their lower
jaws to drop in wrapt amazement.  Then he went
on to say that if a pound of glycerine was exploded in a clock the entire house would be blown
down, and people who happened to be promenading in that direction could fill a flour barrel,with livers and legs and heads and shin-bones and
arms, and just then the clock sounded the first




SKETCHE6i.                 81
warinig of thir-r —r-r-r, and stopped. The children shot an apprehensive glance up at it.  And
the old gentleman looked up, too, apparently very
much scared.  Then he cried out "Oh! Oh!" and
commenced to lean for the door.  And the children started, too, and then the clock went off like
a thunder storm, and the old fellow shrieked at
the top of his voice, —"OhI Heaven protect us!
Run! run for your lives, the d-d thing will bust."
And under the inspiration of this awfully solemn injunction, the youngsters drove for the open
door, uttering a chorus of shrieks, and bucking up
against everything in their way in their blind terror.  That was a month ago, and they haven't
been over since to hear any anecdotes.
A WAKING A BOY..
CALLING a boy up in the morning can hardly be
classed under the head of "pastimes," especially
if the boy is fond of exercise the day before.  And
it is a little singular that the next hardest thing to
getting a boy out of bed is getting him  into it.
There is rarely a mother who is a success at rous6




82             LIFE VN DA.NB UR Y.
ing a boy. All mothers know this; so do their
boys.  And yet the mother seems to go at it in
the right way.  She opens the stair door and
insinuatingly observes: "Johnny."  There is no
response.  "John-ny."  Still no response. Then
there is a short, sharp "John," followed a moment later by a prolonged and emphatic "John
Henry."  A grunt from  the upper regions signifies that an impression has been made, and the
mother is encouraged to add, "You'd better be
getting down here to your breakfast, young man,
before I come up there, an' give you something
you'll feel."  This so startles the young man that
he immediately goes to sleep again.  And the
operation has to be repeated several times. A
father knows nothing about this trouble. He
merely opens his mouth as a soda bottle ejects its
cork, and the' John Henry" that cleaves the air
of that stairway, goes into that boy like electricity, and pierces the deepest recesses of his very
nature.  And he pops out of that bed and into his
clothes, and down the stairs, with a promptness
that is commendable. It is rarely a boy allows
himself to disregard the paternal summons. About




SKETCHES.                 85
once a year is believed to be as often as is c-nsistent with the rules of health,  lHe saves his'ather
a great many steps by his thoughtfulness.
MIR. PERKINS HELPS T0  MOVE A STO VE.
IT seems a pity that the glory of these bright
May days should be marred by the gross materialism of soap and brush, mop and broom; that the
fragrant and delicate perfumes of budding nature
and atmospherical freshness should be harnessed
to the doubtful aroma of an upturned house. But
over our broad and beautiful land the terrors of'domestic reform  hold swa'y, and the masculine
mind is harrowed by spectacles the little happiness
we are allotted in this world does not Warrant.
Mrs. Perkins has devoted this week to the onerous duty of cleaning house.  Since six o'clock
Monday morning that estimable lady has been the
motive power of many brushes and cloths, and of
much water and soap.'At various hours when I
have made my appearance near the house I ha-ve
caught sight of her portly form  through several




64             LIFE IN DAYNBUR.
windows, a flaring handkerchief concealing her
temples, and covering the site of her chignon.
There was an expression of deep redness upon
her features that pained me while I beheld, but
which at the same time led' me to remark tomyself that it was not the most favorable time for
making a call, and thus looking and apprehending, I would turn sadly away.
Mondcay morning we had our breakfast in our
comfortable dining room.  At noon I took my
dinner from  the lid of the ice chest.  It was
dreadful cold, and tasted clammy and disagreeable.  In the evening I stood back of the stove and
took of a slice of bread, (the butter had got mislaid) and drank some of last year's tea from the
irregular spout of the milk pitcher.  In the morning we ate breakfast in the sink, (there was no
fire in the stove, as it was to be kept cold for moving).  The victuals hadl  a flavor of great dampness, and tasted as though they had been fished
out of the soap barrel.  After astonishing my
internal structure with the meal, I accepted an
invitation from  Mrs. Perkins to take down the
stove.  In justice to myself it may be well to




SKETCHES.
remark that I never took down a stove, nor was
present when that intricate performance was going
on, and this, in a measure, accounts for the slight
misgiving I may have entertained when brought
face to face with the tremendous range.
The conversation that ensued was something
like this,"You want to use great care, Mr. Perkins, and
not let the whole thing fall on you, and kill yourself."
This appeared reasonable enough, and I readily
promised to use my best endeavors to keep the
whole thing from falling upon me.
"'And, Mr. Perkins, don't get nervous with the
pipe, because Mary Ann has just scrubbed the
floor, and that stuff gringes in awfully."
I hadn't the remotest idea of what the stuff
could be that gringes in awfully, but I didn't like
to show ignorance before Mary Ann, and so I
confidently responded,"Certainly not."
"And be very careful about your clothes, M[r.
Perkins; now won't you?" This appeal was delivered with so much confidence mingled with doubt,




86             LIFE IN DANBURY.
that I hardly knew whether to treat it as a compliment, or a suspicionm and concluded it was best
to split the difference, and preserve silence.
"'We are all ready now, Mr. Perkins.  Mary
Anr, you come here and steady the pipe while
Mr. Perkins gets on the chair and takes it down."' Upon this I mounted a chair and grasped the
pipe, but I must not neglect to mention that as I
grasped the pipe, Mrs. Perkins grasped my legs.
"Goodness gracious, Cyrus Davidson Perkins!
don't you know better than to stand on one of the
best chairs in the house, and break right through
the canes?"
I had to admit that I didn't know any better,
but cheerfully got down and mounted another
chair.  This time I caught the pipe by its neck,
and gave it a gentle pull from the chimney. It
didn't move a bit, which encouraged me to believe
I could bring a little more muscle into play, and
under this impression I gave an extra twist. It
came this time, and so much more readily than I
had reason to expect, that I stepped down to the
floor with, it, passing over the top of the stove,




SKETCHES.                8
and rubbing off an inch or so of skin from Mary
Ann's nose.
"0, Moses  " screamed that lady.
"What have you done? 0, what have you
done?" cried Mrs. Perkins.
Singularly enough, I didn't say anything, but
got upon my feet as quick as I could, and rubbed
my head, and looked all around but where Mrs.
Perkins and her weeping aid were standing.
"It's just like a man. You have made ten
times more work than you have helped. Mary
Ann, get the floor cloth. And there's a great
spot on that floor we can never get off. I'd like
to make a fool of myself, I know I should. I
knew when you stuck your ungainly carcass on
that chair, you would kill somebody. Does it
hurt you, Mary Ann. I wouldn't rub it too hard;
we'll have to take it up dry and soap it over.
You awkward fool, didn't you know what you
were doing? Now take the pipe out doors, and
don't look any more like a smoked idiot than you
can help."
The manner in which this last was uttered left
no. room to doubt; that I was the person referred




M8    -E  LIFE IN DANBURY.
to, and I picked up the pipe, and sorrowfully proo
pelled it out doors; although I am  compelled to
admit that six links of pipe varied by two elbows
at opposite angles, is not the most desirable thingl
in the world to escort out doors.
When I came back, Mrs. Perkins had dressed
the wound on Mary Ann's face with.a strip of
brown paper, and told me I might help to carry
the stove into the shed, if I was sure of being
quite sober.
Upon this invitation I took hold of the range
with the two ladies, and by loosening half a dozen
joints in my spine, I was finally successful in rgetting the thing out of the room.  But the pleasure
of the occasion was irretrievably lost.  Mrs. Perkins was ominously silent.  Mary Ann's air was
one of reproach which, combined with the brown
paper, gave her an appearance of unearthly uncertainty.
At dinner that cay I ate some cold cabbage and
a couple of soda crackers, carefully pickihg off
the flakes of soap that adhered thereto.  This
morning I ate my breakfast on the stoop, and got
my dinner through the milk-room window, eating




SKETCHES.                  89
it from  the sill. It consisted of the last slice
from yesterday's loaf, and two decrepit herrings.
What we are to have for supper, and whether
it will be necessary to go home' after it, are ques,
tions that depress me this P. iM.
Yours respectfully,
CYRUS D. PERKINS.
HO W A  YOUNG JMAN JREMiO VED A  CALF.
A  DANBURY young man who was once a clerk,
lately went on a farm to work.  The first night in
his new position he was detailed to remove a calf
from the apartment of its parent to another shed,
and while engaged, as thousands have been before
him, in shoving the contrary beast along, the
mother reached under the tails of his coat with her
horns, and suddenly lifted him up against the roof
of the building with a force that threatened to
shatter every bone in his body.  The first thing
he did on returning to earth' was to rub himself,
the next thing was to throw  up his place. He
said he didn't doubt that agriculture was a noble
pursuit, and that the farmer needed an assistant in




90             LIFE IN DANBURY.
the discharge of the multifarious duties, but he
didn't believe the Creator designed him for making skylights in cow sheds.
A  VERY FRIENDLY HORSE.
I DON'T really believe a yellow horse is any
worse by nature than a bay horse, or a white
horse, or a horse of any color or combination of
colors; but our judgment of things in this world is
often liable to be influenced by our prejudices.
For this reason, perhaps, I cannot look upon a
yellow horse with any feelings of delight.
A yellow horse was standing at the depot in
Washington the time I came down the Shepaug
road. Looking at the animal as he felt around
casually with his hind foot for his owner's brains,
my mind receded back to the home of my childhood.
It seemed so blessed to lean back in the seat,
and with partly closed eyes give myself up to reveries retrospective.
I remember quite distinctly the day my parent
brought home a yellow horse; in fact, I ean with



SKETCHES.                 91
out much difficulty pick out any day of the eight
which that animal passed in our society. He was
a comely beast, with long limbs, a straight body,
and eyes that would rival those of an eagle in
looking hungry.
When he came into the yard we all went out to
look at him. It was an evening —clear, bright,
and beautiful.  My parent stood near the well
holding the animal by a halter.  We had a dog, a
black and white, and if there ever was a dog who
thought he had a head stowed full of knowledge
it was that dog.
How plainly I can see him approach that yellow
horse, to smell of his heels. He ought to have
got more of a smell than he did, considering that
he lost the greater part of one ear in the attempt.
It was done so quick that it is possible we would
not have known anything about it, had the dog
not spoken of it himself.
He never smelt of that yellow horse again. The
flavor wasn't what he had been used to, I think.
Three days later when he was turning around,
to speak to a flea near his tail, as is customary
with dogs, that yellow horse unexpectedly reached




92             LIFE IN DANBURY.
down, and took a mouthful of spinal joints out of
the dog's back, and the mortification from being
thus caught preyed so heavily upon the dog's
mind that he died in a minute or two.
That evening mother interested father with an
account of Caper's death while he was waiting for
her to replace the collar the yellow  horse that
afternoon had snatched from his best coat.
And thus time passed.  But the horse lost none
of it.  There wasn't a neighbor within a half mile
of our house but bore some mark of that animal's
friendship.  Like death he was no respecter of
persons.  He never stopped to inquire whether a
man was worth a million dollars or ten cents when
reaching for him.  He may have had some curiosity about it afterwards, but he never showed it.
Finally people came to avoid him when they
met him on the street.  I don't think they did it
purposely, but it-seemed to come natural to them
to rush through the first doorway or over the most
convenient fence when they saw him  approach.
This inexplicable dread communicated itself to
the very dogs on the street, but before they had
come fairly to understand him, he had succeeded




SKETCHES.
in reducing the price of a winter-breakfit luxury
to almost a mere song.
After that they looked up to him with the respecl exacted by a Hindoo god with two changes
of underclothes. and no dogo within thiee blocks
of us would think of going to sleep at night without first coming over to see if that horse was locked
up.  It was instinct, probably.
My parent never enjoyed a single day of the
eight he was the sole possessor of the animal.  He
nipped away some portion of him every once in a
while.  My parent was not a profane man, but he
was sorely tempted to be every hour in the day.
The man who lived next to us was a profouni
swearer.  He owned a horse that was a model of
goodness in every respect-as gentle as a lamb,
and as lovable as a girl of sixteen. My father
could never understand this.  He always spoke
of it as one of the inscrutable ways of providence.
There was only one person that had anything
to do with the animal who came out of that fiery
ordeal unscathed.  He was the hired man, and he
owed his salvation to a misfortune.  He was crosseyed.  He was a great source of misery to that




94             LIFE IN DAVBURY.
yellow horse.  The misformation of his eyes was
calculated to deceive even smarter beings. The
beast kicked at him a few times when he was evidently looking the other way, but that was just
the time he was bearing one eye strongly on him,
and he missed; and when he really was not looking was just the time the beast thought he was,
and so it went through the entire eight days, both
stomach and heels yearning for a morsel of him,
but never getting it.
I am sure there never was another such horse to
kick and bite.  He did it so unexpectedly, too.
He would be looking a stranger square in the face,
apparently about to communicate some information of value, and then suddenly lift his hind foot,
and fetch the unsophisticated man a rap on the
head that would make him see seventy-five dollars'
worth of fire works in a minute.
He would bite at anything whether he reached
it or not; but in kicking, he rarely missed.  He
could use any leg with facility, but prided himself
mainly on the extraordinary play of the left hind
leg.  With that limb he would break up a political meeting in five minutes and kick over the




SKETCHES.                  9b
entire plan of the campaign before the last man
got to the door.
The very air about our place was impregnated
with camphor and the various new kinds of liniments. The neighbors came around after dark,
and howled for the blood of that yellow horse like
so many Indians clamoring for a pint of New
Elngland potash.
Matters commenced to assume a critical form.
The people wanted the animal killed, and cut open
so they could get back their things.
And so my parent determined to shoot the
beast, but at the last moment his heart failed him.
Pity triumphed, and he sold him to a man from a
distance, and it was such a great distance that
none of us were- able to attend his funeral two
weeks later, although earnestly invited to do so.
He left a wife and three interesting children, and
was struck just above the right temple, I believe.
IMR. PERKINS AT THE DENTIST'S.
I THINK I must have caught cold by injudiciously sleeping on the floor during th e  peri od the




Q96       ~LIFE I~ DANBURY.
house was being rinsed out.  I had so much room
that I must have become careless in the night, and
got to trifling with the draft from a door.  As I
am a little bald the effect was disastrous. Through
the day I felt a little stiff about the shoulders,
with a sensation between the eyes as if I had been
trying to inhale some putty.
I observed to Maria (Mrs. Perkins's name is
Maria), that I had caught a bad cold, and would
probably regret it in time. But she treated the
matter lightly by remarking that I had "caught
my granny."  As that estimable lady has been
dead thirteen years, the reference to my catching
her, with such a start in her favor, was of course
a joke. Not a joke to be lalughed at, I don't
mean, but one to carry around with you, to draw
out once in a while to blow on-a sort of intellectual handkerchief.
When I went to bed tlhat night, I apprehended
trouble.  Along one jaw, the left one, occasionally capered a grumbling sensation.  It kept me
awake an hour or so trying to determine whether
that was all there was of it, or whether there was
something to come after which would need my




SKETCHES.                 97
wakeful presence to contend against. Thus pondering I fell asleep, and forgot all about the
trouble. I don't know how long I slept, but I
fell to dreaming that I had made a match of fifty
dollars a side to fight a cross cut saw in a steam
mill, and was well to work on the job, when the
saw got my head between its teeth. I thought
this was a favorable time to wake up, and I did
so. It immediately transpired that I might better
have stayed where I was, and taken my chances
with the saw.
I found myself sitting straight up in bed with
one hand spasmodically grasping my jaw, and the
other swaying to and fro without any apparently
definite purpose.
It was an awful pain. It shot around like a
dog which had been cruelly camphened, It bored
like lightning through the basement of my jaw,
darted across the roof of my mouth, and then ran
lengthwise of the teeth. If every flying pang had
been a drunken plow chased by a demonl across a
stump lot, I think the observer would understand
my condition. I could no more get hold of the
fearful agony that was cavorting around in me,
7




98             LIFE IN DANBUR Y.
than I could pick up a piece of wet soap vhea in e
hurry.
Suddenly it stopped. It went off all at once.
giving me a parting kick that fairly made me
howl.
"What on earth is the matter with you," said 
voice from one corner of the room.
I looked out into the dark astonished.
"Maria, is that you?" said I.
"What there is left of me," was the curt reply,
followed by a fumbling about the mantel.
Presently a light was struck and Mrs. Perkins
appeared before me.  She had on her short-stop
clothes.  Her hair stuck up in all directions.  Her
nose was very red, and her eyes were expanded to
their fullest capacity.,
"Well, I declare, Cyrus Davidson, if this hasn't
been a night of it! What in the name of mercy is*
the matter with you? Are you gone clean crazy,
or have you sat on a pin? For one whole hour you
have been cavorting. around on that bed, groaning
like a dead man, and flopping your bony arms in
all directions.  I was literally knocked out of
bed, and here I have been doubled up in a corner,




SKETCHES.                 99
the very life frightened out of me, and wondering
whether you were going to set lire to the house,
or bust out my brains with a hatchet. If you
have got through with your contortions I'll come
to bed, and try to get a wink of sleep."
I had got through, there was no doubt of it, and
felt, in the relief I experienced, that it would be a
comparatively easy matter to forgive Mrs. Perkins
the suspicions of her alarm; as for braiing her
with a hatchet, I never thought of it.  We haven't
got one.
I thought I was rid of the teeth ache, but a
grumbling set in again next morning. It was
just like the feeling of the night before, and a still
voice said to me, "Look out, Perkins."
I did. I-went right away to the dentist who
has pulled the teeth of our family and knew our
peculiarities.  There was an uneasy smell about
his office. It was very suggestive of trouble, and
as I snuffed it in I experienced a sinking feeling
in the pit of my stomach. I looked at him and
sickly smiled. He was never, even on a holiday,
the handsomest of men, but now his appearance




100            LIFE IN DANBURY.
was very, very depressing. He looked like a
corpse with a lighted candle inside of it.
I told him what was the matter with me, how
that I had been up all night with a four-story
pain, how my wife had been thrown out tf bed
by the violence of my suffering, howlie asked me if I wouldn't sit down. I sat
down on what was once a hogshead but was now
cut down and newly carpeted.  He held back my
head, opened my mouth, and went to fishing
around inside with a piece of watch spring.
And while he angled he conversed.  Said he,"You have caught a cold."
"I have."
"It seems the trouble is with one of the bicuspids," he remarked.
Of course I didn't know what a bicuspid was,
but thought it wouldn't look well in the head of
a family being stuck with so short a word as that,
and so I asked, with some vigor,4"Which one?"
"The tumorous," he said.
"I am glad it ain't any worse, " I replied, throwing in a sigh of relief.




SKE1TCHES..                0
"The frontal bone," he went on to say, p"is
not seriously affectede  The submaxillary gland
is somewhat enlarged, but it does not necessarily
follow that parotitis will ensue."
"I am proud to hear that," said I, which I
certainly was, although if the parotitis had ensued
it isn't at all likely I should have minded it
much, unless it was something that would spill,
and I was dressed up.
He kept on talking and angling.
"The  oesophagus isn't loose," he next remarked.
"'Ah," said I, winking at him.
"0, no; the ligaments are quite firm.  I might
say-"'
"Murder! fire!" I shouted, in bewilderment.
"Did it hurt you?" he asked, looking as calm
and cool as the lid of an ice-cream freezer.
"IHurt me? Great Heavens! did you expect to
split me open with a watch spring, and not havo
it hurt me? What was the matter-did you slip?"
"Certainly not," he said; "I was simply getting hold of the tooth.  Just hold your head
back an instant, and I will have it out at once."




102            LIFE IN DANB UR Y.
"I guess I won't try it again," said I, with a
shiver.  "The toothache is bad enough, but it
is heaven alongside of that watch spring. You may
come up some time and pull it out when I ain't
at home.  I think I could endure the operation
with necessary calmness if I was off about eight
blocks.  Come up when yon can."
And I left. I hope he will come. I am boiling some pure spring water for him.
Yours respectfully,
CYRus D. PERKINS.
THE OYSTER RING.
The pathway to reform is not strewn with roses.
I am  reminded of this by a little incident.
I have always bought my oysters opened.
Mrs. Perkins and myself are fond of oysters, and
eat a great many of them.  It occunred to me one
day-last Saturday, to be more direct-that there
existed a monopoly in opening oysters that was
huriful to the public purse. Whenever I get hold
of a notion of that kind I work it up.  I worked
this up; I brought home a half bushel of oysters




SKETCHES.                 103
in the shell, Saturday night, and put them in the
cellar till morning, when they were to be opened
fresh for breakfast. When morning came I went
dc wn stairs and brought up the oysters while Mrs.
Perkins got ready a knife and pan. I Wasn't
quite dressed, because I was a little eager to
profit by an experiment.  Mrs. Perkins shared
this earnestness in a measure, and was anxious
to have me go to work at once.
It is said that the less a man knows about
anything the more willingly he engages to do it.
I knew nothing about opening oysters; I had
never opened one in my life.  But what I lacked
in knowledge I made up in zeal.
When everything was ready, I smiled at Mrs.
Perkins and commenced.
I found the most difficulty with the first oyster.
I looked some fifteen minutes for the hole in
which to put the knife.  But I couldn't find it.
Mrs. Perkins, who had rather impatiently watched
the survey, suggested that it might have fallen
out, and would be in the basket.  Mrs. Perkins
was lightly costumed, and there was no fire in
the stove.  These things wore on her and made
her ironical.




