Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-07-16
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Hobbs and his Hobby.
once told yOu about my friend DObbs. But,
as the preachers say, suffer word about Hobbs.
| have suffered much from him. Dobbs and his
dieting and care for his health is nothing to
Hobbs on bis hobby.
Hobbs hobby is early rising.
We believe in early rising at our house, and
wishing to be ''healthy, wealthy and wise" we
get up every morning punctually at haf-paSt
eight, unless it rains. When it rains we lie in
bed till halEpast nine. Because the less one
sees Of a rainy day the better. l would not get
up at all when it rains if it were not for the ne
cesSity of having three meals day.
Hobbs gets up at five O'Clock in clear and at
four O'Clock in cloudy weather. He says you
must get up earlier in cloudy weather in order
to get the mean amount of light needed every
day for the health Of the body. | told him that
| thought it must be mean amount of light
that he got at four O'Clock i'll the morning.
think he gets up at three in the winter, so as
to get fairly warmed up by four 1t must be
for that reason. Or it may be that he gets up
at three in order TO get mean amount OF dark
ness. The day being short, Hobbs lengthens
them by rising betimes, or rather before times.
Hobbs rides his hobby.
Hobbs wants everybody else to ride.
| have always noticed that when a man has
one poor little mean scrub of hobby he al
ways wants TO make it carry all mankind. He
wants TO put all the world on the Group Hobbs
gets up early, therefore l must get up early;
therefore you, therefore Brown, Jones, Robinson,
and the rest, must get up early. Hobbs is like
an evil conscience, the enemy of sleep. If stay
at his house, he will, on some preteXt, order
breakfast half an hour earlier than usual; then
he will get up and ring the risingbell himself,
to be sure that it is done thoroughly; namely,
in every hall, on every stairway, with a short
pause before the door of each sleeper. For my
self, scarcely sleep at all when have occasion
TO spend the night under the roof-tTee of my
fria Hobbs / how EppD a pOuspiousupeS
that am to be walked up, such a feeling OF haste
10 condense my sleep into the few hours allowed
me, such a sense of the total moral wickednesS
of any comfortable sleep from Hobbs stand
point, that cannot sleep. If l do chance to
catch a cat-nap, the ghost of the rising-bell
rings in my dreams and impresses me with the
fearful responsibility | incur in sleeping at all.
Generally | get about wOrn-out by morning, and
in that desperate mood in which don't care
for rising-bels or anything else, SINK exhausted
into a defiant slumber, which may last an hour,
but which is so totally unconscious that there
seems to be no time between the moment of
getting TO sleep and the coming of that wicked,
high-keyed, torturing, demonacal, frantic rising
bell that wanders in will-o'-the-wlsp fashion
through the halls and StarwayS, and stops at
the last right afront my door, and assumes a
vixenish, personal, insulting tone as il attacks
the first comfortable sleep have had, and
arOuses me to the necessity for early rising.
The worst thing about the old friendship eX-
lstlDg DttNeeu our IdlIllN anu tHt IlOuUStS Is,
that every visit | pay TO Hobbs is returned in
kind. He never sits an evening out He begins
TO yawn Immediately after supper and sayS-ah
= that TO get up early one only wants to go to
bed early. Then he quotes 1.-THE dumb bruteS as
examples" and | suppose if Darwinism is ever
established, we shall have him talking about
returning to the good old ways of the days when
our ancestors lived in the tree-trops! We must
get up early because the birds do, says Hobbs
Why not scratch great deal, then, because
monkeys do2 1t must be healthy, else nature
would not have inspired these Supplemented
children of the forest with the desire. Let us
introduce again the "back-scratchers" which
ladies carried with their fans a few hundred
years ago.
But all reason and all badinage are lost on
Hobbs. He only smiles in a sort of sublime
superiority. We must excuse him. He will
retire. What time do we have breakfast? he
asks, with look at his watch, and his watch is
his familiar spirit. His inspiring muse is a
watch, his chastising fury is a rising bell. We
state our breakfast time half an hour earlier
than usual, because We are ashamed to state it
truthtully, and we mean to get up earlier to-
morrow. He smiles with an irresistible sense
of the righteousness Of anybody lying in bed
so late Hopes we won't hurry on his account,
though he says it with the look of MARTYR
He says he wonders that we are not all dead,
1--WE would be if he were regular boarder.)
In the morning he is up early, in order to get
the mean amount of light needed He is tramp
ing up and down the hall in front of my door,
| have a sense Of duty in the matter and feel
that must get up. For Hobbs is making as
much noise as possible in the bathroom. He
goes up and down stairs like restless evil spirit
only there is no evil spirit that ever had much
"squeaking leather" in his boots He unbots
the front door and goes out, and then comes
back and slams it. OF course get up, and am
greeted with cup at last, ehp and plying
smile from this superior being, who prides him
self on having maintained the primitive habits
of his monkey ancestors.
But there must be an end of all things and
Hobbs leaves. Then get frantic with delight
and ordered breakfast delayed an hour next
morning. And next morning | keep waking up
from my cozy, half-conscious Slumber, the top
plngOtf of the night, best of ALL because you
know you are getting il" as / heard lady say
i keep waking out of this slumber and chuck
ling to myself that Hobbs is gomez and falling
off again and again into the paradise of unlim-
tied repose. Then ! get up with my nerves all
smoothed and placid, and do more work in an
hour than Hobbs can do in u day, giving him
four morning hours the start
Bishop Whitehouse has been blamed for many
things, but there is current in Illinois a saying
of his that should be immortal He saws that
people should not rise until the world has had
Il good airing. Hobbs talks about the glory of
a sunrise, and am very sensible to the scene
because it is so rare With Hobbs a sunrise must
be vulgar every day affair.
And what is that golden sentence of Beecher's,
that all great workers are great resters2
Is Hobbs healthy, wealthy and wiseP No,
| think not. He has a weakness in his chest
and he falls asleep in his chair, and he is not
rich, and as for wisdom, he has no. sense enough
to lie abed when he gets there. He does not
know when he is well off. His first wife died of
rising bells, and the second one is insane. All
from getting the mean quantity OF light.
The LEIsURELY SAUNTERER.
p. ST. forgot to say that Hobbs, like all other
early risers, takes a nap in the middle of the dav
think he only gets up to torment other people
Hearth and Home