EDITORIAL
WILD OATS

MARK TWAIN

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UNIVERSITY
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Eugene M, Kaufmenn, Jr,

 

   
  
  
  
 

 
  

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Editorial wild oats.
 

 

 

 

 

See p. 57
“T FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED”
Enitorial Wild Oats

‘BY

Mark Cmain

ILLUSTRATED

 

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS zs MCMV
 

 

Copyright, 1875, 1899, 1903, by SamuEL L. CLEMENS.

Copyright, 1879, 1899, by Samurx L. CLEMENs,

 

Copyright, 1905, by Harper & Broruers.

 

All rights reserved.
Published September, rgos.

 

 
Contents

PAGE

My First LITeRARY VENTURE . . 3
JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE . . . II
NicopEmMus DopGE—PRINTER. . . 30
Mr. BLoxe’s ITEM. . . .. . . 4I

How I Epitep an AGRICULTURAL
PABER) 5-day CA eo ee (el ee BA
Tue KILiinc oF JuLius Ca@sar “ Lo-

CATIZED”’ 4 2 « & x & #& a =« GO
Illustrations

‘““T FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED”’

“HE HAD

WOULDN’T”’

“GILLESPIE HAD CALLED”’

CONCLUDED HE

““WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF ‘CAMP-

TOWN RACES’”’

“Tt HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM

OVER”’

‘“a LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE”

“THERE WAS NOTHING

POCKETS”...

IN THE

Frontispiece

Facing p. 4

«

66

24

38

50
58

82
Editorial Wild Oats
My First Literary
Venture

Sa WAS a very smart child
S at the age of thirteen—
(@ an unusually smart child,
I thought at the time.
It was then that I did my first news-
paper scribbling, and most unexpect-
edly to me it stirred up a fine sen-
sation in the community. It did,
indeed, and I was very proud of it,
too. Iwasa printer’s “devil,” and a
progressive and aspiring one. My
3

 
Editorial Wild Oats

uncle had me on his paper (the Weekly
Hannibal Fournal, two dollars a year,
in advance—five hundred subscribers,
and they paid in cord-wood, cabbages,
and unmarketable turnips), and on a
lucky summer’s day he left town to
be gone a week, and asked me if I
thought I could edit one issue of the
paper judiciously. Ah! didn’t I want
to try! Higgins was the editor on
the rival paper. He had lately been
jilted, and one night a friend found an
open note on the poor fellow’s bed, in
which he stated that he could no
longer endure life and had drowned
himself in Bear Creek. The friend
ran down there and discovered Hig-
gins wading back to shore. He had
concluded he wouldn’t. The village
was full of it for several days, but
4
 

“HE HAD CONCLUDED HE WOULDN'T”?
My First Literary Venture

Higgins did not suspect it. I thought
this was a fine opportunity. I wrote
an elaborately wretched account of
the whole matter, and then illustrated
it with villanous cuts engraved on
the bottoms of wooden type with a
jack-knife—one of them a picture of
Higgins wading out into the creek in
his shirt, with a lantern, sounding the
depth of the water with a walking-
stick. I thought it was desperately
funny, and was densely unconscious
that there was any moral obliquity
about such a publication. Being
satisfied with this effort, I looked
around for other worlds to conquer,
and it struck me that it would
make good, interesting matter to
charge the editor of a neighboring
country paper with a piece of
5
Editorial Wild Oats

“

gratuitous rascality and “see him
squirm,”

I did it, putting the article into the
form of a parody on the “Burial of
Sir John Moore’’—and a pretty crude
parody it was, too.

Then I lampooned two prominent
citizens outrageously — not because
they had done anything to deserve
it, but merely because I thought it
was my duty to make the paper
lively.

Next I gently touched up the
newest stranger — the lion of the
day, the gorgeous journeyman tailor
from Quincy. He was a simpering
coxcomb of the first water, and the
“loudest” dressed man in the State.
He was an inveterate woman-killer.
Every week he wrote lushy “ poetry”’

6
My First Literary Venture

for the Fournal, about his newest
conquest. His rhymes for my week
were headed, “To Mary in H—t,”
meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of
course. But while setting up the
piece I was suddenly riven from
head to heel by what I regarded as
a perfect thunderbolt of humor, and
I compressed it into a snappy foot-
note at the bottom—thus:

“We will let this thing pass, just this
once; but we wish Mr. J. Gordon Run-
nels to understand distinctly that we
have a character to sustain, and from
this time forth when he wants to com-
mune with his friends in h—l, he must
select some other medium than the col-
umns of this journal!”

The paper came out, and I never
knew any little thing attract so much
? 7
Editorial Wild Oats

attention as those playful trifles of
mine.

For once the Hannibal Fournal
was in demand—a novelty it had
not experienced before. The whole
town was stirred. Higgins dropped
in with a double-barrelled shot-gun
early in the forenoon. When he
found that it was an infant (as he
called me) that had done him the
damage, he simply pulled my ears
and went away; but he threw up his
situation that night and left town
for good. The tailor came with his
goose and a pair of shears; but he
despised me, too, and departed for
the South that night. The two
lampooned citizens came with threats
of libel, and went away incensed at
my insignificance. The country ed-

8
My First Literary Venture

itor pranced in with a warwhoop
next day, suffering for blood to
drink; but he ended by forgiving me
cordially and inviting me down to
the drug-store to wash away all
animosity in a friendly bumper of
“Fahnestock’s Vermifuge.”’ It was
his little joke. My uncle was very
angry when he got back—unreason-
ably so, I thought, considering what
an impetus I had given the paper,
and considering also that gratitude
for his preservation ought to have
been uppermost in his mind, inas-
much as by his delay he had so
wonderfully escaped dissection, tom-
ahawking, libel, and getting his head
shot off. But he softened when he
looked at the accounts and saw that
I had actually booked the unpar-

9
Editorial Wild Oats

alleled number of thirty-three new
subscribers, and had the vegetables
to show for it—cord-wood, cabbage,
beans, and unsalable turnips enough
to run the family for two years!
Journalism in
Tennessee

The editor of the Memphis Avalanche
swoops thus mildly down upon a correspon-
dent who posted him as a Radical: ‘‘ While
he was writing the first word, the middle,
dotting his 1’s, crossing his t’s, and punching
his period, he knew he was concocting a
sentence that was saturated with infamy
and reeking with falsehood.’’—Exchange.