104            LIFE IN DANBURY.
There was no use looking further for a hole in
that oyster.  I got out my jack-knife, which was
sharp, and placing the point at what reasonably
apl)peared to be a crevice, pushed firmly against it.
If I had used a little more firmness it is more than
likely that both the blade and handle would have
passed through my hand.  As it was, it was only
a part of the blade, and I was enabled to pull it
from the same side it entered.  This was an unexpected advantage, and I hope I was sufficiently
grateful, but it is doubtful.
Mrs. Perkins screamed when the blood flew.
"You're the awkwardest man I ever saw," she
observed.
It was an easy remark.  Ninety-nine women
in every hundred would have said it.
I tied up the wound in silence, and renewed
my endeavors to gain an entrance, with zeal
materially abated.
Pretty soon I missed-part of one thumb and
the knife snapped in two.  I thought over a few
oaths I had heard when a boy while Mrs. Perkins
went for another knife.
They don't make knives of the material they




SKETCHES.                10
used to. 1 was surprised to see them  break as
fast as they did before I got that oyster opeon.
Mrs. Perkins was somewhat surprised herself. I
think if I had not been bald there would have
been considerable variety added to the performan ce.
I didn't break the last knife. It slipped over
the edge of that accursed bivalve, and went across
the apex of my knuckles with a ferocity almost
human. It next went into the stove.
I went into the yard to think. Mrs. Perkins
went up stairs for a cry.
When I came in I was accompanied by the axe.
The balance of those oysters came apart in two
minutes.
And monopolies are better endured than cured.
Respectfully yours,
CYRUS D. PERKINS.
A  tELL-KiNOWN CHARA CTER.
MR. LUCE was among the first on the circus
grounds, Saturday. With him were four young
Luces, hand in hand, and Mrs. Luce, carrying




106            LIFE IN DANBURY.
the latest arrived Luce.  The family immediately
attracted my attention.  It is representative, and
faithfully so.  I cannot now  remem ber of once
missing the Luces at any circus I may have attended anywhere in the country.  They were old
friends to me, people who had quietly but irresistibly become familiar, and I involuntarily nodded-a recognition Mr. Luce acknowledged with
a smile of moderate hilarity.
Mr. Luce's head and body are inclined slightly
forward.  This position, taken in connection with
his steps, gives Mr. Luce the appearance of making a determined effort with his feet to keep up
with his head, and prevent the entire superstructure from  toppling over.  The observer is also
impressed, and quite painfully, with the conviction that if by any miscalculation the feet
should fail in the undertaking and the head go
down, Mr. Luce might possibly walk into his
own mouth and a considerable ways down his
own throat, before recovering himself.  There is
nothing unpleasant about Mr. Luce's features,
without it may be found in the creases.  His
smile is soft and bland, while the canvas itself




SKETCHES.                 107
does not glisten more than the eye he casts hopefully upon it.  There is a buoyancy and an uprightness accompanying it in his mien, which
cheer and strengthen the beholder. Mr. Luce
wears his hair so long that it would hardly pay
to attempt any action upon it with a comb. His
whiskers are many, and in places cemented together with a tincture of plug. His clothes exhibit a better acquaintance with the cares and
vexations of business than with the recuperative
influences of the laundry. His very boots partake of the general dilapidation. With his hair
they impartially share immunity from the brush,
Mr. Luce reasoning, and with unanswerable logic,
that if that which he is to wear until the daisies
blossom above him needs no brushing, why should
he brush that which is but transitory, to be put off
and on at pleasure.
Mr. Luce's long experience with the world in
all its phases but its very best has given hrm an
appearance of easy familiarity.  There is nothing
very bad about the man.  His nature is sympathetic, and kindly to an extreme.  He hears the
faintest appeal-if not from a creditor-and he




108            LIFE IN DANBURY.
gives his opinion on a multitude of subjects with
the utmost freedom  and good nature.  If you
should ever sustain an accident within his province, Mr. Luce would take you in his own arms and'
carry you to your home. He would be the last to
leave your bedside; and when he did withdraw his
ministrations, homely, but tender and loving as
those of a sister, he would go away with tears in
his eyes and something you might value far more
than tears-in his pocket.  The immense good
nature of the man keeps him from thinking wrong,
whatever he may do.
He brings his whole family with him  to-day.
All of his bankable property amounts to two dollars, and he turns it over to the man in the wagon
without the faintest semblance to regret in his
face. He even says something moderately witty
to the ticket collector at the door, and as Mrs.
Luce, laughing slyly, crowds by with the five
eager Luces, the head of the family nods complacently to the grocer he despairs of ever paying, and
remarks feelingly, but without ostentation,"Here we ar' agin!"
Aned thus he disappears from the excitable out



SKETCHES.                 109
side to the impressive inside of the canvas.  And
here, on the upper seat, amid the glittering humanity, the Luces are poised, patiently and hopefully
waiting.  Mr. Luce invariably takes the top seat
on these occasions. It is a convenient place to
expectorate from, besides giving him  an opportunity to look out doors and exchange a few friendly
words with whomsoever he may chance to recognize out there.  Between his friends outside and
his family inside, with a choice few  alongside
whose dress and general appearance may have won
his favorable opinion, Mr. Luce manages to pass
the time in a genial and profitable manner.
Occasionally the boy who in very warm weather
peddles candy, and in very chilly weather, fans,
comes around, and invariably attracts Mr. Luce's
attention. It is pure sympathy that induces that
gentleman to notice the pedler at all, and the
lively interest he manifests in the articles and
their prices is certainly remarkable in view of the
fact that he hasn't a penny to his name,-a fact
that, in Mr. Luce's estimation, should not prevent
him from  encouraging the young merchant by
showing him  that he is appreciated and under



O10            LIFE IN' DArBURP.
stood.  And thus his benevolent soul makes glad
and is made glad in return, while the exhausted
grocer sits on the lowest seat and exercises his
faculties in a magnificent but impotent tussle with
the credit system.
A  QUIET EVENING.
MR. BODWELL, of Nelson Street, sat down for
a quiet communion with his family and the newspaper on Thursday evening. All the children
but the eldest had eaten supper, and he was industriously engaged at that task. Mr. Bodwell
drew up to the lamp, selected an interesting article that would undoubtedly engross his wife, and
commenced to reproduce it, while she, patient
woman, kept her eyes on the children, as the
father was very sensitive to foreign noises when
engaged in reading.  Bodwell had got down the
column some twelve lines, and was just laying
himself out on the big words, when one of the
girls while taking unusual precaution to step
around a scuttle of coal, actually stepped into it,
and a bewildering crash followed.  "Merciful




SKETCHES.                 ill
heavenl!" shouted Boldwell, "what was that?"
Mrs. Bodwell explained, the other children tittered, and the girl being a wise child, knew her
own father, and sagaciously left.  Again Bodwcll
picked up the paper, and giving it a spiteful Itwit,
resumed the article. It was a moment or two
before he regained his composure; but the author
was a man acquainted with the business, and the
skill with which he handled the subject soon
conquered Bodwell's mind.  He became wholly
absorbed in the matter, and at one point he involuntarily brought down his clenched hand with a
force that amply expressed his own feelings and
very forcibly stirred up those of one of the children, who had caught the full effect of the descending fist.
"Will somebody cut me open?" pleaded the
despairing man, as he caught up the shrieking offspring, and fell to rubbing its back, while the
mother dashed after the camphor, and the other
children, awe struck by the affair, rushed into the
hall to laugh.  It was-full five minutes before the
injured one was quieted, and by that time Mrs.
Bodwell expressed a desire to hear no more of the




112            LIFE I  DANBURY.
article; but Bodwell was determined then to finish
it anyway, and he resumed the paper. During
the progress of the next reading, a little girl came
in to borrow a flat-iron, and the mother got up
to give it to her, moving about so quietly that
Bodwell was not interrupted. The eldest boy was
still at his supper.  He was a good boy.  Whenever he wanted anything he stood up and reached
for it himself, and did it very quietly.  Just as
the little girl departed with the flat-iron, the heir,
who had his father's boots on, stood up to reach
over the table for the sixth tart.  The mother in
returning detected the.vacant chair, and fearing
some one would fall over it and make another
disturbance, she thoughtfully moved it back to
the wall, and just got by, as the heir settled back
with the coveted tart, and finding nothing but
thin air to receive him, made a desperate effort
to save himself, but was too late, and came down
cn the floor with a crash that made'every timber
in the house speak, and the horrified parent, on
looking up, was nearly petrified with amazement
to see his own boots clawing  madly among the
dishes, while the distracted occupant was vainly




SKETCHES.                 113
endeavoring to extricate himself from  under the
table.  That wound up the eveningi's entertainment.  The disgusted Bodwell put on his coat
and lled down street, leaving the very sore and
mortified heir to suppress the mirth indiscreetly
displayed by the other children as he best could
with the agencies at hando
YOUNG EDWARD AND HIS REWARD.
THE following interesting story of a brave boy's
work has never before appeared in print, although
occurring several years ago.
At the time of the incident a widow woman
with her young son Edward, were living in a
dilapidated house on the banks of our Still River.
It was in the early spring.  The winter had been
very severe and a heavy body of snow lay upon
the earth. Heavy rains were falling, the stream
was very much swollen, and already great destruction had been worked upon property on its banks.
This was a wild night.  The rain fell in torrents, and the roar of the water was distinctly
heard in the little cabin occupied by Edward and
8




114            LIFE IN DANBURY.
his mother.  Suddenly a startling crash sounded
near by, and it hardly ceased when a cry of a
human being in distress pierced the air. In
an instant the brave boy, his sympathies fully
aroused, was on his feet.  "It is the bridge,
mother," he cried, "and some poor traveler has
gone down with it."  He seized his lantern, and
was at once outside of the house running toward
the spot..The frightened mother stood in the door
and watched the lantern as it moved by the stream,
and cast its rays over the maddened water. Edward was right.  The bridge had gone down,
and with it a horse and its driver.  The two
were struggling in the water, striving hopelessly
to save themselves.  The little hero saw the situation at a glance, and setting down his lantern
worked manfully for the rescue.  The man in the
water seeing a prospect of help, renewed his
exertions, and in a short time he and his horse
were on the firm land. Five minutes later the
animal was under an old shed in rear of the widow's cabin, and the owner was drying himself
before the fire. The next morning he left, renew



SKETCIES.                115
ing his expressions of thanks, and promising that
they should soon hear from him.
Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months.
The terrible night was passing from the mind of the
boy, but be often spoke of the stranger he had
saved, and wondered what his fortunes had been.
One day a small box came by express to our village, for young Edward. He hurried to his home
with it, nervously tore off the wrappers, looked
in, and uttered an exclamation that brought his
mother quickly to his side. The poor woman,
trembling with an undefined expectation, glanced
into the open box, and clasping the boy in her
arms, sank on her knees.
The stranger so miraculously saved from the terrible death had remembered them. There, amid
the white folds of paper, wasA brilliant neck-tie.
THE MAN  WHO CARRIED HIS POINT.
THE following ridiculous story is told of a
neighboring committee man. The evening before
the day on which he was to pay an official visit to




116            LIFE IN DANBURY.
the school, his wife put a new ceiling in his pants,
and accidentally left the needle where she did the
work.
Arriving at the school he stiffly returned the
oalultation of the polite teacher, and majestically
settled into the  "company chair."   It didn't
seem to the most acute observer that he had but
just touched the chair, when he at once began to
ascend.  A wave of perplexed pain passed over
his face, as his hand soothingly parted his coat
tails.  The look of bland surprise from the teacher
drew from him  the blushing explanation that he
never could sit on a "cane seat."  A wooden
chair was at once offered him, into which he
dropped almost as swiftly as he got out of it
again.  The instant he struck on his feet, he
shook his fist angrily in the face of the astounded
tutor, and hoarsely shouting, —"I kin whip the
pewserlanermus man what stuck the pin in them
cheers," he caught up his hat, and fled home.'ILir, Ebenl" exclaimed his wife as he tore
into the house.  "What's the matter with you?"
"Matter!" shouted the infuriated man as he
snatched off his coat and flung it out of the win



SKETCHES.                117
dow, "I have been made the fool of the entire
district by that sneakin' teacher," and his Sunday
hat flew through another window. "Pins stuck
into my cheer as I was asettin down as onsuspishus
like as I am asettin down now in my own-"
"Lucretial " he ominously howled, as he sprung
out of that chair, and spasmodically went for the
wounded part with both hands, "you're foolin'
with your best friend now, and he ain't in the
humor to stand the triflin."
In an instant it flashed into the good lady's
mind what the trouble really was. In the next
instant Eben's nether garment was over her arm,
and there-there in the midst of the repairs glistened the source of all the annoyance.
The unfortunate man gave one brief stare at the
evil thing, and falteringly remarked as he thought
of -the future, "I'd agin twenty dollars, Lucietia,
if you hadn't found it."
A BAD DOG.
THERE appears to be a disposition on the part
of several of our people to interfere with the exist




118            LIFE IN DANI BURY.
ence of a dog which habitates the west end of the
town.  His voice is stronger than store butter,
and is ever raised in the behalf of every conceiv
able object under heaven.  He barks right along
all the while.  He barks at everything he can see,
and at a number of thing-s he don't see, but
expects to.  He barks at the sun, the moon, and
the stars; at the back porch, the shingles on the
roof, the trees, the frost, almanacs, poor man's
plaster, ingrain carpets, lawyers, whitewash, and
eye salve.  He will bark  at things an eagle
wouldn't.  He keeps it up all night, and comes
up to the scratch as lively as ever in the morning.  And the yard that beast exercises in is a
sight to look upon.  There is everything in it you
would like to see.  There isn't a house around
there but has contributed something.  Bootjacks,
chairbacks, cobble  stones, cannon balls, stove
legs, boots almost new, crockery of various designs, hammers, sauce pans, stove wood, bottles,
chignons, and everything you can think  ofthings that were tossed over there with a view to
diverting his mind into other channels.  It shows
what a deep interest people will take in such mat



SKETCHES.                119
ters when their sympathies are aroused. But it
doesn't do any good. He keeps on barking, and
always will. There will be no gardening done
in that neighborhood this season. No frost will
comn/out of the ground as long as that dog is
around. We wouldn't.
A -LITTLE GOAT STORY.
A RETIRED clergyman sends us an account of a
little affair that happened in his place. It appears
that there was a young woman, a fine-spirited girl,
engaged at a wash tub, opposite an open door.
Just behind her was a young man, as is generally
the case, and in the yard was an old buck that was
allowed the freedom of the premises, which is not
always the case, we are glad to say. Well, this
buck came up to the door and looked in, and the
young-man going close behind the young woman,
pointed his finger straight at the buck, and the
old fellow recognizing at once the pressing character of this mute invitation put down his head and
dashed forward, and the miserable man stepped
one side and fled, and the young woman all uncon



120            LIFE IN DANBURY.
scious of the arrangements received the awful bhock
without warning, and passed over the tub, and the
air for an instant appeared to be full of slippers,
and wet clothes, and soap, and hot water, and
suds. And the next minute that goat came flying
out of that door at a dreadful speed, bald the
whole length of his spine, and with a wild look
in his eye. And for an hour afterward he stood
back of the barn, scratching his chin, and trying
to recall all the circumstances in the unfortunate
affair.
FOSTERING A BAD PRACTICE.
THERE is a good deal said in censure of the
custom of jumping off and on the cars when' in
motion. It is righteous condemnation, but is not
consistent when coming from  railroad companies.
If they truly desire a reform they must begin at
home, for as long as employees will jump on a
train when in'motion, and persist in doing it as
gracefully as they do, an imitative public will be
the sufferers. People don't jump on a train before
it stops because they are in a hurry, but because




SKETCHES:                121
they have sen a brakeman or conductor do it, and
have a terrible dread of being surpassed. Now,
at the station the other day, Conductor Phillips,
of the eastern train, after giving the word to starts
waited until the last car reached him, and then
raising one hand to the rail and one foot gently
from the earth, he swung majestically around, and
was at once firmly on the car. Mr. Phillips
weighs two hundred pounlls, but there was such
grace and poetry in his motion that he seemed to
blend with the car. First there was yellow paint,
and then gold leaf, and maroon, and Phillips.
There was an elderly person who saw Phillips
do this, and his eyes glistened with anticipation.
He was going on the western train, and when it
came along he waited until a fine rate of speed
was -gained, and then raising his hand and leg,
just as he had seen Phillips do, and looking carelessly away, just as Phillips did, he reached out
for the rail, and the next instant was trying to
push his head through the platform planks, and
fighting the air with his heels, and madly pawing
around with his hands, and swearing and praying
at an awful rate. They stood him up on his feet,




122           LIFE IN DANBURY.
and rubbed his head with some snow, but it'as
a long while before they could convince him that
the locomotive had not exploded.
WHY HE CEASED TO BOARD.
Tim  following conversation occurred in the
post office.
_First Lady.-And so, Mrs. Wyman, you have
gone to keeping house?
Second Lady.-O, yes. You see Wyman was
bound he would board, in spite of all I could say or
do to show how much pleasanter it would be to have
a floor of our own. He got so set about it, I saw it
wasn't any use to say anything more about it, and
I gave it up. But the other morning Mrs. Rodney's little girl left a piece of bread and butter on
the front stairs, and Wyman in going Cdown didn't
see it, and so stepped on it; and the next moment
thlee was the awfulest rattle and smash I ever
heard, and my heart jumped up into my mouth,
and I ran out into the hall, and there at the bottom
of the stairs was Wymian. And such a crazy matt
man you never saw. He had sprained his thumb




SKETCHES.                123
and nearly split his head, and battered his nose,
and he was jumping around there, telling about
the dreadful things he would do to everybody, and
swearing the most awful oaths, and the bread and
butter sticking all along his back, and the blood
running into his mouth.  Oh! I thought I should
die, I was so frightened.  It seemed as if he
must be struck dead for such awful wordls, and I
couldn't bear the dreadful thought of his going
into eternity with that bread and butter sticking
on his back, and a shirt bosom all spattered with
blood. That very afternoon he went off and
hunted up a house, and the very next day we
moved, and I am so glad.
HOW  TO CURE A COLD.
ONE of our citizens who has been troubled with
a severe cold on the lungs effected his recovery
in the following simple manner.  He boiled a
little boneset and hoarhound together, and drank
freely of the tea before going to bed. The next
day he took five pills, put one kind of plaster on
his breast, anothel under his arms, and still




124           LIFE IN DANBURY.
another on his back. Under advice from an experienced old lady he took all these off with an
oyster knife in the afternoon, and slapped on a
mustard paste instead.  His mother put some
onion drafts on his feet and gave him a lump of
tar to swallow. Then he put some hot bricks to
his feet, and went to bed. Next morning, another
old lady came in with a bottle of goose oil, and
gave him a dose of it on a quill, and an aunt
arrived about the same time from Bethel, with a
bundle of sweet fern which she made into a tea,
and gave him every half hour until noon, when
he took a big dose of salts. After dinner his wife
who had seen a fine old lady of great experience
in doctoring, on Franklin Street, gave him two
pills of her make, about the size of an English
walnut and of a similar shape, and two tablespoonfuls of home made balsam to keep them  down.
Then he took a half pint of hot rum at the suggestion of an old sea captain in the next house, and
steamed his legs with an alcohol bath. At this
crisis two of the neighbors arrived, who saw at
once- that his blood was out of order, and gave
him a half gallon of spearmint tea, and a big dose




SKETCHE S.                 125
of castor oil.  Before going to bed he took eight
of a new kind of pills, wrapped about his neck a
flannel soaked in hot vinegar and salt, and had
feathers burnt on a shovel in his room.  He is now
thoroughly cured, and full of gratitude.  We advise our readers to cut this out and keep it where
it can be readily found when danger threatens.
KIICING.
JOSE BILLINGS has much to say in behalf of
the mule's kicking propensities.  Josh should
behold the zebra at the circus building, if he
would enjoy himself. It will kick a mule out of
countenance inside of three seconds, and even put
a blush on a Queen Anne musket.  There has
never been anything known like it in this section.
When it opens business, there is a general rush
of outsiders, and by the time it has made a half
dozen revolutions, the people in the neighboring
houses have their furniture on the sidewalk, and
are nailing up their shutters.  In ten minutes the
vicinity is as bare of life as some of our exchanges.
A Dutchman, who mistook the animal for a barber




126            PL1iE IN DANBURY.
pole, was astonished to see the pole come towards
him at the rate of eight miles a minute.  Fortunately he was just out of reach.  It was a
close shave.  Its variety is its prime feature.  It
can kick straight out at the rear, or straight out at
the front, to the left or right, over its back, or
around a corner, and, in a case of emergency, it
can kick down its throat.  If it was cross-eyed it
could not be more uncertain.  When it gets a good
fair kick at a man, the spot he occupied looks as
if a full oil can had stood there.  It does away
with all the parade and expense of a funeral.
A  SINGULAR  FIRE.
ONE of our carmen who stables his horse in an
up-town barn, was at the place Sunday, and was
observed to go in the barn by the owner.  Shortly
after he appeared under lively excitement, and ran
straight to the well, shouting to the owner to
come and help him  as the barn was afire. The
proprietor thus abjured lost no time in getting to
the <well, and while the carman climbed into the
loft where the fire was he brought water and




SKETCHES.                 127
passed it up to his friend, who dashed it nervously into the hay.  "Hurry, for heavle's sake,
hurry," he shouted; "everything I have got is
being lost!"  and the great drops of perspiration
and anxiety rolled down his face in profusion.
The owner of the barn was none the less anxious.
His property also was at stake, and the speed with
which he snatched the water out of that well and
got it to the barn baffles all description. After he
had passed up some dozen pails, and exhausted
pretty much all of his breath, and not observing
any appearance of fire, he cried out,-'"Where is
that fire? I don't see it."  "'Here under the hay,"
gasped the man in the loft.  The owner of the
barn climbed up to see what kind of fire it was 
that had absorbed enough water to intimidate a
milkman and still burned.  Reaching the side of
the carman, he was pointed to a bright glare in the
hay below them. He took one look at it, glanced
up to an opening in the roof through which the
sun was brightly shining, looked down again to
the reflection in the hay, and then with a silence
more eloquent than words, slid clown to the floor
below, and retired to the house and the nourishing




128            LIFE IN DANBURY.
influencs of a bottle of arnica. The helpless carman who., had followed the glance of the owner' of
the barn,' suddenly assumed a smile peculiar to a
sheep that has miscalculated, and modestly struck
out for home.
MIUSIC HAT H  CHARMS.
CINCINNATI is to have a grand musical festival in
Iay, or as soon as the hurry in pork-packing is
over, and has sent on to us to know if we have got
a society to send on.  We are afraid there is no
organized outlet to our music, but we have got
elements enough to make up a dozen, and we shall
see that the town sends them  to Cincinnati next
spring, or this winter, if necessary.  The managers of the festival can depend on us. We don't
know but that it would be well for them to be at
the depot every day or so, and not be taken unawares.  We think we can scare up quite a society
by looking around.  There is that young chap on
New Street, who plays on a bass drum when there
isn't a funeral in the next house. Then there is
old Watson, on Nelson Street, who plays cymbals




SKETCHE S.               129
at picnics. He is rather giddy, but a couple
thousand miles on the cars would tone him down.
The Cherry-Street accordionist is a genuine artist,
a man whose soul is two-thirds full of music, but
he wouldn't go on account of losing his father in
the war. He has got more relatives in the grave
than any man of his size living. Then there are
some thirteen melodeonists who might not be of
any use in the festival, but they could be got
drunk and left near the canal. None of the above
parties belong to any regular organization; they
are isolated gems, whose splendor would set an
entire common council to sneezing.
A JUVENILE FEATURE.
"CATCHING on behind" is the crowning enjoydent now for boys. Johnny comes home at night
surfeited with fun. He has had a good time but
he is tired. His nose is split open at the end, and
one of his teeth is gone, and he has lumps on the
back of his head, but he has had a good time, and
he comes home to hear his mother read about
Joseph and his brothers, and rub him with lini9




130            LIFE IN DANBURY.
ment.  There is huge fun in catching on behind,
but it requires a great deal of adroitness and decision. The successful lad is he -who is never looking for a ride.  He stands with his hands in his
pocket, actively devouring the scenery with one
eye, while the other is prowling around under
cover on the lookout for a chance.  And when it'
comes he pounces down on the cornice of the
sleigh in such a manner as to cover the most tender parts of himself in case he has fallen upon
a Philistine.  The solicitude with which a boy
shields his tender parts will bring tears to the eyes
of a tax collector.  But he always gets on the
sleigh,-and gets off, too, when urged by a long
whip-lash; and when he gets off he rolls himself
in a lump, and merely lets go, and the fate that
always protects boys sees that he bounds  into
safety.  Wood sleighs, with long, strong stakes to
catch hold of, are godsends; but a box sleigh,
with a place for two to sit on and make faces at
rivals who are breaking down their legs and lungs
in a vain attempt to catch up, is not to be despised.
Not at all. Heaven bless the farmers who own
blue sleighs with floor boards protruding a foot or




