Puck — July 3, 1878 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

WHY BOWLES REMAINED A BACIIELOR. (BEING A 1 STORY.) AX 4]DICKEREL Q. BOWLES was a ‘ drum: ody mer.” We don’t mean that he banged “away in a brass band. He was a “drum- mer” in the mercantile, not in the musical, way. He traveled for a fish-house, soliciting orders for boneless codfish, salted and dried. He was born on the sands of Cape Cod. He could catch fish from the side of a dory before he could walk, and he knew fish thoroughly. He was of a reddish complexion, and the freckles on the back of his hands looked like the scales on a rock-cod. He had a greenish- gray eye, that looked not unlike the eye of that fish when boiled. He carried a toothpick made from a cod’s bone, and a wallet made from a cod’s skin. He was as greedy as a cod, and was generally a very fishy character in- deed. Pickerel Q. Bowles traveled much in the Western States. Hundreds of the settlers on the rock-bound coast of Massachusetts are scattered through the far West, and early me- mories make the matutinal fish-ball a sort of sacred thing to them; while “codfish, picked up in milk,” is a thing of beauty and a joy for- ever. Western merchants, therefore, welcomed Bowles. His fish were the driest, the saltiest, the most boneless and cheapest in the market. Saloon-keepers hailed him with pleasure. A pound of his salty cod, torn up and put in the lunch-bowl, has been known to drive trade to such a state of briskness that additional bar- tenders had to be secured to satisfy the thirsty crowd, Yes, he was well-known in the West, and he throve. Pickerel Q. Bowles was a thorough Ameri- can. He had made a fortune and lost it. He never felt thoroughly at home except in a ho- tel; and he had been married and divorcec. So you see that he was a complete type of the true American, It was now some years since he was divorced for “incompatibility;” his wife said that he was cold-biooded, clammy, and, strange to say that of a man so much Lke a cod, she said he wouldn’t coddle her. P. Q. Bowles, on the contrary, asserted that about this time he lost his fortune and was forced to go out a-drum- ming. Whence the divorce. Be that as it may, he never saw her after the decree of court made them “two” again. He went on his travels and prospered. ‘As the figures in his bank account widened, Bowles began to bethink him of taking to him- self a wife again. Not that the softer sex had any personal charms for him; but he thought if he could find the right sort of widow, she would put her cash to his cash, and he could go into the fish business for himself. He had foraged carefully, but unsuccessfully, through many States, until at last he came up- on the Widow Dumple in Southern Indiana, She was the widow of Daniel Dumple, late banker and land-speculator, who, though he flourished largely upon credit, left a tidy for- tune in the hands of his relict. Pickerel Q. Bowles would willingly have had the ducats without Widow Dample; but, as that was impossible, he “went for” the Dumple and the ducats. And he carried a splendid 20-pound fish with him as an offering at the Shrine of Lov ‘Though the widow's name sounded some thing like “dumpling,” in person she was far from resembling that delicacy of the table. | She was thin, not to say cadaverous. Bowles boldly popped his question, just as he used to say “Can I sell you some fish to-day?" toa storekeeper. |‘ Pecan-nuts,” he widow didn’t receive the | proposal unkindly; she was willing to plunge into bliss again; but her health!—she was “nothing but a bag of bones.” Now Pickerel Q. Bowles didn’t care for the thinness of her person, so long as her purse was fat. He pressed his suit; but she demurred, until at last she was induced to consent if Bowles could fatten her up for the sacrifice. Bowles, bold man, consented. And as he went home he re- solved to commence the next day. “If ’twere done—'twere well it were done quickly.” But how? Cou/d he fatten those rattling bones and that dried cuticle?—(and there was nothing else to work on!) Impossible! But—happy thought!—if he could make her “ink she was fattening long enough for him to get over the marriage ceremony, it would answer his pur- pose. He set to work that night and prepared a breakfast for his charmer, which he carried to her house the next morning, cooked it and served it to her with his own hands. ‘The fol- lowing was the MENU, Codfish-balls. Coffee. Coprist-batts, Codfish, picked up in milk. Codfish-balls. Pickles. Brown bread, with butter. Codfish-balls, mustard-sauce. ‘The widow ate relishingly. It's astonishing how plentifully thin people feed. “Isn't it a bit salty, Mister Bowles?” she asked. “Take a pickled kewcumber, ma'am,” said her adorer; ‘ that'll neutralize the salty flavor. And now you've done justice to my breakfast, go lie down and take a sleep—sleep is a great while I go into your kitchen and get dinnet ‘There were