Partingtonian patchwork Blifkins the martyr: the domestic trials of a model husband. The modern syntax: Dr. Spooner's experiences in search of the delectable. Partington papers: Strippings of the warm milk of human kindness. New and old dips from an unambitious inkstand. Humorous, eccentric, rhythmical

Front matter

m s

A LITTLE GYMNASTIC EXERCISE. —Page 164.

PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK.

Contents

PAOB

LUBRICATORY 5

I. BLIFKINS'S SUMMER RETREAT 12

II

t

BLIFKINS THE HOUSEHOLDER.

THE situation of Blifkins's house is a very singular one, as, by some combination of 'circumstances, the snow al ways drifts in front of his door. His next-door neighbors, on both sides of him, are not troubled in this way ; but when the snow before his house is piled as high as his chin, before theirs it is as bare as one's hand. Let the wind blow east, west, north, or south, it is the same. The com pass is not made that has a point to favor him, so he says. It may be -imagined, in this state of things, that he has considerable to do to keep shovelled off in a snow-storm, so that those gentlemen in blue coats and bright buttons shall have no hold upon him ; and the sums that he has paid in dimes for the performance of this work has amounted, in the course of a winter, to a snug little fortune, let us tell you.

It was the morning after a great snow-storm that Blifkins called upon us. He looked, we saw at a glance, agitated and unhappy. Seating himself in our only spare chair, and holding his feet before our blazing fire as unconcern edly as though the words, "Busy Day — Short Calls," 'were not hung outside the door, he said, —

" Tough storm — wasn't it ?"

We expressed to him in brief that we thought it was, and uttered the remark, with considerable confidence, that we should have more snow before the winter was out. He looked at us very seriously a moment, and then asked, —

" Do you have to shovel off in front ? "

" Of course/' we told him, " whenever we have occasion for it."

u Yes," said he, sardonically, " that's what you all say, ' whenever there's occasion for it/* which implies that there may be storms when there are no occasions for it. With me, now, if so little snow falls that an old woman could carry it off in her apron, there comes a drift before my door as high as my head. Queer — isn't it ? "

We made further inquiries, and learned the facts.

" I bought the house in August," said he, " and not a word was said about snow-drifts j but the winter assured me of the reason why the one I bought of was so anxious to sell. The drifts arose to my window-sills. I tried to get my taxes abated last year on account of it, but couldn't. I've tried to sell out, but nobody'll buy. Every snow-storm four policemen stand looking round the corners near my house, to pounce upon me in case I should fail to shovel off. It'll cost me a fortune to hire it done."

" Why don't you do it yourself ? " we asked.

" That's just what my wife said," replied he. " I got up yesterday morning, and, just as I expected, there was the drift as high as my head. ' Mr. Blif kins,' said my wife, 'why don't you go out, now, and shovel it off yourself?' Said I, in reply, ' Your counsel is excellent, and I think I will.' I at once proceeded to prepare myself for the task ; but before I could get ready, there were five applications for the job, and five refusals. I pulled on a pair of long boots, tied a comforter round my ears, and went out. i You're going to pitch into it, I see,' said a voice, as I be gan. 'Twas one of the policemen, and he looked, I thought, rather disappointed. ' You don't catch me this time,' said I. I commenced vigorously, throwing the snow aside with * heart of controversy.' But I began too fast. The fifth shovelful assured me that I had reckoned without my host ; and I was almost tempted to abandon my undertaking by the offer of a deluding Hibernian gentleman, who insinu ated that he might shovel it ' off for a quartier of a dolliar.' But an incidental remark seemed to reflect on my ability to perform the task, and I bade him depart. ' Are you almost done ? ' said my wife from the upper window. How un reasonable these women are ! I pitched in, not deigning a reply. I grew very hot, realizing the philosophical fact of there being heat in snow ; strange I never noticed it be fore ! ' Don't shovel the snow against the house !' said my wife from the upper window. At that instant an ava-

BLIFKINS AND THE POLICEMAN. - Page 24.

THE BLIEKINS PAPEES. 25

lanche came from the roof, burying me in the snowy grave I had just been digging. e Did it hurt you much ? ' asked my wife from her upper point of observation. I replied to her, as soon as I could free myself, that it did not, ant! 'playfully essayed to throw a shovelful of snow at her. It fell short of its mark ; but the shovel found its way through three squares* of my parlor window. ' Save the pieces ! ' said my wife in an ironical tone. I looked at my damaged property with bitterness of spirit. It oc curred to me that my neighbor's snow-shovel was better than mine, and I went to borrow it. When I returned, I found that some one had stolen my own shovel in my ab sence. In a rage I smote the pave with the borrowed one, and broke it short off in the handle, with a remark that sounded something like profanity. At this I with drew from the field, determined to employ the first one who came along who wished to shovel me out. I waited all the forenoon, but no one came. It was wonderful how the}'- managed to keep away. In the afternoon I received a summons to appear before the police court by the hands of one of my watchful policemen, and have just returned from that august tribunal, where I have paid three dollars, without costs. So, reckoning my labor, the lost time, the stolen shovel, the broken one. the smashed window, the three dollars, and the aggravation, I think it don't pay."