SKETCHES.                 13'1
so beyond the tail board.  Family prayer cannot
avail much where those boards are sawed off too
close.
A RURAL PUBLISHER.
BRIDGEWATER, a humble hamlet on the confines
of Brookfield, is the residence of one of the most
remarkable men  of the times.  His name is
Thompson, and he is apparently about twentyfour years old. He has, or rather did have, a
store in that place, in which he kept an assortment of books, pictures, and various trinkets.
To advance the sale of these articles, he printed a
small literary paper, setting it up and working it
off with his own hands, although we never heard
how much be paid for them, or if he paid for them
at all.  The journal was a remarkable piece of
architecture.
It was set up in second-hand type; and as Mr.
Thompson and his coadjutors were as ignorant of
the sizes of type as they were of the advantages of
early schooling, the effect was somewhat singular.
This paper was sent to every family throughout




132            LIFE I1 DANBURY.
the land which had not taken the precau'ion to
bar its doors, and was advertised in conaection
with startling premiums in many journals. It is
nc more than fair to say of Mr. Thompson, that he
got the bulk of his advertising for nothing.  How
he thrived, we do not pretend to know; but there
are those who believe he made money from the
various peasantry that fastened to his hook.
A short time ago he projected a local newspaper
for New Milford, and issued one number with
patent outside and inside. The only item in the
paper of any local significance was an article
descriptive of the habits and customs of the South
American ant-eaters.  He put this out as a feeler,
and then determined to point the paper at home,
as everybody, to use an expression of his own,
"was kicking him for the paper."  It is sincerely
to be regretted that the expression was only figurative. He ordered a press from New York, and
got it as far as New Milford depot before the owners could recall it. He got another as far as
Bridgeprt, and had one or more presses on the
road pretty much all the time.  But his ardor
didn't wane any. He sent down to this office for




SKETCHES                  133
fourteen pounds of pied type and eleven brass
rules, being determined to have a paper anyway.
But he didn't do it.  The project fell through,
and nothing  remains to  remind  the traveler
through the Housatonic Valley of the New Milford
News, except the finished profanity of tile Housatonic brakemen.
Some of these men were once ornaments to
society; now the most stolid will get down from
a borrowed horse to swear at Thompson.  The
brakemen are people who stop the cars by turning
a rod, and keep valuable machinery from  being
broken in falling by putting their legs under it.
A man has got to have legs to,be a brakeman.
Thompson then went into the show business.  His
entertainment was of a strictly moral character,
and would have performed incalculable benefits
without doubt, had not the gentleman who executed a pious jig towards the last of the performance,
suddenly vamosed with the entire effects of the concern-a pair of check pants and the drop curtain.
About this time we met Thompson on the cars.
He took advantage of a lull in the roar and general rattle, to tell us that he didn't think-the New




L34            LIFE IN DANIB UR Y.
York Herald would stand it much longer, the way
it was being conducted.
A REMARKABLE ESCAPE.
A VERY sorrowful as well as a singular affair
took place on Montgomery Street.  Mr. Treadwell, one of the most efficient friends of our Fair,
had just come from New Fairfield, and was on his
way to the fair grounds with a large, handsome
eagle belonging to David Bigelow, of his place.
When he stopped in Montgomery Street to change
the bird from a box to more presentable quarters,
as is the practice with successful managers of circuses on their entry to a town, quite a number of
neighbors gathered around to see Mr. Treadwell
bring out the noble bird, and as may be imagined
by those who know him, he handled it with as
much pride and care as if it hiid been his own.
He held it up so all could see its broad and glistening wings.  The people looked admiringly
upon the bird and enviously upon its keeper, and
even the bird itself stared up with delight at the
glare of the sun, and spread its pinions in exult



SKETCHES.                 133
ant pride —and, gracious goodness! it was gone.
There was a simple, sharp flap, a half-uttered
exclamation of alarm, and the broad wings had
carried the eagle-Mr. Bigelow's eagle-beyond
mortal reach.  It is useless to attempt to describe
the singular expression that occupied'Mr. Treadwell's features, as the bird proceeded to occupy
the top of a distant tree.  Everybody will readily
see that the occasion was too solemn for the utterance of words, —the eagle was a borrowed one,and Mr. Treadwell is not the gentleman to trifle
with saddening influences.  He stared at the receding bird and the people stared at him, and the
combination made up one of the most harrowing
tableaux we have witnessed since the burial of Sir
John Moore.
ANNA  DICKINSON.
THE exhorting Quakeress is a little woman-not
very old in features, but round shouldered. Her
forehead is low, surmounted by short, curly hair,
and surmounting in turn a pair of large, earnest
eyes.  A square face, uneven nose, and a mouth




130            LIFE IN DANBURY.
trained- to disguise its size, complete a cast that
is capable of an abundance of expression.  As a
public speaker, she labors under the disadvantage
of a meagre capital. Her voice is a trifle coarse,
with a Quakerish inflection on the last word of
the sentence, which heretofore has not been considered desirable by anybody outside of the broadbrim fraternity.  Her gesture is not graceful.  It
is just such a motion as a person would undoubtedly acquire who had executed a contract to
push fifteen hundred boys down two flights of
stairs.
A REMARKABLE REMEDY
A MAN in a neighboring town having heard that
the ague could be cured by crawling head first
down stairs when the chill is coming on, tried it
Friday.  He felt the dreaded approach of the
shake, and dropping on his hands and  knees
started down the front stairs. Just as he started
two old ladies came up on the stoop to consult
his wife in regard to shipping seven hundred
neck-ties to the poor of New York, and it so hap



SKETCHES.                13J
pened that the moment they opened the door he
lost his balance and came down upon them like
an avalanche with spokes in it, and before they
could even think of saving themselves the enemy
was among them, and the next instant a horrible
mixture of humanity and cloth went revolving
across the sidewalk and into the street, to the
unmixed astonishment of the neighbors, and to
the unconcealed disgust of the participants.  But
it cured him.
COONS A-S A REVENUE.
THEY place.a good deal of dependence upon
coon-skins as a revenue, those people up in Litchfield county. We saw an old buffer of an agriculturist bring in a load the other day, and heard
him  negotiate in winning tones for a raise of a
penny on the authorized price.  Coon-skins, when
the market is right, bring about ten cents apiece.
A hundred of them are worth ten dollars. Wo
never heard of anybody having a hundred of them,
but they are worth that.  Captivating coons is
not a very easy task. If a man has been faithful




138            LIFE IN DANBURY.
to church, and never sought to prevaricate on a
tax list, and has the right kind of gun, he can
fetch down an average of three coons a day through
the season, and if otherwise smart he can skin
them in another day. Allowing for the exigencies of travel, il nine cases out of ten he will
reach the market in the neighborhood of four
o'clock P. M., of the third day, and will then be
entitled to thirty cents. There is not a man on
earth but will hope be may get it.
There are various industries, but this killing
coons and skinning them appears to be one of the
most comforting.
POND LILLIES.
ONE of our most popular merchants took a
couple of young ladies to Mountainville pond,
Thursday, for pond lillies and a general good time.
In this simple fact there is nothing serious; but
when it is considered in connection with a visit
made to the same place one year ago, it is a little
remarkable. You see, at that other visit, he stood
on a bog to reach over the water for a beautiful




SKETCHES.                 139
flower, when he lost his balance, and plunged headlong into the slimy flood. They will never be able
to decide whether he fell into the water through
accident on his part or design on theirs; but it
was at once decided that it would be better for
them to stroll carelessly through the woods while
he stood on the shores and wrung out his clothes.
No one, of course, will ever be able to describe
his appearance on that occasion, but every active
mind can conceive the grotesqueness of a figure
clothed with the scanty habiliments of a silk hat
and a pair of spectacles, wringing the water and
slime from the balance of his wardrobe, and casting furtive glances to the right and left.
A HEN REVENGED.
AN Essex Street man killed a hen that belonged
to a neighbor because it flew into his yard. The
neighbor made no demonstration.  But he went
around among the juveniles, and told them  that
the one among them  who could say "Shoes and
socks shock Susan" four times running, without
mistake, would receive two dollars from  the hen




140            LIFE IN DANBURY.
killer. So they went up to his house, in the guileo
lessness of childhood, and filled the hall and the
stoop, and crowded the yard, and made up their
minds they would earn that two dollars or die.
Andl they sailed in, and the man tried to drive
them off, but couldn't, and then he went up stairs,
but they followed him. The air resounded with
"Shuwack snoozen socker" with hideous variations in the shrillest of voices keyed to the highest
of pitches. In vain the victim appealed for mercy
with ink bottles, and hot water, and mustard
boxes. His arguments were unheeded and his
cries were unheard, and he finally scaled a fence
and fled, pursued by what he was firmly convinced were a score of demons. The hen was
avenged.
THE INTRICACIES OF A  WHEELBARROW.
IF you have occasion to use a wheelbarrow, leave
it, when you are through with it, in front of the
house with the handles toward the door. A wheelbarrow is the most complicated thing to fall over
on the face of the earth. A man will fall over




SKETCHES.                 141
one when he would never think of falling over
anything else.  He never knows when he has got
through falling over it, either; for it will tangle
his legs and his arms, turn over with him  and
rear up in front of him, and just as he pauses in
his profanity to congratulate himself, it takes a
new turn, and scoops more skin off of him, and
he commences to evolute anew, and bump himself
on fresh places.  A man never ceases to fall over
a wheelbarrow until it turns completely on its
back, or brings up against something it cannot
upset.  It is the most inoffensive-looking object
there is, but it is more dangerous than a locomotive, and no man is secure with one unless he has
a tight hold of its handles, and is sitting down on
something.  A wheelbarrow has its uses, without
doubt, but in its leisure moments it is, the great
blighting curse on true dignity.
HILARITY AND IANURIES.
TIlE Still-River ice-company have been engaged
in the past week securing their crop of ice, and
have had a lively time of it. This was especially




142            LIFE IN DANBURY.
the case on Saturday, when a cake of ice prematurely slid down the gully and into the legs of
Russell White, who was nearly deprived of those
useful appendages by the shock. Fortunately no
bones were broken. About the same time a cake
which was being hauled up let go to spit on its
hands or something of that sort, and came down
again with such velocity that the gentleman who
was standing below watching it, backed away with
so much precipitation that he fell over another
cake, and rapped the back of his head so sharply
as to render him unconscious for a few moments.
The third mishap was to one of the helpers on the
pond, who would have been drowned had it not
been for a buckskin mitten..We didn't learn
how the buckskin mitten saved him, but presumne
he either crawled inside of it and floated to shore,
or straddled it near the thumb and signaled to a
passing vessel.
BASE BALL.
ONE of the passengers at the depot yesterday
attracted the sympathetic attention of every be



SKETCHES.                  1^
holder.  The fingers on both hands were horribly
deformed.  One arm  was bent backward at the
elbow, and part of one ear was gone.  His nose
showed the scar of having been broken in two or
three places; one eye was entirely gone; the right
arm had been fractured, and all the upper front
teeth were swept away.  There were two scars of
scalp wounds, and one long one on the ri'ght cheek.
There was much speculation as to the cause of
these misfortunes.  Some thought he must have
slipped into a raw volcano when a child; others
believed he had attempted to part two colliding
locomotives; while others still were equally confident that at some time in his life he had been
overtaken by a mowing machine.  None of these
contemplated the true state of the case, as it
afterward transpired that the grand cripple was
the captain of a champion base-ball club.
A POWDER EXPLOSION
THERE  was a trifling affair of this lind in
Branchville, Friday.  Philo  W. Bates has a
quarry about one-quarter of a mile east of the vil



144            LIFE IN DANBURY.
lage. He is also the owner of a blacksmith shop
near by where he employs two or three men to
sharpen the tools used in quarrying the stone for
the Shepaug road at Bethel.  In accordance with
a good old New England custom, the powder used
in blasting is kept in the blacksmith shop. There
were two kegs partly filled and one unbroken in
the shop at the time our story opens. It was a
pleasant day. There was no bright sunshine, but
the general appearance of things out doors was
mellow and comfortable like.  One of the men
was employed at the anvil hammering the sultry
end of a crowbar. A few grains of powder had
fallen upon the floor while replenishing the quarry
from the open kegs. We came near forgetting to
state this, which is a more important matter than
at first sight seems probable.  The other employees were busily engaged, as the sons of toil are apt
to be when hired by the day. A  balsamic perfume filled the atmosphere of the shop, slightly
modified by the flavor left by the last horse.
Suddenly a flake of streaming hot iron shot from
the anvil and down among the grains of powder
which held their slumbering fires to the floor.




SKETCHES.                145
lhere were a few unnoticed pops and flashes.
Then came a hiss, as the flame shot over into
the open kegs.  The man who held the crowbar mechanically passed out doors. Another son
of toil who, with his back to the danger, was
looking through a-window to observe two neighboring roosters which were waltzing into each
other, was suddenly deprived of the sag to
his pants, and looking around in time to detect
one end of the shop in the act of moving off, followed by a comrade whose shirt had gone up in a
flame. The two partly filled kegs had exploded
with the customary violence, and the full keg was
on fire. At this juncture was displayed an act of
heroism  seldom  exhibited in Fairfield County.
Mr. Bates seized the burning keg, and hurled it
out into the snow  in time to quench the- flames
save the balance of his shop, and the lives of himself and men. Two of the men were badly
burned, a portion of the shop was wrecked, and
the two roosters at once buried all animosities
engendered by the fray, and immediately started
over the hill for home, at the rapid and graceful
gait peculiar to those feathered Mormons.
10




JUST HOW IT IS DONE.
You are generally looking at something very
intently when it happens; perhaps you are smiling
to yourself. Then your left foot shoots out to
one side with a suddenness that creates a sickness
in the family. Ice commences to form on your
spine and perspiration on your brow, and your
scalp lifts up enough to permit a streak of cold
air to pass under. The other leg goes out at this
juncture; your head snaps violently to the front,
and there is a faint impression on your mind that
the world is about to come to an end with nobody
in charge. Miles of sidewalks spin out from you
like lightning. Three-story buildings jump ovei
your head in swift succession. People disappeal
suddenly and with appalling mystery. Then youi
eyes close, your consciousness wanes, your sou.
goes out in one expiring quiver, and-and yoi
146




LETTERS.
THROUGH ON THE CARS.
A TRIP through the Housatonic Valley is something to be desired in good weather, and when
Nature has robed  itself with  verdure.  The
bleak faces of the rocks are then either entirely
covered or left bare only in spots, to make the
glory of the leaves and flowers all the brighter
by the contrast.
After passing New  Milford, the course of the
Housatonic,-a river whose history is indirectly
connected with shad,-runs with the road, showing up patches of pleasant scenery which delight
the heart as well as the eye.  The Naugatuck
Valley has much to please the traveler.  Its
river is narrow and tumultuous; its hills high and
steep, and the face of the country wild and rug159




160           LIFE IN DAN~B URY.
goed. The valley of the Housatonic is broader.
There is a wide stretch of meadows and fields,
with here and there a bit of country over which
Nature has not yet lost its exclusive control.
My last trip through this valley was not on a
summer day, but on an early spring night, with
a clear sky and bright moon overhead, and an
unobstructed country beneath. I settled down in
the smoking car, pipe in mouth, and a pair of
exquisitely wrought and magnificently tight boots
on my feet. I took occasion to remark to Conductor Smith, looking at the boots, that they
reminded me very much of the late election, they
were so close. There was something delicious
about this journey. I could sit back at ease and
look out upon the country that the moon was
mellowing with a rich light, while homestead
and forest, meadow and water, glided swiftly
by. It was a panorama which Nature and man
had been at work upon for many years, upon
which you looked, and smoked without offence,whose beauty was not in any way marred by the
rambling comments of a guide with a cold in his
head.




I reached  Pittsfield  at eleven  and  onethalf
o'clock, a half hour before midnight.  It was
quite evident that I was not expected.  The air
was chilly. The depot was nearly deserted.  Two
tired hacks with very much dissatisfied drivers
stood by and urged me their way.  I went to a
neighboring hotel, waked up the clerk, and got
Io' bed.  Two sheets of tin and a strip of copper
covered the bed.  I got to sleep at twelve o'clock,
and at three o'clock was called up to take the
Boston train for Albany.  At half past three we
left Pittsfield.  The Boston and Albany road is
one you very seldom hear of, without you should
happen to be kept at some station, and observe
its advertisement.  Its officers, I imagine, are
kept but very little out of bed worrying because
something may happen.  Their slumber is just as
serene as the second story of a castle in the air.
We moved out of Pittsfield in  a manner so
cautious as to call forth my admiration.  The
scenery along the road consisted principally of a
close-boarded fence.  Occasionally there was a
change, where a board was off.  There were about
twenty persons in the car.  They had come from
1i




1G2            LIFE IN DANBURY.
Boston, and were tired.  The attitudes they had
fallen into would have astonished them had they
been awake.  The conductor took a seat in front
of me, fastening his eyes squarely on mine, and
commenced to snore.  I couldn't explain this,
and I couldn't very well endure it.  I moved to
the other side of the car, and looked out of the
window.  There was a track running parallel with
us.  I went over to the conductor and awoke him,
and asked him  what they did with that other
track.  He looked out of my window  upon it,
and then he looked at me and rubbed his eyes,
and said he was blamed if that didn't beat him;
it must have been laid since he was there before.
We resumed our seats again, the conductor resumed his snoring, and I gradually fell into a
doze.  Suddenly I was brought to my feet by an
abrupt halt of the train.  The conductor snatched
his lantern, and rushed out of the car.  Fright
took possession of the passengers.  One of them
got under his seat and said he wanted to be
buried by the side of his aunt; another caught
nme around the neck and shouted like a trumpet
in my ear, "0, Maria!"  "Get off," said I, 6or




LETTERS.                 1
I wii hit you on the head with something," and
I pushed him into the stove, and hurried out of
the car. I found the conductor and a brakeman
at the end of the train. There was a stranger
with them, and the two were telling him  something. It appears he was standing on the platform, and had caught his coat on a mile post, and
instead of jumping off and unfastening himself, he
hung to the cars and stopped the entire train. I
didn't blame the officials for losing their temper
over the occurrence. The conductor told the fellow what he thought of him, so did the brakeman, as also did the baggage master and engineer
who just came up for that purpose. I would have
told him what I thought of him had I thought of
anything appropriate, but I promised to embody
my views in an exhaustive article and send it by
mail. We then got aboard for another start, and
soon after I was in a fitful slumber. We reached
Albany as night lost itself in day. The light in
the east shot over the city on the hills, and the
dome on the State House sent back the rays. We
moved majestically over the bridge spanning the
Hudson. This substantial work takes a front




164            LIFE IN DANBURII.
place in the ranks of American enterprises.  It
was several years in building, during which time
it attracted and received the sneers of old fogyism-people of that class coming twenty miles in
springless wagons to swear at the work. But it
is done now, and the commerce of the East and the
West is reaping the benefits of it. A gentleman
at the depot told me, and I have no reason to
impeach his veracity, that pork steaks can now
be purchased in Albany for thirteen cents a pound,
delivered at your very door.
Having a couple of hours to wait in Albany, I
took a stroll through the city, admiring the
quaintness of the ancient structures, and breathing vengeance upon the man who made my boots.
At Columbia Street I paused to admire the immense printing establishment of Weed, Parsons
& Co. Twenty-four hours later, the fabric was a
mass of smoking ruins, and a prosperous business
was reduced next door to beggary, with a gate in
the dividing fence. Here, thought I, standing by
the ruins the next afternoon, is a poor reward for
years of toil of hand and brain. But these men
are Americans. They will turn short around and\




LETTERS..               15
start anew on the old road. Were they Frenchmen they would borrow  pistols and blow- out
their brains.  Frenchmen are noted for their
surplus of brains.
I got back to the depot feeling hungry.  A
very fleshy man with an extraordinary red face
was shouting something to the passengers on a
newly arrived train, and pointing with his thumb
to a door at his back. I got to the windward
side of him with a view  to understanding what
he was up to, but not making out I went in at
the door and found what I very much desired to
see-a refreshment room. I replenished myself,
but was somewhat surprised at the prices. The
coffee was fifteen cents a cup, sandwich fifteen
cents, cake twenty cents, pickle ten cents. The
latter being the cheapest I ate them, and topped
off with a glass of cider, hard enough for a tombstone. With six pickles and this cider cavorting
around in me, I was about as reckless a man as got
on the train that presently moved away with us.
I had a seat all to myself. Back of me was
an old lady and two bandboxes from Bennington,
Vermont. There is not much diversity in the scenl




166           LIFE IN DAN VB UR Y.
ery along the Central Road, between Albany and
Schenectady. Ridges and plains of sand with an
occasional patch of dreary pines madeout a very
uninviting total. The sun was bright and warm,
however, and the beauty of the day was a subject
of general remark.  When we drew up in the
oldest city in the State, the old lady rapped me
smartly on the ear with an umbrella handle, and
asked me the name of the place.
"Schenectady," I replied.
"Skee-what?"
"Schenectady."
"I never heard of the name before, young
man," she said.
"Perhaps not," I responded; "it is the only
one I have heard of, and I am an early riser."
We moved out of the city at a Vanderbilt
gait, and on through the beautiful valley of the
Mohawk. One can never tire of looking upon
this country. Its associations reach away back
to the log forts and sanguinary scenes of the
Indian wars. In the revolution it witnessed to a
largfe extent the devastation of the enemy, and
tha  earth has drunk up the blood of scores of




LETTERS.                  167
martyrs to the cause of liberty and independence.
Looking upon the river it required  but little
imagination to picture its Waters with the canoe
of the Indian, and the dug-out of the hardy pioneer.  Its fields lie quietly in the rays of an April
sill, while the toil that cleared, and the courage
that defended them, have passed away from the
memory.
At Little Falls my female acquaintance's curiosity revived somewhat.  The tremendous collection of rocks, of the most grotesque shape,
piled promiscuously and generously in all directions, was a sight well calculated to develop
observation.  So I moved the ear that was next
to her umbrella, and got in shape to impart information.
"Young man," she commenced, "what place is
this?"
"Little Falls."
"Why did they call it'Little Falls,' young
paan?
"I am  sure I don't know,"  was my frank
reply, "without they may have  thought that
great falls, under the circumstances, would have
vroved disastrous."




i68            LIFE IN DAVBURY.
"It's an awful pile of stun for one place, young
man. 
"Indeed it is," I added.
"An awful pile of stun," she slowly repeated.
"What's your name, young man?"
"Perkins."
"I know a Perkins in Bennington," she said.
"Joseph Perkins, a short man, with a very dark
blue eye-"
"And the other eye?" I asked, with breathless
interest.
"What about the other eye, young man?" she
said with a tinge of severity in her tone.
"The color of it?"
"A  dark blue eye, I said, and plain enough
for anybody to hear with common sense."
As this allusion was undoubtedly directed to
me I felt a little hurt, and sank back in the seat,
losing all interest in the Bennington Perkins.
The old lady got off at Utica. I lowered her
various bundles to the earth, received a patronizing nod, and felt the goodness evaporating through
me one experiences when returning good for evil.
Passing out of Utica, I had an excellent view of




