The life and troubles of Mr. Bowser

Front matter

OF THE.

U N I VERS ITY Of I LLI NOIS

U'J‘

Chapter I

MR. BOWSER BECOMES A VEGETARIAN.

Dinner was waiting Mr. Bowser the other even¬ ing when he came home, but he hung off about it in a queer way, and when Mrs. Bowser pressed him for an explanation he hesitatingly replied:

“I have determined on a little change in the daily program, and I shall not eat any regular meals after this.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Mrs. Bowser, has it ever occurred to you that civilized and enlightened man is heir to exactly 236 different bodily ailments?”

“But what has that got to do with your going without dinner?”

“That’s the keynote of the whole thing, my dear. Of the 236 ailments, no less than 225 are brought on by the food we eat. It’s meat, pastry and grease which are slaying their tens of thousands every year. It’s no wonder that I have been ailing for

MR. BOWSER AS A VEGETARIAN.

the last ten years and could find no relief in med¬ ical treatment.”

“And so you’ve got another fad?” sighed Mrs. Bowser in despair.

“I don’t exactly understand you,” he stiffly re¬ plied. “It is my duty to myself and to my family to cure my ailments if possible, and I shall proceed to do so. If it’s a fad to rid one’s self of rheuma¬ tism, vertigo, heart disease, rush of blood, nervous prostration and dyspepsia, then I suppose I’ve got one. You can go down to dinner; I shall eat mine right here.”

“But what will you eat?”

“A vegetable or two. I am done with fats and grease and sweets. For a few weeks, at least, I shall live as Adam lived and as Nature intended man to live.”

Mrs. Bowser said no more, but went to the din¬ ing room to eat her dinner alone. When she re¬ turned it was to find Mr. Bowser chewing away at a raw carrot. She had opened her mouth to ask him if he intended to become a horse, when he blandly said:

“We will now resume the discussion. That is, I will say that I have become a vegetarian. When I inform you that there are at least 1,000,000 people in this country who live on a vegetable diet from week to week you will understand that there is no fad about it. Nature intended man to drink cold

MR. BOWSER AS A VEGETARIAN.

water and live on fruits and vegetables. Up to the time he began to eat meats and pastry he was strong as an ox and never had a pain. Cookery has made a semi-invalid of him. When this is made plain to you, you will admire my course in taking up Nature’s diet.”

“Why don’t you go about dressed as a savage and sleep under a bush?” queried Mrs. Bowser.

“I may before I get through. The first thing, however, is to get my stomach in order. Do you know the properties of raw carrot? Of course you don’t. Let me inform you that carrot contains eight per cent more nutriment than porterhouse steak. A carrot weighing two pounds will sustain life longer than three pounds of veal or mutton. This evening I shall eat one carrot, one turnip and one onion, and drink one pint of water. The per cent of nutriment will be greater than if I had sat down to a banquet.”

^“Well, if you have any ailments I hope you will get rid of them. It would seem like living if you would let one week pass without trying some silly experiment on your health.”

“Look here, woman!” exclaimed Mr. Bowser, as he jumped up so suddenly that he almost choked on a piece of his carrot. “I don’t like your talk! You forget who I am. You sneer at my ailments and are sarcastic regarding the remedies. Perhaps you are disappointed because I don’t drop dead.

8 MR. BOWSER AS A VEGETARIAN.

Is it silly to strive for perfect health? Is it silly to want to be strong and rugged? If you were eating raw carrot to cure yourself of some chronic ail¬ ment, do you suppose I would sit in front of you and sneer and gibe and be sarcastic? If I did I should feel that I ought to be thrown out doors.”

