Knocking the neighbors

Front matter

Peabody Library,

DANVERS.

ABBREVIATED REGULATIONS.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE CAT. . . • -5

II. ANOTHER POEM. . • 17

I. The Cat

THE family had a cat. Not that this is any special distinction — almost every family has a cat. To some families cats are born, some achieve cats, and some have cats thrust upon them. Among the latter may be reckoned the amiable household of which these pages are a fragmentary and imperfect record, or, more correctly, a string of sketches, making small claim to chronological order, or consecutiveness of dates or doings. Their cat, alas, came to them, as, indeed, one time and another, did many a friendless and desperate animal of the genus. Households made up principally of tender-hearted women and children, households wherein the masculine element is either unusually amiable, or altogether absent, are generally besieged by tramps of all descriptions, human and feline.

And here arises a question — where do all the vagrant, homeless cats come from? Almost every body drowns the superfluous kittens which an inscru-

THE TRIANGULAR SOCIETY.

table fate from time to time adds to the family circle ; almost every bad boy stones and kills every cat he sees; all the waste places and open cellars which mark the sites where houses have been burned, are half full of dead cats in various pathetic attitudes ; and it remains a marvel to every reflecting mind, whence come the cats, all more or less scampish-look ing, gaunt, and disreputable, which are always sneaking and snooping around back doors, sitting melancholy, dingy, and hungry, on roofs and fences, or giving songs in the night to an audience of sleepy and ungrateful dead-heads ?

To tliis innumerable company of unpaid musicians, originally belonged the cat which in the fullness of time invaded this previously happy household. No body ever quite knew how the cat got imbedded in the family. Once or twice she had been seen sitting forlorn on the doorstep, with her hands in her muff, looking up at the windows, with an injured expression of countenance, (which, being remarked upon, was at once accounted for by Bobby, the terrible infant of the family, who suggested that it had been injured in a %ht,) and when the door was opened, suddenly darting away, and pretending she had been kicked. The next anybody knew, she was installed in the cosiest corner of the sitting-room lounge, and declared by Bobby, who at once assumed proprietorship, to be uncommonly particular about her eating.

After some faint opposition, Bob and the cat carried the day. Peremptory orders were issued, however,

THE CAT.

that if the cat was to be a member of the household, she must forthwith wash the dust of travel from her sooty and begrimed person, and conduct herself like a respectable family cat. She must conform to the wholesome rules and steady habits of the establish ment ; she must confine herself to three regular meals a day; must content herself with the range of the house and wood-shed, give up scrambling over fences and ridge-poles with vagrant companions, and sleep regularly in a barrel, on some soft straw, covered with a piece of carpet. No more open-air concerts, no more vagabondish associates. To these conditions the cat agreed. But how did she keep her promises? Nobody was mercenary enough at the time, to try to drive a sharp bargain with the cringing, half-starved creature, and so nobody suggested as a condition of her adoption, that she should rout the innumerable com pany of mice which held nightly dancing-schools in the walls and ceiling of the antiquated dwelling. And it was just as well that this was not mentioned, since nobody ever had any reason to suppose that the cat would have known a mouse had she met it, unless somebody had been by to perform the ceremony of introduction. As for cleanliness, she so seldom washed her face or hands, that when, at long intervals, she set awkwardly about it, the whole household was sum moned to witness the operation, which, from its unusualness, always gave her a cokl i i her head, so that she went about sneezing, all the next day or two. Up to the time when the cat was added, it had been

8 THE TBIANGULAK SOCIETY.

a united and comfortable family, the mother, and Bru nette and Bob; all with ideas of their own, to be sure, and all inclined to think her or his own idea the very one to be acted on in any present case. But on the whole, they agreed pretty well, and had rather a pleasant life of it — until the cat came.