He ceased, and looked to us for sympathy. He miscon strued our smile of pity for one of derision, and went off as mad as a percussion cap.

26 PABTINGTONIAN PATCH WOKK.

m.

BLIFKINS THE MECHANIC.

"MR. BLIFKINS," said my wife, on the morning of washing day,*" Bridget complains that something is the matter with the soft-water pump."

" Well, my dear," I replied, — I am very careful to put in all the little tender terms on washing days, having found them serve admirably as mollifiers at such, times, — "I will see about it."

I had not quite finished reading my morning paper, and sat a moment to conclude the account of the last fearful casualty, when Bridget's face was thrust into the door, as red and bright as an old-fashioned brass warming-pan.

" Indade, mem," said she, " the pump's gone again."

" I wish you was," arose to my lips, but 1 didn't speak it.

" Well," replied my .wife, " I've done all I could about it, unless / am expected to draw the box and fix it. I ex pect every day when I shall have to do such work. A woman's life is hard enough at the best, but a little addi tional service would not hurt her, I dare say. Perhaps, in the intervals of household duties, she might take in jobs of pump-mending."

I said nothing.

"Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, "will you see to the pump ? "

This was said in a tone that completely overcame the horror awakened by the casualty, and throwing the paper aside, I proceeded to the kitchen. I tried the handle of the pump, and, sure enough, the water refused to flow. A few drops only oozed from the nose, and, as I plied the handle, the pump gave forth a rumbling sound, as though it were surly in its refusal to yield the accustomed supply.

" This is a pretty state of things for washing day ! " said my wife.

" Weljj.my dear," said I, "I don't see how you can blame me for it. ' Thou canst not say I did it.' "

I immediately essayed to take out the box. The screws that secured the top were rusty, and refused to turn.

" Mrs. Blifkins," said I, " where is the hammer ? "

" How should I know where the hammer is ? " she re plied. " It is probably where you used it last. You leave every thing for me to take care of. My father used to say, ' A place for every thing and every thing in its place/ I wish all men were as particular.'7

I remembered that I had used the hammer to repair a chicken-coop some weeks before, and, proceeding to the spot, I found it, rusty and dirty, lying just where I had left it. A system like this, closely followed, would prove of immense advantage ; for a memory of where an article was used would immediately suggest the spot where it was to be found. Returning to the kitchen, I commenced work. The rusty threads of the screws refused persistent ly to yield ; but patience wins ; and after a half hour's sweating and fretting, I had the top removed, and the pump-box in my hand. There were evident signs of decay in the leather ; and bringing my natural ingenuity to bear upon it, I hammered, and tacked, and cut, and pulled, until I fancied that I had attained perfection in my effort.

" Mrs. Blifkins," says I, in my momentary satisfaction, " can you tell me the difference betwixt a man who mends pumps and a prune ? "

Of course she couldn't ; and I told her that one was a plum and fehe other was a plumber ; whereat she was pleased to smiie, though, I thought, rather derisively.

" Now we shall see," says I, putting in the box, " the triumph of genius. Pour in some water, Bridget, and as I pump, you shall see the water flow."

I manned the brakes ; but in vain my effort. No effect was produced but the most painful sound — a sort of asthmatic wheezing, like that of a porcine quadruped just expiring under the effect of a surgical operation upon his neck. My triumph changed, and my chipper notes par took of a more tempestuous character, as I muttered an expression that nothing but the immediate circumstances could justify.

" That's right," said my wife ; " I would talk in that way. It will help the matter, I dare say, very much. Men have got no patience. If they had to bear as much as women do, I don't know what would become of them."

"I will bring mechanics," said I, a little subdued, " and they shall bring the pump."

I immediately sought Lurnb.

" Send workmen," said I, "0 man of lead pipe and solder, and mend that without which washing day becomes a Sab bath without a sermon — for what were washing day with out water ? "

Two men accompanied me to my home — philanthro pists, with disposition and ability to relieve the difficulty under which I labored.

" Now, my boys," said I, as I introduced them to the field of their operations, " put her through."

The term " her " struck Mrs. Blif kins as irrelevant, and somewhat personal, as I judged from her looks. No ba rometer could be more exact than was her countenance to my experienced vision.

" Look here, sir," said one of the men, trying the han dle ; " there, ain't nothing the matter with the pump."

" Then what is the bother with the infernal thing ? " I asked, excitedly.

" The principal reason is, I think, sir, that the cistern has gin out."

I looked at the man wonderingly ; but his honest eye convinced me that he was sincere, and after examination proved-the truth of what he said. *

" My friend," said I, " here is a trifle for you, and I will settle with Lumb. Don't say any thing about it.'7

I never knew how the matter came out, but always thought Mrs. Blifkins must have told of it.

IV. Blifkins And The Cat

*

" CAKE killed a cat," the old adage runs ; and Blifkins held care responsible for a feline corpus found in his front yard one morning. His experience in the premises being very trying, we essay its impartation as he told it to us, as nearly in his own words as possible. Reader, imagine Blif kins seated before you, telling the following : —

" Mr. Blifkins ! " cried -my wife from the kitchen on Sunda}'- morning, the morning of all the week on which I like least to be disturbed. I rose on my elbow, before answering, and looked at my watch. It was only seven o'clock. ,

" Mr. Blifkins ! " the voice said again. It was wonder ful how sleepy I was, and so I made no reply. What can call her up so early ? I asked myself. It can't be break fast yet, for that's an eight o'clock matter. I nestled down in the pillows once more, and stretched myself diagonally across the bed, drawing my thousand nerves and sinews — more or less — out to their proper tension. What a luxury this is, to be sure I

3*

" Mr. Blifkins ! " said the voice, louder than before ; and immediately after a severe pinch on my bare arm assured me that my wife had come up stairs. I started up in af fected surprise, and rubbing my eyes open, asked her if that was a proper expression of the regard she felt for the one she had vowed to love, cherish, and nourish, and all that. She replied by calling me a fool, in her most win ning way, and told me that there was a dead cat in our front yard.

" A dead cat ! " cried I, tragically, jumping out of bed in a style quite melodramatic, though not very well cos tumed.

" Yes," said my wife ; "it is right under the window, and is«as big as a cow."

I looked at her face, where womanly truth was wont to shine, and repeated her remark, —

" As big as a cow ! "

" I mean/7 said she, " that it is a very large one" com paratively.'7

" Oh !" said I, completing my toilet by thrusting my right foot into my only slipper, and proceeded down stairs. There, sure enough, was one of the most monstrous cats I had ever seen. It was old and very gray, and there was a rigidness in its form that seemed to say, " I've come to stay with you ; " speaking in dumb show as plainly as the big trunk and many bandboxes that the stage drops at our door on anniversary week. I looked at it horrorstruck.

" Throw it into the street," said my wife, with that promptness which eminently fits her to be the captain of a company.

" Can't do it, my love," said I; " for I should render my self liable by so doing ; if not to the law, at least to my own conscience ; for why should I offend the sight of my neighbors by the unseemly thing ? "

" Bury it in the yard," said my wife.

Now, considering that she has got every inch of our ter ritory so closely planted with flowers that one can, in the season of them, measure odor and bloom by the cubic inch, that was" impossible. I told her so.

"I do wish, Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, "that you had a little more energy ; you are not nearly so smart as you were twenty years ago."

"True, my love,'7 replied I; "and in this respect there is a great difference between you and I, for I think your smartness has increased." I meant it for irony, but she took it as a compliment, and smiled upon me with that heavenly expression which resembles somewhat a slumber ing hurricane.

" Mr. Blifkins," said my wife, " throw it on the vacant lot round the corner."

" What ! " replied I, " and poison the air of my neigh bors ? Never."

" What's the row ? " said my friend Wagg, going by.

I told him in a few words my difficulty, to which my wife added a few soothing remarks of her own about " stupid husbands " and " never knowing how to do any thing."

" I'll tell you how to get rid of it," he said ; " draw it away."

" Draw it ? " I queried.

" Yes," said he, poking me under the ribs ; " draw it away with a cataplasm."

He passed along laughing. My wife likewise indulged in a little cachinnation at my expense, which quite over turned my little remaining resolution.

" This morning air is too much for you, my dear," said I ; " you had better retire to the house, and if you wish to take further part in the inquest, I'll bring the carrion in."

32 PAKTINGTONIAN PATCHWOKK.

She saw that I was moved, and went.

There are, I know by actual count, a thousand boys in our neighborhood. My peace by day and night is dis turbed by them. Their whistling and howling awake me the first thing in the morning, and I am kept awake by them till late in the night.

" Eureka! " said I, slapping my knee ; " I'll have a boy."