He sat down to his munching, and silence reigned. That is, silence reigned as far as possible with his biting into the carrot at intervals with the strength of a horse. It was a corpulent, solid car¬ rot, weighing over a pound, and though Mr. Bow¬ ser had had enough when he had eaten a third of it, he devoured the remainder on general principles and to spite Mrs. Bowser. Half an hour later he began on a turnip as big as his fist. It was as solid as hickory, but he munched away until all had disappeared. He would gladly have dispensed with the onion, but having brought it home and included it in his list, he felt bound to crowd it down. Tears came to his eyes and he swore softly to himself as he used his teeth, but he knew that Mrs. Bowser was watching him out of the corner of her eyes and he stuck to it. When he wiped his eyes he got up and sauntered about, and finally observed:

“Mrs. Bowser, it may be that you have heard of a man named Samson?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“What did he do to distinguish himself?”

“LOOK HERE, WOMAN!!!’

MR. BOWSER GETS THE COLIC.

II

“Pulled down the pillars of a temple, I believe.” “Ah! I’m proud to find you so well posted. Yes, Samson pulled down the pillars of a temple and thereby brought death to scores of his enemies, but could he have done the wreck if he had been living on fats and sweets? His food was fruits and vegetables, his drink the waters of the bubbling spring or the babbling brook. If such a diet gave

Samson his great strength - ”

“But you forget that after his locks were shorn he lost his strength,” interrupted Mrs. Bowser.

Mr. Bowser realized that he had been thrown down, but after a moment’s thought he was ready to bring Hercules forward. Hercules had no long locks to be shorn of, and was a living proof of vegetarian diet. Raw onions, carrots, parsnips and turnips had formed his week-day meals, and on Sundays he had added potatoes or string beans.

“And perhaps you’ll tell me where Hercules got ' his strength?” he demanded as he worked up the muscles in his arms and kicked out his legs. “And

where was Sysiphus and Achilles and — and - ”

“Why don’t you includes Socrates, Pliny and Nero?” asked Mrs. Bowser. “Why what’s the matter with you? You are white as a sheet, and your knees are wobbling like clothes-props.”

“I — I’ve got it!” groaned Mr. Bowser as he slowly slid from his chair to the floor with his hands locked across his body.

MR. BOWSER GETS THE COLIC

“Got what! What is it! Are you suffering?”

“Got colic! Great Scots, but I’m being tied up in knots! I don’t believe I’ll live five minutes! Do something for me or I’m a dead man!”

“It’s that carrot,” she said as she helped him up and over to the lounge. “Can’t you remember what Samson and Hercules did when a great big raw carrot played circus with ’em?”

“But I can’t stand it!” he groaned, as he' drew his knees up to his chin and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Get mustard — get a doctor — get the fiot-water bag! U — m — m! Whoop!”

Mrs. Bowser didn’t waste any time over family remedies. A telephone message to the family doc¬ tor brought him to the house almost as soon as she had taken Mr. Bowser’s shoes off. There was an hour of groans, grunts, hot cloths and prescrip¬ tions before the doctor could leave his patient. During the hour he hadn’t said much and Mrs. Bowser hadn’t once mentioned the vegetarian bus¬ iness. When ready to depart, hoAever, the med¬ ical man sent her out of the room, and, bending over the patient in a fatherly way and speaking as a brother might, he said:

{‘Samson Hercules Bowser, you are going to live through this, but I want to tell you something.”

“Y — Yes, doctor, you are sure I will live?”

“Reasonably sure, but I think you are the big-

MR. BOWSER AS A GARDENER. 13

gest fool in America! Good night, sir, and don’t eat a load of hay because Balaam’s ass did!”

Mr. Bowser had come home at mid-afternoon with a spade and rake on his shoulder, and closely following him was a boy with several pots of plants and a package of seeds. Before Mrs. Bowser could ask for an explanation she was informed:

“You were saying the other day that you wished we had a bit of garden. I’m going to make one. I’ve got it all planned out, and I’ll fix up something to be proud of.”

“But our back yard is no place for a garden,” she protested. “It’s mostly in the shade, you know, and the soil must be very poor. I wish you had spoken about it before you bought these things.”