Alas the day ! It was found out before long that they had all along been happier than they knew. It had been possible to go down stairs without being tripped up by a cat's tail ; to leave the doors open a moment without afterward finding a coal-smutted quad ruped asleep on the clean white pillows, or everything in the pantry dragged off the plates and mussed around the floor ; to leave the dinner-table for a moment unguarded, without risk of loss, or a gravydeluged table-cloth. But after the cat came, all this was changed. Nobody ever went down stairs again without a stumble and a wrestle, a spasmodic grasp ing at the balusters and much disjointed exclamation, which, though it certainly was not swearing, surely had some most blasphemous inflections. Xobody ever left a door open after that, without at once discover ing that cat either in the milk-pitcher, the butter-plate, the water-pail, or the best bed ; nobody ever went out without letting her in, or in, without letting her out. Every garment, cushion, chair, and lounge in the house was furred with cat's hairs. Somebody was always washing up grease-spots, or sweeping up crumbs, or opening doors, or scolding or fretting, or getting ur^ too early, or going to bed too late, because of

THE CAT.

cat. She was always getting under chair-rockers, or somebody's feet, or the treadle of the sewing-machine ; even the stove-oven door must be studiously kept shut, to prevent her from going in and baking herself to death. She was always hungrily besieging the pantry, or thirstily apostrophizing the pump ; always missing when she was wanted, and on hand when she was not. She was pretty sure to be in the sitting-room if a caller was announced ; and she would frequently astonish an unsuspecting party by getting under the open-work bamboo chair in which he was sitting, and clawing at the seat with all her might, under pretence of sharpening her claws, — a process never altogether agreeable to the sitter, who generally betrayed her by bouncing from the chair and choosing one with a more solid basis. If she was busy with worse mischief in the kitchen, so as to be quite unable to meet visitors in the parlor, they were often reminded of her by the sight of a chicken-bone on the key-board of the piano, or a cold buckwheatcake on the sofa-cushion.

While she was a pilgrim and a stranger outside the house, she was dying to get in ; as soon as she was established inside, she was perishing to get out. Every departing visitor who found her meekly waiting at the street-door, called her " poor pussy," and obligingly let her out ; and then Bobby cried, and dug his knuckles into his eyes — he was younger then than afterward — and rubbed his nose to a fine polish until the truant was reclaimed. This task was only accomplished by

THE TRIANGULAR SOCIETY.

some one standing at the open door, and, with a vacant and preoccupied air, scraping away for dear life with a knife in a tin pan. The cat was not hun gry ; but reversion, natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, led her to swarm toward the sound of scraping ; and by the time everybody's teeth were well on edge, she would come bounding in, like a belated fireman at a conflagration. It is needless to say that all the tin ware in the house was before long scraped down to hard pan.

That cat became the bane of the family, the staple of discontented converse. Even the mother, who dotes on dumb things, and deifies Mr. Bergh, was often heard to say, after some season of unusual trial, " I declare, I wish there were some instantaneous and merciful way of killing a cat. If I hire a boy to kill her, he will torture her ; if I turn her away, she will be abused and starved ; if I keep her, she will wear the life out of me. She is a perfect elephant ! " This last position was strenuously .combated by Bobby, who intimated that she had no trunk ; but he was promptly snubbed by Brunette, who remarked, " I wish she had a trunk, I 'd put her into it and send her off by express this afternoon, with C. O. D. on the cover, meaning Carry her Off and Drown her." Only Bob remained her friend; chiefly, no doubt, because he never had any work to do for her.

Of course it would be impossible to set down all the tantrums of that cat, or to rehearse the worries, troubles, and vexations which she brought into the

I THE CAT. 11 family. A specimen prank of hers will give a taste of her quality.

The house, as previously intimated, is running over with mice, or would run over, were it not perforated with mouse-holes, to let out the surplus. By dint- of stopping these holes with obstructions saturated with a solution of cayenne pepper, a small percentage of the little devourers is kept out of the rooms ; but the jigs they dance in the wall are wonderful to hear. One Sunday they were unusually lively, and Bobby was much excited by their uncommon scuffling and squeaking. The idea at once occurred to him, that it would be well to introduce the cat to the attic, which is supposed to be mouse headquarters. So the cat was tenderly carried up and deposited in the little prism-shaped cuddy under the eaves, informed that she might have all the mice she could catch, and left to her pursuits.