 

ee to Tennessee and got a berth
on the Morning -Glory and Fohnson

II
Editorial Wild Oats

County Warwhoop as associate ed-
itor. When I went on duty I found
the chief editor sitting tilted back
in a three-legged chair with his feet
on a pine table. There was another
pine table in the room and another
afflicted chair, and both were half
buried under newspapers and scraps
and sheets of manuscript. There
was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled
with cigar-stubs and “old soldiers,’
and a stove with a door hanging by
its upper hinge. The chief editor
had a long-tailed black cloth frock-
coat on, and white linen pants. His
boots were small and neatly blacked.
He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal
ring, a standing collar of obsolete
pattern, and a checkered necker-
chief with the ends hanging down.
12
Journalism in Tennessee

Date of costume about 1848. He
was smoking a cigar, and trying to
think of a word, and in pawing his
hair he had rumpled his locks a
good deal. He was scowling fear-
fully, and I judged that he was
concocting a particularly knotty edi-
torial. He told me to take the ex-
changes and skim through them
and write up the “Spirit of the
Tennessee Press,” condensing into
the article all of their contents that
seemed of interest.
I wrote as follows:

“SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

“The editors of the Semt-Weekly
Earthquake evidently labor under a
misapprehension with regard to the
Ballyhack railroad. It is not the ob-
ject of the company to leave Buzzard-

13
Editorial Wild Oats

ville off to one side. On the contrary,
they consider it one of the most im-
portant points along the line, and
consequently can have no desire to
slight it. The gentlemen of the Earth-
quake will, of course, take pleasure in
making the correction.

“John W. Blossom, Esq., the able
editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt
and Battle-Cry of Freedom, arrived in
the city yesterday. He is stopping at
the Van Buren House.

““We observe that our contemporary
of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has
fallen into the error of supposing that
the election of Van Werter is not an
established fact, but he will have dis-
covered his mistake before this reminder
reaches him, no doubt. He was doubt-
less misled by incomplete election re-
turns.

“It is pleasant to note that the city
of Blathersville is endeavoring to con-

14
Journalism in Tennessee

tract with some New York gentlemen
to pave its wellnigh impassable streets
with the Nicholson pavement. The
Daily Hurrah urges the measure with
ability, and seems confident of ulti-
mate success.”

I passed my manuscript over to
the chief editor for acceptance, alter-
ation, or destruction. He glanced
at it and his face clouded. He ran
his eye down the pages, and his
countenance grew portentous. It was
easy to see that something was wrong.
Presently he sprang up and said:

“Thunder and lightning! Do you
suppose I am going to speak of those
cattle that way? Do you suppose
my subscribers are going to stand
such gruel as that? Give me the
pen!’

15
Editorial Wild Oats

I never saw a pen scrape and
scratch its way so viciously, or plough
through another man’s verbs and
adjectives so relentlessly. While he
was in the midst of his work, some-
body shot at him through the open
window, and marred the symmetry
of my ear.

“Ah,” said he, “that is that scoun-
drel Smith, of the Moral Volcano—
he was due yesterday.”” And he
snatched a navy revolver from his
belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot
in the thigh. The shot spoiled
Smith’s aim, who was just taking a
second chance, and he crippled a
stranger. It was me. Merely a fin-
ger shot off.

Then the chief editor went on with
his erasures and interlineations. Just

16
Journalism in Tennessee

as he finished them a hand-grenade
came down the stove-pipe, and the
explosion shivered the stove into a
thousand fragments. However, it
did no further damage, except that a
vagrant piece knocked a couple of
my teeth out.

“That stove is utterly ruined,”
said the chief editor.

I said I believed it was.

“Well, no matter—don’t want it
this kind of weather. I know the
man that did it. Il get him. Now,
here is the way this stuff ought to be
written.”

I took the manuscript. It was
scarred with erasures and_inter-
lineations till its mother wouldn’t
have known it if it had had one.
It now read as follows:

17
Editorial Wild Oats

“SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

“The inveterate liars of the Semi-
Weekly Earthquake are evidently en-
deavoring to palm off upon a noble and
chivalrous people another of their vile
and brutal falsehoods with regard to
that most glorious conception of the
nineteenth century, the Ballyhack rail-
road. The idea that Buzzardville was
to be left off at one side originated in
their own fulsome brains —or rather
in the settlings which they regard as
brains. They had better swallow this
lie if they want to save their abandoned
reptile carcasses the cowhiding they
so richly deserve.

“That ass, Blossom, of the Higgins-
ville Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Free-
dom, is down here again sponging at the
Van Buren.

“We observe that the besotted black-
guard of the Mud Springs Morning Howl
is giving out, with his usual propensity

18
Journalism in Tennessee

for lying, that Van Werter is not elected.
The heaven-born mission of journalism
is to disseminate truth: to eradicate
error; to educate, refine, and elevate
the tone of public morals and manners,
and make all men more gentle, more
virtuous, more charitable, and in all
ways better, and holier, and happier;
and yet this black-hearted scoundrel
degrades his great office persistently
to the dissemination of falsehood, cal-
umny, vituperation, and vulgarity.

“Blathersville wants a Nicholson
pavement—it wants a jail and a poor-
house more. The idea of a pavement
in a one-horse town composed of two
gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that
mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the
Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect,
Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is
braying about this business with his
customary imbecility, and imagining
that he is talking sense.”’

19
Editorial Wild Oats

“Now that is the way to write—
peppery and to the point. Mush-
and-milk journalism gives me the
fan-tods.”’

About this time a brick came
through the window with a splinter-
ing crash, and gave me a considerable
of a jolt in the back. I moved out
of range—I began to feel in the way.

The chief said: “That was the
Colonel, likely. I’ve been expecting
him for two days. He will be up
now right away.”

He was correct. The Colonel ap-
peared in the door a moment after-
wards with a dragoon revolver in
his hand.

He said: “Sir, have I the honor of
addressing the poltroon who edits
this mangy sheet ?”’

20
Journalism in Tennessee

“You have. Be seated, sir. Be
careful of the chair, one of its legs
is gone. I believe I have the honor
of addressing the putrid liar, Colonel
Blatherskite Tecumseh ?”’

“Right, sir. I have a little ac-
count to settle with you. If you
are at leisure we will begin.”

“T have an article on the ‘En-
couraging Progress of Moral and In-
tellectual Development in America’
to finish, but there is no hurry.
Begin.”

Both pistols rang out their fierce
clamor at the same instant. The
chief lost a lock of his hair, and the
Colonel’s bullet ended its career in
the fleshy part of my thigh. The
Colonel’s left shoulder was clipped
a little. They fired again. Both

21
Editorial Wild Oats

missed their men this time, but I got
my share, a shot inthe arm. At the
third fire both gentlemen were wound-
ed slightly, and I had a knuckle
chipped. I then said I believed I
would go out and take a walk, as this
was a private matter, and I had a
delicacy about participating in it
further. But both gentlemen begged
me to keep my seat, and assured
me that I was not in the way.