LETTERS.                   16~
its crowning glory, the Insane Asylum.  It is said
that this city once had the offer of the capital or
the asylum, and took the asylum because it loved
quietness.
Meadow  and morass, sloping ridges and the
curling  Mohawk, divide  the country between
Utica and its old rival, the new city of Rome.
At Rome, I get off the cars, nod pleasantly to
the conductor, whose memory is as short as his
route is long, and his ticket system is defective,
and saunter up its Main Street, where your hum,
ble subscriber played  when a boy and worked
when he couldn't very well avoid it. The general reader frequently hears of Rome. It is celebrated in the pages of the press as the place
remarkable for its murders, fatal accidents, and
incendiarisms, especially for the last two.  Its
great iron-rolling mills settled suddenly upon it
a few years ago, and since then it has gone forward in seven-league boots.  It has caught up to
a city government, the height of aTchitectural
beauty, and two steam-fire engines.  In the van
are two wide-awake newspapers, of course, the




170            LIFE IN DALYBURY.
Sentinel and the Citizen, the former being the
handsomest newspaper published in America.
Rome is laid out on the square. Its streets,
like those of Philadelphia, cross each other at
right angles; the avenues are broad, even, and
profusely shaded; the houses of its working classes
are neat and comfortable; while those of the
wealthy are very handsome.
Its iron mills roar day and night without cessation.  Boiling iron is not a business you would
get up in the night and light a candle to look
after.  It is conducted in one-story buildings with
open sides.  The heat from the furnaces and molten iron is intense.  In the night the sight is
weird and frightful.  The men are but partially
clothed.  Their faces and bodies are grimed
with  soot.  The bright flame leaps from  the
blasts.  The hot iron flares and hisses; while the
reports from  the "discharging" bars of red hot
material are not unlike the volleying of musketry.
The process is simple enough, but the terror
it impresses upon the beholder is quite marked.
This comes not only from what you see, but from
what you dread. The roar of the immense fan




LETTERS.                      17
above is sufficient of itself to drown the voice and
confuse thought, without the shouts of the workmen, and the sharp  explosive  noises from  the
"discharge."
We have seen the new things of Rome; looked
upon its old and familiar places; recounted  the
seven or more hills upon which it securely rests;
and once more we are on the train going back to
Albany.  Home  and  its pleasant visions have
crowded out the old lady from  Bennington.  Our
vacation is over, our pipe is out.
Respectfully yours,
CYRUS D. PERKINS.
A  SSEEN FROM THE CARS.
[POTE TO T HE READER.-The party who reads this letter with
a view of being improved and interested, will not be disappointed. It is composed of a few notes compiled on a recent
and hasty journey through. the Naugatuck Valley, for the benefit
of the parents of the author. It was not originally designed
for public circulation-but so great, etc., etc., that the writer is
compelled, etc., etc.]
I stood in the depot at Bridgeport examining
the time table  of the Naugatuck, feeling  that




172            LIFE IN DANBURY.
necessary to proper connections would be the time
tables of two other roads, yet thanking heaven
they were not in sight. I despised time tables
from my early youth.  More than that, I think
it is wrong to issue them  at all. They were
never designed for a pure purpose.
I had some idea of where I was going, and
what I designed doing before I fell to studying
this typographical blunderbuss. I lost this knowledge in a short time; lost an inclination'to go
anywhere, iand stared blankly at a short man who
was in haste to reach a point in Vermont, but
was jeopardizing his chances in the meshes of a
horse-car time table. There was a satisfaction,
finally, in going out to the platform and feeling
patiently of the Naugatuck train, an evidence of
its presence no time table on this earth could
dim.
I had the pleasure of riding up the road with
Conductor Alfred Beers. All conductors are alive.
Here is an exception. He does not wear blue
clothes. His countenance was not petrified with
a reflection of the next station. A very pleasant
gentleman is Mr. Beers.




LETTERS.                 173
I took a seat in the baggage car, bceause the
location was cool and dustless, and because the
baggage master is a man you can draw information
from without the use of a derrick. I always like
to hear what they have got to say about matters
and things, and then envy the blessed immunity
they would enjoy if men were struck dead for
veracity.
The road curves with the Housatonic River till
we reach Derby.  Here the Naugatuck River, a
noisy but profitable stream of ever varying width
and depth, loses its identity.
Derby is a little village in a town of that name,
as are also the villages of Birmingham  and Ansonia. Birmingham  is located on the bluff at
the junction of the two rivers-a quiet place, busy
with manufacturing, but socially dead. The same
may be said of Derby and Ansonia.  The operatives work from six in the morning till six, or
later, at night.  In mid-day the streets are comparatively deserted, and the faces of the merchants, from  long and unceasing watching for
custom, have contracted an expression that would
divert a dog from a bone, and make him uneasy.




174             LIFE IN DANBURY.
It is said of a representative from  Woodbuiy
tlat, being in Birmington and in liquor one afternoon, he was suddenly seized with a grim  facetiousness, and shouted "Murder!"  A man tumbled out from a store at hand, rubbed  his eyes,
and  observed-'"It is a d-d  lie!"  That man
was the sheriff, and was posted, of course.
The particular thing that attracts the attention
of the tourist at Ansonia, station is a formidable
line of huge cannon.  These pieces suggest a
train of thought in the mind of the reflective
stranger that leads him  from  the gloomy battle
field and the dying soldier up to the statement
that the guns do not indicate a branch of industry in Ansonia, but are condemned pieces brought
here to be melted up into less frightful forms.
Their appearance here in connection  with  the
remarkable soberness of the place, is about as
symmetrically consistent   as a pauper looking for
charity through an-opera-glass.  There is a brass
company in Ansonia that employs six million dollars capital, and would use more if it was to be
got.  Here  the  Derby railroad  terminates its
weary self. - The intricate history of this route,




LETTERS.                   17&
if properly placed before a dead man, would make
him squirm.  If he didn't squirm, it would be on
account of ill-health.
The Naugatuck railroad crosses the river at
Scymore, and at Beacon Falls the valley turIn
so suddenly as to almost spill the river.  Ard a
precious small loss it would be, apparently.  And
yet this uneasy, constantly deviating, and in no
way attractive stream is lined with manufactories,
employing thousands of people, creating millions
of dollars of capital, and furnishing  comfort,
protection, and adornment to people all over the
world.
It is wonderful.  We saw a man fishing in this
stream at Beacon Falls.  He was an old man, on
whose brow  care and time had left startling
traces.  He evidently fished on principle.  There
was no levity in the calm but determined eye he
kept riveted on the line.  His body was as firm
and unyielding as the clasp to a sweaty carpet
bag.  There was a quiver perceptible along the
pole as the train moved away. He bent his venerable body forward, and suddenly started back,
and in an instant landed high on the bank-beyond




176            LIFE IN DANB UR1.P
the faintest possibility of escape-anl almost new
rubber boot. It is a wonderful river.
The valley is narrow here.  The hills shoot up
precipitately from  the river on one side, and
from the railroad on the other.' Their sides are
brilliant with the varying green of the foliage,
for here there is no cultivation, but all the surface has been given over to nature, subject only
to her humors.
There is a tradition that an early settler cleared
off a patch on one of those mountains and attempted
to plant it with corn, but the kernels rolled out of
the holes as fast as he could put them in.  Hol
gave up sowing and went to ripping.  By-and-by
he got hold of an oath that he didn't know  the
meaning of, and the ladder on which he stood to
plant gave way, and he fell a distance of eighty
feet and (how are you, Sunday-School biography?) killed an estimable neighbor, aged fortyseven years.  Since this unhappy occurrence there
have been no attempts made to cultivate these
hills.
Naugatuck is a sedate but happy manufacturing
place, containing nearly three thousand inhabit



LETTERS.                   177
nts...The principal manufacturing is in rubber
goods, such as over-shoes, boots, belting, and the
bottom  crusts of store pies.  Here the valley
E)rceuJs out, the hills sink gradually down, as if
test_'ng an untried chair in a strange house, and
the entire country assumes an appearance of farming, thrift, and comfort, that is gratifying and-deceiving.
The next place, Union City, is especially noted
for the large amount and superior order of cutlery
it manufactures.  But there are so many people
who have been cruelly swindled in knife speculations that the subject is hardly the right thing to
tamper with.
The political barometer of a country is the newspaper.  The boy who peddles newspapers on the
cars over any considerable section of the land, can
tell you the political status of that section.  If the
road he is on is a through route of any importance,
he can give you, to a hair, the political feeling of
the entire country.  Having demonstrated this to
the entire satisfaction of the reader and myself, I
should now like to find somebody who can translate the pulse that beats in unison with the New
12




178            LIFE IN DANBURY.
York Herald. What does it indicate where yion
find the Herald asked for, and the Tribune, World,
and Times refused? No particular hurry for the
answer. Any time will do.
We reached Waterbury at noon, that magnificent hour to the laboring man.  The whistles
were sounding the glad tidings, bells and gongs
took up the joyful news and slung it-I believe 1
am not too enthusiastic in the term-fairly slung
it through each quivering skull.
Waterbury is prolific with manufactures.  The
modern woman receives from  here many of the
artificial adornments that go to make her a source
of constant attraction and alarm to the contemplative masculine.  We could hardly keep our ladies
together' were it not for Waterbury. This is sad,
but too true.
That very useful article-when inserted in
cloth-pins, are made here. There is no limit,
apparently, to the number of pins daily turned
out at the Waterbury manufactories.  It is no
common thing for the very poorest of the people
to run over to some one of the factories, and
order a barrel of pins for dinner.  They are




LETTERS.                 179
making campaign medals now.  They are somewhat larger than buttons, and more difficult to
swallow, but the children are doing as well as
could be expected, some of them  succeeding in
worrying down three and four of those medals in
a single -day.  Waterbury has twelve or thirteen
thousand inhabitants,-all busy-a public brown,
the finest library in the State, a handsome city hall,
three railroads, a daily paper, and a hots tedious
walk from the depot to the business centre.
The baggage master did not appear to take
much of an interest in Waterbury until just as
we were sailing out.of the place. Then his eye
suddenly brightened; he gave his overalls an
extra hitch, kicked a small carpet bag to one
side, and looked at me like a man who was on
the point of conferring a piece of valuable information, and was dreadfully afraid he would fall
off before anyone was looking. It -gradually
transpired that we were passing the site of the
mill for the manufacture of percussion powder. It
is a deadly dangerous material, and the accidents
resulting from its compiling are numerous and
awkward.  The baggage master gave a-graphic




180            LIFE IN DANBURY.
description of a "blow-out."  He said there was
a little puff, then a roar, then a snapping, and
cracking, and general cavorting of hemlock timber, new  shingles, window-glass, and fingers
with warts on. He says it is no common thing
after one of these explosions to find fingers in
the ruins with three or four warts on them. He
said he hoped I would pardon him for mentioning the incident, it looked so much like boasting,
but he hoped to be struck blind with erysipelas
if a brother of his did not once find a finger that
had seven warts upon it.  He observed that his
brother had  since departed-gone to a better
land. He didn't say where, but he probably
referred to Illinois.
Above Waterbury the valley grows wilder and
more rugged. Huge boulders stare out from
among a rank growth of young trees and unnamable undergrowth. We approach Plymouth, and
tlink of its rock which is storing up fame that
will soon rank with the world-wide reputation of
that other Plymouth rock. From  the cars we
can see the quarries, and catch glimpses through
the trees of columns and blocks of the beautiful




LETTERS.                 181
granite, with here and there pyramidal piles of
little square blocks, which will soon go to pave
the streets of that modern Sodom, the metropolis
of America.
At Thomaston we pass the well-known Seth
Thomas clock factory-all windows and paintand hasten on to Fluteville, a place that is not
prosperous, but romantic.  Here is the building
where the cat-footed flute, and demoniacal fife are
made. During the war the business was in a
flourishing condition, and enough of those instruments were turned out to give every man, woman,
and child in the land an unquenchable longing
for heaven.
The soil hereabouts consists mainly of sand and
gravel, and is inferior for agricultural purposes,
but for removing skin from that portion of the
human frame coming in violent contact with it,
it is just as good as any mixture of sand and gravel
you can find.
Russell Baldwin lives in this neighborhood.
The baggage master gave me a very interesting
account of the life and public- services of this
personage. Mr. Baldwin is sixty years old. He




182            LIFE IN DA1VBURY.
was born in this neighborhood, lived nearly all
that time in one house, and by trade is a retired
teamster.  This is better than being a retired
naval officer, and dying from  unknown causes.
The baggage master (how pleasant it is, and how
safe, to begin'a remarkable statement with that
authority,) says Mr. Baldwin owns several hundred acres of land. along here on both sides of
the road.  He sold the railroad company the
right-of-way  for two miles and  a half.  He
wanted to give it to them, but the legislature
wouldn't let him, as that body favored the road,
so he sold it to them  for twenty-five cents,
which was about nineteen  cents more than it
was actually worth. The land is so poor that it
could not afford a bed-for the road-so the company took a part of the river bed.  The baggage
master told me this, and was as solemn and sincere about it as if he had just sold the iemains
of his mother for twenty-seven dollars, and had
the money in his pocket. -The less of this land
a man owns the nearer to wealth he approaches.
A man with forty acres of it can go comfortably
clad the year around, but the owner of two hun



LETTERS.                  183
dred acres is a six-barreled pauper.  The very
hens turn up their noses at him. At Wolcottville
there is a large business done in brass.  Wolcottville attracts everybody approaching it.  It has
several churches and a race course.  Its cup of
happiness won't stand the least jar.
We hurry by Litchfield station (the village is
somewhat back, and will bear another letter),
Burrsville, and some other place of less significance-but with its factory nevertheless-and we
reach Winsted.
Here the Naugatuck road ends. There is but
little of startling interest in and about Winsted.
It is a place of between three thousand and four
thousand inhabitants, and remarkably active for
its size.  There are various manufactures here,
that of agricultural implements being the chief.
Here as elsewhere in the valley the manufactories
are controlled by stock companies, and it's only
here such institutions are uniformly successful.
This is another one of these intricacies the reader
is invited to take hold of and chew on at his
leisure.
Since the opening of the Connecticut Western




184            LIFE IN DANBURY.
railroad, giving Winsted direct communication
east and west, the place has spread out into
noticeable growth. Several new factory buildings
are in course of erection, and a number of dwellings are being built.  Winsted will probably
double its population within the next ten years.
It is a pretty place.  The architecture of the
dwellings is pretty  uniform.  The lawns and
gardens are tastefully  designed  and  carefully
kept.  It has a race course, beautiful scenery on
the hills and ridges that close up around it, the
foundation for a forty-five-thousand-dollar opera
house, a good newspaper, several hotels, and
John R. Forrester, of Danbury, for head landlord.
Winsted occupies a niche in history as the
place where Washington never dined while on his
way to-etc.
The next morning I bade good-bye to Winsted,
regretting that I had not the time to take an extensive ride through the village and adjacent
country.  It is such a snug place that the visitor,
if any way domestic, cuddles up to it instinctively.




LETTERS.                  i
It rained drearily the night before, but this
morning the sun appeared with renewed brightness.  Great squares and  patches of its light
glittered on the grass and foliage, making the
rlin drops stand out like diamonds.  The cars
were moist with the shower, and were too clean
and bright to enjoy themselves.
The change from the floating dust and darting
cinders of the day before was grateful to the sense
of touch and sight, and I enjoyed this brief ride
back to Litchfield station with more zeal than I
am in any way entitled to.
At the station we found a comfortable-looking
stage to transport the Litchfield-bound passengers
up four and a half miles of hill. But there is
really nothing cheap about this trip.  The stage
and its trappings, the horses and their driver, are
in keeping with the dignity and history of grand
old Litchfield, and in harmony with the gravity
of its eternal hills.  This is business.
The road partly encircled the base of a hill
before commencing the ascent.  I had my mind
prepared to cultivate the memories of the scene
we were entering upon-to hold sweet converse




ls86   ~ LIFE IN DANBUR Y.
with the notable characters who passed over this
road in the flush of health and hope years ago,
but who to-day are mouldering in distant graves
like the commonest clay; but the contrariety of
the cigar distracted my thoughts, and instead of
purifying my soul by sacred memories, I fell to
inventing terms of reproach for the man who
invented the vicious weed.
And so we raised gradually up the smooth
road, and by some snug farm-houses, catching
occasionally retrospective views of the sloping
hills and their gorgeous shiftings of color and
light that were magnificent in the extreme.
There was a wonderful quiet along the line,
broken only by the sharp thud of the horses' feet
on the road, and the mellow creak of the vibrating  stage. There was but little  cultivation
along the road. The fields were given over to
pasture and the daisy, that flower whose coloring
is as bright as that of the lily, and whose fragrance is next to that of chalk. Once we passed
a party of men engaged in national pastime of
working out a road-tax. They said nothing to
us, but I imagine I detected on their faces the




LETTERS.                 187
ripple of a smile as the stage caromed on the
new-formed clods.
I sat outside with the driver, from  the same
motive that led me to court the society of the
baggage master. There was only one inside passenger.  He kept very quiet for one-third of the
journey; then he gradually dropped into an easy
and desultory conversation with himself, which
he kept up until we reached Litchfield. He was
a pale, fat; young man, and carried a book under
his arm. I didn't know whether he was a theologian in the ecstasy of pin-feathering, or the
murderer of Captain Colvocoresses, searching for
a pinnacle on which to stand and curse his fate
and count his plunder.
The driver suggested, sotto voce, that the man
might be crazy.  A' there was nothing between
my back and the vagaries of the supposed lunatic
but an oiled cloth,, the suggestion set afloat visions of eight-bladed knives that added an indescribable charm to the balance of the journey.
But we reached the village without a corpse,
coming on it over a ridge that revealed to us a
panoramic view of roof, spire, dome, and foliage




188           LIFE IN DANBURY.
so beautiful that the passenger beside the driver
unconsciously  held his breath. Even the abstracted man inside shut his book and said, —"It
was getting devilish hot."
We had come up thirteen feet of hill, and were
now dipping comfortably down into the valley that
lay between us and the romantic ridge that held
the homes and history of Litchfield.
Any one who has seen Newtown from  the
Housatonic railroad, and who may have had, at
some time in his life, a glimpse of heaven, can
combine the two memories together and save the
expense of a trip to Litchfield.
Litchfield and Winsted present the conditions
of cause and effect. In Litchfield was the law
school; but there is no law school there now. It
disappeared, and a mad-hoduse was started in
Winsted.
At the Mansion House the stage dropped its
passengers.  The young man with  the  book
passed in, and I mechanically followed.  Then
the young man turned round to me and said:
"What's your bill, coachee?" I -wanted  the
money badly enough, but I thought of the teach



LETTERS.                  18J
ints of a gray-haired mother, and told him to put
up his gold.  We never met again.
North and South Main Street comprise the
chief natural attraction of Litchfield.  They are
broad avenues, lined  with generous shade, and
sub-lined with lawns, clean walks, neat' hedges,
and homelike dwellings.  The business street
is a broad centre, with two parks.  In one the
memory of the dead soldiers of the late war is
perpetuated with a granite monument; in the
othler a decayed liberty-pole rears its lofty and
necessarily bald head.  In a calm  day the monument monopolizes the reverence of the people,
but when the wind blows the pole inspires the
most awe.
A singular feature of Litchfield society is the
perfectly straight hind legs of the horses.  Any
one who has never enjoyed the pleasure of witnessing a gale in Litchfield will hardly be prepared to believe that the wind did it.  Litchfield
hurricanes are very embarrassing until you get
used to them.  Sometimes they come up suddenly, laden with two-story houses with modern
improvements attached (including a well of cold




190            LIFE IN DANBURY.
water on the premises), the finest and most completely equipped barns you ever saw, tax-lists,
cider casks (invariably empty), and dead men
nearly whole and uninjured. No house is safe on
one of those hills-the leading clergyman told
me-unless it is heavily mortgaged. ~
The resort of Litchfield (if a country place is
no bigger than the statements in this letter, has
its "resort") is Bantam Lake. From the elevation of a street the Beechers have made famous
by living on the corner of, the lake  can be
plainly seen. It is a sheet three miles long, and
somewhat in the shape of an oyster without any
pepper on it. It nestles down in an agricultural
bowl, whose sides slope away to a far-distant
horizon, dotted with farm-houses, splotched with
forests, and checkered with meadows and cornfields. I could have sat there and looked on that
scene until the beautiful valley melted away in
the dawn of the resurrection, and the heavens
rolled together as a scroll above me, but I did
not know  when the train left.  Had I been in
sight of the depot I should have tried itL.
They call Litchfield a sub-heaven; I know




LETTERS.                 191
nothing about that; but I do know that it is as
near an approach to heaven as an earthly place
can reach with two newspapers.
Late in the afternoon I went down to the depot
of the Shepaug railroad.  The depot is about
ninety-six feet "fall" from the village. "Fall"
is the term the people in this section employ in
designating distances.  They don't use  "altitude," because they know there is no place under
heaven higher than Litchfield, unless it is a
iNol'walk clothing store.  So when they speak of
a location they do not say it is so many miles
away, but that it is such a number of feet "fall"
north, or south, as the case may be.
There is an unpleasant appearance of newness
about the depot, but that is going to wear off.
The location is well provided with the appliances
of locomotion and its care.
I found Tim-Keeler, of Danbury, in charge of
the train. Mr. Keeler was glad to see me, but
judiciously kept two cars andl a part of a locomotive between us, until I assured him there was no
truth in the rumor of small-pox in Danbury.
I cheerfully accepted an invitation to ride on




192            LIFE IN DANBURY.
the locomotive, but regretted it when I found on
starting that we passed out of town over the brow
of a hill, and saw the track suddenly dip down
out of sight, leaving the perplexed passenger to
wonder if the train was about to plunge into an
abyss seventeen hundred feet deep, or into one
only sixteen hundred feet deep.
We dashed along merrily over the hill, and.when we got to the bottom we swung around a
curve so sharply, as to induce me to step down
from my seat.
There are nine or ten stations on the road,
and if the station at Litchfield looks raw, I don't
know  what to say of the others.  It is a wild
country-a country prolific in  timber, rocks,
cascades, and quicksands.  The road follows the
Shepaug River as near as it can and preserve its
balance. The river is a narrow stream that runs
and falls, falls and runs, the entire distance,
spluttering, mumbling, roaring, and hissing all
the time. It is the most sociable stream  I ever
saw. The valley is for the great part narrow; the
hills rise abruptly, and after reaching a great
height commence to look. down as if they wanted




LETTERS.                    193
to swear at something, but were afraid it wouldn't
hear them.
The valley is a series of winding turns.  The
road goes down, down.  When it iLn't going
down, it is going around.  A  piece of straight
track is a rarity once seen never to be forgotten.
The road from  Litchfield to  Hawleyville is
thirty-five miles long, and in that stretch there
are, we believe, one hundred  and  ninety-six
eurves.  There are four bridges, and several pile
structures on the line.  The bridge that crosses
the Housatonic River is four hundred and fifty feet
long, and high enough to scare a hotel clerk.  The
"'fall" from Litchfield to this bridge is eight hundred and five feet, and as the distance is about
thirty miles, mathematical prodigies can ascertain
accurately  any  distance  in  Litchfield-by  due
allowances, of course.  After crossing the Housatonic, the road commences to crawl upwards, and
ascends two hundred feet to reach Hawleyville.
Here the road at this writing ends; but by the
time this reaches the intelligent reader a connection will have been made with the Bethel extension, and trains will run through from  Litchfield
13




194             LIFE IN DANBUR Y.
to New  York over the Danbury and Norwalk
road.
An old gentleman, tottering with the accumulated weight of fourscore years, once told the
writer that if he couldn't be an angel he would
like to be a stockholder in the Danbury and Norwalk railroad.
CYRPUS D. PERKINS.
A SUMMER RESORT IN NO VEMBER.
No one but a newspaper man would think of
visiting  a summer resort in  November.  The
reason he thinks of it is because the luxury is
much cheaper then.
I visited Saybrook for the reason set forth as
above.  Saybrook is not only a resort, but it has
historical associations connected with it.   I am
very fond of historical associations.  I had an
uncle who gave up his life for historical associatioin. He got a shell from  the battle-field of
Manasses, and put it in the fire to warm it up so
he could analyze it and write out a treatise about
it. It would have been a very valuable treatise,




LETTERS.                  195
undoubtedly, but my uncle never lived to complete it; in fact, it may be mentioned incidentally,
that he never lived to commence it.  They began
the funeral obsequies at once, and it was the longest funeral ever seen.  They were two years burying him. Whenever they found a piece of him they
bore it to its final resting-place.  And it was a very
annoying and aggravating funeral, too, because
there was never enough of him got tooether at any
one time to warrant laying out money and thought
on a grand display.  Sometimes there would only
be a heel or so, and then the general attendance of
mourners was light; but when we got half a leg
or something like that, everybody turned out and
felt bad.  It would have done anybody good to
have been present and seen my aunt conduct
herself.  She really, to use a favorite expression
of hers, "Humped herself."  But when  there
was a light funeral, it depressed her; but she
never lost that urbanity and grace so peculiar lo
her family.  She would fold her hands meekly,
and apologetically explain,-"It is the best I
have, my friends." 
But I will not write any more of this. It
Tmlakes me sad.