Half an hour later, a fearful commotion was heard in the sitting-room wall, a scratching, scrabbling, rat tling, tearing racket, as though there were a fight of wild beasts going on behind the wall-paper, the whole accompanied by a most blood-curdling y owing and spitting. The unhappy three read in each other's faces the dreadful fact — that cat had fallen down between the laths and the boarding!

Of course there was a family consultation, which immediately adjourned to the attic. The closet door was opened, disclosing to the garish light of day a lot of rubbish left by the last tenant — (why don't people clear out their trash when they move ? ) an old cur tain, a broken goblet, a mouldy boot, a debilitated hoop-skirt, — a veritable skeleton in a closet, — a fragment of a pitcher, one leg of a pair of trousers, an old chair bottom, and some empty bottles, the whole "rounded and finished " with the cobwebs and dust of years, — but no cat. Instead, a prolonged howl, ending in a spasmodic scratching that threatened to rip off the clapboards, came dismally up from the eaves, where a narrow crevice at the ends of the floor boards showed the only place where the cat could have descended. To this day, nobody understands how she could have squeezed herself down there.

"Fuff! fuff ! pint! phit! mow! mow! m-a-e-i-o-u-ow ! " came up through the crack, as though a dozen cats were swearing on a wager. Whereupon every listener begun calling "Kitty, kitty!" in every tone of entreaty, endearment, and absolute wheedling. But all in vain. Bob ran for the persuasive pan, and scraped like mad, but nothing came of it. When he ceased, an ominous silence reigned. " She 's stifled ! " screamed Bobby, " she 's just suffocated down in that horrid hole ! I' wish you M never told me to put her up here ! " added he, quite forgetting that it had been his own proposal.

Presently two pale yellow phosphorescent spots appeared in the black crack, accompanied by a plain tive " M-a-e-i-o-w ! " It was that cat. She put her nose against the crack to show that she couldn't get her head through; she pushed her paw up to show that she couldn't get her body through ; she evinced, or pretended, the most frantic eagerness to get out, — but all in vain.

" Fetch me a lamp, and the axe," said the worried mother, in desperation ; " perhaps, if I can see, I may be able to pry up a board and let her out." The lamp and axe were brought, and the edge of the latter was inserted between the boards. Then the combined family sat on the handle for a purchase, until a groan from^the axe warned them that the handle might give way, when they dismounted. But the board being firmly fastened at the ends, simply bowed up a little in the middle, not enough to let a mouse through, and defied all the mother's strength, who was meanwhile burning off her eyelashes over the lamp chimney, and getting her hair tangled in the shingle nails of the roof. Brunette afterward declared that even in this sore strait, the mother only said under her breath, "What would Mr. Bergli say?"

But Brunette made no jocose remarks at present. " What shall we do ? " she wailed. " When I was in New York, I knew a cat that got down in the wall that way and died there; and the family had to move away because "

" Dear, dear," groaned the mother. " What could we do ? " and she struggled wildly at the board, skin ning her fingers and turning back her nails recklessly. *' Get me a wedge-shaped piece of kindling-wood," she said, " perhaps I can drive it in and raise the board a little more."

" The poor thing starved to death by inches," con tinued the dismal narrator of New York experience, "and it was dreadful to hear her mewing growing weaker and weak "

" For mercy's sake," groaned the poor mother, to whom every word was a fresh goad, " do hold this wedge while I drive it. This wretched little hole of a closet isn't big enough for one to get into, even on one's knees ! If I could only get to the other edge of the board, so the axe-handle wouldn't hit the doorcasing every time I pound, I believe I could manage it."

" Let me come," said Brunette, insanely anxious, "I 'm larger than you are, perhaps I can get in."

The poor mother, too much exhausted to rebuke this folly by anything more than a reproachful glance, paused a moment and wiped her wet forehead with an extremely dirty hand, which left three black streaks across her face diagonally ; she was quite unmindful that the drops which anguish and fatigue had called out on her forehead, had entirely ruined her inchoate crimps. Finally, after everybody was covered with dust, cobwebs, scratches and splinters, the wedge was driven, giving about two inches and a half of space for the cat's egress.

"The creature never can flatten herself through

o

that," sighed the poor woman, absently withdrawing a hair-pin which had been driven too far into her head by contact with the sloping roof, " I know she can't."

"I guess she can," chirped hopeful Bobby, "I have n't given her anything but a soda-cracker this morning, and she ate that flat-wise."

By this time the piteous mewing had quite ceased. u She has got caught somewhere, and choked herself to death," said Brunette, who was apt to take gloomy views.

" She 's what's-his-name-iated," moaned Bobby, wip ing his eyes on his sister's overskirt. He had that morning been reading about a colliery explosion in Belgium.

" Let 's go down stairs, any way," suggested the mother, gathering up her cramped limbs, " perhaps she '11 try to come out, after we are gone."

" If she does, she '11 be spoiled for a cat," murmured Brunette, under her breath.

The saddened trio departed, Bobby afterward returning surreptitiously to place some tempting viands within smelling distance of the crack, and retiring with the most dismal forebodings, in which he was joined below by the others.

" How can I ever eat another mouthful," said the mother, half to herself, " with that poor creature starv ing in the wall ? It will drive me frantic to hear her mew, and as likely as not the Cruelty Agent will get hold of it — "

" But he can't pull her out by her mew, if he does get hold of it," despairingly commented Bobby, " and I do wish — "

" A sweet place this will be next summer," groaned

Brunette, her agile fancy springing forward six months at a bound, " which is the best disinfectant, chloride of lime, copperas, or carbolic acid ? "

But this ghastly discourse was too painful, and a mournful silence succeeded. After a wretched hour, varied by occasional trips to the attic, which brought no tidings, the mother went to the wood-shed, return ing a moment after, laden with a larger stick, a ham mer, a cold-chisel, and a washboard. " I know she can never get up through that crack," she said, — " this washboard is stronger than the axe-handle, or at any rate, I can split a floor-board with the chisel." And the procession wound up stairs again.

Half-way up, the absurdity of the affair occurred to her. " Too bad ! " she exclaimed, " here 's the whole day going, just wasted on that cat! I believe I will never take pity on an outcast again ! "

" It 's shameful," grumbled Brunette, " I believe if she ever does get out, I shall feel like strangling her. A pretty day's work for Sunday, indeed ! "

She opened the attic door spitefully as she spoke, and that cat came forward, smiling, to meet her friends, with her whiskers full of cobwebs, and her tail over her left shoulder.

II. Another Poem

"MOTHER!" sang out Brunette, one morning, as she came breezily into the breakfast-room, on her return from a flying visit to the attic, cellar, or wood shed, to which, in common with many other people, she always had some inscrutable errand as soon as she was called to breakfast. In strict candor, it ought to be mentioned that the breakfast-room of this frugal family was also the dining-room, and the supper-room, and the luncheon-room, and the tea-room — but just now, breakfast was on the table. The mother was busily rubbing away at the inside of a coffee-cup, with a napkin, and did not reply. " There ! " said she, suddenly dropping the napkin, " it 's only that old spot in the glazing, after all! I suppose I shall wipe that cup every time I see it, as long as it lasts ! Some people never do learn wisdom from experience, and I 'm one of them ! "

" Mother ! " said Brunette again. She had a pecu liar way of addressing her mother — a way of calling up to her, as though that amiable woman had just taken flight from the earth, and were hovering just in sight above her. So marked was this expression in Brunette's frequent exclamation, that her mother, though not a specially brilliant or impressible woman, yet felt it to that extent that she often replied, ner vously — "Yes, yes, Brunette, I'll come down directly."