They then talked about the elec-
tions and the crops while they re-
loaded, and I fell to tying up my
wounds. But presently they opened
fire again with animation, and every
shot took effect—but it is proper to
remark that five out of the six fell
tomy share. The sixth one mortally
wounded the Colonel, who remarked,

22
Journalism in Tennessee

with fine humor, that he would have
to say good-morning now, as he had
business up-town. He then inquired
the way to the undertaker’s and left.

The chief turned to me and said:
“T am expecting company to dinner,
and shall have to get ready. It will
be a favor to me if you will read
proof and attend to the customers.”

I winced a little at the idea of at-
tending to the customers, but I was
too bewildered by the fusillade that
was still ringing in my ears to think
of anything to say.

He continued: “Jones will be here
at three—cowhide him. Gillespie will
call earlier, perhaps—throw him out
of the window. Ferguson will be
along about four—kill him. That
is all for to-day, I helieve. If you

3 23
Editorial Wild Oats

have any odd time, you may write a
blistering article on the police—give
the chief inspector rats. The cow-
hides are under the table; weapons
in the drawer—ammunition there in
the corner—lint and bandages up
there in the pigeon-holes. In case
of accident, go to Lancet, the sur-
geon, down-stairs. He advertises—
we take it out in trade.”’

He was gone. I shuddered. At
the end of the next three hours I had
been through perils so awful that all
peace of mind and all cheerfulness
were gone from me. Gillespie had
called and thrown me out of the win-
dow. Jones arrived promptly, and
when I got ready to do the cow-
hiding he took the job off my hands.
In an encounter with a stranger, not

24
 

 

 

 

 

GILLESPIE HAD CALLED”
Journalism in Tennessee

in the bill of fare, I had lost my
scalp. Another stranger, by the
name of Thompson, left me a mere
wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And
at last, at bay in the corner, and beset
by an infuriated mob of editors,
blacklegs, politicians, and despera-
does, who raved and swore and flour-
ished their weapons about my head
till the air shimmered with glancing
flashes of steel, I was in the act of
resigning my berth on the paper
when the chief arrived, and with him
a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic
friends. Then ensued a scene of riot
and carnage such as no human pen,
or steel one either, could describe.
People were shot, probed, dismem-
bered, blown up, thrown out of the
window. There was a brief tornado
25
Editorial Wild Oats

of murky blasphemy, with a con-
fused and frantic war-dance glim-
mering through it, and then all was
over. In five minutes there was
silence, and the gory chief and I sat
alone and surveyed the sanguinary
ruin that strewed the floor around
us.

He said: “You'll like this place
when you get used to it.”

I said: “Vl have to get you to
excuse me; I think maybe I might
write to suit you after a while; as
soon as I had had some practice and
learned the language I am confident
I could. But, to speak the plain
truth, that sort of energy of ex-
pression has its inconveniences, and
a man is liable to interruption. You
see that yourself. Vigorous writing

26
Journalism in Tennessee

is calculated to elevate the public,
no doubt, but then I do not like to
attract so much attention as it calls
forth. I can’t write with comfort
when I am interrupted so much as I
have been to-day. I like this berth
well enough, but I don’t like to be
left here to wait on the customers.
The experiences are novel, I grant
you, and entertaining, too, after a
fashion, but they are not judiciously
distributed. A gentleman shoots at
you through the window and cripples
me; a bomb-shell comes down the
stove-pipe for your gratification and
sends the stove-door down my throat;
a friend drops in to swap compli-
ments with you, and freckles me with
bullet-holes till my skin won’t hold
my principles; you go to dinner, and
27
Editorial Wild Oats

Jones comes with his cowhide, Gilles-
pie throws me out of the window,
Thompson tears all my clothes off,
and an entire stranger takes my
scalp with the easy freedom of an old
acquaintance; and in less than five
minutes all the blackguards in the
country arrive in their war-paint,
and proceed to scare the rest of me
to death with their tomahawks.
Take it altogether, I never had such
a spirited time in all my life as I
have had to-day. No; I like you,
and I like your calm, unruffled way of
explaining things to the customers,
but you see I am not used to it. The
Southern heart is too impulsive;
Southern hospitality is too lavish
with the stranger. The paragraphs
which I have written to-day, and
28
Journalism in Tennessee

into whose cold sentences your mas-
terly hand has infused the fervent
spirit of Tennessean journalism, will
wake up another nest of hornets.
All that mob of editors will come—
and they will come hungry, too, and
want somebody for breakfast. I shall
have to bid you adieu. I decline to
be present at these festivities. I
came South for my health; I will go
back on the same errand, and sud-
denly. Tennesseean journalism is too
stirring for me.”

After which we parted with mutual
regret, and I took apartments at the
hospital.
Nicodemus Dodge—
Printer

SSAHEN I was a boy in a
§ printing - office in Mis-

  

G souri, a loose - jointed,
\\ long-legged, tow-headed,
jeans-clad, countrified cub of about
sixteen lounged in one day, and with-
out removing his hands from the
depths of his trousers pockets or tak-
ing off his faded ruin of a slouch hat,
whose broken rim hung limp and
ragged about his eyes and ears like a
30
Nicodemus Dodge—Printer

bug-eaten cabbage-leaf, stared indif-
ferently around, then leaned his hip
against the editors’ table, crossed his
mighty brogans, aimed at a distant
fly from a crevice in his upper teeth,
laid him low, and said, with compos-
ure:

“Whar’s the boss?’

“T am the boss,’’ said the editor,
following this curious bit of archi-
tecture wonderingly along up to its
clock-face with his eye.

“Don’t want anybody fur to learn
the business, ’tain’t likely ?”’

“Well, I don’t know. Would you
like to learn it?”’

“Pap’s so po’ he cain’t run me no
mo’, so I want to git a show somers
if I kin, ’tain’t no diffunce what—
I’m strong and hearty, and I don’t

31
Editorial Wild Oats

turn my back on no kind of work,
hard nur soft.”

“Do you think you would like to
learn the printing business?”

“Well, I don’t re’ly k’yer a durn
what I do learn, so’s I git a chance
fur tomake my way. Id jist as soon
learn print’n’ ’s anything.”

“Can you read?”

“Yes—middlin’.”

“Write?”

“Well, I’ve seed people could lay
over me thar.”

“Cipher ?”’

