an instant that good little boy shot out through the roof and soared away
toward the sun with the fragments of those fifteen dogs stringing after
him like the tail of a kite. And there wasn’t a sign of that alderman or
that old iron-foundry left on the face of the earth; and, as for young
Jacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying speech after
all his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it to the birds; because,
although the bulk of him came down all right in a tree-top in an
adjoining county, the rest of him was apportioned around among four
townships, and so they had to hold five inquests on him to find out
whether he was dead or not, and how it occurred. You never saw a boy
scattered so.–[This glycerin catastrophe is borrowed from a floating
newspaper item, whose author’s name I would give if I knew it.–M. T.]
Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn’t
come out according to the books. Every boy who ever did as he did
prospered except him. His case is truly remarkable. It will probably
never be accounted for.
A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE –[Written about 1865]
THOSE EVENING BELLS
BY THOMAS MOORE
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime.
Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart that then was gay,
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.
And so ’twill be when I am gone
That tuneful peal will still ring on;
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.
THOSE ANNUAL BILLS
BY MARK TWAIN
These annual bills! these annual bills!
How many a song their discord trills
Of “truck” consumed, enjoyed, forgot,
Since I was skinned by last year’s lot!
Those joyous beans are passed away;
Those onions blithe, O where are they?
Once loved, lost, mourned–now vexing ILLS
Your shades troop back in annual bills!
And so ’twill be when I’m aground
These yearly duns will still go round,
While other bards, with frantic quills,
Shall damn and damn these annual bills!
NIAGARA [ Written about 1871.]
Niagara Falls is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels are
excellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The opportunities for
fishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not even
equaled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in the
streams are much better than others; but at Niagara one place is just as
good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and
so there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you can
depend on being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of this
state of things have never heretofore been properly placed before the
public.
The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasant
and none of them fatiguing. When you start out to “do” the Falls you
first drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege of
looking down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the Niagara
River. A railway “cut” through a hill would be as comely if it had the
angry river tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You can descend a
staircase here a hundred and fifty feet down, and stand at the edge of
the water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you did it; but
you will then be too late.
The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw the
little steamer, Maid of the Mist, descend the fearful rapids–how first
one paddle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows and then the
other, and at what point it was that her smokestack toppled overboard,
and where her planking began to break and part asunder–and how she did
finally live through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat of
traveling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeen