Judge — September 6, 1884 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE JUDGE. Matilda the Brave, and the Fair Augustine. A Romance of the Wabash, by MactowLy, PART I. Some shriek! But the time has come to locate the shriek and di its cause, As the train slowed up, a well-dressed, lady-like Some- thing was seen to descend from tho platform, probably to refresh on some of the mild: | eyed lemonade, which they always keep on | tap at St. Butternut Junction. ~ Was seen to descend and then to ken about the region of the legs and roll in a lumpy condi- tion down the tender mud-bank into a family of geese. The geese hissed horrible. ‘There was plenty of time but none to lose. A by-standing lady jumped down the bank, | and rescued Something from the hisses. Up to this time Something’s sex was a | matter of conjecture. The stiff hat and ollar, the boots, the ulster, the spilled arettes might become either; but when | it appeared that the shirt opened on the back, and the hair was parted in the middle, it was clear that it was one of the unfair sex. r the rest, he seemed to be in the sweet green of youthhood, and unremotely connected with dry goods. But what todo? — His nervous and other systems being in a state of shock, the dark prairie-mud standing in livid drops on his noble brow, and, worst of all, one corner of | his only shirt collar broken and bent hope- | lessly inward—it were cruel to abandon him to the tender-hearted brakeman. Matilda, for that is the name of our hero, saw the difficulty and went for it. In a transport of—of her strong arms, she bore him catter- corneredly across the fields and laid him on the porch of her father’s house. But here, though already behind time, we must reverse the engine and retrospect a little. Who were these souls that the decrees of fate had sent so dead-headedly down the slope of the ages to mingle thus by means of a goose hiss and a little mud? ~ Matilda, from the age of six to sixteen had lived a sheperdess, and as such, had tended her father’s flock of pigs and the district school. But this prairie lass, though not born in the woods, discovered with girlhood’s intuitive glance, that she, too, had a heart. ‘Then pigs and spelling lst their charms, Wo all know what follows such lost charms. She made attempt to recover them, but on the contrary she soared. Being prevented from going to sea on a Mississippi flat boat, and from joining a circus, she did the next no- blest thing—got a place—or was it a posi- tion (?) in the village store. ‘Thus did she add to the substantial virtues of the prairic that nameless grace which comes of much rubbing against society. Our hero has, in fact, been present at a railroad collision, and half a hotel fire, besides eating ice cream oc- casionally at mid-night. But nothing of fast, mind you! She was never the worse for liquor, and never had occasion to knock down a patriot of the other party on election day. She did, in fact, preserve that dem- if-I-know-what-of-an-exquisite-something- ness, which is always adored in the angel Bex. ven the cane which she carried without fatigue was intended for business, rather than for style. Like a sensible girl she believed in dress and plenty of it, and when ehe appeared in public the chains they rattled, and the ribbons they wove in the breezes, and when she walked one abreast down the main street of St. Butternut, the “AND THOU TOO, —* Uncle Sammy, is the bar’ Sasmy—“ 0, the bar'l’s all right, but dogs and the triflersthey got. When, gaunt- letted to the elbows, she, too, when she walketh abroad, can paw the air in that lady modish manner which transporteth the awe- slappe? looker-on to that region where the Walrus doth paddle in the slush ice. As a singeress our hero doesn’t much pretend, but for whistling, she has the voice of a steamboat caliope in a twilight evening com- ing around the bend below Lou a smokeress she docs have her feminine capric- es, and can’t abear the clay pipe, nor even a West Virginia long. Now if this description of our hero’s man- ners and customs should incline you to regard her as an effeminate Miss Charlie of a girl, get your perishing tools in order and perish the thought at once. Any experianced lap- dog, or wsthetic novelist, or other inspired judge of the female human nature would be able to tell you how much of manliness sticks out from those Roman eyes, and the glance of that bright nose, and the lofty chin which bangs have never concealed. But put we an end to this painting of Matilda’s, else must we smash the heroine’s portrait into a mere blotch, lifeless as life itself for want of room. One Little Slip. As an orthodoxy preacher, Our friend H, W. Beecher ‘Takes the bun—in other words, the cake. But when he gocs a stumping, . He'll find it keeps him humping To explain away his candidate's “ mist: To defend dear “Father” Stephen Or, explain the matter even, Will simply serve to sooner seal his doom; Te had better go a fish Or he'll find himself a wishing ‘That he'd never left his famous cave of gloom. BRUTUS!”" ling low? We expected $50,000, at least.” that’s all I can throw away on your masher.” The Dynamite Family Mrs. Dynastre has been feeling misera- bly ever since her encounter with the spirits of hartshorn, and she has sought seclusion in | a small boarding house inher native hamlet. Mr. Dynamite and the little explosives accompanied her thither, but her troubles have not ended, Notwithstanding the probibitors laws which are supposed to keep all men and women sober in River Vil- lage, Mr. Dynamite has managed to work himself up into a hilarious condition two times in as many days. The night after their arrival, he went out ostensibly to play whist with one of the old- \est inhabitants, and staid so late that Mrs. | Dynamite had been in bed at least two hours | when he came in. She left the kerosene lamp burning for | him, and beside it, on the bureau, stood a bottle of bay rum, the cork of which was missing. Now Dynamite came up stairs with a tolerable steady step, and he made a | mental resolution not to say one word that | would give himself away. |. No matter what Mrs. D. might do, or how aggravating she might become, not one word would he utter. For once in his life he was able to carry out his resolve, and when the nocturnal | blowing up commenced he shut his lips firm- |1y together and made no sign. Of course Mrs. D. told him he was beastly intoxicated, | but this was a stereotyped phrase of hers, 0 he only sniffed conven pinoney. at the remark as he slipped into bed. No sooner had his head touched the pillow, however, than he was told by Mra, D, that he had better stop | sniffing and get up and put out the light, that is, if he were not too drunk to accom- plish so difficult a feat. In order to show Mrs. D. that he was not drank, he arose in dignified silence and