196^            LIFE IN DANBURY.
Saybrook is a straggling village of some twelve
hlndred population.  It covers about as much
territory as the city of New York.  The dwellings
indicate substantial wealth and general comfurt.
They are white, have green blinds, and the roofs
slope to the street.  Acton, a prominent New
York politician, lives here.  Also a number of
retired seamen, with a sprinklilig of naval officers.
There is a very large and respectable circle of
commodores in Saybrook.  I was surprised at
their plentyness.  If you should throw a dish of
water out of the window twelve times in succession, you would find, after a careful inspection,
nine very moist commodores; the balance would
probably be captains.  There is a peculiar sensation in  being in Saybrook.  It is as if you
stood on the deck of nine hundred vessels.
It is an old town-a cozy, comfortable, retired
tcvwn-and it is full of relics, quaint stories, and
qitaint people.  There is a man there who has
named his daughters after certain  states.  lie
designed going through  the entire  union this
way, but was blocked out in a very singullar
and entireley unexpected manner.  His daughters
gave out.




LETTERS.                  197
Then there is a house whose front entrance is
blocked up; a large, grand house it is, but immensely gloomy.  A  former owner died there
years and years ago, and directed that after his
body passed-out, the front door should be forever
closed.  It is closed to-day, has never' been
opened since, and is something to be proud of,
without doubt.
I had a cousin who was once possessed of a
similar conceit.  He closed a side door to his
home, and directed that nobody should ever be
allowed to pass through it.  When  a stranger
knocked at that door the dog generally  went
round there, and taking a piece of him, carried
it to my cousin as a sample; and if my cousin
was satisfied, he admitted the rest of him.  But
one day the dog came across the wrong man, aand
after that my cousin adorned society with only
one ear.
There is a commodore in Saybrook who used
to be a very distinguished person in the merchant
service, many years ago.  He was master )f the
"Duke of Northumberland,"  one of the handsomest and staunchest vessels in the line.  He




198             LIFE IN DANBURY.
was a captain in those days when to be a captain
of a vessel was better than to be a god in a
heathen town of eight thousand inhabitants.  But
now  his sailing clays are over, and he has sunk
to the level of a commodore.  He has a nice
place and a lot of barns.  On one of these, a onestory  affair, is perched the figure-head of the
"Duke  of Northumberland," being  a colossal
figure in wood, of a dead white color, and not
the least approach to levity in any of its lineaments.  There is a peculiar sensation in watching
this incongruous spectacle-a little yellow  barn,
and a towering piece of sculpture on its summit.
There stands the Duke, with his pants in his
boots, as was the Greeleyism  of a century ago,
looking, off toward the ocean, and thinking  how
different things are now  from  what they were
when he was a boy.  This is a very painful
thought, but very instructive.
It is years since the Duke left the ocean-long,
weary years-but if he could speak, if the inanimate wood could only speak, what wondrous
stories it would  tell of the wharf-airs it has
passed through.  There is a good deal of strength
in this thought.




LETTERS.                 199
Saybrook has a light-house that must be a comfort to mariners. I had the pleasure of mounting
to its summit, and examining the light.  It is
the first time I ever took any interest in a lantern. Mr. Ingham, the keeper, was very obligillg in showing me the workings of the institution,
and I really think that I, even at my age, would
like to have a light-house if I could afford it. I
don't think any family should be without a lighthouse.
Beyond the light-house is the beach-a pebbly
beach, because there are a number of pebbles
upon it.  Some of them  would weigh  about
eighteen tons apiece.  And  near the  beach
a Hartford gentleman has erected a very handsome hotel, a popular resort in the summer for
many city people. Last season was not a very,profitable one, but heaven never designed that
the keeper of a hotel should enrich himself with
violent speed. But the hotel answers the purpose, and by another season may pay expenses
with something over. They told me about the
mosquitoes, but I didn't see them.
I saw their breeze, however; it was a winter




200            LIFE IN DAYJBLURY.
zephyr, that came dancing over the water, and
carrying chills, and fever, and influenza at every
step. It was a gale.  They say it is healthy,
and point to the superior sanitary condition of
the place in confirmation.  But it was powerful.
It would blow open an eight-bladed knife inside
of a minute.  The old citizens carry blank mortgages in their hats, and never think of going' out
without them. - But it is a very healthy wind.
There are two very vivid historical associations
connected with Saybrook.  One is a platform
popularly denominated the "Saybrook Platform."
It once occupied a prominent position  in the
minds of the people at large, but it was taken
down av long time ago, and cut up into relies.
Lady lFenwick is another historical relic of
Saybrook.  She differs from the platform in that
she has a habitation here, but the most of her
has gone for relics.  She's very much diffused
about here.  She gained fame by dying.  Had
she lived till now  she would  not have been
known.  But she died at the first opening that
presented itself, and was the first white woman
to ever enter eternity from  Connecticut.  This




LETTERS.                 209
was some two hundred and thirty-odd years ago,
but Lady Fenwick still holds the palm.  Unlike
the nurse of the late Washington, there is only
one of her; and when we realize how wide a field
for distinction is here presented, we are struck
with awe-solid awe. Two years ago they dug
the Lady up and walked her around to exercise
her.  A  new  railroad wanted her resting-place,
and the authorities concluded to kill two birds
with one stone, and accommodate the railroad,
and distinguish themselves.  So they dug her up,
and sent invitations to a select party of mourners
to come on and divide up the grief.  They unearthed her one morning in the presence of a
number of the populace, and  When she was
brought up to the sunlight, the more deeply
affected of the crowd went for those remains, and
in a very brief time bad lugged off the most
valuable portions of her.  These parts were subsequently worked up into breast-pins, tooth-picks
and other luxuries.  The balance was scientifically
adjusted by Dr. J. H. Granniss, the regulator of
Saybrook's system, and then deposited in a handsome coffin, and escorted to the principal church




202            LIFE IN DANB UR Y.
with a solemnity that brought tears to the eyes
of people eighteen miles away. It was an elegant
affair. Dr. Granniss showed how the remains
were those of a woman; that she was between
thirty and forty years of age, and that she had a
curvature of the spine.  In those days, a curvature
of the female spine was an affliction.  The bones
were well preserved, and even the hair was in
good condition.  After the audience had surfeited
themselves with grief, and the other refreshments
furnished, the remains were taken to the cemetery, and again set out.              c. D. P.
ALONG THE SHORE.
THE Shore Line Railway, running from  New
lHaven to New London, is a division of the New
York and New  Haven Railway, and like that
magnificently kept route, is grand in upholstery,
smooth in bed, trim in track, rapid in speed, and
more than ordinary in scenery.  The routes of
travel under control of Vanderbilt are particularly noticeable for the vivid contrast between the
ordinary coaches and the drawing-room or palace




LETTERS.                  203
affairs. This contrast is kept up at the little end
mostly, the common cars being as devoid of
beauty and comfort as the new clothes of a neighbor.  The N. Y. & N.. Co. do things differently.  They are not in league with Pullman or
Wagner.
At New  London the cars are ferried over the
Thames River, and on the other shore run on
to the track of the New London and Stonington
road.  The boat thus employed is an immense
structure, is in perfect good nature, receives six
cars without moving, and charges a dollar for
meals.  If the proprietor of the eating saloon
owned the boat I should be afraid to sail in it.
Those of the passengers who didn't risk'their
lives in trying to swallow one dollar's worth of
victuals, employed the twenty minutes allotted to
the sail in examining the furniture and various
appliancs of the boat, and swearing black at the
officers who sought to interfere.
In this manner we passed over the water,
formed the proper connection on the other side,
and sped away to Stonington, ten miles distant.
My object in comilg here was to attend and re



2(4            LIFE IN DANBURY.
port the first annual meeting of the Connecticut
Baptist Social Union.  There is a name copious
enough to suit a native of Maine.  The organization was holding a business meeting in the Baptist
church there on our arrival. This was half past six.
It closed before I could get fixed up and'get
there, and so I employed the interval in looking
up the chief charms of the town.
Stonington as a town boasts six or seven thousand inhabitants, but as a borough it is cut down
to one-third that number.  Stonington was a place
of some importance during the Revolution, and
enjoyed a battle of a sanguinary nature.  Later
in life it became noted as a whaling town,.ad
now keeps its place in history as the depository
of the "Stonington Line."
It is also a "resort" for city people, and in
this connection has a hotel which is not only
roomy and handsomely located, but is also clean,
and is managed as carefully and cleverly as the
best of homes. I refer to  the  Wadawanuck
House, kept by T. M. Mason.  The place is
popular, and always crowded through the summer
season. Its clerk, J. R. Adams, was formerly




LETTERS.                  205
of'the Clarendon House, Green Cove Springs,
Florida, and a very gentlemanly clerk he is.
Stonington has its newspaper, of course, a
sprightly local, with Jerome S. Anderson  as
editor.  I found Mr. Anderson an invaluable
chaperone, [I peeled that name from  the cover
of a collar box I found on the cars.  I don't
know  what it means, but it looks nice,] and
through his kindness and patience I am able to
give your readers some information that will
make their heads ache.
I know  just as well as anybody how bitterly
opposed the American people as a class are to
receiving knowledge, but I will give them  valuable information when they don't know it, and
they never will know it, I'll do it so adroitly.
Stonington is in the extreme eastern corner
of Connecticut, where it laps on to Rhode Island
and the Atlantic Ocean.  It is beyond Long Island
Sound, and the water that washes its piers and
beats mournfully against the breakwater wall is
of the genuine Atlantic.  This is a bit of intelligence you will receive in Stonington before you
have a chance to show your ignorance.




206            LIFE INV DANB URY.
The place has a look about it that is very
suggestive of St. Augustine, Florida.  The moonlight, the deserted piers, the inactive streets, and
the quiet appearance of the business places which
are built solidly against the walks and stand there
as sombre and expressionless as a row of town
officers being ph otographed, smack strongly of
the prominent points of  St. Augustine.  But
the business men are active and shrewd, and,
show that they didn't fool away any time while
dealing with the old salts who once frequented
the town, and whose profanity and sweat would
confuse the head of a nail keg.  One of these
merchants struck me as being a very interesting
gentleman. He said to me, —-''Here, Mr. Perkins,
you will see the genuine Atlantic Ocean.  The
water that laves our shores is the pure ocean." I
thanked him and retiredc
The breakwater I recently spoke of is a structure built by the government to protect the har.
bor.  It runs out into the water a great number
of feet —I forget how many, but about as many
feet as any breakwater would require to run that
distance-and  ends with a. light-house.   This




LETTERS.                  207
wall which places its sides against the wilderness
of waters, is made of ponderous blocks of granite,
and forms on its surface one of the prettiest
promenades on the coast.  A gentleman to whom
I was introduced here, called my attention to the
fact that htlle waves which curled along the wall
were from [he Atlantic, and all the water I could
see on either hand came from the genuine ocean.
I thanked him, and got away to the point, and
stood there with my hat off, and looked away off
to the east where the purple sky and shadowy
water seemed to unite, and then in the west
where great banks of cloud tried to frown and
appear mad, but couldn't succeed for the golden
rifts and silver smiles which tossed their blackness into purple billows, and buried it into a
tomb all orange and scarlet.  Down on the bay
the light of the departing day was reflected in
many colors.  Its surface shone like glass, and
the vessels which here and there broke the light
were as motionless as the rock on which we stood.
To the south is Fisher's Island, but dimly seen
now, and back of us is the long point, of land
which Rhode Island runs into the ocean to ac



208            LIFE IN DANBURY.
commodate several hotels and hundreds of city
people. We were told that that was "Watch
Hill," and that iii the morning we should be
taken over there and made sea sick.
At this point of the conversation I turned to
go, casting one lingering glance over the magnificent display of water and sky, and nearly
tripped over an old buffer, who had inconsidcrately got under my feet.  I commenced to apologize, but he politely prevented it by observing,"It is no matter.  Seeing that you -are a stranger,
I wish to call your attention to the fact that these
waters are from  the Atlantic.  They are of the
genuine ocean-there is no discount to that."  I
wrulng his hand in gratitude, and fled.
I had pointed out to me piers where numberless
whaling vessels had received their stores and
shipped their men for years of cruising.  But this
was a long time ago-before mature manhood was
gifted with a desire to blow down lamp chimneys,
and beautiful little girls in woolen dresses acted
as fatal incense to obstinate kitchen fires.
Now the piers are quiet, and with. the exception
of an occasional sealing vessel, no indication of
the former glory remains.




LETTERS                   209
There is a sealer fitting out here that is a
marvel to seamen. It is not any longer than a
city building lot, but it proposes to go to the
Shetland Islands for seals.  We don't know how
many seals it.will accommodate with its crew
and provisions, but unless the seals will consent
to lie close, the trip will be more productive of
fame than  spondulicks.  [This term  signifies
money, and was very popular in the dark ages.]
I returned to the hotel after a pleasant stroll,
and found the members of the Union about to sit
down to a supper that looked in every way
tempting.  The meal passed with due animation,
and was followed by brief speeches by several of
the members, which were listened to by a pleased
and prone-to-applaud auditory.
Mr. Amesbury, of Danbury, and myself, designed going to Providence on the train which
is popularly supposed to leave Stonington  for
Boston upon the arrival of the New York boat.
This event comes off at sometime between one
and two o'clock A. M. Having ascertained this
much, the porter was notified of our intention,
and agreed to take a liberal interest in whatever
14




210            LIFE IN DANB URY.
efforts we should make to keep him a-ake until
that time.
Shortly after midnight I dropped in to see
how matters progressed, and found Mr. Amesbury
and the porter wide awake. I don't really know
what kind of statements my Danbury friend had
been making, but the porter, who was a colored
man, was sitting bolt upright on a chair, and
looking around as lively as if a ghost was about
to step in and borrow an umbrella.
Pretty soon he detected the sound of a bell in
the direction of the landing, and told us the boat
was now  about two miles out, and then he disappeared up stairs.
I waited and listened. I didn't hear the boat
touch the pier, but presently I could distinguish
the fact that a locomotive was doing something
down there.  There was a puffing, and blowing,
and creaking  for awhile, followed by  what
sounded suspiciously like a train of cars moving
away in a hurry. But I knew the porter knew
his business, and so I didn't feel uneasy. Besides, the train might have become tired of waiting, and was taking a little run into the country




LETTERS.                  211
just for exercise and to kill time.  When the
porter returned, he picked np the baggage, nnd
said it was queer that boat didn't come in, and
started for the pier followed by us.  We got'there about fifteen minutes after the train had
left.  The porter was surprised.  "I declare!'
said he, and at once returned to the hotel.
We followed after, my  companion walking
stiffly, and myself thoughtfully, every few  minutes describing a circle over the walk with my
foot in hopes of coming across a rock large
enough to kill a colored man.
He showed us up to bed in silence.  As he
closed the door he gave us a glance that spoke
volumes of regret, and said,"You ain't on the Sound now, gentlemen;
the waves you hear beating against the wharf is
from the Atlantic; it's the genuine ocean.  Good
night."
We got up early next morning, as we were to
take the seven o'clock train. I took a run down
to the pier while breakfast was preparing. The
sky was densely clouded, a cool breeze -was




I12            LIFE INr DANB URY.
blowing, and the air seemed to put an abundance
of inspiration in me.
Out on the end of the pier I saw an object
clolhed with a tarpaulin, an oil cloth cape, and
a pair of dark pants.  If was a figure cut out of
wood, but painted so naturally that it looked
like the rear view of an "old salt."  I had heard
of such things before, and said to myself, "Now
here is a genuine curiosity-a.regular figurehead," and as no one cappeared to be looking I
picked up a rock and c  heaved at it to see if it
was hollow.  I am  not a bit superstitious, but
when that wooden structure suddenly faced about
and distinctly enunciated, "D-n my toplights,"
I felt my hair instinctively lift-also my feet.
After breakfast we went down to the cars,
and as I was getting aboard, I ran against an old
acquaintance.
"Hello, Perkins," said he, "what are you
doing here?"
"Summering;" said I.
"Nice place, ain't it?" said he.  "The real
old Atlantic you find here.  Every wave is from
the genuine-"




LETTERS.                213
"There, there; that will do," said I, wearily,
and the train moved away.
CYRUS D. PEIRKINS.
WA URAMA UG.
Being a Frugal Account in which the Reader will
find some Statements that Will Make him  uneasy.
WAURAMAUG LAKE is some eight miles distant
from New Milford, and New Milford is liberally
patronized by city people seeking rest and enjoyment, and consequently the Lake is a "resort."
It receives visitors from New Milford, Washington, Litchfield, Kent, and several other places.
Last summer the attendance of people was quite
large; but this season, for some reason not understood by me and the man who keeps the hotel
and the boy who snares bait, there are not many
visitors.
The drive to the Lake from New Milford is
through a pleasant if not a profitable country.
Man doesn't appear to have extraordinary good
luck with the soil, but nature is getting Aih




214            LIFE IN DANBURY.
from it.  Her trees and smart weed and Canada
thistle are doing as finely as any I have yet seen.
The road follows the Aspetuck River through
a valley that is profuse with verdure.  This valley is designed sometime to be the course of a
railroad from New  Milford to New Preston.  A
survey has been made and an estimate given,
and we believe the company have engaged two
brakemen and a water-boy, but nothing farther
towards completing and equipping the road has
been accomplished.  The rate of speed possible
to be attained on a road through the Aspetuck
valley will never, I hope, be impaired by the
misfortune which overtook a western road, where
the locomotive was overtaxed through the perverseness of the conductor, who persisted in carrying an eight-bladed knife.
The Aspetuck River is not so long as the noble
Mississippi, and it is really not so broad; yet the
width of a stream  is a very uncertain matter to
guess accurately at.  Sometimes a very thirsty
cow will come along and sop up the whole thing,
but they invariably catch the cow and get it back.
A little watchfulness like this, with an occasional




LETTERS.                 215
pail of water through the middle of the day,
keeps the river up to high-water mark.
Northville is a quiet hamlet on the way.  A
small pllace, however, and when they get its name
laid out on a board, they have to stand the board
oil its end, or stand a law suit from the adjoining
town for trespass. This is not pleasant, but it
is true, and truth should never be sacrificed for
pleasure, unless it is quite dark.
The road ascends but little, and descends in
proportion. It dips down into cool gorges and
rises softly up little steeps whose summits reveal
bits of cool and refreshing scenery.
We pass through Marbledale, a place that has
no sign on a board, and needs it not, for from
every fence appear clippings from  tombstones,
and every doorstone is an obelisk in disguise.
There are several marble yards in this section,
and years ago considerable stone was quarried
here, but the business is visibly degenerating.
The yards are kept up, however, just for home
consumption, my friend with whom I rode told
me. It doesn't seem possible, but these Litchfield-County men are men of iron constitution.




216            LIFE IN DANBURY.
And it requires nerve to look out of a shop
window over several hundred acres where nothing
is planted but corn and tobacco, and then fall to
work hewing out business cards for people who
are employing their leisure in picking up health.
It must be awful to go around among your
neighbors  smiling  upon  them, and  swearing
because your breath isn't a pestilence to strike
them dead.
Just before we reach the Lake we see a tall
steeple shooting up its whiteness toward heaven
from an eminence. The cluster of houses at the
base of the hill is the village of Wauramaug.  The
village has a church, bar-room, blacksmith's shop,
and a deserted -ore furnace.  There is a natural
fall of water here that is very pretty.  The
descent is some ten or fifteen feet, and the water
as it goes, roars, dashes, and foams in a really
cool and pleasant manner. Enough water goes -to
waste there every hour to make a milk-man major.
general in the camp of wickedness.  I would
figure this out for you, but I don't believe a
man should go into statistics and tangle people
when he can avoid it.  This furnace I speak of




LETTERS.                 217
is a square of roughly-lain stone, with a few
bricks thrown in to give the whole a pleasant
metropolitan appearance.  Many years ago the
iron in the furnace cooled, and it has remained
there since, a mass of hardened ore. It couldn't
be taken, out, and it wouldn't come out of its
own accord, and there it stays to this day, a
solemn warning  to-to-to —a solemn war-a
sol-thunder and lightning! what is that a solemn
warning to?  But I digress.
Over a rise of ground beyond the fur-(hang
that furnace )-we come upon the Lake, and
verging to the left we pass over a smooth road
which half encircles the water. It is a pretty
sheet, this Wauramaug is.  Although five miles
in length, it twists about so as to lose two-thirds
of its magnitude from any point you may view
it, except from the "pinnacle."  In shape it in
something like a carpenter's "straight edge" that
has been left out in the rain through the machinations of a careless apprentice. The reader may
now  want to know  what that looks like, but I
hope not. At the lower end of the Lake the
shore is crowded to the water by lofty ridges,




218            LIFE IN DANBUR Y.
but farther up the shores slope gradually.  The
southern ridge is full of dense hedge and impracticable grass.  It is here the picnic and
camping-out parties gather-and there are several spots where a week may be very comfortably
passed.  On the northern shore the hand of cultivation has established homes, tilled fields, and
turnpikes.
The water is a dull color, and its depth varies
from six inches to six rods. There are no sailboats on its surface, but any quantity of rowboats, and these are popular with a class of people
who prize muscle- above the New Testament.
The Lake does not boast a hotel.  A  shanty
with boards convenient to lay out people on, who
may have unintentionally taken' two consecutive
drinks at its bar, was the only accommodation up
to this writing. Now a temperance man has got
hold of the place, and is building an addition to
it, and is fixing it up so as to accommodate two
hundred guests. If the new proprietor wants to
make Wauramaug Lake a howling wilderness he
has got to advertise his Temperance House.  The
most ardent admirer of total abstinence in the




LETTERS.                  219
land will dodge a temperance house, and fee]
proud of it.
We stopped here to get some refreshments.
Lemon soda that was meat and drink was passed
out to us.  I drank some of it, picked the ravelings out of my teeth, and passed out of the
door a broken-hearted man.
At the foot of the Lake we left our team  in
the care of a friendly post, and started up the
pathway to the "pinnacle."  The pinnacle is a
point where a sloping ridge that follows the Lake
for a mile and a quarter ends in a bluff.
One or two extra exertions, a few scratches, a
sort of nervous scrambling with wearied legs, and
we come out on a plateau of rock, and stand face
to face with a scene that almost succeeds in ab-.
sorbing our entire breath.
The first sensation is astonishment-not at the
great view  the distance embraces; not at the
wonderful array of hills and ridges, valleys and
plains, forests and fields, but at the fact that
five miles of water with all its windings among
the hills, is just as plain to us from end to end,
as if we were in a balloon over its very centre.




