The Best American Humorous Short Stories

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wewahwewob," in lower and lower tones. And Mrs. Throckmorton, who forgot the
subject of which she spoke, as soon as she asked the question, is quite satisfied. Dennis
could see into the card-room, and came to Polly to ask if he might not go and play all-
fours. But, of course, she sternly refused. At midnight they came home delightedly: Polly,
as I said, wild to tell me the story of victory; only both the pretty Walton girls said:
"Cousin Frederic, you did not come near me all the evening."
We always called him Dennis at home, for convenience, though his real name was
Frederic Ingham, as I have explained. When the election day came round, however, I
found that by some accident there was only one Frederic Ingham's name on the voting-
list; and, as I was quite busy that day in writing some foreign letters to Halle, I thought I
would forego my privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly at home, telling Dennis that he
might use the record on the voting-list and vote. I gave him a ticket, which I told him he
might use, if he liked to. That was that very sharp election in Maine which the readers of
The Atlantic so well remember, and it had been intimated in public that the ministers
would do well not to appear at the polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by self or
proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and this standing in a double queue at
townmeeting several hours to vote was a bore of the first water; and so, when I found that
there was but one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I stayed at
home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured for Fothergill his coveted
appointment of Professor of Astronomy at Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called
him, the chance. Something in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic
Ingham name; and at the adjourned election, next week, Frederic Ingham was chosen to
the legislature. Whether this was I or Dennis, I never really knew. My friends seemed to
think it was I; but I felt, that, as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was entitled to the
honor; so I sent him to Augusta when the time came, and he took the oaths. And a very
valuable member he made. They appointed him on the Committee on Parishes; but I
wrote a letter for him, resigning, on the ground that he took an interest in our claim to the
stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never
made any speeches, and always voted with the minority, which was what he was sent to
do. He made me and himself a great many good friends, some of whom I did not
afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis did my parishioners. On one or two occasions,
when there was wood to saw at home, I kept him at home; but I took those occasions to
go to Augusta myself. Finding myself often in his vacant seat at these times, I watched
the proceedings with a good deal of care; and once was so much excited that I delivered
my somewhat celebrated speech on the Central School District question, a speech of
which the State of Maine printed some extra copies. I believe there is no formal rule
permitting strangers to speak; but no one objected.
Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But our experience this session led me to
think, that if, by some such "general understanding" as the reports speak of in legislation
daily, every member of Congress might leave a double to sit through those deadly
sessions and answer to roll-calls and do the legitimate party-voting, which appears
stereotyped in the regular list of Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain decidedly in
working power. As things stand, the saddest state prison I ever visit is that
Representatives' Chamber in Washington. If a man leaves for an hour, twenty
"correspondents" may be howling, "Where was Mr. Prendergast when the Oregon bill
passed?" And if poor Prendergast stays there! Certainly, the worst use you can make of a
man is to put him in prison!
I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted to this expedient long
ago. Dumas's novel of The Iron Mask turns on the brutal imprisonment of Louis the
Fourteenth's double. There seems little doubt, in our own history, that it was the real
General Pierce who shed tears when the delegate from Lawrence explained to him the
sufferings of the people there--and only General Pierce's double who had given the orders
for the assault on that town, which was invaded the next day. My charming friend,
George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a double, who preaches his afternoon sermons for
him. This is the reason that the theology often varies so from that of the forenoon. But
that double is almost as charming as the original. Some of the most well-defined men,
who stand out most prominently on the background of history, are in this way
stereoscopic men; who owe their distinct relief to the slight differences between the
doubles. All this I know. My present suggestion is simply the great extension of the
system, so that all public machine-work may be done by it.
But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the plunge. Let me stop an instant more,
however, to recall, were it only to myself, that charming year while all was yet well.
After the double had become a matter of course, for nearly twelve months before he
undid me, what a year it was! Full of active life, full of happy love, of the hardest work,
of the sweetest sleep, and the fulfilment of so many of the fresh aspirations and dreams of
boyhood! Dennis went to every school-committee meeting, and sat through all those late
wranglings which used to keep me up till midnight and awake till morning. He attended
all the lectures to which foreign exiles sent me tickets begging me to come for the love of
Heaven and of Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets for charity concerts which
were sent to me. He appeared everywhere where it was specially desirable that "our
denomination," or "our party," or "our class," or "our family," or "our street," or "our
town," or "our country," or "our state," should be fully represented. And I fell back to that
charming life which in boyhood one dreams of, when he supposes he shall do his own
duty and make his own sacrifices, without being tied up with those of other people. My
rusty Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German and
English began to take polish. Heavens! how little I had done with them while I attended
to my public duties! My calls on my parishioners became the friendly, frequent, homelike
sociabilities they were meant to be, instead of the hard work of a man goaded to
desperation by the sight of his lists of arrears. And preaching! what a luxury preaching
was when I had on Sunday the whole result of an individual, personal week, from which
to speak to a people whom all that week I had been meeting as hand-to-hand friend! I
never tired on Sunday, and was in condition to leave the sermon at home, if I chose, and
preach it extempore, as all men should do always. Indeed, I wonder, when I think that a
sensible people like ours--really more attached to their clergy than they were in the lost
days, when the Mathers and Nortons were noblemen--should choose to neutralize so
much of their ministers' lives, and destroy so much of their early training, by this
undefined passion for seeing them in public. It springs from our balancing of sects. If a
spirited Episcopalian takes an interest in the almshouse, and is put on the Poor Board,
every other denomination must have a minister there, lest the poorhouse be changed into [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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