The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-21


the whole menagerie had walked up and
pandemopium choked the air.
In vain the broomstick was franticaiiy
hurled at the aeronauts. The more they
were stormed at the harder they danced
and the thicker flew the shingles.
"Wiiliaml Williamn' cried the woman.
Get up, get up say the goats are tear
The sage of Snug Lake Shanty after
protracted apple tree shaking suddenly
started up.
As be did so he put his hands to his back
and stiffening in his position exclaimed:
'sOhl Oh, myW
sDoes it hurt you to wake up?'
T-I-I've got crick in my back,
| gasped the oracle.
..Well. if YOU don't drive those goats
away they'll be tumbling through the
roof"
.'Car'line, said the sage never do that
again. Never wake anybody up suddenly.
| It's liable to give em fits. Always wake
man up gradually
| them. QuickI William, quicki"
"Car'line," rigidly rejoined the oracle,
"you say quick and say crick. tell you
| you don't understand the nature of goat.
You can't scare a goat. You've got 10
| reason with him, see !" :,
Just then a thatch with rusty nail
| sticking in it flew off the roof from under
| the sharp rap of a hoof and took William
| right in the eye. He came very near never
| seeing again.
Whether due to sense OF sudoen.y
| awakened pride. or, whether smarting I'M
| der the sting of pain that dissipated pun
| gently the idea of optical delusion, or,
| whether. as is still more probable, on the
| theory of counter-irritants, the blow had
cured the crick; it is due to the. hitherto
| imperturbable stole OF the porch to say
| that thereupon, with muttered impreca.
| ton on those "pesky critters" as he styled
| them, he rose from his box, mounted the
| dog kennel. surmounted the chicken coop,
| climbed the COW shed, assembled the roof
| and with a long clothes pole scattered the
| goats at one prodigious sweeping stroke
| down the sides to the ground.
/ air of victorious hero he sat down and
said as he sopped his bleeding eyelid with
his variegated kerchief
"UmphI A peculiar coincidence
yes" quoth his tart spouse. Dickens
never had any peculiarities as marked as
| that"
| Disorderly order once more settled on
the environs of Snug Lake Shanty. The
| woman resumed her seat by the door and
after consulting her manuscripts, said:
Poor William, he spoke more truly
| than he knew, after all. A peculiar com
| cidence indeed! See these, sir. Just
| read
| / read: 1.-THE story of an English gen.
| tlewoman, being thread broken from the
| life of Charles Dickens" THAT was, as you
see, sir, the original title of my book.
| have changed it several times. Now let
| US take up the thread once more where II
was so abruptly broken"
NIBBLINe AND BROWSING.
al strolled out into the country on sew
| eral occasions with Dickens. He took me
| with him, as he said, because had fac
| ulty for seeing everything at ridiculous
| angle Dickens wanted to make the world
laugh, to make it happy, not miserable. l
| noted this invariable popularity in him.
| He never let wagon loaded with fresh
hay pass by him ON q country road with
out going up to it and pulling out piece
| of hay and nibbling at it. 1t was the
| same way with shrubs, trees. barks and
roots. He chewed them, browsed on
| them. He loved nature, and took good
many lessons from her. He loved the
deep, dark woods. He loved water in all
| its forms. He talked to me most exquis-
| itely about water. He loved to skirt along
by the edge of cool, gurgling stream, and
| eat crosses and chew mint and thyme. He
| was particularly fond of the sassafras root.
| He loved these natural objects for them
seves, but sought them largely for fresh
| sprinkled all through. He was inordin-
ately fond of trees. / shall never forget
his remark to me once about tree. The
wind touched it and a single leaf
quivered. He said, See that
tree smile The wind stirred it
and all its leaves contagiously
shook. He said again, Just see that tree
laugh The wind rose in it and as it
writhed in gust he said, 'Waggy, that
| was positively CONFUSION. | used to
take little book with me and jot down
whatever he said that struck me and these
manuscripts are full of them. once said
| to him, Mr. Dickens, l have enough
said to make most interesting book
"'Make then,' said Dickens, you have
certainly furnished me, Waggy, with more
than one humorous character for my
books And he used them, too / can
| pick them all out. / little thought then
that should ever carry out my literary
threat, but have made up my mind that
| / can write a book of recollection about
the great novelist that nobody else can.
| 81 have said he loved water in all its
| forms. So he did, but most of all when it
| mirrored some object. He loved to look
down into clear, transparent spring at the
| white pebbles lying on the bottom. / re-
member such spring. l remember how
! he pointed down to it and said: There.
| Waggy, that is what mean by clearness.
! insist upon it as the first trait of style
! Speech is only transparent medium
| through which you should be able to see
| the thought clearly that underles it as
you see those pebbles in the spring.
II told him afterward that had often
| thought of that remark, and that it had
done me great deal of good.
| ",'Well, Waggy,' he replied. Il am glad
| for once that | have done you good in
something have said to you, for / must
confess you are pretty incorrgible girl
ION the same principle was his passion
! for mirrors. He loved them like lucent
water for what they clearly showed. He
was always raying about clearness. He
used to say that glass was only frozen wa
ter and water only fluid glass He con-
| tracted his first passion for mirrors in nv
| Uncle Hector's house. as he himself told
me. He used to walk about those spacious
rooms, whose walls were lined here and
| there from top to bottom with multiplying
! pier mirrors. And as he saw himself re-
| Elected severally in each glass he would
| turn to me and say:
"'See, in each mirror / am the same man.
{ and yet at the same time in each totally
| different man. And so I am the same in
dividual in all my different moods, and
| yet as many times different"
| Dickens had another peculiarly. He
| would spend whole days in infinitely and
| microscopically studying some apparently
| insignificant object / once saw him sit in
! my Uncle Hector's garden for hours
| watching a toad catch flies. 1t seemed to
| amuse him beyond description On an
| other occasion found him on his hands
| and knees bending over bug in SPIDERS