220            LIFE IN DANBURY
And we are astonished at this because the "pinnacle" on which we stand does not appear from
the shore where we viewed it to be much higher
than the bluffs that crook the lake into its romantil turnings. But the amazement soon melts into
nothing beneath the grandeur of the sight that
meets the eye in whichever way it is turned.
Away to the west are visible the summits of
the Catskills; to the north is Litchfield village,
fourteen miles away, and yet so plain to the
sight that its houses can be counted. Between
us and the horizon is a billowy expanse of green
hills. There are mountains that appear as pigmies, and ridges that look like the embankments
built by children, of sand.  We see away off to
the end of the world, as it appears, and find it
hard to believe that this is but a moiety of the
work performed by the living God within a
perio0 of six days.
I should like to ask the reader why the
Ieavenly Father made everything so beautiful in
this world if we were not to enjoy it, but I fear
to meet the onslaught that would at once come
from the theological mind. A -man should not




LETTERS.                  221
talk of the goodness of God outside of his own
denomination.  This is wisdom.
With one hand tied behind him  the occupant
of the "pinnacle" can look into fourteen towns.
If he cannot see Chicago it is not the fault of the
pinnacle, but more the fault of Chicago, I think.
We take off our hats and our coats, and give
free access to the stiff breeze that is blowing from
the west and distributing to the four corners of
the earth the dreams of cool soda and ice cream
that accompanied us up the ascent,and strengthened with every step.
Down to the cool, glistening  surface of the
water our gaze lovingly returns, and the interest
deepens with the shade on its shores, as we think
of the giants in intellect whose feet have pressed
its borders, and whose eyes, luminous with the
brilliancy of thought, have rested tenderly upon
its calm depths.
Here have wandered Webster, Everett, Stevens,
Calhoun, Washington, Franklin, Robespierre, Tecumseh, Barnum, Socrates, Bunyan, Bonaparte(if the reader sees any names here he objects to,
he can leave them out; we are not particular to




222            LIFE IN DANBUR,
have our own way when entertaining people),Homer, Pocahontas, and a host of others made
illustrious by their country's necessities. They
are dead now, but if they could stand with us
and look down upon the blue of the waves with
their fleshless eyes, and then step down and take
a glass of that lemon soda, they would return to
the grave feeling as fresh and content as a brannew corpse on a national holiday.
We reluctantly  turn  our steps downward,
skimming on our feet through the dead leaves
and wild grass, and on something else over the
flat surface of the table rocks. Occasionally a
snake starts up and makes across the road at a
speed that denotes business of importance, but no
accident happens and we reach the team in safety.
Thanking the boy who has held the post and
thus prevented it from  getting away with the
horses, we take up the lines and speed back to
New Milford, as pure and happy as if we were
the sole possessors of Vesuvius, and had eleven
hundred temperance tavern keepers to roast before
dark.
CYRUS D. PERKINS.




LOCAL ITEMS.












,i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~fi
II-t K!,.:
1K'                                      K'l,-I'                                       I    t..
A DOMESTIC CRASH.




LOCAL ITEMS.
A iDOMESTIC CRASH.
WHEN a boy is in haste to go somewhere on
his own account is not exactly the time to send
him elsewhere on your account. But a fond Danbury mother thought differently. She wanted her
boy to carry som  tthings down stairs, when he
thought he ought to be out doors tickling the carman's horse. But he took the things. He put a
-mirror under one arm and a clock under the other.
Then he took a chair in each hand, and hung a
pail of dishes around his neck, and filled his
pockets with tumblers, and started for the stairs.
Just as he got to the top to commence the descent,
the mirror slipped, and in an endeavor to recover
it he lost his balance, and went shooting down to
the next floor, accompanied by all those articles,
15                           225




eg~6N      L FE I~N DANB URY.
and maliing an earthquake at every bound. Coming up the stairs at the same time was the carman.
He saw the danger, and had sufficient presence of
mind to shout,-'Hey, you! go back!" But the
boy did not hear him apparently, for he kept right
on, and by the carman, leaving that unfortunate
man to follow on his head. The cries and crash
brought the rest of the family to the rescue, and
the disconsolate youth was saturated with arnica
and tears, contrary to the advice of the carman,
who suggested that he be driven into the earth
with a mallet.
INTERESTING PEOPLE.
ONE of the saddclest sights in this season of the
year is a young man who has waited outside the
church of an evening until he is chilled through,
only to see a girl walk off with some rascal who
has been inside all the time toasting his sinful
shins at the stove.
A DAITURY youth who could not sing or plaly,
wanting to serenade his girl, whistled for half an




LOCAL ITEiMS.             z27
hour under her window, the other evening, and
when he got over the fence found about seventyfive dogs waiting to see what he wanted.
THE following note picked up'on the street,
Monday afternoon, is a manly exposition of what
narrowly escaped being a grievous wrong: —
DEAR JANE:-I hbope you ain't mad because I
didn't laff at you when you lafft at me last
evening at the post offis. I ain't prowd, dear
Jane, but I have got a bile under my arm, and I
can't laff as I used to, as Heaven is my judge.
Yours truly,
HENRY.
A BASHFUL young man wrote an avowal of love
to a lady and awaited an answer through the mail.
He got the letter next evening, and hurrying to
his boarding house with it, was on the point of
reading it, when some one came to the door, and'
he was obliged to shove it into his pocket quickly.
He next went to a saloon, and taking a position
in a retired corner, was about to open the missive, when the passing to and fro of strangers




228            LIFE IN DANB URY.
made him  more timid, and he again shoved it
into his pocket, and slunk out doors.  He tried
several places with no better success, and finally
returned home, and at once went to bed, where
ho remained in a state of awful suspense until
not a noise'was heard in the house, and then
being assured that he was entirely free from interruption, he stole quietly out of bed, opened
the letter with trembling fingers, and through a
mist of tears saw that be was indebted to one of
our druggists for five bottles of pomade,-two
dollars and seventy-five cents.
A  DANBURY young man in the ardor of his
affection promised to cherish one of our young
ladies with a love that would survive an army
overcoat.
ONE of our young men has recently ceased to
ipake calls at a certain house. It appears he went
there the other night from an oyster supper, and on
her father appearing at the door, he observed,
"Hello, old tadpole! where ish the floating gazelle? where ish my love now dreaming?"  This




LOCAL ITEMS.              229
seemed to indicate to the old gentleman that something was wanted, and so he placed his hand sadly
on the young man's shoulder, and turning him
partly around stowed away a large amount of
leather under his coat tail, and then retired into the
house. The young man doesn't go there any more.
He says that small-pox is hereditary in the family.
IT rained the other evening, and there was an
entertainment.  A  young gentleman said to a
young lady, —"May I have the pleasure of protecting you with my umbrella?"  And said she,
with her round, expressive eyes looking full into
his, "Put up your rag."  We like to see people
sociable.
A  NEW  shade of silk is colored by a very
deadly poison, and in one dress there is enough
poison to instantly kill the most distant relative
of the young man courting the wearer.
No one enjoyed Sunday evening, after that
splendid rain, any more than our young men. It
was a beautiful sight to see them skimming along




230           LIFE IN DANBURY.
toward the young ladies' homes. There was no
dust to mar the polish on their boots or begrim
the pomade on their hair. They moved rapidly
and buoyantly, their hearts filled with glad anticipation and their coat-tail pockets with maple
sugar.
WHEN  a couple of young people strongly
devoted to each other commence to eat onions it
is safe to pronounce them engaged.
A NORTH-MAIN-STREET man who has a beautiful
daughter with an obnoxious suitor, got up in the
night recently and kicked him out doors. When
his anger lulled he permitted his daughter to
explain that he had footed the wrong man. He
says now that he was walking in his sleep.
A YOUTHFUL lover who sang and played before
his young lady's house for two mortal hours,
Friday night, was electrified after a short pause
by a cordial "thank you," gracefully pronounced
by the "other feller" who appeared at the window




LOCAL ITEMS.              231
THESE moonlight nights are just the thing for
lovers, who sit in the dense shade of trees, and
cover the approach of the old man with the open
spots.
A LITCHFIELD couple on their way nome from
a Wolcottville picnic, were deposited on the
earth by the breaking of the carriage. The young
man went to a neighbor's house for help, and in
moving' about for the door fell down an open
hatchway into the cellar. When he got on his
feet he found a huge dog barking at the entrance,
and in the brief intervals of the dog's bark could
distinctly hear the man of the house heavily
charging a double-barreled gun.
WE call the attention of the authorities to the
f light and airy nothingness" that is now being
brought into the market as a gate hinge. No
young woman is safe who trusts her weight to it.
How handy some people are in drawing on the
resources of heaven for favors to their friends.
We overheard a young fellow at an up-town gate




232           LIFE IN DANBURY.
the other night observe to something he was
holding in his arms, "Heaven bless you, dear
Matilda."  And to save his miserable life he
couldn't raise influence enough to secure a kick
fiom a Queen Anne musket.
THE FLOWING BOWL.
A DANBURIAN has signed the pledge eightythree times, and wants to know who can beat
that.
HARRY CAREY got drunk and noisy on Tuesday, but the justice would not commit Harry
Carey-for obvious reasons.
AUGUSTUS thinks "keeping ah dwam shop in
Dhanbury just now must be wisky business."
A PARTLY inebriated man offered to bet a half
dollar this noon that he could climb up a tree in
two minutes; but after sitting down on the sidewalk at the foot of it for ten or twelve times, he
suddenly picked himself up and moved away,




LOCAL ITEMS.                233
muttering, that drunk as he was he knew  better
than to fly in the face of Providence by trying to
climb a slippery elm.
A NEW-STREET man while under the influence
of liquor, Christmas morning, deliberately kissed
his wife's mother.
A  DANBURY  Good Templar is so saturated
with his principles that he will not wear a cocked
hat.  This seems like carrying a thing a little
too far.
A SAD tableau, but not an uncommon one.  A
small, wretched-looking house. Outside, a miserable apology for a man, crazed by drink, assaulting the door, and making the air resound with
his curses.  Inside, a thin, pale woman with a
wan expression of features, pressing one hand
tightly over her heart, and with the other heating
a poker in the fire.
A HEARSE was standing at the depot on the
arrival of the train Saturday.  The first passenger




234            LIFE IN DANBURY.
to step off was an individual who had evidently
looked upon the wine when it was red. Meandering up to the oppressively solemn driver of
the sombre establishment, he handed up the
checks for his baggage, at the same time observing in a pleasant, off-hand manner, with a sharp
look at the vehicle, "Wass'er masser, Shonny?
carriage broke?"
FARM-LIFE.
ALANSON CHASE'S hen which laid the monstrous
big eggs spoken of in our last issue, expired on
Saturday while engaged in an attempt to transcend all preceding efforts. She now lays with
her mothers.
FARMERS are waiting for the weather to moderate sufficiently to permit them to hang up their
winter suits in the corn-fields.
A LEXINGTON (Mass.,) owner of hens noticed
that one of them had an immense crop, and proiuring v sharp knife, made an incision, and drew




LOCAL ITEMS.               23b
forth a dish-cloth.  That's just like a hen.  It
will eat anything it call swallow, and swallow
anything it can get hold of. It would swallow
a fence if it was loose, and then step around
back of the house to see if dinner was ready.  It
is with hens as with story papers, everything is
in their necks.
A NEW YORK judge has decided that clipping
horses is an indictable offence.  This does not
refer to clipping them over the head with a currycomb when they step on your foot.  That is
always commendable.
LIFE A4ND fMA NNERS IN DA NBURY.
THE women are shopping now.  Nothing but
the top-knot of the average clerk is visible above
the towering counter, except when he goes up
for another piece of goods, and it is interesting
tc study the emotions that are at work within
by the wrinkles of the scalp.  Ah! no one can
really understand the mighty thoughts that surge
through their brains as they are asked if they




236            LIFE IN DANBURY.
"haven't got something a little lighter?"  We,
who have comfortable homes and kind parents,
and baker's bread, rarely think of this.
A  BETHEL man lost his vote in a rather singular manner. He searched in all his pockets,
and took off his stockings and wrung them  out,
but couldn't find it, and had to get another.
ADAMS' Express horse becoming depressed by
the corruption in Congress and other high places,
ran away on Moay n    and scattered packages along
the road. No serious damage done.
THE sudden death of a citizen of Slawson, on
Tuesday, made a deep impression upon one of
his neighbors.  The day he was buried was the
day he was going to show this neighbor a good
spot for sassafras.
THE  all-consuming desire of the American
people to make money is fruitful of many evils.
One of the saddest illustrations of this is the case
of young Ezra Short, who having engaged in the




LOCAL ITEMS.               237
vending of oranges, and succeeding in dliuposmg,
of a basket of thfem, was tempted to add a box
of sardines and two dozen shoe strings to the
stock, and is now going through bankruptcy. " The
more haste, the less speed," is an axiom that keeps
well.
THERE is a bad place in the road on Osborne
Street.  Somebody will break a wheel or leg
there, and the town authorities will scratch themselves bald trying to devise means to circumvent
the plaintiff's lawyers.
TRYING to carry home five pounds of mackerel
and his wife's spring bonnet at the same time
on Saturday evening, was what prevented a Balmforth-Avenue man from attending church on Sunday.
THERE are enough useless fruit cans and hoopskirts on Nelson Street to keep five goats a year.
A  DANBURY boy of ten winters (not like this
one, however), stole a harmonica Friday evening




238            LIFE IN DANrBURY.
to serenade_ his girl with, and was sending thunder
and lightning through it when overhauled by his.
father and the owner. He says there are places
where a poultice won't take hold worth a cent.
HAD Eve heard any of the peddlers on the
New  Haven road holler "apples," there would
have been no clothing stores in Danbury to-day.
C"THE frost has penetrated the ground deeper
this winter than it has for thirty years." —Exchange.
For breadth, depth, and general massiveness of
appearance, that is the most successful lie we ever
heard, and we have been in Washington twice.
A  DANBURY man imagined himself a hen, and
while under the influence of that conceit, sat
down on a dozen eggs, and hatched out an Italian
sunset and a circus poster. His wife removed
the debiis with the bald end of a broom.
A CROWD of quarrelsome people were dispersed
from the front of a Munson Street residence in a




LOCAL ITEMS.                239
very singular and sudden manner Saturday night.
A  stranger visiting the family, slipped into the
crowd unperceived, and extending an inverted
hat, announced that he would take up a collection.
Two minutes later he stood there alone, with not
a single member of the turbulent mass to be seen
in any direction.
A HAWLEYVILLE subscriber writes that he had
concluded to stop his paper on the expiration of
the term, but desiring to know when the Shepaug
trains arrive he renews. There's nothing like
having an object in this life.
A  MONSON-STREET man has rigged up a very
ingenious combination of pulleys and ropes for
drawing up his wife's back hair.
ONE of our residents who recently lost a horse,
called at Barnum's drug store, yesterday, to solicit
that dealer for a small contribution toward defraying the expense of another horse.  Barnum was
not in, but the unfotunate citizen so vividly
described the extent of his loss, that Al Scott,




240             LIFE IN DAXNBURr.
the clerk, commenced to cry, and finally contrib.
uted a quarter of a dollar to the general fund.
This so touched the heart of the unfortunate man
that, despite his afflictions, he ordered soda water
for himself and son, and paid for it out of the
quarter.  Some men would have gone to another
store with their trade.
AN excellent but rather unsophisticated agriculturist made a thorough search of the Danbury
stores, Monday, in quest of false hair-pins.
ONE of the Danbury voters was unable to attend
the polls, Monday, but sent his vote up by a
neighbor's little girl.  He was very much surprised to learn that it was not received.  He
told the little girl that' it was quite evident the
traditions of our fathers were being forgotten,
and that the country was going to the devil with
unreasonable velocity.
VERY singular and astonishing are the performances at the breakfast table these mornings.
The child becomes blind and stricken with terror,




LOCAL rIEMS.                241
and rolls from the chair, and goes burrowing into
the carpet.  Scalding tears run down the cheeks
of the mother, while the father throws his arms
about his head, or presses them down tightly upon
it. But horse-radish is healthful, they say.
ANOTHEIR match broken, up. This was between
a clerk in a well-known dry goods store and a
young lady on Essex Street.  It was so warm on
Friday evening that she had the parlor window
tp, and he stood on the lawn, and they were
cooing to each other, and he was just reaching
up for another kiss, when the sash came down
like a flash, and knocked off the peak of his nose
and scalped his chin, and he hopped around so
madly, and howled so dreadfully, that the old
gentleman thought hei was drunk, and had him
kicked out of the yard with a great deal of ostentation.  Monday morning he went West.
IT is unsafe to eat between meals.  A  horse
on White Street, Monday, partook of a buffalorobe in a neighboring sleigh, and had it suffered
one-half the distress of conscience it did of stom16




242            LIFE IN DANBUR1Y.
ach, it would have blown out its brains with a
bow and arrow.
IF a nw clothing store doesn't soon make its
appearance we fear some of our citizens will
become naked.
IS  TOBACCO INJURIOUS?
A Mn. TRASK wants to stop the use of tobacco.
Ite is trying to do it by writing tracts.  The
experiment is harmless, without doubt, but we
can tell Mr. Trask on the start that he may write
tracts till doomsday, but Without a brave exercise
of the will he can accomplish nothing.  Let him
firmly resolve that he will never touch the vile
stuff again, and two-thirds of the cure is made.
THE terrible inroad tobacco is making upon
the human system  is becoming more and more
evident.  In a recent article, a most graphic
article it was, the writer tells of a young man
who commenced to smoke, against the strong
opposition of his friends, and in less than twc




LOCAL ITEMS31.              243
years he was dead.  This is sad, but not uncommon.  We have noticed many similar instances.
It is rarely a man lives three years after acquiring the habit of smoking, unless he should happen
to forget when the three years are up.  They
go suddenly when they do go.  We have seen a
thousand men drop at once, and never breathe
again. Their friends felt terribly about it, as they
mostly fell on their cigar pockets, and smashed
the contents.  Any conductor of a train that includes a smoking car can tell you all about it. He
is a good share of the.time receiving the last messages of dying men and trying on their boots.
A  MAN who applied to one of our citizens for
help for his destitute children, being asked what
he needed, said he was not particular.  "If he
couldn't get bread he would take tobacco."'"SIGHTS  AND  SCENES  IN  DA NBURY""PEARLS. "    "'CHARA CTERISTIC
INCIDELNTS. "
OWEN BURGESS, of Danbury, is in the Bridgeport
jail. A  nice man, he is.  Here Danbury has




244            LIFE IN DANB R Y.
gone to work at great expense to build a, handsome brick jail, with hot and colu water aud gas,
and put a pinnacle and French roof on it, and
done everything possible to furnish it with the
comforts of a home, and this Burgess, this man
who pretends to be a Danburian and have the
interest -of lhis town at heart, goes off twenty
miles to patronize a rival institution.  That's a
brilliant way to encourage home industry, that is I
A BALMFORTH-AVENUE man was observed going,
up home this morning with a gun, that will carry
at least an ounce ball.' As he lives next door to
a young man who is- learning to play Rory O'More
on a pair of cymbals, we have thought it best to
print an extra number of copies of our next issue.
Orders left at the news stands or this office will
be attended to.
A DE3IURE-LOOKING chap hailed a charcoal pedler this morning with the query, "Have you got
charcoal in your wagon?" "Yes, sir," said the
expectant driver, slopping his horses.  "That's
right," observed the demure chap with an apprbv



LOCAL ITEMS.               243
ing nod; "alwalys tell the truth, and people will
respect you." And he hurried on, much to the
regret of the pedler, who was getting out of the
wagon to look for a brick.
A MAN who slipped in front of the depot this
noon, and sat down so heavily as to start his
scalp, explained on rising that he could fall harder
than that if he had a mind to.  But as his breath
smelled strongly of liquor, nobody placed any
credence in the assertion.
WE don't like to have people copy jokes from
the papers'and send them to us as their own. A
man who will do this, will put cayenne pepper
in his grandmother's snuff, did he ever hear of
anyone else doing it, and borrow both the pepper
and the grandmother to do it with.
ONE of our best students of physiology writes
against the practice of doing night work, and
claims that the man who works in the morning
and devotes the balance of the cay to recreation
will accomplish more than he who works late into




246            LIFE IN DANBURY.
the night, and will do it better.  People who
have been in the habit of getting in their kindlings after dark, with a leaky lantern and a borrowed axe, will find the experiment worth making.
A DANBURY lady recently visiting Wethersfield,
asked one of the attendants why the prisoners
received such-coarse fare.  He told her it was to
keep their blood from  becomingl impure.  And
when she asked him what they would do if their
blood was impure, he readily responded, "Break
out."
A GUEST at a River-Street party, Monday evening, lost one of his eyes while playing Copenhagen.  It rolled under the bureau, and couldn't
be found.
A  TrAMP who came out of a house on West
Street by the air-line passage, was heard  to
observe that that was the most satisfactory kick
he had received in years.  It reminded himnof
home.




