Charles Clark - Out of the Hurly-Burly - or, Life in an Odd Corner

"See here, Adeler, I don't want to do you any harm, but let me advise you as a friend to go to an asylum. I have known much worse cases than yours to be cured. It isn't kind to your family for you to remain at large. You're afflicted with only a mild form now; but if you don't do something, you'll have a violent paroxysm some day, and smash things. Now, take my advice, and put yourself under treatment."

Silence upon my part.

"How would you take it now," inquired Cooley, in a tone indicative of yearning tenderness, "if I should get over the fence and chain you to the pump while I go for the doctor? I really think you are getting dangerous."

"Mr. Cooley," I said, "I wish you would attend to your own business. I do not wish to quarrel with you, sir, but I will not have any interference on your part with my affairs. If it will make you any happier to learn what I am doing, I will tell you, seeing that you are so much interested in the matter, that I am exercising, under medical direction, for the benefit of my lungs."

"Exercising for the benefit of his lungs!" moaned Cooley. "His mind is entirely gone."

"Yes, sir," I said, angrily, "I am exercising for the benefit of my lungs, according to the directions of Dr. Ball, and I will thank you to keep your tongue quiet about it."

"He has them awfully bad," exclaimed Cooley, with a pathetic look. "There is no such man as Dr. Ball, you know," he remarked, in a confidential tone, to one of his companions.

"I wish you distinctly to understand that I will not tolerate this impertinence much longer, sir," I exclaimed, indignantly. "What right have you to interfere with me upon my own ground, you ruffian?"

"His intellect's completely shattered," said Cooley, with a mournful shake of his head, to his companions. "Poor Mrs. Adeler! It will be a terrible blow for her and for the children. My heart bleeds for them."

"Mr. Cooley," I said, "I want no more of this. I shall discontinue Dr. Ball's exercise at this place for the present, but I will tell you before I go that I consider you an insolent, unendurable idiot, and I will repay you some day or other for your outrageous behavior to me."

"Sad, sad, indeed!" said Cooley to his friends. "Strange how he clings to that fancy about a man named Ball, isn't it?"

One of Cooley's companions observed that the deranged were apt to get such notions in their heads, and he supplemented this statement with the remark, "This is a very interesting case – very."

Then I went into the house, and from the window saw Cooley and his companions walk away laughing. Not even the unpardonable insolence of Cooley can disguise the fact that the affair has a certain comic aspect; and when I became calmer, I confess that I appreciated this phase of the occurrence with some keenness, even though I happened to occupy an exceedingly unpleasant position as the victim of the joke. But I shall be even with Cooley for this. I will devise a scheme for tormenting him which will cause him to rue the day that he interfered with my pulmonary gymnastics. Dr. Ball's recipe, however, I think I will toss into the fire. I will expand my lungs by learning to sing or to play upon the flute. My family can then participate in my enjoyment. A married man has no right to be selfish in his pleasures.

Miss Bessie Magruder is the object upon which the affections of Mr. Bob Parker are fixed at the present moment. He met her, I believe, while she was attending school in the city last winter, and what with accompanying her to matinees, taking her to church and lingering by her side in the parlor oftentimes in the evening with the gas turned low, the heart of Mr. Parker gradually was induced to throb only for the pretty maid from New Castle. She has been very gracious to him during all the time that he has devoted himself to her, and has seemed to like him so well that there is really no reason for doubting that when the climax of the little drama is reached and the question asked, she will droop her eyelids, crimson her cheeks with blushes and whisper "Yes."

But Mr. Parker's courage has not yet been quite equal to the presentation of the proposition in a definite form. When I asked him the other day, good-humoredly, if he had explained himself to Miss Magruder, he told me confidentially that he had not. At least a dozen times he had prepared the question in a graceful and effective form, and after committing it to memory he had started out with a valiant determination to declare his passion in that precise language the very moment he should encounter Miss Magruder.

"The words seem all right enough when I'm not with her," sighed Bob. "The very way I wrote 'em out appears to express exactly what I want to say, and as I go along the street I repeat 'em over and think to myself: 'By George, I'll do it now or die!' But as soon as I see her it seems ridiculous to blurt out a speech like that the first thing. So we begin to talk about something else, and then it seems 's if I couldn't break right in abruptly on the conversation. Then I get to wondering how she'd feel if she knew what I was thinking about. Then very likely somebody comes in, and the chance is gone and I have to put it off. It worries me nearly to death. I'll go down there some day soon and plump it right out without saying another word first; I will, by George!"

It is an odd circumstance that every man who finds himself in the position occupied by Mr. Parker should entertain the conviction that he is the first human being who ever suffered such embarrassment. Bob, my dear boy, you are traveling an old, a very old road, and all those rough and stony places whereupon you endure distress, and where your timid feet stumble, have been passed for hundreds of centuries by love-sick wayfarers who were as eager, as unwise and as cowardly as you!

It is very curious to observe how quickly the partiality of a young man for a maid is perceived by their acquaintances, and with what zest the gossiping tongues tell the tale. Women, of course, display deepest interest and acutest perception in such matters. A movement made in the direction of courtship by a young fellow sends a strong ripple of excitement circling over the surface of the little world in which they live; and there is something wonderful in the rapidity with which the involved questions of suitability, social standing and financial condition are considered and settled. It is soon perceived whether the business is a serious one upon both sides; and as the two chief actors proceed slowly toward the moment when their hearts shall be unfolded to each other, sharp eyes are watching them, and though they think they are keeping their secret very fast from their friends, every step of their progress is perceived, and the gentle excitement of suspense increases and intensifies day by day among the watchers until it culminates in the formal announcement that they are engaged.

So they remain objects of general and tender consideration until that other grand climax – the wedding – is at last attained; and the bride, with her orange blossoms and her veil, with her satin, her silver-ware and her sweetness, becomes the central figure of a happy festival whose gayety is tempered by the solemn thoughts which will come concerning that great unknown future whose threshold is being passed. And then, when all this is over, when the lights are out, the wedding garments folded away, the practical domestic life begun and the period of romance passed, the interest which followed the pair from the first blossom of their love expires, and, as far as sentiment is concerned, their day – a time full of pleasant things, of grateful happiness in the present and joyful expectation for the future – is done for ever. Thenceforward their lives will be but prosy and dull to the world, however full to them the years may be of serenity and peace.