I don't know what my wife, who was surveying the scene from ail upper window, thought of the remark ; but she drew in her head suddenly, like a clam.

I looked up and down the street for a boy, and round the corners, and over into yards, and into all sorts of places ; but they had strangely disappeared, all but a little boy who was studying his lesson for Sunday school, whose meditations I would not disturb. How welcome would have sounded the familiar yell, usually so annoying ! Thus I stood walking sentry over the remains for one hour, look ing out as anxiously for a boy as a shipwrecked sailor for rescue. At last relief came. A boy appeared upon the scene, dragging along the limb of a tree, and making a wonderful dust. I beckoned to him. He stood still, with evident distrust, as I had threatened him many times with vengeful visitings for juvenile" misdemeanors.

" My little man," said I, " do you wish to earn some pennies for the Fourth ? " at the same time shaking some coppers at him, as they shake corn in a sieve in order to catch a horse.

" Yes, sir," said he, with great alacrity.

" Don't give him more than two cents," said my wife from the window.

I put twelve into his hand, — six more than I had in tended, — and told him to take that offensive object down to the river and throw it in. ^ He started to do so with a grin that looked as if he had thrown it in the yard himself ; and I

THE BLIFKTNS PAPERS. 33

half suspected he did, for before he had gone a dozen yards from my house he was joined by ten others, who laughed so loudly that I heard them where I stood. But I was happy in being rid of my torment.

Going^itto the house, the thought of the adventure as sailed me, and thinking how similar the scene was to that wherein Burns turned up the mouse-nest with his plough, I sat do^ru and wrote this.

Blifkins took a paper from his pocket, and adjusting his spectacles, read as follows : —

TO A CAT,

On finding one turned up in a corner of my front yard very dead, Thou Howling, yowling, growling pussy, Thou night and day disturbing hussy, JNo more thou'lt wake the feeling fussy

With thy fierce clamor, Driving the quietest to curse thee,

Like tongs and hammer.

Full many a night thou'st kept me waking, My nerves like aspen leaflets shaking, Till, some convenient missile taking, —

A jug or boot, — IVe dashed it in among ye, raking,

And made ye scoot.

Thy voice I knew, when fiercely bawling, ?Bove all thy brothers' notes appalling, There, 7mid my flowers, pulling and hauling,

And mischief making ; But thou hast stopped thy caterwauling,

And no mistaking.

34 PARTINGTONTAN PATCHWORK.

And yet I'm sad to see thee lying,

Though long iny patience thou'st been trying ;

I look upon thee, no denying,

With feeling sickening, And wonder how thou felt'st when dying

Of sudden strychnine.

Didst thou look back with thought regretful At making people vexed and fretful, Or that thy horn of joy, not yet full,

Should be capsizen ? * Or grieve that thou wert such a great fool

As eat the pizen ?

Alas ! like many a fool that's human, —

Seen every day, or man or woman,

Who grasp at pleasures fair and bloomin', —

Thou'st reckless bitten, And found too soon that sin's consumin'

To man and kitten.

He ceased reading, and after a moment's pause, asked us what we thought of it. We candidly told him that it was barely respectable, and by no means to be compared to Burns's Mouse " on turning one up." He smiled faintly, saying, " That's just what my wife said," and went out.

V. Blifkins The Sufferer

ONE warm morning we met Blifkins with a patch over one of his eyes, and supposed it might be another attack of the amaurosis with which he had been troubled. He looked anxious and care-worn, and in response to our morn ing salutation merely nodded as he attempted to go by.

"What!" said we, "going by without one word or one shake of the hand?"

He stopped, and extended his dexter digits with a feint at cheerfulness, but failing very signally. "What's the matter with your eye? " we inquired, in a tone very sym pathetic ; " fell down, eh, and trod on it ? "

He lifted up the patch without saying a word, and pointed to his eye that looked — not exactly looked, either, because it was nearly closed, and had a wide, dark circle around it, as though from a severe blow — very badly.

" What did it ? " we said, much shocked.

He opened his mouth, and slowly said, " Mosquitoes ! "

" For Heaven's sake ! what ! " we said, greatly shocked; " mosquitoes did that ? "

He nodded.

" We adjure you, then, 0 Blifkins ! in the name of friend ship, to tell us how," we cried in great agitation ; and drag ging the unfortunate fellow into a place where sedatives could be procured if needed, we bade him tell his story.

