Pieces People Ask For

SERIOUS, HUMOROUS, PATHETIC, PATRIOTIC, AND DRAMATIC SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND POETRY

FOR

READINGS AND RECITATIONS

EDITED BY GEORGE M. BAKER

BOSTON

WALTER H. BAKER & CO.

1909

Pieces People Ask For

Copyright, 1885, by George M. Baker (Reading Club, No. 16.)

Copyright, 1886, by George M. Baker (Reading Club, No. 17.)

Copyright, 1908, by Walter H. Baker & Co.

[Pg 3]

Contents

[Pg 5]

Part I

The Reading-Club.

THE LIGHT FROM OVER THE RANGE.

“D’ye see it, pard?”

“See what, Rough?”

“The light from over the Range.”

“Not a bit, Rough. It’s not daybreak yet. Yer sick, an’ yer head bothers ye.”

“Pard, yer off. I’ve been sick, but I’m well again. It’s not dark like it was. The light’s a-comin’—comin’ like the boyhood days that crep’ inter the winders of the old home.”

“Ye’ve been dreamin’, Rough. The fever hain’t all outen yer head yet.”

“Dreamin’? ’Twa’n’t all dreams. It’s the light comin’, pard. I see ’em all plain. Thar’s the ole man lookin’ white an’ awful, just as he looked the mornin’ he drove me from home; and that woman behind him, stretchin’ out her arms arter me, is the best mother in the world. Don’t you see ’em, pard?”

“Yer flighty, Rough. It’s all dark, ’cepting a pine-knot flickerin’ in the ashes.”

“No—the light’s a-comin’ brighter and brighter. Look! It’s beamin’ over the Range bright and gentle, like the smile that used to be over me when my head lay in my mother’s lap, long ago.”

“Hyar’s a little brandy, Rough. Thar; I seen it though my eyes are dim—somehow—hyar, Rough.”

“Never, pard. That stuff spiled the best years of my life—it sha’n’t spile my dreams of ’em. Oh, sich dreams, pard! They take me to the old [Pg 6] home again. I see the white house ’mong the trees. I smell the breath of the apple-blossoms, and hear the birds singin’ and the bees hummin’, and the old plough-songs echoin’ over the leetle valley. I see the river windin’ through the willers an’ sycamores, an’ the dear ole hills all around, p’intin’ up to heaven like the spires of big meetin’-houses. Thar’s the ole rock we called the tea-table. I climb up on it, an’ play a happy boy agin. Oh, if I’d only staid thar, pard!”

“Don’t, Rough; ye thaw me all out, talkin’ that. It makes me womanish.”

“That’s it, pard: we’ve kep’ our hearts froze so long, we want it allus winter. But the summer comes back with all the light from over the Range. How bright it is, pard! Look! How it floods the cabin till the knots an’ cobwebs are plainer than day.”

“Suthin’s wrong, Rough. It’s all dark, ’cept only that pine-knot in the chimbly.”

“No, it’s all right, pard. The light’s come over the Range. I kin see better’n I ever could. Kin see the moister in yer eyes, pard, an’ see the crooked path I’ve come, runnin’ clean back to my mother’s knee. I wasn’t allus called Rough. Somebody used to kiss me, an’ call me her boy: nobody’ll ever know I’ve kep’ it till the end.”

“I hev wanted to ax ye, mate, why ye never had any name but jist Rough?”

“Pard—it’s gettin’ dark—my name? I’ve never heard it since I left home. I buried it thar in the little churchyard, whar mother’s waitin’ for the boy that never come back. I can’t tell it, pard. In my kit you’ll find a package done up. Thar’s two picters in it of two faces that’s been hoverin’ over me since I took down. You’ll find my name thar, pard—thar with hers—an’ mother’s.”

“Hers? Will I ever see her, Rough?”

“Not till you see her by the light that comes over the Range to us all. Pard, it’s gettin’ dark—dark and close—darker than it ever seemed to me afore”—

“Rough, what’s the matter? Speak to me, mate. Can’t I do nuthin’ fer ye?”

“Yes—pard. Can’t ye—say—suthin’?”

“What d’ye mean, Rough? I’ll say any thing to please ye.”

“Say—a—pra’r, pard.” [Pg 7]

“A pra’r! Rough, d’ye mean it?”

“Yes, a pra’r, pard. It’s the—last thing Rough’ll ever—ax of ye.”

“It’s hard to do, Rough. I don’t know a pra’r.”

“Think back, pard. Didn’t yer mother—teach ye—suthin’? One that begins—‘Our Father’—an’ then—somehow—says—‘forgive us’—”

“Don’t, Rough, ye break me all up.”