" Why don't you shout, Brunette ? " said Bob pertly ; " I heard somebody say at a camp-meeting, out at Old Orchard, once, that there w:is ' no law against shouting.' "

But Brunette only noticed her brother's interrup tion by one of her flashing glances, which he had long ago christened " a settler." It " settled " him for the present, and Brunette went on, " Mother, I 've written another poem."

The mother spake not a word — she simply raised one eyebrow.

" Well, string of verses, then," amended Brunette, "you certainly have the most speaking countenance that I ever heard. I believe the expression of vour eyebrows would be audible to me, if I were in another room. And I 'm going to read them to you, and, Bob, if you '11 be good, you shall hear them, too."

Bob groaned in a sepulchral tone, and grumbled —

" Mother told me, the other day, about old times, when people were very wicked, and she said they used to poison folks that they didn't like; and so some of the kings and other great people — school teachers, and policemen, and editors, and such, I s'pose — used to have tasters. A taster was a poor servant, who had to taste, beforehand, all the food and drink that were meant for the king — to see if they

ANOTHER POEM. 19

had been poisoned. That 's just how you do by mother and me. You read your verses to us, and if we can stand them, you think they will do to publish. Only I guess the taster in old times got some pay for his work, and we have to suffer for nothing, and take our chances/'

" The taster in old times," said Brunette, with an uncommonly radiant "settler," "probably got his board and clothes for attending strictly to his busi ness. His example is an excellent one for the youth of the present day."

" I 'm sure," said the mother, hastening to the res cue, "Bob likes your verses. Tie has a scrap-book, and he puts into it everything you give him. He has a number of your poems in it already, as well as sev eral written by people who — who — "

"Know how?" added Brunette smiling, "and to reward you for that compliment, I will read my verses to you. And, moreover, sometime you shall hear my three-volume story ! "

THE EXTINGUISHER.

Oh! tales are told and songs are sung

Of toilers far and near, The soldier and the fisherman,

Where northern forests bow, The sailor on his dizzy ropes,

The farmer at his plough —

But no fond bard has sung the praise Or marked the weary way

Of him who puts the street-lamps out Before the dawn of day.

Who knows at what unchristian hour

He leaves his happy sleep?

Or does he stay all night awake

His lonesome tryst to keep ?

And does he walk the dismal streets

Without a thought of fear, !N"or dread to meet a prowling foe,

3s"or dream of danger near ?

And does he do his work for love

Without a thought of pay, The man who puts the street-lamps out

Before the dawn of day ?

They call the midnight hour the time

When cemeteries yawn — But ah, the fearsome time o' night

Is just before the dawn — The darkest, coldest, dreariest time,

When half the world is dumb, When shadows look like spectral shapes,

And thieves and burglars come

When windows stare like sleepless eyes,

And fogs roll up the bay — Just when he puts the street-lamps out

Before the dawn of day.

But worse than all the darkest nights Are those when low and late

The ghostly moon companions him, And follows like a fate;

ANOTHER POEM. 21

She waits at corners till he comes,

Then flits before he knows, And sends a phantom, black and grim,

To track him where he goes; I wonder if he dreads her face,

Or likes her pallid ray, This man who puts the street-lamps out

Before the dawn of day ?

The only signs of life he sees

But wear a mournful guise ; Behind each dim-lit pane, he knows

Some sleepless sorrow lies; Some woman tends a suffering child,

Or bathes a sick man's head, Or some devoted spirit keeps

Its vigil by the dead — And hails his footstep as the sign

Of morn's returning ray, What time he puts the street-lamps out

Before the dawn of day.

I hear him when the inky skies

Pour down their drenching flood, His boots are noisy on the bricks,

Or silent in the mud; I hear him in the windy nights

When blinds and windows creak, I hear him in the winter-time

When storms are wild and bleak — And yet I never saw the face

(Perhaps no mortal may — ) Of him who puts the street-lamps out

Before the dawn of day.

THE TRIANGULAll SOCIETY.

"I question whether anybody ever took that sub ject for a i)oeni before," said her mother, " and I don't believe any editor will accept the verses."

"/think," said Bob, with his head on one side, like a contemplative canary-bird, " I think that would be a very good poem, if you did n't have so many adjec tives in it."

" Adjectives ! " exclaimed Brunette, « why, Bob, I don't believe you would know an adjective if it should walk into the room ! "

" Well," said Bob, still trying to look brave and wise, "I heard the teacher tell one of the girls at school the other day, that she spoiled her composition with so many adjectives ; she said there Avere two or three of 'em to every noun ; and I believe that 's what ails your poem. Anyway, I wish you'd write one without any adjectives, and see if it would be any better."

"Bob," said his sister, kindly, "if criticism ever helped anybody, I shall be a poet one of these days ; and meanwhile, little one, while I 'm waiting to be great, I '11 write a poem to suit you. I think I shall have time, if I make it short."

And the next evening, as they sat around the suppertable after the meal was finished, Brunette read aloud, for her brother's special delectation, the following stanzas, first promising him the copy for his scrap-book.

ANOTHER POEM. 23

THE ADJECTIVE.

Where would the force of language be

Without the adjective ?

How could the critic wing his shaft?

How could the poet live ?

How could the novelist portray

The creatures of his brain, The beauty of his heroine,

The transport of his swain ?

Xo more his tide of eloquence

The orator could pour, Xo more the man of science fill

His treasuries of lore.

The lover's tongue could never tell

His passion and despair; Deprived of its superlatives

Who would for flattery care ?

Where would the sting of satire be ?

The edge and point of wit ?

How could the stab of censure wound,

The dart of sarcasm hit?

Biographers would cease to prowl,

Historians drop the pen, Paralysis would chill and numb

The tongues and minds of men,—

The press would lose its voice of might,

The pulpit all its power, The sage could not describe a star,

The botanist a flower, —

So rarely is a period penned,

A line or sentence made, Or thought set down, O adjective,

"Which does not claim thy aid I

Yet I for once defy thy might,

For mark me, as I live, Ko stanza of the nine here writ

Contains an adjective!

" I don't like that as well as I do some of the others." said Bob, in a disappointed tone, " perhaps it is n't the adjective that ails 'em, after all. I met a lady coming out of a grocery, the other day, with some sort of fruit in a paper bag, and she said to her little girl that it was luscious, and when I asked mother what " luscious " was, she said it was an adjective. I guess I like adjectives, after all. And the teacher told the girl at school that an adjective was only a part of speech, and there were lots of other parts, I don't remember how many ; and how would it do if you should make a poem all of adjectives, and leave out all the other parts of speech ?"

" Bob," said his sister, kissing him, with a-little sigh, <: you 're as brilliant as most of the critics, and you have n't had half their advantages. I '11 tell you what I '11 do — the next poem I write specially for you, I '11 leave out all the parts of speech^ and I think it will just suit you, yellow-head ! "

III. An Unconfessed Poet

"MOTHER!" cried Brunette, pulling off her hat as she entered the room, and letting her black hair tum ble all about her face in the process, " I want to tell you — "

" Brunette," said her mother solemnly, " there 's only one adjective which applies to your hair, — it 's exuberant. Do tone it down a little."

" Why don't you quote the college song, and call it copious ? " asked Brunette, taking a dancing turn around the room to the tune of " Sweedle-inktum " ; "but that was n't what I wanted to tell you," said she, dropping so suddenly and solidly into a chair that the floor trembled. ** I read today in one of the papers that a gentleman well known in this town — he must be a poet at heart, although he has heretofore kept it from the public — "