“Don’t you worry about the shade or the poor soil, my dear woman. I shall grow only such things as love the shade, and a little guano will make the soil get up and hump in a way to astonish you.

“Besides, I have a special object in view. I will now get into an old suit and prepare the various beds. Digging and raking and smelling the fresh earth will carry me back to the old farm days again.”

When he had changed his clothes, he laid off a plot in the back yard and began work.

The brickbats, old bottles, slates and broken ket-

MR. BOWSER AS A GARDENER.

ties had remained undisturbed for years, but Far¬ mer Bowser persisted until at the end of three hours he had prepared a bed ten feet long by three feet wide.

During his labors he burst his suspenders, broke his spade, pulled the handle out of the rake and lost an eye out of his spectacles, but he won out in the end.

When the bed was ready, he called Mrs. Bowser out and said:

“This, you understand, is only preliminary. I have prepared this for an experimental bed. Later on I will lay the whole yard out into circles, cres¬ cents, crosses, etc.”

“What sort of experiments?” she asked.

“I will inform you later on this evening. I shall rather mix things up in this bed. I shall set out onions, tomatoes and flowers, and I shall plant the seeds of cucumbers and melons and potatoes and add a few hills of corn.”

“I should think that a few apple trees, a grape arbor and an artificial lake would help things along,” she observed.

“Just so. I was expecting you to say something mean. When you understand my object, however, you may change your mind. I shall now proceed to sow and plant, and when I have finished you can send the cook out to gather the 5,000 clothes¬ pins, the 3,000 forks and the 2,000 spoons I have

MR. BOWSER AS A GARDENER.

dug up in making this small bed. I do not wish to find fault — no husband ever does — but if you could only manage to plant what few dishes we have left out here somewhere we could eat off the ironing board with our fingers.”

There were two clothespins, one old fork and a broken spoon in sight, but Mrs. Bowser didn’t dis¬ pute his figures. He had regained his good nature before dinner was over, and after the meal he as¬ sumed the patronizing air of the average husband and said:

“I informed you that I had a special object in mixing up things in that bed, and I will now ex¬ plain it. Did you ever give a thought to the vege¬ tation around you?”

“Yes, several of them.”

“I am glad to know it, and I will mark it in your favor. What theory have you got as to why seeds grow?”

“It doesn’t need any theory. Nature intended everything to reproduce itself. If a seed is planted in fertile soil, it will produce again.”

“But there must be favorable influences.”

“Of course. It needs sun and rain.”

“Anything else, Mrs. Bowser?”

“Nothing special, I guess.”

“What about the moon?”

“Why, I believe that some old grannies contend that the moon has some sort of influence on vege-

16 A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT.

tation, but I don’t think that any level headed farmer believes it.”

That was the point Mr. Bowser had been leading up to, and there was the light of triumph in his eyes as he walked back and forth and said:

“But if the moon does influence vegetation, if it exercises the greatest influence over the planting and growing, if it would make a difference of $100 per year to every farmer to consult the moon, then what?”

“Why, it would be a good thing for the world at large to know,” she replied.

“Exactly, and the man who proved it to the world would become famous and renowned, wouldn’t he?”

“Certainly. But what has all this to do with your planting a dozen different things in one bed?”

“Just this: I am going to prove the truth or falsity of this moon business. If I prove it, I shall become Bowser the savant, and the world’s friend. If I fail, only the two' of us will know it, and the world will be no worse off.”

“But how can you prove or disprove such a thing?” asked Mrs. Bowser.

“By experiment, of course. To-night is a moon¬ light night. I shall take a seat beside those tomato plants and onion sprouts for an hour or two and observe what influence the moon has on them. I will continue the experiment for a week, and by

A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT.

the end of that time I shall know one way or the other. I suppose you’ll call it one of my fads, but I can’t help that. Steam and electricity were fads once.”

Mrs. Bowser sighed mournfully, but she rea¬ lized that it was no use to raise objections.