no springs and no near rivers in that part of the country; so P. Q. Bowles filled a jug from the rain-water cistern that supplied the house, and gave it into the widow's hands, sent her to bed, and went down-stairs to pre- pare the dinner. Again we give the MENU. Soup—Cabbage. Salt Codfish, egg-sauce. ées: — Beets and potatoes. Rechauffé of codfish-balls. Cold:—Codfish-balls. Pickles. Dessert. Pecan-nuts old dates. Bananas, One little contretemps happened during this meal. White Bowles thought the widow was asleep, she had come down-stairs and had drunk the cistern dry. Bowles at once went to a neighboring saloon and purchased a keg of beer. ‘I'll have to risk some money,” he said tohimself. “ Beer is a great fattener,” he said to her, Before dinner was over she had proved herself a female Bayard Taylor. She emptied the keg before she got down in the menu to “ Rechauffé of fish-balls,” and Bowles offered to borrow a barrel of water from the neighbors. But no! She had tasted beer and liked it. Besides, beer was a fattener, and she would drink nothing but beer. When she came to Bowles had to go for another “ You'd better go right to the brewery she said, ‘¢ and order a load. It will | "Phis was rough on Bowlcs’s cod-skin let; but he saw his reward | in the future. Confound her, won't she never begin to swell? She's got away with two kegs of beer and swallowed a cistern half full of water; but she don’t swell for a cent. How- ever, the load from the brewery will fetch her, | I reckon.” keg. at once,” save your dear leg He had a clergyman hid under the back- stoop, a license in his pocket, and a doctor stowed away in the stable, for fear of accidents. The brewery sent a heaping two-horse load of kegs, and the widow went to work again. There was a tear of comfort in her eye and a soft gurgle in her throat, as the beer settled to its place in her stomach. After much weary work in rolling in full kegs anc rolling out empty ones, P,Q. Bowles fancied he saw the widow swelling. Tt was not fancy, it was fact. She rose, she increased, she magnified! Buttons burst, laces cracked, and handmaidens were summoned to modestly swathe her in colossal blankets and gigantic sheets, She was huge! She filled a sofa! “Now, my love,” cried Bowles, “you see how my system of fattening works! You are luscious—immense! I claim my promised re- ward! ‘The widow was too full to answer. Bowles lugged in his clergyman by the collar, seized the hand of Mrs. Dumple, and shouted, “‘ Now hurry up.” “ Will you take this man to be your wedded husband?” The poor woman couldn't speak. “Bob your head if you mean Yes!” cried Bowles. The widow made an effort; it was a supreme one; but the result was unlooked for. ‘The widow struggled to speak, when suddenly, with a loud report like the bursting of a bal- loon, the confined gases of the beer rushed from her mouth, blowing out the windows, sending Bowles and the minister through them into the street, tearing down lath and plaster- ing, and filling the air with débris and fumes of beer. In the midst of it all sat the widow, no longer rotund, immense, magnificent —but herself once more, a bag of bones! As she regained her shape she recovered her voice— and her agility. Pickerel Q. Bowles was lying, sprawling, on the grass by the roadside, cov- ered with splinters of broken window-glass. The widow fairly danced down into her kit- chen, and danced out into the road again, with one of Bowles's fish in her hand, hard, salty, dry. “You would, would you?” she cried, danc ing over the prostrate “drummer.” ‘ You'd make me your wife, whether I would or not! You'd have me ‘bob my head’ for Yes, would you?" and at every ejaculation down came the fish over the more exposed portions of Bowles’s person, driving the splintered glass into his bleeding flesh, while a profusion of salt from the cod was forced into his wounds at every thwack the widow gave him. “Try how you like a pickle, Bowles!" she said. However, the greatest of battles has an end; and P. Q. Bowles was enabled to retreat, at last, to his hotel, where he had his wounds dressed. Late that night his landlord asked him what he put into the fish to give the widow such an unheard-of thirst. “Nothing,” replied P. Q. B. “You see, that fish ought to be freshened for about three days, in about thirty changes of water, to take the salt out of it, before it is fit to cook. And—and / didn't freshen hers a bit! But," he continued, ‘ how could, how coudd that old bag 0” bones hold such a quantity of beer?” ‘There was a roguish twinkle in the landlord's eye, and it was a moment or two before he an- swered. “ Well,” he said, ‘‘ ye see, the Widder Dam- ple is our champion beer buzzer in this part of the country, and she’s got on a match with old Marm Swicklehammer. 1 guess your book jest about suited her. Ye've saved her the expense of training!” And this is why Bowles remained a Bachelor. E.S. L. comicbooks.com Se