“The light’s a-fadin’—on the golden hills—an’ the night is comin’—out of the canyuns—pard. Be quick—ye’ll try, pard. Say suthin’—fer Rough”—

“I—Rough—Our Father, forgive us. Don’t be hard on Rough. We’re a tough lot. We’ve forgot ye, but we hain’t all bad. ’Cause we hain’t forgot the old home. Forgive us—be easy on Rough. Thy will be done”—

“It’s comin’ agin—pard. The light’s—comin’—over the Range”—

“Have mercy on—us, an’—an’—an’—settle with us ’cordin’ to—to the surroundin’s of our lives. Thy—Thy kingdom come”—

“Go on, pard. It’s comin’.”

“Now—I lay me down to sleep.”

“That’s—good—mother said that.”

“Hallowed be Thy name—pray—the Lord his soul to keep.”

“That’s good—pard. It’s all glory—comin’ over—the Range—mother’s face—her—face”—

“Thine is the glory, we ask—for Jesus’ sake—Amen.”

“Pard”—

“What, Rough? I’m all unstrung. I”—

“Fare”—

“Rough! Yer worse! What, dead?”

Yes, the wanderings were over. Ended with a prayer, rough and sincere, like the heart that had ceased to throb; a prayer and a few real tears, even in that lone cabin in the cañon; truer than many a death scene knows, although a nation does honor to the dying; a prayer that pleased Him better than many a prayer of the schools and creeds. A rough but gentle hand closed the eyes. The first rays of the morning sun broke through a crevice in the little cabin, and hung like his mother’s smile over the couch of the sleeping boy. Only one mourner watched with Rough as he waited for the new name which will be given to us all, when that light comes to the world from over the Range.

[Pg 8]

THE DRIVER OF NINETY-THREE.

METAMORA TO THE COUNCIL.

You sent for me, and I’ve come: if you have nothing to say, I go back again. How is it, brothers? The doubt seems on all your faces, and your young warriors grasp their fire-weapons, as if they waited the onset of the foe. You were like a small thing upon the great waters; you had no earth to rest upon; you left the smoke of your father’s wig-wam far in the distance, when the lord of the soil took you as little children to his home; our hearths were warm, and the Indian was the white man’s friend. Your great Book tells you to give good gifts. The Indian needs no book: the Great Spirit has written with his finger on his heart. Wisconego here? let me see his eye! Art thou not he whom I snatched from the war-club of the Mohegan, when the lips of the foe thirsted for thy blood, and their warriors had sung thy death-song? Say unto these people that they have bought thy tongue, and that thy coward heart has uttered a lie. Slave of the whites, go! (stabs him) follow Sassawan! White man, beware! the wrath of the wronged Indian shall fall on you

like a mighty cataract that dashes the uprooted oak down its mighty chasm; the dread war-cry shall start you from dreams at night, and the red hatchet gleam in the blaze of your burning dwellings. Tremble, from the east to the west, from the north to the south, till the lands you have stolen groan beneath your feet! (Throws hatchet on stage.) Thus do I smite your nation, and defy your power!

[Pg 10]

HOW THE RANSOM WAS PAID.

RE-ENLISTED.

SHE STOOD ON THE STAIR.

THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.

A LITTLE PEACH.

MR. PICKWICK’S ROMANTIC ADVENTURE WITH A MIDDLE-AGED LADY IN YELLOW CURL-PAPERS.

“Dear me, it’s time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick!”

At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang the bell for the chambermaid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leather hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been conveyed to his bedroom, he retired in company with a japanned candlestick to one side of the house, while Mr. Pickwick, and another japanned candlestick, were conducted through a multitude of tortuous windings to another.

“This is your room, sir,” said the chambermaid.

“Very well,” replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. It was a tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more comfortable-looking apartment than Mr. Pickwick’s short experience of the accommodations of the Great White Horse had led him to expect.

“Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past eight in the morning, and that I shall not want him any more to-night.”

“Yes, sir.” And bidding Mr. Pickwick good-night, the chambermaid retired, and left him alone.

Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell into a train of rambling meditations. First he thought of his friends, and wondered when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs. Martha Bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process, to the dingy counting-house of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and Fogg’s it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of the queer client; and then it came back to the Great White Horse at [Pg 19] Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was falling asleep; so he roused himself, and began to undress, when he recollected he had left his watch on the table down-stairs.

Now, this watch was a special favorite with Mr. Pickwick, having been carried about, beneath the shadow of his waistcoat, for a greater number of years than we feel called upon to state at present. The possibility of going to sleep unless it were ticking gently beneath his pillow, or in his watch-pocket over his head, had never entered Mr. Pickwick’s brain. So as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat, of which he had just divested himself, and, taking the japanned candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down-stairs.

The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed to be to descend; and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into; at length, just as he was on the point of giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property on the table.

Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his steps to his bed-chamber. If his progress downwards had been attended with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more perplexing. Rows of doors garnished with boots of every shape, make, and size, branched off in every possible direction. A dozen times did he softly turn the handle of some bedroom door which resembled his own, when a gruff cry from within, of “Who the devil’s that?” or “What do you want here?” caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a marvellous celerity. He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door attracted his attention. He peeped in—right at last! There were the two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had flickered away in the draughts of air through which he had passed, and [Pg 20] sunk into the socket just as he closed the door after him. “No matter,” said Mr. Pickwick, “I can undress myself just as well, by the light of the fire.”

The bedsteads stood, one on each side of the door; and on the inner side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair, just wide enough to admit of a person’s getting into or out of bed on that side, if he or she thought proper. Having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside, Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neck-cloth, and, slowly tying on his tasselled nightcap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he had always attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind; and throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles which expanded his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the nightcap.

“It is the best idea,” said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the nightcap strings,—“it is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll, droll, very droll.” Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the very best possible humor, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption; to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it.

The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick’s features was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. The person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little noise, that Mr. Pickwick had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance. Who could it be? A robber! Some evil-minded person who had seen him come up-stairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. What was he to do?

The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor, with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on [Pg 21] the opposite side. To this manœuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and nightcap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out.

Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before the dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their “back hair.” However the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away like a gigantic light-house in a particularly small piece of water.

“Bless my soul,” thought Mr. Pickwick, “what a dreadful thing!”

“Hem!” said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick’s head with automaton-like rapidity.

“I never met any thing so awful as this,” thought poor Mr. Pickwick, the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his nightcap. “Never. This is fearful.”

It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick’s head again. The prospect was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair, and carefully enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small plaited border, and was gazing pensively on the fire.

“This matter is growing alarming,” reasoned Mr. Pickwick with himself. “I can’t allow things to go in this way. By the self-possession of that lady, it’s clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room. If I call out, she’ll alarm the house; but if I remain here, the consequence will be still more frightful!”

Mr. Pickwick, it is quite necessary to say, was one of the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals. The very idea of exhibiting his nightcap to a lady overpowered him; but he had tied those confounded strings in a knot, and, do what he would, he couldn’t get it off. The disclosure must be made. There was only one other way of doing it. He shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly,— [Pg 22]

“Ha—hum.”

That the lady started at this unexpected sound, was evident by her falling up against the rushlight shade; that she persuaded herself it must have been the effect of imagination, was equally clear, for when Mr. Pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away, stone dead from fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire as before.

“Most extraordinary female this,” thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in again. “Ha—hum.”

These last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the ferocious giant Blunderbore was in the habit of expressing his opinion that it was time to lay the cloth, were too distinctly audible to be again mistaken for the workings of fancy.

“Gracious Heaven!” said the middle-aged lady, “what’s that?”

“It’s—it’s—only a gentleman, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick from behind the curtains.

“A gentleman!” said the lady with a terrific scream.

“It’s all over,” thought Mr. Pickwick.

“A strange man!” shrieked the lady. Another instant, and the house would be alarmed. Her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door.

“Ma’am”—said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the extremity of his desperation, “ma’am.”

Now, although Mr. Pickwick was not actuated by any definite object in putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good effect. The lady, as we have already stated, was near the door. She must pass it to reach the staircase; and she would most undoubtedly have done so, by this time, had not the sudden apparition of Mr. Pickwick’s nightcap driven her back, into the remotest corner of the apartment, where she stood staring wildly at Mr. Pickwick, while Mr. Pickwick in his turn stared wildly at her.

“Wretch,” said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, “what do you want here?”

“Nothing, ma’am,—nothing whatever, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick earnestly.

“Nothing!” said the lady looking up.

“Nothing, ma’am, upon my honor,” said Mr. Pickwick, nodding his head so energetically, that the tassel of his nightcap danced again. “I am almost ready to sink, ma’am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady [Pg 23] in my nightcap (here the lady hastily snatched off hers), but I can’t get it off, ma’am (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug in proof of the statement). It is evident to me, ma’am, now, that I have mistaken this bedroom for my own. I had not been here five minutes, ma’am, when you suddenly entered it.”

“If this improbable story be really true, sir,” said the lady, sobbing violently, “you will leave it instantly.”

“I will, ma’am, with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mr. Pickwick.

“Instantly, sir,” said the lady.

“Certainly, ma’am,” interposed Mr. Pickwick, very quickly. “Certainly, ma’am. I—I—am very sorry, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, making his appearance at the bottom of the bed, “to have been the innocent occasion of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry, ma’am.”

The lady pointed to the door. One excellent quality of Mr. Pickwick’s character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most trying circumstances. Although he had hastily put on his hat over his nightcap, after the manner of the old patrol; although he carried his shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm, nothing could subdue his native politeness.