Letters of Peregrine PickleUpton, George P. (George Putnam)
General
Letters of Peregrine Pickle
Upton, George P. (George Putnam)
Chicago (Ill.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Does the Italian take naturally to the hand-organ? Is he born with
the crank and the monkey in his mouth? What sin has he committed that
he should be compelled to tramp, making day and night hideous? What
becomes of him in winter? Where does he live? Does he go where the
flies go? Is he preserved in amber from Autumn to Spring? You see him
on one of the last days of Autumn. A biting wind the next day and the
birds are gone. If you ask me what becomes of him, I will answer, I
will tell you, when you tell me what becomes of all the hoop-skirts.
Does the Organ-Grinder go to church? Does he pay taxes? Are there
a Mrs. Organ-Grinder and little Organ-Grinders bringing up little
monkeys to the business? Do they live in houses, or do they burrow
in the ground? Where do they go when they die? In fact, do they ever
die? Are they not like the wandering Jew, compelled to keep moving,
grinding as they go?
These questions are worthy of consideration. There is only one thing
certain about him. He is as resistless as fate. Give him a penny to
go away and he will come the next day for a similar favor. Threaten
to shoot him and he will laugh at you. Buttons and board-nails are
just as current with him as pennies. Tell him your family are at the
point of death, and he will grind out a soothing strain and come
the next day with several more of his tribe to play a dirge at the
funeral. I think I can eat a frugal meal with a Digger Indian; I am
even prepared to recognize the greasy Esquimaux and horse-eating
Gauls, but I cannot recognize a man and brother in the Organ-Grinder.
He is one of those mysterious dispensations like the cholera,
rinderpest and trichiniasis which only future ages may appreciate.
Undoubtedly he has his mission. Undoubtedly there are people who dote
on the Organ-Grinder and the organ and the monkey and are soothed
with the touching story of "Old Dog Tray." Undoubtedly there was an
old woman who kissed a cow; and there are people at the antipodes who
eat mice and other small deer.
Such patience, determination, humility and industry, if applied to
the Foreign Missions, would speedily clothe every Fiji sinner in a
flannel jacket and his right mind. Were such attachments as exist
between the Organ-Grinder and his monkey more common, we should
rapidly approach the Millenium. Tramp on, then, O! Organ-Grinder!
Tramp on, O! monkey! It is meet we should be taught patience.
April 13, 1867.
_A RETROSPECT._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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