Mr. Bowser decided to do his watching from 9 to 1 1 or later, and he carried out a chair and got notebook and pencil ready before the hour. When he finally passed out, he expected the cook, who had been watching proceedings, would say some¬ thing, and she did. Tossing her head and giving her words a tinge of contempt, she said:

“I’ll leave the back door open so you can plunge in at any time.”

“But why should I want to plunge in?” he asked.

“Because there’ll be a bust-up of some sort, of course.”

He gave her a glare and passed on, and after walking twice around the newly made bed he sat down in the chair to watch any effect the brightly shining moon might have on his crops.

Mrs. Bowser was watching him from a back win¬ dow, and after about five minutes she saw him make a note. It probably read:

“No particular effect as yet.”

At intervals of ten minutes for the next hour he jotted down memoranda and was vigilant and solic* itous.

l8 A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT.

Then she looked out after a little to find that the book and pencil had dropped from his hand and that he was leaning back against the fence and sound asleep. She saw no more.

A tom cat whose curiosity had been aroused showed up on the fence and then jumped softly down to investigate. He had scratched up about half the bed when he was joined by a second, and in quick succession came grimalkins Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6.

They rolled over and over in the fresh earth, they raked that bed fore and aft with their claws, they scratched and dug and devastated, and yet Mr. Bowser slept on.

It was an armed truce between the cats until the destruction was complete. Then they called each other horse thieves and liars and went in for a battle royal.

Of course, the fight had to begin right at Mr. Bowser’s feet. The first mad grapple aroused him from his agricultural dreams, and as he sprang up he stepped on a bundle of cats as big as a barrel and pitched forward and rolled over.

There was a long minute in which Mrs. Bowser saw legs and arms and a bald head and five cats all mixed up and rolling over the grass, and then something struggled up with a whoop and dashed for the back door, with the cats in pursuit.

It was Mr. Bowser. He entered the kitchen

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

with a crash, closed the door behind him with a bang, and she got down from her room just as he tumbled up the basement stairs.

He was a licked man. He was an ex-savant. He was a played-out agriculturist and a busted experi¬ menter. She estimated the number of scratches in sight at 350, and the cats hadn’t been sparing of the bites.

“Well, the moon got in its influence, I see,” she remarked as she wondered where she could find rags and sweet oil.

He looked around in a dazed way, but did not answer.

“Is it Savant Bowser or who?”

A scared expression came into his eyes, and he shuddered, and she led him up stairs to go into hospital for treatment.

During the afternoon a load of lumber and a pig in a crate had been delivered in the Bowser back yard, and a carpenter called to say that he would be on hand in the morning to build a pen. Mrs. Bowser was, therefore, fully posted on affairs be¬ fore Mr. Bowser came home to dinner. He en¬ tered the house expecting to get a blast at once, but to his great surprise Mrs. Bowser hadn’t a word of reproach. He was considerably puzzled over her attitude, and there was a note of appre-

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

hension in his voice as he finished his meal and in¬ quired :

“I suppose you’ve seen the pig?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “You are going to build a pen, and raise our own pork next winter?”

“Yes, that was my idea.”

“I think it will be a good move. It will seem homelike to have a pig in a pen, and I know we waste enough to feed two or three of them. How much did that pig cost you?”

“T — Ten dollars!” he stammered. That was the exact figure. He had meant to say five, but the “ten” slipped out before he could catch it.

“Only ten?” she asked in surprise. “Why, you got a bargain in him. I had an idea you must have paid double that price.”

“He cost ten, but he’s a blooded pig, you know,” continued Mr. Bowser as a wave of relief swept over his soul. “I could have picked up a scrub pig for two or three dollars, but scrubs are dear at any price.”

“Yes, he looks to be a blooded pig, and his meat will be fine eating. The man sent a bill with the lumber. It is for $14, and that strikes me as very reasonable. The carpenter won’t charge over $4 for building the pen, and you will have your pig all penned up for $28. You have certainly got a bargain all around.”