" My wife," said he, lifting the patch and wiping his eye with the corner of his silk handkerchief, " is very much afraid of mosquitoes. They are the pest of her life 5 lier

36 PAETINGTONIAN PATCITArORK.

worriment by night and by day. There cannot be a mos quito anywhere in the neighborhood that does not find her, and they manifest their partiality by biting her, deem ing her good to eat. They bite her face and hands, and neck and ankles, arid — noc to be iarulior explicit — are generally fond of her as the New Zealanders are of mis sionaries. During the warm evenings they pursue her unrelentingly. She shuts herself in darkness, that they may not see her, like the foolish partridge, that puts its head beneath a leaf, fancying that it is hidden. Compara tively like, you understand, for Mrs. Blifkins would do 110 such ridiculous thing as that. Mosquito bars are no hinderance, for if the bars are put up at the windows, the per sistent things will come in through the open doors ; and she declares, on her honor as a veracious woman, that she has known them to push up a window in order to get where she was. At any rate, she could not account for the window's being up on any other hypothesis. They do not allow her to sleep, and though I dose her freely with anodynes, and she thus slumbers, she has dreams of mosquitoes that render sleep unrefreshing.

" Last night we had retired, as usual, and I was fast going towards dreamland — had, indeed, become unconscious of surroundings in a dim twilight of sense, — when her voice aroused me.

" ' Mr. Blifkins/ said my wife, i there he is ! '

"I started up, and reached to the corner where for twenty years the big cane has stood with which I am sometime going to make myself wretched by braining a burglar, should one be so unfortunate as to enter my sanc tuary.

" ' Where is he?' said I, seizing the cane, and jumping out of bed ; ' where is the marauding villain ? '

" ' Mr. Blifkins,' said my wife, as she has a good many times, * don't make a fool of yourself. I don't mean a burglar — 'tis a mosquito. He has bit me on my hand. Cairt you hear him ? '

" I listened. The big ear of Dionysius could not have done mere in the listening line than I did for fully five minutes, and then answered, ' No.'

" i Do you hear him ? ' said I, carrying the war into Afri ca. There was no answer to my question, and her deep breathing assured me that she was asleep. I didn't be lieve there was a mosquito within a quarter of a mile of the house, and went to bed again breathing orisons more profound than pious.

" I had got once more in a comfortable state ; was, indeed, dreaming that a Houri, in a short striped dress, was pre senting me with a bushel basket full of peaches, each of which would weigh a pound, when I felt a sharp nudge in the side, that I deemed, in my obliviousness, to be a stab given by some dark assassin who was my rival. I was just going to perform some act of valor that might have eclipsed the braining of the burglar, when —

" ( Mr. Blifkins ! ' said my wife.

" ( Foul caitiff ! ' I cried, l down, down to ' —

" ' Mr. Blifkins ! ' repeated my wife, with another nudge sharper than the first, and I was awake.

" ' What is the matter ? ' said I ; ' are you sick ? ' There had been a bad case of the cholera in the neighborhood that day, and I feared its epidemic character, as I had seen some watermelon rinds in the sink the evening before.

" ' No,' she replied j ' but hear them mosquitoes.'

" I raised myself on my elbow and listened, but could not catch a sound. It was near midnight, and every thing was still as death.

" ( I -don't hear them,' I said, vexed at being disturbed, and was about lying down again. 4

" i There ! '_ cried she ; ' there they are, plain enough/ " I listened again, and heard a faint, murmuring sound, that at first I could not define. At last it came more dis tinctly.

" ' That,' said I, ' is the Brigade Band, serenading the newly-married couple over in Confederation Square.'

" I was malicious in my triumph, I know. She said noth ing in reply ; and after looking out of the window and hear ing the distant music, as I could do distinctly through the open window, and, seeing a light still burning in a house far off, won'dering whether somebody wasn't sick there, or was only being troubled with mosquitoes, I went to bed again.

" How sweetly sleep comes to one after being thus dis turbed ! I realized it, to its full extent, and almost ere my head touched the pillow the most delicious stupor seized me, in which I seemed to be borne away somewhere on invisible wings, breathing airs blown over multitudes of opening roses and everlasting beds of clover. I had just bidden farewell to earth, resolved on making a settlement in the beautiful region where I found myself and becoming a squatter sovereign on celestial- territory, and had begun a speech appropriate to the occasion to a crowd of angelic beings who stood around, when a voice, that I knew to be my wife's, said, —

" ' Mr. Blifkins ! Mr. Blifkins ! there they are again.' " i Let them stay there, then,' said I, ' and we'll stay here.'

" The perfume of the roses, and the clover, and the heav enly scenery vanished under the influence of my wife'sr elbow, and I immediately knew I was anywhere but in heaven.

" ' What is it ? ' said I, as pettishly as a child cutting its teeth ; and mine always have been cutting their teeth, if pettishness is any sign.