“Not good enough to keep store,
I don’t reckon, but up as fur as
twelve-times-twelve I ain’t no slouch.
’Tother side of that is what gits me.”

“Where is your home?”

“Tm fm old Shelby.”

32
Nicodemus Dodge—Printer

“What’s your father’s religious de-
nomination ?”’

“Him? Oh, he’s a blacksmith.”

“No, no—I don’t mean his
trade. What’s his religious denom-
ination?”

“Oh—TI didn’t understand you
befo’. He’s a Freemason.”

“No, no; you don’t get my meaning
yet. What I mean is, does he belong
to any church 2?”

“Now you're talkin’! Couldn’t
make out what you was a-tryin’ to
git through yo’ head no way. B’long
to a church! Why, boss, he’s be’n
the pizenest kind of a Free-will
Babtis’ for forty year. They ain’t
no pizener ones ’n’ what he is. Mighty
good man, pap is. Everybody says
that. If they said any diffrunt they

33
Editorial Wild Oats

wouldn’t say it whar J wuz—not
much they wouldn't.”

“What is your own religion?”

“Well, boss, you’ve kind o’ got
me thar—and yit you hain’t got me
so mighty much, nuther. I think ’t
if a feller he’ps another feller when
he’s in trouble, and don’t cuss, and
don’t do no mean things, nur noth’n’
he ain’ no business to do, and don’t
spell the Saviour’s name with a little
g, he ain’t runnin’ no resks—he’s about
as saift as if he b’longed to a church.”

“But suppose he did spell it with
a little g—what then?”

“Well, if he done it a-purpose, I
reckon he wouldn’t stand no chance,
—he oughtn’t to have no chance,
anyway, I’m most rotten certain
*bout that.”

34
Nicodemus Dodge—Printer

“What is your name?”

“Nicodemus Dodge.”

“I think maybe you'll do, Nico-
demus. We’ll give you a trial, any-
way.”

* All sieht.”

“When would you like to begin?”

“Now.”

So, within ten minutes after we
had first glimpsed this nondescript
he was one of us, and with his coat
off and hard at it.

Beyond that end of our establish-
ment which was farthest from the
street was a deserted garden, path-
less, and thickly grown with the
bloomy and villanous ‘“jimpson’”’
weed and its common friend the
stately sunflower. In the midst of
this mournful spot was a decayed and

35
Editorial Wild Oats

aged little “frame’’ house with but
one room, one window, and no ceil-
ing—it had been a smoke-house a
generation before. Nicodemus was
given this lonely and ghostly den asa
bedchamber.

The village smarties recognized a
treasure in Nicodemus right away—
a butt to play jokes on. It was easy
to see that he was inconceivably
green and confiding. George Jones
had the glory of perpetrating the
first joke on him; he gave him a
cigar with a fire-cracker in it and
winked to the crowd to come; the
thing exploded presently and swept
away the bulk of Nicodemus’s eye-
brows and eyelashes. He simply
said:

“T consider them kind of seeg’yars

30
Nicodemus Dodge—Printer

dangersome’’—and seemed to suspect
nothing. The next evening Nico-
demus waylaid George and poured a
bucket of ice-water over him.

One day, while Nicodemus was
in swimming, Tom McElroy “tied”’
his clothes. Nicodemus made a bon-
fire of Tom’s by way of retaliation.

A third joke was played upon Nico-
demus a day or two later—he walked
up the middle aisle of the village
church, Sunday night, with a staring
hand-bill pinned between his shoul-
ders. The joker spent the remainder
of the night, after church, in the
cellar of a deserted house, and Nico-
demus sat on the cellar door till
towards breakfast-time to make sure
that the prisoner remembered that
if any noise was made some rough

37
Editorial Wild Oats

treatment would be the consequence.
The cellar had two feet of stagnant
water in it, and was bottomed with
six inches of soft mud.

But I wander from the point. It
was the subject of skeletons that
brought this boy back to my recol-
lection. Before a very long time
had elapsed, the village smarties
began to feel an uncomfortable con-
sciousness of not having made a
very shining success out of their at-
tempts on the simpleton from “old
Shelby.’ Experimenters grew scarce
and chary. Now the young doctor
came to the rescue. There was de-
light and applause when he proposed
to scare Nicodemus to death, and
explained how he was going to do it.
He had a noble new skeleton—the

38
 

“WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF ‘CAMPTOWN RACES’”’
Nicodemus Dodge—Printer

skeleton of the late and only local
celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village
drunkard—a grisly piece of property
which he had bought of Jimmy Finn
himself, at auction, for fifty dollars,
under great competition, when Jimmy
lay very sick in the tanyard a fort-
night before his death. The fifty
dollars had gone promptly for whiskey
and had considerably hurried up the
change of ownership in the skeleton.
The doctor would put Jimmy Finn’s
skeleton in Nicodemus’s bed!

This was done —about half- past
ten in the evening. About Nico-
demus’s usual bedtime—midnight—
the village jokers came creeping
stealthily through the jimpson weeds
and sunflowers towards the lonely
frame den. They reached the win-

4 39
Editorial Wild Oats

dow and peeped in. There sat the
long-legged pauper, on his bed, in a
very short shirt, and nothing more;
he was dangling his legs contentedly
back and forth, and wheezing the
music of “Camptown Races”’ out of
a paper-overlaid comb which he was
pressing against his mouth; by him
lay a new jews-harp, a new top, a
solid india-rubber ball, a handful of
painted marbles, five pounds of
‘store’? candy, and a well-knawed
slab of gingerbread as big and as thick
as a volume of sheet music. He
had sold the skeleton to a travelling
quack for three dollars and was
enjoying the result!
Mr. Bloke’s Item

   

PED the office where we are
sub-editor at a late hour last night,
with an expression of profound and
heartfelt suffering upon his counte-
nance, and, sighing heavily, laid the
following item reverently upon the
desk, and walked slowly out again.
He paused a moment at the door,
and seemed struggling to command
his feelings sufficiently to enable
4l
Editorial Wild Oats

him to speak, and then, nodding his
head towards his manuscript, ejacu-
lated in a broken voice, ‘Friend of
mine—oh! how sad?” and burst into
tears. We were so moved at his
distress that we did not think to call
him back and endeavor to comfort
him until he was gone, and it was
too late. The paper had already
gone to press, but knowing that our
friend would consider the publication
of this item important, and cherishing
the hope that to print it would
afford a melancholy satisfaction to
his sorrowing heart, we stopped the
press at once and inserted it in our
columns:

DistREssinG ACcCIDENT.—Last even-

ing, about six o’clock, as Mr. William
Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen

42
Mr. Bloke’s Item

of South Park, was leaving his residence
to go down-town, as has been his usual
custom for many years with the excep-
tion only of a short interval in the spring
of 1850, during which he was confined
to his bed by injuries received in at-
tempting to stop a runaway horse by
thoughtlessly placing himself directly
in its wake and throwing up his hands
and shouting, which, if he had done so
even a single moment sooner, must
inevitably have frightened the animal
still more instead of checking its speed,
although disastrous enough to himself
as it was, and rendered more melan-
choly and distressing by reason of the
presence of his wife’s mother, who was
there and saw the sad occurrence, not-
withstanding it is at least likely, though
not necessarily so, that she should be
reconnoitring in another direction when
incidents occur, not being vivacious and
on the lookout, as a general thing, but

43
Editorial Wild Oats

even the reverse, as her own mother is
said to have stated, who is no more,
but died in the full hope of a glorious
resurrection, upward of three years ago,
aged eighty-six, being a Christian wom-
an and without guile, as it were, or
property, in consequence of the fire of
1849, which destroyed every single
thing she had in the world. But such
is life. Let us all take warning by this
solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor
so to conduct ourselves that when we
come to die we can doit. Let us place
our hands upon our heart, and say
with earnestness and sincerity that
from this day forth we will beware of
the intoxicating bowl.—First edition of
the Californian.

The head editor has been in here
raising the mischief, and tearing his
hair and kicking the furniture about,
and abusing me like a pickpocket.

44
Mr. Bloke’s Item

He says that every time he leaves
me in charge of the paper for half
an hour, I get imposed upon by the
first infant or the first idiot that comes
along. And he says that that dis-
tressing item of Mr. Bloke’s is nothing
but a lot of distressing bosh, and has
no point to it, and no sense in it, and
no information in it, and that there
was no sort of necessity for stopping
the press to publish it.

Now all this comes of being good-
hearted. If I had been as unac-
commodating and unsympathetic as
some people, I would have told Mr.
Bloke that I wouldn’t receive his
communication at such a late hour;
but no, his snuffling distress touched
my heart, and I jumped at the
chance of doing something to modify

45
Editorial Wild Oats

his misery. I never read his item
to see whether there was anything
wrong about it, but hastily wrote the
few lines which preceded it, and
sent it to the printers. And what
has my kindness done for me? It
has done nothing but bring down
upon me a storm of abuse and orna-
mental blasphemy.

Now I will read that item myself,
and see if there is any foundation for
all this fuss. And if there is, the
author of it shall hear from me.

I have read it, and I am bound
to admit that it seems a little mixed
at a first glance. However, I will
peruse it once more.

I have read it again, and it does
46
Mr. Bloke’s Item

really seem a good deal more mixed
than ever.

I have read it over five times,
but if I can get at the meaning of it,
I wish I may get my just deserts.
It won’t bear analysis. There are
things about it which I cannot
understand at all. It don’t say
what ever became of William Schuy-
ler. It just says enough about him
to get one interested in his career,
and then drops him. Who is William
Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of
South Park did he live in, and if he
started down-town at six o’clock,
did he ever get there, and if he did,
did anything happen to him? Is he
the individual that met with the
“distressing accident’”’? Considering

47
Editorial Wild Oats

the elaborate circumstantiality of de-
tail observable in the item, it seems
to me that it ought to contain more
information than it does. On the
contrary, it is obscure—and not only
obscure, but utterly incomprehensi-
ble. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuy-
ler’s leg, fifteen years ago, the “ dis-
tressing accident”’ that plunged Mr.
Bloke into unspeakable grief, and
caused him to come up here at dead
of night and stop our press to ac-
quaint the world with the circum-
stance? Or did the “distressing ac-
cident’’ consist in the destruction of
schuyler’s mother-in-law’s property
in early times? Or did it consist in
the death of that person herself three
years ago (albeit it does not appear
that she died by accident)? In a
48
Mr. Bloke’s Item

word, what did that “distressing ac-
cident’”’ consist in? What did that
drivelling ass of a Schuyler stand in
the wake of a runaway horse for, with
his shouting and gesticulating, if he
wanted to stop him? And how the
mischief could he get run over by a
horse that had already passed be-
yond him? And what are we to
take “warning”’ by? And how is this
extraordinary chapter of incompre-
hensibilities going to be a “lesson”’ to
us? And, above all, what has the in-
toxicating “bowl” got to do with it,
anyhow? Itis not stated that Schuy-
ler drank, or that his wife drank, or
that his mother-in-law drank, or
that the horse drank — wherefore,
then, the reference to the intoxicat-
ing bowl? It does seem to me that
49
Editorial Wild Oats

if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating
bowl alone himself, he never would
have got into so much trouble about
this exasperating imaginary accident.
I have read this absurd item over
and over again, with all its insinuat-
ing plausibility, until my head swims,
but I can make neither head nor tail
of it. There certainly seems to have
been an accident of some kind or
‘other, but it is impossible to deter-
mine what the nature of it was, or
who was the sufferer by it. Ido not
like to do it, but I feel compelled to
request that the next time anything
happens to one of Mr. Bloke’s friends,
he will append such explanatory
notes to his account of it as will
enable me to find out what sort of an
accident it was and whom it happened

590
 

 

 

 

“Tl HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM OVER”
Mr. Bloke’s Item

to. I had rather all his friends
should die than that I should be
driven to the verge of lunacy again
in trying to cipher out the meaning
of another such production as the
above.
How | Edited an
Agricultural Paper

DID not take temporary
S editorship of an agricult-
ural paper without mis-

GAN givings. Neither would a
landsman take command of a ship

 

without misgivings. But I was in
circumstances that made the salary
an object. The regular editor of
the paper was going off for a holiday,
and I accepted the terms he offered,
and took his place.

52
An Agricultural Editor

The sensation of being at work
again was luxurious, and I wrought
all the week with unflagging pleasure.
We went to press, and I waited a
day with some solicitude to see
whether my effort was going to at-
tract any notice. As I left the office,
towards sundown, a group of men
and boys at the foot of the stairs
dispersed with one impulse, and
gave me passageway, and I heard
one or two of them say, “That’s
him!’ I was naturally pleased by
this incident. The next morning I
found a similar group at the foot of
the stairs, and scattering couples
and individuals standing here and
there in the street, and over the
way, watching me with interest.
The group separated and fell back

53
Editorial Wild Oats

as I approached, and I heard a man
say, “Look at his eye!’ I pre-
tended not to observe the notice I
was attracting, but secretly I was
pleased with it, and was purposing
to write an account of it to my
aunt. I went up the short flight of
stairs, and heard cheery voices and a
ringing laugh as I drew near the door,
which I opened, and caught a glimpse
of two young rural - looking men,
whose faces blanched and lengthened
when they saw me, and then they
both plunged through the window
with a great crash. I was surprised.

In about half an hour an old gen-
tleman, with a flowing beard and a
fine but rather austere face, entered,
and sat down at my invitation. He
seemed to have something on _ his

54
An Agricultural Editor

mind. He took off his hat and set it
on the floor, and got out of it a red
silk handkerchief and a copy of our
paper.

He put the paper on his lap, and
while he polished his spectacles with
his handkerchief, he said, ““Are you
the new editor?”

I said I was.

“Have you ever edited an agri-
cultural paper before?”

“No,” I said; “this is my first
attempt.”’

“Very likely. Have you had any ex-
perience in agriculture practically ?”’

“No; I believe I have not.”

“Some instinct told me so,” said
the old gentleman, putting on his
spectacles, and looking over them
at me with asperity, while he folded

5 55

’
Editorial Wild Oats

his paper into a convenient shape.
“T wish to read you what must have
made me have that instinct. It was
this editorial. Listen, and see if it
was you that wrote it:

“Turnips should never be pulled,
it injures them. It is much better to
send a boy up and let him shake the
tree.”

“Now, what do you think of that—
for I really suppose you wrote it?”

“Think of it? Why, I think it is
good. I think it is sense. I have
no doubt that every year millions
and millions of bushels of turnips
are spoiled in this township alone
by being pulled in a half-ripe condi-
tion, when, if they had sent a boy
up to shake the tree—”

56
An Agricultural Editor

“Shake your grandmother! Tur-
nips don’t grow on trees!”

“Oh, they don’t, don’t they! Well,
who said they did? The language
was intended to be figurative, wholly
figurative. Anybody that knows any-
thing will know that I meant that
the boy should shake the vine.”’

Then this old person got up and
tore his paper all into small shreds,
and stamped on them, and broke sev-
eral things with his cane, and said
I did not know as much as a cow;
and then went out and banged the
door after him, and, in short, acted
in such a way that I fancied he was
displeased about something. But not
knowing what the trouble was, I
could not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long

ST
Editorial Wild Oats

cadaverous creature, with lanky locks
hanging down to his shoulders, and
a week’s stubble bristling from the
hills and valleys of his face, darted
within the door, and halted, motion-
less, with finger on lip, and head and
body bent in listening attitude. No
sound was heard. Still he listened.
No sound. Then he turned the key
in the door, and came elaborately
tiptoeing towards me till he was
within long reaching distance of me,
when he stopped and, after scanning
my face with intense interest for a
while, drew a folded copy of our
paper from his bosom, and said:

“There, you wrote that. Read it
to me—quick! Relieve me. I suf-
tes,”

I read as follows; and as the sen-

58
 

“4 LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE”
An Agricultural Editor

tences fell from my lips I could see
the relief come, I could see the drawn
muscles relax, and the anxiety go
out of the face, and rest and peace
steal over the features like the merci-
ful moonlight over a desolate land-
scape:

“The guano is a fine bird, but great
care is necessary in rearing it. It
should not be imported earlier than
June or later than September. In the
winter it should be kept in a warm place,
where it can hatch out its young.

“It is evident that we are to have a
backward season for grain. Therefore
it will be well for the farmer to begin
setting out his corn-stalks and planting
his buckwheat-cakes in July instead of
August.

“Concerning the pumpkin. — This
berry is a favorite with the natives of
the interior of New England, who pre-

59
Editorial Wild Oats

fer it to the gooseberry for the making
of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it
the preference over the raspberry for
feeding cows, as being more filling and
fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is
the only esculent of the orange family
that will thrive in the North, except the
gourd and one or two varieties of the
squash. But the custom of planting it
in the front yard with the shrubbery is
fast going out of vogue, for it is now
generally conceded that the pumpkin as
a shade tree is a failure.

“Now, as the warm weather ap-
proaches, and the ganders begin to
spawn ’’—

The excited listener sprang tow-
ards me to shake hands, and said:

“There, there — that will do. I
know I am all right now, because
you have read it just as I did, word
for word. But, stranger, when I

60
An Agricultural Editor

first read it this morning, I said to
myself, I never, never believed it
before, notwithstanding my friends
kept me under watch so strict, but
now I believe I am crazy; and with
that I fetched a howl that you
might have heard two miles, and
started out to kill somebody — be-
cause, you know, I knew it would
come to that sooner or later, and so
I might as well begin. I read one
of them paragraphs over again, so
as to be certain, and then I burned
my house down and started. I have
crippled several people, and have
got one fellow up a tree, where I can
get himifI want him. But I thought
I would call in here as I passed along
and make the thing perfectly cer-
tain; and now it zs certain, and I tell
61
Editorial Wild Oats

you it is lucky for the chap that is
in the tree. I should have killed
him sure, as I went back. Good-bye,
sir, good-bye; you have taken a
great load off my mind. My reason
has stood the strain of one of your
agricultural articles, and I know that
nothing can ever unseat it now.
Good-bye, sir.”

I felt a little uncomfortable about
the cripplings and arsons this person
had been entertaining himself with,
for I could not help feeling remote-
ly accessory to them. But these
thoughts were quickly banished, for
the regular editor walked in! [I
thought to myself, Now if you had
gone to Egypt, as I recommended
you to, I might have had a chance
to get my hand in; but you wouldn’t

62
An Agricultural Editor

do it, and here you are. I sort of
expected you.]

The editor was looking sad and
perplexed and dejected.