LOCAL ITEMS.                247.
A MAN named Burns, living in the eastern part
of the town, narrowly escaped strangulation from
a fish bone, which lodged in his throat, Tuesday.
ITe moved into town only a few weeks before,
and naturally feels much embarrassed over his
awkwardness.
A SHARON man stole a peck of dahlia roots
under the impression that they were sweet potatoes.  He feels the deception keenly.
A  PROMINENT badge of American citizenship
appears to be a soiled shirt front with gold studs.
A YOUNG man who went West from Danbury, a
few months ago, has sent only one letter home.
It came Friday.  It said, —"Send me a wig."
And his fond parents don't know whether he is
scalped or married.
WE are in receipt of a nine-verse poem  on a
faded rose.  What superficial people these poets
are. Here is a long mess of stuff commemorating
an event that is of daily occurrence and of but




248            LIFE IN DANBURY.
precious little consequence.  But if a respectable
citizen, one whom  the  community delights to
honor, has a tumor taken from his back, or swallows a button with a brass eye to it, or something
like that, something that affects everybody, and
is of the nature of a tragedy, not a single, solitary
poek would trouble himself to write a line about
it, he would not breathe out his soul through a
single verse.  But he can rhapsodize all night
over a little decayed vegetation.  We are out of
all patience with such people.
AN anxious gentleman, bargaining for a rent
from  old McMasters, Monday, asked him  if the
house was cold.  "Well," said the old gentleman
cautiously, "I can't say as to that; it stands out
doors.'
"I COULD kill you for two cents," said an enraged individual to a neighbor, Friday.  "Great
H-eavens! can it be possible?" cried the neighbor.
"I knew you were avaricious, but I could not
think that you would stain your hands with blood,
and your soul with the awful crime of murder for




LOCAL ITEMlS.               249
such a paltry sum.  It is terrible."  The enraged
individual stared quite hard for a minute, and
then withdrew, perfectly disgusted.
A nRRAL gentleman standing over a register in
one of our stores attracted general attention to
himself by observing to his wife, "Mariar, I guess
I'm goin' to have a fever, I feel such hot streaks
a runnin' up my legs."
THE Housatonic train which leaves Bridgeport
at five-fifteen, was two and a half hours behind
time on arriving at the Junction on Saturday evening, owing to the locomotive slipping an eccentric
at Newtown and Hawleyville. There were some
seventy or eighty passengers on the train, and as
none of them knew what an eecentric was, their
suffering can better be imaginedc than described:
LOOKING over an old ledger we see a long array
of names of former subscribers who are indebted
to us. Some of them have moved away, and are
lost to sight, although to memory dear.  Others
are carrying the contribution boxes in our most




250            LIFE IA DANBURY.
respectable churches, and others again have died,
an  are now angels in heaven, but they owe us
just the same.
AN absent-minded resident of Wooster Street
shut down a window Monday and forgot to draw
in his head.  He was calling for Helen Blazes
when discovered.
A LIBERTY-STREET man makes complaint to the
police of his wife, who eats dry cake in bed.  If
the police won't help him, he is going to get a
suit of underclothes made of sheet iron and wear
them nights. 
WE are pained to notice that papers taking our
items and appropriating them as their own, seek
to palliate the theft by publishing a column of
religious miscellany.  This may look well enough
in the eyes of heaven, but it doesn't satisfy us.
A YOUNG man becoming a little dissatisfied with
the. coquettish actions of his young lady while she
was shopping on Saturday, retired to aLother




LOCAL ITEMS.                251
part of the store, and resting his elbow  on the
dlmmy figure of a woman, gave ho imself up to
gloomy reflection, from  which he was rudely
aroused by  a sharp push, while the dummy
received a vigorous slap over the head from an
indignant lady's parasol.  There is hardly enough
of the English language to do justice to the scene
that followed.
A SLAWSON man created a temporary corner in
life insurance agents on Saturday by falling off
his roof upon three of them.
TIE authorities contemplating putting up a new
]amp post, Mr. Echbert, of West Street, is preparing to move out of town. He says he ain't
going to be eaten up by taxes.
A MAN weighing three hundred and twenty-five
pounds visited one of our photograph galleries,
Monday, to get a shadow picture.
AN Elm-Street boy smoked his first pipe on
Saturday and- came home very sick. He didn't




252            LIFE IN DANBURY.
know  what was the matter with him, but hia
mother did.  She gave him two quarts of boneset tea and put a quarter-yard of plaster on his
breast, and some mustard drafts on his feet.
Then she put him to bed, and darkened the room,
and fed him on a new kind of balsam till Monday
morning, when she allowed she had got the best
of that typhus attack.
A DANBURY lady describes a blunderer as a man
who starts a meat market in Lent.
AN aged and highly-respected citizen on Main
Street was very much interested in a picture of
what he thought was a new kind of stone bruise,
and expatiated to some length on the progress of
medical science at this day, before he discovered
that the engraving was a draft of a fashionable
sleeve trimming for ladies. Then he laid down
the book and swore.
A BOSTON man who has been visiting in Danbury, did not enjoy his visit owing to home-sickness. Sunday he was discovered walking around




LOCAL ITEMS.               255
the race course, and appeared to be very happy
and animated.  "Ah!" said he, "this is something like."
A GENTLEMAN with one leg broken in four places,
three fractured ribs, and a hand with no two fingers pointing in one direction, was in Danbury,
Friday, making arrangements for organizing a baseball club.
THERE was a terrific thunder-storm last night,
and in the mail this noon there were letters from
nine different lightning-rod menll, inquiring if there
was any kind of an opening here for them.  We
don't doubt but that an opening could be made
for them if they were here, as the frost is not
deep.
WHEN we were a boy our idea of an employer
was a man who sat down while other men did his
work.  Our idea now is a man who does two
days' work in one, and collects the pay for a half
dozen eager employees from  a hundred or more
indifferent employers.




254             LIFE IN DANBUR Y
TIE sleighing is so poor in this neighborhood
that some of the farmers are obliged to use three
or four sleighs when one used to do.
THE statesman is he who thinks of the ashes just
as he is going to church.
And of blacking his boots after he is dressed.
And of the absent button after he has the shirt
on.
And of the cars after they are gone.
And of that little bill after he has paid out his
money.
And of his wife after limself.
TI-E Aodocs have made another raid on our
people, and murdered them. If ever our government gets hold of these savages, gets them right
where they cannot escape, gets them wholly into
its clutches, some contractor will make money.
VE see by the papers that one Bernard Lynch,
who disappeared from New Haven, some months
ago, has been found.  He was wandering about
the country in a demented condition, and under




LOCAL ITEMS.                255
the impression that some one was "lyilng in wait"
for him.  This is probably a mis-print. Lying
in weight is what is meant, undoubtedly, and we
think that the coal dealers of New Haven should
be arrested.
THE School Visitors, Miessrs. Hodge and Pond,
were at the South-Centre School the other day,
examining  scholars for the High School.  Mr.
Pond, who is a remarkably grave and seriousappearing person, had charge of the grammar
branch, and gave a bright-looking boy this sentence to correct:'Between you and I this is good
butter."  The boy shortly returned the slip thus
marked: "Incorrect; the lamp-post is omitted."
THE press and the pulpit may say what they
please, but a man in  dove-colored pants and
patent-leather boots is not a fit person to adjust a
tub for catching rain water.
A NORTH-STREET woman is happy.  Two of her
children have jaundice,. one is teething, another
has about seventy-five feet of tape-worm concealed




256            LIFE IN DANBURP.
about him, and her husband has just bought a
piece of land in the suburbs that contains nine
different kinds of medicinal roots and plants.
WVE are inclined to believe that women are
going for the polls in dead earnest, from the fact
that, of nine married men talking politics in a
Danbury grocery, Saturday evening, seven were
entirely bald.
A WEST-STREET lady found several choice ape
pies sadly mutilated the other morning. It was
evident that a little mouth had run against them,
probably in the dark, and she took- her little girl
to task about it, but the child denied any personal
knowledge of the accident.  "Perhaps, mamnma,"
said she slowly, "they may have been frost bitten,
it was so cold list night.  The mother retreated.
A YOUNG lady writes to learn why we do not
have a department for "answers to correspondents."  The reason is simple. WVe once announced we would gladly receive questions on
various topics and endeavor to answer them sat



LUCAL ITEMS.                257
isfactorily.  The first inquiry received was in
relation to a little amount we owed the writer.
We think it was eight dollars.  We borrowed
the money and returned a satisfactory answer,
but it put back our business full a year. The
young lady thinks such a department would be
very lively.  We found it so.
A NELSON-STREET girl is just as accomplished on
the piano as her mother is at the wash-tub, but
the latter boasts that she can renovate three shirts
while the former is going once through Beethoven's immortal symphony.
A MILL-PLAIN woman was prevented from at
tending the funeral of her sister by the non-arrival
on time of a lace handkerchief from New York.
The brutality of the express company is severely
commented upon by the neighbors.
A LADY living on Spring Street lost a valuable
breast pin, Saturday evening, and although she
searched actively for it, felt obliged to give it ];p
as lost. But her husband knew it would turn up
17




258            LIFE IV DANBURY.
some time, and was shortly after rewarded for
his faith by stepping on it in his stocking feet,
The pin itself was bent somewhat in drawing'it
out, but the ornament was not damaged.
IT didn't look favorable for washing on Monday
morning, and the Danbury woman was not disposed
to be sociable; but when she went to the pipe and
found the water cut off, she danced around as
if charged with electricity, and worked her fingers
in a way that was unpleasantly suggestive.  AVe
didn't see but one water commissioner, Monday,
and he was getting out of town at a speed that
must have filled him with comfort and confidence.
MR. O'CLARENCE, of North Street, while engaged in darting out of his house in pursuit of a
dog and a piece of freshly-boiled corned beef
which the dog had mysteriously got fastened to,
lost his footing on the stoop, and sat down with
awful velocity on the scraper. Then he rolled
over on the snow, and kicked his legs out straight,
and reached out in the air for a mouthful, and.
looked as if he wanted to say something, but




LOCAL ITEMS.              259
codldn't think what it was. And there he Ily until
the neighbors picked him up and carried him  into
the house.  And every few hours he takes an
emetic to bring up that scraper, for he knows it
is in him  somewhere. The next Lent will be
more strictly observed by one family on North
Street.
A WEST-STREET man says the longest f ineral he
ever heard of took place a week ago. His hired
girl went to it and hasn't got back yet.
THE spring styles of bonnet are certainly superb.
The ladies are showing increased excellence of
taste, and they are to be commented. The latest
bonnet is a trifle higher than freights on our railroad, and as graceful in proportion.
THE worst shocked man we have seen in sometime was a citizen who made the discovery, Friday, that the neighbor from whom he had borrowed a paper for the past four years, had not
paid for it. He learned the facts from the agent
of the publisher, and he was grieved. He was




260            LIFE IN DANBURY.
also indignant.  He said to us, "To think that I
shculd have been so imposed upon at my time of
life.  I tell you, a man don't know who to trust
in these times.  The world is full of corruption,
and deceit, and deviltry-chock full of it."
THIE scientific men are trying to find a substitute for vaccination.  They would save considerable time and wear of the mental forces by pitching
pennies for fifteen minutes in front of a house
adorned with a red flag.
IT is proposed to apply the Westing House to
George Francis Train, as a final test.
A WISE Providence has so decreed it that only
poor papers send their mutilated copies in exchange.
A TELESCOPE has been erected which brings the
moon within eighty miles of the earth.  The people up in Goshen, who manufacture cheese for a
living, are properly alarmed at this, and have
called a town meeting.




LOCAL ITEMS.               261
DESIRABLE first-floor tenements are prominently
scarce in Danbury and real estate is held at high
prices. There is a general impression that owners
occupy their leisure time in rainy weather in
adding to the price. We hope it will clear olf
soon.
ESTHER writes from Lowell, Massachusetts, that
there is a gentleman there who wants to borrow a
left-handed monkey-wrench.  Wouldn't a crosseyed potato do him?
THEY tell of a man in Michigan who paid all
his debts to the utmost farthing, and then went
and hung himself.  We are inclined to think that
there are men in Danbury who, if they paid their
debts to the last farthing, would unavoidably suspend.  The danger is not imminent, however.
A BOY of tender years, whose parents live on
Rabbit Hill, returned Saturday night from  a visit
to his uncle's in the country, and Sunday morning got an auger and perforated his father's choice
peach tree, and set out a pail for the sap. When




~62            LIFE IN DANB URY.
the old gentleman discovered the preparations for
the coming sugar season, he instituted an investigation, and the little boy remembering Washington- went up in the garret, and hid behind a barrel.
It will be some weeks before he will be able to
hide behind a oarrel again.
A CONSCIENTIOUS employee in one of our factories refuses to take his back pay, and wishes us
to announce his name in The News.
MARRIED PEOPLE.
TIE wife of a roofer being asked if she was not
afraid to have her husband exposed to such danger, trustfully replied, —"0, he's insured."
ON a tombstone in a neighboring cemetery is
the following affecting inscription, -"Sacred to
the memory of my dearly beloved wife, Maiy,"
and just belcw, "Ditto, Jane."
THE dearest object to a married man should bo
his wife, but it is not unfrequently her clothes.




LOCAL ITEM1S.              263
A MAIN-STREET woman doesn't h,.ve any trouble
ivith her husband. When he gets on a tantrum,
and she wants to be rid of him  so to have the
house to herself, she merely observes that there
are a few skeins of yarn to hold, and steps out of
the room  to get them. Long before she returns
the frightened victim is fleeing up the street.
A MAN came into the office Saturday to have
cards printed for a lady.  He said her name was
Mrs. Carrol.  "What's her other name?" inquired the typo.  "She hasn't got any other,"
explained the agent; "her husband's run away
an' left her."
A  COUNTRY minister of "limited capacity,"
recently married for a second wife a lady of some
property. Being an ardent servant of Mammon,
a former neighbor asked him  if he did not do
well by the second marriage.  "0, yes, indeed,"
he said with animation.  And then, as an expression of reverent awe stole into his face, he added,
"And what is very remarkable, the clothes of my
wife's first husband just fit me."




264             LIFE IN DAANBURY.
A BROOKFIELD man writes for the best way to
manage a bull. If our Brookfield friend has got a
bull on his premises, and the bull is well, lie
don't want to manage it.  All he has got to do is
to get a few things hastily together, mortgage his
place and steer straight for the West. Hle might
as well try to ward off a streak of lightning with
a fifty-cent paint brush as to manage a bull.
A  RtSTY-LOOKING agriculturist came into: the
office, Friday, and after looking around earnestly
enough to elicit an inquiry as to his business, said,
"It wasn't nothin' much; but he had left a big cucumber here in the fall for a notice, and thought as
how he was in town he might run in and get it, if
we was through with it."
A WRITER for an agricultural journal suggests
hens in the place of dogs for families.  There is
not a tramp on the face of the earth but would
like to hear a hen bark.
IN taking up fence posts at this time in the yea?
great care should be used not to disturb the earth




LOCAL ITEMS.                265
about the roots.  A party of scientific gentlemen
intensely engaged in geological investigations in
Mill Plain, Saturday, were somewhat disheartened
by a passing farmer who ironically observed:
"Derned sight of good looking for horse-radish
there."
THE boys can always tell a farmer who works
according to books.  He always plants his musk
melons near the fence.
ELDERLY PEC ULIARITIES.
IT is announced that there is a mile of railroad
in Iowa for every three hundred and seventy inhabitants.  We don't know how  true this is, but
there is an aged lady in this town who has called
to see us about it.  She has two sons in Iowa,
and is consequently very much interested in the
matter.
AN old lady says she hears quite frequently of
civil engineers, and wonders if there is no one to
say a good word for conductors.




266            LIFE IN DANBURY.
A SILK lady owned by an elderly Danbury quilt,
is over one hundred years old, and contains two
thousand  pieces, over one hundred  thousand
stitches and an innumerable caravan of bed-bugs.
A LANDLADY who rejoiced to find she could rent
her upper rooms to a couple without children,
writes to learn how long it requires for a middleaged man to become an accomplished clog dancer.
AN old lady describes a genius as "a man what
knows more'n he can find out, and spills vittels
on his clothes."
PLAYING games on the aged is not always productive of flattering results.  An old gentleman
who frequently comes in when we are busy to talk
about theology and the planets, made his appearance yesterday, when assuming our blandest
smile, we passed him a copy of the last report of
the Connecticut Board of Agriculture.  He w-Svery much pleased with it.  le looked it all
over, and then turning to the beginning, commuenced to read it, read it aloud, and we hope' to




LOCAL ITEMS.                267
be nominated for office, if he didn't go clear
through the volume, carefully and intelligently
spelling the long words, and sitting between us
and the door all the time. It sapped the levity
out of us.
AN  elderly person from  Sherman came into
town to get photographed, Saturday.  He was a
portly gentleran, with a nose that was not unlike
a thimble covered with liver. He had on a half
dozen coats and two or three tippets, and looked
as solemn and depressed as if he was going to be
cut open and lined with zinc. The operator
wanted him to remove some of the surplus clothing, but he wouldn't do it, and persisted in being
reproduced just as he was. The picture he took
home with him  appeared in the eyes of a casual
observel to represent a railroad water tank in a
tight overcoat.
As the four-thirty train from New York reached
Stamford, Wednesday, an antique-looking dame
thrust her head out of the window  opposite
the refreshment room  door, and briefly shouted,




268            LIFE IN DANBURY.
"Sonny!   A bright-looking boy came up to tile
window. "Little boy," said she, "hive you a
mother?" "Yes, maim."  "Do you love her?"
"Yes, mnam."  "Do you go to school?" "Yes,
main."  "And are you faithful to your studies?"
"Yes, mam."  "Do you say your prayers every
night?" "Yes, mnam."  "Can I trust you to do
an errand for me?" "Yes, mami."  "I think I
can, too," said the lady, looking steadily down on
the manly face. "Here is five cents to get me an
apple. Remember, God seesyou."
SOME vicious scamp interpolated a dozen sugarcoated pills in the confectionary at a party last
night. One gentleman, an elderly person, who
had been noticeably merry through the evening,
accidentally got hold of three of them before discovering the appalling nature of the trick. It
destroyed all his elasticity and broke up the party,
although several of the neighbors promptly volun.
teered the use of their fences to lean over.
Two single ladies of an uncertain age named
Hill attended a party New Year's night. During




LOCAL ITEMS.               269
the evening a good-natured individual perpetrated
a witticism  which created considerable amuse
ment as it had often done before.  Whereupon a
wretched  man in  the  company  unguardedly
shouted, "Cheese it, Tompkins, that joke was
born before you were.  It is older than the hills."
The Hills immediately inquired for their things.
OLD BLOSSOM -as coming freshly and steadily
out of a "tare" the other day, when a kind-hearted
lady said to him, "Mr. Blossom, have you no
scruples?" "'None, mum," said Blossom. "None
at all, Mr. Blossom?" she again inquired. "Indeed
I hain't," persisted Blossom, with winning confidence. "I am sure you have," she said. "Well,
I ain't," replied Blossom sullenly; "if you don't
believe it, search me?"
A NELSON-STREET dame ordered a bustle at one
of our stores, Saturday.  In the evening a clerk
was sent to the house with it. Her husband
appeared at the door and asked his errand.  "I
have got an attachment for your wife," said the
polite youth.  This was all he said that was intel



270            LIFE INr DANB URY.
ligible. But he is going to learn a trade, now,
as clerking is so effeminate.
AN old lady who heard that a young friend had
lost a place by misdemeanor, uncharitably observed
that "there was allers a woman at the bottom of
it."
THE DANBUR Y MAN. -THE S TERNER SEX.
WOMEN'S LORDS.
As the early morning train down this morning
drew up at the first station, a pleasant-looking
gentleman stepped out on the platform, and inhaling the fresh air, enthusiastically observed to the
brakeman,'"Isn't this invigorating?" "No, sir, it
is Bethel," said the conscientious employee. The
pleasant-looking gentleman retired.
ONE of the young men belonging to a choir
here had his hair cut by a generous barber, Saturday. Sunday he sang for a solo, "Cover my
defenceless head," and blushed like a lobster
while doing it.




LOCAL ITEMS.               271
A  DISGUSTED Danburian wants to know, if
woman was designed to be the equal of man,
why it is she can't whistle.
AN old Danbury gentleman used to say that any
young man with good health and a poor appetite
could save up money.
A DANBURY man's horror at the prospect of
being crushed to death by a team  of frightened
horses, was terribly intensified by the reflection
that "he was standing on the very verge of eternity without a dollar in his pocket."
A BETHEL man discovered that a stranger he
rescued from  a watery grave was not a long-lostbrother, but a party he owed three dollars and a
half for turnips.  The Bethel mal retired in disgust.
A WEST-STREET man, attracted by the observations of a cat on the roof of his piazza, Saturday
night, stepped quietly out there in the darkness
and an under-shirt and levelled a vicious kick at




272           LIFE IN DANBURY.
the animal, but missing the aim, lost his equilibrium and passed into the yard, striking the earth
with the familiarity of an own brother.
A DANBURY sport wears a ten-cent silver piece
on his shirt bosom, and calls it a dime and pin,
which it certainly is.
AN unpretentious individual named Morey, attempted to catch a young New Foundland dog in
his yard, Sunday evening, but owing to an impelfect knowledge of New Foundland itself, Mr.
Morey has been obliged to hang up his Sunday
suit under ground.
AN applicant for a pair of boots at one of our
shoe stores, was asked what number he wore, and
replied, as soon as he could recover from his surprise, "Why, two, of course."
A  CORRESPONDENT wants to know why it is
"drowning men catch at straws."  We don't
Know that they do. We have seen a number of
gentlemen drown, but those of them who had any




LOCAL ITEIM.                273
preference at all seemed to be prejudiced in favor
of a plank.  We don't remember ever being
asked for a straw by a gentleman who was drowning.  And it is just as well, perhaps, because we
never carry one with us.
You are not growing very old when you involuntarily start at a whistle out doors.
A FRANKLIN-STREET man heard a noise in his
cellar, Friday night, and getting quietly out of bed,
so not to arouse his wife, secured a pistol, and
crept cautiously out on the roof, where he closed
the hatch after him, and-remained there until daylight in comparative safety.
AN aged but rather rural deacon ofthis town,
somewhat astonished his family on returning from
a recent visit to Bridgeport, by disclosing in the
recesses of his capacious valise two valuable volumes in blue and gold, a prize package containing
gold coin, a cake of fig paste, two pictorial papers,
and a package of ice-cream candy., He said a boy
on the cars gave him  these things.  ie confessed
is




W4             LIFE IN DANBURY.
that the boy was an entire stranger, but fervently
"hoped heaven would paint him a sky-blue if he
ever forgot the kindness."
THE most faithful lover who has a name and
being outside of trashy novels, lives in Danbury.
The parents of the young lady are opposed to his
-companionship, but it don't make him  proud.
Sometimes the old gentleman reaches him  with
his boot before he can get over the fence, but the
young man doesn't lay up ill-feelings on account
of that; he only smiles at the despoiler of his
pants when he meets him, and calls it "heaping
coals of fire on his head."  Saturday evening he
thought he would get up a surprise for the old
chap. He put a paving stone in each of his coattail pockets, and started for the fence as usual.
The old gentleman let out for him with increased
enthusiasm, and caught him-caught him good.
Then he laid down on the grass and said, —" I die
by the hand of an assassin."  But the young man
passed on without a word, and smiled the most
heavenly smile of forgiveness ever seen on that
street.