Mr. Bowser looked at her with eyes and mouth

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

wide open. He had expected to be told that he had paid at least twice too much, and to hear the hog denounced as the scrubbiest kind of scrub, and he couldn’t make it out. At Mrs. Bowser’s sug¬ gestion they went out to view the pig. The min¬ ute they appeared the beast began squealing in a way to set teeth on edge, and to bound against the bars of his cage like a hyena at feeding time. He was thin-bodied, razor-backed and wild-eyed, and Mrs. Bowser knew enough about pigs to know that this one would have been dear at $2. Mr. Bowser expected indignant criticism, but in place of it she quietly observed:

“A little wild, I see, but that’s a good evidence of blood. He’ll calm down as soon as he gets used to his surroundings. He’s probably hungry, too, and you’d better feed him.”

Mr. Bowser ran into the kitchen for a dish of oatmeal, and as he returned and placed it before the pig the beast made a frantic dive for his hand and then set up such a squealing that he felt his hair curling. He looked from Mrs. Bowser to the pig and back, but she was placid.

“All blooded pigs are that way when first taken to a strange place,” she said in explanation. “He’ll probably quiet down as soon as we get him into a regular pen. If you’d only thought to buy a dozen hens, five or six geese and a calf, our back vard would be almost a farm.”

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

They entered the house and left the pig to his meditations. He meditated and he squealed. He meditated and he shrieked, and after half an hour of it Mr. Bowser sprang up and exclaimed:

“By the great horn spoon, but I’ll stand no more of that! I’ll go out there and knock that blamed pig’s head off!”

“You must let him alone,” replied Mrs. Bowser. “He’s been torn away from home and is among strangers, and of course he feels it. In a day or two he’ll become wonted to the place.”

Six different times between that and bedtime Mr. Bowser was determined to go out and pulver¬ ize that pig, and it was all Mrs. Bowser could do to restrain him. At io o’clock the noise began to die away. The pig had squealed until the squeal became a gurgle, and the frog in his throat served to deaden the sound. He was a pig who knew his gait. He let up when the hoarseness came and saved his voice for the next morning. He was shrieking again by sunrise, and his shrieks followed Mr. Bowser three long blocks as he started for the office after breakfast. He would have killed that pig before leaving home — he would have brained him with the ax — sawed him in twain — scalded him to death — but Mrs. Bowser was there to restrain him.

“He’ll get over it in a day or two and be a com¬ fort to us,” she urged. “When you come home

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

to-night you’ll find him as quiet and contented as a lamb.”

The carpenter came and built the pen. As he banged and pounded the pig squealed in unison. The man would have had a good deal to say about that pig if Mrs. Bowser had given him the slightest encouragement, but she didn’t. He was a man who had seen a pig or two, and he was cheerfully ready to say that the beast should be run into some dime museum and exhibited as a What-Is-It? At odd intervals, when no one was looking he punched and hammered the pig with a board, but no great satisfaction came of it. At about noon the hoarse¬ ness returned and the squeals ceased. The pig also fell down and seemed to sleep for a while. The pen was finished at 5 o’clock p. m., and Mrs. Bow¬ ser suggested that it would be a good idea for the carpenter to remove the pig to his new habitation. The carpenter would have been only too glad to oblige, but by the rules of his union he could not even handle a blooded pig after working hours without incurring a penalty. For this reason the beast was still in his cage when Mr. Bowser came home. He naturally asked how things had gone, and Mrs. Bowser explained:

“The pig is behaving better, but is still a little nervous. If you go quietly and kindly about it I think you’ll get him into the pen without trouble.

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

By to-morrow he’ll be grunting around in perfect contentment.”

After dinner they went out to make the change. The pig’s bristles were standing up and, there was a glare in his eyes, but he was very quiet. His cage was moved up to the pen, the door opened, and he left it without urging.