He surveyed the wreck which that
old rioter and these two young farm-
ers had made, and then said: “This
is a sad business—a very sad busi-
ness. There is the mucilage-bottle
broken, and six panes of glass, and a
spittoon, and two candlesticks. But
that is not the worst. The reputa-
tion of the paper is injured—and per-
manently, I fear. True, there never
was such a call for the paper before,
and it never sold such a large edition
or soared to such celebrity; but does
one want to be famous for lunacy,
and prosper upon the infirmities of
his mind? My friend, as I am an

63
Editorial Wild Oats

honest man, the street out here is
full of people, and others are roosting
on the fences, waiting to get a glimpse
of you, because they think you are
crazy. And well they might after
reading your editorials. They are a
disgrace to journalism. Why, what
put it into your head that you could
edit a paper of this nature? You
do not seem to know the first rudi-
ments of agriculture. You speak of
a furrow and a harrow as being the
same thing; you talk of the moulting
season for cows; and you recom-
mend the domestication of the pole-
cat on account of its playfulness and
its excellence as a ratter! Your re-
mark that clams will le quiet if
music be played to them was super-
fluous — entirely superfluous. Noth-
64
An Agricultural Editor

ing disturbs clams. Clams always
lie quiet. Clams care nothing what-
ever about music. Ah, heavens and
earth, friend! if you had made the
acquiring of ignorance the study of
your life, you could not have grad-
uated with higher honor than you
could to-day. I never saw any-
thing like it. Your observation that
the horse-chestnut as an article of
commerce is steadily gaining in fa-
vor, is simply calculated to destroy
this journal. I want you to throw
up your situation and go. I want no
more holiday—I could not enjoy it
if I had it. Certainly not with you
in my chair. I would always stand
in dread of what you might be going
to recommend next. It makes me
lose all patience every time I think
65
Editorial Wild Oats

of your discussing oyster-beds under
the head of ‘Landscape Gardening.’
I want you to go. Nothing on earth
could persuade me to take another
holiday. Oh! why didn’t you tell
me you didn’t know anything about
agriculture?”

“Tell you, you cornstalk, you cab-
bage, you son of a cauliflower? It’s
the first time I ever heard such an
unfeeling remark. I tell you I have
been in the editorial business going
on fourteen years, and it is the first
time I ever heard of a man’s having
to know anything in order to edit
a newspaper. You turnip! Who
write the dramatic critiques for the
second-rate papers? Why, a parcel
of promoted shoemakers and ap-
prentice apothecaries, who know just

66
An Agricultural Editor

as much about good acting as I do
about good farming and no more.
Who review the books? People who
never wrote one. Who do up the
heavy leaders on finance? Parties
who have had the largest opportu-
nities for knowing nothing about it.
Who criticise the Indian campaigns?
Gentlemen who do not know a war-
whoop from a wigwam, and who
never have had to run a foot-race
with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows
out of the several members of their
families to build the evening camp-
fire with. Who write the temper-
ance appeals, and clamor about the
flowing bowl? Folks who will never
draw another sober breath till they
do it in the grave. Who edit the
agricultural papers, you — yam?
67
Editorial Wild Oats

Men, as a general thing, who fail in
the poetry line, yellow-colored novel
line, sensation-drama line, city-editor
line, and finally fall back on agricult-
ure as a temporary reprieve from
the poor-house. You try to tell me
anything about the newspaper busi-
ness! Sir, I have been through it
from Alpha to Omaha, and [I tell
you that the less a man knows the
bigger the noise he makes and the
higher the salary he commands.
Heaven knows if I had but been
ignorant instead of cultivated, and
impudent instead of diffident, I could
have made a name for myself in this
cold selfish world. I take my leave,
sir. Since I have been treated as
you have treated me, I am perfectly
willing to go. But I have done my
68
An Agricultural Editor

duty. I have fulfilled my contract
as far as I was permitted to doit. I
said I could make your paper of in-
terest to all classes—and I have. I
said I could run your circulation up
to twenty thousand copies, and if I
had had two more weeks I’d have
done it. And I’d have given you
the best class of readers that ever an
agricultural paper had—not a farmer
in it, nor a solitary individual who
could tell a watermelon-tree from a
peach-vine to save his life. You are
the loser by this rupture, not me,
Pie-plant. Adios,”
I then left.
The Killing of Julius

Caesar ‘“‘Localized”’

Being the only true and reliable ac-
count ever published; taken from
the “ Roman Daily Evening Fas-

, of the date of that tremen-
dous occurrence.

ces

      
  

Yd GENO THING in the world

    

ayes
rausk

details of : a bloody and mysterious
murder, and writing them up with
70
Julius Caesar “Localized”

aggravating circumstantiality. He
takes a living delight in this labor of
love—for such it is to him, especially
if he knows that all the other papers
have gone to press, and his will be
the only one that will contain the
dreadful intelligence. A feeling of
regret has often come over me that I
was not reporting in Rome when
Cesar was killed—reporting on an
evening paper, and the only one in
the city, and getting at least twelve
hours ahead of the morning-paper
boys with this most magnificent
“item” that ever fell to the lot of
the craft. Other events have hap-
pened as startling as this, but none
that possessed so peculiarly all the
characteristics of the favorite “item”
of the present day, magnified into
6 71
Editorial Wild Oats

grandeur and sublimity by the high
rank, fame, and social and political
standing of the actors in it.

However, as I was not permitted
to report Ceesar’s assassination in
the regular way, it has at least af-
forded me rare satisfaction to trans-
late the following able account of it
from the original Latin of the Roman
Daily Evening Fuasces of that date—
second edition.

“Our usually quiet city of Rome was
thrown into a state of wild excitement
yesterday by the occurrence of one of
those bloody affrays which sicken the
heart and fill the soul with fear, while
they inspire all thinking men with fore-
bodings for the future of a city where
human life is held so cheaply, and the
gravest laws are so openly set at de-
fiance. As the result of that affray,

72
Julius Caesar “Localized”

it is our painful duty, as public journal-
ists, to record the death of one of our
most esteemed citizens—a man whose
name is known wherever this paper
circulates, and whose fame it has been
our pleasure and our privilege to ex-
tend, and also to protect from the tongue
of slander and falsehood, to the best of
our poor ability. We refer to Mr. J.
Cesar, the Emperor-elect.

“The facts of the case, as nearly as
our reporter could determine them
from the conflicting statements of eye-
witnesses, were about as follows:—The
affair was an election row, of course.
Nine-tenths of the ghastly butcheries
that disgrace the city nowadays grow
out of the bickerings and jealousies and
animosities engendered by these ac-
cursed elections. Rome would be the
gainer by it if her very constables were
elected to serve a century; for in our
experience we have never even been

73
Editorial Wild Oats

able to choose a dog-pelter without
celebrating the event with a dozen
knockdowns and a general cramming
of the station-house with drunken
vagabonds overnight. It is said that
when the immense majority for Cesar
at the polls in the market was declared
the other day, and the crown was offered
to that gentleman, even his amazing
unselfishness in refusing it three times
was not sufficient to save him from
the whispered insults of such men as
Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other
hirelings of the disappointed candidate,
hailing mostly from the Eleventh and
Thirteenth and other outside districts,
who were overheard speaking ironically
and contemptuously of Mr. Czsar’s con-
duct upon that occasion.