LOCAL ITEMS.               27g
SUNDAY is begilnning to be utilized in Danbury.
We saw a man on White Street, Sunday afternoon,
with a healthy string of fish in his hand which he
had just taken from  a neighboring stream.  We
followed him some distance in hopes to see him
fall dead, but he didn't do it.
A GENTLEMAN from the Fourth Ward, who desires
his name suppressed on account of respectable connections, was digging worms in a meadow along
Mill brook, Sunday forenoon, when he was suddenly shot through the air, and on looking around
was gratified to see that there was a stream  of
water between him and a ferocious bull.
A  MILL-PLAIN man came into Danbury this
morning with a load of potatoes, for which he
desired to obtain fifty cents a bushel, but was nol
able to get thirty-five cents. There was not a
dry eye in the load.
THE DANBURY YOUTH.
ONE of our urchins walked two miles yesterday
to pound an adversary, and after hanging around




276            LIBE IN DANBVURY
the house for an opportunity nearly two hours,
accidentally learned that the victim  was prostrated with scarlet fever.  The velocity with which
he got away from the neighborhood was perfectly
appalling.
IT takes years of careful training to convince
a boy, who is taken sick on a Saturday, that there
is not a screw loose somewhere in the universe.
DOES anybody know  who that boy is who
drives cows out on the Great Plain road.  The
boy that comes along about seven o'clock, A. Mn.,
preceded by three cows and a yell something
like this, —"Oh, OH, OH! yewyah goin' now?"the latter interrogation apparently addressed to
some relative about to take the Shepaug train at
IIalvleyville.  The only motive in referring to
the circumstance is to benefit an elderly gentlemanl named Skoridge, who lives on the Great
Plain road.  MIr. Skoridge being very nervous
is painfully startled every morning by this wonderful cry, and darts out in response to tlhe evident appeal of distress, only to find that cow-boy




LOCAL ITEMS.               277
burrying  along in the exuberance  of blessed
health. And then Mr. Skoridge returns to his
breakfast, and folds his hands, and submissivel3
murmurs,-"I'11 bust that goslin' some mornin',
Sairy Ann."
A WEST-STREET boy secreted a set of jack stones
in his father's boot for safe keeping, and was
nearly hoisted into Paradise by that article.
A  YOUNG merchant who is trying to struggle
along in a falsely economical way, took a class
in one of our Sunday Schools last Sabb:ath.
Durifig the progress of the lesson he asked,"WThat is solitude?" and was visibly disturbed
when a miserable boy promptly answered —"The
store that don't advertise!"
DANBURY juveniles are "keeping store" this
month.  The place of- business consists of an
overturned box, and from three to eight clerks,
while the stock generally embraces two sticks of
candy, twenty-five peanuts, and an apple.  When
the prorrietor is suddenly called away by the




S78            LIFE IN DANBUR Y
exigencies of business, he protects himself against
bankruptcy by packing the entire contents of the
store in his left hand breeches' pockets.
SOME one has got up a new kind of toy pistol
that will throw a sharp stick with violence enough
to knock an eye out of a person worth one huldred thousand dollars.
A BOY being asked the meaning of the word
amateur, said, "It was a man what slipped up, and
wasn't jawed for it."
IT occurred to a Danbury scholar, while writing a composition, last week, to make the remarkable statement that "an ox does not taste as
good as an oyster, but it can run faster."
A LITTLE Danbury boy thinks that "household
oods" are what his pa uses when he puts up
curtain fixtures.
A  DANBUnY boy is fitting himself for a city
judgeship.  Being asked yesterday why he didn't




LOCAL ITEMS.                279
attend school, he answered, "Because the mud Was
so deep."  "Why, you young scamp," said the
aggrieved parent; "there is no mud to be seen."
"I know it," assented the impudent youth, "it
is too deep for detection."
A SCHOLAR in one of our schools being asked a
rather difficult question, hammered at it awhile
without any success, and then pettishly inquired,
"'AAm  I hot or cold?" A moment later he was
quite hot.
A MAIN-STREET boy, who was told he should
try to cheer the aged, tried "three times three
and a tiger, "on his grandmother, Christmas
morning, and the old lady was so startled that
she spilled a box full of snuff on him.  He looks
upon the beauties of nature with his left eye now.
TIMES are rather dull in Danbury.  It is no
unusual thing to see five boys file up to a Peruvian beer fountain, while the oldest calls for a
glass of the fluid and drinks it clown, amid the
subdued silence of the four others, who then




2850          TLIFE IN DANBURY.
patiently follow him out again.  Fortunate is the
boy who has an invitation to one of these entertainments.
THE snow-balling season has set in.  Boys who
put stones in snow balls grow up to be bad men,
and finally die a miserable death in the New
York custom house.
IN room  13, this morning, a scholar in the
grammar class parsing the noun suffrage, said it
was of the masculine gender, because there was
no female suffrage.
A DANBURY boy whose imagination had become
diseased by too close devotion to dime novels,
started off yesterday to seek fame as a slayer of
bears and Indians.  He took all his toys, including a hand sled and a snare drum, bade his little
brothers and sisters an affectionate farewell, and
was gone nearly two hours.
Poor, but dishonest young boys fasten wrought
nails to the end of strings, and harpoon sweet




LOCAL ITE1MS.              21
potatoes and apples from their abiding places in
front of the stores.- This may be considered
sport, but it is the first step in the downward
road to Congress.
THIERE were nine little ones. Eight of them
were sitting on the ground, absently playing in
the sand, while the ninth stood by, striving te
placidly wear down a stick of candy, and all that
the eighth said was, "I ain't mad at you, so I
ain't.
A  NEW  boy at the South-Street school being
asked, if they had family prayer at his house,
promptly answered, "No, but we have got four
bay windows."
A  LAD in one of our Sunday Schools being
asked, why the places of business were closed on
the Sabbath, unexpectedly responded, "So to
give the drug stores a chance."
A LITTLE girl appeared at a neighbor's house on
Tuesday morning, and said, "Ma says the Bowles




282            LIFE IN DANBURY
Brothers have failed, and would you lend her a
cup of saleratus?"
A BOY named Kelly blew off a part of a finger
with a pistol, one day last week. A remarkable
coincidence is the fact that the pistol and the
finger went off together, although not previously
acquainted with each other.
THE father of a boy whose veracity is not as
marked as his back, asked the teacher why it was
his son didn't have a better acquaintance with
figures, and was considerably electrified when
the teacher tenderly observed, "I really don't
know, unless it is because "figures won't lie."
TIE reason an urchin gave for being late at
school Monday, was, that the boy in the next
house was going to have a dressing down with a
bed cord, and he waited to hear him howl.
A MISEnABLE bov on Rose Hill found a Roman
candle in the house, Monday, and chalking it
perfectlJ white succeeded in palming it off on his




LOCAL ITEMS.               283
grandmother as a genuine tallow artickl.  When
that excellent lady came to light it, the deception
wvac soon apparent, but by retaining her presence
of mind she fell over two chairs without seriously
hurting herself.  The author of the mischief now
sits down with a crutch.
A LITTLE boy who loves to pass his evenings in
the stores, and listen to the improving conversation of the elders while helping himself to
sugar, was told last night that hereafter he must
stay at home.  "I wish I was a man," he said.
"And what would you do if you were a man?"
asked his mother.  "I would get married, and
then I could go to the stores every evening."
A very observant boy.
FEMININIE GOSSIP.
A DANBURY girl has married a poet, and carries
her own coal.
THE difference in natures was well illustrated
at the depot this morning.  Two sisters met.




284            LIFE IN DAVNBURY.
"0, my dear sister!" said one, exhaustedly, as
they embraced.  "You've been, eating onions,"
said the other, calmly and fearlessly.
AN anxious boarding-house keeper writes us
to learn "if when a woman has the right to vote,
she can be made to pay as much board as a man."
AT the funeral of a woman in this neighborhood, one day recently, a sympathetic and admiring neighbor volunteered the information that
"for patient resignation the corpse could dance
all around any woman living."
THERE are four hundred and fifty IRevolutionary widows left.  Here is a chance now  for
those men who pant for a wife of the good old
days.
A vERY finely-dressed lady, on whose face powder and wrinkles were desperately struggling for
the mastery, got on the train at Norwalk, Saturday evening.  The car being crowded, she was
obliged to stand up.  Seeing her, a young woman




LOCAL ITEMS.                 285
in an adjoining seat rose and offered her the
place.  "But you will have to stand," said the
first lad, edging toward the seat.  "0, that's
nothing,"  replied the other; "I am  young."
The next instant the first lady was at- the other
end of the car, and didn't intimate to anybody
to bring the seat along.
AN applicant for the position of domestic in a
Spring-Street family was last evening asked if
she understood how to use kerosene.  Her reply
exceeded the most sanguine expectations.  "Use
it, is it?" she exclaimed in a tone of reproachful
explanation.  "Give me a can of kayrosane, and
I'd niver ask for the lift of a shavin'."  "~Merciful Gabriel!" was all the lady remarked as she
helped the applicant out of the gate.
A  DIVISION-STREET lady stepped on a black
cat while going clown the cellar stairs, last evening, but dicdn't allow the interruption to deter
hler from continuing on into the cellar, and over
twc boxes and a tub.  We are not cognizant of
the fate of the cat, but it would be well perhaps




286            LIFE IN DANBUl F.
for the lovers of sausage to use extra caution
for a few days.
A  BROOKFIELD  woman was completely un.
manned by the loss of her husbanu.
THIE mother of a charming Danbury girl wou'd
not let her marry a conductor because she didn't
want her doors slammed off.
REPLIES  TO EDITORS AND  CORRESP ONDENTS.
THIE.North Star, published in Red Wing, Min.
nesota, recommends that the people of Danbury
erect a monument to the editor of The -News.
Words fail to convey the deep gratitude we are
under to the.North Star for its suggestion, but we
don't aspire to a monument. They are nice
enough in their way, but we don't want to get
into the habit of using them.
WORCESIER (Massachusetts) papers tell of a
woman stopping in that city, not yet thirty years




LOCAL ITEMS.                257
old, who is the mother of thirteen children.  This
is not quite as remarkable as the case of the
woman thirteen years old who had thirty children.
If any one hears of such a case they will oblige
by sendilng us the name.
THE Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Sentinel, an excellent paper, is going to start a daily.  We are
glad of it.  We started a daily once.  We ran it
nearly four months, and then paused.  Since then
we take a lively interest in such enterprises.  We
have no doubt the Sentinel people will make the
daily work, and we are quite positive it will make
them work.  A man who goes through life without having started a daily paper, misses a rare and
valuable experience.  Falling down stairs with
a cook-stove will hardly compenlsate him.
WE reoret very'much that we cannot accept
offers to go on large papers.  Our highest ambition has been to be the editor-in-chief of a large
New York daily, and help do up the mail.  But
we cannot leave Danbury.  There are ties that
bind us here.  We don't care to say what these




288            LIFE IN DANB UR. -
tics are, but the town-clerk knows what they
are.
A PARENT writes to us that he is annoyed and
pained by his son staying out nights, and asks us
if we can present a remedy for this rapidly-growing evil.  There are several remedies.  The boy's
spine can be broken with an axe, or he can be
nailed to the floor with a red hot railroad spike
driven to his abdomen; but the most effectual way
is to compel him to wear patched clothing.
HOLBROOK, Massachusetts.-THE editor of this
paper does not lecture; he is married.
PUNCH, a journal published in London, is The
Danbury -News of England.
SOCIAL LIFE.
A YOUNG man writes for the lest way to gain
entrance to our most respectable families.  We
like to see our young people aim to improve themselves, and in no way can they do this as surely




LOCAL ITEMS.              289
as by good books and the  society of the refined.
To gain entrance to our best families, the easiest
and most direct way would seem to be by the
front door, although our young friend might tunnel under the sidewalk and come up through the
cellar.
A NEW YORK shoddy lady is proud to boast that
her daughter is at "a fashionable boarding school."'A very stylish establishment, my dear, in Connecticut-Danielbury, Connecticut." 0, Christopher 
A RATHER prepossessing young lady recently excited the ire of a plain-looking but viciously vain
chap,-who declared he would "get even" with her.
"0, I am not afraid of you," said she. "You
are not?" he howled. "0, no," added she with
a seraphic smile, "I ain't a crow I"  The agitated
chap mealndered.
A. DIVISION-STREET man who has chewed tobacco
thirty-eight years, has sworn off, and the change
in him is remarkable. He has had his chin sand19




290            LIFE IN DANB UR Y.
papered, and his teeth kalsomined, and his delighted wife says it seems to her as if he had just
tumbled out of heaven and through eleven solid
miles of the whitest tea biscuit.
THn  young man of the period is no more seen
pressing to his lips a lock of hair plucked from
the tresses of his beloved. He is too afraid of the
new kinds of insects, small-pox, and salt-rheum.
PECULIAR LOCAL MATTERS.
SEVERAL months ago a little boy named Seger
became interested in the children of the Howard
Mission, and determined to do what he could for
them. It is not much, apparently, a boy of seven
years can accomplish in this direction, but he
went to work with a will, saved the pennies given
him, ran of errands, and picked up bits of iron and
sold them.  On Saturday he opened his treasure
box, and found therein two dollars and eightythree cents, with which he bought a broken lock
pistol, and has twenty-eight cents left.  So much
for perseverance.




LOCAL ITEMS                291
A. GENTLEMAN in Monroe, who is an artist of no
mean repute, and indebted to this office for seven
dollars, is going to Washington to study.
A GENTLEMAN rebuked a boy Saturday for flinging snow balls at an aged gentleman who was
apparently having some trouble in turning his
horse, when the boy pleasantly explained,-''Why,
that's my grandfather'"  Whereupcn the amateur
Bergh, slightly disappointed, actually urged the
youngster to "nail the old rip."
A STRANGER, we believe he was from Arkansas,
arrived on the three-fifteen train.  As he stepped
from the depot into the street, his feet anticipated him, and he struck the walk with sufficient
viIlence to have broken every tooth in his head.
"Sacrified Washington!" he screamed.  "Is this
the boasted civilization of New England?" at
four-thirty-five he was started for Arkansas.
A NEAR-SIGHTED gentleman met an acquaintance
on Liberty Street, this afternoon, whom he saluted
by name.  "That ain't my name," protested the




292           LIFE IV DAABURY.
other. "That ain't your name?" "Certainly not,"'
said the stranger. "What's the reason it ain't?'
demanded the near-sighted gentleman with a very
severe look. But not having perpared himself for
such a question the abashed stranger slunk away
without answering.
A KING-STREET man's name is so long he can
knock down apples with it.
A DANBURY agriculturist has put a bundle of
straw upon his barn because "straws show which
way the wind blows."
SINGULAR INCIDENTS.
A SINGULARLY painful circumstance attends the
death of a Monroe gentleman, which occurred last
week. Last winter he made an agreement withhis wife to the effect that should she kindle the
fire mornings for six months, he would do it for
the same length, of time.  She had just completed
her part of the contract when he died. It is a
very sad affair.




LOCAL ITEMS.               293
A DANBURY auctioneer writing a letter of advice
to a young friend, closed up with the following
astonishing information: "The evil that you do
through life will come back to plague you on the
day of your death, or if stormy, on the first fair
day thereafter."
AT a party Friday evening, where questions
were asked and facetious if not felicitous answers
were expected, a coal dealer asked what legal
authority was the favorite with his trade. One
answered, "Coke." "Right, " said the coal dealer.
Another suggested,'Blackstone."  "Good, too,"
said the questioner.  Then a little hard-facQd man
in the corner piped out, "Lyttleton."  Whereupon the coal dealer sat down without saying
anything.
A TEMPORARY stairway was put up to the platform  of the freight house at the White-Street
depot, Friday night.  For three months there
were no steps there, and the station master was
obliged to climb up the best he could. It was a
beautiful sighi to see him  strain, and pull, and




294           LIFE IN DANBURY.
hawk, and sweat, till he got up. But we shall
miss that now.
SHEER NECESSITIES.
THE pen may be mightier than the sword, but
if you take two swords and rivet them together
near the centre, you will find that in many newspaper offices they are far mightier than the pen,
as they have to be to do four-fifths of the work.
THE meat markets are illy suplplied with palatable stock. There is but little veal, and the beef
is tougher than losing a mother.
A TRAVELER would have been late for the noon
train yesterday, had he not stepped on a peach pit
at the head of the depot stairs.
Two men employed at one of our hardware
stores were engaged this noon in putting up a
rtove for a West-Street lady. During a heavy
lift one of them told the other to "spit on his
hands," when both were nonplussed by the lady




LOCAL ITEMS.               295
hastily exclaiming, —"O, don't do that; here is a
spittoon."
THE weakness of the currant worm is said to be
discovered. It is tin. Nail two or three narrow
strips of tin on the outside of the currant, and the
worm will not touch it.  Some cultivators fasten
the strips with screws as they are more easily
removed than nails when the fruit is ready to
pick.'
A THBEE-ARMED man has turned up in the central part of New York State. He is somewhat of
a curiosity now, but there will be more of them
pretty soon. It is the irresistible result of the
march of improvement.  Two-armed people were
well enough before the advent of hay cutters and
buzz-saws, but the increasing executive ability of
such machinery demands a corresponding change
in the human development.
TOBACCO chewers are now practicing on gentian
root for a cure. The remedy is certainly a cheap
one. An ounce of this root costs only five cents,
and hy mixing a little tobacco with it, it will last
several weeks.




g96           LIFE IN DANBURY.
ICATE STANTON in her lecture on "The Loves
of Great Men," asserts that the planets revolve
around the sun by the influence of love like a
child revolves about its parent. When the writer
was a boy he used to revolve around his parent a
good deal, and may have been incited thereto by
love, but to an unprejudiced observer it looked
powerfully like a trunk strap.
A HARTFORD subscriber writes that he is just
recovering from the small-pox, and will be on in
a few days to renew his subscription. We hope
he won't mind a little thing like that. We will
send the paper, and wait for the money. We will
wait cheerfully. We ain't of that avaricious kind
of people who will grab for money as if for
very life. We despise such. things. There's no
earthly reason for his coming on; we will wait.
NEW NEWS.
THE latest new plant has a name an inch and a
half long, and a blossom of the shape and hue of
an African stone-bruise.




LOCAL ITEMS.              29T
A BETHEL man has become so timid by the many
blasting accidents in that place since the advent
of the Shepaug road, that he can't hear a bank
report without running out doors.
SUPERINTENDENT MEAD, of the Brookfield road
has been presented with an English deer hound.
We know but little about these animals, but in
England they are highly prized in stews.
A DANBURY shoemaker who started for Bridgeport, Saturday, to get work, and missed the train,
consoled himself by the reflection that it was a
special Providence. Sunday morning he fell off
his back stoop with a pan of ashes in his hands, and
broke down a young pear tree with his head. HIe
talks of Bridgeport just the same, but he doesn't
say anything about special Providences.
A GENTLEMAN from the city who is visiting in
Danbury, started out for a slaughter house Monday
afternoon, to see them make cheese. He had read
of a man in Ohio who had made nearly eight thousand pounds of cheese from  sixteen cows, on an




298           LIFE IN DANBURY.
average of about five hundred pounds to the cow.
He thought that must be doing pretty well. We
think so too. We should like to have been out
to that slaughter house when he got there.
RESIDENTS of this State, who are in favor of
jumping off and on cars when in motion, will soon
have a meeting in Hartford to organize a co-operative drug and undertaking establishment. The
kerosene kindlers have adopted this plan, and
experience considerable satisfaction from it.
THE icy condition of the walks Sunday was the
direct cause of many mishaps. It was painful to
see men on all-fours, who, had they received
the right kind of training when young, might
have been senators, and helped to form the laws
of the land, instead of pawing madly around for a
post.
" JIA."
IF there is one word in the English language
dearer than all others, it is that of Ma. There is




LOCAL ITEMS.               299
a sweet tenderness about the name of Ma that
the pen fails to describe.  Wherever we may go,
however exalted or depressed the circumstances
of life may make us, the influence of that. blessed
name still remains. It is our Ma who directs the
tiny feet in their first struggles; it is our Ma
who teaches the prattling tongue to express the
childish thought, and it is our Ma who, as we
advance on to mature life, through all the stage's
of youth implants within us the purer thoughts
and stronger principles of an honest life. No
line of poetry ever written is dearer to the heart
of man than that which asks with powerful significance,"What is home without a Ma?
A YOUNG lady in a neighboring town has taken
up dentistry for a living.  All the gentlemen
patronize her. When she puts her arm about the
neck of the patient, and caresses his jaw for the
offending member, the sensation is about as nice
as they make'em.  One young man has become
hopelessly infatuated with her.  Consequently he
hasn't a tooth in his head.  She has pulled every




300           LIFE IN DANBURY.
blessed one of them, and made him two new sets
and pulled them. She is now at work on his
father's saw. He holds the saw.
A  NEW FAIRFIELD man who failed to get a
thirty-cent pineapple for a quarter of a dollar,
wanted to know "whether we are breathing the
pure air of freedom, or being strangled with the
fetid breath of a hellish despotism?"  The store
keeper said those were the only pineapples he
had.
A  DANBURTY man has become slightly daft on
the subject of spring guns.  He has invented
one of the instruments, and brought it to a state
of perfection, by thinning out the cats-and dogs
of the neighborhood. This morning his wife
detected him in an effort to inveigle her mother
into opening the fatal door, who, being aged and
quite lame in one eye, was unconsciously rushing to an untimely death.
A.NEW YORK city lad who is visiting relatives
in Danbury, being caught in a misdemeanor, was




LOCAL ITEMS.              301
reproved  by his aunt. "Your mother," she
thoughtfully observed, "will be pained to hear
of your becoming so bad. And where, Johnny,
do you suppose bad people go to?"  "New Jersey,"  suggested the sobbing boy. The aunt
thinks Johnny's moral perceptions are somewhat
blunted by his geography.
OF an elderly lady now visiting relatives in
Danbury, the following incident in her childhood
is remembered:  She had been sent to the pasture
to drive home a cow, and while thus engaged fell
from a fence she was climbing, and was severely
-bruised. On returning home, and telling of the
accident, she was asked if she cried when she
fell. "Why, no, mother," she quickly answered;
"there was no one to hear me."
DID you ever notice how natural it is when one
member of a family is relating something, for the
other members who may be cognizant of the facts
to help him  out. A short time ago one of our
citizens went to a neighboring city to listen to
the closing exercises of a school, and bring his




302            LIFE IN DANBURY.
son home.  On their arrival the family assembled
to hear the young student tell his experiences,
and enjoyed it very much. He told them how
he delivered his address, and spoke with pardonable pride of the silence in the audience during
its delivery.  "You could have heard a pin
drop," he said.  "A  pin!" shouted the fond
father, contemptuously. "By gracious! you could
have heard a barrel of them."  The livid grotesqueness of the simile struck him  at once, and
he immediately collapsed.
Do children read the papers? is a question one
of our teachers has been for some time pondering.
Noticing that an article giving an impressive
scene in Norway, where the sun never sets, was
circulating quite freely in the papers, she hit
upon it as a test case, Saturday. But in tbh
class of eleven boys who were asked, "Where
does the sun never set?" only one could give an
answer. He said, "on a bench..'
A GREAT PLAIN man heard that drinking-water
could be kept cold by suspending in a pail in a




LOCAL ITEMS.               303
current of air.  So he tried it.  He hung up the
pail full and opened the front and back doors of
his house, and waited for the result.  His wife
took the youngest child and went over to the
neighbors.  His wife's mother got up on the
dining table, and wrapped the table-spread about
her, and an old aunt who stood it as long as she
could, finally encased herself with a length of
carpet and crawled under the sofa.  The experiment proved a complete success, we are glad to
say, and the man will not have to buy any ice
this winter, and if his wife's mother gets over
the brain fever all right, and her aunt ever gets
her left leg straight again, he will feel that his
labors have not been in vain.
A  MASSIVE intellect on Nelson Street did not
have to clean the snow from his walk. He pinched
his wife until she screamed, and the neighbors
trod down the snow.




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