Peck's Sunshine: Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun,; Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Sunshine: Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun,; Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
American wit and humor
Since the other night we have not wondered that on a similar occasion,
at the dead hour of night, as it is reported, the truly good Mr.
Beecher, who left his berth to see the porter, and ask him about how
long it would be before they got there, returned to what he supposed
was his own berth, and sat down on the side of it to remove his
trouserloons, and by a scream was notified that he was in the wrong
pew. We attach no blame to Mr. Beecher, and would defend him to the last
breath, because to a man whose mind is occupied with great thoughts, the
berths all look alike. Neither do we blame Miss Anthony for screaming.
She could not know in the imperfect light that was vouchsafed her in a
sleeping car, that it was a mistake. She had no time to argue; it was
a case where immediate decision was necessary, and she did right to
scream--she could not do otherwise. But when vile men tell us, as they
draw down their eyelids and wink, that it was “a mistake the way the
woman kept tavern in Michigan,” they do an injustice to a noble preacher
who has been lied about, and who has better judgment than to do so
knowingly.
So we say that anybody is liable to err; but if anybody had told us,
when that woman from Pere Marquette, with a hare lip, and a foot like
a fiddle box, got into the berth next to ours, that in the dead hour of
night we should be sitting down on the selvage of her berth, we should
have killed him.
We are more than ever struck by the old adage that the ways of
Providence are inscrutable, and past finding the right berth. We had
gone out to the back part of the car, and stood in our stocking feet on
the cold zinc floor for a couple or three minutes, looking out upon
the beautiful Michigan landscape and waterscape, as the train passed
Michigan City, and had asked the porter if there was any bar on the
train, and had returned up the aisle to find our berth.
Pulling aside the curtains we sat down, and were about to throw our hind
leg up into the sheets, when a cold, hard hand, calloused like a horn
spoon, grabbed hold of the small of our back, and two piercing eyes shot
sharp glances at our human frame.
One look was enough to show that we had opened the wrong curtains. Every
second we expected that a female scream would split the air wide
open, that the passengers would tumble out of the berths, and that the
conductor would have us arrested for coalition with intent to deceive.
It seemed years that we sat there with that cold hand grasping the
situation, and we would have given half our fortune to have been in the
bunk just one remove towards Canada.
All things have an end, and just as we were imagining that the woman
with the hare lip was feeling around with her disengaged hand to draw
from its concealment in her corset, a carving knife, with which to cut
a couple of slices off our liver, a voice said, “Well, what in Kalamazoo
are you doing in this berth, anyway?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account