“We are further informed that there
are many among us who think they are
justified in believing that the assassina-
tion of Julius Cesar was a put-up thing

74
Julius Caesar “Localized”

—a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched
by Marcus Brutus and a lot of his
hired roughs, and carried out only too
faithfully according to the programme.
Whether there be good grounds for this
suspicion or not, we leave to the people
to judge for themselves, only asking
that they will read the following ac-
count of the sad occurrence carefully
and dispassionately before they render
that judgment.

“The Senate was already in session,
and Cesar was coming down the street
towards the Capitol, conversing with
some personal friends, and followed, as
usual, by a large number of citizens.
Just as he was passing in front of De-
mosthenes & Thucydides’ drug - store,
he was observing casually to a gentle-
man, who, our informant thinks, is a
fortune-teller, that the Ides of March
were come. The reply was, ‘Yes, they
are come, but not gone yet.’ At this

75
Editorial Wild Oats

moment Artemidorus stepped up and
passed the time of day, and asked
Cesar to read a schedule or a tract or
something of the kind, which he had
brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius
Brutus also said something about an
‘humble suit’ which he wanted read.
Artemidorus begged that attention
might be paid to his first, because it was
of personal consequence to Cesar. The
latter replied that what concerned him-
self should be read last, or words to
that effect. Artemidorus begged and
beseeched him to read the paper in-
stantly.* However, Cesar shook him
off, and refused to read any petition
in the street. He then entered the
Capitol, and the crowd followed him.

*Mark that: It is hinted by William
Shakespeare, who saw the beginning and
the end of the unfortunate affray, that this
‘schedule’? was simply a note discovering
to Cesar that a plot was brewing to take
his life.

76
Julius Caesar “Localized”

“About this time the following con-
versation was overheard, and we con-
sider that, taken in connection with
the events which succeeded it, it bears
an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius
Lena remarked to George W. Cassius
(commonly known as the ‘Nobby Boy
of the Third Ward’), a bruiser in the pay
of the Opposition, that he hoped his
enterprise to-day might thrive; and
when Cassius asked, ‘What enterprise?’
he only closed his left eye temporarily
and said with simulated indifference,
‘Fare you well,’ and sauntered towards
Cesar. Marcus Brutus, who is sus-
pected of being the ringleader of the
band that killed Cesar, asked what it
was that Lena had said. Cassius told
him, and added, in a low tone, ‘J fear
our purpose is discovered.’

“Brutus told his wretched accom-
plice to keep an eye on Lena, and a
moment after Cassius urged that lean

77
Editorial Wild Oats

and hungry vagrant, Casca, whose
reputation here is none of the best, to
be sudden for he feared prevention.
He then turned to Brutus, apparently
much excited, and asked what should
be done, and swore that either he or
Cesar should never turn back—he would
kill himself first. At this time Cesar
was talking to some of the back-country
members about the approaching fall
elections, and paying little attention
to what was going on around him.
Billy Trebonius got into conversation
with the people’s friend and Cesar’s
—Mark Antony—and under some pre-
tence or other got him away, and Brutus,
Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber,
and others of the gang of infamous
desperadoes that infest Rome at pres-
ent, closed around the doomed Ceasar.
Then Metellus Cimber knelt down and
begged that his brother might be re-
called from banishment, but Cesar
78
Julius Caesar “Localized”

rebuked him for his fawning conduct,
and refused to grant his petition. Im-
mediately, at Cimber’s request, first
Brutus and then Cassius begged for
the return of the banished Publius;
but Cesar still refused. He said he
could not be moved; that he was as
fixed as the North Star, and proceeded
to speak in the most complimentary
terms of the firmness of that star and its
steady character. Then he said he was
like it, and he believed he was the only
man in the country that was; there-
fore, since he was ‘constant’ that Cim-
ber should be banished, he was also
‘constant’ that he should stay banished,
and he’d be hanged if he didn’t keep
him so!

“Instantly seizing upon this shallow
pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at
Cesar and struck him with a dirk,
Cesar grabbing him by the arm with
his right hand, and launching a blow

79
Editorial Wild Oats

straight from the shoulder with his
left that sent the reptile bleeding to
the earth. He then backed up against
Pompey’s statue, and squared himself
to receive his assailants. Cassius and
Cimber and Cinna rushed upon him
with their daggers drawn, and the
former succeeded in inflicting a wound
upon his body; but before he could
strike again, and before either of the
others could strike at all, Cesar stretched
the three miscreants at his feet with
as many blows of his powerful fist.
By this time the Senate was in an
indescribable uproar; the throng of
citizens in the lobbies had blockaded
the doors in their frantic efforts to
escape from the building, the sergeant-
at-arms and his assistants were strug-
gling with the assassins, venerable
senators had cast aside their encum-
bering robes, and were leaping over
benches and flying down the aisles in
80
Julius Caesar “Localized”

wild confusion towards the shelter of
the committee-rooms, and a thousand
voices were shouting ‘Po-lice! Po-lice!’
in discordant tones that rose above the
frightful din like shrieking winds above
the roaring of a tempest. And amid
it all, great Cesar stood with his back
against the statue, like a lion at bay,
and fought his assailants weaponless
and hand to hand, with the defiant
bearing and the unwavering courage
which he had shown before on many a
bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius
Legarius struck him with their daggers
and fell, as their brother-conspirators
before them had fallen. But at last,
when Cesar saw his old friend Brutus
step forward armed with a murderous
knife, it is said he seemed utterly over-
powered with grief and amazement,
and dropping his invincible left arm
by his side, he hid his face in the folds
of his mantle and received the treacher-
81
Editorial Wild Oats

ous blow without an effort to stay the
hand that gave it. He only said, ‘Et
tu, Brute ?’ and fell lifeless on the marble
pavement.

“We learn that the coat deceased
had on when he was killed was the
same one he wore in his tent on the
afternoon of the day he overcame the
Nervii, and that when it was removed
from the corpse it was found ‘to be
cut and gashed in no less than seven
different places. There was nothing in
the pockets. It will be exhibited at
the coroner’s inquest, and will be damn-
ing proof of the fact of the killing.
These latter facts may be relied on,
as we get them from Mark Antony,
whose position enables him to learn
every item of news connected with the
one subject of absorbing interest of
to-day.

“Later.—While the coroner was
summoning a jury, Mark Antony and

82
 

 

POCKETS ”’

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“THERE WAS NOTHING I
Julius Caesar “Localized”

other friends of the late Cesar got hold
of the body, and lugged it off to the
Forum, and at last accounts Antony
and Brutus were making speeches over
it and raising such a row among the
people that, as we go to press, the
chief of police is satisfied there is going
to be a riot, and is taking measures
accordingly.”’

THE END
 

 

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