“By George, but he’s got over his nonsense!” jubilantly exclaimed Mr. Bowser. “I’ll get some corn and — ”

At that instant the pig made a running jump at Mr. Bowser’s face and seized his hat. The hat was torn in pieces in five seconds. Then there came a shrill, long-drawn scream, another jump, and the beast was out of the pen. Mrs. Bowser ran for the kitchen door and made good her escape, but Mr. Bowser stood and stared and wondered. He didn’t catch on till the escaped prisoner had made three circuits of the yard. Then he grabbed for a piece of board and shouted:

“I’ll have his life for that! No blamed pig ever born can take the hat off my head in that fashion!”

Mr. Bowser rushed and the pig rushed. The board came down with an awful whack as they met, but didn’t hit the pig. That young porker knew just what sort of a move to make. He dodged right and left and then made a straight lunge be¬ tween his would-be murderer’s feet, and Mr. Bow¬ ser went to grass with a momentum of 20,00a

TBi-N MADE A STRAIGHT LUNGE BETWEEN HIS W0UJU}- BE MURDERJER’S FEET.”

MR. BOWSER BUYS A PIG.

pounds to the square foot. Things of earth came back to him slowly and in a confused way. Blooded pigs, leghorn chickens, King George geese, back yards, Mrs. Bowser, kitchen girls and carpenters, were all mixed up for a while. Then he sat up and pulled grass and weeds and clothes pins out of his hair and inquired:

“Has — has anything happened?”

“Nothing of much account,” answered Mrs. Bowser.

“But the — the pig?”

“He went over the alley fence long ago.”

“And I— I—?”

“You’ve gone out of the pork-growing business. Don’t you think you’d better come in and lie down and talk about the hens and geese we are to get to-morrow, or do you want to sit around in the pig-pen and meditate for a while?”

And without a word and humble as a cat, Mr. Bowser followed her into the house.

There was a furtive smile of triumph on Mr. Bowser’s face as he sat down to his cigar the other evening and at the same time took a dozen pages of type-written matter from his pocket and began to look them over. It was two or three minutes before Mrs. Bowser’s womanly curiosity forced her to ask:

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

“Is that an article you have written for the news¬ papers?”

“Not exactly,” he replied, as his smile deepened.

“Perhaps it’s a poem?”

“Hardly.”

“Is it a contract?”

“My dear woman,” said Mr. Bowser, in his most fatherly way as he turned to her, “I’ve got a little surprise for you. I wasn’t going to spring it for several days yet, but as your curiosity has been aroused and as I may need your assistance, I’ll give the thing away now. You know, of course, that I belong to the Booth Dramatic and Literary Club?”

“Yes.”

“Well we are to put on a play in about two weeks, and the proceeds are to go to the orphans.”

“You don’t say so!”

“Why don’t I say so!” he demanded, as the smile chased itself around to the, back of his neck all of a sudden. “Is there anything strange in the Booth Dramatic and Literary Club giving a play by ama¬ teurs?”

“But none of you are dramatic, or literary,” she protested. “You simply play billiards and poker and drink cock-tails.”

Mr. Bowser rose up and looked down upon her with a look meant to squeeze the life out of her body under a pressure of four hundred pounds to

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

the square inch. He fully intended to annihilate her then and there, but he suddenly remembered that he wanted her assistance, and so he contented himself with saying:

“Perhaps you are not to blame for your ignor¬ ance, but please don’t be malicious. We are to put on a play. The title is: ‘Why Mr. Dobbins Didn’t Get Married.’ It may please you or dis¬ please you to know that I have been cast for the part of Dobbins.”

“Is it really so?” queried Mrs. Bowser, with a puzzled look on her face.

“It is really so. Here is my part. I just got it this afternoon. I also have the part of the Widow Winkle, and I want you to read it and give me the cues. We shall have a rehearsal in four or five days. I haven’t the slightest egotism about me, as you well know, but I am ready to declare that I expect to make a great hit as Dobbins. I have been told over and over again that I should have chosen the stage for a profession.”

“But you never said anything to me about it.”